Travel Blog
On Board “Flying Carpet Airlines”
by Michael Yessis | 01.19.05 | 10:08 PM ET
Flying Carpet Airlines? “As Commander Queeg said in The Caine Mutiny, ‘I kid thee not,’” writes Robert Fisk in the Independent U.K. “It says ‘Flying Carpet’ on the little blue boarding cards, below the captain’s cabin and on the passenger headrest covers where the aircraft can be seen gliding through the sky on a high-pile carpet.” Fisk tried out the airline’s Beirut-to-Baghdad service last week. His full story can be found at truthout.org.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzWelcome to Swagland
by Michael Yessis | 01.19.05 | 10:05 PM ET
It’s not a destination, but “a wondrous alternate universe concocted by publicists, funded by corporations eager for media coverage of their wares and frequented by journalists who have cast off concerns about conflicts of interest and embraced a new creed of conspicuous consumption,” writes Los Angeles Times magazine. And who are some of the major visitors to Swagland? Travel writers. Weddle offers an uncommonly deep examination of swag—an acronym for “stolen without a gun” or “sh*t we all get”—with a special nod to the travel junket. “The junket gives travel bureaus, resorts and hotels the biggest bang for their buck, far more than they could get by taking out ads in major magazines or newspapers,” he writes. “Full-page ads in national magazines run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In contrast, it might cost a grand to fly a writer to a hotel or resort for a weekend junket, and the results are far more effective.”
Greenwald Goes to Sri Lanka
by Jim Benning | 01.12.05 | 10:10 PM ET
Travel writer Jeff Greenwald, who is working with a relief organization to aid tsunami victims, filed a report from Arugam Bay for Salon.com. “Prior to the tsunami, Arugam Bay was considered one of the 10 best surf spots in the world; the British held their surfing championships here in 2003,” he writes. “Aside from a thriving tourism industry, the community included thousands of fishermen and their families. But the three waves of December’s tsunami struck this region with apocalyptic force, killing an estimated 3,000 people, flattening the fishing villages, and turning the strand of beachside hotels and restaurants into a scene of Hiroshima-like ruin.” Note: If you’re not a Salon subscriber, you’ll have to endure a short commercial to read the story. I watched an ad for a Salon.com celebrity Caribbean cruise: “Balmy breezes. Sizzling seminars. Lasting friendships.”
A Winter’s Tale
by | 01.11.05 | 8:05 PM ET
In a wash of gray, a treeless lava field melded into the sky as the weak sun crept below the sea. The four-hour day was closing and a handful of American tourists on a tour bus with me gazed dully out the windows, clearly less than enchanted with wintertime Iceland.
Our minder, Osk Vilhjalmsdottir, was trying to engage the gang by recounting some folk legends. Among these were the malevolent Christmas Cat, who inexplicably eats people if they don’t get gifts, and the huldufolk—the “hidden people” who live invisibly on certain mountains and occasionally appear out of some parallel dimension to seduce hapless humans to come to The Other Side.
You recognize the huldufolk this way, she said: “They look exactly like us, except they’re much more beautiful.”
This incongruous statement didn’t prod the other tourists out of their listlessness—they didn’t perk up until Osk mentioned the bus could drop us off at the shopping mall.
But I couldn’t get it out of my mind and it still dogged me an hour later as the rest of the bus debarked at the mall, some of the women chuckling as if they were doing something clever and risque.
These cryptic words were exactly what I wanted from Iceland, why I’d come when the country is locked in darkness. Ever since Iceland popped up in my 4th-grade geography book, I’d been infatuated, feeling that information I needed to know was held somewhere in its remote, austere expanse. The book’s single sentence on how Reykjavik is heated by scalding water from the Earth’s core hinted at primal power more thrilling than my suburban life of tract houses and finicky flowerbeds had led me to expect.
At age 9, I didn’t know the word “epiphany,” but I knew that’s what I hoped was waiting for me in Iceland.
Thirty-odd years later I made two summertime trips there. Although I was delighted—the play of subtly changing round-the-clock light on the severe mountains; sheep grazing near thin, shining waterfalls; steam shooting from cracks in the earth—I’d left each time gnawed by the sense that I’d somehow missed its essence, the galvanizing moment.
Every couple of months I’d dream of Iceland, seeing it riding on the horizon and feeling it to be unreachable. The sense that I couldn’t get to a place I’d already been to puzzled me; what was I doing wrong?
Maybe I’d just held a childhood fancy embarrassingly long into adulthood. Or I’d misunderstood what travel, even as a tourist, is supposed to be about—should I have gone to Iceland with the aim of disinterested learning rather than hoping to be enraptured?
This maundering led nowehere and I concocted a theory as a way out: I’d erred by visiting Iceland in its most benign season; to reach a country’s emotional core maybe one needs to visit in its most difficult conditions, the weather that placed the greatest challenge on its people to be inventive and cooperative. So I headed off in the depths of December for one more try at the Iceland I yearned for.
Osk’s elliptical comment on my first day there seemed like a promising indication that my theory was sound. In subsequent days, as I explored without a clot of other tourists in tow, my confidence rose.
I began to regard Osk’s strange tales as realistic accounts rather than fancy: winter Iceland is shot through with agreeable eeriness.
For Advent, Icelanders place red-lighted crosses at cemetery graves, so the fields of the dead have a warm and welcoming aura while nearby white-lighted houses of the living seem cold and lonesome. A snow-caked dog stands in an empty field, wagging its tail at something unseen. The chill sky stays black for hours, then rips open in swirling spears of orange and purple and green—the aurora borealis.
In the few hours of daylight, the air is so clear that far-off mountains seem just a few blocks away, like the truncated distances one experiences in dreams. Even hip, high-tech Reykjavik was uncanny in December. The simple lines of its trim white buildings stood out against the obsidian night as precisely as an etching, and seeing people move on the street was like watching an architectural drawing come to life.
All of this was amid profound stillness, as if the silence of Iceland’s empty center was flowing out into the coastal settlements.
By the time I left for the northern town of Akureyri, I was enthralled with the otherworldly atmosphere and ready to believe anything. Though when I arrived, I didn’t believe I’d made a smart move.
Akureyri’s boosters brag that it is Iceland’s second-biggest city. What they avoid mentioning is that it has just 15,000 people. The only cinema was showing films so stupid that even I, who enjoyed “Dude, Where’s My Car?”, couldn’t see coughing up money for them—especially since movies, like everything else in the country, cost a bundle.
Going to a bar, my reliable default strategy when at loose ends, seemed unwise: in Iceland, “happy hour” means a glass of beer drops to about US$8. Life didn’t look promising, and the next bus out didn’t leave for two days.
The next day, lacking other ideas, I headed for the edge of town, where a fine path appeared, along the lower edge of a range of flat-topped mountains that rippled back from a fjord toward Iceland’s vast, uninhabited center.
Wind-driven slate clouds seethed over the mountains toward me, but swerved abruptly before reaching me, leaving blue sky above and the air perfectly still around me, as if a spell had been cast. I walked a couple of hours, not just killing time anymore but pulled by the sense that something was waiting for me in the interior: a chapel, a cup of tea at a peaceful hut, a loyal dog.
The feeling was amorphous but intense, like a teenager’s belief in true love. If there had been a soundtrack, it would have been a choir holding a single tonic chord.
The sky slid from turquoise to amethyst en route to black; going further would be romantic but foolish, heading back would be prudent but spiritless. A rock padded with moss made a nice place to sit and figure out a compromise.
Taking photos seemed right: I could do the safe thing and return to town, knowing that I’d have lovely pictures to look at that would someday spur me to come back and take the trail to its real end.
Up the fjord loomed a mountain whose shoulder wore a stole of white cloud; the mountain I would aim to reach someday. But when I checked my digital camera’s screen after clicking the shutter, the mountain wasn’t on it. A couple of adjustments didn’t help.
True, it was a second-rate camera in the hands of a third-rate shooter—but still, missing a 2,000-foot mass of rock seemed like more than incompetence. The accumulated oddities of the day spooked me—the storm that never came, the silent siren call, the elusive mountain—and I began to worry about a question I’d failed to ask Osk: How do you know if you’re on one of the mountains where the huldufolk work their wiles?
A soft scraping noise broke through the hush, and another, and in moments a woman came running out of the empty mountains in just shorts and a halter despite the freezing air and in another instant she zoomed out of sight. Although she’d be judged as homely by a guy prowling in a bar, she was extraordinary out here: strong, with an easy stride and a luminous smile as she relished her gracefulness.
They look exactly like us, except they’re much more beautiful.
Her passing was so quick, I didn’t even think to try to snap a photo. All to the better: If she’d shown up in my camera, that would prove my thrill was just a spasm of overheated imagination.
Instead, I have the luxury of not knowing.
What I do know is that the dreams about being unable to reach Iceland haven’t come back.
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is a Moscow-based correspondent for The Associated Press. Photo courtesy of Jim Heintz.
Travel and the Tsunamis
by Jim Benning | 01.10.05 | 10:14 PM ET
The catastrophe in South Asia touched the lives of millions of people around the world, including countless travelers. It was natural that newspaper travel sections address it. Yet judging from my brief online survey, few did, beyond issuing the requisite travel warnings. Thomas Swick of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, for one, wrote a thoughtful essay. “Before the earthquake, the line was clear,” he wrote. “There were the people on vacation, and the people working to serve them…Then the earth shook and the sea rose up, washing away houses, boats, people, distinctions. Hotel guests and maids, greased sunbathers and barefoot vendors, the woman getting a massage and her masseuse—all were embroiled in the same grisly waves. According to reports, nearly half of the people killed in Thailand were foreigners.” Meanwhile, an essay I wrote appeared in the Boston Globe pointing to one small bright spot in the tragic story: Although travelers to developing nations often get a bad rap in the media for a number of reasons, many travelers who were in South Asia when the tsunamis struck quickly pitched in, carrying bodies, distributing aid and picking through rubble. Some have remained to offer assistance. “[T]heir willingness to help,” I wrote, “instead of immediately returning home or setting off for carefree climes demonstrates a fact that too often gets overlooked: Travelers are capable of great good.”
On the Dangers of Travel
by Michael Yessis | 01.10.05 | 10:13 PM ET
Is it really so strange that people are unafraid to travel, even with threats of terrorism, war, contagion and natural disaster lurking around the globe? We don’t think so, but Guy Trebay does. “[I]t is a surprise to learn how many people with the visa stamps and frequent-flier miles to qualify as bona fide global nomads still adhere to Helen Keller’s observation that ‘life is either a daring adventure or nothing,’” he writes in Sunday’s New York Times Fashion & Style section. “Trying to avoid danger may in the long run be no safer than outright exposure to danger, as Keller once famously remarked. In the aftermath of last month’s catastrophe it is startling to learn how many travelers treat Keller’s dictum as a rallying cry.” Trebay quotes several travelers on traveling to dangerous areas, including supermodel/actress Lauren Hutton. Her words of wisdom: “You never want to go into any war, and you always try to learn who’s been getting shot or hacked or whacked. You talk to everybody you can talk to, get the best maps and try to learn how to get out of wherever you got yourself in.”
She’s Fired
by Michael Yessis | 01.10.05 | 10:11 PM ET
Delta flight attendant Ellen Simonetti, known online as Queen of Sky, was recently fired for posting “inappropriate” pictures on her weblog, according to a BBC report. She wasn’t told exactly which images on her site caused the ruckus, but she believes it might have been these. She defends herself in a column on Cnet’s News.com.
Crossing Divides: The Bering Strait
by Jim Benning | 01.06.05 | 10:17 PM ET
The final story in Tom Haines’ four-part Boston Globe series, “Crossing Divides,” was published during our winter break. It was an eloquent end to an ambitious project. The article looked at the remote world of the Bering Strait and the people who live there. “After the ice age thaw,” Haines writes, “Chukchis, Inupiat, and other indigenous peoples crossed the strait freely in skin boats in summer. But in the 20th century, distant capitals, Moscow and Washington, split the Arctic into communist and capitalist lands, making a barrier of the border through the middle of the strait and changing forever how natives and newcomers on both sides live.” The installment also featured a fascinating look at how Haines and photographer Essdras Suarez navigated the region. “The strait crossing was made aboard a 9-seat propeller plane chartered for a flight from the coastal port town of Provideniya, Russia, to Nome,” he writes. “Passengers on board included an elderly Siberian Yupik couple traveling to visit relatives on St. Lawrence Island, in the Bering Sea, and a Russianborn anthropologist returning to Alaska after months of research on the traditional use of mushrooms in native culture.” Finally, the Globe created a handsome Web page for the entire series.
R.I.P. Susan Sontag
by Jim Benning | 01.06.05 | 9:18 PM ET
Everyone who cares knows by now that the novelist and essayist Susan Sontag died Dec. 28 at the age of 71. I’d read a number of her essays. In reading many of the reflections on her life over the last week, I was most surprised to learn that, in her early years, she had been moved by the travel writing of Richard Halliburton. Sontag never went on to do much in the way of conventional travel writing herself. I’d never heard of her talking much about the genre. But I imagine she had read The Royal Road to Romance, a Halliburton classic first published in 1925. In it, he writes of being inspired to travel by lines from Stony Brook’s “Dorian Gray.” Among them: “Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you. Be afraid of nothing.” Sontag was, it seemed, afraid of nothing. Her writing was fearless. It inspired and enraged. She will be sorely missed.
Travelers: “The New Rapid Reaction Relief Squads”
by Jim Benning | 01.04.05 | 10:20 PM ET
Like many, we spent time over the last week glued to reports of the damage caused by the tsunamis in South Asia. Our hearts go out to everyone affected: the countless locals who lost loved ones and whose lives have been turned upside down, and the friends and family members of travelers who perished. The news has been overwhelming. But we have been heartened to see the response from the online travel community, as well as from travelers themselves. Lonely Planet has created a board on its Thorn Tree section for those seeking news of friends and relatives, and it looks as though some information is getting back. The Ethical Traveler has posted a list of aid organizations who could benefit from donations. And there is news in the Independent of countless travelers who, instead of fleeing devastated areas, have actually sought them out, offering to help in any way they can. According to the report: “Hundreds of holidaymakers have arrived…But they’re not planning on lazing by the pool. They are so appalled by the loss of life that they have become the new rapid reaction relief squads. Reports of similar mini-invasions of traveller volunteers are coming in from Thailand and parts of Indonesia. But nowhere is this trend more evident than in Sri Lanka…From the hotels of Colombo a steady stream of helpers make their way to the headquarters of aid organisations and emergency relief groups.” The news from South Asia is devastating. But out of such a disaster can come some good. These travelers are one small example of that.
Q-and-A With Wendy Knight
by Jim Benning | 12.16.04 | 5:34 PM ET
Anthony Bourdain, What Would You Eat For Your Last Meal?
by Jim Benning | 12.16.04 | 5:31 PM ET
“Roasted bone marrow, sprinkled with a little sea salt; toasted French bread to spread it on,” the globe-trotting chef and writer said in a thoughtful interview in yesterday’s San Diego Union-Tribune. Of the half a dozen or so celebrity chefs in the media spotlight these days, Bourdain is the one who has written seriously about adventure travel—and adventurous dining.
Riding the Freedom of Movement Train (aka the World’s Most Dangerous Passenger Train)
by Michael Yessis | 12.14.04 | 5:36 PM ET
Two years ago, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo established a railway from Macedonia to Serbia. “The train,” writes Daniel Sekulich in an excellent story in Outpost magazine, “is regularly pelted with stones and cinder blocks or shot at with rifles.” Nevertheless, Sekulich boarded the train, and his story about his trip covers fascinating geographical and political terrain. “Several European nations offered aging diesel locomotives and coaches to the cause, with security provided by international forces stationed in Kosovo,” Sekulich writes. “Not surprisingly, few Serb or Albanian railroaders wanted to drive a train carrying ‘the enemy,’ so the call went out for international volunteers to take up the task.” Among them is Donald Crawford, a Canadian locomotive engineer. “For many people - mostly Serbs and Roma - this is the only way to get groceries, visit the hospital and see relatives,” Crawford tells Sekulich. “It’s called the Freedom of Movement Train because that’s what we provide.”
Carey in Japan
by Michael Yessis | 12.13.04 | 5:40 PM ET
Australian novelist Peter Carey’s next book focuses on a trip to Japan he took with his 12-year-old son Charlie. Their mission: to explore the worlds of manga and anime. Travel + Leisure’s Amy Farley quizzes him about his trip in the December issue. “Wrong in Japan,” the book about the trip, comes out next month.
Ask Michael Shapiro
by Michael Yessis | 12.13.04 | 5:39 PM ET
“A Sense of Place” author Michael Shapiro answers questions about travel writing and travel writers tomorrow at noon Eastern time in an MSNBC chat.
