An Anti-Sex and the City Hotel Deal in NYC

by Amy Chen on

I’ll admit that I’m looking forward to the mind-numbing experience of watching Sex and the City 2, which opens Thursday. That said, I’m also amused to see a few anti-SATC hotel deals pop up among all the Cosmopolitan-fueled packages.

New York City’s Pod Hotel, a budget-minded property on East 51st Street, has put together one of these anti-SATC packages.

Starting at $139 per night, the “Don’t Get Carried Away” package includes one night in a bunk-bed room at the Pod, two cupcakes from Buttercup Bake Shop, a Brooklyn cocktail at East Side Social Club, and a knock-off designer handbag from Canal Street.

This package is a refreshing alternative to other SATC-themed packages, which typically have heftier price tags (can you say luxurious suites, Magnolia Bakery cupcakes, Cosmopolitan cocktails, and designer brands?)

If this package inspires you to build your own anti-SATC package, might I also suggest cupcakes from Sugar Sweet Sunshine? This Lower East Side bakery on Rivington Street whips up tasty confections for $1.50 each — my favorites are the pistachio and the Sexy Red Velvet cupcakes, which I find less sickeningly sweet than Magnolia’s $3.25 version.

Details: The “Don’t Get Carried Away” package is valid for stays at the Pod Hotel (www.thepodhotel.com) from May 27-June 11.

Somaliland adventure: Bumbling in Berbera

by Sean McLachlan on

Besides the painted caves of Laas Geel, the most promising road trip from Somaliland’s capital Hargeisa is to Berbera, 160 km north of Hargeisa and the country’s main port on the Red Sea. Nobody knows how old Berbera is, but it’s been an important port since ancient times and is mentioned in The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Greek sailor’s guidebook from the first century AD. It boasts beautiful coral reefs, a lighthouse with a sweeping view, and a historic synagogue.

We got to see none of these things, but our trip was educational to say the least.

I and my travel companions, Swedish photojournalist Leo Stolpe and a Somali expat who doesn’t wish to be named, hired a driver through my friends’ hotel. Since we did it on short notice the hotel owner couldn’t get one of his regulars and had to hire someone he didn’t know. He explained to the driver that we wanted to see everything and we’d be out all day. He also told him that if he did a good job he could expect more work in the future.

The driver seemed friendly enough. He spoke decent English and was in good spirits as we left. He was in even better spirits when he stopped to pick up a large bundle of khat, a narcotic plant. I noticed he spent a lot of money to get a choice bundle with lots of young shoots and leaves that would guarantee a strong effect.

First stop was the shrine of Sheikh Yusuf al-Kownin Aw-Barkhadle, on the highway north of Hargeisa. Aw-Barkhadle was a devoted Muslim who came from Harar to defeat a false holy man who was fooling the people with his magic and sleeping with their daughters. When Aw-Barkhadle told the charlatan to renounce his evil ways, the man challenged him to a magical duel. Aw-Barkhadle let him go first, and the man waved his hand and opened up a tunnel through a mountain on the outskirts of Hargeisa.

Aw-Barkhadle shrugged and said, “That’s simple. What’s difficult is passing through.”

Enraged, the false holy man arrogantly walked into the tunnel. Aw-Barkhadle ordered the mountain to close by the power of Allah and the evil one was entombed inside. To this day when Somalis pass by this mountain they throw rocks at it or slap it with their sandals. Its stone is never used to build houses.

The shrine is a simple affair of whitewashed walls trimmed with green, the color of paradise. Non-Muslims aren’t allowed inside, but I still felt a strange atmosphere to this building, shining brilliantly in the sun amidst a stony plain of thorn bushes and unmarked graves.

%Gallery-93452%The road to Berbera had a dozen police checkpoints. Since our route took us only along the main highway we had permission from the police in Hargeisa to travel without a bodyguard and we experienced no trouble at the checkpoints. Soon we could smell the sea air and we drove through the busy port. Past Ottoman mosques and colonial-era bungalows we could see giant freighters moored in the glittering water. We stopped at the Maansoor Hotel, which has an excellent restaurant with a view of the sea, and the added bonus of the only dive shop in Somaliland. Our driver had been chewing khat constantly for almost two hours, but didn’t seem to be affected by a loss of appetite the drug usually gives and we all enjoyed some wonderful fried fish. We rented some gear from the dive shop, checked the map to see how to get to the coral reefs, and headed out.

Then the trouble started.

The coral reefs are three kilometers outside of town. A coastal road leads there, but we found the road blocked by soldiers in a “technical”, a pickup truck with a weapon mounted on the hood, in this case a heavy recoilless rifle capable of punching a hole through our engine block. The soldiers politely but firmly told us we couldn’t pass. Luckily I remembered the map showed a more roundabout road that would get us around the military zone and to the coral reefs.

The driver didn’t want to go and refused to ask anyone for directions. Luckily our Somali friend managed to get someone to tell us which way to go. The driver grumbled all the way out of town, saying this wasn’t part of the deal, that we only said we wanted to go to the beach, etc., etc. Our Somali friend tried to reason with him, reminding him that he had been hired to take us all around, but to no avail. After a few minutes of obviously not trying to find the alternate road, he turned the car back towards Berbera.

We were getting pissed off. Berbera’s main attraction is the coral reefs, but our khat-chewing driver didn’t care. Not listening to reason in either English or Somali, he drove us straight to the beach and parked the car. He’d gone on strike, and sat glumly staring out the window chomping on more khat.

Leo, being a good travel companion, gave me some solid advice.

“Look, Sean. This is the fourth country you’ve been to that’s on the Red Sea and you’ve never been in the water. Just forget about this guy and let’s go swimming.”

Good plan. The beach was clean, the water as warm as a bath. We swam out and dove under, hoping to find some uncharted coral reefs. We didn’t have any luck but had a great swim anyway. When we finally made it back to the car our driver, teeth stained green with khat, rounded on us.

“Where have you been!? It’s time to go!!!”

We tried to calm him down and said we’d head back to Hargeisa after stopping at the dive shop to return the equipment.

“No!” he declared. “I’ll drop off the equipment next time I’m in Berbera.”

Yeah, sure you will, I thought, but said, “It will only take a minute.”

“We don’t have time! It will be dark soon and I won’t take any more side trips.”

“Side trips? The dive shop is right over there,” I said, pointing. “We have to drive past it to get to the highway.”

Even Mr. Khat couldn’t argue with that logic, so grumbling all the while he stopped at the dive shop and glared at us until we were back in the car.

“Where’s your guard?” he demanded. This was the first time he had mentioned it.

“We have permission from the Hargeisa police to travel without one, we already told you,” Leo said.

“I won’t drive without a guard!” Mr. Khat shouted.

Our Somali friend reasoned with him in their own language. After a minute the driver grunted and headed out.

At the first police checkpoint outside of town, the cops inspected our papers and let us through, but our driver wouldn’t budge. He started shouting to the police that he didn’t want to drive at night without a guard and insisted one of the cops get in the car and that we all go back to the station. The sun was setting and we were headed in the wrong direction.

Our Somali friend muttered, “This is a shit man.” I was tempted to ask how to say that in Somali.

Mr. Khat had really worked himself up into a fever pitch now. He was ranting and raving, obviously suffering a bad trip from the drug he’d been eating all day, and once he got to the police station he vowed he’d leave us there. The police chief stepped in, and a long debate ensued about whether we had to hire a officer or not. A call to higher authorities decided that we would. As that was being arranged our “driver” came up to me.

“Where’s my money?” he demanded.

“The agreement was that you’d be paid when we got back to Hargeisa,” I said as calmly as I could, which wasn’t very calmly at all.

“I WANT MORE MONEY!” he screeched.

“For not taking us anywhere? I don’t think so!”

OK, that’s not what I really said. I can’t print what I really said. In a moment the cops jumped between us and the driver started threatening the police chief. Yes, the police chief. A club brandished over his head shut him up, but only just barely. The police chief told him in no uncertain terms to take us back to Hargeisa, that we’d pay for the police escort, and we’d pay him what we agreed on and not a shilling more.

So it was decided. The drive back was spent in glum silence, except for the smacking of our driver’s lips as he gobbled down more of his ridiculous little leaves.

There’s a lesson in all this. Somaliland doesn’t have a real tourism industry yet, and visitors need to find an experienced driver and make it clear to him from the beginning what they want. Drivers need to understand they’re being hired for the day, not for a certain number of kilometers. Hotel owners need to find reliable drivers. They need people who are relaxed, enjoy their work, and are flexible with international visitors who want to be shown everything.

And they need to find people who aren’t addicted to drugs.

Don’t miss the rest of my series on travel in Somaliland.

Next time: Somaliland, building a nation.

Travel Trends: The effect of Southwest Airlines’ cheap fares on competitor fares

by Gadling Staff on

The last time you wanted to book a trip somewhere in the U.S., what airline did you think of first? If you’re like thousands of U.S. air passengers, you checked to see if Southwest Airlines flew in and out of the city you wanted to visit. Since its inception almost forty years ago in 1971, Southwest has been providing passengers all over the country with low-cost travel options.

Southwest uses several strategies to lower its costs so they can, in turn, can offer cheap fares. Among them:

  1. They mostly fly in and out of secondary markets, which are less costly.
  2. They only use one type of plane, the Boeing 737, which keeps maintenance costs down.
  3. They only fly domestically.
  4. Southwest Airlines is a “low frills” airline, dispensing with extras like meals or in-flight movies.

The formula seems to be working. The average Southwest Airlines ticket can often be a fraction of the price of a ticket on another major airline. Further, many passengers will drive out of their way to a secondary market in order to be able to take a Southwest flight. As a result of this success, other airlines have been pressured to lower their prices in order to compete. The average ticket price in markets with Southwest in them has gone down in the last ten years, while many markets without Southwest have gone up.

Because of Southwest’s policy of serving secondary markets, however, it’s difficult to do a simple analysis of the data to see in which markets the price has gone down, and in which markets it has gone up. Take, for example, Chicago Midway Airport, into which Southwest flies. Southwest does not fly into Chicago O’Hare, but prices there are still likely to be affected, since airlines at O’Hare want to compete for passengers who might otherwise go to Midway and use Southwest.

For a simple analysis, we looked at four cities in which Southwest had started service in the last ten years, and then compared ticket prices ten years later.

Buffalo started Southwest service in 2000. By 2009, Buffalo’s average fare had plunged by 19%. Southwest entered the market in both Dulles and Denver in 2006. From 2006 to 2009, the average ticket price at Dulles went down 1%; in Denver, the average ticket price dropped 13%. In 2007, service to San Francisco started; between 2007 and 2009, the average airfare went down 21%. None of these data account for inflation either.

By contrast, we also looked at the airfares from 2000-2009 in markets that did not have Southwest. Although the gains were modest by some means, in a world where most airfares have gone down in the last ten years, they were still significant. Not only does Savannah, Georgia, not have Southwest, but Southwest does not operate anywhere in the entire state of Georgia. Therefore, it was no surprise to see a 6% increase in fares over the last ten years. Alabama and Tennessee are both under served by Southwest, as well, which is reflected by Memphis increasing by 3% and Huntsville increasing by 9%. Finally, Reagan (Washington DC), which competes with Dulles, went up by 2%.

All in all, it’s cheaper overall to fly now than it was in 2000; but for the markets served by Southwest, it is cheaper still. The advent of Southwest and other low-cost airlines such as Air Tran have lowered costs all over the nation. Many people have reported that flying Southwest is a more pleasant experience in other ways as well; the facts bear this out. Southwest has the lowest customer complaints in the industry (as of 2009).

So what are you waiting for? Grab your sun tan lotion and your swimsuit — your next vacation in the California sun just got a lot cheaper.

Data Sources:

See more Travel Trends.

Free Empire State Building admission for Fleet Week sailors

by Amy Chen on

Ah, Fleet Week — the annual event when hundreds of uniformed sailors descend on New York City, much to the delight of locals and photo-happy tourists alike.

As New York Harbor welcomes U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships this year from May 26 to June 2, so too will all the local restaurants, stores, and bars. During this week, the Empire State Building is offering free Observatory admission to any uniform-clad military personnel.

For everyone else, free ship tours are available to the general public in Manhattan at Pier 88 and in Staten Island. Based on my experience in past years, the lines are long so plan accordingly. I also don’t recommend wearing a skirt or heels. You’d think that is common sense, but on a summery day, it’s easy to forget that looking cute isn’t very practical when exploring a ship.

In addition to the Empire State Building, many of the city’s finest institutions will be waiving admission fees for active duty service personnel and veterans over Memorial Day weekend. Participating attractions include the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, Ellis Island Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum.

Details: Here’s a list of participating attractions for “New York Museums Salute Memorial Day: A Weekend of Appreciation.” Proper military ID is required for free admission.

Even if you don’t qualify for the free admission, these special promotions pretty much guarantee some excellent people-watching. And if you can’t make it to NYC in time, you can always content yourself with this Sex and the City episode.


Khat: the legal high of East Africa

by Sean McLachlan on

East Africa is addicted to leaves.

Khat (also pronounced “chat” or “qat”) is a leafy shrub found in the mountainous areas of East Africa. It’s a major cash crop for Ethiopia and a popular high in the whole region. For the Somalis, as well as the Hararis in Ethiopia, it’s a social drug and a way to relax. It’s also popular in countries further afield such as Yemen. In a Muslim society, khat offers a high not specifically banned by the Koran.

The fresh young leaves and shoots of the Catha edulis plant contain cathinone and cathine, both of which have chemical similarities to amphetamines. Cathinone is stronger than cathine and only found in the younger shoots, while older leaves, or those been picked more than a couple of days before, only contain cathine. Thus users prefer to eat the softer leaves from the top of the plant and distributors have a rapid, efficient network to get fresh khat from field to market.

Like most drugs, the effect differs for different people, but most users feel a sense of physical relaxation and mental activity. This is unusual since most drugs make the mind and body go in the same direction. Alcohol relaxes the body and dulls the mind, while coca leaves or cocaine stimulate both.

%Gallery-93278%Most people in the region see khat as harmless. People can sit for a couple of hours eating the leaves and socializing, and then go off to their job and be productive. Common side effects such as lack of appetite and sleep loss are actually seen as good things.

In Harar people go to the market at around noon to buy a bundle of khat. Then they head to a friend’s house to sit and chew. Some houses are known as khat houses and a large circle of friends and guests meets there every day. People get into long involved conversations, while others lay down and chill out. Others sit in a corner diligently working. The effect depends on a person’s inclination and mood. Some people stay for only an hour or so, and some won’t leave until evening. Many people lose a sense of time, or at least stop caring. The culture around khat is very tolerant of how individual people want to interact while using the drug. Sometime in the midafternoon a poorer resident of the neighborhood will come and take away the discarded older leaves for his own use.

The usual way to eat khat is to simply chew and swallow the leaves, but some people like to grind it up with a mortar and pestle and eat the paste. This has a quicker, stronger effect, and a bit of added sugar gets rid of khat’s bitter taste.

Both men and women use khat, but men use more and the sexes tend to chew separately. This doesn’t stop the woman of the house from sitting in on a khat chewing session, but she’s more likely to smoke a sheesha (water pipe) filled with tobacco, rather than chew khat.

While khat used to be restricted to Hararis and Somalis, other people in the region are now experimenting with it. A university student from Addis Ababa told me some of her classmates use it to stay up all night studying for exams. They keep it secret from their parents, though, as older people in western and northern Ethiopia have a dim view of khat chewing.

There seem to be more users in Somaliland. Besides private homes, people like to gather in one of the ubiquitous little khat cafes. The plant is sold everywhere and consumption appears to be much higher than in Harar. While men and women chew separately, many khat cafes are run by women, some of whom smear their faces with khat paste as a kind of advertisement.

It’s hard to tell if khat is as harmful to Somaliland as alcohol is to the West, but it’s certainly an economic drain. Khat only grows in relatively moist uplands, so all the khat consumed in the dry, lowland Somali region has to be imported from Ethiopia. Good news for Ethiopian farmers, bad news for Somalis. One NGO worker told me the entire Somali region (Somaliland, Puntland, Somalia, Djibouti, and the Ogaden region of Ethiopia) spends $100 million a month on khat. While that sounds like a lot, most men and many women chew it regularly (often daily), and one day’s supply costs at least $2, and there are about 15 million Somalis in East Africa, so that staggering figure could be correct.

The Somalis have done the math too, and this is one of the main objections some have to the plant. They say the money could be used for things like infrastructure and education. They also say khat encourages idleness in a region that needs every worker working hard.

“This plant is pulling down my country,” one Hargeisa shopkeeper complained to me.

Some people don’t react well to khat, getting irritable or zoned out, and heavy users complain of tension, stomach upset, and headaches if they don’t get their leaves. Plus there’s the question of long-term effects. Many Somalis told me they knew older users who had suffered mental damage. I myself met some long-term users who seemed a bit vague even when they weren’t chewing, and the number of older men wandering the streets of Hargeisa babbling incoherently was noticeably greater than in Addis Ababa or even Harar. Plus the addiction makes people focus on getting the plant rather than on more important things. One Somalilander told me that during the worst part of the Somali civil war no airplane was able to land at Mogadishu airport, except one.

That was the khat plane from Ethiopia. All the warring clans agreed to a brief ceasefire when that was flying in.

For those wanting to learn more, Erowid is a good basic source, and the new Khat Research Program at the University of Minnesota plans to produce some definitive studies.

Don’t miss the rest of my series on travel in Somaliland.

Next time: Bumbling in Berbera, a khat comedy of errors!