What happens to all that crap, I mean, garbage on a cruise?

by Jamie Rhein on

I remember that startled feeling when I went to the toilet on a train in Africa and saw the tracks whizzing by below the hole. On an airplane, there’s that great whooosh!, that satisfying sucking of air accompanied by a swirl of bluish green fluid that helps wash what has been deposited in the bowl into some hidden receptacle–I hope. This summer we looked at a used RV as a possibility to put on some land we own in Montana as a place to stay once in a while. There was great discussion about what to do with the waste. There’s a dump station near the land, but there’s the problem of getting what was dumped to the dump without bringing the whole RV through town. We don’t have a truck and don’t intend to get one. Thinking about what to do with waste is a real downer–a real idea killer sometimes.

It’s worse when you think of what people can produce on a massive scale and what happens when these garbage producers head off on a cruise ship to sail the ocean blue on their quest for a vacation in paradise. The ocean blue may have a hard time staying that way as cruise ship vacations continue to gain in popularity. Paradise is in danger of turning putrid. This photo is of garbage in a tidal pool in Micronesia, for example.

Cruise ships, according to Ellen Slattery in her post on our favorite environmentally friendly, in-the-know site, Green Daily, have a bad habit of dumping crap in the ocean–and I mean that in an all encompassing sense. Although there are rules for how far ships must be from land before they can let the garbage go, all don’t comply. Even if they do, there’s the diesel exhaust from the engines. Ellen has gathered an impressive stash of information that ought to be read before anyone books a cruise.

The idea is not to skip a cruise, but to pick cruises that are more environmentally friendly. Royal Caribbean International, Lindblad Expeditions, Princess Cruises, and Crystal Cruises are the four cruise lines Ellen lists as being cognizant of treading more lightly on the planet. For the reasons why, plus more tips on how to take a cruise with a clear conscience, read her “Your dream vacation could be a nightmare for the earth.”

Click on jschneid for a photo he posted on Flickr on January 12, 2008. The garbage was washed up on the beach in the Mayan Riviera. As he wrote, “Did the shampoo bottle you threw away on your Caribbean cruise end up on this Mexico beach??”

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Martin Luther King Jr.: The house where he lived in Montgomery is a museum

by Jamie Rhein on

Two Decembers ago, we left Columbus, Ohio for Montgomery, Alabama to visit a friend of ours and travel a bit on the Civil Rights Trail. This is a trip, I think, people should make if they get the chance. You can get to Montgomery from anywhere, and our friend doesn’t still live there, but Montgomery is a wonderful city for a weekend trip with sites that are family friendly, well worth a stop, and enough sweet tea that you can float away. One day I’ll put together a longer feature with suggestions on how to organize your trip and what to do, but for this post, here’s a plug for my most favorite place that I think of often.

At 309 South Jackson Street is one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s former homes. He lived here with his family from 1954 to 1960 during the time he was organized the bus boycott and was preaching at the Dexter Ave. Baptist church. The house, the church’s former parsonage, is now The Dexter Parsonage Museum, a place that looks frozen in time. Besides being able to see the porch damaged when someone tried to kill King with a bomb, but to no avail, the house looks like the family could have just stepped out while you’re passing through for the hour or so tour.

For a walk through of late 50s, early 60s home decor, this is it. The kitchen was my favorite room since it’s set up with household products typical of the time.

One of the wonderful qualities of the museum is the woman who curates it. She went to King’s church as a child and has memories of him placing his hand on her head. Her story, how she came back to Alabama to her hometown after years away, is an important story of American history as well.

This museum is a place with heart and soul, and I think should be on the list of must see places important to American history, even though, as historical houses go, it’s not that old. If you go, you need to arrange a tour. Here’s the link. This link also has a picture of the kitchen.

The picture here is the only one I found with permission to use. The story behind it is funny. According to the description, this is a group of kids who came to visit on a field trip. They went up to the door, turned the knob and an alarm went off. Yep, this is a lesson in calling ahead. Oregonian, who posted this on Flickr, has other shots of the group’s civil rights tour. Thanks to Oregonian for sharing.

How to ‘executive bomb’ US Airways

by Jerry Guo on

So normally it’s not wise to utter the word “bomb” in the same breath when you’re talking about flying. But what to do if you’ve had a horrible experience with an airline, and customer service just won’t help you out?

Last week I posted about the five worst airlines in the US, which got a lot of comments. One of the readers wrote in about getting screwed on US Airways when he did them a favor and volunteered to take a later flight due to overbooking. But surprise surprise, US Airways was no help when he complained.

We have tried calling and writing to their Consumer Relations office. At this point, we have realized that our 24 hour delay was made on the basis of a false promise. Obviously, we will try to never fly on US Airways again; if we must, we will certainly never volunteer to be bumped.

So is this the end of the road? No, thanks to a technique perfected by the good folks over at Consumerist. It’s called “executive bombing,” in which you go straight pass the lowly customer service people to either senior management or the “elite” customer service desk, which takes care of the really angry customers. To do this, you’ll need to track down the contact info for these people, which I’ll talk about in a coming post. For now, here’s the number for US Airways Executive Office: 877-369-6512. Go get ’em.

Ode to Neil: What is 1% of 2,000 posts?

by Jamie Rhein on

I’ve been blogging with Neil for about a year now wondering how the heck is he managing to crank out such bounty with his sly wit and traveler’s know-how. Since the number of posts Gading manages to put out in a day are sometimes hard to keep up with, I thought I’d give you a sampling of my favorites of Neil’s.

Of course, like he wrote when he signed off today from Gadling on his last post–his 2,000th, I’m sure we haven’t read the last of Neil. However, I thought that someone who has 2,000 posts in two years certainly could have a post dedicated to him. It’s not exactly the same as the trophy-like statue of the Greek god Hermes pictured here, but hopefully it will suffice. Hermes is linked to travel among other things.

(Neil, to turn this into a real statue, you can print out a copy of the picture, carefully cut around the outline of the statue like a paper doll, glue it onto a piece of tag board, cut around that, affix it to a toothpick with tape, stick one end of the toothpick in a bit of playdough or something and perhaps you can get it to stand up.)

Statues aside, this is what 1% of 2,000 looks like–20 posts. But, first, here’s my all time favorite written for our April Fool’s Day bonanza in 2007. Bush Lifts Mark Cuban Travel Ban

These are culled since April of 2007. I picked these because they either made me laugh, inspired me to write my own post, I learned something I didn’t know, brought back some of my own travel memories or gave me useful information that I used. You can decide which is which.

1. Iceland’s putrid fish delicacy.

2. Infiltrating North Korea Part 15: More song and dance, and a conundrum about chocolate

3. Help Gadling buy this woman a cow

4. How to buy goods confiscated by TSA

5. The museum of broken relationships

6. Dumpster diving: The cheapest way to eat when traveling.

7. Hollywood’s Craziest Foriegn Country Stereotypes

8. Turd Coffee: An Indonesian Specialty

9. Affordable Float Plane Fishing in Alaska Part 1: A How to Guide

10. 9,000 Naked Men in Search of Wood

11. The Thankless Life of a Sherpa

12. Removing Leeches

13. The Philippine Penal System Vacation: Free Song, Dance and Meals!

14. Best (Authentic) Mexican Restaurants in Los Angeles

15. Disneyland’s Secret Restaurant

16. Griffith Park: A return from the ashes

17. Are Cookies on your Computer Increasing the Cost of Your Vaction?

18. Go Now before They’re Gone: Conde Nast Traveler’s 20 Most Threatened Places

19. The Strange, Uncomfortable Silence of Naked Germans

20. Cow Tourism

Clubbing and elephant-feeding, all in one night

by Jerry Guo on

Here’s one quirky thing about Bangkok. In the Nana red-light district, it’s not surprising to see go-go dancers next to an elephant handler. Each night, you’ll find on average half a dozen elephants roaming the streets of Bangkok.

Their handlers, known as mahouts, go about trying to get tourists to buy on-hand treats, such as sugar cane, for the elephants. It turns out to be a pretty lucrative way to make a living (relatively speaking). One handler makes about $67 a day compared to $270 for working in a factory.

But it’s not all fun and games. The mahouts depend on their elephants for their livelihood. On the other hand, keeping elephants in downtown Bangkok is quite inconsiderate. The police haven’t found a good solution, though a Stray Elephant Task Force was created last year with undercover officers who try to keep the elephants out of Bangkok. Things aren’t looking good, according to the New York Times:

“To be honest, nobody wants to do this job, nobody wants to deal with the elephants,” said Prayote Promsuwon, who is in charge of the Stray Elephant Task Force, which was formed after an elephant handler, fleeing the police, raced his elephant the wrong way down a large Bangkok boulevard, causing traffic chaos.