By the looks of this You Tube video, “Rip Curl My Search,” Pohnpei, Micronesia is one wow of a place to surf. Besides the totally awesome surfing moves by Pancho Sullivan, Raoni Monteiro, Darren O’Rafferty and Kieren Perrow that make you feel like you’re there, the video includes some island and fish images. If you’re interested in heading to Pohnpei, here is a link to the Pohnpei Surf Club. Make sure you look at the gallery page. The photos are gorgeous.
A few days ago, I wrote a post about traveling in the Sahara, the favored trip of my adult ESL students. One of the trips that caught my attention was the hiking to Mt. Fuji at night. The intention of this endeavor is to arrive by sunrise. This travel experience is not a solo endeavor. The article in Budget Traveler mentioned the dozens of people who do the same thing. Mt. Fuji, considered to be sacred, is a bit of a poke from the bottom to the top, 12,388 feet, but it’s doable for even unseasoned hikers. Taking one’s time and drinking plenty of water are imperative and there are rest stops with shack like buildings scattered along the way where, if need be, you can lie down and rest. The Budget Traveler article mentioned people buying oxygen bottles to help them breathe towards the top, but another article in the New York Times, a first person account, doesn’t say a thing about that. For a quick nuts and bolts overview of the trip up Mt. Fuji, head to Budget Traveler. For an experiential journey, Kathy Glass’s article in the New York Times captures the sites and feelings of the assent and descent, and some tidbits of Mt. Fuji history. For example, women weren’t allowed to climb the mountain until 1867. Her descriptions of interactions with the landscape and the people she met on the way is a read to savor. As the popularity of ATV riding is growing, the places where you can ride them are also expanding. Last year I found out there were ATV trails in Wayne National Forest when I was writing an article on outdoor family adventure travel in Ohio. There are other places where trails abound. One place I also just found about has an interesting story. Do the names Hatfield and McCoy ring a bell? These are probably the most famous feuding families in the United States. The Hatfields from West Virginia and the McCoys from Kentucky got all riled up 100 years ago and fought with each other for 12 years. Basically, this involved killing and mayhem. The trail system named after them spans several counties in West Virginia and was developed as a money maker. There’re not many ways to make a bundle in the economically depressed regions of coal country. This one is working well. From the way things are going in ATV land, the trails are a lucrative money maker. There are six trails in the 550 mile area on private land. If you’re interested in heading this way, you can check out www.trailsheaven.com. Riding a cyclo in Vietnam is a bit like riding in a baby stroller if you can remember riding in a baby stroller. Except, in a cyclo, you’re moving in traffic and not safely on a sidewalk somewhere. As more and more people have cars and motorcycles in Vietnam, it’s getting harder to find places to get a cyclo ride. Although in Hanoi, there are still places where they are everywhere. At Virtual Tourist, you can find cyclo riding tips and comments from others who’ve been there. Once I stood on a street corner taking pictures of cyclos going by and the things they carried besides people. One had a coffin. I can’t imagine that cyclos will ever go totally out, and they may just be money makers from the tourist industry like they are in Singapore. Here’s a video posted by budlake on You Tube of a cyclo ride in Hue that did make me feel like I was on a cyclo. The person holding the camera had the right idea. Just keep the camera steady and let the movement of the cyclo do the work. The result is that the viewer gets an idea of what it’s like to move in Vietnam’s traffic at a slower pace than the other vehicles passing by.
Surfing in Pohnpei, Micronesia
Hiking Mt. Fuji Before Sunrise
Hatfield and McCoy Trails
Cyclo Ride: A Virtual Thrill