Always eager to highlight lesser-known blogs by people who are actually out there seeing the world, I offer you this link to a blog called India 2006, by a guy name Sean from Washington DC. Seems Sean is back now from his trip and I suppose I’m bummed I missed out posting about him while he was on the road ,but there are still some very nice posts here that are worth reading ,especially if you have an interest in traveling to India. I for one feel that India is one of the greatest, most fascinating places to travel in the world, which is why I was drawn to Sean’s blog. He hit a few of the best known places in the country including Mumbai and Hyderabad and also managed to be there for two big events, Independence Day and now the Ganapati Festival. He was only there for a short period, so don’t expect serious revelations or in-depth knowledge, but it’s worth reading.
Suri – Photo of the Millenium
I realize that I am–like–3 days late with this warning (I gotta get better with my celebrity gossip skills) but I simply couldn’t not say anything.
All of you profit-hungry freelance photographers out there, you can apparently leave your cameras at home from now on. Those $3Million some hoped to get for that first picture of one of this year’s premier celebrity babies is gone forever. Since Suri, Tom Cruise’s and Katie Holmes’ baby has finally been photographed and published by the October issue of Vanity Fair, I am guessing that the value of any snapshots taking “in the wild” has gone down tremendously.
Well, folks, there is always wedding photography.
BT Blogger Blab Post Mortem
So the Budget Travel bloggers blab session went off last night smashingly. I have to say I was rather amazed by three things. 1) the BT folks actually sent a black sedan to pick me up (if you missed the somewhat intriguing irony here — BUDGET Travel — then, well, there, I just gave it to you…but let it NEVER be said that I won’t be picked up in a black sedan, unless you work for Tony Soprano or something; 2) the venue: it was held in the lovely uber-hip Tribeca Cinema with lights on the wall that said Budget Travel and a marquee and free drinks and teeny little cracker hors d’ovres with chicken that were simply divine; and finally 3) the audience. There must have been about a hundred people there, all of whom either came to listen to us or for free drinks and chicken cracker things. But the thought that anyone, let alone over a hundred people, would be interested to hear what a bunch of bloggers have to say is rather mind-blowing, I think, and a sign of the times that either a) bloggers are far more important than I imagine (entirely possible) or b) most people don’t really know what a blogger is, but they’ve read a lot about them and so came to satisfy their curiosity or c) this was really some awful psychology experiment orchestrated by some PhD students at Columbia to see how people who spend too much time in front of their computers actually react to being in front of a live audience. I only suspect that c) is the answer because I swear some of the people in the crowd held clipboards and I thought I could see the collar of a white lab coat beneath what they were wearing.
So, anyway ,you really want to know more than that don’t you? OK, the story is this: it was actually quite fun. Toastmaster extraordinaire and Editor-in-Chief Erik Torkells moderated the event looking very prim and businesslike in his finely tailored suit. I was actually surprised by how tall the guy is since the photo on the BT editor’s page is usually (unless he’s dressed as a cowboy) just a headshot. Also, it’s pronounced tor-KELLS not TOR-kells, which gives the name a bit of an Irish feel even though I have no idea if he’s irish, Norwegian or what. Anyway, there we were, the four of us – Mark G. Johnson of HotelChatter, Randy Petersen of InsideFlyer, and Joshua David Stein of Gridskipper….and Torkells asked us all sorts of questions about blogging and how/whether it’s going to replace real travel journalism (no) and how we find our stories (uh, mostly magazines, newspapers and other blogs), and whether we mind if PR people send us stuff (not really, unless it’s totally irrelevant to the blog…which about 70 percent are) and so on.
Of course, we fielded these questions with alacrity and wit, knocking out answers with the ease and fluidity of A-Rod during batting practice. I have to give props to Joshua Stein of Gridskipper for being the funniest one in the group and answering questions with a kind of jaded, sardonic aplomb that nicely complimented his disheveled appearance. The oddest, but most refreshing moment of the evening came when I was approached after the session by the two bloggers who write one of my favorite blogs on the Chelsea Hotel – Debbie and Ed. This charming couple had some lovely anecdotes about living in the Chelsea, which prompted me to immediately ask if I could come and shoot a story there…something I hope very much to do.
Anyway, this is becoming a rather too lengthy post, so I’ll bring it to a close here. I am going to write another post in a bit here about the dinner I had after the event, which, when it comes down to it, was the also a big highlight of the evening for me. I was invited to dine with one of my big time heroes of the travel world: Richard Bangs, who happened to be breezing through New York doing something for Mountain Travel Sobek. But more on that later.
(photos: Budget Travel Online – that, by the way, is me, looking a bit like I just finished my third martini (untrue) and am keeling over)
Theater: Dress Up (or Not)
I have had this conversation with numerous travelers (typically backpackers) in Europe: they want to go to the theater, opera, classical music concert but have no dressy clothes. The theater usually says that it encourages people to dress up but it is not enforced. Yet, all the locals dress up. Should they still go in jeans?
Most of them do. They justify it by saying that the real experience of Aida at the Opera in Vienna should not be dilluted by people wearing jeans (and taking pictures inside the Opera house – like the Stanford U students in the picture) and on the contrary, it shouldn’t be enhanced by wearing a gown.
So why do locals usually dress up? Are they just shallow and think that cultural experience will come with nice clothes?
Over the years, I have adopted the “when in Rome, do as Romans do” point of view when it comes to theater-going. Dress the way the locals dress, even though it might be inconvenient and mean buying an outfit. It doesn’t have to be a gown, but at least a skirt and a shirt (long pants and long-sleeve, collared shirt for men). If you can’t afford it, it might be a good idea to go to see a small, independent show instead. Consider that those locals may have saved up a lot of money to see a show in a majestic theater building and expect it would be special. By wearing jeans and “not caring”, you may just be ruining it for them. You might be able to enjoy the show regardless of the clothes you wear, but they might not.
In most European theaters, you will notice that the people dressed up are the locals and the people in jeans are the tourists. Many shows featuring a high concentration of jeans are thus called “tourist shows.” And that is certainly not a compliment.
Then again, who knows, “dressing up for culture” might be a thing of the past…
Troost’s Getting Stoned
I’ve been waiting to get my hands on the newest gut-busting travel tale by writer J. Maarten Troost so that I can review it here. His last (and first?) book Sex lives of Cannibals was absolutely superb. I reviewed it just after it came out and thought it one of the funniest travel books I’d read in a while, pretty much on par in its own way with the stuff Bill Bryson puts out (which is saying A LOT). There is immense appeal to Troost’s stories because he writes about the other side of paradise. He spirits off with his wife to exotic tropical locales that conjure up images of Corona ads or adolescent fantasies of topless native women fanning you with palm fronds on the beach, and he dispels the romantic allure of these places by revealing, well, the human reality of them. These islands, it turns out, are not quite as idyllic as Bronislaw Malinowski would have you believe.
Anyway, I promise I’ll get the book eventually, but in the meantime, I’d like to direct you to the superb review done over at Worldhum by Kristin Van Tassel, a writing teacher at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. I happened to by cruising around Worldhum and found the piece here and it reminded me how much I want to read the new Troost opus.