LP Less Than Three

by Erik Olsen on

Aspiring filmmakers out there pay attention. Lonely Planet, the guidebook colossus, is offering a big time travel opportunity to folks who send in the best travel film that lasts, and here’s the gimmick, less than three minutes. That may seem like a short duration, unless you actually spent time watching some folks’ homemade travel video, (which believe me, I have), in which case you know that some folks are just not meant to be filmmakers (what is so hard about holding a camera steady?).

It seems like a pretty good deal. If you check out the FAQ, you can read that LP is offering a first prize of 10,000 Australian dollars (which comes out to, what? about $780? JK!) to help pay for your own Round-The-World economy flight, an STA travel voucher and the choice of either hanging with LPTV folks in Melbourne (LP’s home base) or taking the rest of the cash and heading out on your own “dream journey”. Hmmm….hanging with the LPTV folks would be fun, buuuuuttttt….so the hitch is you actually have to produce the film, make it under three minutes and, here’s the catch, make it interesting enough that people will actually WANT to watch it.

Word for the Travel Wise (10/18/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

As many Americans prepare for their great Halloween festivities and gather materials for haunted houses and what have you the folks in Laos prepare for something different. Like Halloween which occurs once a year, the That Luang Festival happens about the same time when the moon is full and the night is dark. However, it will be a large number of monks and people who travel to That Luang (Great Golden Stupa) to kick things off. How will they party it up? Well, the people will make offerings to the monks and when dusk comes thousands of people will revolve around the large golden stupa counterclockwise three times. It is said that this festival is the festival that unites Buddha and the people once a year.

Today’s word is a Lao word used in Laos:

bpii – year(s)

The Lao language is closely related to the Isan language used in the northeast region of Thailand and the alphabet resembles the Thai writing system, but has some differences. Wikitravel has an excellent online Lao phrasebook and probably one of the best free web sources you’ll find. Lao Connection also has some of the basics listed in addition to links to language products, fonts, CD’s, and software. Laos Language and Culture Learning Resources out of Northern Illinois University is an extensive guide on folklore, history, arts, literature and of course the lingo!

Past Lao word: nyang, men, pathet

Traveling in Korea with Children

by Adrienne Wilson on

Mum, mom, mother and momma are not nicknames I’ve been blessed to have at this time in my life and I’m in no rush to obtain one of the variations either, but for all the proud traveling parents out there searching for a good place to go with baby I present you with this guide from the Korean Tourism site. I’m sure an extensive amount of planning is needed to figure how you’ll be able to maneuver and keep your sanity for your return home and it looks like they’ve done a great deal of situation sorting for you. Transportation, shopping, restaurants, theme parks and special places to visit with children can all be found on their site. If you’re going to Korea or considering a vacation in Asia some place with your child or children this guide should hopefully answer some questions if not all. If Korea isn’t a destination of choice for you and your child at this time you may try scouring other tourism sites for similar info.

Airlines Showing More Thigh

by Erik Olsen on

30,000 feet above the fruited plain is not the place to catch the raciest new fare from Hollywood…unless you own your own plane, of course. Then you can watch and/or do whatever you want. But for the most part, airlines from American to Xanadu have shown movies onboard that can be viewed by everyone, keeping things mainly within what might be considered family fare. This is not absolute, of course. JetBlue’s 21 gazillion channels of DirectTV provide the opportunity to poke that annoying little armrest button long enough to find, say The Terminator gunning people down while you fly. But for the most part when it comes to the movies being shown aboard movies that were actually selected by the airline, they have been tame.

According to sister-site Cinematical, that may not be the case any longer. Some airlines, they say, are beginning to show more racy, mainstream fare like Brokeback Mountain and Transamerica with the idea that this will provide more choice, variety, and current releases to passengers. I for one think i’s a good if not great idea, so long as they don’t begging showing Debbie Does Dallas or something. The fact is, given the lousy crop of films out these days, the more variety the better so as to tolerate those six or so long hours in the air.

Chinese Travelers Bad-Mannered?

by Adrienne Wilson on

Before you go bashing the messenger, please read what I’m referring to over at Canada.com. According to their short news piece, China’s tourism authority claims Chinese travelers are uncouth. Of the semi-gross or uncouth habits demonstrated by Chinese travelers, littering would be the one that bothers me more than anything, if true. (Litter bugs are not cool at all!) Spitting, smoking in nonsmoking areas, line-jumping, poor hygiene (not flushing the toilet or covering one’s mouth when sneezing) and walking around shirtless and shoeless in hotels were all common complaints from an online survey on Chinese tourists. Ouch! I’d be pretty hurt with poll results like that and curious to know who took this survey. Up to 100 million Chinese travelers are expected to travel abroad annually by 2020. The survey was carried out in August and plans to improve the manners of Chinese travelers. Whatever that involves I’d hate to be apart of that course.

(P.S. The three individuals in the picture by no means reflect the type of tourist at question. I do not know them. I know not if they sneeze without covering their mouth or litter without a care, but I’m sure they don’t.)