Travel Tips

I Used To Make Fun Of Rick Steves

Posted on by Laughingnomad

 I used to make fun of Rick Steves.  No more!

Here are a few gems from a Salon.com interview just in case you don’t want to read to the end:

Salon: “Steves wants Americans to get over themselves. He wants us to please shed our geographic ego. Everybody should travel before they vote,” he has written.”

So if McCain and Palin had won, what would we have seen abroad?”

Steves: “More and more Americans wearing Canadian flags”

LOL.  During 7 years of near constant travel, I used to say I was from Canada.  My husband used to say he was from Iceland.  I always said I wanted a T-shirt that said in 6 languages: “I didn’t vote for Bush.”  Election night there were parties all over Mexico. Now they are watching us.

Steves: “As a travel writer, I get to be the provocateur, the medieval jester. I go out there and learn what it’s like and come home and tell people truth to their face. Sometimes they don’t like it. But it’s healthy and good for our country to have a better appreciation of what motivates other people. The flip side of fear is understanding. And you gain that through travel.”

What’s the most important thing people can learn from traveling?

Steves: “A broader perspective. They can see themselves as part of a family of humankind. It’s just quite an adjustment to find out that the people who sit on toilets on this planet are the odd ones. Most people squat. You’re raised thinking this is the civilized way to go to the bathroom. But it’s not. It’s the Western way to go to the bathroom. But it’s not more civilized than somebody who squats. A man in Afghanistan once told me that a third of this planet eats with spoons and forks, and a third of the planet eats with chopsticks, and a third eats with their fingers. And they’re all just as civilized as one another.”

The “ugly American” thing is associated with how big your country is. There are not just ugly Americans, there are ugly Germans, ugly Japanese, ugly Russians. Big countries tend to be ethnocentric. Americans say the British drive on the “wrong” side of the road. No, they just drive on the other side of the road. That’s indicative of somebody who’s ethnocentric. But it doesn’t stop with Americans. Certain people, if they don’t have the opportunity to travel, always think they’re the norm. I mean, you can’t be Bulgarian and think you’re the norm.

It’s interesting: A lot of Americans comfort themselves thinking, “Well, everybody wants to be in America because we’re the best.” But you find that’s not true in countries like Norway, Belgium or Bulgaria. I remember a long time ago, I was impressed that my friends in Bulgaria, who lived a bleak existence, wanted to stay there. They wanted their life to be better but they didn’t want to abandon their country. That’s a very powerful Eureka! moment when you’re traveling: to realize that people don’t have the American dream. They’ve got their own dream. And that’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing.

That is certainly true of many people I have talked to around the world and most people I talk to in Mexico who have migrated to the north. The fruit seller speaks a little English. I ask if he has ever worked in the north. Yes, he and others say. Three years. Six years. Ten years, the guy in the tiny mountain village 7 hours from the nearest town in Guatemala says. The guy on the corner of my block whose wife sells tamales worked in the U.S. 30 years. But eventually they usually come back. If given an economic choice they would choose to stay in their own country where they can enjoy their own language, their own culture…and their families. One of my eureka moments. Read More

Just Hanging Out

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Yesterday an older woman from Ireland and I tried to find the Night Market at the end of the bridge over the Mekong River where you used to be able to get great BBQ meat cooked over coal fires. Not found.

Of the many uninterested Chinese we stopped along the way to get information, a young strolling couple with a few words of English helped us. The man called his old English teacher from school on his cell phone so we could explain what we were looking for. But after my simplified request, she kept asking “what do you want” obviously not understanding me. And she was his English teacher, I thought!

Finally we gave up the idea of the Night Market when they said “follow us.” They took us to an open-air shack near the new beautifully lit bridge. In the “kitchen” we pointed to a few vegetables and some pork. In a matter of seconds we were feasting…on delicious food so full of flavor but probably loaded with MSG. Turns out the woman is a doctor at the local hospital but her husband said he “lost his job” at the same hospital. I was curious as to why he “lost” his job but didn’t want to pry. She was six months pregnant. “I want a boy,” her husband said. Knowing the Chinese can pay a fine for a second child I asked how many children they intended to have. “I only need one,” she said with finality!

Later, back at the Mei Mei Cafe where foreigners hang out, a 45 year old good-looking adventure-hooked guy from Belgium who has lived here several years regaled us with stories…many of them dealing with corruption. For example, a few years ago he, through his girlfriend, rented a building to remodel for a cafe. He signed a contract for the rental for five years. But after two years he was informed by the police they were tearing down the building for a big high-rise. So he lost his investment. A contract in China means nothing, he said.

The Night Market is no longer, he says. The Chinese are glad to be rid of it…having been full of prostitution and the drugs coming in from nearby Burma.

Then we discussed the latest biography simply entitled “Mao” that is banned in China. “Yes,” he said, I have it locked up in my room!” “My god,” he said, “if only 5% of it is true…!” We talked about “The Coming Collapse of China” written by a Chinese Professor at an American university which I had mischievously passed on to a Swiss girl studying Chinese economics in Shanghai on my last trip to China a couple years ago. Steven agreed with the tenuous situation in China where the dangerous rate of growth of the GDP can’t continue indefinitely. But the book was written when Deng (who said it was “glorious to be rich”) was President. President Hu, Steven says, is trying to help China avoid a crisis.

Steven, the Belgian, is planning on taking his Dai girlfriend of three years to Belgium for a 12 week visit. He said he could hardly wait to see her eyes! Getting her a tourist visa will be very tedious because so many Chinese try to get into Europe using falsely filled out papers. “They all lie because all Chinese want out of China,” he said. Besides the bureaucratic red tape, they will have to travel to Guangzhou for an interview at the Belgian Embassy. She will only be able to visit with a “Schengen” visa while there. (If you don’t know, the Schengen countries are the ones in Europe (I think there are four) who no longer recognize borders.

Then we talked about the attitude of the dominant Han Chinese toward the ethnic “minorities” as the ethnic groups are called. About one third of the 800,000 people of this region are Dai. Another third are Han Chinese and the rest includes the Hani, Lisu and Yao as well as lesser-known hill tribes such as the Aini, Jinuo, Bulang, Lahu and Wa. These beautiful friendly self-sufficient intelligent people, who live in the mountains with views that Californians would kill for, have historically been viciously discriminated against and the attitude of the Han is that they are dirty and stupid. Consequently the minorities are turning against their own cultures…so Steven has been teaching his Dai girlfriend, Orchid, about her Dai history and origins including that fact that many years ago the huge Dai army once defeated the encroaching Han dynasties. Ironic that it takes a western foreigner to counsel his culturally bifurcated girlfriend. The 37 year old Orchid, who owns and manages the Mei Mei Cafe, is certainly not stupid. Also ironic that since China has discovered that Western tourists are interested in seeing the minorities, it is starting to help promote their welfare as a source of tourism.

With my Irish friend off to Dali, I had breakfast this morning with a lovely woman from Holland who has traveled all over Indonesia. Hmmm. Think Sumatra may be next after Thailand. This is a good time to visit there, she said, as it is not the rainy season. Good! We had a long discussion about China. We agreed that one does not “like” China so much as one finds it incredibly interesting!

Other travelers can be just as enlightening as the country one is visiting…

Almost Didn’t Make The Plane To Kunming

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Hard to believe I was in Beijing for two weeks. But you know what they say about stinking guests if they stay too long. So today I flew to Kunming in Yunnan Province in the south of China. Stewardess announced that the flight would take 3.5 hours to go 200 kilometers. I figured there was something wrong there…think she meant 2000 kilometers. Warmer than Beijing but still damn cold…39 degrees F. Had hoped for it to be warmer this far south. Might have to keep on going.

But before I could get to the plane, I had an adventure! Got out of the taxi at the airport and walked around to the back of the car to get my backpack out of the trunk. Then I’ll be damned if the driver took off like a shot with me flapping my arms, running and yelling after him in the middle of the road…to no avail. A nice taxi was coming up behind me…told me to get in…he ran the first taxi down to get him to stop. Boy…woke me up! The driver was just stupid! Didn’t even know why we were pulling him over until we got him stopped and pointed to the trunk! My rescuer kindly refused money. Travel tip: don’t get out of a taxi, if you have baggage in the trunk, until you see the driver getting out too!

I’m in the Camellia Hotel where I stayed both in 2003 and 2004. Great buffet breakfast comes with the room…$28 a night. Couple bars, internet cafe…mostly lauwai (same as gringo only it’s what the Chinese call anyone not from China). There’s a hostel here too…but mostly with twenty-somethings and I want my peace and quiet so I have my own room in the main building. Channel TV Asia is the only English language station but I get most of the world news….as if I needed it. Announcers have a British accent…think it’s operated by Reuters.

Same cafe down the street but with a different name…Chinese and western comfort food…but now with free WiFi. Around the corner is MaMa Fu’s Cafe…hot and sour noodle soups. And next door is a big noodle shop with Over The Bridge Noodle Soup…platter of meat and vegetables comes to the table and you drop the food in and it cooks in the still hot broth…indigenous Yunnan style soup.

No colorful minority peoples selling things in the street now. Guess it’s either too cold or the government has banished them.

I really like the neighborhood here…with a market nearby. A group of crazy Europeans are biking China in this cold…bicycles all parked in the street in the front of a sports clothing shop while they make repairs…older Chinese men stopping by to peer at the loony western barbarians.

Guangzhou

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Arrived in Guangzhou (pronounced guan-jo) from Hong Kong yesterday on a sleek new train. I had no idea where the baggage area was. Had paid as much for the baggage as I did my ticket! Then, as I emerged from the immigration check area, from out of nowhere came a man with my two checked bags. Then luckily headed down the escalators with a duffel, a backpack, a carry on and my personal bag without turning head over heels.

Hundreds of people with bags, buckets and sacks full of I don’t know what were sitting and squating on the dirty floor…trying to get to their families during Chinese New Year. Remains of food, paper and boxes were strewn everywhere. Apparently they had been here awhile waiting for trains further inland that had been canceled by the snowstorms. I had forgotten how the Chinese throw their garbage on the ground to be swept up by the next little old lady or man with a broom and shovel. Had also forgotten how loud and aggresive the language sounds. I fleetingly wondered how long it took Josh and Amy to get used to China.

No taxis to be seen. Apparently you have to walk down the street from the station to find the taxis but before I could do that I was approached by a man who offered taxi service. This little man took off, practically running, with my bags as if they weighed nothing. He never looked back as he left me scrambling to keep up several yards behind. But his car was no taxi. I suspect I paid handsomely for the cross town trip to the Hotel Elan. But I didn’t care. No way could I carry all those bags all the way down the street. And he knew it. Travel Tip:  Walk out to the street and get a normal taxi with a meter. On the way he pointed out all the places I could buy different goods. I didn’t tell him I wasn’t here to buy anything.

Guangzhou, in this southern part of China called Canton, where most people speak Cantonese-not Mandarin, is a comparatively rich wholesale marketing area. Huge multi-level buildings harbor the latest trade fairs with goods made all over China. Nice hotels abound for buyers from all over the world. Down the street from me is a 6 story building with nothing but underwear! I thought to myself that the market niche for designers could be unending in China but they just copy.  To get to the underwear building you cross the street through a huge underground tunnel with more underwear. Turn a corner and you can continue down the street, underground, for as far as the eye can see…all underwear! And that is just my neighborhood!

My hotel was listed in the Lonely Planet guidebook as a medium-priced one. No more cheap Chinese guesthouses with no heat for me in the winter! This is a brand new one, cheaply made, tucked in between noodle and tea shops on a busy side-street. It is a smallish boutique hotel, art deco style…roomy with all the latest bathroom fixtures…but best of all free WiFi. It has all the amenities…hot water kettle, refrigerator, safe, queen sized bed with 4 down pillows and blinding white sheets and comforter. I am going into some detail because this would be a 4 star hotel in the states. I am paying $40 a night with an elaborate buffet breakfast for no extra charge.

It is raining and yukky outside. Last night the ATM at the Bank of China around the corner was out of cash. Travel Tip: Apparently you have to go early in the day so this morning I scored some yuan. So aside from eating at an open noodle shop next door where I am starkly reminded how the Chinese spit their bones and other detritus out on the table beside their plates and bowls in front of them, or on the floor, I am staying inside to nurse a brutal dripping head cold.

I am discovering how much China has changed in the two years since I was last here. Where before there were maybe 4-6 TV channels there are now 70. One is listed as English language but only part of the time and then it’s full of propaganda. But you can watch dubbed U.S. sports events!

With luck I fly out to Beijing tomorrow night…30 miles to get outside the city to the airport.

Saigon Could Be Mexico

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Or one of many other countries I have been in!

How to be a Taxi Driver in Saigon – Vietnam, Asia
By: Graham Price
http://www.bootsnall.com

Positions Available: Applicants Sought
Job Title: Taxi Driver
Location: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
Qualifications Required: Driving license or some previous experience of having driven a car preferred, but not essential.

Skills Required
1. Excellent Spatial Awareness – you must be able to know exactly where your vehicle begins and ends. This will become apparent when you draw to a halt (from speed) precisely one millimeter away from the scooter in front, or when driving (at speed) through a red light that requires a death-defying manoeuvre between traffic coming from either side.

2. A Strong Right Thumb – this is a must for successful horn operation. The horn has many uses; the following list is by no means exhaustive. Creativity and resourcefulness in this area are particularly welcome. The horn should be sounded when you wish to:

– Hurry vehicles in front along
– Bully smaller vehicles into the slow lane [or onto the shoulder]
– Warn any bikes in the right-hand lane of your intention to turn right from the left-hand lane
– Warn other users of your presence (especially when overtaking on a busy street, driving the wrong way down a one way street, running a red light, or taking a corner on the wrong side of the road.)
– Scare pedestrians who have become stranded in the middle of the road (purely entertainment value)
– Inform drivers ahead that the traffic lights have changed. In this instance, the horn should be sounded precisely half a nanosecond after amber turns to green.
– Apologise to someone whom you have cut-up whilst changing lanes
– Show your distress and distaste if any other road user should be inconsiderate enough to run red lights, drive on the wrong side of the road, etc.

3. The ability to “read” your passenger’s “type” – Passengers tend to fall into one of four main groups:
Read More

Wages

Posted on by Laughingnomad

May Day is coming up. An op-ed piece was printed in the Oaxaca Noticias daily newspaper criticizing the employment practices of WalMart and VIPS.

I and many expats here usually tip 20% to help make up for their small salaries and for all the people who don’t tip at all. I talked with a woman expat from Europe who has lived here 30 years and now makes sausage and baked goods to sell. She was trained as a nurse. The working conditions are terrible she said….nurses are expected to contribute out of their salaries to the electricity and janitorial services of the hospital…among other expenses.

In the year that I have been in my apartment I have found out that Adelina, who works for the landlord 12 hours a day (cleaning, cooking) and is supposed to clean all our apartments once a month (free cleaning the landlord said when I moved in) and does all the washing by hand, gets about $7.00 a day. (However, instead of buying a washing machine for her, the landlord has bought a gas lawn mower so he can mow the postage stamp lawn in the courtyard.) Adelina lives in a rusty tin-hut at the end of an ally on the other side of the Periferico…no water…no cooking facilities…just a room barely big enough for a double bed for her and her daughter. She walks to work and back home at 9 at night in the dark…about 2 miles.

The landlord owns several business/office spaces in my block and another apartment house on another street…at least that I know of. They are well to do by anybody’s standards. Ana, who is bilingual, found out from her regular vendor at the market that our landlord, whose son has a chilli stall and lives downstairs, is very powerful in the market. The way our landlords have made their money, the vendor says, is by lending money to the sellers in the market at 25% interest…which may be their only option…I have no way of knowing.

For my part I have told sweet cheery Adelina she doesn’t have to clean my apartment. Before she returned home to Canada, Ana, who lived next door, used to give Adelina $20 a month for a tip for apartment cleaning. When I leave I will give Adelina money for her services (answering the gate and providing security) during the year so she can send her 5 year old daughter to school next year.

Foreigners, at least those not living on the local economy, get charged more for everything, which would be ok, except that it drives up the cost of living for the locals. It’s not that I want do-good credit for this…it’s to warn other travelers what to expect who come here to live short-term. I am retired and fortunately don’t have to live on the local economy. I have no idea what it is like for foreigners who live and work here.

Dual Pricing

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Found a hilarious travel article on Bootnall today about the luxury tax…or dual pricing for foreigners as it is called:

The Luxury Tax – Asia, Europe, South America
By: Adam Jeffries Schwartz
The following is a guide to how the luxury tax is levied, worldwide.

ASIA
China has the highest tax in the region! Charging a hundred times the regular price is typical. If you negotiate at all, they will stand two inches in front of your face, and scream You PAY, you PAY NOW.

Note: Exactly!!!
Read More

WARNING

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Never come to Northern Thailand or Lao during the dry season which is now. Slash and burn fires send smoke against the mountains and beyond. You won’t see anything and the Mekong River will be down to a trickle.

Bumrungrad Hospital

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Nearly as diverse as New York, sitting in a Bumrungrad waiting room is a show of national and ethnic costume…many from the middle east…burkas, jalabas and Arabic head wear…males greeting each other by touching noses…or foreheads…I couldn’t tell.

The hospital, which caters to expats and foreigners, has an American CEO, is run by U.S. hospital standards and provides care in the English language. Most of the doctors have obtained their degrees and practiced medicine in the US…returning to Thailand to retire near their families with inexpensive household help, cooks and gardeners. Plush and efficient, it hardly even feels like a hospital. You are allowed to consult any kind of specialist you want without a referral…last year I saw a cardiologist who, upon reading an echocardiogram, adjusted my medication that brought down my blood pressure by 30 points. If I had had similar care in the U.S. much earlier I might have avoided a thickening of the heart muscle but doctors there avoid expensive tests and “unnecessary” referrals.

Today, I had a routine blood screen, chest film, physical exam and eye exam all for 5000 baht, or $125 and considering that my American insurance has a $1,000 deductible, it’s a deal to have medical care here. And that doesn’t even take into account the incredibly respectful and gracious Thai demeanor.

A Harley in Viet Nam

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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June 10, 2004
While I was in Bangkok Bob flew to Vietnam. He wrote to say he had difficulties accessing the web today and spent most of the day traveling.

His emails:
Now in Da lat in the mountains about 300-400 km north of Saigon. It is at a 5000 foot elevation so cool–in fact feels cold. Probably about 55 degrees right now–everybody in a jacket. Feels like central Oregon and after the heat/humidity combo in Hanoi it is quite refreshing. I am at an internet cafe surrounded by adolescents screaming at success/failure with video games. Tiz too much–later.
B

June 11
good morning:
have been roaming around Dalat—much embroidery art done here–quite nice but also can have a hefty price–saw several landscapes that I liked–might pick up a small piece–just to have a representative sample. Bought several pieces in Hanoi–I really like their style of art.

Approached by a fellow this morning–call themselves “Easy Riders”–have big bikes and arrange trips off the beaten track–tempted to have him take me to Saigon via the Cambodian border and the Ho Chi Minh trail–he can also extend things to the delta (and probably to So. America for that matter)–he is 45-50 in age and has been doing this awhile. Am tempted as it would take me to areas I would not otherwise see and I am tired of the usual tourist routes. It would mean 300-400 km on the road and the limiting factor would be the ability of my butt to withstand several days in the saddle..

June 12
Another nice day in Dalat. It is a major tourist destination for Vietnamese—with it being a weekend the place is packed—had to inquire at three hotels before finding a vacancy…in evenings they close off the downtown streets to vehicles and streets/plazas are packed with people just walking and people watching. Not much to buy re handicrafts etc. but wonderful produce — however do not see it offered in restaurants. Am tired of Vietnamese cuisine and am overdosed on French bread.

NOTE: Next few days Bob spent in bed with some kind of virus….Bob worried about influenza-like syndrome and me thinking it was probably Dengue Fever as this is the season for it.

Sat June 18
hello–
Was going to leave Dalat today by bus for Saigon. This a.m. had second thoughts and decided would be much more fun and interesting and educational to do the bike thing. Tried to find my rider (named Budda–because his stomach and somatotype is identical to the icon) but could not arouse him by phone–he probably ditched me for other customers so went down to the local easy rider hangout cafe and there were at least a half dozen of the “boys” there. They start out by being very cool but then the pitch begins . I had experienced it twice before so he (Thui) was surprised when I cut to the chase, “How much for 3 days?”. So to see whether I would be able to tolerate we agreed on a sampler package of a day trip around Dalat. It worked out well–he is safe… informed, understandable (re accent), non-invasive and 48 yr/o–but looks 55 to 60.

Weather turned inclimant and last hour on the bike was wet. Purchased a plastic pancho but was totally saturated at the end of the trip. Was informed that my previous illness was do to too sudden climate changes, that there was no possibility that it could be bird flu because that entity does not exist in Vietnam! I was instructed that on return to hotel that I must wash my hair to get all the rainwater out so that I do not come down with any other ailment(s).

Tomorrow leave for 3 day trip to the coast just East of Saigon–he does not want to get closer because of increasing traffic and I appreciate his concerns. I will travel remainder of distance to Saigon by bus. So depart 8 a.m. tomorrow–I look like a Harley biker going down the freeway. Not sure how we’re going to get all my luggage on the bike but he says, “no problem’. Will not see internet again until Saigon.

NOTE: my daughter-in-law, Luk, a Thai, has also warned me to wash my hair after a rain. She said when it first rains there are bad chemicals in the rain that can hurt you. She could be referring to Acid Rain?
Eunice