Photo Of The Day: Taiwanese Temple

This Taiwanese temple is enmeshed in a field of silver grass, completely dwarfed by the surrounding foliage. Snapped by Flickr user Pamcy.com, it seemed like an appropriately peaceful, contemplative image for today’s Photo of the Day. This has been a difficult and draining week for many Gadling writers (and readers) living in U.S. Northeast.

Upload your best images to the Gadling Group Pool on Flickr. We choose our favorites from the pool as Photos of the Day.

[Image: Flickr | Pamcy.com]

In Bali With Baggage: Getting A Look Around

[read earlier parts of “In Bali With Baggage” here]

Perhaps it is some fluke of Balinese grammar. Perhaps the words for “lonely” and “alone” are the same. But the hotel staff keeps asking me, “traveling lonely?” and I say, “Yes.”

“No friends?” they continue, just to make sure.

“No,” I say, feeling my nose being rubbed in it. “No friends.”

In my short time here, I’ve already learned that the Balinese are really sweet. Despite the surge in tourism – often a loud, drinky, druggy kind of tourism – they’ve retained their basic niceness. But if this wasn’t the case, why, I’d think they were sticking it to me.

“Oh no,” they say, making a frowny face. “You are traveling lonely, Mr. Jonathan.”

That’s another thing. They call me “Mr. Jonathan.” Respectfully, like I own a schmata factory. Like I’m Mr. T’s brother.

I walk out of the hotel and onto the street. The sun is bright, the air warm, and I am filled with nausea. Not the hangover kind but the French Existential kind. As always, on my first day of travel, I can’t help thinking of the city I come from, Montreal, empty of me and it makes me feel dead there. Because in the streets and buildings of Montreal, I no longer exist.

On the sidewalks are freshly laid out offerings. They are called Canang Sari and everyone seems to make them. While most of Indonesia is Muslim, Bali is predominantly Hindu, and offerings are made three times a day. The ones I see are made up of little baskets filled with rice, crackers, flowers and even cigarettes. It is later explained to me that these offerings are made in thanks, in celebration, of life’s abundance – as opposed to being made in fear like, say, Jessica Lang being turned over to an adenoidal ape in “King Kong.” Later in the day, I will see these offerings run through with tire tracks and flattened by people’s feet. And in the days to come, I will even see these sacrificial flowers clogging bar room bathroom sinks. (Another neat thing about Bali are the bathroom surprises. I’ve already seen multi-colored urinal stones and above them, at eye level, aquariums.) But right now, the sacrifices are bright like children’s book drawings.Up in the sky, over the beach, kites swirl. At first, because of the way they swoop, I think them some kind of colorful breed of daytime bat and I retract my head into my shoulders. Down below, I watch a 15-year-old Australian boy haggle with a woman his grandmother’s age over the cost of the bracelets she’s selling. She is seated down by his feet with her big see-through bag filled with colorful thread. The boy sits in a beach chair and dangles a bracelet in front of her and she snatches at it. The boy pulls it back and flashes her the smile that probably gets him out of trouble with his mom. It seems like he is taking a sadistic delight in keeping the bracelet just out of her reach while she lunges at it. He tells her it’s not worth more than 10 cents, but he will give her 50 and she should take it. You feel like you’re watching some age-old colonial drama playing out. Was Gauguin such little asshole, too?

I lay my towel out and indulge in some irrational thoughts while putting on sunscreen. Who am I to think the sun will bother tanning me let alone burn me? A man like Captain Ahab would have punched the sun in the face if it insulted him with burns, but I on the other hand squeeze lotion from the tube – the flatulent sound draws attention and makes me feel like Mr. Bean on holiday.

The desperate, reaching finger streaks of whiteness on my back will bear testament to the world of my loneliness, the shame of sitting on the beach – in this world – all by myself. As I never have occasion to take my shirt off in room light, this loneliness will only become apparent if I am in a medical emergency that necessitates my being stripped. And laid out on my stomach. I’m imagining some kind of rectal accident involving a rodent or rake.

“Call his emergency number,” the nurse will say, “but get ready for an out of service message. The poor, friendless bastard probably just made the number up.”

Check back tomorrow for part five of Jonathan Goldstein’s series “In Bali With Baggage,” or follow the daily-updated thread here.

[Illustration: Dmitry Samarov]

Video Of The Day: Amazing Kuala Lumpur Time Lapse

Once a small Chinese tin-mining village, Kuala Lumpur has grown to be the largest city in Malaysia, a metropolis of around 6.5 million people. The transformation took only about 150 years, and today visitors will find an ultra-modern city with dazzling lights, cloud-reaching skyscrapers, a state-of-the-art monorail, bustling shopping centers and more.

Architectural photographer Rob Whitworth set out to capture the essence of this lively city. It wasn’t easy: the video above was filmed over 5 months, in which he put in 400 hours of solid work. It took four cameras, 40 shoots, 640 gigabytes of data and 19,997 photographs.

“My time lapse explores how the city changes from day to night highlighting how spaces dramatically alter during the course of a few hours,” Whitworth said. Watch the transformation he captured above.

Author Lisa Napoli On The Perils And Pleasures Of Bhutan

When a midlife crisis hit Lisa Napoli in the wake of turning 40, she needed a break from L.A. and her job as a reporter for the public radio program “Marketplace.” A chance encounter with a good looking guy led her to a volunteer opportunity at Kuzoo FM in Bhutan, the tiny Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas, famous for measuring its citizens’ well being by the Gross National Happiness metric.

The result is her acclaimed travel memoir, “Radio Shangri-La: What I Discovered on my Accidental Journey to the Happiest Kingdom on Earth,” which chronicles her adventures at Kuzoo FM and around this enticing but remote little country. The book offers an interesting peek into this poorly understood but vibrant culture while following Napoli’s quest to find meaning and wisdom in her own life.

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Tourists weren’t allowed into Bhutan until the ’70s and the country had no airport until 1984. Even today, it’s difficult and expensive to get there, which is exactly why it’s considered by some to be a Himalayan paradise with an intact Buddhist culture that hasn’t yet been overrun by tourists. We talked to Napoli, who is now working on a biography about the late Mrs. Joan Kroc, about her experiences in Bhutan, tips for prospective visitors and why Bhutan is worth the hassle and expense.

Authorities in Bhutan were considering lowering the daily minimum travelers have to spend, which might have opened up the floodgates for a lot more Western tourists, right?

The tourist tax is there to keep a huge volume or tourists out. The least you can pay is $250 per day and you have to book through a tour operator. But tour operators lose $65 of that $250 in tax to the government. So they have to pay the hotel, the guides and the transportation off of the $185 that goes to them.

A lot of people want to skirt that visa by volunteering or doing something else but Bhutan doesn’t care about that. They make their money from the tourist tax. It’s the second highest revenue generator for them, behind hydroelectric power.

So when the government started talking about lowering the daily rate the tour guides freaked out because they have a hard time arranging the tours for the $185 a day they get. Only 27,000 outsiders got their butts into Bhutan last year so the tour operators were not happy about the idea of taking the tourist visa away or lowering the rate.

Does Bhutan cap the number of tourist visas it issues each year?

No. There’s a misperception from 25 years ago that only a certain number are let in each year. When they opened the gates to let tourists in, they were worried that everyone would want to come but that wasn’t the case. McKinsey Consulting told them they could get 100,000 tourists a year but they can’t do that because there’s nowhere they could put 100,000 tourists in Bhutan.

And what does that $250 a day buy in Bhutan these days?

You don’t get to specify exactly where you want to go or where you’ll stay. You can specify how you’d like to focus the trip, trekking or culture or whatever but you don’t set the exact itinerary per se. Unless you go the super high-end route and stay at the Amankora, which is a $1,000 per night hotel.

So let’s say my wife and I had two weeks to visit Bhutan, how would we do it?

You’d probably want to go through India or Bangkok. Bangkok’s airport is nicer, it’s fabulous. Druk Air, the only airline that flies into Bhutan also just started service from Singapore as well. The flight from Bangkok runs every day through Dhaka or Calcutta. You fly into Paro airport, which is one of the world’s most dangerous and beautiful airports.

If you have two weeks, you’d spend a few days in Paro seeing the beautiful sacred Tiger’s Nest Monastery. That’s the sacred monastery that’s the birthplace of Buddhism in Bhutan. That’s a beautiful place. After that, it depends on what you want to see. There’s no Disneyfication of Bhutan yet but where you go depends on your threshold for tolerating really crummy roads and your interest in being on the trekking circuit instead of in a car.

Will the $250 per day cover all my expenses? What kind of hotel can I get for that lower end package?

It’s going to get you an OK hotel. They’ve been working to upgrade all the hotels but it’s still variant. But the $250 a day will cover everything except the stuff you’ll buy and your drinks and alcohol. But it’s awkward for a lot of people because you have to wire the money to the tour operator up front.

Most tour operators, other than the very big expensive ones, involve wiring money to some strange place. The plane ticket alone from Bangkok to Paro is $800 round trip.

What sort of Americans visit Bhutan?

Mostly wealthy travelers. But it’s a different sort of wealthy traveler than you might find in, say a 5-star resort somewhere. A lot of the people who go have been almost everywhere else in the world and they want to go someone where not a lot of tourists go. Then you have people who are interested in Buddhism or people who are interested in hardcore trekking.

You also run into Japanese tourists and Indian tourists because Indian tourists don’t have to pay the tourist tax minimum.

So Bhutan isn’t cheap and it’s not easy to get to. What’s the upside of making the effort?

If you want to see a place that looks nothing like anywhere you’ve ever been before and see it before it’s developed, you’ve got to go. If you want to see the Himalayas in its pure state, without endless tour buses, you have to see it. I’ve been in super remote villages there were the people have never seen a white person before. Most people under 35 speak some English, they’re taught English in school.

I’ve been six times now and my experience has been different from normal tourists because I wasn’t staying in hotels. But for someone with a sense of adventure, there’s nothing like it.

From reading the book, it sounded like you weren’t very fond of the food in Bhutan though.

From my perspective, the food was terrible. But if you stay in hotels, your experience will be different because they’ll cater more to foreign visitors in how they cook. I had an authentic Bhutan experience. I was a guest in people’s homes who weren’t used to visitors.

So were you forced to eat some really nasty stuff?

I just learned not to eat. I carried food with me or ate before I left the house and tried to be polite. The food is difficult because it’s red-hot chili peppers stewed with processed cheese served under red rice. I don’t eat processed cheese under any circumstance in this country.

What you have to remember if you go to Bhutan is that people aren’t used to Western tourists. That’s one reason why my book is very unpopular in Bhutan because I talk about the place in a way that they’re not used to. If you want the resort experience, it’s not the place to go.

Why don’t they like the book?

I get some nasty mail. I get mail from people who read the book and are dying to go to Bhutan but can’t afford it. I get mail from people who are reading the book who are going there and people who were there already and think I don’t understand Bhutan, and ‘how dare I write that book.’ And then I get mail from people who don’t like that I refer to it as the happiest place on earth since they kicked out these Nepalese refugees.

What advice do you have for people who want to visit Bhutan but don’t want to take the tour?

There is no mechanism for volunteerism there; most people like me just luck into it. There’s a small need for certified teachers but interaction with the outside world there is relatively new. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to help people get visas there and I just can’t do it. But that’s what’s charming about Bhutan.

So people should just look for a tour company?

The high-end one is Geo Expeditions in New York. There’s Yangphel Adventure Travel, that’s a big one, and there’s Champaca Journeys, among many others.

Should people base themselves in Thimpu, the capital, on a trip to Bhutan?

No. You want to get out and see the country and nature. It’s too big to just do day trips though. For example, the first READ Global built library in the country is 250 miles from Thimpu and it takes 13 hours to get there.

When did you take your first trip to Bhutan?

2007. In the book, I chronicle three trips to Bhutan but I’ve been there six times over the last five years.

Hopefully your publisher is paying for that?

Nope. I got an advance for the book. I didn’t go intending to write a book. I was burnt out on my world and I had this opportunity because I’d just sold an apartment so I had some cash. So I took the time off work and went to work for free (in Bhutan) at my own expense. But I was so dazzled, I had to go back and see it again.

So I went back for two more weeks and volunteered again. Then we sold the book in March 2008 and I went back to Bhutan and got a visa for two months and then went back again six months later and then went back again right before my book came out and spent time in the eastern part of the country.

You worked for NPR and then quit your job eventually after visiting Bhutan, is that right?

I was working for a National Public Radio show called “Marketplace.” I quit once I got my advance because I just couldn’t do that job any more. I was done so I quit in 2008. I was fortunate that my agent sold the book for enough money that I didn’t have to have a job for that period of time and recently I’ve been working part time at a public radio affiliate in Los Angeles.

But I have an uneasy relationship with the news business and don’t really like being part of it, so I contribute arts segments to make a living. My intention was to leave L.A. but I fell in love.

With a guy from Bhutan?

No. I fell in love with a man from Ethiopia who lives here in L.A. He asked me to moderate a panel at the library here, that’s how I met him.

You wrote in the book that you were suffering from a midlife crisis. Did going to Bhutan change your life?

Yeah, I wrote a whole book about it. It completely changed my perspective on things. I tried to get people to think about media and the impact of how we perceive ourselves and the world and materialism, all the themes I wrote about in the book.

A lot of people go off to travel when they’re having a midlife crisis. Is Bhutan a good place for people to discover themselves or make some big change in their lives?

You can find enlightenment on the subway. Your perspective can change anywhere. If you look at my book it’s about my perspective shifting because of this radically different place I went to, but that can happen for anyone anywhere. Not everyone can go to Bhutan and have the same experience I did there.

The whole lesson for me in returning to L.A. is trying to figure out how to get as comfortable as possible here and making myself feel the same way I felt when I was in Bhutan.

[Photos courtesy of Lisa Napoli, Goran, Thomas Wanhoff, Jonathan Choe, Shrimpo1967, sprklg, jmhullot, and BabaSteve on Flickr]

(NOTE: An earlier version of this interview mentioned a library in Bhutan. Lisa Napoli stated that it was the first library built by READ Global in Bhutan, not the first library built in Bhutan.)

Macau: China’s First And Last European Colony

Macau, one of only two special administrative regions of the People’s Republic of China, features a unique blend of architecture, culture and heritage.

Walking the streets, it will become immediately clear the region makes a lot of money off gambling; however, through the architecture you’ll also be transported back and forth from Europe to Asia, and from the 16th century to the present. The city is a former Portuguese colony, and is China’s first and last European colony. While today China is responsible for the region’s military defense and foreign affairs, Macau is quite autonomous with its own police force, currency, laws, customs policy and immigration policy.

With such a diverse history, it’s no surprise a large section of Macau is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site, with 25 buildings being deemed to have historical and cultural significance. Well-known sights like the Guia Fortress, Senado Square and the Ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral are on the list, and many of these elected sights can be seen via the Macau Heritage Walk circuit.

For a more visual idea of Macau, check out the gallery below.

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[images via Big Stock]