Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Illegal Pumping Threatens Angkor Wat
by Eva Holland | 09.28.10 | 4:35 PM ET
The Guardian’s Ben Doherty reports from Siem Reap, where the Angkor Wat temple complex is facing yet another threat. Doherty explains:
Unchecked development, and the widespread, unregulated pumping of groundwater throughout Siem Reap city, has raised concerns that the temples, including the world’s largest religious monument, Angkor Wat, could crack or crumble if too much water is drained away.
The temples and towers of the 402-square-kilometre Angkor site sit on a base of sand, kept firm by a constant supply of groundwater that rises and falls with the seasons, but which is now being used to supply a burgeoning city.
With the number of visitors to the northern Cambodian province approaching 2 million a year, increasing pressure is being put on the scarce water resource.
Thousands of illegal private pumps have been sunk across the city, pulling millions of litres of water from the ground each day.
There’s a report in the works that is expected to outline some possible water solutions for the area.
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Yahoo! BuzzAfter the Nashville Flood: Grand Ole Opry House Reopens
by Eva Holland | 09.28.10 | 2:15 PM ET
USA Today has video from the restored venue, which opens its doors again tonight for the first time since Nashville’s disastrous spring flooding. The Grand Ole Opry itself stayed on the airwaves—as it has since 1925—broadcasting from other, undamaged locations around the city while its home received a $20 million renovation. Says longtime Opry member Marty Stuart: “It was time for a freshening up, so on the silver side of the flood, it’s like, ‘Thanks, God, for the flood and the insurance check.’”
World Hum columnist Tom Swick made it to one of those relocated Opry broadcasts, at the Ryman Auditorium, this summer. He wrote:
There was still the homey banter and the chummy words from sponsors, the easy mixing of newcomers and old-timers. A student at the New England Conservatory (playing fiddle and singing) followed Jack Greene (singing “Statue of a Fool”). As natural as this assemblage of young and old seemed—conscious preservation of the unbroken circle—it constituted something rarely seen in popular music today.
World Hum Writers Honored in ‘The Best American Travel Writing 2010’
by Eva Holland | 09.28.10 | 1:07 PM ET
The latest edition of The Best American Travel Writing, edited this time by Granta founder Bill Buford, lands in bookstores today. Four World Hum stories were included in the notable selections: On the Perils of Travel Writing, by David Farley; Where no Travel Writer has Gone Before, by Rolf Potts; and Cycling India’s Wildest Highway and Face-off on the Congo, both by Jeffrey Tayler.
Several World Hum contributors, writing elsewhere, were also honored in this year’s collection: Tom Bissell and Peter Hessler had stories included, while Leigh Ann Henion, Pico Iyer, Tony Perrottet, Emily Stone and Christopher Vourlias were among the notable selections. Congrats, all.
National Geographic: Now Available in Arabic
by Eva Holland | 09.27.10 | 3:32 PM ET
The venerable magazine is launching an Arabic-language edition this week. Speaking to the AP, the new edition’s editor, Mohamed al-Hammadi, “expressed hope it would give Arab readers a deeper understanding of the planet and how others live.” (Via The Book Bench)
A Tourist Goes to Church in Harlem
by Eva Holland | 09.27.10 | 2:50 PM ET
Slate writer Jeremy Stahl set aside his discomfort “at the prospect of joining other underdressed white gawkers observing how ‘locals’ pray” and headed north of 96th St. in Manhattan on a Sunday morning. The resulting dispatch is a thought-provoking read. Here’s Stahl setting the scene at Greater Highway Deliverance Temple:
When the music started, the usher who had greeted us began dancing up and down the aisle. The congregation stood up and started to clap and sway. One tourist pantomimed the drumming and imitated the dancing in what looked like an attempt to impress two female friends. The choir performed “I Came To Praise the Lord,” and the lyrics—“I don’t know what you came to do, I came to kneel and pray”—stung almost like a collective rebuke. At one point, a church leader declared the “visitor” count for the day’s service at 147, listed the represented countries, and told us “thank God for each and every one of you”—even, I suppose, the dozing Japanese woman to my left.
When we were back on the bus, our tour guide, Sheila, asked if anyone had any questions. There was just one: “They weren’t offended?”
Las Vegas Bets on ‘Real’ Architecture
by Michael Yessis | 09.27.10 | 11:34 AM ET
Las Vegas, Paul Goldberger notes in the New Yorker, “has started to feel a little uncomfortable about its reputation as a place where developers spend billions of dollars on funny buildings.” That feeling helped inspire the latest over-the-top Vegas production. Goldberger writes:
The complex is called CityCenter, and it is the biggest construction project in the history of Las Vegas. It has three hotels, two condominium towers, a shopping mall, a convention center, a couple of dozen restaurants, a private monorail, and a casino. There was to have been a fourth hotel, whose opening has been delayed indefinitely. But even without it the project contains nearly eighteen million square feet of space, the equivalent of roughly six Empire State Buildings. “We wanted to create an urban space that would expand our center of gravity,” Jim Murren, the chairman of the company, told me. Murren, an art and architecture buff who studied urban planning in college and wrote his undergraduate thesis on the design of small urban parks, oversaw the selection of architects, and the result is a kind of gated community of glittering starchitect ambition. There are major buildings by Daniel Libeskind, Rafael Viñoly, Helmut Jahn, Pelli Clarke Pelli, Kohn Pedersen Fox, and Norman Foster; and interiors by Peter Marino, Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis, Bentel and Bentel, and AvroKO. There are also prominent sculptures by Maya Lin, Nancy Rubins, and Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. “The idea I wanted to convey was to bring smarter planning to the development process in Las Vegas, to expand our boundaries of knowledge,” Murren told me. “Las Vegas is always looked down upon. CityCenter is a counterpoint to the kitschiness.”
Goldberger doesn’t believe the project succeeds.
Paparazzi Fishing at the Baggage Claim
by Jim Benning | 09.27.10 | 10:47 AM ET
The Los Angeles Times covers the work habits of celebrity photographers who camp out at LAX:
If tips are scarce, photographers make their own luck by “fishing”—strolling the terminal baggage claims and entrances for shots. Airport paparazzi scour crowds less for actual famous people than for signs that actual famous people are about to appear. A shiny black Escalade with tinted windows. A muscle-bound man with an earpiece. And, above all, the “star greeter,” hired by movie studios and other companies to whisk VIPs through lines at the airport. Airport photographers tend to memorize the greeters’ faces, walks, wardrobes and client lists.
What We Loved This Week: E.B. White, Calexico and ‘Metro Song’
by World Hum | 09.24.10 | 5:57 PM ET
Eva Holland
I loved E.B. White’s 1948 essay, Here is New York. My favorite sequence:
Australian Chef: Thai Cuisine is ‘Decaying’
by Eva Holland | 09.24.10 | 3:43 PM ET
Them’s fighting words. The chef in question, David Thompson, is responsible for London’s Michelin-starred Thai restaurant, Nahm, and now he’s “striving for authenticity” at a Nahm branch in Bangkok, too. The Thai reaction has been predictably indignant. The New York Times explains:
Cooking is profoundly wound up with Thailand’s identity. Many recipes were tested and refined in royal palaces. And Thais often spend a good share of their day talking about this or that dish they tried; a common greeting is, “Have you eaten yet?”
Mr. Thompson’s quest for authenticity is perceived by some Thais as a provocation, a pair of blue eyes striding a little too proudly into the temple of Thai cuisine. Foreigners cannot possibly master the art of cooking Thai food, many Thais say, because they did not grow up wandering through vast, wet markets filled with the cornucopia of Thai produce, or pulling at the apron strings of grandmothers and maids who imparted the complex and subtle balance of ingredients required for the perfect curry or chili paste. Foreigners, Thais believe, cannot stomach the spices that fire the best Thai dishes.
Free Admission This Saturday at all National Parks
by Eva Holland | 09.24.10 | 9:38 AM ET
The latest in a series of fee-free days falls this Saturday at all 392 U.S. national parks. Enjoy. (Via Arthur Frommer)
Lost Luggage Mishap Helps Sink Drug Ring
by Eva Holland | 09.23.10 | 3:50 PM ET
Twenty-two people have been charged with conspiring to shift cocaine from California to Pennsylvania by domestic air carrier—and it looks like a misdirected luggage incident may have helped bring them down. From the AP:
Ruben Mitchell, of Stockton, Calif., lost track of more than 40 pounds of cocaine in a misdirected piece of luggage during a Pittsburgh-bound Southwest Airlines Inc. flight last year, prosecutors said.
Mitchell had the drugs in a carry-on bag when he boarded the flight on Feb. 19, 2009, but a flight attendant put the bag in the plane’s cargo hold because it wouldn’t fit in an overhead luggage compartment, they said. The bag then was mistakenly unloaded during a layover in Las Vegas, and Mitchell later filed a lost-baggage claim for it after arriving in Pittsburgh, they said.
What’s next? Bank robbers’ getaway foiled by tarmac stranding? Counterfeiters snared by $7 blanket fee?
Paris Hilton Channels Paul McCartney in Japan
by Eva Holland | 09.22.10 | 5:15 PM ET
Yep, the heiress followed in some famous footsteps today when she was denied entry to Japan because of a U.S. drug conviction.
As Gawker’s Jeff Neumann points out, she’s now a member of a rather elite travel club: “She joins Wings-era Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones on Japan’s list of druggie deportees.”
I hope she enjoys the moment—judging by this music video, she won’t likely see her name alongside McCartney’s and Jagger’s again anytime soon.
Tony Blair Calls for Cooperation on Holy Land Tourism
by Eva Holland | 09.22.10 | 2:24 PM ET
The former British Prime Minister thinks that Israel and the West Bank are due for a “major joint marketing campaign” to promote the region’s many holy sites. Speaking at Conde Nast Traveler’s World Savers Congress, Blair suggested that tourism—and the revenue potential it offers—could be a “huge support” to the peace process in the area.
Middle East peace through biblical bus tours? Seems like it’d be worth a shot.
Jason Wilson Thought He Heard the Sound of the Apocalypse
by Michael Yessis | 09.22.10 | 12:22 PM ET
The series editor of the Best American Travel Writing anthology details the unlikely moment in his new book, Boozehound. The Washington Post has an excerpt, and the moment in question goes like this:
I was chatting with a beautiful, sexy friend who wrote for a magazine that covers luxury spa vacations. She got that job, in part, because she wrote a travel book about bathing culture that one critic claimed “bred a new publishing hybrid, the beauty-travel memoir, Bruce Chatwin by way of Allure magazine.”
As we chatted, I shared some good news with her: I had just been hired to write a column for this newspaper about spirits and cocktails.
You should really meet my friend,” she told me. “He’s the perfume critic at the Times.”
“Really?” I replied. “Let me just see if I’m hearing this correctly. The luxury spa columnist would like the spirits columnist to meet the perfume columnist?”
Yes, she said, with a beautiful, sexy smile.
Wait, I said. Did you just hear that?
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I thought for just a second that I heard the sound of the Apocalypse.”
The entire excerpt is a great dispatch from the front lines of lifestyle journalism.
Paris Offers Free Sparkling Water
by Michael Yessis | 09.22.10 | 11:52 AM ET
In one public water fountain, in a wooden hut, in the Jardin de Reuilly. The Guardian explains:
France’s addiction to bottled sparkling water is up there with its penchant for bike racing, foie gras and Johnny Hallyday. Now, authorities in Paris are attempting to fight back against the national dependence by unveiling a public water fountain that gushes with chilled bubbles.
La Pétillante - literally, she who sparkles - is the first fountain in France to inject carbon dioxide into tap water before cooling it and serving it up to passers-by. Inaugurated today in the Jardin de Reuilly in south-east Paris, it is expected to prove a user-friendly means of weaning the French off the bottle.
France pinched the idea from Italy, which already has 215 sparkling water fountains.
