Laos: Tough Bus Rides, Beautiful Scenery

by Willy Volk on

Laos is a long, skinny, landlocked country in southeast Asia, often overlooked by tourist-friendly, coastline-owning Thailand. However, with its centuries-old temples at Luang Prabang, 4000 islands at Si Phan Don, and easily-reachable (depending on your definition of easy) Army of Buddhas at Pak Ou, Laos may be one of the most overlooked travel destinations on the planet. While your travel dollars can go far in this beautiful, mountainous country, your memories may be hard-won — especially if you’re a high-maintenance traveler. To see what I mean, check out this excellent 2-minute video of portions of Al Brenner’s bus ride through Laos. Gorgeous…but by no means first class.


If I were heading to Laos, I would have to add the enigmatic Plain of Jars to my list of things to do. Don’t know what the Plain of Jars is? Check out this excellent trip report, and it’ll be on your short list, too.

Win a Romantic Getaway Thanks to the U.S. Postal Service

by Jamie Rhein on

If you want to be able to fund that romantic getaway on someone else’s dollar–$10,000 worth, enter the United States Postal Service’s “Guess and Win Sweepstakes.” According to a flier I picked up at my neighborhood post office, all you have to do is guess the number of Hershey®’s Kisses® that will fit into a Postal Service Priority Flat Rate Box by February 15, the day the contest ends.

How big is that size box you wonder? 11-7/8 inches by 3-3/8 inches by 13-5/8 inches. If you happen to buy kisses and put them in the box to help you with your guessing, you can mail them anywhere in the U.S. for $8.10. That’s the idea behind the flat rate box. Not to get people to mail chocolate, but to get people to mail this size package.

Let’s say you are the lucky winner of this $10,000. You get to choose where you want to go for romance. If you have no idea where that might be, or want to try some place you haven’t thought of before, I found this list on AskMen.com. Reasons for each choice are listed by writer Harry Marks.

10. Turkey
9. Malta
8. Vienna Austria
7. Algarve, Portugal
6. Paris, France
5. Argentina
4. Greek Islands
3. Venice, Italy
2. Casablanca, Morocco
1. Bora Bora, French Polynesia.

My pick? I would choose Malta because I never would have thought of it and because it sounds like a place that’s intimate, historical and lovely. Turkey, though, is a close second. How many places could you go on a $10,000? It seems like if you did the budget travel version, you could hit 8 of them, including Malta on a few weeks trip.

You can enter the contest on-line and, if you don’t win the $10,000, you might be one of the 100 people to win a Valentine -themed bear.

Pancake Week (Maslenitsa) is Party Time in Moscow

by Jamie Rhein on

Pancake Week is almost here. From February 15 to 18, Maslenitsa, the Russian equivalent of Mardi Gras, will turn Moscow’s streets into a carnival of singing, dancing and entertainment. This party attitude in February started back in pagan times and became part of Eastern Orthodoxy when Christianity took over celebrations with a nature worshiping angle. Now, it marks the pre-stages of Lent.

With Russia’s political history (I would guess) Maslenitsa hit a dry spell for about 85 years and passed by without much brouhaha. Not anymore. Since 2002, it’s back in force and some. Central, of course, are pancakes. The Russian version is blini which are served up with either caviar, mushrooms, jam and plenty of butter. Like with any pagan turned Christian holiday there is symbolism behind the food. Pancakes represent the sun and warmth as winter is coming to an end. Each day of the traditional holiday also has a particular meaning. I came across RusCuisine.com that gives a detailed overview of each day and provides recipes so you can whip up some blini yourself.

Besides eating blini and giving blini to friends and family, fist fighting is also a Maslenitsa activity. This is not a fist fight fest where everyone whams on each other, but some sort of organized happening, meaning if you head to Moscow at this time, I don’t think you’ll have to duck.

Dancing bears, sleigh rides, fireworks and more are also part of the week’s events. For more info, since I’ve really just touched on a few highlights, click here for a more indepth overview of the festival’s history and traditions.

Worldmapper

by Erik Olsen on

A very cool use of technology, geography and demographics can be found over at the site Worldmapper. They have developed a really amazing algorithm that allows you to see the world and the various sizes of the country therein, through various statistics. Countries look skinny or fat according to their share of wealth or trade or population or education or whatever gets plugged in, but they maintain their familiar boundaries and shapes. Some of the results make the countries look silly (i.e. a Chile-shaped USA), but they are scientifically precise.

For example, the map here shows the break down for tourism. Now this is fascinating, right? It seems that Western Europe is the most popular destination for international tourists, receiving 46% of world tourist trips, while on the other end 0.1% of world tourist trips are made to Central African territories. Hmmm, I guess that’s not too surprising, though. More interesting perhaps is the map here that shows countries that receive more international tourist visits than international visits are made by their residents. Anyway, that’s just a sampling. There are a lot more fascinating maps to see at the site.

Worldmapper was created by geographers from the University of Sheffield’s Social and Spatial Inequalities Research Group (There’s an innovative college major!) and by Mark Newman, a physicist at the University of Michigan. Really neat.

Global Giving

by Erik Olsen on

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet aside, we Americans tend to be a rather stringy bunch. Hey, I’m right there with you. I don’t think I’ve ever given more than a few hundred dollars to a cause, be it saving Spotted Owls, feeding the poor in Africa or shrinking the ozone hole. I’m sure some of you out there want to scream from the mountaintops, “Hey! I give a lot.” Well, thank you. I’m not talking about you here. I’m talking about the average American who, it turns out, gives about 2 percent to charitable causes. It’s something we all might think about a little more. And since this is a travel site, what about giving overseas?

Well, take a look at the site GlobalGiving.com which shows how the Internet can transform how you support causes you believe in. They have created an Ebay-like marketplace where the “sellers” are groups in poor countries who run environmental, public-health, educational, or human-rights projects. You can go on and contribute amounts ranging from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars…depending, I suppose, on the size of that Christmas bonus you got. It’s Ebay similarity is actual quite intriguing, such that you can easily compare offerings, find possibilities you hadn’t been aware of, etc.

If you want to learn more, check out this story over at NPR about the group.