Tag Archives: travel stories

Pushing Through My Safe Ideas

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Ryan Murdock

My recent visit to Panama City has left me drifting 10 years in the past…

I’d like to share with you a reading of something I wrote at that time.  It was my first real trip. I was alone and disoriented, in a place where I didn’t speak the language. I didn’t really know why I was there or what I should do. I only knew I had to go. 

Those of you who have followed such impulses know how deeply that first trip will change you. After traveling the length of Central America, nothing ever looked the same again. I could never go back to the life I’d left behind. 

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Drifting Down to a New Sunrise

Posted on November 4, 2010 by Ryan Murdock

On the flight back, somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico, the feeling changed. I crossed some sort of invisible divide where I re-entered the life of the States: the life of work, obligation, responsibility and long hours. I dropped back into that weight as though it had never been lifted. It almost felt natural. But it’s not.

I realized at that moment that Central America is a separate dimension. An alternate reality that one steps into, just as one steps into Macondo.

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My Memory Walks The City

Posted on October 22, 2010 by Ryan Murdock

As a writer and a constant reader of books, I’ve begun to feel increasingly disconnected from other people. I think it comes from spending too much time alone in a room. There’s a glass barrier between myself and the rest of the world. I’m seeing it all at one remove, through the TV screen of my eyes, from several feet back in my head. Maybe it’s a consequence of traveling alone, when the glances of strangers don’t rest on you for very long.

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Rangoon 2: Attacked in the Night

Posted on September 7, 2010 by Ryan Murdock

As I wrote in the prior blog, I still don’t know how I found the “guesthouse” where we spent that first night in Rangoon.  At first it seemed like a great value. But in the end we got more than we bargained for…

It was a small place owned by Indian traders, on the second floor of a decrepit colonial building lost down a forgettable side street. We had to trudge up a dark stairway full of auto parts and then walk through some sort of machine shop to get to the door. I struck a deal for a tidy little room with a shower for less than ten bucks — not bad given how overpriced rooms in Rangoon were at the time.

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Posted in Asia, Travel stories | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Burmese Days

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Ryan Murdock

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Of all the places I traveled in Southeast Asia, I liked Burma the best.

It was by far the most traditional country in the region. It was free of Thailand’s 7-11′s, paved roads and fast food. Free of Vietnam’s scams. And it lacked that uncomfortable undercurrent of violence and broken psyches that seemed to blight Cambodia. 

Burmese people were quiet and kind. Old men in the highlands lamented the fact that young people had begun wearing pants in Rangoon, but I never once saw a pair of jeans, only the traditional wraparound longyi.

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Headed West on the China Clipper…

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Ryan Murdock

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I read a fascinating book last week called Pan American Clippers: The Golden Age of Flying Boats by James Trautman. It’s about a forgotten age of air travel, when men were men, adventure was waiting around every corner, and the world was a much larger place.

It was the decade before World War 2, the early days of aviation. Air travel was still a luxury within reach of a select few. Crowds turned up to watch the big planes land and take off. And routes over both oceans were only just being pioneered.

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Beneath the Sun and Stars

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Ryan Murdock

I’m just back from a short job in Glynco, GA, followed by a few days of filming in Florida. It was a steamy week of early morning / late afternoon shoots and midday business meetings on the beach. We were scorched by the sands, gouged by the shells, plagued by mosquitos and swarmed by biting ants. And that was just the first day…

But I’ve returned to my desk and I’m ready to entertain you.

We’ll get back to travel stories soon. I’ve also got some cool new books to tell you about, both classics and new stuff, and some great music to shove in your ipod for the road.

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Ask Me No Questions, I’ll Tell You No Lies

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Ryan Murdock


I’ve come up with a new interactive feature that I hope you’ll enjoy. Are you itching to find out about the exotic world of travel writing, desperate for hot hints on destinations and money saving travel tips, or just bored and looking for a monkey to prod with a stick? Well now’s your chance…


I call it “Reader’s Questions.” Okay, yeah, that’s pretty lame. But if I called it ober dictum you wouldn’t know what the hell I was talking about.


Anyway…. it’s a fun and occasionally insightful new feature that we’ll slot in from time to time between travel stories.

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Jostled By The Motion

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Ryan Murdock

I’m alone in my compartment as the train leaves Slovenia and enters the broad rolling fields of Hungary. The dark blue seat upholstery smells of dust, and the nautical gloss of the walls have faded to matte.

I see “Magyar” go past on a rusted sign, and I’m reminded of a stamp collecting album someone gave me as a child. It was filled with names like “GDR” and “Magyar Republic”, names I couldn’t find on a map. Names that sounded so strange. Now here it is outside my window. Did I ever imagine I would see such places? Or did I ever doubt that I wouldn’t?

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Vagabond Dreams Outtakes #15 – Journey’s End

Posted on May 3, 2010 by Ryan Murdock

Vagabond Dreams Outtakes are “deleted scenes” from my book. Think of them as a “Special Features” disc for a DVD yet to be invented. This incident took place in Belize…

 

Belize City was a bit like Bluefields on the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua: a seedy place with an aura of decay. But it didn’t feel like Central America. The musical lilt of Caribbean English had already displaced the Spanish I’d grown used to, and that Latin timelessness was missing, as were the Spanish colonial buildings and the social hunting ground of the plazas. Belize had a different sort of timelessness: a lazy island grace of rusting corrugated roofs and gap-toothed smiles.

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