Destination: Asia
Rory Stewart on Afghanistan: ‘The Problem is That We Act on the Basis of Our Own Lies’
by Michael Yessis | 03.05.07 | 7:36 AM ET
Rory Stewart, whose book about walking across Afghanistan, The Places in Between, was hailed as one of the best travel books of 2006 by the New York Times and Entertainment Weekly, began a stint as a guest columnist for the Times this weekend. His first column, which, unfortunately, resides in the TimesSelect pay-only section, addresses what he sees as the dangers of the international community’s rhetoric about Afghanistan. “Afghans, like Americans, do not want to be abducted and tortured. They want a say in who governs them, and they want to feed their families,” he writes, “But reducing their needs to broad concepts like ‘human rights,’ ‘democracy’ and ‘development’ is unhelpful.”
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Yahoo! BuzzPoverty Tourism: Exploration or Exploitation?
by Michael Yessis | 02.27.07 | 8:26 AM ET
The Mumbai squatter settlement of Dharavi is known as one of the biggest slums in Asia. “It is also one of India’s newest tourist attractions,” writes John Lancaster in a thoughtful story on the phenomenon of poverty tourism in this month’s Smithsonian. For a little less than $7, Lancaster joined a small group of foreign travelers to walk through Dharavi, “a vast junkyard, a hodgepodge of brick and concrete tenements roofed with corrugated metal sheets that gleamed dully in the sunshine.” And what do such tours mean, for the residents of slums, the entrepreneurs and the travelers?
The New Hot Job in India: Flight Attendant
by Michael Yessis | 02.27.07 | 7:21 AM ET
The country’s travel industry is growing so fast—50 percent last year, according to the Indian government—that Indians are clamoring to pursue careers in aviation. Indian women, in particular, are beneficiaries of the boom. “Until recently, many Indian families would have frowned on the idea of a young woman dressing in a short skirt and serving strangers on a plane,” Somini Sengupta writes in the New York Times. “But a rapidly expanding economy has helped to transform the ambitions, habits and incomes of India’s middle class in ways that would have been unimaginable just a generation ago, not least for young women.”
Related on World Hum:
* The Not-So-Glamorous Life of a Flight Attendant
* Singapore Girl: Icon, Anachronism, Winged Geisha and Pretty Young Thing
* Who Wears the Pants on Alitalia Flights?
* The Return of the Stews
How to Dig Dim Sum in Hong Kong
by Valerie Ng | 02.21.07 | 3:00 PM ET
Photo by Valerie Ng No visit is complete without indulging in the breakfast and lunch specialty. Valerie Ng explains the difference between cha siu bao and daan taat -- and where to dip your Chinese donut.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Bali, Bargains and Jet Blues
by Michael Yessis | 02.16.07 | 9:20 AM ET
The Silk Road, Mexican beach towns, Chiang Mai and those poor passengers stuck on the tarmac at JFK were on travelers’ minds this week. Here’s the Zeitgeist:
World’s Best Travel Value: Island
Travel + Leisure Readers’ Poll (March 2007 issue)
Bali, Indonesia
* The rest of the top five: Phuket, Thailand; Ko Samui, Thailand; Langkawi, Malaysia; and Borneo.
World’s Best Travel Value: City
Travel + Leisure Readers’ Poll (March 2007 issue)
Chiang Mai, Thailand
* The rest of the top five: Kathmandu; Mendoza, Argentina; Hanoi; and Bangkok.
Most Read Story
World Hum (this week)
Armrest Seating, Anyone?
* Perhaps those stranded JetBlue passengers can relate.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Viewing Two Chinas From a Stop on the Silk Road
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Check Out Under-the-Radar Mexican Cities and Beach Towns
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
A Walk in the Woods
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
1,000 Places to See Before You Die: A Traveler’s Life List
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Mobissimo
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
JetBlue Apologizes for Stranding Passengers on Planes at JFK
* It makes this seem not so far fetched.
Cycling the Silk Road
by Michael Yessis | 02.15.07 | 8:43 AM ET
Three college friends recently embarked on an epic ride from Turkey to China via the Silk Road, a trek being chronicled this week on Slate. Greg Grim wrote the first installment, and he outlined the trip’s goals: “Mikey, Cam, and I aimed to show these folks that not all Americans are fat, rich, Muslim-hating warmongers. Rather, we’re people just like them, with the same needs, questions, and desires. But diplomacy isn’t our sole mission: It doesn’t hurt that these lands are breathtaking in their beauty and baffling in their culture.” As usual with Slate’s travel coverage, a compelling slideshow accompanies the dispatches.
Related on World Hum:
* Lost City of the Silk Road
* Colin Thubron and the “Shadow of the Silk Road”
The Highs and Lows of Traveling on iTunes
by Jim Benning | 02.13.07 | 6:35 PM ET
The Rise of Luxe Surf Travel (at Least According to the NY Times)
by Jim Benning | 02.12.07 | 10:53 AM ET
Anyone who surfs or knows people who do realized years ago that the sport had shed its dirtbag image—that doctors and attorneys now eagerly lay claim to the title “surfer” (even if they don’t much surf) and that big bucks are spent on travel to remote, uncrowded breaks in places like Central America and Indonesia. Now, the New York Times is on the case. In a front-page story yesterday, the Times breathlessly reported: “For $10,000 a day, you can have the ultimate surfing sojourn in Indonesia aboard the 110-foot Indies Trader IV, a sort of floating hotel with 15 cabins, a helipad and three-course meals with wine. A motorized tender takes you to the waves.” And about today’s surfers: “This new species of surfer contributes to a booming market for vacation packages, instruction, equipment and real estate near some of the world’s best surf breaks. Like golf, surfing has become an ideal activity around which to discuss business.”
China Will Be Top World Travel Destination by 2020
by Jim Benning | 02.09.07 | 11:48 AM ET
So predicts the World Tourism Organization. France led the pack in 2006, drawing 78 million foreign travelers.
Sign Police Hit Beijing Streets; Chinglish Editor Renews Call to Arms
by Jim Benning | 02.06.07 | 2:56 PM ET
Terrible news. In preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing officials are working to rid the city of signs with nonsensical and awkward English translations. “For the next eight months, 10 teams of linguistic monitors will patrol the city’s parks, museums, subway stations and other public places searching for gaffes to fix,” reports the Wall Street Journal. I’m not sure the sign I photographed in Beijing several years ago would merit removal—I know that the Palace Museum had more glory on the day I visited because I gave it tons and tons of care—but either way, I can only hope the sign police fail.
Problems at Bangkok’s New Airport
by Jim Benning | 02.05.07 | 8:07 AM ET
Perhaps it was all too good to be true. Bangkok’s $4 billion “Golden Land” international airport opened in September to great fanfare. Monks and Brahmin priests even went so far as to apologize to the spirits for any harm done in the airport’s planning and construction. But several months later, all’s not well. Problems ranging from “cracked taxiways to leaky roofs to inadequate bathrooms to luggage snafus” plague the airport, reports the San Francisco Chronicle’s Travelers’ Checks column. It gets worse: “The national airport authority has found some 61 issues at Suvarnabhumi needing repair or redesign that will cost an estimated $45 million and six months to fix.” Meanwhile, the airport can continue operating. Great.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: The Explorers
by Michael Yessis | 02.02.07 | 9:38 AM ET
Travelers appear top of mind this week, not destinations. The journeys of Daisann McLane, Bill Bryson, Paulina Porizkova, Martin Sargent, celebrity watchers and Dora the Explorer lead off the Zeitgeist.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Daisann McLane: ‘Learning Cantonese’ in Hong Kong
Most Popular Travel Podcast
iTunes (current)
Travel Song Medley by Dora the Explorer
Most Read Story
World Hum (this week)
Paulina Porizkova: A Model Traveler
Most Read Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Oscars Tourism: Celebrity Sightings and a Hotel Within Gawking Distance of the Red Carpet
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
* We like this book.
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (current)
Area-Daily.com Launches
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Farecast
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
A Walk in the Woods
Most Dugg Travel Podcast
Digg (current)
Martin Sargent: Web Drifter
Update: Japan’s ‘Sushi Police’
by Michael Yessis | 01.30.07 | 8:46 AM ET
I supported the idea of a seal of approval for “pure Japanese” food when I heard about it last year. Now, as the Japanese government moves closer to taking action on the idea, Mariko Sanchanta has another take. “Japanese food has spread in popularity abroad in great part thanks to restaurants owned by enterprising individuals—many of whom are Chinese and Korean in the US—who saw a business opportunity and successfully exploited it,” Sanchanta writes in the Financial Times. “Sure, kimchi and sashimi probably don’t mix. But instead of separating the authentic from the inauthentic, the government should hand out thank you notes to everyone who tries to promote Japanese food—especially the genius who invented the California roll.”
Daisann McLane: ‘Learning Cantonese’ in Hong Kong
by Jim Benning | 01.29.07 | 9:20 AM ET
Macau Surpasses Las Vegas as Gambling Mecca
by Michael Yessis | 01.24.07 | 9:20 AM ET
The numbers are staggering: Macau’s gambling revenue rose from $2 billion in 2001 to $6.95 billion in 2006, and this year analysts predict a take of $8 billion. Las Vegas took in $6.5 billion in 2006. Why is Macau booming? According to a New York Times story, liberalized Chinese travel policies have helped spur growth.