Oceania

Travel through Oceania by country:

Australia, Indonesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu

Travel through Oceania by popular city:

Auckland, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Wellington

Travel through Oceania by popular things to do:

Cook Islands, Sydney Opera House

Travel through Oceania with our writers:

In the Corner of the World, Work and Play in Queensland

Word for the Travel Wise (01/09/07)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Asking for the nearest telephone in Tahiti might feel like a breathy conversation in itself if you fail to nail the pronunciation at the first attempt.

Today’s word is a Tahitian (Maohi) word used in Tahiti:

niuniu paraparau – telephone

Tahitian is one of the two official languages of French Polynesia with the other being French. There are approximately 120,000 speakers through the Polynesian Islands. Head to Wikipedia for the background details as always. After you’ve gotten your history fix go to the tourism site for a small useful list of words to help get you by on the islands. Tahiti Explorer looks like it has the small list of words with a few more added on and a nifty pronunciation guide. The same thing goes for the list of words on the Tahiti Traveler without the pronunciation guide, so it’s really up to you to take your pick. Lonely Planet has a guide which probably has the same amount of words in the back of the glossary. Still – better to know a few than none at all.

Past Tahitian words: tamaaraa, pape

Food Poisoning: Meet the Bugs

by Iva Skoch on

There is nothing like an episode of food poisoning that can wreck one’s trip, change priorities, or–if it takes more than two days–even reconsider one’s view on euthanasia. I have been there many times, either myself or in spirit with other people. Yes, there was the cheap sushi in New York, the grocery store pre-cut water melon in Portland, the chicken satay in Amsterdam, the sandwich at Arby’s, and the Lord-knows-what in Egypt (this one lasted for weeks and I contemplated death several times).

Because I like to know my enemy, I enjoyed this article on ivillage.co.uk entitled “How to avoid food poisoning while travelling”. Most of the tips are quite obvious, although often hard to fully control: washing your hands, avoiding tap water (ice, fresh vegetables washed in fresh water), avoiding uncooked meat and unpasteurized milk, etc. The piece I found interesting is the description of the different “bugs” and their symptoms: Norovirus, E-coli (see picture), Salmonella, Campylobacter and Bacillus cereus. The little buggers look so harmless on screen…

Word for the Travel Wise (01/07/07)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Neil’s recent post on Screwy Aussie Slang brought it to my attention that I haven’t plucked a word from the bush in a while. If you’re off to do Australia on a shoe-string budget plug this Aussie Bush word into your vocab as it may come in handy.

Today’s word is a Bush word used in Australia:

humpy – bush dwelling using cheap materials

Hiroyuki Yokose does a great job outlining Aboriginal words used in Australian English like our vocab words from the past. For additional words you may wish to check out his findings. The Bangerang Cultural Centre is one of the first Aboriginal museums in the country and has a list of words online from this particular tribe. Wiki lists a large number of tribes and languages found in Australia which if you already haven’t set your mind on one in particular you can try picking one off their list. Try Lonely Planet’s Outback Australia guide for additional offline reading and trip planning.

Past Aboriginal/Australian words: cooee, yabber, bush telly, duffing, backblocks

World’s Most Aggressive “Queue Jumpers”

by Iva Skoch on

One of the things that annoy me to no end when traveling are people who cut in front of you when waiting in line or as the British say “Queue Jumpers“.

Part of the problem is that I never know whether I should just relax, ignore it and let everyone get ahead of me (I am on vacation, after all… no rush to get any place) OR whether I should “do as the Romans do”, assimilate and become a champion queue jumper myself. I have a feeling I would be pretty good at it, too. What I do know is that most countries in the world could use an elementary school subject called “The Art of Forming a Line”. It would make the world seem a lot more civilized.

Every time I travel from the US back home to Prague I notice how much more aggressive people are in Europe about their spot in line (The UK is an obvious exception here). Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin airports…I swear sometimes you feel like if you don’t squeeze into the front, they would not let you board. The further east you go, the worst it gets.

I just read a piece in the December 23 “The Economist” about the airports in Russia which really made me laugh. The author is describing the various species of the Moscow airport queue jumper: “the brazen hoodlum, the incremental babushka and the queue-surfing clans who relocate in groups when one of their number reaches the front.” It reminded me of my trip to China where elbow-wrestling with 70-year old women in lines was a norm. The Darwinism of the 21st century is quite sad, really.

Watching (and helping) Turtles Hatch

by Erik Olsen on

The Cape York turtle rescue project seeks to help turtles survive the nasty human encroachment on their million year old traditional turf. And turtle helping has become a cottage tourist industry in Australia. In this piece at the Age, Australia’s fine daily newspaper, writer john Coomber talks about going down to the beach to help along these cute little palm-sized amphibians.