Month: September 2016

Travel Dilemma: Heartbreaking Interactions with Southeast Asia’s Child Beggars

While begging occurs widely throughout Southeast Asia, we were struck by the prevalence of child begging in Siem Reap. Frankly, it caught us off guard. Should we help out or abstain? What were the economics behind it and what potential social repercussions would we be compounding? Being approached by a young child was alarming. She would hold your arm, look up at you with large brown eyes and say, “I no want your money, I am huuuuuungry.” Sure, she was small, as most Asian people are, but something was off. She didn’t look hungry. I needed to research this a bit further. Here’s what I uncovered online. Common Child Begging ‘Scams’ Kids are effective beggars because adults are more predisposed to giving children money. This encourages parents to put their children on the street, which is especially dangerous given that Southeast Asia is commonly acknowledged as a hotbed for human trafficking. It also encourages parents to pull kids from school and forces kids to roam the streets late at night as drunk bar patrons mill about. The …

2 Girls Try (and Fail) to Find Barkerville’s Cheeky Past

How in the world did we end up in Barkerville? I was heading from Smithers to Vancouver and needed a place to spend the night to break up an otherwise 14-hour drive. Having never been to B.C.’s famed gold rush town – Barkerville – I figured it would elevate the task from arduous drive to touristic road trip. Lucky for me, my gal pal Alex had recently moved north. With Dawson Creek just a cool six hour drive to Barkerville, she hastily accepted my invitation. What is Barkerville, anyway? “Barkerville is a preserved and dynamic gold-rush town in the British Columbia interior. Each summer, its rich history during the Cariboo Gold Rush and subsequent gold mining in the area is demonstrated for visitors from all over the world.” – TheCanadianEncyclopedia.ca Prior to arriving, we knew little of Billy Barker’s boom town. All we knew was that we’re apt to geek out over B.C. history – like that time we hit up the Royal BC Museum exhibit, Gold Rush! – so this seemed right up our alley. And surely, a gold rush ghost town …

Visiting Vimy Ridge Made Me a Better Canadian

One of the highlights of my 2014 trip to France was visiting the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. For many of us, Vimy is simply something we learn about in middle school; something we recall again during Remembrance Day ceremonies or see played out in Hollywood mini series. But you don’t have to look too far down the lineage of a Canadian family to find a relative who served in World War I. We visited on an inconspicuous Sunday in May, and we were hardly the only Canadian visitors. Our Canadian National Vimy Memorial Experience We departed Paris in the morning, arriving in Arras around 11:00 a.m. We arrived at the visitor centre by cab not more than 25 minutes later. Before the taxi left us we collected a business card from our driver which came in handy later, when we had a bilingual staffer call a cab to collect us. At the visitor centre we first signed up for the free 1 p.m. tour, then watched a short documentary and picked our way through the interpretive exhibit. Following that, we walked …

Here’s Why Bolivia’s Capital Isn’t What You Think (PHOTOS)

Who knew Bolivia’s capital isn’t La Paz? Thanks Trivial Pursuit for planting that seed of misinformation during my teens. La Paz is the administrative – or – de facto capital, while the political capital is Sucre. So now that we’ve got that straight, it’s time to acquaint yourself with this gorgeous colonial city. Sucre isn’t exactly on the beaten track, so I had very few notions of what it would be like. Actually, I had never even heard of Sucre before planting two feet on Bolivian soil. Located in a country that isn’t hailed as a touristic destination, and buried in the heart of South America, I figured it’d be another dusty Bolivian city. Boy was I wrong. Just because my corner of the Western world hadn’t been to Sucre, didn’t mean the rest of Europe was so ignorant. In fact, Sucre was founded by the Spanish in 1538. What were the Spanish doing there? In short, relentlessly mining silver from nearby Potosí, which is counted among the world’s highest elevation cities. Sitting at 4,090 metres (13,420 ft), life at this altitude …