Though it might not be your first desired destination these days, there is still a lot to be said about heading to the Middle East. And this report at the Online Travel Review points out that the first privately owned airline in the region, Jazeera Airways, which began flying last year from Kuwait City, will allow passengers to fly between numerous Mid east cities including Dubai, Damascus, Amman and Bahrain. For more info: Jazeera Airways Cleared for Takeoff and Kuwait’s Private Air Jazeera to Fly.
Asia
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Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Russian Federation, Singapore, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam
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Travel through Asia with our writers:
Infiltrating North Korea, Keyhole Into Burma, Band on the Run ... in China, Chinese Buffet, A Canadian in Beijing, Volunteer Vacation: Tajikistan
Turkish Food: Borek
When I put börek in as my only word for my Google search, I was almost positive I would retrieve an extravagant amount of information on: Börek; the disco/hockey star, Börek; the factory in insert city (here), or Börek; the new fragrance from Will Ferrell (the latest star gone / perfume maker). Without having to narrow my search I found the börek I was looking for listed at the very top. It is the same börek I’ll be munching on in the city of Istanbul in 22 more days. Honestly, I hadn’t a clue what börek was a month back, but a friend of mine told me to try some when I land in Turkey. And it looks like I will.
Börek is a Turkish term for filled pastries, which means while börek may not be any of the other items listed above there is still a handful of börek to choose from. This Turkey Travel Planner defines several types of filled pastries, where the filling is usually white sheep’s milk cheese and a chopped veggie such as parsley or spinach. For a break down of the different types of börek to inquire about in at your local Turkish restaurant head over to Turkey Travel Planner. I’d like to learn how to prepare something like this at home, but I haven’t mastered some of the simpler pastries, therefore I’ll leave the ones filled with white sheep’s milk cheese to the people that know how to make it taste best.
Next Stellar Stop – Bohol, Philippines
Bohol is a place of unusual familiarity for me. Almost all my Pinoy and Pinay friends speak highly of the island if not above some of the other thousand islands. And I know one day I’ll be able to walk the lands and sail the seas with my brethren and sistren from my birth country, but until that day comes I’ll just have to make due with their reports and various others on the net like this Stellar feature.
Whitney Weis gives the facts on the island paradise becoming popular with nature tourists because of its eight distinctive regions. To the right you’ll find one of them pictured. Known as the Chocolate Hills visitors come year round even when the mounds aren’t so chocolate looking. For diving fanatics there are really a couple of great finds in Bohol, or should I say off of Bohol. Balicasag has some of the best diving in the entire Philippines according to her notes and Cabilao is perfect for adventurers wanting to go head-to-head with the hammerheads that frequent the waters. There’s much more to this 60-mile long Asian jewel, but you’ll need to see the Stellar piece for the rest. It wouldn’t be fair of me to tell you all here and besides I’ll have my stories to share one of these days.
Word for the Travel Wise (08/08/06)
Every time I go to the tourism site of Sri Lanka I am impressed. First off, the site is designed rather nicely and feels like a vacation within itself. Secondly, the country always has so much going on year-round. If it isn’t a huge spice festival of sorts you can bet you’ll get something just as cool to view. Right now the Randoli Festival is taking place, tomorrow the Grand Festival and the day after that will be the Day Festival. In November the country will host an international surfing competition. With all these things happening, you may wish to make plans early to make sure you’re well accommodated.
Today’s word is a Sinhala word used in Sri Lanka:
ida netu – no vacancies
English is spoken by ten percent of the population and Sinhala is the official and national language of the country. I’ve actually never tried to learn this one much, but judging from the alphabet it looks like a challenge. Omniglot has a great starter page on learning all the characters and use of this English to Sinhala dictionary could slowly help in distinguishing common travel words. Let’s Speak Sinhala offers lessons at a very small and reasonable fee. They appear to be one of the better Sinhala language learning websites.
Past Sinhala words: hari shook, a da, ga ma
More University Students Taking Part in Study Abroad
Not to rip off the Washington Post or anything today, but they’ve just got the travel news that seems worth sharing. In this article they talk about the rate at which student study abroad travel is going. I don’t know about you, but I’d say it’s booming – it has tripled in the last 20 years. Basically it used to be a time when only foreign language geeks would scurry off some place exotic like Cairo for a semester, but now more students in a wide range of majors are seeing the benefits of studying outside their mother country. Bravo, bravo!
Something like this should be a university requirement if you ask me, but it warms my heart more students are doing it anyway. I never got the chance to participate in the whole study-abroad experience in my colleges days, but I didn’t go to a traditional college and I seem to be making up fine for it these days. Kudos to the college kids out there doing it right!