• Eurail
Across Europe
From Bulgaria to Ireland and everything in between, Eurail is the wandering soul’s key to the continent. The number of countries and length of travel determine which rail ticket is best suited to the individual — though with every stop an invitation to explore a new culture, the comprehensive Global Pass is the most tempting option.

 • Great Southern Rail
Sydney to Perth, Australia (The Indian Pacific)
Winding through the eucalyptus-filled Blue Mountains to the arid Nullarbor Desert, this three-night journey down the world’s longest straight stretch of railway track (478 km) showcases Australia’s startling contrasts — from vantage points up to 1,000 metres above sea level. Keep an eye out for the wedge-tailed eagle. The massive avian is the Indian Pacific Railway’s official mascot. 

Snow-capped Rockies, golden Prairies and thundering Niagara Falls — Canada’s natural landmarks are best explored by rail.Courtesy the Rocky Mountaineer

• The Rocky Mountaineer/VIA Rail
Vancouver to Toronto, Canada (Trans-Canada Rail Adventure)
Snow-capped Rockies, golden Prairies and thundering Niagara Falls — Canada’s natural landmarks are best explored by rail. And this 13-day, cross-country exploration includes motorcoach and helicopter tours, national park passes and nine-nights’ hotel accommodation.

• Trans-Siberian Railway
Moscow, Russia, to Beijing, China (Trans-Siberian line)
The longest rail line ever constructed, the Trans-Siberian crosses one-third of the globe and spans more than seven time zones. Four routes connect Russia to the Far East, and though the landscape is spectacular, it’s the eclectic mix of passengers that makes the journey unforgettable.

• Chihuahua-Pacific Railroad
Chihuahua to Los Mochis, Mexico
Known to the locals as Ferrocarril Chihuahua al Pacifico, or El Chepe, this refurbished train follows what is reputed to be one of the world’s most scenic rail routes. Highlights include the vast Copper Canyon, seven times larger than the Grand Canyon; a series of rustic, off-the-path villages; and a visit with the swift-of-foot Tarahumara tribe.

• The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
New Jalpaiguri to Darjeeling, West Bengal, India
One of the few railways that is also a World Heritage Site, the Darjeeling’s century-old engineering allows for sharp, spiralling ascents over Himalayan terrain. Passing through the soaring Mahaldirum Range and over the rushing Mahanadi River, this half-day tour is so breathtaking, Mark Twain is said to have called his DHR experience the most enjoyable day of his life.

• Shangri-La Express
Beijing/Xian, China, to Goldmund/Lhasa, Tibet
According to locals, “Shangri-La” is a mythic paradise hidden beyond the Himalayas — and that’s exactly what this 12-night rail trip seeks. Two possible routes venture to the “roof of the world,” Tibet, with the highest altitude reached topping 5,000 metres (oxygen is pumped aboard). Stops include Beijing’s Forbidden City and the Dalai Lama’s Summer Palace in Lhasa. 

Empire Builder at Havre Station, Mont. Courtesy Amtrak

• Amtrak
Chicago, Seattle or Portland to Montana, U.S. (Empire Builder Train)
The U.S. is known for its national parks, and this 14-day pioneer-themed journey explores five of the most scenic: Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Arches and Canyonlands. The route follows portions of Lewis and Clark’s famous trail, with such notable sights as the lazy Mississippi, temperamental Old Faithful and other geological, natural and wildlife marvels of the American West.

• Rovos Rail
Cape Town to Pretoria, South Africa
The five-star luxury of this refurbished 19th-century “cruise train,” which may be hauled by steam, diesel or electric locomotives throughout the journey, is ideal for experiencing exotic South Africa. History reigns supreme: as the train trundles across centuries-old veldt and past ancient towns, its period décor, after-dinner champagne and traditional white-glove service recall the glamour of a bygone era.

• The Royal Scotsman
Scotland tour
Sparkling lochs, sprawling moors and overnights in ancient castles are just a taste of the itinerary offered by this travelling luxury hotel. On-board meals reflect seasonal Scottish specialties (guests have the option of donning kilts at dinner); evening entertainment includes Highlanders regaling passengers with tales of life in old Scotland. 

Recommended: Purchase rail tickets prior to departure, as many countries offer substantial discounts on advance bookings.

>> 4 of the World’s Top 25 Rail Journeys 

>> The World’s Top 25 Rail Journeys (2009)

Lead photo courtesy Great Southern Rail

The eighth wonder of the world, via rail

by Colleen Friesen

The hot desert wind scours our faces as we cling to the rails of our open-sided box car. We are rocketing full-throttle down Mexico’s Pacific Coast on the vintage Sierra Madre Express.

It is our first morning enroute to the Copper Canyon aboard this four-car “consist.” Last night, the rails waltzed us to sleep in our little Lucy and Desi bunks. Somewhere in that starry night, we left behind the twin border towns of Nogales. My husband Kevin and I are on board with 33 other passengers, eight Mexican staff and our Tucson tour-guide team, the Molines.

MEXICO's Copper Canyon, in the northern part of the country, is most spectacularly accessed via rail.

Jim Moline speaks: “We will be entering into the territory of one of the most remote Indian tribes in North America. There are more than 60,000 Tarahumara in these canyons, many of them still living in caves or primitive plank houses.”

The cacti forest morphs into pine as we climb inland 5,100 feet. A dustry drive and we’re at Hotel El Mission in Cerocahui. Heavily scented roses surround the open-verandah hallways. Margaritas await in the dining room. The buzz of non-stop conversation is punctuated with loud laughs as everyone shares their stories.

That night we tuck in under woolen blankets, falling asleep to children’s laughter in the town’s centro. Roosters summon the dawn. The aroma of coffee and hot corn tortillas slips through our open window.

Back on board, we trundle up, up, up. The single use of the word “canyon” is almost a misnomer. Known as the eighth wonder of the world, this is a series of almost 20 canyons that fold and fall into each other, eventually encompassing an area almost five times the size of United States’ Grand Canyon. The comparison ends there. These barrancas are sunken forests of pine and endless blue-green crevasses, like an inverted mountain range. Ultimately we will pass through 87 tunnels and over 37 trestle bridges on tracks, reaching 8,100 feet on a railway line that took nearly a century to complete.

Near Creel, the train stops. Alongside, Tarahumara women quietly display their intricate baskets woven from grasses or foot-long pine needles. This is not the Mexican bargaining we’re used to. Silent babies, wrapped in bright cocoons, cling to hot-pink sweaters and orange shawls. Homemade sandals protect the women’s feet; floral, pleated skirts create tents around their muscular legs. Our tiny compartment fills with the scent of hot pine.

Our hotel for the next two nights hangs from a cliff. Silence, thick as snow, pushes into our thick-tiled room. Far-off fires from tiny Tarahumara homes light the way to a view of forever. Beneath our balcony, a hard-packed trail leads to a family’s cave.

The last night on board, Donna Winchester of South Carolina leads with the first toast: “I thought I’d signed on to travel by train to a remote landscape . . . I had no idea I would end my journey so educated about the local culture.” We all nod, raising our glasses in tacit agreement.

Updates:

• The CHEPE (or public train) is the only way to journey by rail through the Copper Canyon as of February 2010.
• The town of El Fuerte was recently named one of Mexico ’s “magic towns,” a new initiative designed to promote lesser known cultural gems throughout the country. As a result, many of the colonial buildings surrounding El Fuerte’s town square are now being renovated.
• A Field Guide to the Wildflowers of Mexico’s Copper Canyon Region.  75% of the proceeds from each book purchased through the author’s website are donated to an educational scholarship for Tarahumara and mestizo girls in the Copper Canyon. Contact author Linda Ford at spade53@juno.com.
• Girls’ school in Cerocahui

>> The A-trains: 10 Dreamy Rail Vacations to Stoke Your Boiler

Photos: Colleen Friesen

A train has replaced Afghanistan camels on journeys across the Outback

by Daniel Wood
 
The vast and arid Outback is to Australians what the Arctic is to Canadians: mythic, seldom visited, the object of fascination, and subject of occasional tragedy. Crossing it under normal circumstances could be unpleasant. Landmarks are few, desert tracks transitory, water scarce. (And guidebooks remind backroad drivers that drinking one’s own blood is not advisable.) But seated in a window-seat on the continent-spanning Ghan train, a traveller can contemplate fundamentals while being indulged in the luxurious.

The 2,979-km-long railway line crosses Australia’s heartland from Adelaide in the country’s south to semi-tropical Darwin, home of legendary Crocodile Dundee, in the far north. 

The 2,979-km-long railway line crosses Australia’s heartland from Adelaide in the country’s south to semi-tropical Darwin, home of legendary Crocodile Dundee, in the far north. (Or, with a Darwin departure, vice-versa.) Opened in 2004, the Ghan commemorates, in name, the Afghanistan camel trains that once provided Australia’s explorers with transportation through the continent’s formidable interior. Today, the train follows a similar route 19th century adventurers took across the spinifex-dotted, pointillist desert where lonely cattle stations now exist, and aboriginal people stand at rail crossings, waving as visitors pass.
 
On my journey south from Darwin, egrets rise from billabongs and wild buffalo flee the rumble of the Ghan’s approach as the kilometre-long train rockets along at 110 km/h. With welded-steel rails, there’s no clickety-clack. Dirt tracks lead away into eucalyptus forests and thousands of massive, stalagmite-like termite mounds draw gawking Ghan passengers to the windows. This is the land of “Waltzing Matilda,” cooibah trees and all. The swagmen (itinerants) may be gone, but a half-million feral camels graze a terrain too desiccated these days for jumbuck (sheep). Inside, champagne appears, hors d’oeuvres of local emu pate are served, and the passengers settle into conversations prompted by the prospect of the long journey ahead. The train rolls on; an elegant dinner (barramundi or kangaroo), too much wine, the mesmerizing effects of motion and darkness reduce me to stupor. I fall asleep to a sky full of stars.
 
At dawn, I join other pre-caffeinated travellers in the lounge to witness sunrise over the Outback. The land is dead flat, only the margins of the dry watercourses green with trees. And kangaroos now: fleeing our appearance. Up ahead is Alice Springs where I’ll leave the Ghan and acquire a Jeep for a week’s drive southward, 1,599 kilometres to Adelaide. In the distance in those days ahead, I’ll sometimes see the Ghan, off in the distance, a silver arrow of modernity passing through the desert’s timelessness.
 
Getting there: Book early. Many break the 50-hour journey – as the author did – mid-continent at Alice Springs for a memorable side trip to Uluru National Park (Ayer’s Rock).

>>For info: http://www.gsr.com/

>> The A-trains: 10 Dreamy Rail Vacations to Stoke Your Boiler

Flashdance soundtracks, abandoned Russian outposts, Mongolian “Midnight Madness” – the Trans-Siberian is a cultural carnival on wheels

by Katrina Simmons

I stand, gazing out the window, elbow-deep in dishwater. Through bare trees, a comforting echo rises from the valley. Every time I heat that whistle, and the clatter of wheels on rails, I start to sway to the rhythm of the train song. Ch-chunk ch-chunk, ch-chunk ch-chunk . . .

A few months ago, I travelled with my husband 9,000 km across two continents, three countries and five time zones on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Its main line cuts a path east from Moscow, straight across Russia to the eastern port of Vladivostock. But because we wanted to visit China again, we chose, instead, an alternative route that heads south after four days, traversing Mongolia and ending in Beijing.

Euphemistically called first class, our tiny compartment ranked such a lofty title for the simple fact that it had only two beds. It was redeemed by a huge window that provided us with a front-row seat from which to meditate on the changing scenery for the next week. We shared two washrooms with the rest of the passengers and crew. Showers were conspicuous in their absence. Every attempt at a cat lick in the Lilliputian sink while the train rocked on its rails sent water sloshing onto the floor and down the tops of my boots. I ceded my vanity to the god of train travel.

We were situated next to the dining/bar/social car, giving me less practice at the swaying step, akin to sea legs. The narrow halls connecting the rooms turned this gait into the Trans-Siberian shuffle, a momentary waltz when I met other passengers head on.

Moscow, En route to Ulaan Bataar

The train left Moscow’s Yaraslovl Station in the evening, bang on time. Once we got beyond the city lights, the dust-etched window revealed nothing but my own reflection. I stared instead into the blackness of the Russian night, and was rocked to sleep by the railway lullaby. Ch-chunk ch-chunk, ch-chunk ch-chunk.

I awoke to a white birch forest bathed in soft pink light. Sometime in the night we passed from Europe to Asia. The Ural Mountains, boundary between the two continents, receded into the distance, as the vast region of Siberia embraced us in her frigid arms.

Here and there small towns emerged from the heavy forest. I imagined them as bas relief, chiselled from the hardwoods surrounding them. Small houses of unpainted wood: Their soothing grey enhanced by carved window frames or the herringbone pattern of the planks.

Gardens announced the presence of communities. I was reminded of the last of my own meagre harvests, now sodden by the killing frost. A few cabbage were left to brave the Russian winter, but the plots were carefully turned over. Those urban farmers were far more diligent than I. I tried to guess how large the approaching towns were by the size of their garden sites. Large cities were the easiest; their many-hectared patchwork quilts of dark earth, straw frost cover and makeshift fencing shouted their stories in a language close to my heart.

Writing in my journal was near impossible. It wasn’t the smoothest train I’d ridden. I used my mini-cassette to record mileage markers, stunning scenery and the background music of the rails, reverting to pen and paper only to copy the Russian names of the stops along the way. So much for the letters I’d planned to write. Weeks after I returned to Canada, my friends were still receiving Mongolian postcards scrawled with notes on Moscow, mailed from Beijing.

The downswing in the economy was not so evident in Moscow, but in Krasnoyovsk, industrial graveyards were filled with rusting train parts behind abandoned factories and warehouses. Paradoxically, cranes rose above the city skylines, and new apartment blocks bore monolithic billboards that screamed Buy Me!, in any language.

The dining/social/bar car was entertaining in its own right, with plastic plants hanging in windows, Harley-Davidson posters on the walls and background music from the Flashdance soundtrack. It certainly had redeeming qualities, but the food was not one of them.

After a few mediocre meals, I decided to give my stomach a break from fatty beef, watery gravy and greasy eggs. I broke out our emergency food that we’d reserved for later in the week. The samovars on each car were part of the coal-fired boiler system, supplying screaming-hot water for our coffee, tea and ubiquitous instant noodles.

After a few mediocre meals, I decided to give my stomach a break from fatty beef, watery gravy and greasy eggs. I broke out our emergency food that we’d reserved for later in the week. The samovars on each car were part of the coal-fired boiler system, supplying screaming-hot water for our coffee, tea and ubiquitous instant noodles. I used it in lieu of filtering my drinking water, too. I only wished I could use some for a shower.

I failed to realize, then, that the Mongolian passengers that boarded with it would be the floorshow for most of the trip. At every stop they jumped from the train, wearing new leather coats, mitts, jackets, hats, boots and carrying another dozen of the same.

Large crates, boxes and bags consumed most of the space in the four-berth carriages. I noticed this cargo on the platform in Moscow, but assumed it would make its way to a freight car. I failed to realize, then, that the Mongolian passengers that boarded with it would be the floorshow for most of the trip. At every stop they jumped from the train, wearing new leather coats, mitts, jackets, hats, boots and carrying another dozen of the same. Residents of the small communities waited, money in hand. As soon as the traders disembarked, the haggling started.

Railcar attendant at one of many stops across Siberia. In the background, peering from the train, is a Mongolian trader, waiting for her to clear off so he can jump out and sell some of his wares.

The car attendants tried to stop us from taking photos of the platform entrepreneurs, but their efforts were futile. The traders flogged their wares even from on board. Train staff were persuaded to unlock windows and look the other way. At night, too, the buyers were waiting. It was Midnight Madness on wheels. Armed with flashlights, measuring tapes and shopping bags, nighttime shoppers had 15 minutes to inspect goods, guess at sizes and haggle for the best deal.

On one of many 10-minutes tops we watched a frenzied Mongolian woman pounce on a thief trying to make away with a pair of leather gloves. Just when I thought she might win the round, the train started pulling away from the platform. Forfeiting her goods, she jumped on board, laughing. I think she enjoyed the challenge.

I got the distinct impression that, as travelers, we were merely tolerated; that this train belonged to those brassy and aggressive Mongolian traders. I spent the whole evening dodging freight dollies loaded with crates of beer, 100-kg bags of milk powder and rice, distributed amongst the passengers to avoid customs duty. After the lengthy border ordeal the reverse process began, forcing my retreat out of the aisle and into my bed. Sleep eluded me for many hours as rumbling dollies, heavy footsteps and banging doors continued into the night.

Mongolia

When I awoke in Mongolia I was gazing into absolute nothingness. From the plateau of sand and scree, sparsely covered in brown grass, to the barren and distant hills, I saw not one house, vehicle, road or any sign of life. How could anyone survive out there?

The villages on that barren plateau were welcome intruders into the void. Some were ghost towns; strategic military posts for Russia before 1992. Their skeletal remains littered the landscape with the discards of more prosperous times. Some towns looked like they were built in a one-day blitz. Residential schools for children of the nomads and identical homes of concrete block, each equidistant to their neighbours, were connected by power-line umbilicals. If these are the alternative, I can understand why the herders would forgo settlement, despite the harsh conditions of their nomadic lives.

Though I saw many of these heavy felt tents set up for temporary shelter in the city of Ulaan Baatar, their presence on this rugged landscape confirmed the hardiness of these ancestors of the great Ghengis Khan.

I slowly gave in to the rhythm of the train and spent most of the day playing spot the ger. Though I saw many of these heavy felt tents set up for temporary shelter in the city of Ulaan Baatar, their presence on this rugged landscape confirmed the hardiness of these ancestors of the great Ghengis Khan. For hours I saw only frozen creeks, salt-lake-beds and the occasional herd of hairy camels, goats and yaks. Herders accompanied their animals, including stout horses, on foot.

And into China

The Chinese border guards at Erlian were thorough and efficient. A very patient immigration officer sat next to me on my bunk, pointing out all the places I needed to make changes to my forms when I was completely baffled by the questions written in Chinese and French.

We shunted back and forth for half an hour, while the railcars were separated and rerouted, side-by-side into a shed. They were each lifted on hydraulics while we watched, captive, from the windows. The wheels of the train were changed to accommodate a different-guage track in China. I watched with a mixture of fascination and trepidation. Were they really working by the light of a single flashlight under there?

As we were lowered onto our new bogies, the impromptu conference of passengers dispersed to their cabins. Our final night on the train, the quieter and gentler ch-chunk ch-chunk, ch-chunk ch-chunk of new wheels on smoother track, rocked me gently to sleep.

The harsh, dry conditions of the desert-like land are much the same in its northern neighbour, but every corner of China teems with life. Farmers coax crops from the unlikeliest soil. I’ve often dreamed of spending a few years there, learning to grow food in this land where nothing seems impossible.

Workers stacked dry corn stalks into teepees, while a fat black pig waited for gleanings. Blue-green cabbage still sat in the fields. Rammed earth dikes enclosed empty rice paddies. Grave markers dotted this intensive agricultural land, as if the fields had slowly engulfed even the most remote tombs. And in the middle of this timeless scene of horses, carts and back-breaking manual labour sat a shiny new pick-up truck, with not a spot of dust on it.

I felt appropriately chastened. How could I have imagined not recognizing such an astounding engineering feat? The reconstructed stone barrier undulates through the mountains like the ridge-scales on a dragon’s back. And the circus that is the entrance to this historic attraction puts Canada’s Niagara Falls Clifton Hill to shame.

The Chinese penchant for walls made me wonder how I would know which was the Great Wall. They’ve built walls of mud, brick, stone, wood and steel around their fields, farms, courtyards, neighbourhoods, towns and cities. But when the train passed through the real thing at Badaling, I felt appropriately chastened. How could I have imagined not recognizing such an astounding engineering feat? The reconstructed stone barrier undulates through the mountains like the ridge-scales on a dragon’s back. And the circus that is the entrance to this historic attraction puts Canada’s Niagara Falls Clifton Hill to shame.

As we rolled into Beijing the train slowed to a crawl. I watched a woman curbing her dog along the tracks. I’ve always been struck by the irony of small pets in a culture that routinely offers them on the menu.

A wave of homesickness flooded over me, as I thought of my own little Sheltie. I could hear him barking at the squirrels and chickadees. He starts jumping at the birdfeeder, as I snap back to the mundane responsibilities of home: deciding on dinner, feeding the dog, planning for next spring’s garden. The daydream fades into the past, but the train song still resounds from the valley: Ch-chunk ch-chunk, ch-chunk ch-chunk.

>> The A-trains: 10 Dreamy Rail Vacations to Stoke Your Boiler

All photos courtesy Terry Asma, 2020 Studios.

The Blue-Ribbon Rendezvous: a 26-hour journey from Cape Town to Pretoria*

(*a distance of nearly 1,000 miles; passengers can also continue on to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe)

by Helena Zukowski

For a train lover, a chance to ride South Africa’s legendary Blue Train is the kind of thrill one might experience if one were a chef and Alain Ducasse confessed that one’s soufflé made his look like mere pudding. The Blue Train is simply the ultimate luxury train.

The Blue Train’s pedigree goes back to 1901, when the Zambezi Express provided luxury rail travel between Cape Town and Victoria Falls for those whose fortunes were dug out of the diamond mines in Kimberly. By 1939, the line’s blue-and-gray air-conditioned cars were part of the scenery, and locals popularly referred to them as “those blue trains.”

courtesy Helena Zukowski

The first officially dubbed Blue Train was so named in 1946 and was pulled by a steam engine. It ran until an even grander version replaced it in 1972. In the 1990s, Nelson Mandela’s advisers suggested that beefing up tourist facilities would create jobs and increase tourism revenues; of course, the Blue Train would attract those interested in the best in service and comfort. The recently launched, $9-million third incarnation of the Blue Train introduced state-of-the-art upgrades, including powerful air-conditioning that keeps the train cool, even as outdoor temperatures reach 113 degrees, and expensive incandescent lighting controlled by dimmer switches. Of the two Blue Trains, one carries 84 passengers, the other 76; each has a staff of 27 that includes a chef, kitchen, employees and butlers.

Far more than just a mode of transportation, however, these trains set a romantic mood for enjoying South Africa’s landscape and game parks and offer the ideal ambience for making friends along the way.

When I arrive at the station in Cape Town, the sleek blue snake with gold banks along the sides of its 18 cars is already waiting. My bags are whisked in one direction and I am whisked in another to a comfortable station lounge, where blue-uniformed attendants are handing out champagne and orange juice.

Erik, my butler, is escorting me to my room with the kind of understated grace found in noble families. He stashes my bags; explains the intricacies of the electronically controlled window blinds, the telephone and the television (which can be used to watch in-house movies or documentaries about the areas the train traverses), and shows me where to place my shoes for polishing and my clothes for ironing. And, oh, yes, if I want anything, anything at all, I have only to ring.

courtesy Helena Zukowski

Soon, Erik, my butler, is escorting me to my room with the kind of understated grace found in noble families. He stashes my bags; explains the intricacies of the electronically controlled window blinds, the telephone and the television (which can be used to watch in-house movies or documentaries about the areas the train traverses); points out the individual AC controls and dimmer switches for the lights and shows me where to place my shoes for polishing and my clothes for ironing. And, oh, yes, if I want anything, anything at all, I have only to ring.

I am beginning to feel like a peasant child whose royal birth has just been revealed.

By the time I finish inspecting the intricate. inlaid veneer-paneling, the gold-leaf-and-brass walls sconces and the Gialo Royale Italian marble en suite, with its 24-carat-gold fittings, it’s time for lunch.

I dine on appetizers of asparagus and portabella mushrooms topped with crabmeat, grilled baby kingklip (a South African fish) with spicy tomato concassee, lamb served with baked pumpkin and sautéed potatoes and, for a finale, bananas flambéed in 20-year-old brandy – all of this presented on fine-bone china with cut crystal glasses and silver cutlery. And as the train glides along on its cushioned wheels, there isn’t the tiniest bump to disturb the meal.

During lunch, my companions, a young couple from Cape Town on their way to the Maldives for a honeymoon, keep their eyes peeled for famous passengers. After all, Elton John was on board just a few days ago.

During lunch, my companions, a young couple from Cape Town on their way to the Maldives for a honeymoon, keep their eyes peeled for famous passengers. After all, Elton John was on board just a few days ago. As we linger over coffee, talking about celebrities, politics, royalty, republicanism and scuba diving, the veld (grasslands covered with scattered shrubs and trees) outside sizzles in a golden light that laps all the way to the foot of the blue mountains beyond. We have already passed through an endless stretch of vineyards and still have the stunning arid beauty of the Karoo, with its hills and flat-ridged kopjes, ahead.

At our main stop, Matjiesfontein, the train pulls up beside a former military headquarters that is now a tiny, perfectly restored Victorian village. As we step from the station platform onto a rickety red double-decker bus, someone notes that the train is longer than the town. The absurdity of a bus tour through such a small village leads us to guess it is probably just a clever ploy to get passengers to bond; the jokes fly left and right.

courtesy Helena Zukowski

By the time we are on our second sherry at the village’s Lord Milner Hotel, friendships have solidified. Later, back on the train, over cucumber sandwiches and tea, “the three Rogers” – golfing friends from Ireland, Scotland and England who are all, coincidentally, named Roger, provide expert, running commentary on the passing scenery: “Look, moo cows at 9 o’clock.”

That evening the Rogers join me for a dinner that is even more elaborate than lunch, with the addition of specialties such as Knysna oysters, crayfish, and crocodile and impala cooked in the distinctive Cape style, which borrows from the Far East and the French Huguenots. Throughout, we are served award-winning South African wines, as our waiters confide that to ensure the peak of freshness, the ingredients for the next meal are flown to airstrips near train stations en route.

In the club car after dinner, passengers continue to bond. One man confesses that it is his 98th trip on the Blue Train; a couple from Copenhagen try to get everyone to talk about Russian literature, and the Rogers mercilessly tease the honeymoon couple.

courtesy Helena Zukowski

The trip is rapidly coming to an end. And as I slip drowsily between my embroidered sheets and feather-light down comforter, I say a small prayer of thanks for a brief but perfect journey, for fine old trains and new friends.

Getting there: The blue train operates in two seasons. Rates during high season (January 1 through April 30 and September 1 through December 31) are about $1,145 to $1,575. Rates during low season (May 1 through August 31) are about $740 to $1,100.*

*Prices are based on exchange rates at the time of publication and are subject to change

>> The A-trains: 10 Dreamy Rail Vacations to Stoke Your Boiler

Photo: Helena Zukowski

The go-to guide — when you’ve barely got a weekend

  by Jim Sutherland

From May to October 2010, China’s biggest, busiest and flashiest city is hosting what promises to be the biggest, busiest and flashiest World’s Fair ever. The only problem may be determining which neighbourhood crowded with pedestrian throngs and architectural marvels is the fair site and which is just Shanghai.

Pudong, for example, an area of town conceived in the 1990s, rivals anything the fair’s designers have come up with. And that’s saying something, with the United Kingdom’s pavilion a fuzzball of pixels that shimmer in the wind and Canada’s turned over carte blanche to Cirque du Soleil. Given that building construction elsewhere in the world is largely curtailed these days, all that creativity is a bonanza for those keen on architecture, design or technology – or who merely like to be whispered to by trees, as will happen outside the Israeli pavilion. On summer days, a half-million people are expected at the five-square-kilometre riverside site, to mingle with robots and ogle such treasures as Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid, relocated for the duration. And just outside the fair gates, Shanghai will bustle as only Shanghai can.

“Ambitious” doesn’t begin to describe this city of 20 million-plus, where vice is tolerated as if it were Bangkok and capitalism pursued as if it were New York. No other place melds First and Third Worlds in quite the same way, particularly given the subtle but nevertheless omnipresent overlay of communist government. (That poster-portrait of a smiling authority figure could be Chairman Mao, still emblematic of the PRC, or, equally likely, Colonel Sanders, emblematic of KFC, a surprise Chinese sensation.) Case in point: Nanjing Road is thought to be the largest shopping destination in Asia, if not worldwide. The kilometre-plus pedestrian mall links the historic Bund district (with the planet’s largest stock of Art Deco buildings) to People’s Square. Of course, nowadays, that vast civic complex might more accurately be called People-Watching Square – one more indication of Shanghai’s emphatic arrival as a global capital.

Shanghai: Insider’s Guide

The Go Spots Shanghai can be frantic, and its summers hot and muggy, so make a point of getting out of town. •  Arrange a day tour to ancient canal-side water villages, including Suzhou and Zhouzhuang. •  Overnight at Hangzhou for a boat ride on beautiful West Lake, once an Imperial retreat. •  Bus, train or fly to Huangshan in the Yellow Mountains. Reach your peak-top hotel by half-day climb, cable car or — for the truly lazy, decadent or romantic — sedan chair.

Trendy Vittles Restaurants of every type abound, but how about, oh, Chinese? Tourists and ex-pats tend to frequent spots such as Xintiandi, a pedestrian complex re-creating the Shanghai of the 1920s and lined with top-notch eateries (including Ye Shanghai and Crystal Jade). But everyday restaurants provide similar fare for far less, typically for under $5 per person. At the most basic you’ll be led to a counter and asked to point out which plucked chicken, wriggling fish or other unidentifiable ingredient you’d like sautéed.

Best Crash Zones Shanghai’s traffic is horrendous, so being central is key.

•  The Seagull on the Bund is a slightly tarnished Art Deco jewel with amazing views of Pudong, a four-star rating and specials dipping well below $100/night.

SHANGHAI The Park Hyatt Shanghai occupies floors – 79 to 93 – of one of the world’s 10 tallest buildings. Courtesy Hyatt Hotels and Resorts

•  The Park Hyatt Shanghai occupies floors 79 to 93 of one of the world’s 10 tallest buildings. Rates: commensurate but lower than they’d be in other countries.

>>Former WL editor and now MyWestworld Vancouver city columnist Jim Sutherland blogs on Vancouver Chinatown’s Centre A, one of the world’s leading exhibitors of contemporary Asian art — and a world-class tea steeper during the Olympics with calligraphy/tea master Brian Mulvihill.

>>Plus: The Perfect Tea at MyWestworld.com/tea

>>For a heads up on Victoria’s fusian tea emporium/tasting bar/spa): An Educated Sip: Victoria’s Top Tea House

by Rob Howatson

  It is our first night at Kona Village Resort on Hawaii’s Big Island, where Leila and I have been assigned a window seat in the property’s quiet but elegant restaurant. As my wife scans the menu, I watch gentle waves roll across Kahuwai Bay, the surf faintly lit by a single floodlight strapped to a coconut tree.

Kona Village prides itself on being unplugged. Its 125 thatched-roof bungalows, arranged around a lagoon and black- and white-sand beaches, are tricked out like five-star hotel rooms – minus the distractions of air conditioning, televisions, radios and telephones. Walkways are lit by low-slung garden lights and the occasional tiki torch. Guests are issued flashlights to find their way after the evening festivities . . . or, as one young vacationer is now doing, to explore the tidal zone after sunset.

______________________________________

“Did you see that?”

My wife glances up from the menu. “What?”

“In the water, just beyond the kid.”

__________________________________

The eight-year-old is dressed in a crisply ironed shirt and pleated walking shorts, his blond mop perfectly combed. Earlier, he had been seated at the table next to us. Now, the beam of his flashlight bobbing erratically, he turns his back to the sea and stoops to examine a shell. As he does so, a blubbery, white, two-metre-long appendage rises from the water and flops about for a jarring moment before disappearing. The boy does not see the apparition. Neither does his family, happily chatting away in the restaurant.

“Did you see that?”

My wife glances up from the menu. “What?”

“In the water, just beyond the kid.”

I try to describe it, but the best I can do is confirm what I didn’t see. It wasn’t a whale. It wasn’t a shark’s fin. It wasn’t a squid’s tentacle.

“Hmm,” says Leila, returning her attention to the menu. “Calamari sounds good.”

Having logged a lot of vacation miles together, my wife is familiar with my nervous travel quirks. When we stayed in Hilo, for example, on the jungle side of the island, and the power went out as we prepared for bed, I sprang to my feet and began cranking our Wind ’N Go flashlight.

“Prepare the rental car for evacuation to higher ground,” I whispered into the darkness.

Leila rolled over and went to sleep. Apparently, she either didn’t know or didn’t care that Hilo had been flattened twice by tsunamis in the previous century, or that the city lies at the base of an active volcano, or that a week before our arrival, the Big Island had been rocked by a 6.7 earthquake. In fact, Leila slept particularly well that night. I popped a Zantac, stared at the ceiling and listened to the coqui frogs.

______________________________________

The appendage, the two-metre limb,

the white blubbery thing, lifts again from

the water, within striking distance.

______________________________________

After that episode, I vowed to relax. But it’s hard when a little boy is tinkering about in the dark beside the Pacific, oblivious to a lurking sea beast. The appendage, the two-metre limb, the white blubbery thing, lifts again from the water, within striking distance. The boy sees the creature and steps toward the bay to investigate. I scan the restaurant for our server, unsure of what to say even if he should materialize. “Kraken” is the only word that comes to mind – the monster in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. As in “Waiter, there’s a Kraken in my view.” As in, “Doesn’t the Kona coast possess one of the steepest offshore slopes in the Hawaiian Islands – a logical place for a leviathan to ascend?!” Leila senses I am about to do something spectacularly decisive and hides behind her menu.

________________________________________

My flailing, untanned limbs propel me

out of the darkness and onto the barely illuminated

rocky landing with such force that the startled boy

nearly stumbles backward into the sea. 

________________________________________

I bolt from the restaurant and race across the lawn, singeing my hair on a tiki lamp as I round a corner. My flailing, untanned limbs propel me out of the darkness and onto the barely illuminated rocky landing with such force that the startled boy nearly stumbles backward into the sea. Whatever has been crashing about in the shallows is gone. But I notice, for the first time, a wooden sign: Please Do Not Swim with, Touch or Throw Rocks at the Manta Rays. I realize the coconut tree floodlight is meant to attract the gentle winged giants, which move slowly through the shallows and sometimes expose the white underside of a wing tip, as if waving hello. The boy shoots me a wary look and resumes beachcombing. I slink back to the restaurant, avoiding eye contact with his family, now crowded at the window. Leila peeks over her menu. I flash the “shaka” signal (back of the hand, pinky and thumb extended) – a Hawaiian greeting . . . and, of course, surfers’ code for “hang loose.”

Lead image courtesy Margaret Butschler/Vancouver Aquarium

by Kerry McPhedran

Miss Kerry? Phone call! Please follow.”

Phone call?  It’s November. I’m alternately blotting sweat and sipping a chilled Kingfisher on a rooftop terrace four storeys above the Ganges, India’s holiest river, in Varanasi – India’s holiest city. Those lucky enough to die here, where Lord Shiva married, or to be cremated alongside the Ganga Ma (Mother Ganges), revered as a living goddess, are believed to break free of the endless cycle of reincarnation. Peace is theirs.

Fireworks explode overhead. It is the first night of Diwali, the year’s holiest celebration for India’s 850 million Hindus – a good number of whom are now packed excitedly into wooden boats drifting through floating candle offerings and marigold garlands on the Ganges. Sanskrit mantras punctuated by the rattling of conch shells and bells and the beating of drums spiral up from one of Varanasi’s 30 legendary ghats, each a series of stone steps sweeping down to the water’s edge. My friend and fellow traveller, Jill, looks impressed at my summons by the Dolphin Restaurant’s head waiter, but is more interested in eating her freshly baked naan while it’s hot.

“Hello?”

“Kerry! Welcome to India! I am Rafiq! I meet your train in Agra in four days?”

Oh, blessed Google. Before leaving Canada, we had hired Rafiq online to be our driver for the second half of this six-week India odyssey. The clincher? An English couple’s Trip Advisor testimonial, praising Rafiq’s fierce belief in safety – a rare attribute in a country where car fatalities are the major cause of death.

For the first half of our passage through India, we trekked the remote Himalayas of Sikkim (India’s northern state, tucked between Bhutan and Nepal) with a guide, four porters and five dzos (a cow-yak hybrid), the latter’s tinkling bells and the occasional dzo-boy’s call the only sounds. Travelling then by taxi, we journeyed from the sedate Himalayan hill station of Darjeeling down to India’s great plains, then on by overnight train to arrive here in Varanasi, a festival-mad city of crumbling pastel palaces, temples and stone gateways that is half movie set, half watercolour dream – an Alice-sliding-down-the-rabbit-hole experience. On a wild taxi ride from train station to hotel, the driver wove between sacred cows, three-wheeled auto-rickshaws, pedicabs and pony-drawn two-wheeled tongas, taking dead aim at oncoming large trucks, hand on the horn, eyes locked with those of other drivers in a game of chicken.

After the peace of the Himalayas, we have landed feet first in the real India, where driving is a blood sport.

But tonight, we will scrape sacred cow doo and marigold petals off our sandals and fall asleep instantly and deeply, lulled by the city’s blaring mantras – broadcast on scratchy sound systems – and the knowledge that soon, after just one more overnight train, to Agra, Rafiq will be safely in the driver’s seat. In the winding lanes below, the dead, wrapped in gold cloth, will be carried through the night by bereaved sons to the ghats – to be released by fire and the Ganges’ divine waters. And at dawn, we will be woken by the thump of golden monkeys leaping onto the roof from a neighbouring building while, below, the devout already face the morning. Standing chest deep in the polluted Ganges, sipping the holy waters from cupped hands, they will chant the Gayatri to the sun god: Lord, we behold your light that fills the three worlds; and pray for your radiance to illumine our minds.

Four nights later, we are waiting in MGS station for the night train to Agra and Rafiq. It is the usual scene: smartly kitted Indian soldiers rub shoulders with near-naked holy sadhus; sacred cows and beggars scrounge among the crowd; plump matrons trail gold-edged saris past barefoot porters, whose dhotis are gathered between poverty-thin legs, bowed under the weight of bulging suitcases. Legless men in shabby western suits push alongside on trolleys half the size of skateboards; big-eyed shoeshine boys dog us, despite our open-toed sandals.

The delight of riding an Indian train is its passing parade: the 14 million souls who board and depart daily. To take a train, as Lonely Planet says, is to ride India’s bloodstream. Rail regulations detail five pages of those eligible for fare discounts: from circus performers and cancer patients who use an ostomy bag to midwives, widows of martyrs, those with non-infectious leprosy, Boy Scouts in uniform and vegetable vendors earning less than $10 a month. Child recipients of National Bravery Awards travel free in second-sleeper class. A corpse is charged the parcel rate. With luck (uncertainty is a given), chai wallahs will scurry through the cars, offering hot tea, while porters ferry sheets, pillows and blankets to the 2AC berths (air-conditioned cars with two-tiered beds) favoured by tourists.

What is not a delight is the drabness of the train. Thanks to The Darjeeling Limited, that quirky 2007 Cannes festival-winner directed by Wes Anderson, a new generation of movie-goers believes Indian trains are sheathed in hand-painted drawings of elephants and temples, while inside, swaying glass chandeliers tinkle in exquisite dining rooms and private compartments – plump with Rajasthan silk cushions and enormous windows – overlook India rolling past. In the real India, only trucks are lovingly hand-painted (Fox hired Rajasthani truck painters to embellish its movie’s train) and real Indian train windows are infamous for their near-opaque haze.

“Accept no food on the train from strangers!” advised our Varanasi hotel clerk, waggling his head as we checked out. “Even kindly seeming people may drug you and steal your goods.” And so, armed with bananas and Pure Love biscuits (but alas, no cable to chain our luggage) we lie back in the dark in berths 41 and 42, legs bent as if we are seated, suitcases tucked under our calves against would-be thieves. Suddenly, as the ceiling fan whips dangerously close to Jill’s face in the upper berth, two heavily made-up hijras (eunuch and transvestite entertainers who dress in women’s clothing) fling open the compartment curtain to give a Hindi “Oo-la-la!” at our pale faces, then bat their eyelashes before disappearing. It’s all very Some Like It Hot.

Our man in India: the dapper, street-savvy master of all things even remotely significant in the creation of the perfect chauffeured roadtrip, Rafique Sheikh: rajasthandriver.com

Seventeen hours later, the train arrives – two hours late. Rumpled and sticky, we exit the station, trailing other passengers, a downloaded photo of Rafiq’s moustached face in hand. More eager men thrust forward. “Yes, yes, this is the only door, Madam!” “Your driver must be a scoundrel, madam!” “He is not coming, madam!” “Here is my car!” My god! We should have gotten Rafiq’s cellphone number . . . But he does have our photo . . . did he leave because the train was late? A small, clean-shaven man smiles quietly off to one side. He wears a crisp, short-sleeved blue shirt and dark slacks. “Rafiq?” asks Jill. “But where is your moustache?” A bigger, shy smile. “I have shaved it off just now to look younger.”  We like Rafiq instantly for his confession.

“Chalo? – Let’s go?” Rafiq nods to a distinctive, boxy white sedan ensconced in the shade. The Ambassador! Traditional favourite of maharajas and prime ministers, India’s classic national car is now our first choice, too. Styled on the U.K.’s Oxford Morris but built in India, the spacious air-conditioned Amby is bound to draw approving glances on our grand tour.

And so it does, as, in a rush of colour, India comes at us head-on over the Ambassador’s pure retro dashboard. Often unnerving, sometimes truly frightening, it is thrilling, shocking, magical and unforgettable as we fly past buses, trucks, loping camels and motorcycles with entire families piled on, rickshaws, women carrying bricks on their elegant heads, uniformed school kids waving wildly, the occasional elephant, sadhus and more than one wedding, complete with groom on horseback and brass band. Sheep flow around us; bands of monkeys clamber over the Ambassador’s hood as the days fly by.

By the end of week one, the traveller’s inevitable frustrations with India have fallen away as Rafiq transports us from Agra into India’s great northern state: Rajasthan. This is the magical India that foreigners imagine. Women in long swirling ghagharas (skirts) of burnt orange and proud, mustachioed and turbaned men; fairytale palaces and walled forts; half of India’s 500,000 camels, led by tribal people on the move. Here, caste matters and men are still kings in a land of kings, where to speak of a question of honour is to speak of “an issue of moustache.”

Before important undertakings, prayers are said to Ganesh, the beloved, elephant-headed son of Lord Shiva. (above) Elephants at Amber Court.

Like most first-time travellers in India, we trace a route through Rajasthan’s four ancient cities, each besotted with one colour: bubblegum-pink Jaipur, painted to please the visiting Prince of Wales in 1876; dazzling, marble-white Udaipur; hyacinth-blue Jodhpur; and, at the desert’s edge, shimmering, golden-walled Jaisalmer, a 12th-century storybook sandcastle illustration. And always, with wheels instead of rails, we are independent, free of what-time-does-the-train-leave-and-from-which-track-and-will-there-be-food-on-board? Our worries, that we’d be at the mercy of a self-serving driver intent on delivering us to his cousin’s endless shops, fall away. Instead, Rafiq takes us home to his family for dinner in Udaipur. He becomes a friend but remains professional. He finds his own accommodation and meals. And each morning the newly washed Ambassador awaits its rumpled Canadian passengers, with Rafiq, cheerful in a freshly ironed cotton shirt and slacks, standing beside it, ready to answer the day’s endless stream of questions. We tour forts and palaces as he parks in the shade, water bottles readied for our return. He becomes our informal cultural guide, explaining life as a Muslim in 90 per cent Hindu India, revealing how corruption and kickbacks work, advising when to say “No” to professional beggars versus “Yes” to the truly poor and how to discourage India’s legions of street-boy vendors with a mere click of the tongue, eyes forward.

“Incredible, India?” asks Rafiq, leaning forward, brows knit, from the right-side driver’s seat (Britain’s legacy) as an 18-wheeler grazes past. The man drives like an aerobatic pilot. Subtle, confident movements of the wheel. Proudly: “This is the real India – you cannot see India from the train or a plane.”

Jill rides shotgun today. I’m in the back, lulled by the Ambassador’s diesel-engine thrum and the pink tassel swaying from the rear-view mirror, Lonely Planet’s Rajasthan, Delhi & Agra open in my lap. Rajasthan’s history reads like a fairytale. The Rajputs’ bravery and sense of honour were unparalleled. Theirs was a culture of chivalry – part medieval European knights, part Japanese samurais. Rajput warriors fought centuries of invaders against all odds. When no hope was left, honour demanded that jauhar (mass suicide) take place. “Women and children . . . immolated themselves on a huge funeral pyre while the men donned saffron robes and rode out to confront the enemy and certain death.” Medieval foreshadowing of 21st-century driving in India?

On the road from Agra to Pushkar, we witness our first accident when a car clips an oncoming cyclist. A few miles on, we pass two totalled cars. Rafiq, who trained 14 years ago with an Anglo-American company that stressed safety, angrily explains why India has such carnage on its roads. “People do not take responsibility!” – including the government. Anything that can move is allowed on any Indian road. At night, trucks bear down on unlit camel carts, bikes and tractors.

“Look! They are not licensed, they have no lights, no insurance.” Rafiq gestures at a tiny local “bus” precariously stuffed with waving local women. “But if I hit a peacock, our national bird, I am in trouble.” Glum silence. Turning onto a short stretch of six-lane freeway, we’re puzzled by a large sign – “Please do not drive in the wrong direction” – until we look ahead to see a massive truck bearing down on us – on our side of the divided freeway. The old adage “Don’t drive in countries that believe in reincarnation” takes on a new urgency. “They can’t read,” shrugs Rafiq, adeptly curving onto the shoulder with seconds to spare.

Given that Rajasthan is a harsh land with a harsher climate, we couldn’t have picked a better time to journey here. The monsoons are over; daytime is hot but not unbearable, the desert nights cool but not yet cold; and India is everything we imagined, and more.  In tiny, holy “pure-veg” Pushkar (the vegetarian population of 14,000 lives without eggs, meat or alcohol), we are amongst the 200,000 people and 50,000 camels converging once a year for Kartika, the most sacred Hindu lunar month. Pilgrims bathe by moonlight; tribal traders haggle over the length of a camel’s eyelashes. Before dawn, turbaned traders, wrapped in brown-and-grey blankets against the cold, brew tea, stroking their impressive moustaches. At midday, we join the devoted crush to perform puja (prayers) at India’s only temple to Brahman, and emerge with red-powder tikkas on our foreheads.

Just when Jill and I think we can’t take any more crowds, we find ourselves two days’ travel away from the nearest city in a country village, where we join two Parisians on a magical, starlit adventure. We have already crossed the Aravelli Hills?, one of the world’s oldest mountain ranges, which splits east and west Rajasthan. Now we are in search of Narlai, a film location in The Darjeeling Limited,  a tiny village – notable for its free-running, startlingly hairy black pigs – that looks dodgy. But we are soon booked into Number 16, the same room Mick Jagger chose in 2006, at Rawla Narlai, a 17th-century hunting lodge gifted to the Maharaja of Jodhpur – and walled off from the piggies. The elegant manager, a relative of India’s royal family, tells us that the Darjeeling cast and crew celebrated Christmas here when the film wrapped. “It can be a slow time for travel – and I was so pleased to see how you celebrate Christmas!”

Later, the Parisians, Jill and I travel by creaking oxcart – guided by turbaned Rajputs from the warrior caste, swinging oil-lit lamps – to an ancient, vast, sunken stone well that is the size of an Olympic swimming pool but only half full, its perimeter and interior steps lined with flickering ghee candles. Seated at one end, we dine on thali –  deliciously spiced dishes from royal recipes served in round bowls on a silver tray  – while reclining on silk cushions strewn with flower petals. A distant husky voice sings to the gods; a bonfire crackles up to the starry night. Paris and Vancouver seem very far away.

Two days’ drive beyond Narlai, and we are sidestepping open sewage running along the backstreets of Jaisalmer when a man with no legs, no arms, his torso wrapped in thick leather, rolls past on his side, his assistant nudging an alms pot before him. “You must give. He is truly a holy person,” calls a shopkeeper, tucking his own rupees into the pot.

This is India: exquisite carved-sandstone “lace” havellis (mansions); a frail grandmother rushing to stop traffic for jaywalking tourists in hopes of a few rupees; white-marble palaces floating on lakes; milky-marble Jain temples with naked monks; dalits, despite their new self-description as India’s “oppressed,” still trapped by their Untouchables status, doing India’s dirty work; beautiful brides covered in bangles, and bare-wristed widows abandoned by society and family, barely covered by thin, white-cotton saris. India’s middle class may be growing, but more than one third still toil for a dollar a day. Tourists book luxurious rail journeys on board the Palace on Wheels but haggle over a few rupees with homeless taxi wallahs.

An Indian friend in Canada advised we travel as Indians do: “Let India wash over you and take in what you can.” It seems to work. We feel oddly not foreign in this country of 1.13 billion, where the common Sanskrit greeting of deep respect – Namasté, I bow to the divine in you – transcends the confusion of 2,000 ethnic groups speaking 1,652 languages and dialects.

By week two, our days have settled into a relaxed routine. We explore each destination for two to four days, yet don’t feel glued at the hip to Rafiq. Local touts offering postcards, puppets and fabric look surprised, laugh and stop badgering when we wave them away with Lapka! –  a local term for a “tourist catcher” that Rafiq has taught us. We love our road days in the Ambassador. An easy four- to six-hour drive includes stops for lunch, tea breaks and such architectural wonders as Kumbalgarh, the remote 15th-century fort with walls long enough to enclose 360 temples, wide enough for eight horses to ride abreast along its top.

We are comfortable travelling in silence, but sometimes Rafiq tells us a story. It could be the tale of Rajasthan’s bandit-queen-turned-politician Poolan Devi, or Rafiq’s own romance – how he fell in love with the photo of a beautiful young woman not knowing she was deaf and mute; how it took four years to convince both families the marriage could work. Sometimes Rafiq sings along with a CD. He wanted to be a singer, but when his father died young, fate made Rafiq a driver, though a driver with ambition. After a decade at the wheel for many of India’s big tourism companies, he now has his own business, “for my sons.”

It is our last night. Jaisalmer, less than 100 km from the Pakistan border, is the end of the road. Jill and I fly to Delhi tomorrow. A sunset camel ride at the nearby Sam sand dunes was touristy but offered a glimpse of Sahara-like desert. Now it is evening. The Ambassador’s headlights pick up scrubby thorn trees, goats and herdsmen blurring past. Rafiq tips back his head and begins to sing the Bollywood love song we’ve adopted as our driving theme song: Dil kah raha hai tus se yu rishta jod loo . . .  My heart tells me that I make a relationship with you  . . . the real India.

> Northern India in Style: From the deserts of Rajasthan to the foothills of the Himalayas, including Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, with stays at former palaces and modern classics such as the Glass House on the Ganges. 12 guests per tour, November and December. From $2,715 plus local payment.
www.bcaa.com/indiainstyle

the wheelman
To hire a driver and car through Rafique Sheikh: rajasthandriver.com

Tips for hiring a car long-distance
• Hire one driver and an air-conditioned car for entire stay, even if planning on “down days” to explore on foot or lounge poolside at the hotel. Get driver’s cellphone number prior to arrival.
• Get rate in writing. Average for two passengers: $75/day including car, mileage, gas, tolls, driver’s food and separate lodging (driver arranges); suggested tip: $3 to $5 per day, per passenger. Check references: i.e., is the driver safety-conscious, familiar with the area, able to speak English well enough to add cultural insights?
• Expect to pay a deposit (Western Union is best). Drivers have a limited tourist season; without a deposit, they risk being “stiffed” by clients who book and then are tricked into hiring someone else on arrival. Note: Drivers are not designated guides; certified guides can be hired at each tourist site, or see guidebooks for recommendations.
• Drivers can suggest hotels, but it’s best to explore options before arriving in India or ask other travellers along the way.
• Note: many hotels don’t permit drivers to join guests for a meal or drink; respect this to avoid embarrassing driver. Independent restaurants welcome all.

Z-spots
• Varanasi: Palace on River/Rashmi Guest House +91 542 2402778
• Rajasthan: Narlai: Rawla Narlai; Jaipur: Umaid Bhawan Guest House; Pushkar: Raj Resorts (Tip: don’t confuse with other tented resorts with similar names); Jaisalmer: Hotel Killa Bhawan; Delhi: Ahuja Residency (Tip: Ahuja has two locations; request “Golf Links” in embassy area)

Pocket essentials
• Dukoral — travellers’ diarrhea oral vaccine, available with doctor’s prescription (take prior to departure)
• Wet Ones in flat packet; invaluable for wiping hands, dusty shoes and train surfaces
• Flat, universal sink plug and clothesline
• Earplugs (for festivals and sleeping) and black eye-mask (for sleeping on trains)
• Easily removed shoes (frequent temple visits)
• Four-digit PIN number for ATM and credit card transactions (only HSBC recognizes six-digit PINs)
• Lonely Planet’s Rajasthan, Delhi & Agra

Lead image courtesy Kerry McPhedran.

As Geert Mak, one of the Netherlands’ most prominent journalists, says: “The monumentality of Amsterdam exists only in the heads of its inhabitants, not on the streets.” But Mak means no Dutch put-down. He’s talking about the unshakeable inner security Amsterdammers possess, which means they have no need of grand palaces or broad avenues as displays of urban pride. The result: a city that remains a collection of folksy villages where travellers can still find themselves on the cutting edge of global trends.

courtesy Helena Zukowski

Insiders say Amsterdam’s contradictory nature springs from cultural compromise: people have to work together to stop the sea from inundating their land. The byproduct of all this “togetherness” is what the Dutch call gezelligheid – an inner confidence that keeps them open to whatever new style blows northwards. Like cultural magpies, Amsterdammers can always sense the hottest new fashion trend and who will be the next major musical talent. Not surprisingly, perhaps, theirs is a city with more museums per capita than anywhere else in Europe (prodigious in their collections and wacky in their themes) but also a place where one can while away the day in a traditional Delft-tiled “brown café” (so named for their smoke-stained walls and dark furniture), sunbathe in the buff on a canal, wave to a “working girl” in the red-light district or steam in a mixed-gender sauna.

As for great neighbourhoods that best personify the city’s eclectic character: the Nine Streets is a narrow collection of stylish bohemian boutiques, cafés and galleries linking Amsterdam’s western ring of canals; De Pijp, just south of the museum district, is a stew of subcultures, with Turkish, Moroccan and Indonesian restaurants and shops cheek-by-jowl with brown cafés; and the abandoned and decaying 19th-century city gasworks (Westergasfabriek) was recently transformed into Amsterdam’s most dynamic cultural district.

insider’s guide

courtesy Helena Zukowski

The Go Spots

• Amsterdam’s revitalized Eastern Docklands area, dating back to the city’s 17th-century Golden Age, is a progressive bit of urban planning that mixes living space, restaurants, businesses, galleries, restaurants and clubs. For theatre and live music: Panama, a trendy café/resto/nightclub. 311-8686
• Lovers of Delft porcelain will find hand-painted replicas at the Galleria d’Arte Rinascimento. 622-7509
• The newest addition to the city’s Jewish heritage: the children’s museum (opened December 2006) in the Jewish Historical Museum. 531-0310
• Like-a-Local sets visitors up with local hosts. Cruise the canals via private barge or dine with Amsterdammers in their homes. 670-2483

Trendy Vittles
• De Silveren Spiegel Traditional Dutch cuisine (try the lamb trilogy) in a crooked 400-year-old house. 624-6589
• Café-Restaurant Dauphine This transformed Renault garage, now a chic brasserie, features seafood platters, soft-shell crab and crème brûlée. 462-1646
• In a Frankendael Park greenhouse, the roomy De Kas serves fresh, organic herbs and veggies from its own garden. 462-4562
• Pancakes Restaurant — for a taste of the Dutch national staple, served with every filling imaginable, even sushi. Berenstraat 38.

Best Crash Zones
• The Lloyd Hotel in the new Eastern Docklands advertises equal service to all, but rooms range from one- to five-star. From 95 euros. 561-3636;
• The legendary madame Xaviera Hollander has turned her talents to Xaviera’s B&B. 110 euros, including breakfast for two. 673- 3934;
• Two-night city stays for Cdn.$405 (includes four-star hotel, airport transfers, sightseeing tour). bcaa.com/citystay

Lead image courtesy Helena Zukowski.

Courtesy of {link:http://www.flickr.com/photos/mekin/} timekin on flickr{/link}

Jakarta, Indonesia: It is midnight and we have just arrived in the Indonesian capital. There is only one taxi in the airport parking lot. It is an aging black wreck, unadorned by any company logo. The doors are fastened shut with rope. The driver is asleep, his bare feet sticking out the window. His radio is playing a Pat Boone song: “Love Letters in the Sand.”

Yogyakarta: Watching a performance of Wayang Kulit, or shadow puppet theatre. Ethereal shapes slide across the cotton screen, flickering in the glow of the oil lamp. Two realms of existence. On the other side, ancestral spirits with nervous insect profiles, elaborate as lace, bow and fight and make love or grow to giant size or vanish.

Yogyakarta at night: Kerosene lanterns, clip clop of horse-drawn carriages, becak drivers pedal past, flags flapping in the wind. Gamelan music, street performers cracking whips, doing gymnastics. Skull mask lying in the street. Each passing westerner is like an alarm clock, waking all the slumbering becak drivers. “Hello. Hello. Where you go?”

Nandi, Fiji: Our taxi driver is giving us a free tour of town. We pass a wrecking yard. “Ladies driving school,” he says. We pass a McDonalds. “American High Commission,” he says. I ask him if there any poisonous creatures here. “No. All friendly and non-poisonous. But if you want to see poisonous snakes and spiders wait until November and I will take you to parliament and show you where they sit.”

There seem to be only two types of weather reports in Fiji. “Fine” or “Mostly fine.”

courtesy Fenst, flickr.com

Moscow: My guide tells me, “We have the unpredictable history. We have the unpredictable past.”

Inside Night Flight, a famous nightclub, I gain a flash of insight into what it is like to be an attractive woman. Night Flight is stocked with young prostitutes. I am sitting at a table surrounded by 12 of them. Twenty-four eyes trying to hook my attention. If you return their stares, then they look deeper.  There is a hunger there.

Quebec City: While eating at a toney restaurant, Diane mentions that she attended high school with Pamela Anderson in Courtney, B.C. “She had brown hair and brown eyes. And she had small breasts. I know because she was on the volleyball team and we shared the same change room.”

New York: Sign in a city taxi: “25 cents extra for an argument.”

Acapulco: The humidity is withering. It takes the starch out of anything you put in your pants pockets—matches, Kleenex, business cards all reduced to rubble in a matter of hours. Clothes stick to your body and turn dark and splotchy from sweat like you are leaking from bullet holes. My yogurt capsules are mutating.

Holland-America Cruise Ship to Vancouver: Riding the elevator: The electronic voice intones, “Going down.” The guy standing beside me says, “I hate to hear that phrase when I’m on a ship.”

The Norwegian captain makes his daily address. “We are now sailing past the beautiful sceneries of Juan de Fuca Strait. We have these beautiful sceneries every day.”

Williams Lake: At the Stampede Parade the floats and entertainers include The Rose Lake Miocene Swine Club and the Vernon Girls Trumpet Band. The Babine Lake Traditional Dancers are wearing Airwalk sneakers, high heels and sandals. Someone shouts, “Look at those chainsaws!” The Squaw Hall float is an old palisade with a country band performing inside. The float is followed by a bunch of Elvis impersonators. Walt Cobb, the local MLA, cruises past.  An onlooker shouts, “Hey Walt, hope it’s your last term. You idiot.” Cobb replies, “Where is my gun when I need it?”

Hong Kong: List of fish dishes in the Jumbo Floating Restaurant: Black Dragon, Spotted Grunt, Green Wrasse, Horse-Head, Pink Garoupa, Whelk, Silver Coat, Oil Crab.

Barcelona: Many of the women here ride motor scooters. Some ride them in slit skirts. Very formal. I saw one today with sheer black stockings that went down only as high as her ankles. A strange and exotic touch. How do I meet them? Something else … Most of them smoke.

Chichen Itza, Mexico: It is about 7 p.m., just after a rainstorm. Eerie yellowish light, wriggling lines of ants, and a metallic taste to the air. Thunder rumbles in the distance as we approach the old church. Three black vultures sitting on the white crosses rise up and flex their wings.

Holland: I am learning Dutch expressions. Take the phrase, “To rush headlong into something, to butt in.” In Dutch, this is expressed as Met de klompen op het ijs komen. “To go on the ice with wooden shoes.”

There are meat hooks affixed to the roof gables of the homes in Amsterdam. They use them to haul furniture to the upper floors because the stairways are too narrow. The house were built narrow because the amount you paid in taxes depended on wide your home was. The wider it was, the more you paid.

The Dutch public transport system sells special tickets for dogs.

Dunedin, Florida: I’m drinking beer at my hotel’s Tiki Bar. It is Happy Hour. The sunset is a simmering palette of magenta and orange, smudged with jet contrails. There is a woman sitting across from me with a “Bad Mama” tattoo. Her boyfriend has the words “Born to Lose” tattooed on his bicep. There other bikers crowded around with bandanas and tattoos. But none of them are riding choppers—they are riding bicycles, and raising money for charity. The tattoos are decals.

Kenya: A young guy leans in the car window and asks to bum a cigarette, “Share the cancer,” he says.

The frogs outside our hotel at night sound like a series of rusty drawbridges slowly being opened.

Rule of the land: Outside the game parks everyone walks. Inside the parks, no one walks.

courtesy digitalART2, flickr.com

Our guide, Mustafa, tells us about cheetahs. The adults have to teach the young to hunt. The mother will sometimes drag a crippled impala in for the young to play with. After the cubs make their first kill, the mother leaves them forever. Mustafa saw this happen once. The mother stared from a distance at the scene. When the deed was done, she tilted her head back, let out a loud wail, then loped off towards the far horizon.

Title image by retro traveler; flickr.com

courtesy Laverrue (flickr.com)

They are opening the Lady up – all the way to the top. On July 4 this summer, the Statue of Liberty’s crown – off limits to the public since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks – will again be available for touring. The museum gallery and observation deck at the landmark’s base were reopened in 2004, but the crown remained closed. The official reason given: “fire safety,” but many believe it was due to9 the previous American administration’s campaign to foster an ongoing climate of fear.

In a recent interview, Ken Salazar, the U.S. interior secretary, stated that the re-opening was a symbol of President Barrack Obama’s agenda for “a new beginning, restoring confidence in the American people, in their government, and in our place in the world.” Salazar also noted that a maximum of 10 visitors would be able to occupy the crown at any given time, allowing for 30 an hour, or 50,000 a year, in the initial phase of the crown’s re-opening.

A lottery will determine exactly who will be able to journey to the crown. After two years, the statue will then undergo a more significant “rehabilitation,” in the hope of increasing the number of such treks to about 200,000 a year. Visits to the Statue of Liberty have declined steadily since the crown’s closure – down to to 3.4 million in 2007 from a high of 5.5 million in 2002, according to the National Park Service.

How It All Began

The massive copper sculpture known officially as “Liberty Enlightening the World” was designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi – to mark the 1876 centennial of the Declaration of Independence, with its construction funded completely by donations from the French people. Meanwhile, fundraising in America to build the pedestal for the monument was proceeding very slowly, so Joseph Pulitzer (noted for the Pulitzer Prize) opened up the editorial pages of his newspaper, The World, to support the fundraising efforts. Pulitzer proceeded to use his newspaper to criticize both the rich, who had failed to finance the pedestal construction, and the middle class, who were content to rely upon the wealthy to provide the funds. His campaign was successful in motivating Americans to donate $100,000.

After Bartholdi finalized the design in miniature, the statue itself was created using wooden moulds, a copper shell and an iron structure designed by Gustave Eiffel, who later built the Eiffel Tower. The statue was then shipped to the U.S. in 350 pieces aboard a French vessel, in June 1885, then re-assembled and unveiled on October 28, 1886. The day was declared a public holiday and more than a million people lined New York’s streets (draped with red, white and blue and French tricolour buntin) to watch a parade of more than 20,000 pass by. The New York Times reported that as the parade rolled past, the office boys “from a hundred windows began to unreel the spools of tape that record the fateful messages of the ‘ticker.’ In a moment the air was white with curling streamers.” And so the famous New York ticker-tape parade was born.

Interestingly, tourists were also once able to climb the inside of Lady Liberty’s arm to the top of her torch. But that also changed after another act of sabotage. On July 30, 1916, during World War I, German saboteurs ignited a cache of dynamite at a munitions depot on nearby Black Tom Wharf . Shrapnel from the explosion resulted in extensive structural damage to the buildings on Ellis Island and popped bolts out of the Statue of Liberty’s right arm. Officials shut down the monument for about a week, and, when it reopened, the arm was closed to tourists.

A few Things to Consider Before the Big Climb

A heads up: those eager to experience the majestic ocean view from the crown can’t be claustrophobic or have a weak heart. The only route is up, waaaay up, via an extremely narrow, almost-vertical staircase of 354 steps. Also worth noting: it’s best not to attempt to scale the crown on a windy day. The copper skin is no thicker than two pennies and in gales the statue sways by up to 7.5 centimetres;  her gilded torch can shift by up to  12.5 centimetres. As well, the torch, which stands 92 metres above the small island, or the equivalent of 22 floors, is pummelled and pitted by frequent lightning. And inside the head, temperatures can be sweltering and the 25 windows in the crown are merely tiny portholes.

But then, true democracy never is.

So why Portland? We’d only ever passed through Portland a few years ago and I think I was there as a kid on a family vacation. But a few weeks ago we were treated to a special screening of the PBS e2 transport film Portland: A Sense of Place (hosted by BEST at Rhizome Café). Inspired by the political will of those city planners interviewed and the lovely scenes of city folk on foot, streetcar, bike and aerial tram, my husband and I decided then and there to see the city with our newly opened eyes. We had also heard about the “new” food scene in Portland; a growing community of food purveyors committed to local and sustainable practices. A walking and eating vacation sounded exactly up our alley!

Arriving at 12 noon sharp, we set out on foot as soon as we checked into our downtown hotel, located in one of the Portland’s “most walkable districts.”

Our first stop was Hot Lips Pizza. Recommended to me through a Twitter connection (not the first time the social media tool has paid off in spades! Thank you, Dave!) because 1. Great pizza would await and 2. The pizzeria is an active practitioner of The Natural Step, a simple and elegant sustainability-evaluation framework. Hot Lips did not disappoint. Enjoying a couple of slices and beer on their patio after a long walk, the experience crystallized what I came to love about Portland: West Coast laid-back vibe, drivers that look out for pedestrians and cyclists and a food revolution being fought by fancy establishments and sweaty taquerias alike.

The next 48 hours saw more gastronomic delight by foot. Lots of walking, eating, drinking and finding coffee shops to pee in. (This is really a situation where having a Starbucks in every neighbourhood came in handy, I must admit!) It wasn’t until the second day that we discovered Fareless Square in the downtown core –- that’s free rides on buses, streetcar, and light rail. What an amazing way to promote ridership (let’s muse for a moment on what commuting in Metro Vancouver would be like if Translink made a similar move).

A weekend simply wasn’t enough to thoroughly explore the city, however. Legs can only travel so far, and at three (stretching it at four) meals a day one can only eat so much. In other words, it won’t be long before we’re back.

Check out the set here: Portland on foot and in my stomach.

We are guests for breakfast at a Japanese sumo stable, and not just any stable, but Kokonoe-beya, the school run by the greatest sumo star of modern times, Chiyonofuji, a.k.a. “the Wolf.” Being invited to dine with Chiyonofuji is a rare privilege, the Japanese equivalent of brunch with Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan. During his career, he has won 1,045 matches, including a record 807 in the elite Makouchi division and 31 grand championships. The legend himself sits directly to my left, devouring a platter of sushi. Eyeing my scrawny frame, Chiyonofuji gestures at the main course, indicating that I should dig in, and pantomiming with his hands to show how it will make me grow. It seems wise to follow his advice. Although he retired in 1991, there is nothing soft about the man. He looks like a heavy from a gangster movie, the guy the boss sends for when bones need breaking.

There are 54 sumo stables in Japan, all located in or near Tokyo. Rarely visited by westerners, these enclaves offer a portal into Japan’s feudal past. Having sworn loyalty to the stablemaster, novice wrestlers cook, clean and play valet to the senior grapplers in return for shelter and food. Living and training in communal quarters, the recruits develop their strength and technique in the hopes of climbing through the ranks. Once a wrestler or rikishi joins a stable he remains there for the rest of his career.

zimbio.com

A typical sumo day

Life at a sumo stable begins at 5 a.m., when the novices report for several hours of training. At about 7 a.m., the senior rikishi join them. Before our meal, we spent an hour in the adjoining keikoba watching the novices work out. The scene was unlike anything in a Western gym—nary a Nautilus machine, treadmill or juice bar in sight. Instead, in a bare room with a dirt floor, these round-shouldered hulks grunted their way through a series of slow-moving exercises: alternatively raising their legs and stomping; repeatedly slapping their hands and shoulders against a wooden pillar; and sitting on the floor and spreading their legs as wide as possible while bending their heads forward. If a wrestler couldn’t get the proper extension, one of his pals would help out by pressing down on his back. The exercises were followed by practise bouts in the dirt ring. Gradually, the rikishi grew dirtier and dirtier.

After morning training, wrestlers customarily bathe, then gorge themselves on chanko-nabe, a protein-rich one-pot meal comprised of broth, fish, meat and vegetables. The repast includes side dishes, huge bowls of rice and plenty of beer. They then retire for a nap, the best method to convert the calories to fat. Early in the evening they will eat again. Packing on the pounds is a key part of their apprenticeship. Although speed and power are important in sumo, without sufficient bulk, a rikishi can’t become a champion. The reason is simple: all 850 of Japan’s sumo wrestlers compete in the same weight class, struggling upward through a pyramidal hierarchy.

flickr.com

Thinking of a career in sumo?

To enter the sport, candidates must weigh at least 75 kilograms. Top-division wrestlers average 157 kilograms (345 pounds). The heaviest rikishi in history, Konishiki, a.k.a the Dump Truck, tipped the scales at an earth-shaking 253 kilograms (604 pounds). The minimum height required is 173 centimetres. Yet, even when one is too short there are solutions. One wrestler recently overcame the barrier by having four inches of silicone injected into the top of his skull.

After several bowls of chanko-nabe, we bid Chiyonofuji good-bye and leave the stable. Outiside in the street, we meet a trio of rikishi wearing flowery kimonos and clog sandals called geta. Like everything else in sumo, footwear denotes rank. Romantic as it may be, the clip-clop of the wooden geta indicates a junior wrestler. In the light of day, the three seem very young. They carry cloth shopping bags and smell of bentsuke wax, a soybean extract used to hold their burnished topknots in place. These teenagers apparel is a reminder that they live this role 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There is no other life to go home to. We take their pictures and then watch them totter away into the electric hum of Tokyo.

The Royal Clipper (destination360.com)

A lot of people believe that bigger is better. This view certainly applies to the sailing segment of the cruise business, where two rival companies are constructing the largest and most expensive sailing vessels to ever ply the seas. Star Clippers, which has a fleet of authentic re-creations of classic 19th-century clipper ships, currently operates the world’s largest and only five-masted sailing ship built since the early 1900s. The Royal Clipper, a design inspired by the legendary tall ship Preussen, is 134 metres long, comes equipped with 42 sails and carries 227 guests in romantic and luxurious style. However, by 2010, the majestic Royal Clipper will be relegated to third place in the sailing stakes.

On April 5, 2010, German-based Sea Cloud Cruises will launch the maiden voyage of the Sea Cloud Hussar. Measuring 136 metres long and 17 metres wide, with a total sail area of more than 4,000 square metres, it will be the largest three-masted ship ever built. The vessel will have 69 luxury cabins and boast room for 136 passengers and a crew of 90. After completing its 12-day maiden voyage from Malta to the Greek port of Piraeus, the Hussar will travel along the Cote d’Azur and sail to the German port of Hamburg, which it will enter on June 26, 2010, after completing a musically themed voyage from Portugal, Spain, France and Belgium. The ship will dock in Venice on September 3, 2010, followed by a journey to the Arabian Peninsula in early December. Tickets for the maiden voyage start at $5,976 per person.

Not to be outdone, Star Clippers recently announced it is building an even larger and more expensive vessel. Extending an astounding 157 metres and weighing 7,400 tons, the as-yet-unnamed barque will be 48 per cent larger than the Royal Clipper. The five-masted giant will carry 37 sails for a total of 6,350 square metres of sail surface area; its rigs will soar 65 metres above the waterline and the open sundeck area will be an expansive 2,500 square metres. The ship, which will make its debut in 2010, will have room for 296 passengers and 140 crew, feature three swimming pools on the top deck and house a two-level dining room that can hold all 296 passengers in one seating.

There will also be a private dining room for smaller groups, a piano lounge, a two-level “tropical bar,” a dive/sports bar, a forward observation lounge, library, spa and gym. A retractable marina on the stern will provide access for watersports. One of the swimming pools will have a glass bottom, allowing light to filter down into the piano lounge and dining room. The aft pool, meanwhile, will feature a swim tube that extends down into the dive/sports bar and into the library that will be used for scuba training.

But big doesn’t only apply to sailing ships. Here are the remaining Top 10 travel-related “World’s Largest.”

2. World’s largest museum attraction

The amazing Titanic Museum in Branson, Missouri, was built half-scale to the original. Towering 30 metres above Country Highway 76, it holds 400 priceless artifacts in 20 galleries from the wreck of the RMS Titanic. The structure is anchored in water to create the illusion of the Titanic at sea, and the 90-minute, self-guided tour is designed to give guests the sensation of being one of the passengers on Titanic’s 1912 maiden voyage. As visitors step through an iceberg into the early 1990s world of this historic re-creation they are given a passenger boarding ticket, bearing the name of an actual Titanic passenger and the class they were travelling. Guests learn the individual stories of their adopted namesake and in the Titanic Memorial Room discover whether their ticketed passenger survived or perished. The museum opened in 2006 and has already welcomed more than a million visitors.

3. World’s largest aquarium

onearthtravel.com

Whale sharks, the world’s largest fish, are kings of this 30-million-litre tank. But once visitors to Atlanta’s Georgia Aquarium have seen Ralph and Norton–the only whale sharks on display outside of Asia–they will still have about 100,000 fish to go. Shaped like an abstract cruise ship looming over Olympic park, the aquarium was bankrolled almost exclusively by a $200-million gift from Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus. Size-wise it has no serious rival. By comparison, Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium–the largest indoor aquarium in the U.S. for decades–has just 19 million litres and about 20,000 fish. More than just a monstrous tank, however, the Atlanta site also boasts a “4-D” movie theatre, which shows films with 3-D animation and other special effects, and a banquet hall that can serve a sit-down dinner for 1,100, catered by a company owned by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck.

4. World’s largest shopping mall

When it opened in 2005, the South China Mall in Dongguan, China, crushed all rival mega malls with 6.5 million square feet of retail space and seven different wings – with theme areas based on Amsterdam, California, the Caribbean, Egypt, Paris, Rome and Venice, and, of course, an amusement park. But customers did not throng to the gigantic emporium. Today, it is not only the world’s largest mall but the world’s emptiest, with fewer than a dozen stores scattered through a space designed to house 1,500, making it a dusty, decrepit complex of buildings marked by peeling paint, dead light bulbs and dismembered mannequins.

5. World’s largest dinosaur

Standing adjacent to the Visitors Centre in Drumheller, Alberta, a fiberglass-and- steel Tyrannosaurus Rex rises 26 metres and weighs 66 tons. Travellers from as far away as Africa and Australia have climbed the behemoth’s 106 steps, plodding past the prehistoric mural paintings that decorate its belly, to be spit out inside a toothy mouth. There, they are rewarded with a choice view of the Red Deer River Valley and its eerie badlands landscape, where so many dinosaur bones have been unearthed. Cheesy as it may sound, the T-Rex blends in with the rest of the dinosaur statues stationed throughout the town in parks, on street corners and even busting out of the local IGA’s brick facade.

6. World’s largest casino

roongthongtour.com

Thousands of Chinese poured into the Venetian Macao resort, built by U.S. operator Las Vegas Sands, when it opened in August 2007. Macau is the only place in gambling-mad China where casinos are legal, and business is booming. Last year, gaming revenues surpassed those of the iconic Las Vegas Strip. The Venetian Macao promises to push the numbers even higher. It boasts 3,000 hotel suites, 1,150 gaming tables, 7,000 slot machines, 350 shops, a 1,800-seat conference centre and a 15,000-seat entertainment arena. If the Venetian succeeds, according to analyst estimates, it will help double Macau’s annual gaming income to $13.7 billion by 2010.

7. World’s largest place name

This Maori name for a hill, 305 metres high, located near Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, is so absurdly long that I won’t attempt to reproduce it here. The 85-letter-long place name is a combination of the words taumata (brow of a hill), whakatangihanga (music making), koauau (flute), o (of), tamatea (name of a famous chief), turi pukaka (bony knees), piki maunga (climbing a mountain), horo (slip), nuku (move), pokai whenua (widely travelled), ki (to), tana (his), tahu (beloved). Therefore, it means: the summit of the hill, where Tamatea, the man with the big knees who slid down, climbed up and swallowed mountains, known as land eater, played on his flute to his loved one. Nowadays, the moniker has been abbreviated to Taumata.

8. World’s largest hotel

Until recently, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas held this title, but First World Hotel in Pahang, Malaysia, has now secured the crown. Located in the mountain gambling resort of Genting Highlands, about 40 kilometres north of Kuala Lumpur, this three-star hotel has 6,118 rooms (1,000 more than the MGM) in its dual 23-storey towers. One thing you are not going to hear at the First World: “Sorry, all our rooms are full.” But with its pulsating lime-green, canary-yellow and fire-engine-red colour scheme, the hotel is unlikely to ever win any awards for design. The sizeable premises incorporate a theme park and a half-million square feet of shopping space. There are 32 check-in counters with 64 terminals located in the hotel lobby, and the laundry department manages an incredible production of 40 tons worth of laundry per day.

9. World’s largest swimming pool

latimes.com

Do a few morning laps here and you’ll be in intensive care. The new San Alfonso Del Mar resort, situated about 130 kilometres west of Santiago, Chile, has been recognized as having Earth’s largest crystalline pool by the Guinness Book of World Records. It’s actually a saltwater lagoon that runs for more than a kilometre between the ocean and several apartment buildings. Its surface area is eight hectares, roughly equivalent to 6,000 standard backyard pools. It took five years to build and cost nearly $2 billion and the annual maintenance bill is $4 million. It easily dwarfs the next biggest pool–the Orthlieb in Casablanca, Morocco–which is 150 metres by 100 metres. The pool utilizes a technology developed by the Chilean company Crystal Lagoons, which uses water pumped from the Pacific Ocean that is then filtered and treated for supply to the pool.

10. World’s Largest Miniature Village

Visiting Madurodam is like Gulliver being let loose in Lilliput. Located in The Hague, in the Netherlands, it’s a model of a Dutch town on a 1:25 scale, composed of typical Dutch buildings and landmarks as found in various locations in the country. This major tourist attraction was built in 1952 and has been visited by tens of millions of visitors since. The miniature city was named after George Maduro, a law student from Curaçao who fought the Nazi occupation forces as a member of the Dutch resistance and died at Dachau concentration camp in 1945. In 1946 Maduro was posthumously granted the honour of Knight 4th-class of the Military Order of William, the highest and oldest honour in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, because he had distinguished himself in the Battle of the Netherlands against German
troops. His parents donated the money to start the Madurodam project.

No question, at this last, sprawling stop on the road west in search of the American dream, driving is a must. Which means, in a city where the locals size each other up by their cars (and these days, a Prius wins as many admiring comments as a Porsche), if ever there was a place to rent a fantasy car or test a hybrid, L.A. is it. As for getting at the essence of the city, that magnetic tug that has drawn silver-screen and rock star hopefuls in droves for decades while rewarding only the lucky few, Sunset Boulevard is the cruiser’s expressway. An icon in itself, the road accelerates through more personas than Madonna.

From the Los Feliz neighbourhood, idling west, Sunset reveals a particularly vivid cross-section of the city’s cultural east-west split. Eastsiders pride themselves on their ethnic diversity, nightlife and throbbing music scene. Westsiders crow about their coastline, boutique-lined streets and sophisticated foodie enclaves. “Poseur hipsters!” yelp the westsiders. “Limousine liberals!” jab the eastsiders. Yet both east and west rise above the fray to graze the Wednesday morning farmers’ market in Santa Monica or clock off early to catch a baseball game at Dodger Stadium. And there’s no clash that a burger at the Apple Pan can’t fix.

Meanwhile, in Hollywood, sleek new clubs and restaurants signal an upswing after a decades-long slump, with the restored 1920s movie palaces on Hollywood Boulevard and huge Cinerama Dome on Sunset speaking to Tinseltown’s determination to regain its early glamour. Curling south from Hollywood, the boulevard then morphs into the Sunset Strip, a shift in gears signalled by rock clubs and Maserati-fringed hotels, before crossing into Beverly Hills and Bel Air to ease past the lushly landscaped retreats of megawatt stars such as Nicole Kidman. Finally, it winds up at the Pacific Coast Highway, that legendary beachfront ribbon of asphalt tracing the California coastline.

The Go Spots

• The undulating architecture and eclectic art collections of the hilltop Getty Center. Open until 9 p.m. Saturdays, with spectacular views across the city. 310-440-7300; getty.edu
• Upper Melrose Avenue, for a local spin on luxury, starting with Maxfield’s avant-garde clothes. Stroll Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice for quirky, casual boutiques.
• Largo, the legendary music club, for sets by the likes of singer Aimee Mann. 310-855-0350; largo-la.com
• Frank Gehry’s silver, swooping Walt Disney Concert Hall for a performance by the L.A. Philharmonic. 323-850-2000; laphil.com

Trendy Vittles

• Pizzeria Mozza Even celebs have a hard time acting cool when Mozza’s savoury pies emerge from its wood-fired oven (323-297-0101). The pizza topped with guanciale (lean cured pork) is divine. Or belly up to the buzzing mozzarella bar in Osteria Mozza, next door. 323-297-0100; mozza-la.com
• Sona Chef David Myers proves that surfing and ambition are not mutually exclusive. Inventive, seasonal cooking paired with an exceptional wine list, rich in California Pinot Noirs. A tempting pastry shop, Boule (310-289-9977), is right across the street. 310-659-7708; sonarestaurant.com
• Apple Pan For the ultimate burger, served in a 1940s time warp. 310-475-3585

Best Crash Zones

• Chateau Marmont Discretion and a whiff of scandal coupled with a Sunset Strip location. Don’t miss: A Sunset Sour cocktail at the namesake bar, which often bulges with paparazzi bait. From $370. 323-656-1010; chateaumarmont.com
• Shutters on the Beach Haute-cottage guestrooms just steps from the sand. From $475. 310-458-0030; www.shuttersonthebeach.com

To calculate the distance between hope and despair, one could sit on the edge of a 250-metre oceanside cliff on the South Pacific’s fabled Easter Island and consider the fate of those who once lived in the world’s most remote, inhabited place. At first glance, there’s nothing to indicate how this dot of land, 3,700 kilometres off the coast of Chile (and smaller than B.C.’s Salt Spring Island), could have come to symbolize all that can go wrong with a society. The ocean on this day is cobalt blue and endless. An armada of cumulus is becalmed on the western horizon. The great stone statues that line the island’s promontories to my left are too distant to be seen. But etched into the boulders around me on this precipice are strange, half-man/half-bird bas-relief figures that, it is now known, mark the apocalyptic End Time of the tropical civilization that once thrived here.

Those people – the descendants of wayward fourth-century Polynesian mariners – flourished in splendid isolation on Easter Island amid their farms and forested hillsides for more than 1,000 years. Completely cut off by distance and time from any outside influences, they developed a mysterious religion and a still-undeciphered writing system, established an aristocracy, feasted on their little island’s bounty, erected temples and monumental statues, grew numerous and then – oblivious to the consequences of their own excesses – did nothing in the face of impending environmental calamity. Rather, in a series of events with ominous modern parallels, the islanders’ flagrant consumption and population explosion 700 years ago led to forest clear-cutting, fuel shortages and rising temperatures; and these, in turn, led to soil degradation, drought and famine. Still, the raising of Easter Island’s massive stone figures – called moai – continued unabated. Bigger became better. Prestige, for the statues’ wealthy benefactors, lay in size. So the moai grew to monsters: five metres, then 10, then 20 metres tall. Then came decades of unrest, looting and finally cannibalism as the Easter Islanders’ numbers dwindled and civil war swept the once-bucolic place. By the mid-1700s, most of the moai had been toppled and many among the aristocracy killed. The statues that had once served to protect the people had failed. In the face of island-wide anarchy, the survivors created the Cult of the Birdman, which marked the civilization’s last desperate grasp at salvation. And for 150-plus years – until well into the 19th century when there was almost no one left – the men of Easter Island ritually fought, and sometimes died, over the possession of a single tern’s egg. It is exactly here where I sit, on the sea cliffs at Rano Kau, and on the tiny, wave-washed islet of Moto Nui far below, that the bizarre – and ultimately tragic – annual competition over that egg took place.

A half-century ago, when explorer Thor Heyerdahl wrote his book Aku Aku: The 1958 Expedition to Easter Island, few would have been able to locate the place on a map. Even by the early ’90s, less than 5,000 tourists arrived annually. Today, that number has increased tenfold, with visitors drawn by the astounding and cautionary environmental story surrounding the place, by the collection of 16,000 archaeological sites and by the 1995 designation of Easter Island’s Rapa Nui National park – covering 60 per cent of the island’s total area – as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In a week spent wandering the island, I often walk among the fabulous stone heads that jut from hillsides and oceanside bluffs or lie on their backs amid the grasslands that cover much of Easter Island today. Knowing that the island’s story ends tragically makes the appearance of each new statue all the more profound. A rough trail cuts northeastward from the south coast toward the volcanic cliffs of Rano Raraku, following the ancient route the moai-builders themselves once utilized to haul the 12- to 80-tonne figures from the quarries, where they were hewn and extracted, to the scores of ceremonial sites where they once stood.

Along this trail today lie a dozen abandoned supine heads, half-shrouded in weeds, face up, their ears pendulous, their expressions uniformly melancholy, their eye sockets unfinished, awaiting the time – that never came – when they would be removed from their log rollers and slowly levered to the vertical to receive their fear-evoking coral and obsidian eyes. At that moment, the islanders believed, the all-seeing statues merged with the divine to funnel spiritual power from the cosmos, thus protecting the villages over which they loomed. I circle each one trying to grasp why the islanders once dedicated so much time and effort to such a Herculean enterprise; and how their fateful story resonates for the planet today.

The trail ascends the slopes of Rano Raraku, where I find myself walking into a scene I studied in National Geographic as a child, evoking a lifelong wish to see the figures first-hand. Ahead, with some of the island’s 2,000 horses grazing amidst them, the upright statues begin to appear. First one. Then three in a cluster. Then a dozen more, some leaning at odd angles, some high above, beneath the mountainside’s cliff-face quarries, some fallen, some chin-deep, some belly-deep in grass. They are black, impressively huge, with pursed lips and countenances of sober, almost sombre concentration, staring seaward like vigilant watchmen waiting for intruders. But it’s only when I reach the quarries where the statues were cut from volcanic rock that the sheer enormity of the project and the suddenness of its cessation becomes clear. Here, 397 more moai, most only half-finished, the biggest over 20 metres long, still lie within their stone crypts, their extrication halted centuries ago by the onset of civil war. All are eyeless. The quarries, I realize, are a cemetery for blind gods.

My companion on many of these walks is archaeological historian Ramon Edmunds, 41, a descendant of one of the few people who survived the Easter Island apocalypse that ended just over a century ago. Standing on the shoreline below Rano Raraku with the 15 recently raised moai of nearby Tongariki, Edmunds, a stick in one hand, gestures toward the land that spreads out before us. The upland pastures where cattle and horses graze are burnished to pale celadon beneath a relentless tropical sun. Little volcanic cones punctuate the horizon to the west where eucalyptus now grow. And big, open-ocean waves explode against the sea cliffs at our backs, sending their spindrift airborne. But where before us there was once an ancient ceremonial plaza and village, there is now nothing. The 15 standing moai today guard emptiness. “The destruction, the warfare, the deaths,” says Edmunds with regret, “have left much of what happened here an eternal mystery. The oral history I heard as a child ends . . . and the rest is myth.”

Heu Rapu, a local 53-year-old gaucho who herds his 250 head of cattle and horses on those upland pastures, joins us, and the three of us talk about what once was and what is coming to Easter Island. Of the moai, Rapu agrees, little is known of their purpose or of the religion they once embodied. They are, he’s sure, the living faces of his ancestors; the rest is conjecture. When Norwegian anthropologist and author Thor Heyerdahl came to the island in the 1950s, he recounts, the intricate stonework of the moai platform at Vinapu convinced him that Easter Island’s settlers came originally from Andean South America, just as Heyerdahl’s famous, trans-Pacific Kon-Tiki raft expedition aimed to prove in 1947. Author Erich von Däniken speculated, on the other hand, that it would have been impossible for humans to move the immense figures and attributed their construction to extraterrestrials who, he argued, utilized laser beams to cut the stone from the Rano Raraku quarries, then employed – of all things! – rope to lower the statues into position.

Modern science has a more plausible explanation. All I have to do is look at big, barrel-chested, top-knot-wearing Rapu to know that part of the mystery of the islanders’ origins and their strange statues has been resolved. Rapu is unmistakably Polynesian, and linguistic, mythological and archaeological accounts confirm this connection. The original Easter Islanders, riding outrigger canoes, left Polynesia’s Marquesas archipelago, 7,000 km to the west, around 300 AD. Somehow, after months of sailing eastward across the uncharted ocean, these seafarers managed to hit – in the vastness of the Pacific – the 15-km-wide, uninhabited speck that came to be called Easter Island. With plentiful fish, birds, palm trees and fertile fields, the mariners must have believed they’d found paradise. They established farms, clans and – fatefully – an aristocracy. Within a few centuries, they’d begun turning their traditional, one-metre-high coconut-trunk votive figures – called tiki across much of the South Pacific – into the larger stone figures that populate Easter Island today. But over time, the aristocracy became more demanding, the royal feasting more elaborate, an underclass more necessary, the statues bigger . . . and bigger, and then things began to fall apart.

On my last day on Easter Island, I walk with Edmunds amid a set of miniature volcanic cones to the Puna Pau archaeological site, located just outside the island’s tiny capital of Hanga Roa. From the brick-red, volcanic rock within the crater there, the islanders quarried the huge stone topknots, called pukao, that once sat like turbans atop the heads of many moai. Their purpose is lost to time. In the fields around us lie 18 of these spool-like hats, abandoned along with so much else when environmental collapse brought chaos. From this hilltop vantage point, the farms that today surround the little, tin-roofed village and its tree-lined streets are visible. All is peaceful. An afternoon breeze off the Pacific riffles the yellowing grass and sends the palms swaying. I know that beyond the few thousand people living quietly below, the rest of humanity lies far, far away. To the south, there’s nothing until Antarctica, 5,000 km distant. To the north, the Galápagos Islands, 3,700 km away. The coast of Chile lies the same distance to the east. And to the west 2,000 km are Easter Island’s nearest neighbours, the few dozen inhabitants of Pitcairn Island.

In fact, for more than 1,000 years, legends say, no one came to Easter Island. And once the last tree was chopped down 400 years ago, there was no wood to make a boat to leave. “You sit and look out,” Edmunds says, gesturing toward the ocean, “and see nothing. And you wonder, as people must have wondered then: ‘What’s out there?’ After centuries of isolation, being cut off from the world, people must have come to believe that they were alone on Earth . . . that there was no one else. It’s like that photograph from Apollo 11, of the Earth rising behind the moon. A little island . . . lost in space.”

When it appeared to Easter Islanders 300 years ago that the End Time was approaching, with rebellion raging and the sacred statues being pushed over and survivors believing the gods were dead, the remaining inhabitants, so the myths say, looked out from the cliffs at Rano Kau each spring and saw evidence for hope in the annual reappearance of the migratory sooty terns that nested on the seaside ledges of nearby Moto Nui islet. The birds had to come from somewhere, the people told themselves. Their eggs were proof of the possibility of renewal.

So, rather than killing one another as they had for centuries, they invented an annual athletic event that would decide who would be the island’s leader for the upcoming year. On a day in early spring, the Bird-Listeners would assemble above Moto Nui and await the sound of returning sooty terns wings. Young men – drawn from servants of the island’s leaders – stood ready, their bodies painted white, for the signal that the terns were coming. Then, the men raced down the cliffs, swam the shark-filled channel to the rookery and waited in caves near the nesting birds for the first egg. Men died falling from the Rano Kau precipice, from being taken by sharks, from starvation and thirst when the egg-laying was delayed. But whoever got the first tern egg carried it across the wave-swept channel and up the cliff face, then presented it to his honoured master, unbroken. That man was declared the Birdman and lived in year-long luxury, adjudicating peacefully over all issues concerning the islanders, until the following spring.

For a while, the people must have thought that, unlike the failed moai, their Birdman ritual worked.

Then one day in the late 18th century, a whaling ship appeared, and Easter Island’s long isolation came to an end. But the whalers brought syphilis, and some of the locals died. Several decades later, the first Peruvian slave ships came and, over the following years, took away 2,000 islanders to work collecting guano off South America. Those that didn’t die there were – after the abolition of slavery – returned to their Easter Island homeland. But the 15 returnees carried smallpox. Two thousand more Easter Islanders died. Of the estimated 15,000 people who lived on the island 600 years ago, a census taken at the end of the 19th century showed only 111. And these survivors had, in many cases, been reduced to living in caves, fearful that fate might play one more trick on a society that had suffered enough. By then the Birdman ritual had also ceased, leaving only the half-man/half-bird petroglyphs at Rano Kau as evidence that the people of Easter Island had once believed in the possibility of redemption.

“There are some tricky sections up ahead. If you are anxious here, then you will be 150 times more nervous on Triglav,” says Spelic, without the slightest trace of a smile. A few in the group shuffle their feet and glance up at the 2,864-metre peak, Slovenia’s highest and the centrepiece of Triglav National Park, now ablaze with fiery morning light. The wiry, no-nonsense 32-year-old spent two years in the Slovenian army’s crack mountain unit in his early 20s and now runs ultra-marathons in the mountains here for fun. We take him at his word.

Bounded by Croatia, Hungary, Austria, Italy and 40 kilometres of Mediterranean seashore, Slovenia is a tiny land of mountains, forests and rivers straddling the cusp of Europe and the Balkans. The island-dappled Dalmation coast of the latter, Croatia, bears the marks of the Venetians, Romans, Greeks, Austrians and various other traders and invaders through the ages, and is next up on this journey’s three-week itinerary. Together, the two countries once made up the northern and westernmost portions of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, a complex political artifice that emerged from the rubble of World War I. Josip Broz Tito, known popularly as “Marshal Tito,” fought the Nazis during World War II here and went on to successfully consolidate this republic of Christians and Muslims under communist rule. After Tito’s death in 1980, Russia’s geopolitical experiment slowly unravelled in a pressure box of ethnic tensions that finally erupted in war in 1991.

The Julian Alps

On this six-day traverse of the Julian Alps, however, I’m experiencing only the region’s stunning beauty, which escapes the notice of most North American travellers. I’ve already discovered that Slovenia’s soul is in its mountains, with Slovenians celebrating their outdoor adventure athletes – such as Davo Karnicar, the first human to ski Everest, and famed Himalayan alpinist Tomaz Humar – the way Canadians revere Gretzky and Lemieux. In fact, there is a folkloric belief here that to be truly Slovenian, Triglav must be climbed at least once in one’s lifetime.

And so, suitably prepared for our own Slovenian right of passage, we set off, wrapped in the cold, indifferent shadows of an alpine morning. Soon the trail is less a path than an obscure track following narrow weaknesses in otherwise sheer cliffs. Hands grasp at the jagged, icy wall for balance and find rock prickly and coarse enough to shred skin and the via ferrata’s thick cable bolted waist-high. We cling to this safety line as Spelic and Loboda point to a pair of chamois traversing a cliff across the valley. Spelic watches carefully as we negotiate the trail’s “tricky sections” and plod up a massive cone of talus.

A trio of Englishmen, buoyed by their early morning ascent, tramp cheerfully toward us with tales of another climber, a Scotsman, who greeted them on the summit with bagpipes and a celebratory tune. Finally, the morning sun has erased the shadows, and car-sized boulders, damp from dew, are smouldering with steam. The Julian Alps are dominated by limestone, which, because of its solubility, can be rendered by water into a phantasmagoric subsurface world of sinkholes, caves and disappearing rivers. Yet Spelic treads quickly across the moonscape, springing effortlessly from boulder to boulder, demonstrating the Slovenian stoicism, love of the outdoors and reputation for hard work. Predominantly Catholic, the Slovenian people have always identified more with Europe than with their Balkan neighbours to the south, farming their valleys in tidy plots of vegetables rimmed by mountainside pastures for sheep and cattle; managing small-footprint logging operations that make the industrial-scale destruction of North America’s woods seem criminal.

We climb nose-to-heel – the mountains peaceful, with not even a puff of wind. Of course, this hasn’t always been the case. During World War I the Italian army battled the Germans and Austrians here for supremacy over critical passes and valleys. Artifacts of that brutal conflict are still evident: cement bunkers, rolls of rusted barbwire and mule paths by which provisions were delivered to the harsh alpine front. Cresting the talus slope, we find only picnic tables outside the Dom Planika pod Triglavom hut. But Spelic, our own personal drill sergeant, propels us onward after just a quick bite – the forecast is calling for clouds and possibly rain.

I fall in behind John Robertson, a good-humoured Glasgow Crown attorney whose normally boisterous chatter is replaced by grunts and laboured breathing as the terrain steepens. Then a seemingly featureless, blank wall of limestone reveals an improbable rock crevice that allows us to quickly gain the ridge, and from here we scramble rapidly upward, following the via ferrata to a flat notch and, beyond, across a steep ramp covered in pebbles as treacherous as ball bearings. A carelessly placed foot dislodges a basketball-sized boulder that tumbles over a series of ledges before launching into the void below. We wait for the inevitable crash of broken rock, but there is only silence. A barely perceptible, bemused grin creeps across Spelic’s face as he observes his latest band of foreigners facing down their fears.

The sky remains brilliantly clear, though below, dense clouds shroud the valleys, advancing and retreating, glaciers of air moving in compressed time. In the distance, limestone ridges protrude like shark fins plying an ocean of cloud. We pass memorials to those who have died attempting the climb, including one ornate marble plaque dating back to 1795. “Most of them perished when they were zapped by freak lightning strikes,” says Spelic, while noting such incidents have done little to deter the thousands who tackle the mountain every summer. “Some days you might have 200 people on Triglav. Half the population has climbed it. I don’t know why we have to prove ourselves – maybe because we’re such a small country,” he muses, laughing, as we regroup where the ridge is as wide and flat as a highway. “I’ve even seen people up here in flip-flops.”

The Summit

The summit is guarded by a final tower that from afar looks impassable. But as we clamber up the via ferrata’s crude, carved-rock steps, the faint, incongruous smell of cigarette smoke wafts downward. No bagpiper heralds our arrival at Triglav’s blocky peak, just a climber with the chiselled, suntanned complexion of a European mountain guide, nonchalantly puffing a Marlboro next to the odd, metal obelisk that serves as an emergency shelter. Below, mountains shimmer like waves toward the horizons of Austria and Italy. We linger for a few cliché photos as more scramblers, young and old, arrive to tag the apex of Slovenia.

“I think we go now?” says Spelic. The need for summit celebrations is muted by the need to get everyone down again safely.

Two days after the ascent, we hike down to our trek’s final chalet, Blejska Koca Na Lipani, situated in an idyllic meadow and protected by a semi-circle of limestone bluffs. The late-afternoon sun washes the mountains in warm, diffuse light; below, the forested Pokljuka plateau unfolds like a carpet of green. A savory aroma wafts from the hut where a commissar with tree-limb forearms greets us. “You want soup? Es good,” he says.

Later, over dinner, Spelic introduces Frank Kozelj, a lanky man with thinning silver hair sipping grappa with friends. A former Slovenian Olympic rower, Kozelj recounts how he moved to Vancouver in 1968, and we share a laugh at our coincidental encounter. Soon we are invited next door to the family shepherd’s hut to meet his brother Tomiz.

Inside, the stove crackles and the scent of wood smoke permeates thick wooden walls. Tomiz pours three generous portions of schnapps – “ancient mountain medicine” – and carves spicy sausage onto a platter. “For a long time we were hidden, just this little mountain country that nobody knew about,” Kozelj begins.

Spelic, in training for a marathon, abstains from the spirits but raises a thick slice of sausage as we lift our glasses to the mountains of Slovenia. The strong schnapps, sweetened with honey, floods my insides with warmth and brings tears to my eyes.

If the soul of Slovenia dwells in its mountains, then Croatia’s is surely found on the country’s Dalmatian Coast and the thousand or more islands that lie in the Adriatic like strips of limestone torn from the craggy, arid mountains of the mainland. Here, four days into a week-long sail, water laps the sides of the SS Leonardo as it glides toward a concrete pier on the island of Vrnik. The ship’s owner, Leonardo Naranca, a towering, thick-chested bon vivant, is seated on deck enjoying an early morning cigarette and glass of sharp, Croatian red wine.

“Zivjeli,” he shouts, raising his glass and offering the traditional local toast when I chuckle at his breakfast of champions. The crew ties up the boat. Over the railing, the Adriatic is so clear it looks drinkable; stairs leading down into turquoise waters are festooned with the magenta spikes of sea urchins, a shoal of small fish darts in the depths. Grabbing a towel, I jump ashore and am soon submerged in water as warm as tepid tea, contemplating something Naranca said yesterday over another glass of wine between the islands of Mljet and Vrnik. “I have lived my whole life on the sea. My father and grandfather were both sailors.” On a more philosophical note, he had then added: “The sea gives, and the sea takes.”

Croatians keen to escape life in the capital of Zagreb have always journeyed to the coast for rejuvenation. In times of trouble, they have also fled here for refuge. Barely three days ago, we too steamed northwest from the noise and crowds and stresses of city life, though not from the capital but from the ancient seaport of Dubrovnik. The UNESCO World Heritage Site once played a pivotal role in Mediterranean trade, and its outstanding baroque, Gothic and Renaissance architecture, dating back to the 13th century, makes it an international treasure.

Tragically, during what Croatians call “the homeland war” of the 1990s, when Yugoslavia disintegrated, the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav army laid siege to Dubrovnik for some 10 months from 1991 to ‘92. The fighting devastated the city and laid waste to the tourism industry on the Dalmatian Coast. But wandering Dubrovnik’s narrow, cobbled alleyways, past Benedictine and Dominican monasteries, Onofrio’s Fountain and one of the world’s oldest pharmacies, we had to search hard for signs of the conflict – a stone wall pockmarked with bullet holes or new, red-clay roof tiles bordering ochre-coloured tiles of ancient times. Tourism, long a staple of the region, seems well on the way to recovery. In fact, Dubrovnik is a city besieged with cruise-ship passengers, even in late summer. Boarding the SS Leonardo for a cruise between lesser-known villages and islands has provided welcome relief from its torrent of photo-snapping humanity.

Sailing the Coast

In contrast, the boating season on the coast is winding down – a good time to walk Vrnik’s waterfront. According to Samantha Brocklehurst, the ship’s sanguine British guide (she of the impeccable Oxford accent, with a sailor’s sense of humour), the city is renowned for its limestone, and modern and ancient quarries pock its hillsides. Standing in the hollow, desolate base of one, it is difficult to imagine stonemasons carving out blocks of stone to build the ramparts of Korcula Town, visible across the narrow straits. For there isn’t the slightest suggestion of activity anywhere in the city. Houses seem strangely vacant. Small, ostentatious, turreted summer manors are boarded up, their gates locked, their gardens left to grow wild in a riot of olive trees and bougainvillea – what Naranca calls the “dent of time.”

Korcula, less than 15 minutes’ sail away, is an entirely different scenario. Like many of the local islands, its communities are scattered around the island’s perimeter while its bony interior is an inhospitable mix of shallow soils, limestone bluffs and lanky cypress trees. The Venetian merchant and explorer Marco Polo, I’m told, was captured here in 1298 during a naval battle between the fleets of Genoa and Venice. As for Korcula Town, it is Dubrovnik in miniature – minus the cruise ships. The streets are noisy with travellers who have docked their private yachts to dine at its outdoor cafés and experience the kitschy, Disneyesque Moreska sword dance. The island is renowned for keeping alive this theatrical mock-fighting performance, a tradition with origins in Spain that has flourished here for more than four centuries.

Damir Taras, the intense but amicable chief steward of the SS Leonardo, invites me for coffee onshore. Here, pedalling the ship’s bikes along the narrow, twisting street that leads from the dock to the old city, tantalizing aromas float from numerous pizzerias, betraying the longstanding cultural and culinary affinity between the Croatian coast and Italy. Entering the old city via the arched “land gate,” we park the bikes to walk on limestone pavements polished as smooth as silk by centuries of footfalls. A leggy, raven-haired beauty passes in high heels, trailing perfume and the detached demeanor of a Croatian supermodel.

At a quiet café over robust espressos, the 36-year-old Taras speaks of the war, when he worked at the Split airport renting cars to foreign correspondents flying in to cover the conflict. It was a surreal and confusing time for a young man who should have been enjoying the prime of his life, he says, and he thought about leaving. But a love of the sea and the hope that life would improve made him stay. And things have improved, he notes. Tourism has rebounded to what it was during communist times, and there is no shortage of work for seafarers like him. Still, the boarded-up houses of Vrnik, an island that in another part of the world would boast a Club Med, suggest that the coast remains relatively undiscovered – indeed, as some travel brochures note, it remains “the way the Mediterranean used to be.” For while Slovenia may have escaped the worst of the Balkan Wars and been quick to join the European community, Croatia is still vying to be fully welcomed in. The country declared independence in 1992, but its road to nationhood has been fraught with conflict and residents like Taras are still recovering psychologically from a war that pitted neighbour against neighbour, turned citizens into refugees and claimed some 15,000 Croatian lives.

The following morning Naranca is already enjoying his morning constitutional as we weigh anchor early for Sipan, and just two hours later we’re docked at Sudurad, a collection of three-storey stone houses with red-tiled roofs wrapped around a sparkling cove. Here in the Middle Ages, wealthy families built residences to escape marauding pirates in their hometown of Dubrovnik.

Joining Brocklehurst for a cross-island cycle, we follow a lane bordered with wildflowers that climbs precipitously from the shoreline before levelling off in a shallow, fertile valley of fig, olive and pomegranate orchards. An austere Catholic church occupies a wooded hillock at the entrance to the valley, and inside, the air is cool and dank. Soaring walls of cracked plaster are hung with faded tapestries and a sombre oil painting of the Crucifixion. Half an hour later we arrive at the other side of the island and another tranquil village, Sipanska Luka, where we share a thin-crust pizza. Open-hulled wooden fishing dories bob at anchor. Nearby, a huge, gleaming white power yacht is tethered; its complement of male passengers – all sporting dark sunglasses – have the appearance of Sicilian gangsters.

After lunch, pedalling slowly back to the boat, I veer off the main road on a whim to follow a dirt track that meanders uphill through olive groves and past an old mansion before fading into an indistinct footpath. A woman dressed in widow’s black walks around the corner, shouldering a bundle of firewood; a half-dozen goats follow nervously. She mutters something in Croatian, shakes her head and laughs, then vanishes down the trail.

Later, strolling back to the boat at dusk after exploring another incredible 15th-century mansion, this one gloriously restored, a soft evening breeze carries the briny scent of the ocean. Gentle waves rustle a beach of polished stones, and I dip my hand into the warm water and cradle one, rolling it around and feeling its smoothness against my palm. The lights of distant Dubrovnik twinkle across the sea.

Insiders say Amsterdam’s contradictory nature springs from cultural compromise: people have to work together to stop the sea from inundating their land. The byproduct of all this “togetherness” is what the Dutch call gezelligheid – an inner confidence that keeps them open to whatever new style blows northwards. Like cultural magpies, Amsterdammers can always sense the hottest new fashion trend and who will be the next major musical talent. Not surprisingly, perhaps, theirs is a city with more museums per capita than anywhere else in Europe (prodigious in their collections and wacky in their themes) but also a place where one can while away the day in a traditional Delft-tiled “brown café” (so named for their smoke-stained walls and dark furniture), sunbathe in the buff on a canal, wave to a “working girl” in the red-light district or steam in a mixed-gender sauna.

As for great neighbourhoods that best personify the city’s eclectic character: the Nine Streets is a narrow collection of stylish bohemian boutiques, cafés and galleries linking Amsterdam’s western ring of canals; De Pijp, just south of the museum district, is a stew of subcultures, with Turkish, Moroccan and Indonesian restaurants and shops cheek-by-jowl with brown cafés; and the abandoned and decaying 19th-century city gasworks (Westergasfabriek) was recently transformed into Amsterdam’s most dynamic cultural district. westergasfabriek.nl -Helena Zukowski

The Go Spots

• Amsterdam’s revitalized Eastern Docklands area, dating back to the city’s 17th-century Golden Age, is a progressive bit of urban planning that mixes living space, restaurants, businesses, galleries, restaurants and clubs. For theatre and live music: Panama, a trendy café/resto/nightclub. 311-8686; panama.nl
• Lovers of Delft porcelain will find hand-painted replicas at the Galleria d’Arte Rinascimento. 622-7509; delft-art-gallery.com
• The newest addition to the city’s Jewish heritage: the children’s museum (opened December 2006) in the Jewish Historical Museum. 531-0310; jhm.nl
• Like-a-Local sets visitors up with local hosts. Cruise the canals via private barge or dine with Amsterdammers in their homes. 670-2483; like-a-local.com

Trendy Vittles

• De Silveren Spiegel Traditional Dutch cuisine (try the lamb trilogy) in a crooked 400-year-old house. 624-6589
• Café-Restaurant Dauphine This transformed Renault garage, now a chic brasserie, features seafood platters, soft-shell crab and crème brûlée. 462-1646
• In a Frankendael Park greenhouse, the roomy De Kas serves fresh, organic herbs and veggies from its own garden. 462-4562
• Pancakes Restaurant – for a taste of the Dutch national staple, served with every filling imaginable, even sushi. Berenstraat 38. pancakesamsterdam.com

Best Crash Zones

• The Lloyd Hotel in the new Eastern Docklands advertises equal service to all, but rooms range from one- to five-star. From 95 euros. 561-3636; lloydhotel.com
• The legendary madame Xaviera Hollander has turned her talents to Xaviera’s B&B. 110 euros, including breakfast for two. 673- 3934; xavierahollander.com/sleeper

In this episode he learns more about the civilization that created the monumental statues called moai and chats with local tour guide Josephina Malloy about the rise and fall of the Rapa Nui people.

[podcast]http://www.mywestworld.com/Podcasts/Easter-Island-by-Daniel-Wood.mp3[/podcast]

Bagan, Myanmar

1. Bagan, Myanmar: Once considered among the most precious collections of relics in Southeast Asia, second only to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, Bagan (formerly Pagan) is in danger of becoming an unmitigated disaster, say archaeologists. An eleventh-century king is credited with building many of the original shrines, ornamenting what was then Myanmar’s royal capital with symbols of his religious fervour. After a 1975 earthquake damaged several of the most important temples, government officials invited a team of UNESCO archaeologists to help restore and reinforce the monuments, and Bagan seemed well on its way to becoming a World Heritage Site. But by the early 1990s, Myanmar’s notoriously ruthless military regime was no longer interested in adhering to the exacting UNESCO standards for historic preservation, choosing instead to fast-track the restorations and erect replicas of monasteries, stupas, and temples—many from scratch and with inferior materials—in an effort to lure more visitors to the country’s most popular tourist attraction. The original stupas took months or years to construct, but the modern facsimiles are completed in a mere two weeks.
2. 

   Galapagos Island

   Galapagos Islands, Ecuador: Too much of a good thing can have negative consequences. More than 120,000 visitors a year come to the Galapagos to gaze at giant tortoises, iguanas, Darwin’s finches and other endemic species. That’s a spike of 80,000 people since the early 1980s. Adding to this is a steep rise in immigration from the mainland, 965 kilometres away, which has contributed to overfishing and pollution. The biggest threat to the islands’ ecosystem, however, is a steady influx of invasive species stowed away on boats and flights. Conservation organizations spent $18 million over the last six years to wipe out 140,000 feral goats. But the islands remain plagued by cats, rats, fire ants, and hundreds of other non-native plants and animals, as well as germ-laden insects to which the native animals are not immune.

3. 

   Banaue Rice Fields

   Banaue Rice Terraces, The Philippines: Built and maintained by the Ifugao people for the last 3,000 years, these amazing rice terraces achieved UNESCO World Heritage Status in 1995, but that has provided few economic benefits from tourism for the farming population. Two clusters of the five terraces are now considered to be threatened because of increasing pressures due to urbanization, land use conversion and shifting cultivation, and other demographic pressures. Other causes of the terraces’ degradation are a lack of interest on the part of younger Ifugaos in learning the relevant techniques and the fact that the terraces’ low yields are in many cases sufficient for only four months per year.

    

4. Everglades National Park, Florida, USA: This 1.5 million-acre area, which is full of rare and endangered species like the Florida panther and the West Indian manatee, is the largest subtropical wilderness in the U.S.. However, today it a mere shadow of its twentieth-century self, shrunk by half under suburbs and sugar farms, its natural course dammed or diverted by roads, canals, locks, and levees—changes that have left no fewer than 14 animal species here threatened with extinction. Urban development, including condominiums and shopping malls, agricultural fertilizer, mercury contamination of fish and wildlife and lower water levels due to flood controls continue to threaten the Everglades. Already, half the ecosystem is gone. On the World Heritage Centre’s Danger List since 1993, the park is also at serious risk from climate change and sea-level rise.
5. Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo: Civil unrest and armed conflict extending back to the mid-1990s has devastated the DRC, claiming an estimated four million human lives since 1998. This war—considered the deadliest since World War II—has also had a drastic implications for wildlife in the DRC. Perhaps the most horrifying example of the impact of conflict is occurring in Virunga National Park, the oldest national park in Africa. Virunga is one of the most biologically diverse regions of Africa, with over 700 species of birds and 200 species of mammals. It was named a World Heritage Site in 1979 for its natural habitats—essential to the preservation of biological diversity and endangered species, including the mountain gorilla. There are only around 700 mountain gorillas left in the world, and more than half of them live in Virunga. Today, ongoing conflict continues to threaten this dwindling population. In 2007 alone, 10 mountain gorillas were slaughtered.
6. Walled City of Baku, Azerbaijan: Since it was built in the 12th century by Iranians, the walled city of Baku has survived invasions and bombardment by Russian warships, civil war and revolution. But now the citadel designated a UNESCO World Heritage site is under threat of extinction from a construction boom fed by Western oil companies pouring billions of dollars into the capital. Flouting a ban on all new development in Baku’s walled city, known to locals as Icheri Sheher, buildings which have stood for centuries are being torn down to make way for new office complexes and plush villas. They are built to meet demand from Western oil companies drilling in the nearby Caspian Sea, foreign embassies and wealthy locals, all ready to pay high rents to base themselves in Baku’s choicest piece of real estate. In 2003, UNESCO placed the Inner City on the List of World Heritage in Danger, citing damage from a November 2000 earthquake, poor conservation as well as “dubious” restoration efforts.
7. Luxor, Egypt: As the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the “world’s greatest open air museum.” The city is home to some of the greatest wonders of ancient Egypt, including the Temple Complex of Karnak and the Valley of the Kings, which houses the tombs of the pharaohs. William C.S. Remsen, a preservation architect, says as more people move into the area (which was once farmland) extra water is pumped in, causing water levels to rise. Since the temples are made out of porous stone, the water gets absorbed and leaves behind salt. When this salt crystallizes behind the stone, it causes the decorated surfaces of the temples to evaporate. The ancient monuments are also threatened by tourism, theft and floods that have damaged wall paintings and caused structural damage to many of the tombs.
8. Ice Fields of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania: These massive pure white fields captured by Ernest Hemingway in his short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” are literally disappearing. In 2002, Lonnie Thompson, a professor of geological sciences at Ohio State University, released a study that predicted global warming would wipe these fields out completely between 2015 and 2020. Data from the study show that 82% of the ice fields melted between 1912 and 2000. However, while global warming is cited as one culprit, most scientists claim that it alone cannot have caused such a dramatic change. The other factors behind the transformation remain a mystery.
9. Angkor Wat, Cambodia: According to heritage experts carrying out restoration work at the temple, which ranks as one of the largest religious ruins in the world, a plethora of new hotels, cashing in on the country’s rapid rise in tourist numbers, is sapping gallons of water from beneath nearby urban areas. They say this could upset the delicate foundations on which Angkor Wat sits and could lead to parts of it crumbling into sinkholes. The structures at Angkor Wat are built primarily out of sandstone, which the huge amount of foot traffic around the site is steadily eroding. In 1993, when Angkor was first added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, the savage Khmer Rouge was still active in the area. Only 7,600 brave souls ventured to the temple complex that year. Since then, however, Cambodia has become “safe” in the eyes of the international community, and package tours have landed in fleets. In 2007, some two million tourists visited Cambodia, with half stopping at Angkor Wat. With tourist traffic continuing to increase by about 20 per cent a year, three million people are expected to visit the country in 2010.

Photo Credits:

#1: poisonwen.wordpress.com

#2: goway.com

#3: gorilla-haven.org

#4: swiftravel.com

2. After John Lennon’s death in 1980, the graffiti-covered “John Lennon Peace Wall” became a shrine for the youth of which city?
A. Amsterdam
B. Prague
C. New York
D. Liverpool

3. You are having a meal in Honduras and the waiter brings you a dish of “bamboo chicken.” What are you eating?
A. Skunk
B. Ocelot
C. Parrot
D. Iguana

4. In which Asian country will you find the mysterious “Plain of Jars”?
A. Laos
B. Iran
C. Turkey
D. South Korea

5. Which American city dyes its river a bright shade of green every year for St. Patrick’s Day?
A. Boston
B. Chicago
C. Pittsburgh
D. Charleston

6. The icon of the Black Madonna is the most important shrine in which country?
A. Brazil
B. El Salvador
C. Poland
D. Portugal

7. Maxwell House Coffee was named after a hotel in which American city?
A. Detroit
B. Atlanta
C. St. Louis
D. Nashville

8. Ian Fleming, the British novelist who created James Bond, spent his winters writing the Bond novels at Goldeneye, a home that he designed and built on what island?
A. Jamaica
B. Sicily
C. Majorca
D. Bermuda

9. In which Muslim country can you observe a spectacular festival called Fantasia, where armed men on horseback perform acrobatic tricks and fire their muskets at a full gallop?
A. Egypt
B. Morocco
C. Yemen
D. Afghanistan

10. What famous American bridge has appeared in such movies as X-Men: The Last Stand, Vertigo, A View to a Kill and Interview with a Vampire?
A. The Brooklyn Bridge
B. The Golden Gate Bridge
C. The Verranzo Narrows Bridge
D. The Royal Gorge Bridge

11. Which Caribbean island group is the fifth-largest banking centre in the world and home to more registered businesses than people?
A. British Virgin Islands
B. Barbados
C. Cayman Islands
D. Bahamas

12. The 1982 movie The Year of Living Dangerously, starring Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver, was set in which Asian nation?
A. The Philippines
B. Burma
C. Indonesia
D. Singapore

Answers

1. C. Kenya
Quite possibly the only place in the world where you can feed and photograph the giraffe over your breakfast table, and at the front door, and even from a bedroom window. The Giraffe Manor is an elegant, personally hosted, small and exclusive hotel, famous for its resident herd of giraffe. Built in 1932 by Sir David Duncan, the lodge is situated on 140 acres of land just a few kilometres from Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city. In 1974, Jock Leslie-Melville, grandson of a Scottish earl, and his wife Betty, who also founded the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (AFEW), bought the Manor. They then moved five babies of the highly endangered Rothschild giraffe to their property where they were successfully reared and now have their own babies. When Jock passed away, Betty decided to open her house, now called the Giraffe Manor, to visitors. As well as the giraffe, the property is home to many species of birds, large families of warthogs and the elusive Bush Buck.

2. B. Prague
John Lennon was a pacifist hero to young Czechs. After his death in 1980, the “John Lennon Peace Wall,” at the backside of a fourteenth century churchyard in Prague, became a place for the youth of Czechoslovakia to write their views. In 1988, the wall was a source of irritation for the then communist regime of Gustav Husak. Young Czechs would write grievances on the wall and this led to a clash between hundreds of students and security police on the nearby Charles Bridge. The movement these students followed was described ironically as “Lennonism,” while Czech authorities described these people variously as alcoholics, mentally deranged, sociopathic, and agents of Western capitalism. A running battle developed between the police whitewashers and dissident graffiti writers until November 1989, when Communism collapsed in the former Czechoslovakia’s non-violent “Velvet Revolution.” The Lennon Wall has since become a tourist attraction.

3. D. Iguana
Iguana meat is popular throughout much of Latin America, where consumers willingly pay more for it than for fish, poultry, pork, or beef. To fill the demand, several iguana species are hunted by rifle, slingshot, trap and noose; they are even run down by trained dogs. Villagers catch them for food for the family; professional hunters snare and sell them to vendors. The meat tastes somewhat like chicken, and iguanas are often referred to as gallina de palo, “bamboo chicken” or “chicken of the tree.” The lizard meat is typically cooked in a spicy stew.

4. A. Laos
The hundreds of huge carved rock jars that litter Laos’ mysterious Plain of Jars, date from the Neolithic period. They stand up to 3.25 metres high and weigh up to 13 tonnes. Historians still debate their origins and purpose. When French archaeologist Madelaine Colani excavated the jars in the 1930s, she discovered some contained bronze and iron tools and bracelets, along with glass beads, while the rest appeared to have been looted. These items led Colani to theorize that the jars were funerary urns, holding cremated remains. This theory has been strengthened by the more recent discovery of underground burial chambers.

5. B. Chicago
For over 40 years, the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers turn the Chicago River a bright emerald green for the annual St. Patricks Day Parade celebration. Bill King, the administrator of Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day committee, says that “the idea of dyeing the Chicago River green originally came about by accident when a group of plumbers were using fluorescein dye to trace illegal substances that were polluting the river.” According to the event organizer’s official site, it takes 40 pounds of vegetable dye to create a carpet of green that lasts four to five hours. Of course, they don’t dye the entire river with that–just one section a couple of blocks long. Interestingly, the vegetable-based dye replaced an oil-based dye. Environmentalists lobbied for the change, arguing that oil-based dye was hardly an eco-friendly substance to be shovelling into a river.

6. C. Poland
The Black Madonna in the Paulite Monastery of Jasna Gora (Czestochowa) is visited by millions of pilgrims annually. The painting came to Poland in 1384, probably from the east, perhaps even Jerusalem. Legend traces the icon’s origin back to St. Luke who, it is said, painted it on a cypress table top from the house of the Holy Family. Nobody knows when people began venerating the painting as an icon, but it was already thought miraculous when it was brought to Poland. When the sick or ill prayed to it for health, they often were healed. When Polish kings or monks prayed to it for military victories, they won. In 1655, 3,000 Swedish troops besieged the Jasna Gora monastery. Defending it were just 170 soldiers, 70 monks and 20 noblemen. The monks and their troops won. This inspired the rest of the nation to rebel and the Swedes were routed. This “Miracle at Jasna Gora” was attributed to the intervention of the Mother of God, and her painting. When the Russians were at Warsaw’s gates in 1920, thousands of people walked from Warsaw to Czestochowa to ask the Madonna for help. The Poles defeated the Russians at a battle along the Wisla (or Vistula) River. During World War II under German occupation, the faithful made pilgrimages as a show of defiance. That spirit deepened during the years of Soviet-enforced communism, when all government attempts to stop the pilgrimages failed.

7. D. Nashville
In the early 1900s, Nashville entrepreneur Joel Cheek perfected a special coffee blend, which became the house blend of the Maxwell House, a city hotel. When he began selling it to the general public, he adopted the hotel’s name as the brand. In 1917, Cheek began using a “Good to the Last Drop” slogan to advertise Maxwell House Coffee. In 1920, the Cheek family sold the brand to General Foods, which made wide use of the slogan. For several years, the ads made no mention of Theodore Roosevelt as the phrase’s originator. By the 1930s, however, the company was running ads that claimed that the former president had taken a sip of Maxwell House Coffee on a visit to Andrew Jackson’s estate, The Hermitage, near Nashville on October 21, 1907, and that when served coffee he had proclaimed it to be “Good to the Last Drop.” Today, Maxwell House claims that the slogan was actually written by Clifford Spiller, former president of General Foods Corporation and did not come from a Roosevelt remark. The phrase remains a registered trademark for the product and appears on its logo.

8. A. Jamaica
Ian Fleming, the British intelligence officer turned turned spy novelist, spent winters on Jamaica’s north shore at his Caribbean getaway for almost two decades and wrote 10 of his James Bond novels there. Fleming borrowed the name of his famous spy from James Bond, the author of A Field Guide to Birds of the West Indies. As for the name of his home, Fleming said in an 1964 interview: “I had happened to be reading Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers, and I’d been involved in an operation called Goldeneye during the war: the defense of Gibraltar, supposing that the Spaniards had decided to attack it; and I was deeply involved in the planning of countermeasures which would have been taken in that event. Anyway, I called my place Goldeneye.” The estate is now the centrepiece of an exclusive resort by the same name.

9. B. Morocco
Also referred to as the Aiin Aouda (Mock Horseback Battle), Fantasia is an annual equestrian performance and celebration of traditional folklore that takes place in Meknes each July. This horse-riding spectacle includes hundreds of charging horsemen (and women) wearing traditional clothing. The performance consists of a group of horse riders, wearing traditional clothes and charging along a straight path at the same speed so as to form a line, at the end of the ride (about 200 hundred metres) all riders fire in the sky using old gunpowder guns. The difficulty of the performance is synchronization during the acceleration especially during firing so that one single shot is heard. Each region in Morocco has one or several fantasia groups, called serba, totaling thousands of horse riders nationwide. Performances are usually during local seasonal, cultural or religious festivals.

10. B. The Golden Gate Bridge
This fabled, orange-hued San Francisco bridge has appeared in many movies since it opened on May 28, 1937, with the world’s longest suspension span. Why you may ask isn’t this city landmark painted gold? Because the term “Golden Gate” actually refers to the Golden Gate Strait which is the entrance to the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. The orange colour, called International Orange, was chosen in part because of its visibility factor. Advection fog, a low, ground-hugging fog, is prevalent in San Francisco Bay. The bright colour helps drivers as well as ships see their way. The colour was also chosen because of its natural blend to the warm landscape of the area.

11. C. Cayman Islands
Not only do these remote British-run islands comprise the fifth largest banking centre in the world, they also tout the highest standard of living in the Caribbean with the average annual income of approximately $42,000. The Caymans have more registered businesses than its 65,000 inhabitants, and are home to 279 banks with $1.5 trillion in banking liabilities. The Cayman Islands has become a successful offshore financial centre because of the high quality service providers, reputable law firms, as well as the Big Four accounting auditors that operate from the islands. Today, 45 of the world’s top 50 banks have subsidiary or branch operations in the Caymans.

12. C. Indonesia
The Year of Living Dangerously is about a love affair set in Indonesia during the overthrow of President Sukarno. The plot follows a group of foreign correspondents in Jakarta on the eve of an attempted coup by the so-called 30 September Movement on September 30, 1965, and during the beginning of the violent reprisals by military-led vigilante groups that killed hundreds of thousands. The film was banned from being shown in Indonesia until 1999. The title The Year of Living Dangerously refers to a famous Italian phrase used by Sukarno for the title of his National Day speech of August 17, 1964. The movie also starred Linda Hunt as the male dwarf Billy Kwan, Gibson’s local photographer contact, a role for which she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Photo Credits:

#1: travellingboard.net

#2: flickr.com

#3: flickr.com

#4: newsday.com

#5: flickr.com

Icelandic Phallological Museum: Husavik, Iceland
This museum’s bizarre goal is to collect penis specimens from every mammal in Iceland, including several species that are endangered or currently extinct in Icelandic waters. The museum houses 245 specimens displayed like hunting trophies, embalmed in formaldehyde, or dried in display cases. The collection includes specimens of sperm, humpback and even the giant blue whale, polar bears, various kinds of seals and walruses and even tiny mice and other rodents. The strangest item is the penis of the “Icelandic Christmas Lad”, donated by a former mayor of Reykjavik. It is believed that “Icelandic Christmas Lad” refers to one of Santa’s toy-making helpers. Sigurour Hjartarson, a former teacher, is the founder and director of the museum. Hjartarson says he founded the museum so people from all over the world could “undertake serious study into the field of phallology in an organized, scientific fashion.”

Dog-Collar Museum: Kent, England
Although it is hard to believe that there’s a demand for this sort of thing, this museum, located inside of Leeds Castle, attracts more than 500,000 visitors every year. The dog collar collection counts over 100 unique items that present the history of canine-wear starting from early medieval times to the Victorian Age. The dog collars were originally gathered by Irish medieval collector John Hurt and his wife Gertrude, and were donated to Leeds Castle in 1979, as a tribute to the castle’s last private owner, Lady Baillie, a major dog lover. The antique dog collars tell 500 years of canine history, from early, 15th century dog collars, filled with spikes to protect the neck of hunting hounds against wolves, boars and bears, to glamorous leather and velvet baroque collars of the 18th century. Engraved silver collars from the last century, some fashioned by leading silversmiths of the day, form an interesting section. Many come in pairs joined by short chains, such as those presented to Top and Tabinet engraved “The Property of Earl Talbot. The Winner of the Great Champion all aged (Puppy) stakes for all England 32 Dogs at 20 guin’s each at Ashdown Park. Dec 14th 1838.” Other inscriptions are less formal. An 18th century English brass collar simply states; “I am Mr Pratt’s Dog, King St, Nr Wokingham, Berks. Whose Dog are You?”

Mutter Museum: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Mütter Museum was founded to educate future doctors about anatomy and human medical anomalies. Today, it serves as a valuable resource for educating and enlightening the public about our medical past and telling important stories about what it means to be human. On display are some 20,000 objects showcasing gruesome human health anomalies including a wax model of a woman with a human horn growing out of her forehead, a five-foot-long human colon that contained over 40 pounds of fecal matter, and the petrified body of the mysterious Soap Lady, whose corpse was turned into a soapy substance called adipocere. The museum also houses a collection of 2,000 objects extracted from people’s throats, a malignant tumour removed from President Grover Cleveland’s hard palate, the conjoined liver from Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker and a growth removed from the thorax of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

Museum of Medieval Instruments of Torture: Prague, Czech Republic
This educational exhibit with historical explanations in six languages showcases an extensive collection of torture devices, many of which originated during those wonderful years known as The Inquisition. These replicas of the originals will send a shiver down the spines of all who contemplate the horrors unleashed upon mankind in the name of religion, war or just plain old sadism. Aside from knuckle-crackers and cat-o-nine tails, torture devices utilizing fire and plenty of needles await you, iron maidens, and saws meant to separate bodies in half–lengthwise. And if your head’s not screwed on right, the Spanish garrotta chair will fix that for you, literally driving a screw right through you skull.

The Burlesque Hall of Fame: Las Vegas, Nevada
Formerly known as Exotic World, the museum historically was located on the site of an abandoned goat farm in Helendale, California. It documents the history of burlesque from its 19th century origins through its golden age in the mid 20th century, and displays artifacts commemorating historic burlesque performers such as Blaze Starr, Lili St. Cyr, Chesty Morgan and Tempest Storm. Exotic World originated as the private collection of retired exotic dancer Jennie Lee founder of the League of Exotic Dancers and former “Bazoom Girl” (a moniker she earned for effortlessly twirling tassels on both her bosom and behind). It’s currently curated by retired burlesque performer Dixie Evans, who often personally leads tours through the exhibits. Unique individual items include ivory fans used by Sally Rand, gloves and a black velvet shoulder cape worn by Gypsy Rose Lee, a heart-shaped couch owned by Jayne Mansfield and the cremation ashes of Miss Sherri Champagne.

Sulabh International Museum of Toilets: New Delhi, India
“Unlike body functions like dance, drama and songs, defecation is considered very lowly.” So begins a 1995 paper written by Dr. Bindeswar Pathak, the founder of this New Delhi museum as well as the Sulabh International Social Service Organization. Ostensibly part of a sanitation crusade, the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets follows the toilet’s historical pipeline from 3,000 B.C. to the present. What began as a hole in the ground—and remains a hole in the ground in some parts of the world has come a long way in terms of design, comfort and plumbing. The museum offers fun facts (Louis XIV purportedly used to relieve himself while holding court), examinations of toilet customs from around the world, and arts and literature (from poems to painstakingly crafted chamber pots).

Serial Killer Museum: Florence, Italy
Who needs to visit galleries crammed with the world’s greatest art when you can listen to a man with a creepy robotic voice describe the crimes of John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy in infinitely gory detail? As well as offering the chance to buddy up with waxworks of Charles Manson and notorious cannibals, Florence’s most bloodthirsty attraction also investigates methods used to track down the killers–from blood sample analysis to psychological profiling–and the methods of dispatching them. That means mock-ups of gas chambers and electric chairs. The displays include waxwork models of notorious serial killers, often in an environment associated with their case. Gacy is dressed as a clown in a mock-up of his living room, with the bones of his victims buried beneath. Ed Gein, the inspiration for both Buffalo Bill in Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon and Norman Bates in Psycho, is in his shack, creating his perfect woman out of the skin of his victims.

Cockroach Hall of Fame and Museum: Plano, Texas
Back in the 1980’s Michael Bohdan paid $1,000 for the largest cockroach in Texas, which got him an invitation on The Tonight Show. That started the roach craziness and before he knew it, the bug exterminator found himself on a tour judging a cockroach dress-up contest. After the tour ended, all the funny-dressed bugs were to be thrown away, but Bodhan decided to keep them and put them on display in Plano. And that’s how the Cockroach Hall of Fame and Museum was born. Ever since, the bug-control master has been killing roaches and adding them to his collection. Now the collection features more than 25 dressed-up bugs, including Marilyn Monroach, David Letteroach and Ross Peroach and Liberoachi, a dead cockroach dressed up in a suit and wearing a mink cape, playing a tiny piano. There are also some live Madagascar Hissing Roaches. More than a little intimidating, they are four inches long, over one inch thick and make a hissing noise when they’re disturbed. The Cockroach Hall of Fame and Museum also offers its guest some very special snacks–barbecue-flavoured Worm Snacks (dried roach larvae).

Photo Credits:

#1: news.com.au

#2: scienceroll.com

#3: cpa.psu.edu

#4: msnbc.msn.com

Slumdog Millionaire

In the case of Slumdog Millionaire, however, some of the travel spin-offs have sparked controversy. Part of the movie was set in the Dharavi district, Asia’s largest slum, where one million people live in squalor in an area smaller than New York’s Central Park. Mumbai-based Reality Tours and Travel is now offering guided tours of the hellhole. The excursion’s “highlights” include a stop at a stall of six toilets that serves 16,000 people and a stroll alongside a river so black and septic that it oozes rather than flows.

“In India, a lot of people think the movie is poverty porn,” said Reality Tours co-founder Chris Way in a recent interview. But he insists that criticism of his tours, whose sales are up by about 25 percent since Slumdog Millionaire’s release, “comes from misunderstanding what we are trying to do, which is break down the negative image of slums, and highlight the industry and sense of community.” Reality Tours charges $10 or $20 a person, depending on length of the tour, and pledges to donate 80 percent of after-tax profits to local charities.
 
Other tourism operators have begun leading curious, rich Westerners into famous slums, from the townships of Soweto to the favelas of Brazil. “The jury’s still out on whether the tours are perverse invasions of privacy or eye-opening experiences that will prompt action on the poverty agenda,” Christine Bowers, a consultant for the World Bank, said on her blog.

There is no doubt though that popular movies can provide financial bonanzas for savvy marketers. The most striking recent example occurred in New Zealand, the backdrop for The Lord of the Rings, where an intensive tourism campaign spanned the three years of the trilogy’s film releases. The island nation has christened itself “New Zealand: Home of Middle-earth” (the world in which the Rings’ fantasy plays out). Air New Zealand has emblazoned four aircraft with giant images from the films and there is even a government-appointed Minister of the Rings. The payoff? The annual tourist influx to New Zealand has jumped from 1.7 million in 2000 to 2.4 million today–a 40 percent surge–attributed to a large degree to The Lord of the Rings phenomenon, and a big upgrade for New Zealand’s international profile.

Similarily, the Harry Potter movies have inspired tourists with children to visit a variety of locales in Britain where tour companies have organized itineraries that include, if not the actual Diagon Alley or Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, then some of the sites that served as those imaginary settings on the big screen. Locations included Gloucester Cathedral (Hogwarts), North Yorkshire Moors Railway (Hogsmeade station) and Alnwick Castle (Hogwarts again). VisitBritain, the tourism body responsible for selling England to the Brits and Britain to the non-Brits, invested heavily in movie tie-ins: 340,000 Harry Potter location maps were printed.

Several British locales featured in The Da Vinci Code, such as Temple Church in London, Burghley House in Lincolnshire, and Rosslyn Chapel, a 15th-century Scottish church (pictured here), found themselves invaded by a wave of fanatical amateur sleuths after the film’s release in May 2006. In fact, the hullabaloo surrounding The Da Vinci Code led to an unprecedented partnership among national tourism agencies in Britain, France and Scotland, who teamed together to showcase locations, destinations and attractions linked with the film. The three agencies developed a tour program called “Seek the Truth” with Sony Pictures, and high-speed rail service Eurostar to offer tourists a chance to “follow in the footsteps of the film’s main characters.

Japan’s tourism industry has gotten a lift from several recent films, including Lost in Translation, The Last Samurai and Memoirs of a Geisha, even though much of the latter was actually shot in California. Meanwhile, several Caribbean islands have capitalized on the box-office success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie trilogy. Tourists in the Bahamas can take a 25-minute boat ride to Blackbeard’s Cay, visit the Pirates of Nassau Museum and see Fort Charlotte’s underground passages and dungeons. St. Lucia has the Brig Unicorn, an authentic 140-foot replica of an 18th century ship which was featured in The Curse of the Black Pearl, while Dominica has Shipwreck Cove and a cruise up Pantano River where the Black Pearl anchored.

Visits to scenic Phi Phi Leh island, near Phuket, Thailand, soared after Alex Garland’s novel, The Beach, was turned into a 2000 film there starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but not everyone was pleased that the film makers had chosen to shine Hollywood’s lights on the uninhabited island. Despite strict conservation laws, the Thai government let the film crew dig up more than half the beach at Maya Bay to plant coconut trees–destroying roots holding the dunes together.

An unexpected monetary windfall was created by Sideways, a modest comedy about two middle-aged men embarking on a wine-tasting tour in California. The 2004 film generated more than 600 media stories highlighting Santa Barbara as a travel destination–the equivalent of $4-million worth of advertising, a major cash injection for what had previously been an overlooked and often ignored part of the California wine business. Businesses in the Santa Barbara area have reported an increase in trade of up to 30 per cent since the film’s release, with wineries on the Sideways’ map receiving a rise of up to 42 per cent.

Although the power of celluloid to spur tourism is now widely recognized, the movie credited with opening people’s eyes to the phenomenon is the 1986 comedy Crocodile Dundee, which became Australia’s highest grossing film ever and made an international star out of unknown actor Paul Hogan. One survey credited the movie with doubling visitor numbers to Queensland in three years. Interestingly, many Australians initially objected to the film, claiming that it confirmed the general image of Australian backwardness and “outback”-ness rather than affirming the image of a modern urban society. Hogan’s response to the criticism was nothing if not direct: “People are so dumb sometimes in Australia. What are we going to do, put a nice sensible hard-working accountant in a film and say: ‘Here’s a typical Australian, hard-working, industrious. Everyone would yawn and say, Never go to Australia.’”

In terms of long-term tourist impact, however, the piece of cinema that can stake a strong claim to being the most successful of all is the all-singing, all-dancing, all-yodelling Hollywood classic The Sound of Music, which was set in Salzburg, Austria. One out of three Japanese have seen it, and it’s what draws 75 per cent of all American tourists to Salzburg. More than 40 years after the film’s release, some 300,000 fans por into the city every 12 months on the strength of the musical, with 40,000 taking the official Sound of Music Tour. Evidently, the hills are alive with the sound of cash registers.

Photo Credits:

#1: boston.com

#2: teako170.com

#3: templars.wordpress.com

#4: thgholidays.com

#5: blog.goethe.de

“It’s Gus and Jippo,” says Roland, identifying the pair of young orangutans, who converge at our feet and begin fingering our trousers and shoes. I start taking pictures and they grow bolder. Gus, who sports a fuzzy Don King hairdo, deftly slides open the zipper on my camera bag and reaches inside. “Hey, get out of there,” I yell, waving my arms. Gus retreats a few paces and flashes me a guilty look. It is quickly replaced by another more devious expression. He springs forward, intent on making off with the entire kit. I grab my bag and instant before he does and a tug of war ensues. Gus suddenly lets go. I tumble backward and Roland bursts into laughter. Thirty seconds into my first encounter with an orangutan and I feel like the straight man in some slapstick comedy routine.

Gus and Jippo are residents of the Sepilok Forest Reserve in Malaysian state of Sabah in northeastern Borneo. Sepilok is a research centre and wildlife sanctuary where orphaned and displaced orangutans are rehabilitated and eventually returned to their natural habitat. Most of the orangutans at Sepilok are abandoned babies whose mothers were either killed or chased off by logging crews. Others have been confiscated from black marketers who sell the animals as pets. The apes arrive in sad shape–many are malnourished, some have been beaten or kept on chains. After receiving medical aid and spending some time in quarantine to ensure that they carry no communicable diseases, they are free to come and go as they please. The oranges usually stay in the vicinity of the two feeding stations near park headquarters, where they are offered fruit and milk twice a day. Only the very young are kept in cages at night, primarily to protect them from hungry pythons.

Since these apes were separated from their mothers at an early age, they have had no opportunity to learn the skills needed to survive in the wild. At Sepilok, they are encouraged to follow the more experienced animals into the forest. Those who are reluctant to leave camp are carried piggyback by game rangers and left to find the way home. Gradually by imitation and discovery, they learn self-sufficiency and can be released in other parts of the country to boost declining wild populations.

The work is vital, as orangutans are an endangered species. Once abundant from China to Java, the red apes are now restricted to diminishing ranges on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Poaching, logging and land-clearing have reduced their numbers to about 20,000. Unless the wholesale destruction of their rainforest habitat is curtailed, reserves like Sepilok may eventually become the orangutans’ lone hedge against extinction.

This would be a terrible tragedy, especially considering that scientists are only beginning to fully grasp the capabilities of these arboreal apes. According to recent research by the psychologist Robert Deaner, orangutans are the world’s most intelligent animal other than humans, with higher learning and problem solving ability than chimpanzees, which were previously considered to have greater abilities. A study of orangutans by Carel van Schaik, a Dutch primatologist at Duke University, found them capable of tasks well beyond chimpanzees’ abilities—such as using leaves to make rain hats and leak-proof roofs over their sleeping nests. He also found that, in some food-rich areas, the creatures had developed a complex culture in which adults would teach youngsters how to make tools and find food.

Sepilok is more than just a rehabilitation centre for orangutans. The 43-square kilometre forest reserve is also home to proboscis monkeys, gibbons, macaques, langurs, barking deer, bearded pigs, pangolins, Malaysian sun bears and more than 200 species of birds. But the red apes are clearly the major attraction. Each year, 90,000 visitors come to the rehabilitation centre, as I have, to view the orangs in their natural habitat. Eventually, we leave Gus and Jippo and proceed to the nearest feeding station, where we find a half-dozen other young apes scattered about like toddlers at a playground. Roland takes me around, making introductions. He knows them as individuals, each with its own distinct character. Noreen is even-tempered and passive. Bob, on the other hand, is something of a juvenile delinquent. He delights in sneaking up behind female tourists and flipping up their skirts. Psychologically scarred by some early trauma, he can’t bear to be touched.

One-year-old Melissa is Roland’s favourite. He spots her in a tree at the far side of the creek and clucks softly to her in Malay, “Come Melissa. Come.” She clambers down a vine and across a large log that spans the water. At the log’s end, like a countess debarking from a cruise ship, she demurely extends one hand to Roland, who takes it and swings her up into his arms. “Do you want to hold her?” he asks, and I eagerly exchange my camera for 10 kilograms of orangutan. It is her gentleness that I notice first. Despite her considerable strength, Melissa’s touch is velvety soft. She has tiny fingernails and a warm, bristly-haired body. Black eyelashes frame dark, knowing eyes. She begins licking the salty perspiration from my arm and I am instantly charmed.

While leaving the sanctuary, I pass a couple of German women who have fallen under Melissa’s spell. They stand transfixed in the clearing, cooing and cradling the baby ape in their arms. The two tourists are so taken by their tiny new friend that they are oblivious to the skulking presence of Bob, approaching from their rear. Moments later, heading down the trail, I hear a startled shriek. The incorrigible skirt-flipper has struck again.

Photo Credits:

#1: ifonly.net

#2: dailymail.uk.co

#3: solcomhouse.com

#4: sciencedaily.com

Cabbages and Condom caused quite a sensation when it opened in 2002, but is has since been surpassed by other more extreme fetish restaurants, which are now popping up all over the globe. Here are a few of the crazier ones.

Edible Excretions
If you happen to be in Taiwan and want to indulge in a different type of culinary experience, check out the Modern Toilet, which bills itself as the world’s first toilet themed restaurant. I’m not sure the world really needs something like this, but evidently it’s a big hit with the Chinese. The concept is simple and sickening. Diners sit on acrylic toilet seats and eat out of toilet-shaped bowls (both the Asian squat-style and the traditional Western style). Menu items include chicken curry, pasta, fried chicken and Mongolian hot pot, as well as shaved-ice desserts with names like “diarrhea with dried droppings” (chocolate), “bloody poop” (strawberry) and “green dysentery” (kiwi). Modern Toilet owner Wang Zi-wei got his idea from the Japanese robot cartoon character Jichiwawa, who loves to play with poop and swirl it on a stick. Inspired by that image, Wang began selling chocolate ice cream swirls on paper squat toilets. Customers loved them and wanted more edible excretion experiences, so he opened Modern Toilet in Tapei in 2004. The chain now has seven outlets in Taiwan, one in Hong Kong and one in Shenzhen, China.

Bombs Away
At Buns & Guns in Beirut, Lebanon, everything is about war-–from the decor and sound effects to the names of the menu items. Chefs sporting battle helmets while realistic-looking weapons and ammunition decorate the counters, and camouflage netting hangs from the ceiling. As you eat, a continuous loop of rifle fire, mortar fire and explosions plays in the background. Manager Yussef Ibrahim says that the theme reflects the mood of the city during Lebanon’s 2006 war with Israel, and that while some patrons may find it disturbing, most are amused. Diners can order a “rocket-propelled grenade” (chicken on a skewer), “Claymore” pizza, an M16 Carbine meat sandwich, a Mortar burger or a Terrorist meal (which happens to be vegetarian).

Naked Sushi
In Japanese nyotaimori literally means “female body plate.” A nude woman lies atop a platform or table dressed only with leaves in strategic places. Sushi and sashimi is served atop the model, using the leaves as serving plates. The leaves are necessary to insulate the sushi from the model’s body heat, which would warm it up and spoil its quality. The history behind this Japanese custom is muddled. Some sources quote it as a long-standing tradition; others claim it was introduced by the Yakuza gangsters. Whatever its roots, it is not openly advertised today in Japan, but a cheaper and less esoteric version is making the rounds in Tokyo. At these nyotaimori restaurants, an edible body, with dough for “skin” and sauce for “blood,” is wheeled into the room on a hospital gurney and placed upon a table. The hostess begins the meal by cutting into the body with a scalpel and then patrons dig in, operating on the body to reveal edible “organs.”

Black is Black
In Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Opaque group offers dining in the dark, literally. The entire restaurant is enveloped in complete blackness. After ordering your meal outside, you are led to your table and helped to navigate through a three-course dinner with the assistance of blind waiters. Supposedly by denying one’s sight, other senses, most notably your sense of taste, is heightened. The first pitch-black restaurant, Blindekuh (the Blind Cow), which opened in Zurich, Switzerland in 1999, had the goal of “creating jobs for the blind and handicapped people.” The concept has since spread to Paris, London and Sydney and Beijing, although at many of these places, the sighted staff wear night-vision goggles. In Beijing, the Whale Inside Dark Restaurant is not only about heightening the sense of taste, but lowering social inhibitions. It’s popular with Internet daters, who meet on matchmaking Web sites that are sprouting throughout China.

Just What the Doctor Ordered
Considering how much people complain about hospital food, it’s a minor miracle that Hospitalis is a success. Founded by three doctors, this strange restaurant in Riga, Latvia, is completely white, looks clinical and has loads of medical equipment for the purpose of decoration. The bar resembles an old pharmacy, while the drinks come in beakers and test tubes and the food in operating-room dishes. Patients are attended to by leggy nurses sporting red wigs, skimpy starched uniforms and stethoscopes. Your table could either be a gynecological consultation bed or a trolley. As an added bonus, customers can be tied up in straight jackets.

Tiny Portions
Dwarves of the East is the name of a popular café in the fashionable area of Nasr City in Cairo’s suburbs. The gimmick here is the staff—all of them are midgets. The café’s owner, Ahmad Al Kilani, no stickler for political correctness, was prompted to open the establishment after a friend of his complained that he had been sacked from his job as a mechanic because he was too short. As Al Kilani said in an interview, “I call the café Dwarves of the East to highlight the fact that these people are part of our world and society.”

Soviet Kitsch
St. Petersburg’s contribution to restaurant madness is Zov Ilicha, loosely translated as Lenin’s Mating Call. Only a few years ago, opening a joint like this would have meant a stint in prison. Now it is considered a must-see. Statues of Joseph Stalin, Felix Dzerzhinsky and Vladimir Lenin can be found on the walls and windowsills, and even hanging upside down from the mirror ceiling. One of the bar’s two rooms, which are both painted in red and black tones, also contain a few unsavoury paintings and various phallic parallels with the Kremlin towers, while TV screens play speeches by Soviet leaders interspersed with soft porn scenes. The dining hall is divided into two sections–Soviet room and the other, anti-Soviet room. The Soviet room has Lenin portraits on the wall and offers a classic Soviet menu with the local Russian favourites. The anti-Soviet room has parody posters and references to liberalization, sex and drugs and offers bourgeois dishes such as fondue and crab. The waitresses are dressed in sexy Communist Party Pioneer uniforms with naughty red high heels, red fishnets and “hammer and sickle” garters.

Haute Cuisine
Anyone with a feat of heights or a weak bladder is advised to avoid Dinner in the Sky, a Belgian-based based novelty restaurant which uses a crane to hoist its diners, table, and waitstaff 50 metres into the air. The structure can accomodate 22 guests, who are strapped into leather seats that are secured to a dining table. The centre of the table has a walking platform that allows room to serve food, take photos, conduct a meeting or do a product presentation. Since its founding in Brussels in 2007, the concept has spread to other parts of the planet, including Las Vegas, where a Dinner in the Sky had its grand opening on New Years Eve 2008. With local officials’ blessings, the platform can be transported to just about anywhere the crane can maneuver. The restaurant belongs firmly in the special-occasion category, however. The cost for eight hours is about $11,500—not including catering.

Six Feet Under
Want to dine inside the world’s largest coffin? Welcome to Eternity, a restaurant in Truskavets, Ukraine, near the Polish border. The restaurant is a windowless, 20-metre-long coffin, six metres wide and six metres high. The decorations correspond to the theme–-funeral wreaths, black shrouded walls and human-sized coffins. Consistent with the chilling atmosphere, a single candle burns on each table. Morbid diners can browse the funeral paraphernalia before ordering from a menu that includes “Nine Day” and “Forty Day” salads–named after local mourning rituals–and an ominous-sounding dish called “Let’s meet in paradise.” The idea of opening the eatery came from the director of a local undertaking firm, who believes this is a great opportunity to attract more customers as well as more tourists.

Photo Credits:

#1: americandigest.org

#2: saynotocrack.com

#3: flickr.com

#4: odditycentral.com

#5: wordpress.com

Globe-trotting B.C. journalist Andrew Findlay suffered from some of this same ignorance before his recent trip to Slovenia and Croatia. But the time he spent there opened his eyes. In a feature article in the latest issue of Westworld magazine, Findlay describes the charm and beauty he found in this unfamiliar land. He agreed to respond to some questions to shed more light on his travels in the Balkans.     

Many people hear the words Slovenia and Croatia and immediately think of the recent wars in the Balkans. Did you find much visual evidence of the conflict during your travels?

It’s true, just mentioning these countries to the average Canadian conjures up images of civil war. Slovenia declared independence early in the conflict and escaped the worst of the fighting. Croatia wasn’t so lucky. In Dubrovnik and other coastal cities, if you know where to look you can still see evidence of war–shelled buildings that were never repaired, bullet and mortar holes in the stone walls of ancient buildings. More compelling, however, are the emotional scars that are still healing among people who lived through these troubling times.
 
You begin your article with an account of a group ascent of Triglav, a 2,864-metre peak in Slovenia. How did this climb compare to others you have done in the past.
 
For me it wasn’t too hard, but I have a lot of mountaineering experience. That said, without the via ferrata, basically steel pegs strung with cable that are fixed on the more exposed and tricky sections, the climb would be much more difficult. This safety feature makes the mountain climbable by pretty much anybody with a reasonable level of fitness.

You mention the unusual Karst limestone formations that are found in Slovenia. What exactly did they look like?

Water does incredible things to limestone rock because of its solubility. Karst landscapes are characterized by vast cave systems, underground rivers, streams that seem to disappear and reappear magically from the earth, and sinkholes–strange-looking depressions that are almost like natural amphitheatres.

Can you give me a sense of what the people looked like in these places? How they dressed? Their character?

Slovenians strike me as a stoic people who pride themselves on hard work and athletic pursuits. It’s not uncommon to see groups of school kids out tramping around in the mountains on trails that back in Canada would have lawyers circling and school administrators fretting about litigation and liability. For such a small country, Slovenia produces a high number of world class skiers, mountaineers, rowers and now even hockey players. On the Dalmatian Coast, the ancient and modern co-exist. On the island of Sipan, I saw an elderly Croatian widow dressed in black and carrying a bundle of firewood on her back back. In Korcula Town I met a young, black-haired beauty strolling the promenade who could have stepped right off the fashion catwalk of Paris.

Did you see any Dalmatians on the Dalmatian Coast?

I looked, but not a one.

What sort of potential for future tourism do these places have? Do they have the infrastructure to support more tourism?

Slovenia is a compact country ideal for an active vacation, whether it’s easy walking or paragliding. Distances between destinations are short, it’s easy to get around and the country is well serviced by four-season mountain resorts. The only way to truly experience the Dalmatian Coast is island-hopping by boat. The history of the region has been defined by seafaring traders and adventurers like the Venetians and Romans who have left their mark on this long coastline. Since well before the war that saw the dismantling of Yugoslavia, tourism has been an important part of the economy here, but some of the islands have a deserted feel to them, as though they are still awaiting discovery.

How smooth has the transition from state-run socialism to a free-market economy been in this part of the world?

My impression is that Yugoslavia was never behind the Iron Curtain and under the rigid authority of the former Soviet Union in the same way that East European countries were. Under Tito’s rule, Yugoslavia maintained a degree of autonomy that allowed it to identify more closely with the west and its nearby neighbours of Austria and Italy. It hasn’t been perfect, and the experience varies greatly between Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro, and I’d say the transition to a so-called free market is still underway. Interestingly, many people I talked to who are old enough to remember life under Communist rule, lament some things of the past; few people were rich, but most people had work, health care and education.

Slovenia and Croatia are not exactly bosom buddies. They have an ongoing border dispute and recently Slovenian nationalists tried to block Croatia’s admission to NATO. Did you see any signs of this hostility?

Indeed. Slovenia determinedly clings to its 40 kilometres of Adriatic coastline between Italy and Croatia, while Croatia would prefer to see its northern neighbour landlocked. I heard more than one Slovenian suggest that Croatians resent Slovenians for not having suffered during the civil war the same way Croatia did. Of course this is a gross generalization and there are people in all of the former Yugoslavian republics with mixed heritage, however there is definitely residual animosity between Slovenia and Croatia that surfaces every once in a while.

What did you find most surprising about Slovenia and Croatia?

I guess the sheer physical beauty of the landscape and for somebody like myself who loves outdoor sports–skiing, climbing, biking–it struck me as this paradise poorly known by us Canadians. However, I was also intrigued by the enduring impacts of a civil war that ended nearly 15 years ago. I met an awesome guy working on a boat on the Dalmatian Coast who said he was part of a lost generation of Croatians who were young 20-somethings during the war, with no hope, no future. He told me harrowing tales of drug dealing and other nefarious pursuits just to stay alive. Thankfully these are different and much more hopeful times for Croatians.

Photo Credits:

 #1: coronn.com

#2: firstclass.com.au

#3: klek.info

Yet, despite its isolation and tiny size (22 kilometres long and 11 kilometres wide) Easter Island was the site of one of the most remarkable cultures in all of Polynesia. The people here had their own system of writing called Rongorongo, different from any other in the world, and so far undecipherable. No other Pacific Islanders knew how to write. It’s just one of the many mysteries that surround this remote isle. Where had the inhabitants originally come from? Why and how had they built the stone figures? Modern science is piecing together the story, but it is too late for the Easter Islanders themselves. They were virtually wiped out by a series of disasters–natural and man-made–that reduced a population of 12,000 down to just 111 in a few centuries.

The tragic story of the collapse of the culture of Easter Island is the focus of a thought-provoking piece by journalist Daniel Wood in the latest issue of Westworld magazine. Wood sat down with me to answer a few questions about his article.

How many stone statues are there on Easter Island? How large are they? Do they face the sea or do they look inward?

There are over 900 stone statues, most of them either fallen or still lying in quarries, unexcavated. About 100 of these moais are standing, having been raised in the past century by archaeologists. The majority are around three to six metres high; the bigger ones get to 10 metres or more, and, in one case, 20 metres. Most face inland since they served to protect the now empty village sites.

What sort of questions are the archaeologists who are working on Easter Island today trying to answer?

The place is one of the great archaeological mysteries on earth. Researchers now know the origins of the Easter Islanders—they came across the Pacific from Polynesia some 1,500 years ago, but the language of Rapa Nui, as the locals call it, the religion of the people, the purpose of the statues, and the culture’s link to the civilizations of western South America are all unresolved.
 
There was once great debate among historians about where the inhabitants of Easter Island came from. Why was Thor Heyerdahl so convinced that the island was settled by people from a pre-Incan society in Peru?

The prevailing view 50 years ago was that the original peoples of the Americas were Neolithic travellers who crossed the Bering Strait 12,000-plus years ago. But it was Heyerdahl’s contention that early people utilized boats and rafts to cross westward from the Americas to populate the islands of the Pacific. Thus, the famous Kon-Tiki expedition from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. Archaeologists later proved that Heyerdahl was wrong: the migration was from the west to the east. 
 
Do we know what sort of sailing craft the original settlers used to make the long voyage to Easter Island from Polynesia?

The best guess is large outrigger canoes, not so different from those that the people of Polynesia used until a few generations ago. If you think about the dimensions of the big Haida whaling canoes, you can get an idea of the size. It’s now known that the Polynesians regularly sailed throughout the Pacific a millennia ago. We have come in recent years to gain a new appreciation of the capabilities of so-called “primitive” peoples. They knew 1,000 years ago about the ocean currents and the winds and celestial navigation.
 
Are there any descendants of the original inhabitants still living on Easter Island and what do they look like?

Yes. From the original surviving 111 of 1,900, people have bred with the 20th century newcomers so that intermarriage has diluted the gene pool of the natives. But the people with strong Polynesian ancestry are quite distinctive–tall, barrel-chested, dark-skinned–much like the Maoris of New Zealand. 

Do these people have a strong sense of their own history or have they been totally assimilated by the Chileans?

No, the Rapa Nuians have a strong sense of self and have lobbied the Chileans for a fair amount of cultural protection. They have their own local government with some autonomy, as well as schools in the Rapa Nuian language, and they try to limit the excesses of tourism imported from outside by hotel developers and marketers. 
 
The Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador are famous for their unique forms of animal life. Are there any interesting ecological oddities on Easter Island?

No. Because of Easter Island’s distance from anywhere, it never received the drifting creatures—like iguanas or turtles—that got washed up and bred on many of the Galapagos Islands.
 
What does the island’s capital, Hanga Roa, look like? Is there any industry there?

“Hanga Roa,” one older tourist said to me, “looks like Hawaii did in the 1940s.” The highest building is two storeys, and most are one-storey, tin-roofed bungalows. The word “quaint” applies. There is no industry, just tourism.  Local people farm small garden plots, cowboys herd cattle and horses, fishermen use small inshore boats. 
 
Do you think that the Easter Island inhabitants’ isolation from the outside world was a contributing factor to the downfall of their culture?

Good question. The cause of the civil wars that ended in the society’s demise was, according to legend, the environmental collapse of the mid-16th century. The people could not escape—they had cut down every tree–so they turned on each other–finally cannibalizing their neighbours. So, yes, the isolation contributed to their tragic story because they couldn’t trade goods to reprovision themselves, or build boats to escape the chaos.

Photo Credits:

#1: philipcoppens.com

#2: msnbc.msn.com

#3: flickr.com

The Hmong are the second largest of six different hill tribes that inhabit the mountainous border regions of Laos, Burma and Thailand, an area popularly known as “the Golden Triangle.” Each of these tribes is distinct in language, dress and culture, but all share some basic traits. They subsist on a primitive, slash-and-burn agriculture. Their religion is animist. They sew and weave with genius. And they grow smoke and sell opium. The Thais have initiated educational programs aiming at weaving these mountain folk away from opium to other cash crops such as coffee, tea, cabbages and strawberries. In the process they have discovered something else about the tribes—they are a major tourist attraction.

Dozens of companies specializing in hill-tribe expeditions operate out of Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second-largest city, located 710 kilometres north of Bangkok. The tours, which can last anywhere from two to 10 days, offer such enticements as elephant rides, river rafting and overnight stays in rural villages. Our tour, arranged by the Tourist Authority of Thailand, was chosen with practicality in mind. It was the most convenient excursion available, a mere 20-kilometre drive from Chiang Mai, a viable option for travellers lacking the time or fortitude to spend a week dealing with mud, mosquitoes and tropical humidity.

We began our journey after breakfast, rolling out of Chiang Mai in an air-conditioned bus. The road wound sharply upward through a series of hairpin switchbacks leading to the 14th century Wat Prathat Doi Suthep, one of the most revered Buddhist temples in the entire country. The temple’s entrance is flanked by a pair of snarling nagas, mythical serpents whose ceramic tails undulate up 309 steps to the summit. At an elevation of 1,300 metres, near the winter palace of King Bhumibol, we transferred to a mountain taxi, a modified pickup truck painted in an array of kaleidoscopic colours. The mountain taxi negotiated the last leg of the rugged climb through the forest with us jolting along in back like a crew of combat soldiers.

It was 11:00 a.m. when we reached our destination, a sleepy collection of tin-roofed shanties perched on the rim of a mist-shrouded valley. As we disembarked we could see Hmong women in pleated black dresses and chunky silver jewellery appraising us from the doorways. There were a few barefoot children playing in the laneways and huge, grey pigs slumbering beside the houses. From somwhere in the forest came the sound of someone chopping wood.

Our arrival prompted an immediate change in the pace of village life. Shutters suddenly flew open revealing shelves lined with handicrafts-–vests, hats, dolls, jewellery and ceramic goods. Women wearing turbans festooned with beaten silver, coins, beads, feathers and monkey fur emerged from their homes to attend to the souvenir stalls. A refreshment stand with padded stools and a Formica counter opened for business, selling soft drinks, snacks and cigarettes.

Within the hour, half a dozen more mountain taxis had joined ours in the clearing at the edge of the village. A stream of tourists began to filter through the streets, transforming the remote outpost into an international bazaar. The English, the Germans, the French, the Americans and the Japanese were all here. The collision of cultures resulted in some odd exchanges. Rounding a corner I came across two American women fussing over a dozing hog. “Look at this pig thang, Ella,” said one in a thick, corn-pone drawl. “Gawd, it’s ugly! Y’all got to get a picture of this with me.”

The Hmong children proved even more popular photographic subjects. A battery of cameras followed their every move. Most of the youngsters were unfazed by the attention; some actually posed. They were not all as innocent as they first appeared. No sooner had you taken their picture than they demanded payment. I watched an embarassed Frenchman, trying to beat a dignified retreat from a gang of young money-seekers. “Baht! Baht! Baht!” they chanted, clutching imploringly at the man’s trouser pockets.

Everywhere we went we accosted by Hmong salesmen. One man carried a satchel full of tin hookah pipes, another guy in a newsboy cap sold sapphires. “Smuggled in from Burma,” he claimed. He carried the coloured stones in a velvet-lined folding case. To prove a gem’s authenticity he would club it with a rock. If you remained unconvinced, he would douse the gem with lighter fluid and set it aflame.

One home in the village attracted more attention than the others. A gaunt man in a rumpled grey fedora, loose cotton shirt and sandals, squatted outside puffing on a bamboo pipe that had the dimensions of a small bazooka. A gaggle of wide-eyed onlookers debated his brand of smoking material. “It cannot be opium,” insisted a portly German in flowery shorts. “Opium is illegal.”

The pipe-smoker’s wife stood behind him in the doorway, collecting 200 baht a head from the tourists lined up to view the interior. It was a short tour; the house consisted of a single room. Out on the porch, cameras continued to zoom in on the man with the pipe. With each shutter click, his hand would slowly uncoil and extend forward, palm up. He accepted the proffered coins wordlessly, his features set in an impassive mask.

The Hmong with the crossbow approached our party just as we preparing to depart. Unlike the other men in the village, we wore full tribal regalia—an embroidered black waistcoat, leggings, a tasselled skullcap and a beaded shoulder bag. As he launched into his sales pitch, I heard someone behind me say, “I think he’s the chief. He’s the only one wearing Nikes.”

Chief or no chief, the man was a consummate showman. To secure our attention he arranged a demonstration, propping a discarded Pepsi can against the rear tire of a nearby truck. Retreating 20 paces, he tethered one of his tiny arrows and let fly, neatly puncturing the soda can, while miraculously sparing the tire. “Only 600 baht,” he intoned, offering me the bow. “You try.”

The Hmong were masters of the hard sell. Everyone in our group bought something: toys, beadwork, story cloths, carvings, phony sapphires. One fellow even purchased the can-killing crossbow. The irony was inescapable. Here we were, supposedly sophisticated western travellers, exchanging cold, hard cash for useless trinkets in a complete reversal of stereotypical roles.

Clearly, this Hmong village had discovered a viable alternative to opium. Foreign tourists were the new cash crop, and an apparently lucrative one at that. Later the same day, while cashing our depleted stock of traveller’s cheques at a bank in downtown Chiang Mai, we came upon one of the Hmong families from the mountain. They were parked outside in a shiny yellow Toyota truck. The children were happily eating ice cream. Their father was inside making deposits.

Photo Credits:

#1: flickr.com

#2: goseasia.com

#3: flickr.com

#4: freenc.biz

1. Burning Man, a bizarre, eight-day festival dedicated to radical self-expression, takes place annually in Black Rock Desert in which U.S. state?
A. California
B. Utah
C. Colorado
D. Nevada

2. What is the only country to feature a building on its national flag?
A. Panama
B. Lebanon
C. Cambodia
D. Albania

3. If you travel to Spain you will likely find yourself offered tapas (small dishes of food) to eat. What is the English translation of tapas?
A. Tokens
B. Appetizers
C. Lids
D. Jewels

4. Covering an area of 55,000 square kilometres, the Selous Game Reserve is the world’s largest game reserve. In which country is it located?
A. Botswana
B. Kenya
C. Tanzania
D. South Africa

5. A wind known as “the Fremantle Doctor” cools the west coast of what country during the summer months?
A. India
B. Australia
C. Portugal
D. Ireland

6. The Great Wall of China is one of the world’s most amazing man-made constructions. If you began the wall in Vancouver, B.C., approximately how far eastward would it extend?
A. To Calgary
B. To Winnipeg
C. To Toronto
D. To Halifax

7. Which country has the largest number of active volcanoes?
A. Indonesia
B. Guatemala
C. Japan
D. Iceland

8. The song “The Girl From Ipanema” launched the Bossa Nova craze in the early 1960s. Ipanema is a district in which South American city?
A. Rio De Janeiro
B. Buenos Aires
C. Montevideo
D. Sao Paulo

9. What does the “Red” in Moscow’s Red Square refer to?
A. The colour of Communism
B. It symbolizes the blood shed by Soviet soldiers
C. It means “beautiful” in old Russian
D. The colour of the Kremlin’s brick walls

10. Women are still not allowed to drive in which country?
A. Kuwait
B. Libya
C. Afghanistan
D. Saudi Arabia

11. Where will tourists encounter soldiers clad in vivid red, blue and yellow uniforms, known as the Swiss Guard?
A. The Vatican
B.  Luxembourg
C. Monaco
D. San Marino

12. Table Mountain, a popular destination for hikers, climbers and cavers, is a major landmark in what African city?
A. Nairobi, Kenya
B. Khartoum, Sudan
C. Cape Town, South Africa
D. Rabat, Morocco

13. New Zealand was named after a region in which European country?
A. Germany
B. Portugal
C. Sweden
D. The Netherlands

Answers

1. D. Nevada
Launched as a free bonfire party with 20 participants on San Francisco’s Baker Beach in 1986, the Burning Man festival has since evolved into massive tribal gathering in the desert in northen Nevada. Last year’s event attracted 50,000 people who paid from $210 to $295 to get through the gates. Because of the variety of goals fostered by attendees, known as “Burners,” Burning Man does not have a single focus. Features of the event are subject to the participants and include community, artwork, absurdity, decommodification and revelry. At the end of the festival, a large, wooden effigy of man is burned.

2. C. Cambodia
The design of the Cambodian flag consists of three horizontal stripes–the top and bottom are blue and of equal size; and the centre stripe is a larger red one with a white emblem representing the towers of Angkor Wat in the middle of it. The famous temple was built in the 12th century by King Suryavarman II, who although he governed a Buddhist country, wanted to use Hindu concepts such as king-as-incarnation-of-gods to legitimate his rule. The temple was thus dedicated to Vishnu and constructed as a Hindu temple. It was converted for use as a Buddhist temple in the 14th or 15th century when Hinduism became unfashionable.

3. C. Lids
According to culinary lore, the concept of tapas began in Spain at least a century ago, when barmen started putting a slice of bread over a glass of beer or wine to keep the flies out of the drinks (“tapa” means “lid”). Patrons found these lids to be quite tasty, and would often choose their favourite bar by the quality of its tapas. Accompanied with a wide variety of wines, the concept of tapas has since evolved into a complete dining experience.

4. C. Tanzania
The pristine reserve, a World Heritage Site since 1982, covers about six per cent of Tanzania’s land surface. Larger than Switzerland, it is the world’s largest game reserve and second only to the Serengeti in its concentration of wildlife. It is also the sanctuary of the biggest elephant herd in the world, about 32,000. However, due to its remote location, and because it is most easily accessible only by small aircraft, Selous attracts few tourists, although hunting safaris are popular.

5. B. Australia
The cooling afternoon sea breeze which occurs during summer months in coastal areas of Western Australia was named the Fremantle Doctor because it appears to come from the nearby coastal city of Fremantle, and it brings welcome relief from the broiling hot temperatures. However, it is almost certain that the term Fremantle Doctor has its origins in Fremantle’s dark past. At Catherine Point, a short distance south of Fremantle, crematoriums were established during the colony’s early days to dispose of the corpses of those who had fallen prey to illness. It is reported that the Doctor was named in honour of the wind which blew the stench of burning human flesh inland across the settlement.

6. D. To Halifax
China’s Great Wall extends some 6,400 kilometres (4,000 miles) from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along a path that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia, but stretches to over 6,700 kilometres in total, which is longer than the distance from Vancouver to Halifax. At its peak, this structure was guarded by more than one million men. It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of two to three million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall.

7. A. Indonesia
The volcanoes that dot Indonesia’s island arc give it its ominous nickname, “The Ring of Fire.” The country can claim 167 of the 850 active volcanoes known in the world. Krakatoa, which blew up in 1883, may be the most famous volcanic event in modern history, but another Indonesian volcano, Tambora, which erupted in 1815, was even more violent, killing 71,000 people. The most active volcanoes in Indonesia are Kelut and Merapi on Java island, and both have been responsible for thousands of deaths. Since AD 1000, Kelut has erupted more than 30 times, while Merapi has erupted more than 80 times.

8. A. Rio de Janiero
Ah, the cool sounds of the Bossa Nova. “The Girl From Ipanema” was inspired by a real person, a striking five-foot-eight-inch teenage brunette named Heloisa Pinto, whom the song’s composers–Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes–used to watch as she strolled past the popular Veloso Bar, attracting wolf whistles from the regulars. The Veloso Bar, renamed “A Garota de Ipanema” (The Girl From Ipanema) by its owners, still exists in Ipanema, an upscale neighbourhood in Rio.

9. C. It means “beautiful” in old Russian
Nothing epitomizes Moscow, Russia’s vast and ancient capital, like Red Square or Krasnaya Ploschad, as it is known in Russian. An enormous 400 by 150 metres, it lies in the heart of Moscow and on its four sides stand the Kremlin, GUM Department Store, State Historical Museum and St. Basil’s Cathedral–the centres of government, commerce, history and religion. The square is also home to Lenin’s tomb, a gleaming granite mausoleum to the revered founder of Socialism. The name of Red Square derives neither from the colour of the bricks around it nor from the link between the colour red and communism. Rather, the name came about because the word krasnaya originally meant beautiful in old Russian. It only came to mean red in more modern times. The word was originally applied (with the meaning “beautiful”) to Saint Basil’s Cathedral, and was later transferred to the nearby square.

10. D. Saudi Arabia
Women in Saudi Arabia are subject to very strict regulations. They cannot vote, they must be covered from head to toe in public, they are not permitted to travel unaccompanied by male relatives, and although there is no specific law to forbid it, they cannot obtain driving licences, because for a woman to drive is considered sinful. The ban on female drivers was recently extended to cover golf carts.

11. A. The Vatican
One of the oldest military corps in the world, the Pontifical Swiss Guard has been protecting the Pope since 1506. Although most tourists see the Guards in their famous multicoloured dress uniforms complete with a helmet similar to that worn by the Spanish conquistadors, and assume they are merely ceremonial soldiers, they are actually a competent modern force. Each member of the Guard has served his time in the regular Swiss Army before being allowed to join on a sponsorship from his local canton and they all train with modern weaponry. The size of the unit has fluctuated over time, but since 2003 it has consisted of 134 men.

12. C. Cape Town, South Africa
Table Mountain forms a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa. The mountain’s flattened summit is often covered by clouds or mist spilling over the top to form the “table cloth.” A Portugese explorer named Antonio de Saldanha was the first European to climb the mountain in 1503 and he named it Table Mountain.

13. D. The Netherlands
The islands of New Zealand were named by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman in 1642. Tasman originally named it Staten Landt, believing it to be part of the land of that name off the coast of Argentina. When that was shown not to be so Dutch authorities named it Nieuw Zeeland in Dutch. The two major seafaring provinces of the Netherlands at the time were Holland and Zeeland, and originally the Dutch explorers named the largest landmass of Oceania and the two islands to the southeast respectively, New Holland and New Zeeland. New Holland was later replaced by the name Australia, but the name New Zealand remained in place.

Photo Credits:

#1: flickr.com

#2: faqs.org

#3: paulnoll.com

#4: img.dailymail.co.uk

Warsaw, Poland
Warsaw has come a long way from the grey, Soviet concrete jungle of the post-war era. In fact, Lonely Planet included the Polish capital on its list of trendiest cities for 2009. Warsaw’s town centre, which was almost completely destroyed in the Second World War, has regained its former glory thanks to a painstaking reconstruction, some of it based on paintings by Canaletto. Set alongside the beautiful Vistulaa River, this historic capital is one of Eastern Europe’s finest cultural draws with beautiful castles, excellent art galleries, first class restaurants and an increasingly active night life. In terms of value for money, it beats London and New York because of the comparative cheapness to visit the city’s museums, galleries and other historic sites. The big year in Warsaw is going to be 2010, the 200th anniversary of composer Frédéric Chopin’s birth. The city is passionate about Chopin, who died in Paris in 1849, but left instructions for his heart to be returned to Warsaw for interment. If you go before the hoopla starts, you can visit scores of Chopin sites and take advantage of cheaper hotel rates, which are generally lower than those in Western European capitals.

Beirut, Lebanon
Although my barber, who is from Beirut, insists that his city is a lovely place to visit, it is still difficult to clear my mind of images of bombed-out buildings and machine-gun fire. Wasn’t the Hamas section of the Lebanese capital recently under ferocious attack by the Israelis? Despite its recent plague of violence, several publications rank Beirut among their top 10 travel destinations for 2009, noting its swank restaurants, designer shopping, hip club scene and underground jazz joints, while the New York Times went so far as to rank Beirut number one of its 44 places to visit in 2009, boldly stating, “With a recent (though perhaps tenuous) detente keeping the violence in check, the capital of Lebanon is poised to reclaim its title as the Paris of the Middle East.”

Ko Tao, Thailand
First there was Ko Samui, then Ko Pha-Ngan; and now the latest island to offer Nirvana along Thailand’s crystalline Gulf Coast is Ko Tao. Undiscovered by the mainstream, it’s still backpacker heaven: clear water, cheap food and accommodation and a bar scene that rages on until dawn, but the island also boasts superb scuba diving and snorkelling, as diving enthusiasts cavort with sharks and rays in a playground of tangled neon coral. The most popular tourist draw is Sairee on the west coast, which has a white sandy beach that stretches 1.7 kilometres and is interrupted only by a scattering of medium-budget resorts and restaurants. A multitude of beautiful granite boulders, which nestle both in the forests and on the beaches, are attracting a growing number of climbers who visit each year to enjoy the adventurous aspect of their sport. Ko Tao is also quickly becoming a mecca for game fishermen. Target species include marlin, sailfish, king mackerel, barracuda and snapper.

Vilnius, Lithuania
It is hard to imagine a more obscure European capital, yet Vilnius is now being hailed by many travel experts as a place to go, especially since it has been designated Europe’s capital of culture for 2009 by the European Union. To celebrate, Vilnius is putting on quite a show with 120 art and culture projects and 900 events. The city will also be part of a country-wide celebration of Lithuania’s millennial year, as 2009 marks 1,000 years since the first known mention of the country in written records. The medieval Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the main tourist attraction, with quaint shops and cosy cafes set amongst a blend of intricate spires, domes and towers. In a relatively small space (887 acres) there are 1,487 old houses, churches and other historical buildings. The city was built during different centuries, therefore one can find a blend of architecture with baroque and gothic dominating. As an added bonus, although it’s a member of the EU, Lithuania doesn’t use the euro as its currency, which makes accommodations, food and activities more affordable.

Cartagena, Colombia
According to Frommer’s, “After years of violence owing to the drug cartel wars, Colombia has begun to emerge as a safe and vibrant travel destination.” Although there is still a certain amount of violence in remote areas, the government has increased its presence in the countryside and in all major tourist areas, so whereas in the past travel was certainly dangerous, the risks are now lower except in the areas of known guerilla, paramilitary or drug cartel presence. Founded in 1533, Cartagena was a major centre of early Spanish development in the Americas. Today it’s the economic hub of the Caribbean region and in recent years the government has invested a lot of money to turn the city into a tourist destination. It features a wealthy of pastel-painted buildings, fine cathedrals and plenty of Spanish colonial architecture. ”The white-sand beaches are sublime, the restaurants are excellent and lodging comes in all styles and prices,” says Frommer’s.

Botswana
South Africa, Kenya and Namibia continue to be favourite African destinations, but Botswana, which has one of the lowest population densities in the world with virtually no political unrest, has emerged as an exciting new option. Covering an incredible 15,000 square kilometres, its Okavango Delta is famed for its wildlife and an increasing number of luxury safari lodges have opened there. Nearby is Chobe National Park, a beautiful grassland reserve that has gained international fame for its abundant elephant population. Southeast of Chobe are Botswana’s enormous Makgadikgadi salt pans, remnants of a huge lake that dried up 10,000 years ago, which spans an area the size of Portugal when it fills with water during rainy season and becomes home to a stunning array of bird and wildlife. Almost the entire remaining portion of the country is covered by the Kalahari Desert–a varied environment of sand, savanna and grassland. Although this area of Botswana is only sparsely inhabited by humans, it is one of the richest wildlife regions in all of Africa.

Istanbul, Turkey
A recent spate of terrorist bombings failed to deter several travel publications from nominating Istanbul as a travel hot spot for 2009. Known as a city of striking contrasts and a bewitching blend of Asian and European inflences, Istanbul today boasts a thriving art scene, buzzing night life and some of the world’s most atmospheric cafes and markets. Frommer’s says that city’s boutique hotels now offer an alternative to its “flea-bitten hostels” and “sushi bars that would do Tokyo proud” offer an escape from Istanbul’s old image for “a kebab-laden diet.” Despite these new developments, the traditional landmarks and traces of Istanbul’s old glory remain high on the sightseeing agenda. The crowd-pleasers include the Blue Mosque, with its tiers of magnificent domes and six graceful minarets, Hagia Sophia, a massive, ochre-coloured Byzantine basilica, and the Grand Bazaar’s vast labyrinth of 65 twisting streets crammed with more than 4,000 shops, teahouses, Turkish baths, storehouses and fountains.

Photo Credits:

#1: guardian.co.uk

#2: bloggingbeirut.com

#3: thesilvericon.com

#4: botswanaodyssey.com

Over the Christmas holidays I watched an excellent documentary on PBS entitled “The Search for Shangri-La.” The episode, one of a four-part series called “In Search of Myths and Heroes,” was narrated by British historian and broadcaster Michael Wood, who takes us on a remarkable journey into one of the most remote and austere places on the planet. Although many of us today may associate Shangri-La with a tropical utopia, or perhaps a hotel chain, according to James Hilton, the novelist who introduced the word into mainstream culture in his 1933 novel Lost Horizon, Shangri-La was actually located high in the Himalayas.

In his book, Hilton describes a community located in a lost Tibetan valley that is cut off from the world and from time. All the wisdom of the human race is contained in this mystical place, in the cultural treasures stored, and in the minds of the people who have gathered here in the face of an imminent catastrophe. Set in the troubled years before World War Two, Hilton’s escapist fantasy about a lost world of peace, civilization and beauty struck a popular chord. Lost Horizon became an instant bestseller and was turned into a successful movie by director Frank Capra. The appeal of Shangri-La was so strong that the U.S. president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, used the name for his country retreat, later renamed Camp David. Even the Nazis were mesmerized by Shangri-La’s spell. In fact, Heinrich Himmler, head of the S.S., sent several expeditions to Tibet to search for evidence of an ancient master Aryan civilization.

Although Hilton’s tale was purely fictional, it was based on an ancient Tibetan myth about a mythical kingdom called Shambala. Supposedly hidden somewhere in the remotest part of Tibet, on a high plateau, surrounded by a ring of mountain peaks, Shambala was said to be inhabited by beings who are guiding the evolution of mankind. In the last decade there has been a growing interest in tracking down the “real” Shangri-La, about whose location Hilton was intentionally vague. Several sites have been touted as the inspiration, such as the Hunza Valley in northern Pakistan near the Tibetan border, an isolated green valley surrounded by mountains, which Hilton visited a few years before Lost Horizon was published.

Over the years, many communities on the Tibetan-Chinese border have also laid claim to be the setting of the mystical kingdom. In the Chinese province of Yunnan, two towns, Deqin and Cizhong, say they are its inspiration. In 2001, the Chinese cabinet intervened to allow Zhongdian county to officially rename itself Shangri-La. But the neighbouring Sichuan counties of Daocheng, Xiangcheng and Derong also claim to be the original model for the story. And dozens of other villages and towns dotted all over Sichuan and Yunnan appear to have taken the unilateral decision to rename themselves Shangri-La.

However, in his documentary, Wood suggests that the legendary Shangri-La is actually the abandoned western Tibetan city of Tsaparang, the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Guge (goo-gay). Carved entirely out of rock, Tsaparang was home to two of Tibet’s most artistically impressive temples. The kingdom, which was located on a plateau some 1,200 kilometres west of Lhasa in Ngari Prefecture, boasted an extraordinary Christian and Himalayan Buddhist civilization rich with art and culture that flourished for 700 years and then vanished mysteriously in the 17th century.

On his quest to find Shangri-La, Wood examines the Tibetan myth of Shambala and the journey of Antonio Andrade, a Portuguese missionary sent to find it during the 16th century by the Moghul emperor Akbar. In retracing Andrade’s route, Wood embarks on an extraordinary journey through India, Nepal, and Tibet to visit Lake Manasarovar and Mt. Kailash, two of the holiest sites in the Buddhist and Hindu religions. The show will likely be airing again before too long, so I won’t describe what Wood eventually finds in the ruins of Tsaparang, other than to say that it is both moving and poignant. For those who can’t wait for the next telecast, you can order a DVD of the entire four-part series, which includes Jason and the Golden Fleece, the Queen of Sheba and King Arthur, from the PBS website www.pbs.org/mythsandheroes.

Photo Credits:

#1: catherinemarie.wordpress.com

#2: asianart.com

#3: flickr.com

It was a surprise therefore to discover that there are really two Cooperstowns, each possessing its own distinct air of unreality. One is a sleepy hamlet of tree-lined streets and beautifully preserved clapboard and red brick Victorian homes on the south shore of Otsego Lake. This Cooperstown appears little changed since the late 1800s, when it served as a resort for wealthy city dwellers. The other Cooperstown, devoted to all things baseball and packed into a three-block stretch of Main Street, is a far newer and more artificial creation, designed for the express purpose of sucking as many dollars as possible out of the pockets of tourists. Here, amid a daunting array of memorabilia shops, everything is a potential souvenir. This point became abundantly clear to us, when, after downing several bottles of Old Slugger Pale Ale in Shoeless Joe’s Café, we were approached by our waitress, who asked, “Do you gentleman want to take those empty bottles with you?” Was this a common practice among her customers? “You’d be surprised,” she said, grinning. “Some of these baseball people are crazy.”

My brother and I qualify as “baseball people.” We both played the game as kids, on dusty diamonds, in organized leagues and out in our backyard with a plastic whiffle ball. We collected and traded baseball cards, we wore baseball caps and we played baseball board games. And in our adult years we continued to keep close ties with the game through our participation in baseball fantasy leagues.

However, we do not consider ourselves crazy, which is why we went to Cooperstown in late June. You would have to be crazy to venture into the place after July 1, when the bulk of the 400,000 annual visitors begin pouring into this village of 2,500 residents. The invasion reaches its peak in late July with the annual Hall of Fame ceremonies, when new members are inducted and an exhibition game between two major league teams is staged at Doubleday Field, a tiny stadium erected upon the very spot where baseball was supposedly invented in the summer of 1839.

This myth was foisted upon the American public by Albert Spalding, owner of the Chicago White Stockings and sporting goods magnate. In 1895, he appointed a council to “research” the claim that baseball had evolved from the English games of cricket and rounders. Spalding wanted baseball to be seen as “all American,” and indeed, his council reported that the sport had been invented by a deceased Civil War hero named Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown. Historians now agree that not only did Doubleday have no connection to baseball, he wasn’t even in Cooperstown in 1839. Instead of springing from pastoral roots, the game actually developed in New York City in the 1840s. On June 19, 1846, the first baseball game with set rules was played in Hoboken, New Jersey, at Elysian Fields, a park named after the paradise of ancient Greek myth, where those who are favoured by the gods go when they die. All in all, a much more prosaic site for baseball’s birth.

However, the Doubleday myth still held sway in the 1930s, when some Cooperstown businessmen decided to build a baseball museum in an effort to boost the area’s Depression-ravaged economy. The Hall of Fame opened with much fanfare on June 12, 1939, as part of a celebration to mark the centennial of Doubleday’s alleged invention of the game. Eleven baseball luminaries, including Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Walter Johnson and Connie Mack attended the event. Since then, Cooperstown has never looked back.

And why should it? Baseball has made many of Cooperstown’s resident’s wealthy and continues to provide the town’s prime source of income. The Hall itself has grown from an unimposing two-room structure into a three-storey complex filled with a mind-bending assemblage of baseball artifacts, including such items as fingerless gloves from the 1880s, Ty Cobb’s sliding pads, Lou Gehrig’s locker, the bat that Babe Ruth used to hit his 60th homer of the 1927 season, plus exhibits of uniforms, trading cards, World Series rings and various trophies.

The Hall of Fame gallery, where a couple of hundred baseball’s immortals are commemorated by bronze plaques and brief bios, is probably the major draw for visitors, but it is also surprisingly small. The display’s modest dimensions suggest just how difficult it is to gain entry into the Hall. Only one percent of all the men who have played in the majors have been deemed to possess the necessary credentials and there has never been a unanimous selection.

The museum also houses a library and photo archive containing more than 300,000 images. In addition to retrieving research materials from the vaults, the staff also fields queries on baseball-related topics. The day we visited, there were inquiries about the colour of Babe Ruth’s eyes, Mickey Mantle’s precise height and weight in his rookie year, and which player had hit home runs in the greatest number of major-league ballparks. A Brooklyn couple wanted to discuss the veracity of the depiction of Jimmy Foxx’s character in the movie A League of Their Own, which they claimed to have seen 17 times. A pastor from Seattle was seeking newspaper clippings about the Hall’s opening ceremony in 1939, at which his father had delivered the benediction.

People come to Cooperstown searching for all manner of things. At the end of our two-day stay, I found myself both elated and a tad regretful. My elation was inspired by the discovery that a couple of the baseball trivia books I had written were on sale in the Hall of Fame’s bookstore. My regret was that I had not visited Cooperstown as a child. Seen through a haze of innocence no longer available to me, the trip would, I am quite certain, have become etched into my memory as one of the highlights of my life. But, then again, seeing the place with my brother was a special treat, and the nostalgia I felt for the game and my youth came back in a rush. In the end, it didn’t really matter that the Hall of Fame was built on lies, because going to Cooperstown is all about surrendering to fantasy.

Photo Credits:

#1:baseballhalloffame.org

#2: seecny.com

#3: the700level.com

#4: freewebs.com

Before I get to the world’s murder rankings, it’s worth noting that Baghdad, which many would nominate as the world’s most dangerous city, is not at the top of the list. In fact, there are about a dozen American cities with a higher murder rate than Iraq’s capital, and if you add assaults and rapes to the index, even more U.S. urban centres rank higher on the danger scale. The lesson? Always keep in mind how media coverage can skew the facts. For those who are curious I have listed the 10 most crime-ridden American cities according to the 2008 Congressional Quarterly Report, which calculates crime using six categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft.

1. New Orleans, Louisiana
2. Camden, New Jersey
3. Detroit, Michigan
4. St. Louis, Missouri
5. Oakland, California
6. Flint, Michigan
7. Gary, Indiana
8. Birmingham, Alabama
9. Richmond, California
10. North Charleston, South Carolina

Now on to the world’s heavyweights. According to a recent report published by the well-respected Foreign Policy magazine, here the five most dangerous cities based on murders per capita. Surprise! Three of them are major tourist destinations.

Caracas, Venezuela
Population: 3.2 million
Murder rate: 130 per 100,000 residents 
Caracas has become far more dangerous in recent years than any South American city, even beating out the once notorious Bogotá. What’s worse, the official homicide statistics likely fall short of the mark because they omit prison-related murders as well as deaths that the state never gets around to properly “categorizing.” The numbers also don’t count those who died while “resisting arrest,” suggesting that Caracas’s cops—already known for their brutality against student protesters—might be cooking the books. Many have pointed the finger at president Hugo Chavez, whose government has failed to tackle the country’s rising rates of violent crime. In fact, since Chávez took over in 1998, Venezuela’s official homicide rate has climbed 67 percent from 4,550 to 13,156 in 2007, an average of 36 murders per day—mostly due to increased drug and gang violence. Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, who recently resigned as interior minister, claimed in July that homicide has dropped 27 percent since January—but experts say he’s just playing with numbers. As for Caracas, whose crime-infested barrios continue to expand, some speculate that its actual murder rate is closer to 160 per 100,000.

Cape Town, South Africa
Population: 3.5 million
Murder rate: 62 per 100,000 inhabitants
A European bastion in the heart of turbulent South Africa, picturesque Cape Town nonetheless has the country’s highest murder rate. The city’s homicides usually take place in suburban townships rather than in the more upscale urban areas that tourists visit. According to the South African Police Service, most of the area’s violent crimes happen between people who know one another, including a horrific case last year in which four males doused a female friend in gasoline and lit her on fire. Occurring just outside city limits, the incident apparently happened after the assailants had taken hard drugs, the use of which has risen along with Cape Town’s violent crime rate. The whopping 12.7 percent rise in the city’s murder rate from 2006 to 2007 has local politicians worried, especially as South Africa prepares to host the 2010 World Cup. The government has hired more police officers to prepare for the tournament, which could help cut crime in soccer-fan hot spots. But until better efforts are made to police Cape Town’s poverty-stricken townships, it’s unlikely that the murder rate—an average of six per day—will see any major drop.

New Orleans, United States
Population: 220,614 to 312,000; estimates vary due to displacement of people after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Murder rate: Estimates range from 67 (New Orleans Police Department) to 95 (FBI) per 100,000
With its grinding poverty, an inadequate school system, a prevalence of public housing and a high incarceration rate, the Big Easy has long been plagued by a serious epidemic of violent crime. Hurricane Katrina didn’t help. Since the storm ravaged the city in 2005, drug dealers have been fighting over a smaller group of users, leading to many killings. On just one four-block stretch of Josephine Street, in the city centre, four people were murdered in 2007 and 15 people shot, including a double homicide on Christmas day. A precise murder rate is hard to pinpoint because the population is swelling quickly, approaching its pre-Katrina numbers. Whether you use New Orleans’s own figures or the FBI’s, however, the city remains the most deadly in the U.S., easily surpassing big, bad Detroit, which had 46 murders per 100,000 people in 2008. New Orleans posted the highest crime rate of any U.S. city last year, with 209 murders and more than 19,000 reported criminal incidents. This marks the third stright year that the homicide rate has increased, up from 162 in 2006 and 209 in 2007.

Moscow, Russia
Population: 10.4 million
Murder rate: 9.6 per 100,000 (estimate)
Moscow’s murder rate is paltry compared with that of Caracas or Cape Town, but the city still ranks far above other major European capitals. London, Paris, Rome and Madrid, for instance, all had rates below 2 murders per 100,000 in 2006. Moscow’s homicide rate is down 15 percent this year from last, but the recent surge in hate crimes—including the deadly beating of a Tajik carpenter by a gang of youths on Valentine’s Day—suggests that the lull might be temporary. Sixty ethnically motivated killings have taken place in 2008, part of a sixfold increase in hate crimes committed in the city during 2007. Several of the murders have been attributed to ultranationalist skinhead groups like the “Spas,” who killed 11 people in a 2006 bombing of a multiethnic market. The Russian government has finally stepped up to combat the problem, assisting immigrant groups and cracking down on street hoodlums. Still, the continued rise in extremist attacks is worrisome. And we can’t forget the steady tide of contract murders of journalists, bankers and other high-profile people in the city.

Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
Population: 254,200
Murder rate: 54 per 100,000 
The capital of Papua New Guinea, little Port Moresby might seem like an odd addition to this list. But its high violent crime rates, along with alarming levels of police corruption and gang activity, helped earn the city the dubious title of “worst city” in a 2004 Economist Intelligence Unit survey. With gangs called “raskols” controlling the city centres and unemployment rates hovering around 80 percent, it’s easy to see how Port Moresby beat out the 130 other survey contenders. Visitors are advised not go out after sunset and to avoid walking in many areas even duing the day. Port Moresby’s police don’t seem to be helping the crime situation—last November, five officers were charged with offenses ranging from murder to rape. In August 2008, the city’s police barracks were put on a three-month curfew due to a recent slew of bank heists reportedly planned inside the stations by officers and their co-conspirators. Rising tensions between Chinese immigrants and native Papua New Guineans are also cause for concern, as are reports of increased activity of organized Chinese crime syndicates.

Other large cities that pose definite risks to personal safety include Lagos, Nigeria; Medellin, Colombia; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Mexico City, Mexico; Kingston, Jamaica; and Johannesburg, South Africa. And what about Winnipeg? Although it may not rank among the world’s worst places, that New York travel writer may have had a valid point. The Manitoban capital posted the highest violent crime rate in Canada in 2007.

Photo Credits:

#1: toppayingideas.com

#2: abstrakedfiles.wordpress.com

#3: travelmood.com

#4: flickr.com

#5: destination360.com

#6: Torsten Blackwood (Getty Images)

The end of the year is fast approaching, which, as we all know, means it’s time to look back and forward at the same time, and try not to get dizzy. In this case, I’m looking back at some of the excellent travel books published in 2008 that I neglected to read, but which I plan to track down and peruse in 2009. Of course, by necessity I am relying on what others claim are good travel books. This is precisely the sort of exercise I often indulge in at the year’s end, and not only with books, but also with music and movies. I review a bunch of reviews and then decide what looks most promising. It’s not that I don’t have a mind of my own, but simply that I don’t have time to keep up with everything that is going on during the year. So, without any more preamble, here are six travel books that really sound like the sort of thing I will enjoy reading next year.

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places on Earth, Eric Weiner, Hachette Books. In the last two decades, psychologists and economists have learned a lot about happiness, including who is happy and who isn’t. The Dutch are, the Romanians aren’t, and Americans are somewhere in between. Eric Weiner–a peripatetic journalist and self-proclaimed grouch–wanted to know why. So with science as his compass, he spent a year visiting the world’s most and least happy places, eventually creating what reviewers describe as a “funny and illuminating travelogue.” Weiner does more than report on the lifestyles of the delighted and despondent. He participates–meditating in Bangalore, visiting strip clubs in Bangkok and drinking himself into a stupor in Reykjavik. Along the way he turns up some intriguing cultural nuggets. Did you know that the Thais so prize “fun” that their government has created a Gross Domestic Happiness Index to ensure they get enough of it? Or that Moldovans are miserable because they “derive more pleasure from their neighbour’s failure than their own success”? Or that the impoverished citizens of Bhutan are cheerfully obsessed with archery tournaments, penis statues and feeding marijuana to their fat (and presumably happy) pigs? I certainly didn’t, but now I definitely want to know more.

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar; Paul Theroux, Houghton Mifflin. I like just about every travel book that Theroux has written, so I fully expect to enjoy this one as well. The plot, if one could call it that, is to retrace his steps of 30 years before, when he wrote The Great Railway Bazaar, skipping on this trip Iran and Afghanistan for obvious reasons. In truth, Theroux is not a very likeable person, some have even dubbed him a misanthrope, but his work is consistently compelling: entertaining travelogue laced with acerbic wit, cultural context and social commentary. And, always with a high literary standard. As one reviewer on Amazon.com noted about this latest book. “There are wonderful, dark broodings on the nature of travel and specifically Theroux’s kind of travel, especially at the beginning where they serve like Dante’s warning at the gates of hell. As with other Theroux travel works, you are not encouraged to go, and you will not want to use this book as a travel guide. Instead, it prompts the moderately experienced traveler to think, “I’m glad I didn’t step in that…. but I’m glad I read about it.”

Cruise Confidential, A Hit Below the Waterline: Where the Crew Lives, Eats, Wars, and Parties. One Crazy Year Working on Cruise Ships, Brian David Bruns, Travelers’ Tales. This one of the longer titles that I have run across, but I suppose the publisher felt a strong urge to hammer home the concept. The author worked for a year in the restaurants of Carnival Cruise Lines, and his book takes readers down into the areas where the crew works and lives. Evidently, the events that transpire below the waterline range from the absurd to the utterly bizarre. There is also plenty of sex. Consider the subtitles from Part 2 of the book: My First, and Only, Clingy Lingerie Model; Pancake Darwinism; The Crew Bar; My Heart Will Go On; The Infamous Filipino Elvis Massacre; Great Whites; Dining on Ashes; The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Assumption; Stripping in the Dining Room. Although I don’t buy the book jacket’s claim that Cruise Confidential  “is essential reading for those planning a cruise,” I will concede that it has the potential to be pretty damn funny.

The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa’s Most Wanted, Matthew Green, Portobello Books. Although it may not conform to the typical expectations of a travel book, The Wizard of the Nile does involve a journey through exotic terrain, leavened with suspense and historical documentation. Joseph Kony is the mad,  murderous leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a militia of Christian fanatics and their mostly kidnapped legions of under-age fighters, who have been terrorising northern Uganda and surrounding countries for more than 20 years in an attempt to overthrow president Yoweri Museveni. They have perpetrated appalling violence that has seen Kony indicted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague on 33 counts including rape, mass murder, sexual enslavement, child abduction and mutilation. Matthew Green, a young British journalist working in East Africa for Reuters, set off to interview Kony, a hugely ambitious, not to mention courageous journalistic undertaking. It sounds like quite a thrill ride.

Apples Are From Kazakhstan: The Land That Disappeared, Christopher Robbins, Atlas & Co. There is no way that a book about Kazakhstan is ever going to be a best seller, no matter how well it is written, but that didn’t stop Robbins from producing this one. By all accounts he’s a master stylist and one blessed with a sharp sense of humour, which had to come in handy with that Poohish name his parents hung on him. Call me crazy, but I’m intrigued by the idea of a huge Central Asian country, four times larger than Texas, that was closed to foreigners under Tsarist and Soviet rule and has since remained largely hidden from the world. Robbins discovers that Kazakhstan—a blank in Westerners’ collective imagination—is a diverse, tolerant and surprisingly modern country that gave the world apples, trousers, and even, perhaps, King Arthur. Robbins enjoyed unprecedented access to the Kazakh president while crafting this travelogue, and he relates a story by turns hilarious and grim. He finds Eminem-worship by a shrinking Aral Sea, hears the Kazakh John Lennon play in a dusty desert town, joins nomads hunting eagles, eats boiled sheep’s head (a local delicacy), and explores some of the most beautiful, unspoiled places on earth.

The Way of Herodotus: Travels with the Man Who Invented History, Justin Marozzi, Da Capo Press. When your subject is a classical author and his account of a war that ended some 2,500 years ago, it takes a good deal of enthusiasm and a keen sense of storytelling to keep a reader interested as you follow in his footsteps. Apparently, Marozzi has pulled it off: the book has placed highly on several top 10 lists for 2008. According to Anthony Sattin of The Times, “the narrative sizzles with insight, intrigue and improbability–not for nothing was Herodotus called the Father of Lies.” Herodotus was the first anthropologist, investigative journalist, foreign correspondent and travel writer and Marozzi retraces the journeys of the ancient scribe to Turkey, Iraq, Egypt and finally Greece. Says Kirkus Reviews: “Travelling along the great historian’s route, Marozzi encountered evidence of a good deal of fellatio, sodomy, sacred prostitution, necrophilia, bestiality and phallic worship–most of it, thankfully, at a historical distance. The sex is rarely very sexy, however, and Marozzi’s deft handling of history’s strange congruities and incongruities is far more interesting.”

Photo Credits:

 #1: cartophilia.com

#2, 3: barnesandnoble.com

Wales
The Welsh are great lovers of music and so every year at Christmas, carol singing is the most enjoyed activity. Carols are sung in churches, in people’s homes, around the Christmas tree and at the doors and windows of the houses. People also gather in the public square for the announcement of who has won the prize for submitting the best music for a new carol, and the formal pronouncement of it as the carol of the year. In some parts of Wales a villager is chosen to be the Mari Lwyd. This person travels around town draped in white and carrying a horse’s skull on a long pole. The eyes of the skull are filled with brightly-coloured objects and coloured ribbons are fixed to the skull. The jaw of the skull is often sprung or hinged so the Mari Lwyd’s operator can snap its jaws at passers by. If you are “given the bite” by the Mari Lwyd you are expected to pay a fine. In recent years the Mari Lwyd has come to represent the resurgence of interest in Welsh folk culture. Councils are now helping to organize bigger and better Mari Lwyds and the ceremony surrounding the ancient tradition is once again gaining in popularity.

The Netherlands
In the Netherlands the celebration of St. Nicholas Day on December 5 resembles the Christmas of North America. Sinterklaas, from whom the English and American Santa evolved, is based on the real St. Nicholas, and brings presents on the evening of December 5 to every child who has been good–gifts that are traditionally left in the child’s wooden shoes. Sinterklaas wears a tall bishop’s hat and a red cloak, carries a crooked staff and rides a white horse over the rooftops. He is assisted in his endeavours by mischievous helpers called zwarte Pieten (black Peters). Children put their shoes close to the fireplace before they go to bed and also set out some hay and water and sometimes a carrot for the horse. However, if the child had been naughty, the zwarte Pieten will put him or her in a sack and drag them off to the coal mines. Oddly enough, Sinterklaas is said to reside in Spain, and he arrives in Holland in mid-November by steamboat, an event which is often acted out in the many coastal communities of the Low Countries.

Japan
Some claim that the Japanese became acquainted with the Christmas because of all the holiday products they used to make for other countries, and then adopted some of the traditions. Whatever the truth, there are no religious aspects associated with the occasion. Instead, Christmas is widely celebrated as a day for romance much like Valentines’ Day. You will see a lot of “Christmas Love” cards, CD’s, etc. during this season. Bakeries sell Christmas cakes (strawberry cream sponge) as traditional sweetheart treats. In Japan, women of 25 years and older who are single are often jokingly referred to as “unsold Christmas cake.” The traditional Christmas meal is Kentucky Fried Chicken, and you will likely need to make a reservation to get a seat. At many KFC outlets, Colonel Sanders statues are decked out in Santa’s duds. In some Japanese households, carols are sung and gifts are exchanged on Christmas Day. Tinsel and lights are hung in homes, dance halls, cafes and pinball parlours. One of the most popular ornaments is the origami swan.

Greece
The Christmas feast is looked forward to with great anticipation by adults and children alike. Pigs are slaughtered and on almost every table are loaves of christopsomo (Christ Bread). This bread is made in large sweet loaves of various shapes and the crusts are engraved and decorated in some way that reflects the family’s profession. Christmas trees are not commonly used in Greece. In almost every home the main symbol of the season is a shallow wooden bowl with a piece of wire suspended across the rim; from that hangs a sprig of basil wrapped around a wooden cross. A small amount of water is kept in the bowl to keep the basil alive and fresh. Once a day, a family member, usually the mother, dips the cross and basil into some holy water and uses it to sprinkle water in each room of the house. This ritual is believed to keep the Killantzaroi, a species of goblins who appear only during the 12-day period from Christmas to the Epiphany (January 6), away from the house. The Killantzaroi are thought to emerge from the centre of the earth and to slip into people’s houses through the chimney. More mischievous than actually evil, these creatures do things like extinguish fires, ride astride people’s backs and sour the milk. Gifts are exchanged on St. Basil’s Day (January 1). On this day the “renewal of waters” also takes place, a ritual in which all water jugs in the house are emptied and refilled with new “St. Basil’s Water.”

Austria
In Austria and Bavaria, St. Nicholas has a strange and frightening companion called Krampus. This devil figure, often in chains, is dressed in fur with a scary mask and a long red tongue. Krampus carries a wooden stick or switches to threaten children who misbehave or do not know their lessons. Fortunately, St. Nicholas never lets Krampus harm anyone. Krampus Night is celebrated on December 5, the eve of St. Nicholas Day. Young men dress as Krampus and roam the streets looking for someone to beat with a stick. Brave children and adults go to the village square and throw snowballs to scare him off. Bread baked in the shape of Saint Nicholas or Krampus is for sale. On St. Nicholas Eve, children place their shoes on the window sill or outside their bedroom door in hopes they will be filled with goodies.

Venezuela
Venezuelans attend an early morning church service daily on December 24, called Misa de Aguinaldo. In Caracas, the capital city, it is customary to roller-skate to this service and many neighbourhoods close the streets to cars until 8 a.m. After Mass, everyone partakes of tostados and coffee. However, the main celebration occurs in the evening. Families get together to enjoy the traditional holiday meal: a long bread filled with cooked ham and raisins, followed by a dessert made of green papaya and brown sugar, slowly cooked for hours and served cold. Many homes put up a Christmas tree, but the most authentic Venezuelan custom is to display a nacimiento (Nativity scene). A more sophisticated nacimiento is the pesebre. This depicts an entire region with mountains, hills, plains and valleys. The central point is a replica of the manger at Bethlehem. The structure is a framework covered with canvas and painted accordingly. Often, the pesebre becomes a real work of art. On December 25, children awake to find their gifts scattered around the nacimiento. Tradition has it that it is the Child Jesus who brings gifts to the Venezuelan children instead of Santa Claus.

Spain
In the Catalonian regions of Spain all attention is focussed on Caga Tio, “the pooping log,” which wears a red hat and a smiling face. Fifteen days before Christmas, Caga Tio makes his appearance in the dining room, where he must be fed at least once every day. He likes oranges, crackers and sweet wine. Later on, Caga Tio is moved out of the dining room, into the living room, and is covered with a blanket to keep him warm. On Christmas Eve, before the traditional Christmas dinner, the kids are sent to their rooms to say their prayers, which gives the elders enough time to stash gifts under Caga Tio’s blanket. After their prayers are done, the kids return to the living room and start beating the hell out of poor Caga Tio with big sticks. And they sing songs that order Caga Tio to loosen his bowels and drop the presents. Presto! Out pops chocolates, candies, fruits and nuts. When he is through, the final object dropped is a salt herring, a garlic bulb, or an onion.

Finland
The Finns believe that Father Christmas lives in northern Finland in a place called Korvatunturi, north of the Arctic Circle. There is even a large tourist theme park called “Christmas Land” in the north of the country. On Christmas Eve people eat rice porridge and a sweet soup made from dried fruits in the morning or at lunchtime. They then decorate a spruce tree in the home. At mid-day, the Christmas peace declaration is broadcast on radio and TV from Turku, the ancient capital, in a symbolic ceremony that holds great importance for the Finns. Everything then comes to a virtual standstill. It is not until St. Stephen’s Day, December 26, that the country comes back to life. After the Christmas peace declaration, which everyone watches on TV, people go to the church and later the graveyard, to place a candle on the graves of family members. Then comes the sauna. After the sauna is the festive dinner, which include casseroles containing liver, rutabaga, carrot and potato, with cooked ham or turkey. Other dishes include raw, pickled salmon, herrings and a salad called “rosolli.” Children receive their presents on Christmas Eve, usually with a family member disguised as Father Christmas.

Photo Credits:

#1: interdependencecomplex.wordpress.com

#2: flickr.com

#3: mentalfloss.com

#4: flickr.com

A few years ago I travelled to Mexico to see the fabled Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. I stayed at the Hacienda Chichen, which is located only a few hundred metres from the main gate, so I could be on the grounds the first thing in the morning. It was a wise move. By doing so, I had several hours to explore the site virtually by myself, before the busloads of tourists began arriving from the surrounding towns and the Yucatan’s infamous humidity began to melt my brain. Chichen Itza was a magnificent place, beautiful, awe-inspiring and seemingly touched by magic in the drifting mist of the dawn.

The great pyramid of Kukulcan, the best restored and preserved of all the Mayan ziggurats, stood just inside the gates, and I can vividly recall standing in front of the steps and clapping my hands together and being delighted to hear the returning echo of a bird’s squawk. The noise is eerily similar to the cry of the quetzal, the sacred bird of the Mayas, an acoustical marvel that still puzzles scientists.

Yet, along with the sense of magic there was also a distinct creepiness to the ruins. This was once a vast ceremonial site where human sacrifice was actively practised, and no one here tries to disguise the fact. Even the evening light show features a human voice screaming in agony as he is killed. Of course, it’s diificult to miss the abundance of death imagery embedded in the stone. Jaguars and eagles are depicted ripping away at hearts and grinning skulls stare out from the sculpture and reliefs. There is even a structure called a Tzompantli or “skull rack” on which heads were once mounted. Some of these grisly trophies undoubtedly came from the Chichen Itza ballcourt, the largest in Mesoamerica, where one of the teams (academics debate whether it was the winning or losing side) would be put to death after the game had ended. Heads also used to roll at the Temple of the Warriors and its amazing assembly of 1,000 columns, which houses the famous reclining sculpture of Chaac-Mool, a sacrificial plate resting on his stomach.

Others met their maker atop the pyramid of Kulkucan in an elaborate and bloody ritual. The victim was stripped before being placed face-up over a convex altar. His arms and legs were held by specially designated priests while a fourth, called the nacom, would penetrate the victim’s chest with a flint knife just below the left breast. Reaching inside the chest cavity, the nacom would pull out the still beating heart and hand it to another priest, who would then smear the blood on the idol to which the sacrifice had been made. The corpse would be thrown to the courtyard below where priests of lower rank would skin the victim except for the hands and feet. The skin would then be worn by the officiating priest as he solemnly danced among the spectators. If the victim had been an especially brave warrior his body might be butchered and eaten by the nobles and other spectators.

Yet even creepier is the sense of dread one gets gazing into the murky, olive-green depths of the Sacred Cenote, a water-filled pit, 60 metres in diameter and rimmed by sheer limestone cliffs, from which Chichen Itza gets its name: Mouth of the Well of Water Sorcerers. These natural sinkholes are the only source of groundwater in the Yucatan and thus are highly prized, but this particular one was not used for drinking but rather as a place of pilgrimage by the ancient Maya. They believed the cenote was a gateway to the afterlife and would conduct human sacrifices here during times of drought, tossing in men, women and children along with material offerings.

The Sacred Cenote was dredged from 1904 to 1907 by the American adventurer and diplomat Edward H. Thompson, who purchased the entire site in 1894 and transformed it into a cattle ranch, while living in the Hacienda Chichen, my place of abode. Thompson recovered artifacts of gold, copper, obsidian and carved jade, as well as the first-ever examples of pre-Columbian Maya cloth and wooden weapons from the bottom of the well. He also found 127 human skeletons. He shipped the bulk of the artifacts to Harvard University’s Peabody Museum, but in 1926, the Mexican government seized his plantation, charging he had removed the artifacts illegally. In 1944 the Mexican Supreme Court overturned this decision and ruled in Thompson’s favour. Thompson, however, had died in New Jersey in 1935, so the Hacienda Chichen reverted to his heirs, who sold the property to the Barbachano family, who continue to own it today.

The skeletons recovered by Thompson confirmed early Spanish accounts of human sacrifice, which many scholars had previously dismissed as wild exaggeration. But another of his discoveries–the presence of a thick, four-metre high layer of blue residue at the bottom of the cenote–remained a perplexing mystery. At least it did until earlier this year, when a team of researchers led by Gary Feinman, curator of anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago, analyzed traces of blue paint on a pottery bowl left in the bottom of the well. They discovered that this was not just any pigment. Instead, it was the renowned Maya Blue, an important, vivid, and virtually indestructible turquoise pigment. Historians now know that the Maya associated the colour blue with their rain deities. When they offered sacrifices to the god Chaak–either by cutting out their hearts on an altar or throwing them into the Sacred Cenote at Chichén Itzá–they would paint them blue in hopes he would send rain to make corn grow. Blue paint was also used on murals, pottery, copal incense, rubber, wood and other items thrown into the well. Eventually, some of the pigment washed off and settled at the bottom of the cenote.

The investigators also noticed that the pottery bowl had a wedge of incense along with white flecks and the blue pigment. The incense was copal, made from a tree sap common in Mesoamerica, whose smoke was thought to feed the gods. The white flecks were of a white clay mineral named palygorskite. Previous studies had shown that Maya blue was created through the fusion of palygorskite with pigments from the leaves of the indigo plant. But no one knew how exactly, as the two substances do not readily react.

“Nobody has ever really figured out how those two key ingredients were fused into a very stable pigment,” noted Feinman in an interview. “We think that copal, the sacred incense, was a third ingredient. We’re arguing that heat and perhaps copal resin were the keys to fusing the indigo extract and the clay mineral.” In fact, the copal may have been the binding agent that allowed the colour to stay true for so long. The research team also believe that making Maya Blue was part of the sacrifice ritual. “My guess is that they probably had a large fire and a vessel over that fire where they were combining the key ingredients,” said Feinman. “And then they probably took pieces of the hot copal and put them into the vessel.”

“The Maya used indigo, copal incense and palygorskite for medicinal purposes,” explained anthropologist Dean Arnold, the author of the study. “So, what we have here are three healing elements that were combined with fire during the ritual at the edge of the Sacred Cenote. The result created Maya Blue, symbolic of the healing power of water in an agricultural community.”

Interesting stuff. Now if only some of these researchers could offer us a convincing explanation of why the Mayans, a people so advanced in mathematics, astronomy, art and architecture, felt compelled to base the fate of their civilization on the practice of savage human sacrifice.

Photo Credits:

#1: thehistoryblog.com

#2: dallas.net

#3: pro.corbis.com

#4: olympus-tours.com

1. At which Mayan city do tourists gather during the spring and fall to watch a snake slide down a pyramid?
A. Palenque
B. Tikal
C. Uxmal
D. Chichen Itza

2. What is the only country whose national flag is not rectangular or square, but rather the shape of two stacked triangles?
A. Nepal
B. Cyprus
C. Saudi Arabia
D. Cambodia

3. What is the world’s safest airline based on the number of miles a carrier has flown without a fatal accident?
A. Alaska Airlines
B. Qantas Airways
C. Swissair
D. AeroMexico

4. In which U.S. state are you most likely to be struck by lightning?
A. Hawaii
B. Texas
C. Florida
D. Washington

5. What country are you in if you are travelling to see a famous natural landmark that the native inhabitants call Uluru?
A. Tibet
B. Tanzania
C. Ecuador
D. Australia

6. In which city will you find the great square of Djemaa el Fna, “the gathering place of the dead”?
A. Damascus
B. Zanzibar
C. Marrakesh
D. Timbuktu

7. The well known children’s song “Here Comes Santa Claus” was inspired by a 1946 parade down a street in what American city?
A. New York
B. Boston
C. Detroit
D. Los Angeles

8. The Bay of Fires has been named the world’s “hottest” travel destination for 2009 by the international guide book, Lonely Planet. Where is the Bay of Fires?
A. Chile
B. Tasmania
C. New Zealand
D. Madagascar

9. Which country consumes the largest amount of coffee per person per year?
A. Norway
B. Italy
C. Brazil
D. The United States

10. Which country produces 60 percent of the world’s emeralds?
A. Russia
B. South Africa
C. Colombia
D. Australia

11. Considered “the religious capital of India,” this city attracts more than one million Hindu pilgrims each year. What is its name?
A. Varanasi
B. Bangalore
C. Dharamshala
D. Calcutta

12. The European colonial powers fought to gain control of the Spice Islands. What is the name by which we know these islands today?
A. The Maldives
B. The West Indies
C. The Moluccas
D. The New Hebrides

13. The skyline of what country’s capital city is dominated by the empty and dilapidated 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel?
A. Burma
B. Laos
C. Uzbekistan
D. North Korea

14. If you are driving the world’s longest highway, which country are you in?
A. Canada
B. Russia
C. China
D. Australia

15. According to Forbes magazine which city currently boasts the largest number of billionaires?
A. New York
B. Los Angeles
C. Moscow
D. London

Answers

1. D. Chichen Itza
The phenomenon that El Castillo is famous for occurs twice each year, at the spring and fall equinoxes. As the equinox sun sets, a play of light and shadow creates the appearance of a snake that gradually undulates down the stairway of the pyramid. This diamond-backed snake is composed of seven or so triangular shadows, cast by the stepped terraces of the pyramid. The sinking sun seems to give life to the sinuous shadows, which crawl down the stairs, before ultimately uniting with one of two enormous snake-head sculptures carved into the base of the stairway. Thousands of people gather to see this phenomenon, which may have been viewed by the ancient Maya as the manifestation of the god Kukulcan, the feathered serpent.

2. A. Nepal
The unusual shape is apparently owed to the fact that the flag was derived from two pennants that were used by separate branches of the Rana family, members of which served as the nation’s prime minister from 1846 until 1951. The white moon in the upper, smaller triangle represents the royal house, and the white sun represents the Rana family. Adopted as the official flag of Nepal 1962, the double pennant actually dates back to the 19th century.

3. B. Qantas Airways
Remember this exchange from the movie Rain Man? Tom Cruise says to Dustin Hoffman: “All airlines have crashed at one time or another. That doesn’t mean they aren’t safe.” “Qantas,” Hoffman replies. “Qantas never crashed.” Well, that isn’t quite right: the Australian airline suffered several fatal crashes in its early days, most involving biplanes or flying boats. However, Qantas remains the safest airline if one measures safety by the number of miles a carrier has flown without fatal accident. That said, hundreds of airlines have suffered no fatal crashes.

4. C. Florida
Florida has more thunderstorms–and thus, more lightning strikes–than any other U.S. state. Known as the “Lightning Capital of the World,” Florida averages more than 10 deaths and 30 injuries from electrical bolts per year. Approximately 50 percent of the deaths and injuries occur to individuals involved in recreational activities, and nearly 40 percent of those are water-related: boating, swimming, surfing and others.

5. D. Australia
Uluru, better known to the outside world as Ayers Rock, is one of Australia’s most recognizable natural icons. The sandstone formation stands 348 metres high with most of its bulk below the ground, and measures 9.4 kilometres in circumference. It is notable for appearing to change colour as the different light strikes it at different times of the day and year, with sunset a particularly remarkable sight when it briefly glows bright red. On 19 July 1873, the surveyor William Gosse visited Uluru and named it Ayers Rock in honour of the then-Chief Secretary of South Australia, Sir Henry Ayers. Since then, both names have been used. In 1993, a dual naming policy was adopted In Australia that allowed official names to consist of both the traditional Aboriginal name and the English name. On 15 December 1993, the landmark was renamed “Ayers Rock/Uluru” and became the first officially dual-named feature in the Northern Territory. The order of the dual names was officially reversed to “Uluru/Ayers Rock” on 6 November 2002 following a request from the Regional Tourism Association in Alice Springs.

6. C. Marrakesh
The name Djemaa el Fna in Arabic could either mean “assembly of the dead” or “place of the vanished mosque” but there is nothing ghostlike about the Djemaa. It is a massive square packed day and night by locals and tourists alike and a heritage site listed by UNESCO whose cultural space is a “masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity.” The plaza is the centre of medina life both day and night as a gathering place and unofficial stage for street theatre. For over a millennium, the daily bill has featured acrobats, henna tattoo artists, storytellers, belly dancers, musicians, snake charmers and potion sellers. 

7. D. Los Angeles
Gene Autry, “the singing cowboy,” was inspired to write the song after riding his horse down Hollywood Boulevard in the 1946 Christmas Parade and hearing numerous children call out, “Here Comes Santa Claus!” Soon after, Hollywood Boulevard became known as Santa Claus Lane during the holiday season.

8. B. Tasmania
“White beaches of hourglass-fine sand, Bombay Sapphire sea, an azure sky–and nobody,” wrote Lonely Planet. “This is the secret edge of Tasmania, laid out like a pirate’s treasure map of perfect beach after sheltered cove, all fringed with forest. It’s not long since the Bay of Fires came to international attention, and the crowds are bound to flock. Now is the time to visit.” The Bay of Fires finished higher on the hot list than such other contenders as the Basque country of France and Spain; Chiloe in Chile; Ko Tao in Thailand; Languedoc in France; and Nam Ha in Laos.

9. A. Norway
The serious caffeine fiends are all living in Northern Europe. Although more coffee is consumed in volume by drinkers in Brazil and America, Scandinavia tops the charts in terms of per capita consumption. Norway leads all nations with 10.7 kilograms consumed by person per year, followed closely by Finland, Denmark and Sweden.

10. C. Colombia
Some of the rarest and most expensive emeralds in the world come from three main mining areas in Colombia: Muzo, Coscuez, and Chivor. The green gems were mined there as far back as 1,000 A.D., long before the Spaniards arrived. Many of the gold and emerald encrusted items that the indigenous tribes created are displayed in the Museo del Oro in Bogotá.

11. A. Varanasi
Varanasi, or Benares, as it sometimes called, is one of the world’s most ancient cities. As Mark Twain wrote: “Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.” Located in North India, in the eastern part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, along the left bank of the Ganges River, ”the holy city of India,” attracts more than one million pilgrims each year. For the devout Hindu, Varanasi has always been a special place, besides being a pilgrimage centre. It is considered especially auspicious to die here, ensuring an instant route to heaven.

12. C. The Moluccas
The Spice Islands are known today as the Moluccas or Maluku Islands. They lie on the equator between Sulawesi and New Guinea in Indonesia, and were at one time the world’s only source of mace and nutmeg. Because of the high value that the spices had in Europe and the large incomes that it produced, the Dutch and British were soon involved in conflicts to try to gain a monopoly over the region. The fighting for control over these small islands became very intense with the Dutch even giving the island of Manhattan to the British in exchange for a small island that gave the Dutch full control over the Banda archipelago. The Bandanese people suffered badly in the fighting with most of the inhabitants being either slaughtered or enslaved by the Dutch. More than 6,000 were killed during the Spice Wars.

13. D. North Korea
The Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea’s capital city of Pyongyang is a complete engineering failure. Standing 1,083 feet tall, with a total of 3.9 million square feet of floor space, it was planned to have 3,000 rooms and seven revolving restaurants. It would be the tallest hotel and seventh largest building in the world if it were finished. It would also have been the first building with over one hundred floors outside of New York or Chicago. The first event scheduled to be held here was June 1989’s World Festival of Youth and Students, but the hotel was nowhere near ready for that event. Its construction was plagued with problems, and after five years ground to a halt due to a shortage of funding. Work has never resumed; the project was abandoned, leaving a lonely construction crane perched on the hotel’s peak. The shell of the building is complete, but it has not been certified as safe for occupancy. There are no windows, fixtures, or fittings. The extremely poor quality concrete used in its construction has left the building sagging to such a great degree that the structure can never be finished without a massive overhaul. The hotel, which was once found on city maps before construction even began, has now been completely stricken from the official maps. Tour guides usually claim not to know where it is.

14. A. Canada
Officially completed on September 3, 1962, the Trans-Canada Highway is the longest highway in the world. Stretching across Canada from Victoria, British Columbia, to St. John’s, Newfoundland, it covers 7,821 kilometres.

15. C. Moscow
According to Forbes magazine, the Russian capital is home to 74 billionaires, with an average net worth of $5.9 billion. That’s quite a jump from just five billionaire residents in 2002. Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska is the richest of Russia’s 500 billionaires with an estimated worth at about $40 billion. Moscow knocked off perennial No. 1 city New York, which ranks close behind with 71 billionaires and an average net worth of $3.3 billion. Coming in a distant third was London with 36 billionaires.

Photo Credits:

#1: mythencyclopedia.com

#2: sacred-destinations.com

#3: sweetwatervillas.com.au

#4: wikipedia.org/wiki/Varanasi

Crappy Keepsakes
Researchers at the world’s largest giant panda research centre in southwest China’s Sichuan Province have come up with a novel way to profit from panda dung: they make souvenirs out of it. The staff at the Chengdu centre has sculpted photo frames, bookmarks, fans and panda statues out of the 300 tons of excrement produced by 40 giant pandas each year.An official at the facility, Jing Shimin, claims the souvenirs are relatively odour free. “They don’t smell too bad because 70 per cent of the dung is just remains of the bamboo that the pandas are unable to digest.” According to Jing, the panda dung is carefully selected, then smashed, dried and sterilized at a temperature of 300 degrees Celsius to provide clean, raw material for the manufacturers. Craftsmen then draw or sculpt figures by hand for tourists to take home. “We used to spend at least 6,000 yuan (US $770) every month to get rid of the droppings but now they can prove lucrative as half of them will be sold as souvenirs.” 

The Silent Scream
A Sacramento amusement park received so many complaints about noise that they instituted a “No Screaming” policy on its new thrill ride–-the Scandia Screamer. The Screamer is a gigantic, windmill-like contraption that sends people plunging 16 stories at nearly 70 m.p.h. Anybody who makes too much noise is immediately pulled off the ride. Operators now recite the following warning to riders: “We are required to remove you from this ride if you make any noise. If you feel you might make a noise, please cover your mouth tightly with you hand, like this (the operator then covers mouth with hand). If we hear any noise through your hand, we will remove you from the ride. So please remain silent and enjoy the Screamer.”

Stalinist Nostalgia
Visitors to Lithuania can now sample life under Soviet rule and the brutal Gulag system at a new theme park called Stalin’s World. Founded by entrepreneur (and former wrestler) Viliumas Malinauskas, near Druskininkai, about 130 kilometres southwest of Vilnius, the park allows tourists to journey back to 1984 and experience KGB interrogations and even belt whippings inside a bunker located in the woods. Organizers call it Gulag Tourism, and they believe that visiting the park can be therapeutic. “There are still many in Lithuania who are sick with Soviet nostalgia,” says one organizer, “so we’ve started this show to help them recover.” After an amiable introduction, visitors are ordered to stop smiling or thinking and are chased through an elaborate labyrinth of corridors. The smallest infraction can bring about a violent encounter with angry KGB agents. The experience lasts two hours and costs about $50. The park can serve as an interesting history lesson for younger visitors. “It was scary indeed the way they treated people,” said a young woman who had visited the park. “And people didn’t know what to do. They would do whatever they want with people and that was frightening.” 

Naked Air
A German travel agent has come up with the ultimate in no-frills flying–a charter flight for passengers who want to fly naked. Naturist holidays are popular among former East Germans, who like nothing better than to stretch out on a naked beach. “The flight can be enjoyed as God intended,” says OssiUrlaub, a company specializing in selling vacations to travellers from the former east. Enrico Hess, head of OssiUrlaub, said his business plan was inspired by the enthusiasm for naturist holiday breaks in the days of Communism. The chartered plane will fly from the city of Erfurt to the Baltic island of Usedom, returning on the same day. All passengers must board and exit the plane clothed, but will be able to get undressed aboard the flight. However, there won’t be total nudity on board. For safety reasons, the flight crew will remain clad for the duration of the flight. Nor is the flight intended to be a mile-high club orgy. “I don’t want people to get the wrong idea,” Hess told Reuters. “It’s not that we’re starting a swinger club in mid-air or something like that. We’re a perfectly normal holiday company.”

Maggot Brain
Aaron Dallas brought back an unusual souvenir from Belize-–fly larvae buried in his skull. Dallas had bleeding bumps on his head that were moving and making noises. After initially being told he was suffering from shingles, a doctor eventually found five botfly larvae living near the top of Dallas’s skull and removed them. The thumb-nail-sized larvae, living in an open pit on his head, were thought to have been placed there by a mosquito. “I’d put my hand back there and feel them moving. I thought it was blood coursing through my head,” said Dallas. “I could hear them. I actually thought I was going crazy.”  Before receiving the correct diagnosis, he tried various creams and salves, but the pain only got worse. “It was weird and traumatic. I would get this pain that would drop me to my knees.” Dallas’s wife teased him about the ordeal, telling him, “I will love you through your maggots.” She even made a three-minute film titled, “Aaron’s visitors from Belize,” about the parasites. “It’s one of those things my wife loves to tell people about,” Dallas said. “It’s much funnier to everyone else. It makes my stomach turn over. It was cruel.”

Sacrifical Goats
Officials at Nepal’s state-run airline sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god whose symbol is seen on the company’s planes, after technical problems grounded one of its Boeing 757 aircraft. Royal Nepal Airlines, which has two Boeing jets, had to suspend some services due the problem. The goats were sacrificed on September 2, 2007, in front of the troublesome aircraft at Nepal’s only international airport in Katmandu in accordance with Hindu traditions. The animals were beheaded with a khukuri, a traditional curved knife. “The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights,” said Raju K.C., a senior airline official. He did not explain what the problem was. Local media blamed the problems on an electrical fault. 

Snakes Alive!
Customs officers at the Cairo airport arrested an Egyptian man who was trying to smuggle 700 live snakes onto a May 24, 2007, flight to Saudi Arabia. The slithery creatures were discovered in a carry-on bag after officers asked the man to open it. He told them the bag contained live snakes and warned them to keep their distance. Among the variety of serpents hidden in small cloth sacks were two poisonous cobras. The passenger said he hoped to sell the snakes to Saudis who display them in glass jars in shops, keep them as pets, or sell them to research centres. The man is accused of violating export laws and endangering the lives of other passengers.

Special Delivery Eyeball
An eyeball being transported within Australia to a hospital for transplant was instead delivered to a shocked hotel guest. The organ, sent from Queensland to Hobart, Tasmania, was packed in a foam box marked ‘Live Human Organs For Transplant.’ The box was mistakenly delivered by a taxi driver. The hotel guest received and signed for the delivery in the middle of the night. “I thought this is just too weird. I went and put it in the fridge because I didn’t know what else to do with it. It was more than a little disconcerting,” he later said. The agitated guest brought the package to the reception desk the next morning. A courier arrived shortly after and took the eyeball away. An Australian Air Express spokeswoman confirmed a “failure in an internal handover process,” which means the taxi driver was given the wrong package to deliver. She said the company sincerely regretted the incident, saying, “As soon as we discovered the error we quickly rectified that and delivered the consignment within the appropriate timeframe.” 

Crazy Ass 
A man with a donkey checking into an Irish hotel under the name “Mr. Shrek” was later arrested and charged with cruelty to an animal and lewd behaviour. Thomas McCarney told the hotel staff the donkey was a breed of “super rabbit” that he was bringing to a fair. The donkey went berserk in the middle of the night, damaging the room’s minibar and running up and down the hotel corridor. Police were called and found McCarney in his hotel room wearing a latex suit and handcuffs, the key to which the donkey is thought to have swallowed. McCarney’s lawyer said his client’s wife recently left him, and he had become increasingly lonely. “Mr. McCarney has been attending counselling at which he was told that he would be advised to get out and meet people and do interesting things. It was this advice that saw him book into the city centre hotel with a donkey.”

Idealistic Slavery
An American couple, Ron and Carla Bluntschli, announced plans to build a theme park where visitors can play the role of slaves. Guests at Memory Village will be bound and tortured at a resort in Haiti, which was a slave nation before becoming the world’s first black republic. During the course of a 12-hour day, participants would receive traditional African clothing and then be mock-kidnapped from their homelands, shackled, chained and forced to march to the slave ship (resting on a real stream), where they’d be piled in as cargo for the crossing of the Atlantic. Once the ship reached the New World, the participants would be brought to market and sold, then broken down in the quarantine and put to work on a plantation. At the end of the day, they would take part in a recreation of history’s only successful slave rebellion, which eventually led to the establishment of Haiti in 1804. The couple, who have lived in Haiti for 22 years, have set up a foundation to make Memory Village a reality and have already raised enough money to buy half the land they need.

Photo Credits:

#1: english.peopledaily.com.cn

#2: trendhunter.com

#3: esharkdesign.com 

Just like the ancient wonder, virtual Rome wasn’t built in a day. The first digital real-time reconstruction of the city is the result of a 10-year effort by an international team of architects, computer scientists, engineers and archaeologists led by Bernard Frischer, head of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia. The undertaking was enormous—more than 100 people worked on the project.

Rome was at its peak in the fourth century, with over a million inhabitants. It was the largest metropolis the world had ever seen: not until Victorian-era London, 1,500 years later, did an urban area surpass Rome’s size. To create a digital version of the Eternal City, the research team scanned the “Plastico di Roma Antica,” a 1:250 scale model of the city carefully crafted from plaster that was completed in the 1970s. At that scale, the mighty Colosseum is just eight inches tall—but the model still covers 3,000 square feet. Collaborating with engineers from Milan Polytechnic, the Rome Reborn designers used lasers designed to measure jet aircraft to scan the entire model, which depicts the city as it looked during the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great. The scans were converted into digital form, and programmers worked to turn the scans into Rome. The work was highly detailed: each six-by-six section contained 60 million data points.

To insure accuracy, the team consulted leading scholars to refine high-resolution 3-D renditions for about 30 of the most famous buildings, inside and out. Designers based the 7,000 other buildings—apartments, baths, bakeries, warehouses—on precise laser scans of the Plastico di Roma Antica model. Because of its size and importance, Rome may be one of the most-studied cities in history. The urban centre of the classical world was 16 square miles, protected by 11 miles of walls. Its buildings have captivated architects for centuries, while classicists, historians and archaeologists have spent entire careers trying to understand how the city functioned.

For academics and researchers, the Rome Reborn model will be a way to test theories about exactly how the city worked and looked. One such question—What was the actual seating capacity of the Colosseum?–has already been answered. The great Roman amphitheatre, inaugurated by Titus in A.D. 80, had 76 public entrances and an additional 4 entrances reserved for the emperor. Seats were arranged according to the social status of the spectators. Those on the first three tiers from the top were usually reserved for the nobles while the common man used the seats on the fourth tier. Each entrance and exit was numbered, as was each staircase. Although the Colosseum was designed so that it could be filled or evacuated quickly, estimates of the carrying capacity varied wildly from 35,000 to 80,000. Researchers working on the digital project populated the model with virtual spectators to narrow that estimate down to 48,000 to 50,000 people.

Frischer has stated that the virtual modelling technique might be extended to other famous cultural heritage sites such as colonial Williamsburg, the Great Pyramids of Giza, and the Sacred Valley in Peru. “This is just the first step in the creation of a virtual time machine, which our children and grandchildren will use to study the history of Rome and many other great cities around the world.”

Meanwhile, the simulation has recently become available online at Google Earth, so you don’t have to travel all the way to Italy to see it. View the magic at http://earth.google.com.rome

Photo Credits:

#1: geocarta.blogspot.com

#2: wired.com

#3: daylife.com

Connecting La Paz, the nation’s capital, at 3,800 metres above sea level, and the town of Corocio in the Amazon basin, at 330 metres, the North Yungas was built by prisoners during Bolivia’s war with Paraguay from 1932 to 1935. As the only route linking northern Bolivia to the capital it has always been heavily traversed by buses, minivans, trucks, tankers, taxis and private vehicles. It is not unusual to see bus and truck drivers stop before entering the most treacherous stretches and make offerings at the roadside, burning objects and tipping beer onto the ground, beseeching the goddess Pachamama for safe passage. Then, chewing coca leaves to keep themselves awake, they are off at breakneck speeds in vehicles which should not be on any road, let alone this one.

Making conditions even more hazardous is the fog that rises up from the valley below, resulting in almost constant limited visibility. During the rainy season tropical downpours often cause parts of the road to slide down the mountain. Overhangs present the added danger of falling rock, while In several sections, waterfalls crash directly onto the road, and it can be muddy throughout.

The most treacherous section of the road consists of a series of sharp, blind curves around the mountain. A cautionary honk is usually all the warning one gets from the many trucks carrying bananas and other tropical products uphill. Because so many people have met their maker along here, volunteers known as “human traffic lights,” sometimes station themselves at the most dangerous curves and signal to the drivers if it is safe to continue around the bend. In return, they often are tipped by the drivers. As one might guess, passing often poses a serious problem. When two vehicles meet, descending drivers normally have to back up until there is enough space for ascending drivers to pass. With horrifying frequency, they back entirely off the cliff. On July 24, 1983, Carlos Pizarroso Inde drove his bus over the edge, killing more than 100 passengers in Bolivia’s worst road accident.

Although guard rails are non-existent, there are few unwritten local traffic rules to help reduce the carnage. One holds that the descending driver never has the right of way and must move to the outer edge of the road–this forces fast vehicles to stop so that passing can be done more safely. Also, vehicles must drive on the left, as opposed to the right, as is the case in the rest of Bolivia. The reason vehicles drive on the left side is because they have their steering wheels on the left-hand side. The road is so narrow that the driver has to be able to stick his head out the window to make sure his wheels are on the road.

Ironically, the road’s notoreity has made it a tourist destination for adventure-seeking foreigners eager to add “drove the world’s most dangerous road” to their list of accomplishments. In recent years, the North Yungas has also become a major attraction for extreme mountain bikers. Today, two dozen companies in La Paz that cater specifically to this cult market of adrenaline junkies. The seven-hour bike ride starts out even higher than La Paz, at 4,876 metres, and sends riders rocketing down the slope at blistering speeds on a descent to the subtropical jungle. On the way they pass rows of shrines and crosses and faded flowers marking the spots of fatal accidents. The reward for completing the terrifying trek is a T-shirt that says: “I Rode the World’s Most Dangerous Road.” The companies offering these services claim that the two-wheeled method of navigation is safer than using a vehicle. Even so, at least 13 of these daredevil cyclists have been killed on the route since 1998.

After years of empty promises, the Bolivian government is now finally finishing a new road that circumvents the worst sections of the North Yungas, but hundreds of vehicles continue to use the old dirt track as a short cut. And people continue to tumble to their deaths.

Just something to keep in mind the next time you are complaining about your daily commute.

Photo Credits:

#1,4: ssqq.com

#2,3: darkroastedblend.com

Michael Scott, the entrepreneur who opened the attraction in July 2008, said in a Reuters interview that there is plenty of demand for the $83 thrill with the venue even boasting one celebrity croc, the 5.1 metre long Burt, who starred in the Australian movie Crocodile Dundee. “In the Northern Territory, the saltwater crocodile is an icon and is part of our life. They are always in the news, either in someone’s swimming pool or killing someone’s favourite horse,” said Scott.

Saltwater crocodiles, known locally as “salties,” are earth’s largest reptile, with males growing up to seven metres long and weighing more than 1,000 kilograms. They are found across Southeast Asia, but the highest numbers inhabit northern Australia. Not fussy eaters, these crocs will dine on monkeys, kangaroo, wild boar, dingos, birds, domestic livestock, pets, water buffalo, sharks and humans. Most prey animals are killed by the creature’s incredible jaw pressure. The saltwater crocodile reportedly has a bite force of 3,800 pounds, about the same as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. To put this in perspective, the bite of a five metre “saltie” would be like a 3.5 tonne diesel truck landing on your foot. And that’s not taking into account the effect of the teeth. Few people who have experienced the sensation have lived to tell of it. One who did was a veterinarian at a Taiwanese zoo who was doing medical work on a saltwater crocodile in April 2007, when the inadequately sedated animal suddenly awoke and bit his forearm off. After seven hours of surgery, the appendage was successfully reattached.

Although saltwater crocodiles are definitely dangerous, fatal attacks on humans in Australia are actually quite rare. Since 1971, there have been 74 documented attacks–22 of which have been fatal. The most recent occurred in October 2008 in Queensland when Arthur Booker, 62, went out to check some crab pots on a crocodile-infested river in the state’s north. Booker’s wife, Doris, later found the crab pot with the rope severed, and a video camera on the riverbank alongside crocodile claw marks. A search for Booker located his watch and sandals nearby. Two weeks later his remains were found inside a 4.5 metre crocodile.

Austraila is not the only place to employ these prehistoric giants as a tourist draw. At several crocodile farms in Thailand gaping spectators gather to watch young men perform stunts like reaching down the throats of crocodiles and even putting their heads between the jaws. Alligator wrestling also was once a mainstay of the Florida tourist industry, but changing public tastes and determined pressure from animal activists has recently put this form of entertainment on the endangered list.

However, in northern Australia the connection runs deeper. The crocodile, which is an important figure in aboriginal culture, appearing frequently in stories, songs and artwork, has emerged as a symbol of the region. The Townsville Crocs are one of the region’s pro basketball teams. There are car rental companies, hotels, restaurants, and even an ice cream bar named after crocodiles. And this fascination shows no signs of slowing down. In 2007, the Australian film industry produced not one, but two thrillers about killer crocs.

Blackwater transports viewers into the Australian swamplands with three luckless twentysomething tourists. The trio, relaxing on a boat tour, have barely cracked open their first beer when a man-eating crocodile knocks them overboard, consumes their tour guide and then chases them up a mangrove tree. Rogue recounts the story of a group of tourists on a river cruise whose boat is rammed from below and sinks into a swamp. The terrified sightseers find themselves marooned on a tiny island that turns out to be the lair of a huge, man-eating saltwater crocodile.  The promotional poster for Rogue evoked the famous Jaws image, depicting a monstrous crocodile emerging from the gloom beneath a flailing swimmer. The film’s catchline is “Welcome to the Territory.”

The most expensive Australian horror film ever made, Rogue was written and directed by Greg McLean, who hit box-office paydirt in 2005 with his grisly thriller Wolf Creek, in which three backpackers whose car has broken down in the Outback fall prey to a lone maniac who kidnaps and tortures them. Before its release, Australian tourism officials expressed fears that Wolf Creek, which is based on a true story, would deter foreigners from visiting the country’s outback. Instead, backpacker visitors to Oz actually increased by nine per cent during the year after the film was released.

Given this evidence, instead of scaring the crapola out of prospective visitors, tourism reps said that they expected Rogue to attract visitors to the Northern Territory. Tourism Top End president Sylvia Wolf noted that the prospect of dicing with danger, whether it is with a mad murderer or a giant crocodile, appears to boost tourist numbers. “Whenever we have a bad accident or somebody gets taken by a croc, it seems that the interest goes up,” she said.

Maree Tetlow, managing director of the Northern Territory Tourist Commission, also predicted an increase. “Crocodiles and national parks are big attractions for visitors to the Northern Territory and potentially the movie will showcase both.”

Even so, not all Australians are sold on the idea of crocodiles as a tourist magnet. A major controversy erupted earlier this year over the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to relocate a crocodile 1,000 kilometres from Bamaga, in far north Queensland, to Barramundi Creek, south of Townsville, as part of a scientific experiment to see whether it would establish a new home range. In October, just a few weeks after Arthur Booker’s gruesome demise, the crocodile, dubbed Whitey by locals, shifted itself to a more luxurious location off the popular Magnetic Island resort. Tourist operators were incensed when beaches were closed after Whitey was spotted, and a local council candidate organized a “Stop the Croc” rally.

But Queensland Tourism Minister Desley Boyle claimed that crocodiles in waters close to populated areas were actually a boon to tourism because it lured international tourists wanting up-close photos. “The fascination with our wildlife, including our dangerous wildlife, is a drawcard to tourists in the tropics, far from it being a barrier or a means of dissuading them from coming,” she said. 

Boyle’s comments did not sit well with local business people who began organizing a campaign to have her sacked. At the same time, opposition politicians started clamouring for an official probe into the Environmental Protection Agency’s crocodile management program. As for Whitey, he later died died of starvation in an EPA holding pen, having swallowed 25 plastic shopping and garbage bags and a plastic wine cooler bag that prevented him digesting food.

Photo Credits:

#1: ntnews.com.au

#2: dailymail.co.uk

#3: videogum.com

#4: premium.asia.cnn.com

Maybe the hardest thing to believe about Las Vegas is that exists at all. It’s the world’s largest oasis, set in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The resort’s origins date back to 1946, when mobster Bugsy Siegel’s built Las Vegas’s first glitzy casino, the Flamingo, named, for his long-legged girlfriend, Virginia Hill. Modeled after the resort hotels in Miami, the Flamingo was what Siegel called a “carpet joint.” He didn’t live long enough to see the Flamingo flourish. After going $5 million over budget on construction, Siegel was murdered in 1947 by his East Coast financial partners. But the Flamingo gave Las Vegas exactly what it needed to become Nevada’s number one gambling destination–a luxurious hideaway where the high rollers could spend their money in style. The Flamingo, a riot of vibrating pink neon, still exists today, but Siegel wouldn’t recognize it, or anything else about the town.

In Siegel’s day, less than 9,000 people lived here. Today, with a population of two million, Las Vegas is the fastest-growing American metropolis. The city’s setting, in a desert basin rimmed by rust-coloured mountains, affords several spectacular nearby sightseeing options, including an array of national parks and Hoover Dam, Lake Mead and Red Rock Canyon. But the majority of the city’s 35 million annual tourists don’t come here seeking natural wonders, but rather those of the artificial kind, which are plentiful in a place that has been described as “A Disneyland for adults bad at math.” According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, 87 percent of tourists will gamble during their stay, and although the LCVA doesn’t mention it, most of them will lose. Gambling revenues in Vegas in 2007 totalled more than $6 billion.

It’s no mystery why Vegas has never felt much need to diversify its economy beyond the tourism and gaming sector. Seventeen of the 20 biggest hotels in the world are found here, including the largest, the MGM Grand, which has more than 5,000 rooms and 12 theme restaurants. Unlike other cities, where hotels are built near the major attractions, in Vegas the hotels are the major attractions. Each megaresort boasts a crowd-attracting gimmick. The Mirage has a volcano that erupts nightly at 30-minute intervals, the Bellagio boasts a nine-acre lake and fountains that dance to classical music, Treasure Island stages an epic battle between pirate ships, Paris sports a replica of the Eiffel Tower, Luxor features a 10-storey tall Sphinx with laser-beam eyes and a full-scale reproduction of King Tut’s Tomb, while the Venetian has a network of canals, replete with crooning gondoliers.

I checked out virtually every major hotel on the Strip during my stay, but ended up playing most of my poker at the Imperial Place. Located across the street from Caesar’s Palace in the heart of the Strip, the Imperial Palace, or “the I.P.” as the locals call it, is an anomaly in Vegas, a worn relic where the fakery is completely see-through. Built in 1979 on a narrow parcel of land, the Imperial barely has space for a driveway, much less a volcano. Its lone sidewalk gimmick is a white, jump-suited Elvis impersonator—you pose with him in front of a giant slot machine, then collect your free photo inside the casino. For many years the Imperial was owned by Ralph Engelstad, the grandson of a Minnesota potato farmer, who made it big in real estate, earning his fortune in 1967, by selling 145 acres to Howard Hughes, who used it to build the North Las Vegas Airport. Under Engelstad’s command, the Imperial became known for room rates geared toward the middle class, celebrity impersonators and an antique-car collection considered the third-largest in the world. Included among the old Cadillacs, Duesenbergs, and cars of former U.S. presidents were a number of autos that once belonged to leaders of the Third Reich, including Adolph Hitler’s 1939 parade car and a Mercedes owned by Heinrich Himmler, the commander of the S.S.

Engelstad’s collection of Nazi memorabilia grew in the mid-1980’s, as he planned to accompany his cars with a public museum. The hotel’s collection, which became known as the “war room,” included Nazi knives, propaganda posters, uniforms and swastika banners. In the late 1980s, Engelstad ran into trouble when reporters revealed that he had held two private parties in the war room on April 20–Hitler’s birthday–in 1986 and 1988. The festivities featured “a cake decorated with a swastika, German food, and German marching music,” according to Jeff Burbank’s book License to Steal: Nevada’s Gaming Control System in the Megaresort Age, which devotes a chapter to Engelstad’s collection. As Burbank wrote: “Bartenders wore T-shirts bearing the words, ‘Adolph Hitler-European Tour 1939-45.’ A life-size portrait of Hitler with the inscription, ‘To Ralphie from Adolph, 1939,’ hung on the wall. Beside it was a second painting with a likeness of Engelstad in a Nazi uniform with the message ‘To Adolph from Ralphie.’”

Nevada Gaming Control Board agents found a plate used to print hundreds of bumper stickers with the message “Hitler was Right” that were sent out from the hotel. In the media frenzy that ensued, Engelstad released a statement saying, “I despise Hitler and everything he stood for.” He insisted the parties were “spoofs” designed to celebrate the purchase of several new additions to the hotel’s Third Reich collection. But the damage had been done. The board, citing harm to Nevada’s national image, fined Engelstad $1.5 million. After his death in 2002, the property was bought by Harrahs.

I knew nothing about Englestad when I was in Vegas, but his hotel definitely qualified as eccentric.  Although its pagoda towers suggested Japan, the indoor theme was closer to Hawaii with a Mai Tai lounge and a poolside luau buffet. Geographic consistency may not have been a priority, but organized lunacy appeared to be. The blackjack “dealertainers” were made up to resemble Bette Midler, Michael Jackson and Ray Charles, and were liable at a moment’s notice to break into song. The first time I strolled through they were dressed as the Blues Bothers with black fedoras and Ray-Bans. On the stage in the centre of the casino one of the dealers was doing a frenetic impression of John Belushi singing “Soul Man.”

I picked the Imperial after researching poker rooms online at www.allvegaspoker.com, where the various venues are rated according to such factors as ambience, quality of competition and the attractiveness of the cocktail waitresses. One review stated that the Imperial’s casino resembled ”the villains’ den in a Bruce Lee film,” a description that I found irresistible. By Vegas standards, the Imperial was actually quite low key. Its diversions don’t come close to matching the hubbub at the MGM Grand’s 23-table poker room, which is ringed by a bar with go-go dancers and a rock band, a sports book decked out like a NASA control centre, the Rainforest Cafe and a glass-enclosed lion habitat. All the tables at the I.P. feature low stakes Hold’em, which renders mirror shades and killer stares ridiculous and erases any chance of rubbing shoulders with Ben Affleck. What passed for extravagance was the complimentary tray of sandwiches and cookies they brought out every few hours. The room’s quirky, low-rent atmosphere was completed by the dealers, who although not official “dealertainers,” are no less distinctive, with the men resembling extras from The Sopranos and the women loudly cracking their gum and calling everyone, “Hon.”

My trip to the desert, much like the game of Texas Hold’em, was a series of revelations. Vegas, I learned, has the key to unlock our inner child. Virtually anything you want to do here is legit. Guilt and adult responsibility are suddenly swept away and you are free to indulge your vices. Want to eat chocolate cake at 3:00 a.m.? No one cares. Craving a lap dance at 2:00 in the afternoon? No problem. Want to gamble all night? Go right ahead. No one is going to judge you. It’s somehow reassuring to know that no matter what your particular kink is, there is someone else in the hotel, perhaps even in the next room, doing far worse things.  

Las Vegas is one of those rare places with the power to banish time, and not simply by removing all the clocks from its casinos. The city encourages you to live in the moment and indulge in fantasy. Casino poker was mine, and the dream unfolded in style. I loved the disarming camaraderie I found among the players, the eccentric charm of the dealers and the hypnotic swirl and clatter of chips and cards. Even better, I won some money. Against all odds, alone in the weirdest city of them all, I felt right at home.

Photo Credits:

 #1: letstravelvacations.com

#2: engagementguide.wordpress.com

#3, 4: photobucket.com

Hollywood star power created Puerto Vallarata as a tourist destination. The transformation of the sleepy fishing village of 2,000 souls began on November 11, 1954, when Mexicana de Aviación airline inaugurated its Guadalajara-Puerto Vallarta flight. One of the first visitors was American movie director John Huston, who built a home here in the small cove of Las Caletas where he lived until his death. In 1963, when Huston was hired to direct the film version of Tennessee Williams’ play, The Night of the Iguana, he changed the story’s setting from Acapaulco to his adopted home. The famous cast, headed by Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner, and the exotic locale soon attracted a swarm of international media, especially after Elizabeth Taylor arrived to join Burton. Both married, the two created a major scandal with their illicit romance. In addition to generating reams of gossip, the media, and later, Huston’s film, showcased the primeval beauty of the place. From then on, Puerto Vallarta ceased to be a secret hideaway waiting to be discovered. Today, the resort is one of the world’s most visited beach destinations, attracting 2.5 million tourists each year.

In the latest issue of Westworld magazine, Vancouver journalist Jeff Topham writes about his recent visit to Puerto Vallarta, where he explored the resort’s historical underpinnings and its modern evolution as viewed from the perspective of an eco-conscious green theme. Topham sat down with me to answer some questions about his experiences there.

1. Was there anything that surprised you, or that you didn’t expect to see in Puerto Vallarta?  

Honestly, I was a bit stunned that the place was so beautiful–and that it actually felt like Mexico. I have to admit that prior to this trip, Puerto Vallarta meant big hotels, parasailing and bad sunburns. I would not have considered it a place for a cultural experience. But I was genuinely surprised to find otherwise.  

2. Puerto Vallarta makes a big deal about director John Huston and the American movie stars that originally put the town on the tourist map. Is there any of that old Puerto Vallarta left to see, or is it simply dusty nostalgia?

Actually, the authenticity and charm of the old town was also something that surprised me. I really arrived expecting just generic hotels and happy-hour bars, but the old part of Vallarta still has a very real feel. And if you go just a few miles north or south, life probably isn’t that much different from the way it was 40 years ago. It’s easy to see what Huston was drawn to.  

3. How did your experience of Puerto Vallarta differ on this excursion from your previous visit to the resort. When was that and was it a vacation? 

From what I can remember, I think it was a spring break trip when I was in university maybe a dozen years ago–which was obviously the source of some of my prejudices surrounding Vallarta. I sure didn’t recall all the high-end art galleries or five-star restaurants. And I didn’t do any Jell-O shots from a waitress’s navel this time around.

4. Did you get the feeling that ecotourism and going green is a major theme in Mexico, or is it merely a sideline aimed at the gringo tourist trade?  

I might not say ‘major theme,’ but you can definitely see it is becoming part of the local collective consciousness. I think even seeing basic stuff like the recycling of plastic water bottles is an indicator that there has been a genuine shift. Sure, there are definitely a lot of ecotourism operations where the eco stands far more for economy than ecology–there are a lot of 4×4s and big powerboats taking people to experience the “pristine nature”-–but I’m hopeful both travellers and tour operators will evolve.

5. What was your dominant impression of Sayulita, the beach town north of Puerto Vallarta? 

I’d hop a cheap flight to Puerto Vallarta and take the $2 bus ride for a surf weekend in Sayulita in a heartbeat. I think it would be about the same cost* and travel time as a Vancouver to Tofino trip–and the water is a little warmer… (*carbon offset credits not included).

6. The Hotelito Desconocido, which is located south of Puerto Vallarta, sounds like a very interesting eco-conscious place. What sort of tourists does it attract? Was the hotel busy? Is there anything else you can relate about it that you didn’t include in your article? 

It really was beautiful–just so thoughtfully planned out. But really just so simple. I always find it amazing how much we will pay for simplicity. It’s not a big place, so even at full capacity I don’t think it would seem busy. Funny, but maybe not surprising, that the hotel guests I met there were Canadian, from Vancouver–from my neighbourhood.

7. How much courage does it take to ride the zipline through the jungle canopy with Vallarta Adventures? 

I think as long as you’re ok with heights, it’s actually not quite as extreme as you might think. It also depends on the quality of the tequila you were drinking the night before, and the magnitude of your hangover. (Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty of room for hedonism in Vallarta.)

8. On my last visit to Mexico I bought a piece of Huichol Indian art, just as you did on your trip to Vallarta. What it is about their art that appeals to you, and did you do any additional research on the Huichol?  

I’m going to go with the attention to detail. The effort the artists put into this work is staggering. There’s a lot of stuff that’s pumped out just for tourists, but ask around and you’ll quickly see the difference between the real artists and the manufacturers. I had planned on visiting a Huichol community to see where all the tourist money goes, but it didn’t pan out. One of the Huichol artists also offered to show me the artistic inspiration that peyote provides for them the next time I was there, but that would be a whole other trip.

Photo Credits:

 #1: z.about.com

#2: vallarta.blog.wexico.com

 #3: discoveryvallarta.com

Although there is no scientific basis for Moore’s claims of leech-assisted “blood detoxification,” that didn’t stop her from seeking out and spending a good deal of money on this unusual rejuvenation therapy. She is just one of a growing number of spa goers (most of them women), who have dispensed with the traditonal massage and manicures and are now pursuing increasingly bizarre health and beauty treatments. The novelty factor is clearly a major part of the appeal. But do any of these therapies actually work? I’ll let you be the judge.

Soothing Serpents
Israel’s contribution to the world of massage tourism is a spa called “Ada Barak’s Carnivorous Plant Farm.” Among the shadows of northern Israel’s famous orange groves, Barak has long opened her home to curious travellers to see her collection of carnivorous plants and other natural oddities. When snakes became part of the exhibition, she noticed the soothing effect they had on visitors–and the snake massage was born. For 300 shekels (US$70), the spa will treat clients to what it claims is a relaxing massage to cure aching muscles and joints using six non-venomous snakes. The larger reptiles are supposedly good for deep tissue massage, while their smaller counterparts are ideal for delicate areas such as the face. (Rats balanced on one’s feet during the massage are apparently optional).

Lotta Bull
Is your hair feeling limp and uninspired? If so, then maybe what you need is a trip to Hari’s Salon in London, England. The upmarket salon uses bull semen as a protein-rich hair treatment to nourish hair follicles and brighten and repair. The bull spunk is combined with Katera root, another protein powerhouse. The mixture is massaged into the client’s tresses after it has been shampooed. Then the customer is put under a steamer so the treatment penetrates to the roots. Finally, it is blow-dried. Salon owner Hari Salem claimed he had tried hundreds of products, including wild New Zealand avocados and truffle oil, before adopting his new conditioner. “I have been searching for an organic product with a lot of protein because that is what hair is made of and lacks when it is dry. All the best treatments are protein based. Synthetic treatments are good, but they are heavy if you have fine hair and can make it look greasy. In the end, the bull’s sperm was the winner,” he said, adding that the liquid is refrigerated before use and doesn’t smell. The treatment costs $125 and uses semen from Aberdeen Angus bulls.

Dung-Faced
At the Diamond Spa at the Diamond Hawaii Resort & Spa in Maui, spa-goers looking for a little face finessing can now turn to the complexion-healing power of nightingale dung. The skin is treated with coating of dehydrated droppings, a technique used for centuries by Japanese Kabuki actors and Geisha girls to remove heavy makeup while leaving their skin fresh and supple. Nightingale droppings are said to contain natural enzymes that act as exfoliants and skin brighteners, so what looks unsightly on the ground actually makes your face look great. “The reason this product may work is the high concentration of urea in the fecal-urine combination in bird feces,” says dermatopharmacologist Brian Keller. “Urine has a lot of urea in it and it has long been used as a skin-softening agent.” Also known as Geisha Facials, the cost of a single treatment ranges between $144 and $225.

“Beam Me Up Scotty”
The newest in weight-loss therapy is the Oxy-LED Spa Capsule, a machine that looks like it belongs on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Acoording to the Med Spa Clinic in Tunbridge Wells, England, the capsule emits light in wavelengths ranging from 625 to 980 nm, that stimulate your body in such a way that you shed the pounds. It also will rejuvenate and relax you, reduce stress, increase circulation, detoxify your body, relieve pain and improve your sleep. This light therapy can be combined with other spa treatments, like the dry thermal heat and vibratory massages for even better effects. The company’s website mentions that the machine provides “intense physical stimulation,” which sounds suspiciously X-rated. A session will set you back anywhere from $130 to $200, depending upon whether you stay inside 30 or 100 minutes.

Electric Buns
Smooth Synergy Cosmedical Spa in New York City offers what it calls “the Fanny Facial.” The spa has skipped the face completely and headed directly south with a treatment that combines a body scrub, microcurrents to zap zits, and a sunless tanning application. The microcurrent therapy also helps reduce the appearance of cellulite and tones your backside. According to spa owner Nicole Contos, “The derriere is an area that is often neglected, but people are concerned about keeping it in shape and there aren’t many other spa treatments that pay attention to this area.”

Dr. Fish
Sticking your feet into a tub full of flesh-nibbling fish and calling it a pedicure is already de rigueur in several parts of Asia—but at the Sampuoton Spa in Selangor, Malaysia, the garra rufa (a small fish in the carp family that feeds on dead skin cells) is used for full-immersion purposes. The process is simple: you lounge in a heated pool for an hour while swarms of “nibble fish” snack away at rough spots and deep-clean your pores. While feeding, the fish also reportedly exude an enzyme that slows the return of skin problems like acne. The ticklish need not apply.

Midas Touch
They say that Cleopatra maintained her youth by wearing a face mask of pure gold to bed. Now in luxury-obsessed Japan, you too can gild your features and feel like a modern-day queen. This treatment, which was showcased at Beautyworld Japan 2007 by Umo Inc., is now available at some 30 salons and spas across Japan. In the 24-Karat Gold Facial, sheets of gold are applied directly to the skin. This metallic mask “hydrates, lifts and firms, fights free radicals, lightens and brightens and leaves a golden glow.” Gold leaf supposedly accelerates cell growth in the basal layer of the skin. “The effects of gold include anti-ageing. It can also remove wrinkles and blemishes that women often worry about,” said a UMO spokesperson. The price of one session, which lasts between one and two hours, runs around $300.

Yeast of Eden
“It was the dream of many men, to swim in beer, and now it’s a reality, says Mojmir Prokes, general manager of the Chodovar Beer Spa in the Czech Republic. Visitors are immersed in a hot bath of dark Czech lager and mineral water enriched with active beer yeast and dehydrated crushed herbs. The warm water opens pores providing skin with a “wide range of vitamins, proteins and saccharides” that soften and regenerate the skin. Prokes claims that “the mineral water is good for people with high blood pressure, and the hops in the beer are good for relaxing the body.” After a 20-minute soak, clients enjoy 25 minutes of bed rest, covered in a fleece quilt, and then 30 to 50 minutes of massage. One question remains unanswered though: Do you come home smelling like a bar?

Photo Credits:
#1: chinadaily.com
#2: daylife.com
#3: farm3.static.flickr.com
#4: trendhunter.com

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Great weather, beautiful beaches, fascinating culture and architecture set Cuba apart

[singlepic id=25 w=200 h=120 float=right]This February, I escorted a group of BCAA members to Cuba. The weather was just perfect! The beaches were wonderful, and I loved all the fascinating historical and architectural sites that I saw during my trip.

I think the best word to describe Cuba is “fascinating”. From its people and culture, to its architecture and natural wonders, it’s definitely a unique and fascinating place.

Havana – The Spicy Capital

[singlepic id=17 w=150 h=240 float=right]My favourite city I visited during my trip would have to be Havana. It’s often called the “Spicy Capital of Cuba”. If you’re a car lover, you’ll be in paradise with so many old, groovy 1950 vehicles cruising everywhere.

There’s a strong Latin vibe in the air with musicians on every corner you turn. A real treat is to stroll down the old streets of Havana with the crumbling architecture on either side.

I also went to a show at the Tropicana. It’s an open-air show with lots of gorgeous Cuban women in feathers and elaborate costumes. This show was fantastic and definitely a must-see when you visit Cuba.

Cuban elementary school visit

While on the tour, a fellow guest specifically asked if we could visit a local elementary school. Our guide brought us to a small rural school en route to Trinidad. Many guests had brought gifts for the 30 or so children there.

We were completely enamoured with their young Cuban spirits as they sang us the Cuban national anthem. This little detour was definitely one of the highlights of my trip.

Gifts galore!

Being a communist country, Cuba has very little access to imported goods. I highly suggest bringing gifts while visiting the cities and conversing with the locals. Cuban children especially like items such as pens and candy, while young women would usually ask for soap and makeup. I already ran out of pens to write with before the end of my trip! Surprisingly, they have a lot of pencils already.

Time has stood still in Cuba – but not for much longer

When in Cuba, you’ll feel like time stood still in the 1950s. However, with tourism opening to American travellers soon, you’ll want to visit Cuba before the influx of tourists brings about changes.

Interested in visiting Cuba? Here are a few options.

Cuba Discovery & Varadero Beach – BCAA Hosted. This is the tour that Jennifer went on!

Traveller’s tip

Be sure to update your medical prescriptions, and ensure you have adequate travel medical insurance before you leave. Although Cuba has one of the world’s best medical system, it’s not always easy (or cheap) to get to the hospital while on the road.