Posted Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 8:46 PM by Lonely Planet
Cities rise and cities fall, and then sometimes they rise again. Rome, for example, or Berlin - both had their down times but both are seriously back. Detroit was one of those cities that rose and fell, but no one really ever expected to rise again. Race riots, the demise of the motor industry and white evacuation to the suburbs all played a part in leaving much of Detroit a burned out shell. The explosive impact of the late '90s Detroit music scene (The White Stripes, The Detroit Cobras, The Von Bondies, The Dirtbombs, The Come Ons and, um, Eminem) suggested there was life in Mo-Town yet, but a rock movement does not an urban renewal make.
From its musical exports alone you'd know that some of the best things about the city are its grit and its grunge. Of course, these are also among its worst things. So what's a Detroiter set on rejuvenating the city to do? Encourage Starbucks and Pottery Barn to set up shop and risk destroying the edge, or reject bland homogenity and embrace the slide into picturesque decay?
The new Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (aka Mocad) likes it both ways. Launched into the shell of an unrenovated abandoned car dealership in October, Mocad commissioned Barry McGee to slather its building with grafitti. Heat lamps hang from the ceiling and giant garage doors can be rolled up to let art meet street. Sure, there's a coffee shop, but it couldn't be further from the manufactured congeniality of Starbucks. Mocad is keeping it real - making Detroit liveable without giving up what makes Detroit Detroit. And one of their first exhibitions originated in that great fallen-city-come-good; Berlin's 'Shrinking Cities' exhibition investigates the decay of Detroit, Ivanovo, Manchester and Leipzig.
Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas
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When you think Fiji - do you think islands fringed with coral reefs, lapped by warm azure waters; diving and snorkelling and diverse cultures? Or do you think of an archipelago dogged since 1987 by military coup and political instability?
Unfortunately the latest talks to settle the rift between the military and the government have been unsuccessful, so travel warnings have been released for those visiting Suva.
But how might this affect your trip to Fiji, how much impact will this have on travellers on the ground? This matter is being discussed on the Thorn Tree right now. The majority of the advice says that if you give Suva a wide berth, you will be unaffected. Most conclude you wouldn't want to go there normally anyway. Copperspoon reports: "You worry too much! Political games have nothing to do with tourists."
Read the responses for yourself here.
Labels: Asia and Pacific, Breaking travel news
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Posted Sunday, November 26, 2006, 2:22 PM by Lonely Planet
OK, so this is a blog about travel, but bear with me because although this would appear to be about cricket, it's about cricket of the travelling variety. The type that starts in
Brisbane, then travels to
Adelaide,
Perth,
Melbourne and then
Sydney.
It's the Ashes. The greatest fight, for the littlest trophy.
With 40,000 Brits expected to fly in to Australia for the nomadic festival of Ashes cricket it will pay to be wary. Booking accommodation in these centres in Summer is tough at the best of times, but with the
barmy army in town you will want to be organised.
The first test is almost decided, and in a country which is in drought it is mildly ironic that the only thing that might save England from its
first loss of the series is a healthy down pour.
Labels: Asia and Pacific
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Posted Wednesday, November 22, 2006, 4:43 PM by Lonely Planet
It's a long way from Geelong to Kabul, but not far enough for international aid worker Ben Fraser who recently left the wilds of Afghanistan for the deserts of Darfur, Sudan. He reports from his new home in El Fasher.
"I think I'm getting by at 1.5 star living; we have a warm fridge, a rickety ceiling fan, occasional power and water delivered by donkey. The market down the road has the essentials, Benson and Hedges and chocolate, as well as some fine tinned goods including halal chicken sausages from Denmark and tinned fruit from Shepparton.
El Fasher city itself is rather small; a couple of government ministries, a football ground, a mandatory smattering of mosques, however there are a large number of internally displaced persons living in camps at the edge of town. We're providing health facilities (vaccinations, clinical care, and reproductive health) at the larger camp (approx. 70,000 people) and are getting a new camp ready. These people have been through the worst just getting here, surviving a government sponsored 'genocide', lack of water, income and security, but at least now some of their most basic needs are being met.
My role in all this is far less extraordinary. I'm looking after human resources, a little logistics, guesthouse and office maintenance and general gap-filler duties around the office. A regular day will involve calculating fraudulent overtime payments from guards, informing a lead-foot driver on the merits of safe motoring, meeting the representative from the Ministry of Labour (who bears a striking resemblance to Snoop Dog), asking the electrician to hotwire the generator and wiping two inches of accumulated dust from my laptop. With my limited grasp of Arabic and difficulty finding a good translator, even the simplest task becomes a drawn out process.
Socially, it's BYO entertainment apart from regular Thursday night parties among the expat community. With a curfew of 10:00pm and a reliance on limited stocks of locally brewed alcohol, these events are generally tame, but sure beats counting the bull ants in the sugar bowl."
CARE International, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, International Rescue Committee, Islamic Relief, Oxfam International and Tearfund are some of the aid agencies operating in Sudan in terribly trying conditions. As citizens of the world, reading and understanding their efforts and the cause for their necessity is vital.
Labels: Africa, Sustainable and responsible tourism, Volunteer
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Posted Sunday, November 19, 2006, 3:33 PM by Lonely Planet
Austrian Airlines have seized on the all-important Baghdad red-eye and launched regular connections from Vienna to the Iraqi capital. Touted as a lifeline to the still quite rogue-like state, Austrian doubtless have their eyes on the travel budgets of the dozens of NGOs whizzing in to 'The Dad'.
Slightly more optimistic is the Kurdistan Tourism Board, hoping to tempt us into northern Iraq with our buckets and spades. A California-based communications company seeks to sell us this dream by shattering our preconceptions. "You think of bombings and this is peaceful, you think of desert and this is mountainous. You think of camels and you are more likely to see sheep." Don't fumble for your wallet just yet... although you may be desperate to go and confirm whether there really are sheep in northern Iraq another quote from the press release dangles tastier bait: "Westerners walk around freely and there is an active nightlife." All the ingredients for a holiday of a lifetime! But let's not be too harsh - if Iraq can attract tourists there's one reason to keep those well-hidden WMDs well out of sight.
Labels: Breaking travel news, Middle East
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Not to be defensive, but, well, Australians don't really drink Fosters. We don't. (Maybe if Australian bottleshops sold it in those massive cans they peddle in the US we would, but they don't. So we don't.)
Which isn't to say that we don't love beer. We LOVE beer. And while we have crushes on Coopers and we lust after Little Creatures, for many Australians (and for lovers of all things 'strayan) the quest never ends for the micro-est of microbreweries. Oh, to find a beer brewed in batches of 12 bottles at a time, flavoured with a hint of aspidistra and tarmac, sold only by an Uzbeki migrant who can be found at the corner of Jerome Lane between 3 and 3:30am on the third Thursday of the month!
To help you in your quest, Melbourne's Federation Square is holding a Victorian Microbreweries Showcase on the 22nd and 23rd of November. Fifteen beers, including faux-micro Matilda Bay and the delightfully esoteric Red Duck, will be up for the tasting. Give it a go, and claim you liked them before they went commercial.
Labels: Asia and Pacific, Festivals and events
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Jimmy Barret writes from Africa - a far cry from a construction site in western Sydney:
"I caught a tiny, bumblebee of a plane out of Maun a few days ago and landed in what looked like the middle of nowhere. Now I'm standing in the bottom of an empty swimming pool with a bottle of Milton disinfectant in one hand and a mop in the other, furiously scrubbing algae. The sun is belting down, I'm sweating bullets and swimming in my underpants.
I'm in the middle of the Kalahari desert, in Botswana, at a remote outpost called Jack's Camp which sits on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, the largest pan system on earth (about as big as Switzerland). It's so desolate that you can see the curve of the earth. Flamingo are wading through the last remaining water in the pan eating brine shrimp, zebra are grazing a few hundred metres away, and I'm being woken up by lions bellowing in the morning. Awesome.
I'm working here in a hugely important role as Back of House Manager, looking after the day-to-day running of the camp, making sure stuff gets fixed, guest tents look beautiful, ensuring we have enough supplies and that the staff are busy and on time.
The stunning scenery and great people certainly offset the more menial parts of my day (pulling and cleaning greasy, soapy old car tyres from festering soakaways, putting up with cr*p from overly wealthy, fussy, whinging tourists, reprimanding our employees for nicking cars and driving off to the local shebeen, shooting hornbills with bows and arrows, etc).
And it certainly beats fighting traffic and doing some cr*p job I don't like in order to buy stupid sh*t I don't need!"
Labels: Africa, On the road
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The musings of Errol Hunt, Commissioning Editor.....
This morning started indistinct and cloudy, but soon cleared to a brilliant clarity. It put me in mind of a nice copperplate font, such as 32 or even 33b. My work day started, as always, by reviewing yesterday's achievements: a nice paragraph I'd written on opening hours for the SW China author brief. I'm enjoying writing the brief, although my trusty old Remington portable has a broken 'c' key, which has meant respelling words using 'q' instead ('qolour and flair'...) and excising any mention of China itself.
I took down my Oxford Shorter (meanings by chronology; 1954 ed) to look up a word that had been puzzling me lately (oscine, a suborder of passerine birdlife) and took a short moment for a contemplative pipe. (I'm smoking a cheeky Tongan mild weed, it has a nice draw-thru, although the cartos say it stings their eyes). Annoyingly, my smoke was too soon interrupted: the eyes on my miniature Tony Wheeler bust flashing red, the signal for an incoming telex. I tore the strip of paper from the machine and read the message: a project manager awaiting blurb copy that was just a few weeks past their ridiculously strict deadline. I angrily tapped out a response via the intra-office morse system, letting them know I was on the job but not yet in mind to put ink to paper. I see blurbs as a form of poetry. I need to be in the right frame of mind...
Labels: Inside Lonely Planet
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Vegetarianism is a great thing. But so are gigantic photos of slabs of dead animal... as are delicious noodle soups made from those very same animals. Phans of pho, welcome to chin and tai heaven. The Stickyrice blog is an exhaustive guide to the eateries of Hanoi, Vietnam. While its focus is pho, Stickyrice also covers stand-up snacks, ice-cold coffee and seasonal fruits.
Labels: Asia and Pacific, Culinary culture
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A movie that makes you question the industry on which your livelihood is dependent? Tough to swallow on a Saturday night.
Al Gore's documentary on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, is designed to make you uncomfortable. After all, the discomfort is minimal to that which we will experience when the planet fries up or freezes up. Doomsdayist? Not necessarily. Rather, Gore implores people to look at the evidence, acknowledge global warming, debate their role and impact on it, then to change their habits and work toward reversing the damage that has already been done.
That includes us.
The travel industry - reliant on people packing up and flying to far-flung exotic destinations. The aviation industry - reliant on oil and responsible for its fair share of carbon emmissions. Those very same carbon emmissions - evidentially pointing the planet on a one-way path to self-destruction.
So what do we do? How can we address global warming? And what about you - savvy traveller? Where does this leave you? Guilty? Not-guilty? Join in the debate and for more information check out the Inconvenient Truth website.
Calculate your carbon usage and get tips on how to travel more responsibly at Lonely Planet's own Responsible Travel site.
Labels: Sustainable and responsible tourism
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Evidently sick of being associated with a red-shoed Judy Garland, the state is promoting itself as a hunting hot-spot. And we thought the only game birds in Kansas were found in late-night dive bars. But no - it turns out that the Sunflower State is the best place to find large populations of quail, pheasants and prairie chickens. And then kill them. Conservation in action. Let's hope the wicked witch of the west lands a house or two on plaid-clad quail killers, while we all take our leave elsewhere.
Labels: Travelsnitch
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Do you ever get sick of being told where to go?
Online booking engine Opodo has released their list of up-and-coming destinations for 2007.
Check it out:
1. Bulgaria
2. Russia
3. Morocco
4. Cuba
5. Australia
6. Brazil
7. India
8. Dubai
9. China
10. South Africa
Australia at number five in a list of up-and-comers is only marginally less funny than Morocco at number three. And China! It belonged on this list in 1979...
For the record, although we reckon Bulgaria is good, do your research on Paraguay, Georgia and Brunei and you might just find something a little less travelled.
Labels: Europe
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Maureen and Tony Wheeler model the Lonely Planet t-shirt in 1979.
FACT: souvenir designers love a good pun.
For example:
Czech me out
Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Amsterdam
Singapore: the fine city
Trust us, the slogans get worse. But what better way to prove that you've been there, than to return home with a trusty but tacky T.
They also make great gifts for those slightly strange uncles in your life.
View this great photo gallery on Flickr for some of the best (or worst) on the market.
Labels: Been there done that
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