India’s Heritage on Wheels

by Abha Malpani on

You’ve probably heard of India’s famous Palace on Wheels train ride which takes you through main points of northwest India in a week. It’s been around for a while, has a minimum set course of 7-days, and is luxuriously out of reach for the average upper-middle class Indian which makes it more popular with tourists rather than locals.

A similar yet more down-to-earth 3-day journey available on India’s Heritage on Wheels is increasingly becoming popular amongst Indian families not wanting to spend so much for Palace on Wheels, yet want a cultural and comfortable train trip with family. It covers 3-cities in Rajasthan: Jaipur, Shekhawati and then Bikaner where you can visit the most famous sanctuaries, palaces, and forts of the state.

At US$150-300 per night, it is not cheap, but it costs less than half the day price of Palace on Wheels. The train is targeted to (rich) Indian families rather than international tourists, so perhaps it will give you a slightly more authentic experience of that part of India.

Get ready for Carnival

by Jerry Guo on

The Mangueira shantytown, which you’ll see looking up the steep slopes below the Christ the Redeemer statue, isn’t a place you want to be caught walking through. Drug dealers swinging automatic guns are a common sight, for one.

But travelers are already flooding the district, which is in the middle of preparations for Carnival (Feb 3-4). The streets of these slums have been turned pink and green (the colors of Mangueira, one of the most well-known samba groups in town). It seems work has been going on for six months already, and $1 million has been poured into this year’s celebration.

At first glance, you might be thinking, “These people are crazy! They live in shanties, for God’s sake. A million dollars can feed a lot of people!’ But it seems the $1 million also goes to keeping a lot of people employed as construction workers and dancers for the floats. And it does keep drugs off the street.

So you do the math.

Broome Street, memories of place, and Jaunted’s tribute to Heath Ledger

by Jamie Rhein on

Every day I read Jaunted to see what’s happening over there. Heath Ledger was one of the things happening today (January 23) since blogger Juliana was as floored as I was by his death. Her response was to provide an overview of the places Ledger traveled that formed his life as an actor.

If you spend any time at Gadling, you’ll see the theme of place as well. People who travel have automatic feelers for the qualities of a place that make it unique. In one of Jerry’s post on bookstores, he mentioned The Strand. It’s one of my favorite places to go and just a short walk from where my brother lives. My brother has lived in Manhattan for years and over the years of visiting him, I feel like his neighborhood is somehow mine as well. His friends have also lived there for years also, thus our paths have crossed often, and they have added to my scope of what life is like in New York.

When I step out of the subway stop at Union Square to walk to where my brother lives, it feels as if I’ve arrived home. When Broome Street was mentioned the street where Heath Ledger lived, I thought about the many times I’ve walked down Broome Street to Ted Muehling’s marvelous jewelery shop when it was located in this part of SoHo. Ted has since moved to Howard Street, but I can hear the sound that the metal steps made when I walked up to the door at the Broome Street location.

Close by is the The Guggenheim Museum Soho on the corner of Broadway and Prince, but when Ted’s shop was still on Broome Street, The Museum for African Art was one of my favorite stops in the neighborhood. That museum is now temporarily located in Long Island City, Queens.

When I heard Heath lived on Broome Street, I thought of the post I wrote not too long ago how our lives, travel, and the news intertwine to where each influences the other–particularly when we have a personal connection to a place.

If you’ve been to Anne Frank’s house, read her diary as an eighth grader and felt moved, the chestnut tree has a poignancy, for example. It’s not an abstract, far away thing–something that is “over there” with no consequence to our daily lives. When I read Neil’s post about the plans to cut it down, it felt alarming–as if the stars were shifting. I do know that nothing stays the same, but places do in ones memory unless you revisit them and find them changed.

I haven’t been down Broome Street for a few years or so, but it’s still there and it’s altered. Along with the sound of the metal step, and the taste of the rich piece of chocolate that I chose from the box that was on the table in the back of Ted Muehling’s store, I have other thoughts of Broome Street that I never expected. My memory is not quite the same.

Bookstores as a travel pursuit (part 2)

by Jerry Guo on

A few days ago Jamie talked about going to book talks and readings as a travel pursuit. So what about going for the bookstores themselves? It turns out there’s a word for these places: “destination bookstores.”

It can be as simple as a bookstore where visiting authors have signed their names on the chairs they sat in. Or a place like That Bookstore in Blytheville, Arkansas, the famous literary headwaters of native-son John Grisham. Or try City Lights in San Francisco, which attracts thousands of tourists a year who come to see the hangout of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.

And for you New Yorkers, there’s the famous bookstore at Broadway and 12th Street, The Strand. It’s got something like 4 miles of shelve space–and it’s an unparalleled place for finding rare and out-of-print books. Of course, The Strand is also well known for feeding an entire army of homeless people who scrounge in recycle bins for books to sell to the store. (See this New York Times piece from last week profiling these entrepreneurs).

Check out nine destination bookstores here; if you’re lucky, one may be just around the corner.

Watchmojo: Eye-candy videos of your next vacation destination

by Jerry Guo on

If you’re short on time (and who isn’t), you can’t be bothered to read long travel pieces. You may also enjoy seeing a destination on screen. If this fits your personality, then WatchMojo, which bills itself a “web video magazine”, may be your thing.

They offer a lot of short 3-min clips introducing various vacation destinations, such as Toronto, Stockholm, Orlando, Florence, and the site of the video clip below, Rome. These clips are somewhat PR-ish, but they do put out some interesting stuff, for instance a series on ice hotels around the world.

Check out their selection here.