Blog.Travelistic

This Ain't No Winn-Dixie

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Don’t read this on an empty stomach…- cb

If Paris was Hemingway’s moveable feast then I’ve decided Biarritz is going to be my stationary one for as long as I’m lucky enough to be parked here. And I’m already asking myself how I’ll ever go back to shopping at Safeway again.

Just back from my first visit to the weekend market down the street, and the offerings blew me away. This is why I’m here. This is what I love about living in Europe. And I’m not just talking about the fabulous French food. I’m talking about doing my morning chores and feeling like it’s a lesson in learning. And in France, more often than not, that lesson is bound to be a crash course in good living, too.

The grannies were out with their pull-behind trolleys, overflowing with veggies and the requisite baguette antenna. Inside Les Halles, young families posted up at the tapas bars, where you can take a break from your shopping with a noisette coffee and a bocadillo sandwich (Spanish influence is strong in the Basque Country).

Is this their Starbucks? I do believe.

How is it that the thinnest slice of Serrano ham on a crispy white baguette can fill your mouth with such flavor? When I first saw a bocadillo, the American in me was tempted to fret, “But where are the fixins!?” Then I took my first bite. Just meat and grains. Simple is best.

The options are tantalizing. It’s like stumbling upon free sample day at Whole Foods when you’re used to slumming it at Winn-Dixie – but the prices are fair, and most everything is sourced from nearby. The platters of freshly shucked oysters, glistening over ice in the seafood hall, come from up the coast near Bordeaux. There are perfectly poised langoustines, looking like no crustacean I’ve seen before – a cross between a shrimp and lobster, curled into perfect pink question marks awaiting a sure fate in the pot. And vendors who drive in from the countryside bring their fois gras, canned confit du canard and Basque cheese.

In the end the choices overwhelmed me. I wanted it all. So I sat for a coffee to mull things over, and ended up leaving with two frilly heads of lettuce, a bunch of those oddly cylindrical French radishes and a bundle of dark green spinach.

Bizarre picks considering all the options – that adage about shopping on an empty stomach must apply here as much as it does at home.

– by Terry Ward

Location: France / Biarritz

Tagged: france, food, markets, hemingway, tapas bars, baguettes, basque cheese, bordeaux, vegetables, winn dixie, bocadillo, noisette

Roadblocks

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:11:00 GMT

I blame Kerouac for giving the term “road trip” it’s whimsical gravitas. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the power of the open road, the rush of adrenaline when you’re going 75 miles per hour in the opposite direction of familiarity. But, invariably, you’ll hit the Jersey Turnpike. Stopped dead in a sea of overheating cars, you can’t help but think that familiarity has its perks.

I was on the road to a wedding in Maryland. Google maps told me it was only 220 miles. I did the math. Driving the way Long Island conditioned me to drive, as though you might win money for reaching your destination five minutes sooner than the person in front of you, that should only take 3 hours. Leaving at 11:00 for a 6:30 wedding would even leave time for lunch and a dip in the hotel pool. I love road trips.

I picked up the couple we were driving with at 11:00. We stopped for Starbucks at 11:15. The line was pretty long, but fuel was necessary. I bet Kerouac never waited for an iced soy mocha.

Traffic in the city was bad. Apparently we weren’t the only ones looking to leave Manhattan on a beautiful Saturday morning. Go figure. Half the world is trying to move here (trust me, I’ve been apartment hunting) yet the sun comes out and everyone’s ready to leave. It’s like the world’s biggest commuter college.

We are through the Lincoln Tunnel by noon. There was a hold-up due to 50,000 cars trying to fit through a two lane opening. Go figure. Still, the open road was ahead.

Maryland, land of crab cakes, called my name. I looked hard down the highway as if maybe, staring long enough, I could see my destination. What I saw was the rear end of the car in front of me. Stopped. Dead. Minor setback. Sometimes the horizon makes you fight for it. The open road is worth fighting for. I changed the radio station a few times. They were all on commercial.

Stop and go for two more hours. I convince myself it’s all just foreplay. It’s the pace of anticipation: stop and go.

Finally, at the last exit in Jersey, relief. Like a parting of the seas, I see the open road ahead of me. I crank it up to 75 and turn up the radio. Freedom . . .

. . . for five minutes. Right before the next toll. $5.80. Five dollars and eighty cents worth of frustration. On repeat. Stop, toll, bridge. Stop, toll, tunnel. Stop, toll, regular old tar highway. Long, drawn out foreplay, the kind that makes you think, “I could be home watching a movie right now.” Five hours later, my destination creeps up on me, like meeting an old friend at the airport when they’re holding a suitcase, a cup of coffee and a newspaper leaving no hands for a hug. When they ask how the drive was, I’ll respond, “Worth a plane ticket.”

- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame

Location: United States of America / New York / New York

Tagged: kerouac, traffic, beatniks, on the road, adrenaline, bumper to bumper, weddings, lincoln tunnel

Drowning in Paradise

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:40:00 GMT

In case of rip current, swim parallel to shore. I should have known this at 19, but for some reason it was never covered in any swim class I had ever taken. One summer in college, I had tagged along on a trip my then-boyfriend (let’s call him T) and his family was taking to Hawaii. Apparently everyone else knew this fun fact about ocean safety, but forgot to share it with me.

We had plunked our towels and beach gear down on the sand. The ocean was unusually calm, the waves not large or consistent enough for surfing. T’s three teenage sisters decided to spend the day tanning, and his mother curled up in a beach chair with the latest thousand-page Harry Potter. T and I were more restless and decided to swim out without boogie boards. After a few minutes, I noticed that waves got bigger and T was nowhere to be found. I turned back and realized I was much farther from the shore than I thought. As I was trying to judge the distance, a wave crashed over my head.

The waves, which seemed like gentle rolls in the distance, became much larger and fiercer up close. Panicking, I tried to swim back to shore, but every stroke forward pushed me 10 feet back. Still no sign of T, and his family was now just tiny dots on the faraway sun-drenched shore. Tanning and reading about child wizards on the beach didn’t seem like such a bad idea now. More waves crashed over my head. I gulped about 5 lung-fulls of sea water. I considered yelling for help, but knew my calls would be drowned out by the roar of the ocean.

I emerged from another wave crash to see the tip of a surfboard, and then the middle-aged surfer alongside it who asked if I was okay.

“Help?” I said, with a question intonation, trying to remember how to speak again. He helped me onto the surfboard, and the next wave pushed us back to shore.

T’s mother looked up from Harry Potter and asked if I had a nice swim. His sisters were arguing about who used the last of the tanning oil. I told them about my near-death experience, while simultaneously thanking the nice surfer who pulled me in.

A few minutes after I told my story, T appeared. He had been caught in the rip current too, but just swam parallel to the shore until he could stand up in the water. “Everyone knows that’s what you’re supposed to do.” He paused, suddenly noticing the surfer carrying his board back into the ocean. “Who’s that guy?”

- by Diana Kuan of Indietrekker fame

Location: United States of America / Hawaii

Tagged: beaches, surfing, surfers, swimming, indietrekker, diana kuan, tanning, harry potter, boogie boards

Saudade

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:22:00 GMT

Even if I hadn’t been told about this idea of saudade – a feeling of longing or melancholy mixed with hope for finding what is lost that permeates the Portuguese personality – I would have felt it still.

My friend Gabriela, who I visited in Porto, was the first to tell me about it. She said that I would see. That there’s a certain sense of longing that permeates the Portuguese personality that I would eventually sense – despite the cerulean skies, the merrily flapping laundry in the wind and the typically European conviviality around the dinner table.

When I asked her where she thought this longing came from, she said that perhaps it’s because the Portuguese were always travelers. Always explorers in search of something better – or at least something different – on foreign shores.

I certainly sensed her saudade.

When I first met Gabriela in Morocco, she was traveling. Abuzz at the overwhelming sounds, sights and smells of the medina in Marrakech. Visiting her at home in Porto, I found her back to normal life. There were stresses at work, pressure from friends, and above all, a deep longing to return to New Zealand, where she had lived for a year.

The more I thought about it, the more I felt the weight of my own saudade in Portugal.

Perhaps it was the quietness of the cafes in the mornings, where couples sit side by side and speak in low voices as if not to disturb their neighbors. Even at a touristy seaside overlook near Lisbon, it was a busload of Spanish tourists that were gabbing away excitedly and bubbling about, injecting life into what was otherwise just a postcard perfect backdrop.

There is an overall quietness to life here that makes you reflect.

All I do is travel. My mother has always called me a seeker, and it unsettles her to some degree. She wishes I would just find what I’m looking for already, get a proper job – with benefits – and settle down.

The thing is, I don’t really know what I am looking for.

I am just looking around to see what there is, trying to learn a little of everything, and the more I look the more I get lost about where it is that I ultimately want to settle – in fact, the more I wonder if I can settle at all.

In a way, I suppose, it is melancholic, this saudade. Never being fully content where I am.

And there is longing, to be sure – always wondering if perhaps the grass is a shade greener over there. But it is what keeps things interesting to me. Never knowing what I will find over there. Even when the grass isn’t greener, well, at least I know.

- by Terry Ward

Location: Portugal

Tagged: morocco, melancholy, sadness, saudade, porto, grass is greener, wanderlust

Rwanda

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:26:00 GMT

I’m in Kigali, writing on a French keyboard that makes typing seem like a game of hit-and-miss, like trying to play poker while looking through a chicken.

Overview: Kenya is full of guns. In colonial days, they tried to exterminate the elephants (whose populations are now on the rise, thankfully); today, the good guys have guns, the bad guys have guns, and pretty much every building or parking lot has a guard with a semi-automatic rifle. This includes all the little villages, not just Nairobi. Guns are everywhere in Kenya. The government seems to have just enough money for security and corruption with nothing left over.

Uganda is in slightly better shape (i actually saw a Lexus dealership, which puts it above Kenya), but ALL roads there are Jeep trails, including the main ones that look like tarmac on the map. Driving in Uganda is a contact sport – dodging potholes that are always as deep as they are long while dodging trucks that are NOT trying to dodge you.

Rwanda is France compared to the other two, though there isn’t a single movie theater in the entire country. There are smooth paved roads everywhere, as though Bill Clinton could show up at any time and there would be hell to pay if his Mercedes bumped his latte.

I am driving on the right side of the road in a right-hand-drive car, which is sort of like being a mailman: the steering wheel is on the right, which puts me near the side of the road, while Beatrice, who has no control, is sitting nearest the on-coming traffic. This requires two people to pass a slow-moving vehicle, and a valium for Beatrice, who is scared shitless for good reason. Everyone travels by the side of the road, often pushing bicycles loaded with 100kg of bananas or potatoes, so theres really only a center lane left for traffic. the large trucks and buses make a sport of driving down the middle – they laugh as the other drivers like us are forced off the road onto the dirt at 80 kph.

Monday we saw the gorillas! We hiked 2.5 hours and 2.5 kilofeet to a misty forest where every third bush is a stinging nettle. I had given Beatrice a hard time about her bringing so much gear (she has enough mosquito repellent to denude Vietnam), but she was comfortable tromping after the gorillas and taking GREAT photos while i got the full immune-system response and was covered with welts. They taught us to find lobelia leaves, break them, and rub the juice on our skin to calm the redness, so I was easy to spot – I was the guy covered in lobelia leaves.

Oh yeah, we spent an hour with the gorillas. Its cold that high up on the side of the volcano, so they are covered with hair so long they look like black yetis, and they are HUGE! They have harems. The silverback was about 240 kilos. His head was the size of a middle-age warthog. They happily munched greens and relaxed as we, the papparazzi in gore-tex gear, took their photos. It seemed as though they were posing for the white monkeys with the lenses.

- by David Siegel

Location: Rwanda

Tagged: rwanda, kigali, uganda, guns, poverty, violence, holiday inn, potholes, bill clinton, gorillas, animals, wildlife, hiking, harems

We're Crashing, Yeah!

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:14:00 GMT

It’s interesting how different cultures respond to fear.

If my recent flight from Ireland back to Biarritz is any indication, certain European nationalities seem to greet life-threatening circumstances with a hearty dose of whooping laughter.

My flight had been full of mostly Spanish travelers returning from St. Patrick’s Day in the Emerald Isle. As we descended into Biarritz, the rolling mosslike landscape out the plane window took a sudden, ominous turn – namely it started rocking violently in and out of my line of sight as the plane prepared to land and the ground shot toward us in a decidedly abnormal fashion.

A few feet before we would have touched (and I use that word loosely) down, the pilot aborted the landing. I imagined him flooring it, or however that works in the cockpit, as the plane shot pretty much straight back up – engines roaring – and my seatmate gave me a weary look that translates in any dialect to ‘oh, crap.’

Then, competing with the roar of the engine, there erupted a similarly exuberant and determine drone – the low roar of scores of Spaniards hooting and hollering and patting each other on the backs as if they had just survived the first big drop on Space Mountain.

As we screamed noseward into the heavens, then leveled off and circled over an ocean that was whipped into a frenzy by the gale force winds, the hooting only quieted for a few brief moments – when the pilot came over the PA system to announce ‘There were some high winds on the ground in Biarritz, as you can see from looking out the window at the ocean, and we’ll be attempting to land again in a few minutes.’

My legs turned to jelly as it hit me just how squarely my fate was out of my hands. But nearly ever face I turned to for solace was busy swiveling on its neck, smiling at its neighbor, and, much to my awe, giggling away the fear.

When we came in, we came in hard.

There was a moment when the plane shuddered and pitched in a strong, sudden gust and I thought, right, this is the end.

It was seriously scary stuff, but what surprised me the most was how I just sort of let my eyes glaze over and rolled with the punches. Looking back, I’d have to say it was because everyone around me was just sort of rolling with the punches, too, albeit in a far more boisterous manner.

Finally the wings caught a comforting angle. The ground was right there. And a split second before we landed, I had the relief of knowing we were going to be fine.

The cheer that erupted at that moment would have competed with that in any World Cup stadium, I assure you.

And I was right there along with the rest of my fellow passengers, hooting and hollering and screaming my head off in joy that we had won.

- by Terry Ward

Location: France / Biarritz

Are You Afraid of Flying?

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:55:00 GMT

By Ian MacKenzie. Courtesy of Brave New Traveler.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I boarded the plane at Vancouver International Airport, on our way to Costa Rica. I was flipping through the in-flight magazine, she was watching other passengers mill about, until everyone was in their seats.

The flight attendants closed the doors, checked all overhead compartments, and our plane geared up to pull out of the gate. We made it about 10 feet before the electrical system died.

Yes, died.

The plane hushed and came to a stop. The passengers glanced at each other with obvious surprise. A moment later the captain’s voice crackled over the intercom:

“Uh, yes, it seems our electrical system has conked out on us. But don’t worry folks, this is actually our secondary system, which we only use to taxi in and out of the gate. We don’t use this system in-flight. We’ll just restart the engine and be on our way.”

My wife reached over and clamped her hand around mine. Needless to say, our comfort towards flying did not increase.

Runaway Anxiety

I used to be okay with flying. There was a bit of nausea during takeoff and landing, but otherwise, I never quite let the cold, clammy fingernails of terror trickle down my spine.

But the incident above was not the only one during our trip. All four of our flights experienced complications: from the air-conditioning malfunctioning, to electrical storms, to closed airports, to emergency diversions for refueling.

Could it be we just have bad luck? Not so, I realized, considering Rolf Pott’s described a similar situation in a recent World Hum post:

We started flying in circles. Then the pilot kept coming back on saying, “Another 20 minutes.” Then he said we were running out of fuel so we were going to have to land in Baltimore. In this day and age, when you get these cryptic messages from your pilot, you get a little nervous. We were coming in for a landing in Baltimore and were about 10 feet off the ground when we pulled up again. That was a little freaky.

And consider this sobering statistic reported by Chris Elliot:

Buried in the latest government figures about the airline industry is one number that is bound to fill every air traveler with dread: Complaints are up an eye-popping 77 percent from a year ago.

“In April, the Department received 1,246 complaints from consumers about airline service, up 76.7 percent from the 705 complaints received in April 2006,” it says. “But 4.9 percent fewer than the 1,310 filed in March 2007.”

Flying really has gotten worse…

Read the entire post at Brave New Traveler

Location: Costa Rica

Tagged: brave new traveler, ian mackenzie, fear of flying, phobias, air travel, flights, costa rica, statistics, electrical storms, anxiety drugs

Bike Utopia

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:00:00 GMT

After a week in Scandinavia, I am in love. Not with a tall, blond Swede, mind you, but with the bike culture here. Coming from New York, where cyclists risk their lives every day dodging manic cab and truck drivers, I was thrilled to escape to Stockholm and Copenhagen. Here, drivers actually stop at stop signs. They also refrain from honking when cyclists and pedestrians cross and intersection. Every major street has wide bike lanes, and most of the time they are painted blue or are slightly elevated to distinguish them even more.

In Copenhagen, cyclists even get their own traffic lights. On almost every street there are lines of parked bikes, since about half the population rides on a given day. Subway stations need to have a section of elevated bike parking to meet demand.

Dressed in everyday clothes, I don’t feel like a fish out of water like I do in the US. Here, people don’t believe they must dress in sweatpants or spandex outfits like Tour de France racers just to ride a bike. For Scandinavians, bikes are primarily a mode of transportation, not a mode of weight loss. Young moms pedal toddlers around in stylish jeans and wool coats. Businessmen wear their suits and plop briefcases in a bike basket. Ladies-who-lunch types ride cruisers with heels on, dangling purses from handlebars. When you spend as much time riding Scandinavians do, why not look good while you’re at it?

Maybe having such a high rate of alternative transportation is why the cities have crisp, fresh air. And why even at the height of rush hour the city centers have almost no congestion. And why Americans like me wonder how easy it would be to become expats here.

- by Diana Kuan of Indietrekker fame

Location: Denmark / Copenhagen

Frozen Fresh

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:31:00 GMT

In the US, when you complain and send back food in restaurant, you can expect (at best) a meal discount, or (at worst) a disgruntled waitress spitting in your replacement entree. In Shanghai, it can lead to a shouting match.

On our last night in Shanghai, my boyfriend and I stopped in restaurant near the train station serving Shanghainese and Hangzhou cuisine. We were famished, and ordered a wide assortment from the glossy picture menu: fish in vinegar, sliced pork, braised mushrooms with greens. There was also an odd section for Japanese food at the end of the menu, and my boyfriend started salivating over a picture of the “fresh sushi platter”, piled high with gleaming sashimi. Without thinking, we committed a cardinal sin: ordering Japanese food at a Chinese restaurant.

The dishes came out one by one. The appetizer was good. The fish was tasty. The pork was juicy. Then came the sushi platter, arranged on a tiered tray as though the fish were wedding hor d’ouevres. From afar, it looked great. Upclose, I saw little icicles on the salmon and tuna. The other fish were equally rock hard. It seemed that the kitchen had simply taken the fish out of the freezer and plopped it on the platter without even bringing it to room temperature. So much for “fresh.”

I called the waiter over and, in shaky Mandarin, told him that the fish wasn’t fresh, and asked if we could please send it back and choose something else.

“What do you mean it isn’t fresh?” he countered. “This fish isn’t fresh,” I said. “It’s been frozen, and is still so frozen it’s inedible.”

The waiter called a more senior waiter over. I repeated myself. The second waiter shrugged and said there was nothing he could do. I asked to see the manager. Both waiters disappeared. We waited for 15 minutes, staring at our pile of frozen fish and picking at our other entrees, before the manager made his way over.

I repeated myself for a third time, saying that we could either return the entree or switch it for another.

“Our fish is fresh,” the manager assured me. “We received it freshly frozen from Japan.”

I tried to make it clear that if something is frozen, that means it’s not fresh. Either way, we couldn’t eat sashimi that still had icicles on it. Could we please have it taken off the bill?

“No,” grunted the manager. “This fish is still fresh, so we can’t take it back.”

I raised my voice. He raised his voice. Other diners stopped eating and stared. We went back and forth debating the semantics of “fresh,” until he raised his hands, and grumbled something in his Walkie-Talkie. He carried the platter into the kitchen, and came back with the same platter, the icicle fish removed but the other fish remaining, which had now congealed into a mushy mess. He also gave us the bill, which took off about 10% to reflect the fish that was removed. “There. All fixed,” the manager said proudly.

We gave up, paid, and left. I resolved to never to do 3 things again: 1. Get into a shouting match over $15. 2. Forget that the Chinese, more than most people, absolutely hate to lose face. 3. Think that the definition for “fresh” is universal.

- by Diana Kuan of Indietrekker fame

Location: China / Shanghai

Tagged: restaurants, indietrekker, diana kuan, lost in translation, frustration, sushi, sashimi, chinese restaurants, frozen fish, restaurant scenes

Tombouctou

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:06:00 GMT

I hadn’t planned on going to Tombouctou. My goal was to get to Dogon Country and maximize my time there. But when I found myself in Mopti with extra days and my stomach recovered from ‘Les Galettes de Dogon,’ I figured I probably wouldn’t get a better chance. Now or never.

I could fly, in which case I’d have a day there, or I could hire a 4WD and a driver and stay as long as I want. The bus takes 2-4 days, depending on weather and breakdowns. The boat takes 3 days. The 4WD takes 7.5 hours with a normal driver, but 7 hours flat if you go with Cargo, the Mopti driving machine. I should say 7 hours, including the flat tire we got. Also, with a driver, you don’t have to pull over to the side of the road to pray, as you do with the buses here.

We sped North to Tombouctou on Wednesday, virtually floating over the dusty red washboard hardpack, passing Pelle cowherders, who walk with their cows and drink their milk. Aside from a few days every couple months in town to sell their cows, these people walk and sleep with their herd, and cows milk as their only food. They wear cone-shaped hats that make them easy to identify, but they don’t make these hats. We passed by the village of another tribe that makes the hats for them. It’s similar to the shoe situation. Everyone in Africa wears either Flip Flops or leather shoes of some kind, and you would think there would be shoe factories here, but those are in China. I even saw a pair of NIKEs for sale in Bamako.

Cargo got his name from riding on top of his father’s truck all over Northern Mali as a kid. His right foot is 5” shorter than his left – everyone can recognize him at a distance. He seems to know everyone in every town and always has a smile on his face. We talked in French on the drive. I’m fond of telling people about the Earth, stars, the Universe, and evolution – things they know nothing about. I told Cargo the Earth was 4 billion years old, and he thought about that for a while. Then he said, “That means, next year the Earth will be 4 billion and one?”

We crossed the Niger river on the ferry and arrived Tombouctou by 4pm. Cargo got me a Tuareg guide, who took me on an evening camel (Dromedary, actually) ride into the Sahara to visit some Tuaregs. I kept expecting to see Omar Sharif ride up on his camel. I sat and had tea with the Tuareg family. They had many questions about my watch, which has a GPS. They hadn’t heard of GPS, so I explained how it worked, and they were amazed. They told me about the salt caravans to the desert and how they navigate by the stars, but also by the smell of the sand.

I had studied up, so I was prepared for the tour of the town the next day, all in French. The town had almost no tourists and just a small flock of American Peace Corp girls going through orientation. The town is dusty and small, and you can’t go into any buildings except the museum and the library, so you need to follow the history. Without the history, you might as well be in Guadalafuckinghara – that’s how impressive Tombouctou is. But the stories of 50-day camel (Dromedary) rides, ancient centers of learning (Tombouctou U had 25,000 students!), the development of Malian archtecture, a 1200-year-old well with its ‘original’ (yeah, right) camelskin water bag hanging over it (the well is now 2 feet deep), and a brilliant tour of an ancient rich person’s household (women were – and in many places still are – banished from view during menses) all convinced me that this is, indeed, a must-see-before-you-die place. Plus, you get the cool stamp in your passport.

On the way back, Cargo floored it through the desert and only hit one cow. We came over a rise careening over the washboard hardpack, and there was a herd of cattle, their cone-hat Pelle herder nowhere in sight. Drivers are careful with livestock, because animals have a tendency to cross back in front of the vehicle at the last second, trying to stay with the herd – splitting a herd is something you do carefully. Cargo was decelerating from 60 mph and this one last cow just couldn’t decide left or right. He hit the brakes harder and we skidded into the cow squarely from the rear with a BANG! The sound was that of 2,500 pounds of Toyota Landcruiser hitting the rear end of a 300-pound skinny bony cow walking slowly. We catapulted the cow about two feet. Cargo got out immediately to check the damage to the car; I wastched the cow to check for any signs of broken bones. The cow kept walking, calmly, then drifted off the road as if it had just seen some delicious grass. No breaks. I asked Cargo how often that happened. He said about one a year. If he’s going a bit faster, he carries a hatchet and puts the cow on the roof rack, and his family eats for two weeks. I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not.

Soon after, I notice my hands were sweating, thinking about the poor cow. Then I noticed the AC wasn’t working – the impact had leaked all the freeon out of the system. We rode back on the dusty road with the windows open, getting the red dust of Africa into every pore.

Once on the sealed road that runs from Gao to Mopti, we stopped for a drink and saw the storm coming. This is the most powerful storm I’ve ever seen in my life. It was preceded by a dramatic dust storm that looked more like something you see through a telescope – a supernova of roiling twisting churning dust, followed by immense black clouds, all very low to the ground and very, very dangerous. I tried to take photos, but I didn’t have the right camera out, and I had seconds to shoot before we were engulfed. We managed to drive for a while, but when the water came and the winds started lifting the car a bit, we slowed down to a crawl. Trees blew past us. Other cars struggled to stay on their side of the road. We crept along until we got a flat, and Cargo got out to change it. I handed him my GoreTex jacket, which he was very thankful for. The storm slowed us down by half an hour, and we arrived in Mopti around 6pm. The resulting flash floods damaged bridges and snarled traffic on that route for the next two days.

- by David Siegel

You can help.

Location: Mali / Tombouctou

Tagged: tombouctou, timbuktu, travels, les galettes de dogon, dogon country, camels, camel trips, gps, dromedary, 4wd, off roading, four wheel drive, gao, mopti, wells, ancient culture

Business for Pleasure

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:07:00 GMT

My friend John landed in Japan yesterday (or today, depending on how much you believe in the conspiracy of time zones). After working for a certain financial firm for over five years, he was finally sent to Tokyo on his first business trip. I would be very happy for him, if I wasn’t so busy being jealous.

When other kids were growing up dreaming of being sports stars and fighter pilots, I dreamt of being a powerful businessman. This was long before I knew what business was or that capitalism was a term of questionable integrity. All I knew from watching TWA commercials and primetime television shows was that there existed a profession in which well dressed men got flown all over the world for free. They even sat in a different part of the plane, and while I wasn’t exactly sure what they did with all the women they met at the hotel bars, I assumed it was fun.

Unfortunately, my life took a different direction. Somewhere between “I like to read; I’ll major in English” and “You want me to be at work how early?” I made a wrong move. Or several. I settled into a small law firm where I learned to appreciate traveling to such exotic places as Midtown and, once, Staten Island. I got to take a ferry there. It was a pathetically exciting day.

I don’t regret any of my choices, but part of me still longs for the opportunity to use the phrase “in town on business” – to show up in a city you’ve never been to before, to meet people you normally wouldn’t meet, and do the same thing you’ve done every other day of your normal office life only with everyone around you going about their normal office life. It is a type of travel unlike any other – not for education or relaxation or celebration, but for a purpose. Where perhaps in other circumstances you might feel compelled to linger in front of David, when you are in town on business you cast only a sideways glance. You are busy, and have no time for the distractions provided by a change of scenery.

In a way, it is the most pure form of exploration – not a contrived trip to a museum or guided tour of an ancient battleground, but a rapid absorption of a new and strange place simply by being yourself. To not go out in search of the place, but to let the place come to you. And, of course, to get paid to do it.

- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame

Location: United States of America / New York / New York

Tagged: business, comedy, business travel, redacted, dan murphy, pleasure, hotel bars, twa, time zones, business trips, staten island ferry

Calling Masseur Feelgood

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:56:00 GMT

I’m a big fan of massages, though I rarely get them. I think I like them as much as 50 Cent thinks fat kids like cake. So when I went to Thailand, a place that is known for said pleasure for a fraction of the cost, I was thrilled. And after lugging myself around Bangkok for a few days with the extreme heat and crowding that makes New York City look like uncharted territory, I was ready for a rubdown.

The thing was, I didn’t need all my muscles to be attended to. So my two friends and I began our mission to find an authentic Thai massage, free of happy endings. We were told if the place was legit, it wouldn’t be down a back alley. It ended up taking us three frustrating hours to find somewhere that would not leave us with the parting gift of an STD. Finally we were all led to a clean, good-sized room and told to strip down and put on our robes.

We lay down on our mats and three miniature Thai women entered, chatting away with each other. With little more then a smile in our direction, they got to work molding our backs to their whim, never stopping their chatter. And it was a good thing they kept talking because they drowned out our moans of happiness. When I was turned over on my back and the woman started walking to the very top of my inner thigh, I learned I was tense in places I hadn’t even thought about. It was intimate enough that I felt like we should share an after-massage cigarette and take a nap together.

By the time the women were done, the three of us were puddles of relaxation. It literally took everything we had to get dressed. And while the experience was a bit odd, it wasn’t nearly as strange as an Indian ayurvedic massage a friend told me about. Apparently for that experience you’re completely naked, they lube you up with so much baby oil that the person giving the massage hangs from a rope, and then they massage you with their feet. When the masseuse started massaging her breasts with her well-worn hooves, the girl slid right off the table and out the door faster then you can say Kamasutra.

I guess there’s something to be said for an authentic, foreign massage, but the cost of getting out there without being emotionally scarred, well, that’s priceless.

- by Emily Epstein of b’scuse me? fame.

Location: Thailand / Bangkok

Tagged: massage, thai massage, bangkok, massage parlors, masseur, masseuse, happy ending, kamasutra, foreign massages, indian foot massage

Having Everything Under the Tuscan Sun

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:15:00 GMT

When you live in Manhattan, it is only natural to crave space. On weekends, residents flock to Central Park like it is Vermont. I’ve been in “huge” New York city stores that would fit in the remote corner of a Target parking lot. It’s reflexive – if humans really do want that which we can’t have, then forget happiness, I want square footage.

Which is why when I travel I typically prefer open-air settings over just another version of my own cramped hometown. So when my family and I decided to go to Italy, instead of a hotel near the Duomo in Florence or outside the Vatican in Rome, we chose to stay in rural Tuscany.

We rented a villa with nine bedrooms and five bathrooms (seven if you count the two in the one-bedroom pool house, which is bigger than my entire apartment), which cost us less than a three star hotel in a major city would cost. The villa was located outside the small town of Cetona, which boasted three restaurants, four gelato cafes and a host of other small shops that, taking riposo (the Italian “siesta”) into account, were open for about two hours a day. But if you managed to get to the food store a stock up on food and wine (which is hard because portions are about one-quarter the size of American portions), then holing yourself up in the house with a bottle of Chianti (or, at 3 euro per, a case) was the best you could hope for out of an Italian vacation.

Not that the Sistine Chapel isn’t as majestic as advertised, or the Coliseum as imposing as you imagine it would be, but to me traveling is more than seeing a string of sights and convincing a string of beautiful local women that you are related to Frank Sinatra. It is about getting a feel for a country and for its culture, eating its food and attempting to speak its language, even if in the two weeks you are there you only speak one complete Italian sentence and mispronounced three of its four words. And to me, the way you really understand what it means to be in Italy is to sit at a table under a thatch overhang, drinking wine and laughing (preferably with others), pausing every so often to look out at the breathtaking views of vineyards, olive plants and sunflowers.

So that’s what I did for two weeks. And sitting there with more square footage than I could ever know what to do with, I decided all I really wanted out of life was more prosciutto. Too bad the butcher was closed, again.

- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame

Location: Italy / Cetona

Tagged: dan murphy, redacted, manhattan, vacations, italian countryside, target, department stores, gelato, cafes, siestas, villas, economical, budget travel, wine, cheese, landscapes

Illegal Imports

Sat, 10 May 2008 15:57:00 GMT

When I first heard that Andrew Speaker, a 31-year-old Atlanta personal injury lawyer, had brought a particularly strong strain of Tuberculosis into the United States with him when crossing the Canadian border, my first thought was, “How ballsy of him…”

I mean, back in college when I went to Montreal with a few friends of mine, I smuggled some Cuban cigars back home with me and thought I was the next Pablo Escobar. But even contraband from a politically sanctioned Communist nation is nothing compared to a deadly infectious disease.

Although I actually know someone who brought back their own infectious disease from Guatemala. She was there working with a non-profit organization to help the children of poor families gain access to American colleges and universities. Unfortunately, she got typhoid (which is why I always say that charity work doesn’t pay).

She didn’t know it at the time, but as she started to feel worse she decided to fly back to Boston. By the time she got to the hospital, she was convinced that she had typhoid. (It was a topic of discussion amongst the locals where she was living.) When she told this to the doctor, he replied quizzically, “Typhoid, hmm?” He proceeded to look it up in some medical books and on the internet, explaining, “We don’t see much typhoid around here.” Finally, a call was placed to a doctor who was off that day. Apparently, he was old enough to know how to diagnose typhoid. When he arrived at the hospital at 2:00AM, grumpy and in his sweats, he took one look at my friend and said, “Where have you been?”

“Guatemala,” she replied
“That’s too bad. You have typhoid,” he said.

House makes it seem so much more interesting.

When my friend told me this story, I had the same reaction as I did to the Andrew Speaker story – How brazen! All I could do was counter with the story of the time I was in the small town of Puerto Penasco in Mexico and, filled with tequila, my friend and I came upon an ALTO (Stop) sign on the road. It was a crude construction: a large metal octagon nailed precariously to a wooden post. My friend remarked on what a great souvenir it would make, so I, naturally, pounded it off its post. We carried it home, wrapped it in brown paper, and carried it on the plane with us. (This was in 2000 – undoubtedly something we could never get away with these days.)

I remember thinking what a rush it was as we went through security at the airport. We were smuggling authentic Mexican signage across the border. I imagine it is the exact same feeling Andrew Speaker had (although his was probably the result of nausea and a very high fever). But I’ll take my smuggled goods over his any day – long after his symptoms have passed, I will still be smoking my cigars, staring ironically at my STOP sign.

- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame

Location: Mexico / Puerto Peñasco

Tagged: alto, stop signs, smuggling, disease, typhoid, tuberculosis, mexico, dan murphy, redacted, airport security

Novice Monks

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT

If you find yourself in Cambodia and wanting for English conversation with the locals, just head to the nearest temple and find yourself a novice monk. If of course they don’t find you first, which most likely they will.

When backpacking in Cambodia several years ago, I found the novice monks – often in their late teens or early twenties – the most outgoing and curious people. And most of them speak English amazingly well.

Wherever I traveled in Cambodia, there were monks. And I began to think of them as the unofficial symbols of the country – more relevant, more alive than the image of Angkor Wat emblazoned on the national flag. All I would have to do was wander into a temple complex to admire the Khmer architecture, and sure enough a novice monk in his bright orange or dark maroon robe would appear and address me in English.

Walking back from the Russian Market in Phnom Penh one evening, I caught a glimpse of an elaborately tiled temple, Wat Tuol Tom Pong, hidden behind a tall gate. As I maneuvered my camera between the bars to snap a photo, a monk approached me from the street. Buddhist etiquette varies from country to country, and in Cambodia, although monks aren’t allowed to touch women – even to shake hands – they are permitted to speak with females. In surprisingly fluent English, the monk introduced himself as Bunsinat and offered to show me around the temple grounds.

After the tour, he led me to a classroom in an austere building near the pagoda, where he introduced me to his English teacher, who invited me to stay as a guest instructor. For the next hour, I fielded students’ questions, most of which involved life in America and what I
thought of Cambodia. Most students seemed to be studying English so they could get jobs in tourism, which is second only to the garment industry in Cambodia.

Bunsinat, one of two monks in the class, was no exception. “Many monks, like me, they come from the countryside to the temple in the city to learn English. For the monk the English class is free,” he said. Other students pay about $5 per month.

“For many years I will study the life of the Buddha, but later I want to find a job in a hotel or a bank,” he continued, “I want to make a lot of money.”

One student asked me, “Do people plow the fields for work in your country too?” He meant with water buffalo, not machinery. Although I was the teacher – the so-called wise Westerner – I am quite sure that I am the one who learned the most that day.

- by Terry Ward

Location: Cambodia

Tagged: backpacking, buddha, monks, buddhism, conversations, schools, english schools, water buffalo, temples

A Tale of Two Cities' Subways

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:42:00 GMT

I take the N and it’s always fast, clean and on time. I don’t know what Diana is talking about (see stage 1)... – cb

I caught subway envy in Washington D.C.

As a New Yorker, I had gotten used to the Metro’s shortfalls: frequent delays, unannounced service changes, dilapidated stations, foul smells, and mysterious stains on seats that are best left unquestioned. It’s dirty, inefficient and bustling. New Yorkers complain about the subway, but we tolerate it, since it’s our primary mode of transportation from point A to point B (except for those lucky few with a bottomless cab fund). Newcomers may experience culture shock getting jostled by beggars making their way through cars, or seeing their first foot-long rat run across some platform. But pretty soon we all get used to it. C’est la vie.

This complacent attitude is jolted when New Yorkers travel to other cities with public transportation. In Washington D.C., the subway reminded me of cleanliness I thought was only possible in foreign cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore. The modernist arched ceilings in all the stations screamed of a city that placed aesthetics on a pedastal. And electronic counters that showed the minutes until the next arriving train? Priceless.

And thus began the 5 Stages of Subway Envy:

1. Denial – I don’t see any electronic counters.
2. Anger – We had a billion dollar surplus last year! Why don’t we have those for our trains?!
3. Bargaining – I wonder how much apartments are in D.C.
4. Depression – But moving is such a pain.
5. Acceptance – When the bus back from D.C. pulled into Port Authority at 1 a.m., I was exhausted, cold, and had $2 in my pockets. Home was 110 blocks away. I was glad for any train that ran at 1 a.m. on a Sunday night, smells and stains and all.

- by Diana Kuan of Indietrekker fame

Location: United States of America / District of Columbia / Washington

Bulgaria

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:00:00 GMT

You really need a car to get around in this part of the world. I eventually returned my Eurailpass unused because there basically are no trains running in the Balkans. I walked across the border from Romania to Bulgaria, hoping to find a guy on the other side who would take me to civilization for a reasonable price and not leave my lifeless body in a ditch somewhere, even though he didn’t speak any English. Remarkably, I did, and soon I was in Varna at the bus station looking at my map and guide book trying to figure out where to go next. A college kid sat down next to me and suggested Veliko Tarnovo, and it turned out that the next bus was leaving soon, so I got on it.

I was somewhat relieved to see that Bulgaria is trying hard to join the Western world. Bulgaria is not a land of peasants and scammers. Bulgaria has fashion and industry. People seem to be working and pulling ahead. There are miles and miles of sunflowers, all with their heads turned in the same direction.

Veliko Tarnovo is a nice little town where no one speaks a word of English except the real-estate agents, who have been selling apartments and farms to the Brits in the past few years. Real Estate is booming as more Brits arrive and make the locals rich by paying 10,000 pounds for an apartment. Next year it will be twice that.

In Bulgaria, everyone over the age of 14 must smoke cigarettes. I was lucky they didn’t throw me in jail for not smoking. Even though smoking is not allowed on the buses, the driver of my bus to Sofia smoked five cigarettes in three hours, and the tour guide woman smoked two. Fortunately, no one else smoked on the bus. Sofia is a complete write-off. Can’t imagine why anyone would go there. But I think the Bulgarians might make it into the EU – I think they have the entrepreneurial drive and the social desire to go forward, not back. So far, so good – I had been spending most of my time in interesting tourist places, not in the big ugly cities. I took a bus to Skopje and found myself in the middle of Macedonia…

- by David Siegel

Location: Bulgaria

Tagged: sofia, bulgaria, macedonia, cigarettes, modernization, industry, apartments, british buying, veliko tarnovo, westernization, fashion, real estate

How to Plan a Four Day Vacation With Your Girlfriend in West Palm Beach, FL in 10 Easy Steps

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:32:00 GMT

Step 1. Find a girlfriend whose aunt has a condo she is not using in West Palm Beach. (Note: A boyfriend would work here as well, depending on sexual preference, availability of condo, etc.)

Step 2. Plan on what dates you would like to go. Leave ample time for planning. For example, in February, plan on going the first weekend in April.

Step 3. A week before your set date, begin preparations. Realize that you have left yourself no time for the planning stage. Convince your girlfriend that this is part of the plan and that Florida is more fun in May. Then actually begin preparations.

Step 4. Buy the flight first. Allot approximately two days for the process. Begin by opening four internet browsers, one for each discount travel website. Start searching for the cheapest weekend to go. Do not develop a system or create any sort of organizational charts. Simply plunk in information at random while rotating through the sites with increasing frustration. Jot down numbers on Post-It notes which will mean nothing to you when you reference them later.

Step 5. Gather all the information into your memory. Write a vague, imprecise email to your girlfriend asking for her opinion. Act more confident than you are. This is not considered deception because you are paying. When she writes back, “Whatever you think is best,” resist the urge to reply, “Blow me.”

Step 6. Wonder how people got anything done before the internet.

Step 7. Realize that you have now spent three hours trying to save $40. Feel ridiculous, but not so much that it compels you to quit searching. Try utilizing different departing or arriving airports even though doing so will add immeasurable inconvenience. Curse.

Step 8. Take a break from searching for flights by going to Priceline to name your own price for a rental car. Try to score a convertible for $30 a day even though the computer, a machine with no logical capabilities, tells you this will not work. After two more unsuccessful tries at $33 and $36, settle on a compact – one step above an economy, because you are classy. So classy that you have a rental car 1,000 miles away and no way to get to it.

Step 9. Renew your search for plane tickets. Go to JetBlue as a last resort. Be utterly entranced by the simplicity of the website, the narrow-mindedness of the pricing and the little televisions in the back of the seats. Book your flights even though it is probably more expensive.

Step 10. Quell the urge to feel nostalgic for times before the internet when people placed orders for goods and services with other people; when they wrote down dates and confirmation numbers on paper with ink. Email your girlfriend and tell her all the plans are set. Pack up your bag, shut off your computer and leave work with a glowing sense of accomplishment. Drink as needed.

- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame

Location: United States of America / Florida / West Palm Beach

Tagged: beaches, redacted, dan murphy, convertibles, booking flights, renting cars, economy cars, west palm, condos, frustration

The Road to Hana (Part II)

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:14:00 GMT

Did you miss Part 1?

As we trekked further into the woods, which wasn’t very far considering we were all wearing flip-flops and moving at a snail’s pace, there was talk that maybe we should go back. However, the prevailing majority concluded that by virtue of its beauty, Hawaii can’t be that dangerous. It won’t surprise anyone to learn that none of us were seasoned outdoorsmen.

Finally, after 45 minutes of sidling barefoot over slippery rocks, we made it to our destination: a clearing in the brush that revealed a thundering, seven-story high waterfall emptying into a shallow pool. Without thinking (i.e. removing my cell phone from my pocket) I waded in. It was triumphant. Normally on vacations the only waterfalls I see at 7:00 in the morning are in my dreams. Now I was ruining my new cell phone in a real one. It was refreshing.

Our next stop along the rocky road was to a narrow cliff overlooking the infamous “Jaws” beach, named so for size and deadly ferocity of its waves. The infamous 70-foot monster waves for which is it known only come along every so often, but looking down at the white water spraying off the “small” 15 foot waves was enough to make me laugh at all the times I’d screamed “THAT WAS AWESOME” when boogie boarding a five-foot wave to shore during my youth (two days ago).

Next we took a turn off down an even more narrow dirt road leading to a small park on the coast. We walked out onto a series of enormous rocks as waves crashed around us sending spray over our heads.
Being so engulfed, one gets the feeling that one is small and fragile and wet. So we left, and on our way back we stopped at a roadside shack selling fruit shakes made from local produce such as papaya and pineapple. As far as we could tell, it was the only structure for miles. Yet here they were selling fresh, delicious insanely cheap fruit drinks. It was the type of stand that New York Magazine would blog about, but instead it existed in this place where Capitalism didn’t seem to exist.

Finally, almost four hours later, we made it to the town of Hana. We couldn’t have been more excited to be out of the car and at our long-sought after destination. But as soon as we parked the car, we came to a horrifying collective realization – it sucked. It was just like every other small town in America, with one school and a post office. The beach was calm and quiet and the roads were nearly empty. It was as peaceful as promised, but it was also something unexpected. Boring. Utterly boring. We visited a snack shack on the water, bought some drinks, and promptly got back in the car.

The funny part was, as we sat there in the car, lamenting our destination, we also found an excitement for our trip home. You see, the road running along the Southern coast is considered almost impassable for vehicles other than SUVs. Some rental car companies will prohibit you driving your car on that road. We checked out rental agreement. Ours didn’t. We looked at each other and all agreed – if we couldn’t enjoy the destination, we’d sure as hell enjoy the journey.

by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame

Location: United States of America / Hawaii / Maui

Tagged: hana, tourists, dan murphy, redacted, hawaii, howlies, rental cars, offroad, off road, jaws, big waves, surfing, body boarding, boogie boarding, fruit drinks

The Road to Hana

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:22:00 GMT

While waiting on an absurdly long line in Chipotle today, I got to thinking about how people tend to view travel (the actual transportation portion of it) in one of two ways.

First there’s the school of Zen-like masters who preach patience in the face of delayed gratification. This is the “The culmination is worth the effort” club.

Then there is the opposite sect who preach a philosophy not of instant gratification, but constant gratification. That is, “Every minute you aren’t enjoying is a waste.” Or, as we’ve come to know this romantic notion “It’s the journey not the destination.”

I’m not sure which camp I fall into. Clearly the principals require that you fall on one side of the divide – you can’t sometimes appreciate the journey (say, if you are flying first class) and sometimes bypass the journey in favor of the destination (if perhaps you are sitting in front of a child singing the entire Dora The Explorer soundtrack). I’m inclined to say that I am in the “Culmination is worth the effort” camp. Until airports replace those barely padded plastic chairs with massaging recliners, I’m going to have to say that the journey part isn’t all that fun.

Then, as I snaked my way around the far corner of the Chipotle, I remembered my trip to Maui a few years ago. My friends and I thought it would be fun to wake up obscenely early one morning and make the drive out to Hana, a town which is conveniently located on the eastern tip of Maui, completely opposite the developed Western coast, where we were staying. Although Hana is a mere 56 miles from our hotel in Kihea, because the mountainous roads are so windy and fraught with rocky terrain and one-lane bridges, the drive will take the average person 3 hours.

While this trip clearly went against my vacationing motto (“Do less, enjoy more”) my friends hyped Hana as an oasis of natural beauty in a world marred by the unyielding grip of man. It was a strong sell, and despite me seeming lack of motivation in the face of minimal effort, I came to the conclusion that a leisurely drive to a peaceful beach town would actually be perfect. Plus we only had one car and it was easier to just go than have to walk everywhere on my own.

Of course, the guidebook told us of a variety of side trips we needed to take (this was the word they used, as though we wouldn’t be allowed entry into Hana without first securing tokens from these adventures). Apparently, despite strongly worded signs to the contrary (“BEWARE OF HUNGRY RADIOACTIVE DOG”) all of Maui’s beaches are open to the public. The locals, however, like to make it difficult for the tourists to visit them all in order to preserve their cleanliness and beauty.

So our first stop was a dirt road that veered off the highway about 45 minutes in. There was a rusty gate with a NO TRESPASSING sign dangling from a chain. My friends assumed this meant “no trespassing unless you promise to keep things tidy and you have a genuine appreciation for the aesthetic beauties of the wilderness,” so we parked our car and began walking into the woods down what seemed to be a rather defined trail. Quickly, we realized that our trail was nothing more than a minor clearing, one that became less and less clear the further we went. Apparently “NO TRESPASSING” had a more literal meaning: without a machete, you’d have little success trespassing.

To be continued next week…

- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame

Location: United States of America / Hawaii / Maui

Tagged: hana, travel, journey is the destination, chipotle, waiting in lines, epiphanys, dan murphy, redacted, camps, trespassing, maui, beaches