Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Are Burma’s Ruins the Next Disney World?
by Terry Ward | 09.07.06 | 8:58 PM ET
Burma (or Myanmar) has long been on my list of dream destinations. And urgings from fellow travelers to get there sooner rather than later are resonating all the louder after reading a frightening yet fascinating piece in today’s Los Angeles Times. In a country notoriously corrupt and cut off from the rest of the world, some of the greatest ruins on the planet—the temple complex at the ancient city of Bagan—are at serious risk of turning into a “temple theme park,” writes Richard C. Paddock. And this is no mousy attempt at attracting tourists.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzHow Corrupt is Your Country? Try Counting Your Diplomats’ Parking Tickets.
by Michael Yessis | 09.06.06 | 2:41 PM ET
That’s what economists Ray Fisman and Edward Miguel did. In what The Undercover Economist author Tim Harford called “a flash of inspiration,” Fisman and Miguel decided to see which countries’ diplomats at the United Nations in New York racked up the most parking tickets. They reasoned that, because diplomatic immunity put the diplomats in a consequence-free environment, it would be a great experiment to measure personal morality on a country-by-country basis.
Liam and Noel Gallagher Plan Oasis-Themed Hotel Chain
by Michael Yessis | 09.06.06 | 7:15 AM ET
The famously mercurial brothers behind the band Oasis are reportedly pitching a hotel chain in the United States to be called Supernova Heights, which will feature rooms based on their songs. “All around the World,” for instance, might have a travel theme. And maybe the “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” suite will allow visitors to make like Liam and Noel, drinking copious alcohol and having obnoxious spats with their traveling companions. As for what the “Wonderwall” room might look like, your guess is as good as ours. Life Style Extra reports that many of the brothers’ ideas are not sitting well with investors: “Their plan to install alcohol and cigarettes in every room of their New York hotel, in honour of their track ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ has gone down like a lead balloon because so many people are anti-smoking.” Look for the hotels by the end of 2007. Definitely maybe.
Tourist Map Puts Argentina-Chile Relations On Edge
by Michael Yessis | 09.06.06 | 6:41 AM ET
It’s an icy chunk of land at the bottom of the continent, and Argentina and Chile both want it. Or at least some of it. But which country actually gets it has been in dispute since 1998, when the governments of Argentina and Chile stated that a disputed border area in the Andes Southern Ice Field would be depicted as blank until the two countries reached an agreement about where the boundaries should be drawn. All remained calm—and blank—until Argentina recently produced a tourist map with the disputed area within its borders. Chile didn’t like that, so it registered an official complaint with Argentina. According to a MercoPress piece, the countries are trying to minimize the episode. However, a Reuters story says that the incident has inflamed already tense relations between the countries.
Rethinking the ‘Ugly American’
by Michael Yessis | 09.05.06 | 8:24 AM ET
Americans may not want to be so quick to sew those Canadian flags on their backpacks. Trying to avoid being the proverbial ugly American isn’t such an easy task. In fact, even attempting to do so can be “naïvely patronizing,” according to an interesting essay by Ann Hulbert in the New York Times magazine. “The pursuit of private diplomacy rests on the opposite innocent illusion: just tone down crass Americans’ noisy cultural differences from others, and political and economic harmony can follow,” she writes. “But what if Americans have no monopoly on brashness and don’t really rate any longer as the overweening cultural trendsetters our demonizers, and we, reflexively assume?”
New China-Tibet Train Derails
by Jim Benning | 08.31.06 | 3:31 PM ET
Reports Reuters via the New York Times: “One of China’s new trains to Tibet, the world’s highest railway, derailed, disrupting the line for five hours and delaying thousands of passengers, state news media said. No one was injured. Malfunctioning signal and switching equipment was said to be the cause. It was the first mishap on the rail system, which reaches altitudes of 16,400 feet above sea level, since it began operating July 1.” Also, earlier this month, a 77-year-old tourist from Hong Kong died of altitude sickness while aboard the train.
The Universal Language of Karaoke
by Michael Yessis | 08.31.06 | 8:23 AM ET
For immigrants in the United States, karaoke sounds like home. Today’s Washington Post has a fantastic story today about the immigrant karaoke scene around Washington D.C. “In the Washington suburbs, where this Salvadoran-Mexican restaurant sits next to a Vietnamese deli, karaoke transcends borders,” Karin Brulliard writes. “At hole-in-the-wall cafes and crowded bars, song lists come in Filipino and Korean and Spanish and Chinese, allowing laymen of all tongues to unleash their inner singers.” Drinks and laughter and bonding are the core elements of the experience, and Brulliard finds a theme in the songs a lot of immigrants choose. “Songs are steeped in memory and distance,” Brulliard writes. “And many are about heartbreak.”
Transsexual to Norway: I Want Two Passports
by Michael Yessis | 08.31.06 | 8:08 AM ET
A Norweigan man is arguing that he needs two passports because “traveling as a woman leads to considerable problems when one’s passport photo depicts a man,” according to Aftenposten. We’ll give the guy credit for at least one thing: Unlike many Americans, at least he wants a passport.
China, Taiwan to Officially Discuss Opening Island to Mainland Tourists
by Michael Yessis | 08.30.06 | 2:09 PM ET
After years of back-channel talks, China and Taiwan will officially sit down this September to discuss removing the ban on travel from the Chinese mainland to the Island, according to an Asia Times story by Ting-I Tsai. The potential talks come after China’s founding of the Cross-Strait Tourism Association, and Taiwan’s development of the Taiwan Strait Traveling and Tourism Association, two ostensibly private organizations created to handle the negotiations. China, a rising tourist power, currently allows its citizens to travel to just 81 countries, according to the Times.
‘We Will Not Be Silent’ T-Shirt Causes Stir at JFK*
by Michael Yessis | 08.30.06 | 8:11 AM ET
Raed Jarrar says he was forced to remove a T-shirt with the words “We will not be silent” in both Arabic and English before boarding a Jet Blue flight from New York to California earlier this month. According to a BBC report, Jarrar was told “a number of passengers had complained about his T-shirt—apparently concerned at what the Arabic phrase meant—and asked him to remove it.” Jarrar first refused, then, according to his blog post about the incident, he wore a grey T-shirt with the words “New York” bought for him by a Jet Blue representative.
‘Snakes on a Plane’: The Reality TV Show?
by Michael Yessis | 08.30.06 | 6:47 AM ET
This casting call, which recently appeared on Craigslist, can’t possibly be real: “Synopsis: 20 contestants (10 male/10 female) travel by commercial aircraft to 10 different cities around the world. With the crew and pilots secure, the contestants will share the cabin area with 200 snakes. 5 of the 200 are poisonous. Each flight will be between 5 -12 hours in length. The reward at the end of each flight will be a day spent in luxury visiting the exotic destination city. Contestants can then choose to fly 3 friends out and extend their visit for week, all expense paid OR get back on the flight for the next leg of the competition. If at any time a contestant is bit by any of the 5 poisonous snake, antivenom will be administered and they will be eliminated.” Then again, maybe reality-show producers—and some potential contestants—are that dumb.
Potts: “I’m Struck By How Much Travel Has Changed Since 1994”
by Michael Yessis | 08.29.06 | 8:06 AM ET
Twelve years ago Rolf Potts set out on his first long-term excursion, an eight-month road trip through the United States and Canada. “I navigated with paper maps, got my information from a single Let’s Go: USA guidebook, and met people at random,” he writes in his latest Yahoo! Traveling Light column. Now, with GPS and Lonely Planet on PlayStation Portable and CouchSurfing and TripAdvisor and more travel-planning information available online than anyone could possibly read, travel has evolved. But it’s not necessarily less “pure.”
Tom Haines: Reflections From an Interactive Journey Through New England
by Michael Yessis | 08.29.06 | 6:47 AM ET
Last week, we promised to check in with Boston Globe writer Tom Haines after he finished up his experiment with interactive travel writing. Upon his return home, I asked him a few questions via e-mail:
How did you like the interactive travel experience?
I enjoyed it—more of a conversation with readers than a monologue. This is perhaps obvious, but even something as simple as people suggesting where to go changed my perception of what I was doing. I was there at their suggestion, as though I were invited in, shepherded in, rather than making my own way. Beyond that, little else changed, in that once on the road, or in a place, I still made my focus that which I try to bring to all my travel writing: finding incidents and moments that speak to bigger situations, that give a new perspective on a place. Trying to show things in a way people may not otherwise see them.
“The Amazing Race” Wins Emmy (Again) for Best Reality Program
by Michael Yessis | 08.28.06 | 1:19 PM ET
Travel books never seem to win the National Book Award, and travel-related movies are rarely honored with an Academy Award. The Emmys, however, love travel television. Travel-related reality television, at least. Last night The Amazing Race—a show we at World Hum have mixed feelings about—took home the Emmy for best reality show for the fourth consecutive year.
Travel During Wartime
by Frank Bures | 08.28.06 | 6:59 AM ET
War may not be so good for children and other living things, but it sure clears out the tourists. So writes Kevin Rushby in The Guardian. Rushby is the author of the fantastic travel book, Eating the Flowers of Paradise, about the khat road though Ethiopia and Yemen, which I read when I was reporting on the drug’s use in the U.S. “The unfortunate truth about fear, tension or fighting,” he wrote in last week’s Guardian, “is that there are benefits to be had in neighbouring areas. That may be as simple as having few fellow visitors at great sites like Iran’s old Persian capital of Persepolis, or Jordan’s rose-red Petra -both badly affected by current troubles.”
