Tweet A BACKWARD GLANCE It’s been a year since I temporarily set aside my search for a country to return to San Francisco. When I left Asia this time last year, I decided to stay put in my home in San Francisco for one year. I still had slight misgivings about my desire to live […]
Author Archive | Robin Sparks
Healthcare — Global Options
Tweet It’s been two years since you’ve had a physical exam. You need to have your vision checked and your teeth cleaned. But you are one of 44,000,000 U.S. citizens without health insurance. Who ya gonna call? Your local travel agency for an airplane ticket to Thailand – or a handful of other developing countries […]
East Meets West: In Thailand With Vietnam Vets
Tweet “I’ll be in the third jungle, second rice paddy to the left.” Bob told his ex-wife when he left Michigan for Thailand last year. “And that’s pretty close to where I ended up,” the Vietnam Vet tells me as we drive through northeastern Thailand in his king cab Toyota pickup truck listening to Dolly […]
Bangkok Big — Last Long Time
Tweet The first thing that struck me about the city of Bangkok, besides the fact that it was hot and steamy, was its exploding skyline. In Thailand, architecture is considered the highest form of art, and it shows. I was no longer in a troubled Nepal village, but a pulsating, vital metropolis of six million […]
The Writing Women Of Bangkok
Tweet Why do farang females gather in a dimly lit basement of the Old Dutch Pub in Soi Cowboy, an area renowned for its girly bars? And what do the women – teachers, musicians, sales reps, humanitarian aid workers, students, television producers, and business owners from more than a dozen countries – have in common […]
Torn Between Two Lovers
Tweet San Francisco The gray mist rises. San Francisco’s colors pop out again in the spotlight of a winter solstice sun. I slip into a crimson batik blouse and my white baggy pants from India to venture out of my Russian Hill cave for a bite to eat. Strolling across Washington Park, I watch the […]
Let It Go And Let Bali
Tweet In the three months since I arrived in Bali, the rice shoots have grown two feet. Made’s youngest child, Lode, has sprouted too – from an infant at her mother’s breast to a young girl chasing through the paddies after her five year old brother, Gedde. “Roh-bean! ” Made is at my door at […]
Embraced By Bali
Tweet “Prepare your seatbacks and trays for landing.” I hear, and suddenly I am no longer standing inside a Gauguin painting, but seated in an Asiana plane, which is preparing to land in Bangkok. The dream, so vivid! Was it a promise of what was in store for me in Asia? It didn’t take more […]
Falling In Love With Kathmandu
Tweet I am in the garden one morning reading the Himalayan Times surrounded by flowers and vines just outside of the crimson doors which lead into the house which has been my home for the past four months. The doors are flung open to receive another day. The flowers in our garden: dahlias, geraniums, peonies, […]
Kathmandu, Nepal – Expat Haven Or Paradise Lost?
Tweet In I’ve been to plenty of third world countries, but nothing prepared me for Kathmandu. It was as if a time capsule, the Thai Air Jet on which I arrived, dropped me into a medieval village.
“Je Ne Parle Pas” In Paradise
Tweet Robin Sparks is looking for a country to call home. She is traveling around the world looking for the perfect spot. This month she is in Paris, meeting with old friends and meeting new ones. Join Robin Sparks in each issue of the Escape From America Magazine as she travels around the world in search of a country to […]
Running Away To Home
Tweet Robin Sparks is looking for a country to call home. She is traveling around the world looking for the perfect spot. This month she is in Paris, meeting with old friends and meeting new ones. Join Robin Sparks in each issue of the Escape From America Magazine as she travels around the world in […]
Passion Play In Paris
Tweet Paris, the Grand Damme of expatriate havens, has held a place at the top of my shopping list for almost three years. I began my search for a country south of the border, thinking that the ideal expat escape for me would be a remote Spanish-speaking village. Two decades of living in a small […]
Female, In Search Of A Country
Tweet In Placencia, Belize, unlike Paris, I settled in for a nap every afternoon in an audio space saturated with the melodious songs of birds. On the other hand, the sand flies in my bed kept me twitching and slapping, preventing me from napping as assuredly as the landscapers in the Paris garden below. ~ […]
Paradise Found?
Tweet The Expatriate Scene In Xcalak, Mexico It’s two days before Christmas, but in this thatched-roof restaurant on the southern tip of the Yucatan there are no Christmas trees, no blinking lights, no carolers. Just the sound of the low tide, the salty scent of the Caribbean coming in on a tropical breeze, and Jimmy […]
Belize Bound
Tweet “I was driving along Hummingbird Highway, headed for the Cayo District,” Janet told me, “when there was a loud thud. Something came through the window and hit me in the neck. I saw red and thought, ‘Oh My God, it’s blood! I’ve got a beak in my neck!’ I screamed and slammed on the […]
Which Way To Heaven?
Tweet Through Hell, High Water, and a Hurricane: the story of one couple’s perilous journey from New England to Belize August 1998 Eight bells. As one watch ends, another begins,” wrote 51-year old Richard Sugarman as he and wife, Linda, sailed out of Niantic, Connecticut, for Placencia, Belize. The 2500-mile journey symbolized for the couple […]
