I have long wanted to go to Bangladesh to see the ship-breaking yards of Chittagong. A while back, I saw a series of photos by Brazlian photographer Sabastiao Salgado on the yards and it blew my mind. So today’s POTD comes from a great site that features some photos of the yards.
Idealist.org
We’ve posted a few times about
how travelers can head out not just on sybaritic trips filled with sweet alcoholic drinks, but how you can spend your
vacation time helping out, volunteering in a small village, working with aid organizations and so on. This is a really
cool idea, we think, and a great way to gain personal fulfillment from your travels. But matching your skills and
desires with the right organization can make the effort difficult. Nice to know, then, that there is a site to help you
navigate the world of volunteer vacations.
Idealist.org, which draws about 38,000 visitors a day, is a clearinghouse of
information for 45,000 nonprofit and community organizations in 165 countries. It was started by Ami Dar, an Israeli
army veteran who spent part of his youth in Peru and Mexico, and went on to found the New York City-based Action
Without Borders, a nonprofit whose mission is to find global volunteer opportunities for people with the time and
resources.
It is a very comprehensive site that will be very helpful to you should a “volunteer vacation” be of interest.
Check it out and then get out there and volunteer.
Help Out on Hiking Trails
Vacations tend to be somewhat selfish affairs. After all, you’ve been slaving away for
months on end, serving the Man, and when it comes time to bail and do you’re own thing, you’re like “sayonara” to
anything with the foul reek of work.
But consider this. Consider taking a vacation where you actually do give back a little, where you…ok,
let’s not call it work…let’s call it “exert”…where you exert to help build trails in the wilderness, to improve
campsites and cabins. That’s kind of cool, I think.
Well, you can do these things. If you want. Check out the
2005 volunteer schedule on the
American Hiking Society Web site, and consider how you might lend a fist
full o’gravel to the American trail system. The site singles out several ”exciting
new projects” in
Alaska, Georgia, and Nevada.
Greedy Bastard Diary
Eric Idle has been busy. The famous song-writing member of the Monty Python troupe has got a show on Broadway
(Spamalot) and hit the road a while back as part of a 2004 bus-based
tour. The resulting book, The Greedy Bastard Diary, is on the shelves. And if you
go to his site, there is much more. Idle has posted dairy
entries, radio spots, photos and other Pythoneque absurdity. Is it just me or have the Pythons had some of the most
successful second-careers in entertainment history?
Galavanting with Ghandi
After going to India recently, I Netflixed and watched Gandhi, the
epic film starring Ben Kingsley. I’d seen it before, but there is something about travel, age and maturity that opens
your eyes to history. The movie I watched was completely different from the one I’d watched when I was younger, BEFORE
I’d actually been to India. India blew my mind. I’ve lived in Bangkok, Madrid, Santiago, Chile, and I’d seen poverty,
but nothing prepared me for what I saw in India. The unfathomable sprawl of slums in Mumbai shook me. The sight of
untouchables sifting through human ashes on the River Ganges, the sight of bloated infant corpses turning slowly,
face-down, in an eddy…these things were unreal to me.
BTW: if you’re interested. I have a video I shot in Varanasi that folks might be interested in…no baby corpses, but a
nice flavor of the place. Watch it
here.
Anyway, I bring this up because I just read
Tom Haines’ excellent article
in the Boston Globe on the reenactment of Gandhi’s salt march. The march was
orchestrated by Mahatma Gandhi 75 years ago to challenge a strict salt tax, and with it British rule of India. The
scene is featured prominently in the film and is one of the most important events in modern Indian history. Haines does
a great job discussing the march and its significance, and the article is really well-worth a read.