Strange Festivals From Around The World

by Chris Owen on

Fall festival season is in full swing now, getting people out and about on the crisp autumn weekends. Some festivals are annual events across town, others take a road trip or weekend getaway to see. In the United States, many have a common theme that includes pumpkins, hay and cider somewhere along the way. In other parts of the world, annual festivals at different times of the year offer a measure of tradition and have been held for decades. Others are just plain odd but they bring some of the most fun that distant lands have to offer.

Sakon Nakhon Wax Castle Festival
Coming up in October, Thailand has the Sakon Nakhon Wax Castle Festival, marking the end of Buddhist Lent. During the festival, the people of Sakhon Nakhon gather in a celebration, which includes a Wax Castle procession, longboat races and cultural performances. Originally using beeswax to make different kinds of flowers, attached to banana tree trunks, today’s festival features castles, temples and shrines paraded around the city showcasing local skill and wisdom.

[Flickr photo by e-dredon]

The Battle of Oranges
Basically a huge food fight, the Battle of Oranges is a festival in the Northern Italian city of Ivrea, which includes a tradition of throwing of oranges between organized groups. During the three-day Orange hurling brawl, the city will go through 50,000 cases of oranges (about 400 tons) as townspeople will get dressed up to re-enact a Middle Age battle. Those dressed as Middle Age kings’ guards, throw oranges at others dressed as foot soldiers as thousands of people gather to watch.

[Flickr photo by Giò-S.p.o.t.s.]

The Night of the Radishes
Mexico has their Day of the Dead festival held in November, a centuries-old tradition that honors those who have died with a walking procession through town in a Mardi Gras sort of way. The Night of the Radishes comes in December and is an exhibition of sculptures made from large red radishes especially grown for this event. It is held only in Oaxaca, Mexico, which is the name of both a state in Mexico and that state’s capital city. Winners get their photo published in the local paper and win a prize, but the festival has more than a century been a focal point of Christmas celebrations in Oaxaca.

Flickr photo by drewleavy

World Bodypainting Festival
The World Bodypainting Festival is an annual festival happens in Austria. The week-long painting fest is the biggest annual event of the body painting culture and community, drawing the best body painting artist teams and models as well as thousands of visitors, from all over the world. The artists compete in many categories from brush and sponge to airbrush and special effects. There is a World Facepainting Award and a special award for special effects face make up. Artists use mostly volunteer male or female models as they wish and female models can go topless if they want.

[Flickr photo by r3dst0rm]

International Bognor Birdman
The International Birdman is a series of two competitions held in West Sussex, England, that have human ‘birdmen’ attempting to fly off the end of a pier into the sea for prize money. The competition brings serious aviators mainly flying hang-gliders and people in costume with little or no actual flying ability, raising money for charity. Initially, there was a prize of £1,000 for anyone who could travel beyond 50 yards but over time that increased to £30,000 for reaching 330 feet.

[Flickr photo by DavidQuick]

But one of the strangest festivals around has to be Thailand’s Face Piercing Festival that we see in this video.


[Flickr photo (top) by roberthuffstutter]

Great ‘Cultural’ Spa Experiences From Around The World

by Laurel Miller on

Even if you’re not a spa junkie, it’s hard to deny the appeal of a great massage or other self-indulgent treatment. I’m actually a massage school graduate, and although I ultimately decided not to pursue that career path, I’ve parlayed my experience into doing the odd spa writing assignment. Not surprisingly, I’m a tough judge when it comes to practitioners, facilities and treatments. I also don’t have any interest in generic treatments. What I love is a spa and menu that captures the essence of a place, through both ingredients and technique.

Many spas around the world now try to incorporate some localized or cultural element into their spa programs. It’s not just a smart marketing tool, but a way to educate clients and hotel guests, employ local people skilled in indigenous therapeutic practices, or sell branded spa products made from ingredients grown on site, or cultivated or foraged by local tribes or farmers.

Sometimes, it’s not a hotel or high-end day spa that’s memorable, but a traditional bathhouse used by locals (such as a Moroccan hammam) that’s special. The low cost of such places is an added bonus: think Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Asia, and parts of the Middle East.

Over the years, I’ve visited a number of spas and bathhouses that have made a big impression on my aching body or abused skin, as well as my innate traveler’s curiosity. After the jump, my favorite spa experiences from around the world.

Six Senses Ninh Van Bay: Vietnam
Located on an isolated peninsula accessible only by boat, Six Senses (near the beach resort of Nha Trang) is a seriously sexy property. Private villas nestle in the hillsides and perch above the water, but the spa and restaurants are the big draw here, as many of their ingredients are sourced from the property’s extensive organic gardens.

The “Locally Inspired” section of the spa menu features treatments like the Vietnamese Well-being Journey: three-and-a-half hours of pure hedonism. A scrub with com xanh (Vietnamese green rice) is followed by a bath in “herbs and oils from the indigenous Hmong and Dao hill tribes of the Sa Pa Valley,” and a traditional massage using bamboo, suction cups and warm poultices filled with native herbs.

On my visit, I opted for a refreshing “Vietnamese Fruit Body Smoother” made with ingredients just harvested from the garden: papaya, pineapple and aloe vera. Other body treatments include applications of Vietnamese green coffee concentrate and a green tea scrub.

Foot reflexology: Hong Kong
Foot reflexologists and massage parlors are ubiquitous throughout Asia, and in my experience, it’s hard to find a bad one. That said, one of the best massages I’ve ever had was an hour-long foot reflexology session in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Hong Kong. It cost me all of ten dollars, and interestingly enough, it also proved eerily accurate about a long-term GI problem I’d been having that had defied Western diagnosis.

My bliss was momentarily interrupted when my therapist pressed a particular spot on the ball of my foot, causing me to nearly leap out of my skin. He informed me that my gallbladder was inflamed, information I processed but soon forgot. I’d already been tested for gallstones with negative results – twice. A year later, I had an emergency cholecsytectomy to remove my severely diseased gallbladder. A trip to Hong Kong for a foot massage would ultimately have been cheaper and far more enjoyable than three years of worthless diagnostics.

Verana: Yelapa, Jalisco, Mexico
One of my favorite places on earth is Verana, an intimate, eight-guesthouse hilltop retreat located in Yelapa, a fishing village one hour from Puerto Vallarta by water taxi. Husband and wife team Heinz Legler and Veronique Lievre designed the hotel and spa and built it entirely by hand, using local, natural materials.

Although the spa doesn’t focus on traditional Mayan or Aztec technique, Verana grows or forages all of the raw ingredients for its treatments (the gardens also supply the property’s outstanding restaurant), including banana, coconut, lemon, pineapple, papaya and herbs. Try an outdoor massage, followed by a dip in the watsu tub, or an edible-sounding body scrub made with cane sugar and coffee or hibiscus-papaya.

Morocco: hammams
A staple of Moroccan life (as well as other parts of North Africa and the Middle East), hammam refers to segregated public bathhouses that are a weekly ritual for many. A “soap” made from crushed whole olives and natural clay is applied all over the body with an exfoliating mitt. Buckets of hot water are then used to rinse.

Although many hotels in the big cities offer luxury hammam treatments tailored for Western guests, if you want the real deal, go for a public bathhouse. While in Morocco, I got to experience three types of hammam: the hotel variety, a rural DIY hammam at the spectacular Kasbah du Toubkal in the Atlas Mountains, and one at a public bathhouse.

In most public hammams, you’ll strip down in a massive, steam-filled, tiled room. Request an attendant (rather than DIY), who will then scrub the life out of you, flipping you around like a rag-doll. Massages are often offered as part of the service or for an additional fee.

Yes, it’s intimidating and unnerving to be the only naked Westerner in a giant room of naked Muslim men or women, all of who are staring at you and giggling. Once you get over being the odd man (or woman, in my case) out, it’s fascinating to have such an, uh, intimate glimpse into an everyday activity very few travelers experience. The payoff is the softest, cleanest, most glowing skin imaginable.

At hammans that accept Westerners, the vibe is friendly and welcoming, and it’s a way to mingle with locals and participate in an ancient, sacred ritual without causing offense. Do enquire, via sign language or in French, if you should remove all of your clothing, or leave your skivvies on. I failed to do this at the public bathhouse, and increased the staring situation a thousand-fold, because at that particular hammam (unlike the Kasbah), the women kept their underwear on. Oops.

Three highly recommended, traditional, wood-fired Marrakech hammams are Bain Marjorelle (large, modern multi-roomed), Hammam Polo (small, basic, one room), and Hammam el Basha (large, older, multi-roomed). Expect to pay approximately $10 for an attendant (including tip, sometimes massage). Independent travelers can easily find a hamman if they look for people of their own gender carrying buckets, towels and rolled-up mats near a mosque. To ensure you visit a Western-friendly hammam, it’s best to ask hotel or riad staff or taxi drivers for recommendations, and enquire about male/female hours.

Daintree EcoLodge & Spa: Daintree, Queensland, Australia
The Daintree Rainforest, located near Cape Tribulation in Far North Queensland, is over 135 million years old. It’s home to some of the rarest and most primitive flora on earth, much of it traditionally used by the local Aboriginal people for medicinal purposes.

The Daintree Wellness Spa at the low-key, family-owned and-operated EcoLodge has received international accolades for both its work with the local Kuku Yajani people, and its luxe treatments. The spa relies on ochre (a skin purifier) harvested from beneath the property’s waterfall, as well as indigenous “bush” ingredients from the Daintree such as rosella, avocado, native mint, wild ginger, bush honey, quandong, tea tree and spring water. The spa also produces its own line of products, Daintree Essentials (available online).

All treatments integrate traditional Kuku Yalanji modalities and spiritual beliefs, and have received approval from the local elders. I opted for the Ngujajura (Dreamtime) package, which includes a full body and foot massage, Walu BalBal facial and rain therapy treatment (a specialty at Daintree, consisting of an oil and sea salt exfoliation, ochre mud wrap and spring water shower administered tableside … trust me, it’s revelatory). An added bonus: the lodge offers Aboriginal cultural classes that include jungle walks, medicinal plants and bush foods (try eating green ants, a surprisingly tasty source of vitamin C).

Alto Atacama Desert Lodge & Spa: San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
This absolutely enchanting adobe property on the outskirts of the village of San Pedro is a slice of heaven, even if you skip its Puri Spa. But that would be a mistake, because then you wouldn’t be able to succumb to treatments and ingredients adapted from what’s been traditionally used by the local Atacameño people for thousands of years.

Atacama is the driest desert on earth, so on my visit, I chose the “Royal Quinoa Face Mask,” made with locally sourced quinoa (for its exfoliating and regenerative properties) mixed with local honey and yogurt. I left the treatment room looking considerably less desiccated.

The real splurge is the Sabay Massage, which uses pindas, or cloth pouches, filled with rice (used here as an exfoliant), rica rica (an herbal digestive aid also used in aromatherapy) and chañar berries (medicinally used as an expectorant and to stimulate circulation, as well as a food source) collected from around the property, which has extensive native gardens designed by a reknown Chilean ethno-botanist. You’ll emerge silky-skinned and tension-free. Dulces Sueños.

[Photo credits: Massage, Flickr user thomaswanhoff; Six Senses, Laurel Miller; Verana, Flickr user dmealiffe]

Vagabond Tales: Reinventing The Swim-Up Bar

by Kyle Ellison on

“There’s only one thing wrong with this wave,” quipped John, a 50-something-year-old surfer from Seattle, who, like the rest of us, had come to the Mexican outpost of La Saladita to score some perfect waves, warm weather and oceanfront lobsters and beer.

“It’s too far of paddle to come back in and get a beer.”

Such is the crux of long, perfect waves the world over. A long ride means a long paddle back out to the lineup, a reality, which renders the ability to enjoy a cold drink between waves to be virtually non-existent.

At a place where paddling back out to the lineup takes anywhere from 20-30 minutes – your arms, shoulders and back straining with use the entire time – a quick jaunt to shore for a beverage becomes a multi-hour rest break punctuated by a nap in a hammock.

Here in La Saladita, a user-friendly wave, which pumps out consistently head-high waves seemingly all summer long, you either drink beer on shore, or you go out and surf. There’s no mixing the two, because as John so aptly stated, the beers are just simply too far from the waves.

But they don’t have to be.Forty-five minutes north of the thumping discotecas and high-rise resorts of Ixtapa, La Saladita still exists as a tranquil, palm-fringed fishing village facing westward to the expansive Pacific. Like other coastal outposts in Mexico, however, La Saladita hasn’t been entirely immune from expansion and development.

Looking down the beach from Lourdes beach bar – one of the original dining options up and down La Saladita – a clutch of foreign investment properties poke their heads out from behind the beachfront landscape.

Some have moved here for the remoteness, others, the cheap cost of living and the laidback way of life. Most, however, have moved here for the machine – like consistency of the left point break, which reels down the beach, a fantasy-wave, which leaves surfers enjoying rides measured in minutes, not seconds.

The water is warm (86 degrees), the crowds are mellow and the commute to the surf spot is never more than a stroll down the beach.

One such expat to permanently land at this place is Corky Carroll, the one-time professional surf champion who now runs surf adventure trips to this stretch of coastline. Everyone around here seems to have some sort of Corky story, a foregone conclusion for an icon regarded as the informal mayor of the lineup.

Despite the influx of foreign development, however, La Saladita remains true to its outpost soul. There is only one place in town with Wi-Fi (barely), beers are $1, the lobsters are hours old and the miniscule amount of artificial light created by development does nothing to dampen the blanket of stars.

The sound of waves hitting the shoreline replaces the sound of bass, traffic or salesmen slinging timeshares. This is not the Mexico you see in a travel agent’s window. This is the Mexico you see when you drive down dirt roads.

Nevertheless, for as idyllic and off the grid as La Saladita may be, there is still the pesky issue of the distant beers. Sure, Cancun or Cabo San Lucas may not have the same sense of rural isolation, but they do have swim-up bars.

Anyone who has ever visited a tropical resort destination has seen them. Usually adorned with a faux-waterfall or a thatched roof, traditional bars are placed right inside of the resort swimming pool as a means of helping guests spend their soaking wet money and initiate an evening fraught with bad decisions.

Let’s face it: when alcohol is placed inside of a swimming pool, things such as sobriety and morality usually get thrown to the tropical breeze. But hey, what are vacations for?

After four days of surfing head-high waves and needing to go all the way back to shore for a beer, however, it became apparent that we, too, needed a swim up bar. If the waves had been bigger and the crowds had been heavier (i.e. more than just our group of five friends in the water), the thought of introducing beers into a surf lineup would be dangerous, blasphemous, and borderline disrespectful. But when you’re the only people out there, what’s really to stop you?

With a flurry of activity sourced straight from a rerun of MacGyver, we managed to attain a floating raft, some climbing rope, two extra strength trash bags and an exceptionally large rock. After assembling the rock, rope and bags into a remedial anchoring system, a 30-minute paddle was all it took to secure 22 beers to the inside of the raft and paddle the raft beyond the breaking, head-high surf.

The end result? Well, let’s just say it was a good decision.

Want more travel stories? Read the rest of the “Vagabond Tales” over here.

[Image courtesy of danellesheree on Flickr]

Google Street View Offers Virtual Trips Around Mexico’s Ancient Monuments

by Sean McLachlan on


We’ve talked a lot about Google Street View here on Gadling. It seems that every month a new attraction is added to this amazing and somewhat sinister application.

The latest is a series of views of the great monuments of Mexico. Google has been cooperating with the National Institute of Anthropology and History to take images of important sites such as Teotihuacan, Palenque and Chichen Itza. They hope to have 80 sites online by the end of the year.

The uber-cool archaeology news website Past Horizons reports that instead of the usual Google Street View van, a tricycle took the 360-degree panoramas. This method has been used at other sensitive sites like Stonehenge. I’ve taken a look at some of them and they’re as crisp and clear as the photos Google took of your house.

The Mexican sites are only some of hundreds of important spots around the world taken as part of the Google World Wonders Project. Hit the link to see more.

[Photo of Templo de la Calavera at Palenque courtesy Tato Grasso]

Quirky Cocktails In Mexico: Mango Distilled Spirits

by Jessica Festa on

While Mexico is renowned for its tequilas and mescals, if you’re heading to Mazatlán there is another type of drink you should try: mango distilled spirits. Onilikan, which translates to “the place of liquor,” is a distillery putting their fruit to good use. In fact, they are the first people in Mexico and one of the only in the world fermenting mango to create delectable spirits.

The drink is a combination of local Mexico and foreign European influences. While the fruits are grown in Mazatlán, Onilikan adapts the European liqueur production traditions to extract the mango essence and craft a premium-quality, smooth sipping mango beverage.

So, what’s so special about the mango-infused libation? While distillers have used mango before, it hasn’t been in this manner.

“There are other people processing mango and creating mango wine, or adding mango into rum, tequila, and so on, but not the way we do it,” says Onilikan Sales Director Maria Victoria Campos.

They use a distiller called “Dora the Distiladora.” This is a German-made “pot still” designed to maximize and capture the fruit aromas. It features a heating/evaporation component, which heats the fermented fruit and juice; an aroma collection column, which uses bronze plates to trap the scents from the alcohol; and a condenser, which cools down the gases and turns them back into liquids. While the model is still widely used in Europe to distil alcohol from a variety of fruits, it is the first of its kind to operate in Mexico.

You can get the spirit in two different strengths. The milder one, a sweet sipping liquor, has an alcohol content of 24%, while the other is referred to as Aqua Caliente – fire water – due to an alcohol content of 40%. Along with being used as for cocktails, the mango liqueurs can be used for cooking and making a delicious marinade for fish or chicken.