Destination: Thailand
Backpackers in Thailand Just Won’t Quit
by Alicia Imbody | 07.01.09 | 4:24 PM ET
Photo by René Ehrhardt via Flickr (Creative Commons) Tourism in Thailand has been suffering significant declines lately, and desperate vendors are offering discounts like free domestic flights, extra nights and other perks to lure money-conscious visitors.
But in spite of the setbacks to leisure and luxury travel, the AP reports “budget travel hasn’t suffered as badly, with beer stalls and hostels along Bangkok’s Khao San Road and other havens for backpackers still bustling.”
Keep on, keepin’ on, backpackers!
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Yahoo! BuzzIn Thailand, Visit ‘Moscow in the Tropics’
by Michael Yessis | 06.23.09 | 11:22 AM ET
Here’s another intriguing story about the rise of the Russian traveler, this one about luxury travelers descending on the “neon beacon of sleaze” that is Pattaya, Thailand.
Writes Patrick Winn in GlobalPost:
Russians have helped revitalize Pattaya, first transformed into raunchy nightspot decades ago by Vietnam War-era U.S. troops. The city has since seen its ups and downs, but now it has a new look. Pattaya abounds with Cyrillic signs advertising scuba shops, restaurants and bars. There’s even an all-Russian local TV station.
Last June, the New York Times put a piece about newly prosperous Russian travelers hitting the road on its front page.
Finding Trouble in Asia: Let Us Count the Ways
by Julia Ross | 06.09.09 | 4:31 PM ET
Is it me, or has it been a surreal few months for Americans in Asia? Guidebook writers and State Department travel monitors, take note: a few new travel “don’ts” have entered the lexicon. To recap, here’s what we know not to do next time we journey East.
Asia’s Food Vendors: A Plus for Work-Family Balance
by Julia Ross | 05.28.09 | 1:38 PM ET
I’m not a parent, but I’ve sympathized with two sisters and plenty of friends who bemoan the constant time stresses on working parents with young kids. Grocery shopping and cooking rank high among parental time-sucks, of course, so a Thai curator’s recent comment to the New York Times that Bangkok’s ubiquitous food carts “provide a vital support system to people who work, especially couples with children” got me wondering about the benefits of raising kids in Asia.
Interview With Lawrence Osborne: ‘Bangkok Days’
by Frank Bures | 05.27.09 | 11:10 AM ET
Photo by Christopher Wise Frank Bures asks the author about why Thailand is so hard to capture in words and why its sex trade isn't really about sex
Expat Tales: Wanderers, Starving Artists and Dissolutes
by Julia Ross | 05.06.09 | 3:10 PM ET
Novelist Malcolm Pryce rounds up his top 10 expat tales with heavy representation from Asia and the Pacific: novels and journals on Vietnam, Thailand, Tahiti and Sri Lanka make the cut.
Eurocentrics will appreciate Pryce’s inclusion of the Thomas Cook European Railway Timetable, but, for Asia travelers, the money quote can be found in his description of Bangkok: “The city is, in fact, a combine harvester for the ex-pat male heart.” Something tells me that line will come to mind next time I’m walking through Patpong.
Sneeze Your Way to Savings?
by Alexander Basek | 05.01.09 | 1:33 PM ET
Remember when I told you guys how many deals there were to be had in Thailand? Well, the Practical Traveler now reports they’re even better thanks to the unrest there. If you don’t mind a little protesting, then run for the savings! The Anantara properties Michelle mentions, particularly at the Golden Triangle, are some of the nicest in the country.
Same goes for travel and the SCHWEINE-GRIPPE—I use the German term for swine flu because it sounds much scarier that way.
Eight Great Stories of Beaches, Islands, Travel and the Tropics
by World Hum | 04.30.09 | 10:31 AM ET
To mark our eighth anniversary, we've collected eight favorite stories from our archives that celebrate and explore travel at land's end
Interview with Newley Purnell: On Bangkok’s Political Crisis and Travel to Thailand
by Julia Ross | 04.20.09 | 5:04 PM ET
Bangkok is still reeling from the violent “red shirt” protests that swept the city last week. Though protesters surrendered to the government on Tuesday, an assassination attempt against a prominent protest leader on Friday kept Thais on edge. Several countries, including Britain, Australia and China, issued warnings against travel to Thailand last week, and a state of emergency remains in effect.
I emailed Bangkok-based journalist and World Hum contributor Newley Purnell to get his take on the situation and its impact on local tourism.
Given the Dire Economy, Should I Travel Overseas This Year?
by Rolf Potts | 04.20.09 | 10:12 AM ET
Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel and the world
Dhani Tackles Poetry: ‘The Punch’
by Dhani Jones | 03.16.09 | 12:31 PM ET
Thom Stukas/Travel Channel, L.L.C. NFL linebacker and Renaissance man Dhani Jones hosts the new Travel Channel show, Dhani Tackles the Globe.
Like any good Renaissance man, he’ll be writing poems inspired by the travel experiences featured on each show.
The topic of tonight’s premiere: Muay Thai in Thailand.
The Punch
I begin with a journey a magnificent tourney around the globe to stop and see the sights ...
An inviting aroma of new things to discover a world to uncover never turning off the lights ...
It’s a challenge I tell you, to step
I beg you, into the ring I go, for the first not the last but the beginning it is for forty some odd days I will live ...
It’s the first some might say the last others might insist ...
It’s just that time ...
It’s that movement that caught you that spirit that bought you for me to unwind ...
Time and time again I just bob and weave, bob and weave and use what was given a chance to prove what was inside ...
Here’s a man
Here’s a man with the thoughts of a man that I am
Here’s a man living in a heartbeat of time trying to escape the breath and design
Up elbow, right elbow, left elbow, right kick ...
Down elbow, left kick, right punch, left hit ...
A plethora of ideas of power it takes, to control and direct to the right space it must not break ...
It must not disgrace, it must not let down for the eyes are watching me from all around ...
I’ve heard my name spoken not once not twice but the third time around ...
I heard my name ringing in my head when I looked around ...
I realized it was me repeating it time and time again ...
I realize it was me who was getting punched not them ...
On to the bell with great strides I took and put forth all the effort and with pride I was not shook ...
It was my time to use all that I was taught and leverage my voice and my mind for the ultimate thought ...
I must conquer ...
I must live ...
I must set forth to understand and give ...
Of myself and those around me ...
And if one punch I must take, I will take and not break but he who gives shall receive and with ease I decree that this moment ...
I will stand and deliver, bend not fold, yet tell the stories untold ...
I will finish what I started and finish I did ...
Ayutthaya, Thailand
by World Hum | 03.13.09 | 11:18 AM ET
REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang Elephants chow down at Ayutthaya Elephant Palace & Royal Kraal during Thailand's National Elephant Day.
Morning Links: Bowie’s Clown Suit, Cute Penguin Overload and More
by Valerie Conners | 03.10.09 | 8:54 AM ET
- Take a gander at Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes” clown suit, or Jarvis Cocker’s glasses at London’s new British Music Experience, documenting 60 years of Brit pop and rock.
- West Virginia’s governor makes it his mission to save the state’s image, and let you know W.V.‘s got more to offer tourists than the Road Kill Cook-Off.
- Intelligent Travel offers a Q&A with Chris Way, cofounder of Reality Tours and Travel, a company specializing in slum tourism in India.
- One woman is dead and six others are missing after a tourist boat capsizes off Thailand’s Similan Islands.
- Take a listen to Nine Road Trip Songs You Never Heard Before—a catchy mix of Asian travel songs. (via nerdseyeview)
- World Hum blogger Alexander Basek visits Nashville and returns full of excellent tips on where to hear live music and ... Goo-Goo Clusters.
- I’m getting a serious case of cute overload as Andrew Evans reveals the best places to see penguins.
Sawasdee, Golden Arches
by Julia Ross | 03.03.09 | 12:35 PM ET
Anyone who has frequented a suburban swimming pool or beach resort on the East Coast in recent summers should be familiar, by now, with the sound of consonant-heavy Eastern European accents piercing the salt air. That’s because thousands of college students from places like Moldova and Ukraine arrive each year to work summer gigs as lifeguards, waitresses or hotel clerks under the increasingly popular J-1 student visa program.
Now comes word that the next big J-1 wave could be from Thailand. GlobalPost reports that large numbers of Thai students have begun securing summer visas to work at U.S. fast food joints, with McDonald’s emerging as the workplace of choice. The story portrays the students as single-minded in their endeavor, trudging dutifully to the local Mickey D’s in unglamorous locales like Pittsburgh and Mobile, determined to parlay foreign work experience into hospitality-related jobs back in Bangkok. I hope they’re working in some fun as well. If the Serbian kids who staffed my sister’s pool outside Washington, D.C., last summer are any indication, I’d advise the Thais to consult their Eastern European counterparts on the finer points of letting loose.
I’m not in McDonald’s often (maybe twice a year), but I’ll keep an eye out this summer to see if the trend has reached the nation’s capital.
Making Tracks to Laos
by Julia Ross | 03.02.09 | 1:31 PM ET
Who says there are no new frontiers to cross? The Guardian reports that the first rail line into Laos is set to open Friday, connecting Nong Khai,Thailand, to the village of Tha na Lang, over a newly built bridge crossing the Mekong river. From Tha na Lang, it’s a 20-mile hop up to Vientiane, by bus or tuk-tuk, creating a new overland route from Bangkok to the Laotian capital. Laos has been on my list for a long time, so this is extra enticement to go, and the Thailand part of the route holds extra allure because it wends through the relatively untouristed (for now) Isaan region.
Maybe this is one train journey I’ll get to before Paul Theroux.
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