Destination: Asia
Luxury Jets Are a Girl’s Best Friend?
by Eva Holland | 11.08.07 | 11:15 AM ET
Media in India have been buzzing over news that the nation’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, has given his wife an Airbus A319 jet (like the one pictured) for her 44th birthday. The $60 million birthday gift is tricked out with satellite TV, gaming consoles, wireless Internet, and a sky bar, according to Reuters. Wrote one commentator: “In a country that prizes asceticism—think of Mahatma Gandhi, who visited Buckingham Palace in a loincloth and little else—Ambani is setting spectacular new standards for conspicuous consumption. In Mumbai he’s constructing a 27-storey, US$150 million high-rise apartment block that will house his family of six.”
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Yahoo! BuzzHow to Wear a Sari in India
by Anita Rao Kashi | 11.08.07 | 10:43 AM ET
It's not as complicated as it might appear. Anita Rao Kashi reveals what it takes to get the elegant traditional Indian dress just right -- and to get the right one for you.
The Songstress of Kunming
by Jeffrey Tayler | 11.07.07 | 12:48 PM ET
In the southern Chinese city, an unexpected concert prompts Jeffrey Tayler to wonder about the passage of time and the fate of history
Seoul Does Brunch: South Korea Embraces the Newfound Weekend
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.07.07 | 9:59 AM ET
Photo by Presta, via Flickr (Creative Commons)
As globalization continues its culture-morphing march, it’s brandishing a powerful weapon: brunch. In Seoul, once a city so overworked from a six-day work week that tired South Koreans only socialized late in the evening, a Western-style brunch of toasted bagels and blueberry pancakes is the latest way to bond with family and friends, according to The New York Times.
Twelve Books to Read Before Traveling to China
by Jim Benning | 11.05.07 | 12:04 PM ET
That’s right. Not two or three. Twelve. UC Irvine history professor Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is often asked for reading suggestions by people traveling to China. So he put together a list of 12 books, choosing titles “with an eye toward liveliness, links of some sort to Beijing as a city or the Olympics as an event, and also stylistic and topical variety.” Wasserstrom knows a thing or two about China. He’s the author of the recently published China’s Brave New World—And Other Tales for Global Times. His full list appears on the History News Network. Among his more intriguing selections are:
Culinary Explorer: Getting to Know a Culture by Creating its Cuisine
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.05.07 | 9:47 AM ET
It’s been said that the best way to get to know a country is through its food. As a fan of the food writers Diane Kochilas and Corinne Trang, who combine a traveler’s cultural awareness with a chef’s creativity in their cookbooks, I believe cooking authentic cuisine from abroad helps you get closer to a culture. Dorothy Aksamit went one step further on her trip to the river town of Hoi An, Vietnam: She took a cooking class led by a local chef.
Singapore Airlines to A380 First-Class Suite Passengers: No Sex For You
by Michael Yessis | 10.31.07 | 1:29 PM ET
Teases! Singapore Airlines has outfitted its new A380 with 12 first-class suites offering privacy and double beds, and during last week’s inaugural flight from Singapore to Sydney, Champagne flowed. The airline, it would seem, brought some sexy back to travel. Alas, it didn’t bring the Mile-High Club back from the dead. The carrier has asked suite passengers to refrain from sex, dashing “the hopes of sexual thrill-seekers planning to engage in amorous activity aboard the world’s biggest jumbo jet,” according to a Reuters report.
Indians in Bali: The ‘New Americans’?
by Liz Sinclair | 10.30.07 | 7:04 AM ET
In the wake of the Bali bombings, the country’s traditional tourists—Americans, Australians and Europeans—started to vacation elsewhere. Asians from countries such as India, experiencing rapid economic growth, filled the gap. But as Karim Raslan notes in a recent article for the Financial Times, there’s something familiar about these tourists. They often behave with the same cultural elitism that characterized the stereotypical American, becoming, as Raslan calls them, the “New Americans.”
Dispatch from Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province
by Eva Holland | 10.24.07 | 10:43 AM ET
I’ve been irked lately by the increasing attention Afghanistan is getting as a reemerging tourist destination. Yes, some visitors are returning to Kabul. But in the south of the country, the war is still being fought, and recent travelers’ reports of cheery residents beginning to pick up the pieces are much harder to find. So I was pleased to find a dissenting perspective in David Common’s recent dispatch from Kandahar, where NATO troops are still involved in heavy fighting and the Taliban sometimes seems to be gaining ground.
Cancun to Times Square: How to Spot a Tourist Trap
by Julia Ross | 10.23.07 | 3:00 PM ET
How do you know a tourist trap when you see one? Aside from the double-decker buses and fanny packs, I’m usually alerted by a feeling I get: an overwhelming desire to flee mixed with befuddlement. The first time I visited San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, I remember thinking: I don’t get it. Choosing the world’s top tourist traps is sure to elicit heated debate, but ForbesTraveler.com has weighed in with its own list, nicely illustrated with a slide show and story offering tips for alternative experiences. Skip Times Square in favor of Central Park’s Strawberry Fields, writer Chris Colin recommends, or try the Valley of the Kings instead of the Pyramids at Giza.
Can Your Panties Help Save Burma?
by Eva Holland | 10.23.07 | 12:49 PM ET
Some activists think so. We noted yesterday the ominous silence that has settled over Burma in the aftermath of the ruling junta’s violent crackdown. But outside the country, protest groups are still trying to keep up the pressure, and they’re getting creative to hold the world’s attention. Last week, Thailand-based activist group Lanna Action for Burma launched the Panty Power Campaign, encouraging women around the world to send their underwear to the nearest Burmese embassy.
Should I Cut My Dreadlocks Before Traveling to Asia?
by Rolf Potts | 10.23.07 | 11:08 AM ET
Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel
Invisible Burma
by Joanna Kakissis | 10.22.07 | 3:02 PM ET
A month after the ruling military junta crushed protesting monks, killing an unknown number of people, an ominous, Orwellian calm has settled over Burma. Tourist arrivals have dropped by up to 90 percent since the military crackdown. “It’s not peace you see here; it’s a forced silence,” a 46-year-old Burmese writer who joined last month’s protests in Rangoon told The New York Times’ Choe Sang-Hun in a troubling report on the current conditions in the country. The writer—who like most people interviewed did not disclose his name out of fear of government reprisal—carried with him a worn copy of his favorite book, George Orwell’s “1984.”
I’m Not a Doctor, But I Played One on Korean TV
by Brian Miller | 10.22.07 | 12:01 PM ET
Photo courtesy Brian Miller. When the call came in that a local film crew needed foreign extras, expat English teacher Brian Miller donned a business suit and reported for duty.
A Daring Cup of Tea in Darjeeling
by Joanna Kakissis | 10.19.07 | 10:47 AM ET
How far would you go for a cup of tea? Matt Gross, the Frugal Traveler for The New York Times, went deep into West Bengal and the Himalayas to explore the tea estates of Darjeeling country and sample varieties of the coveted teas. The hours-long journey to Darjeeling is like “a teetotaler’s version of a Napa Valley tour but without the crowds,” Gross writes. Getting to this remote corner of India is also apparently spine-chilling: the steep drive up and down decrepit roads has caused more than a few fatal plunges and Gross anxiously notes rough trips between estates.