Posted Wednesday, June 27, 2007, 4:56 PM by Lonely Planet
On a budget? Love festivals? How about music in one of North America's most diverse and vibrant cities? Get yourself to Montreal right now, as the city comes alive in the unparalleled musical and cultural extravaganza that is the 28th Annual Montreal Jazz Festival.
If you're just arriving, a bed may be tough to find in the city, but the music and the parties are not. The festivities are centered around Montreal's always-beating heart, the Place des Arts; most events are with a four-block radius. Outdoor performances, of which there are over 350 on 12 stages, are free to all. The 150 indoor concerts rage from noon to midnight; you can purchase tickets (about $14-80) on-site or via the website.
Starting modestly in 1979 with only 12,000 spectators, the event has swelled over the years to become the world's largest such festival, drawing over two million visitors annually. The offerings are remarkable, from the greatest jazz musicians in history (Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Corea, Ray Charles, Miles Davis) to budding hip-hop artists, some of whom found their big breaks on Montreal's stages.
That's right - hip-hop. And blues and flamenco and reggae, electronica, salsa. This event, birthed in a city noted for its tolerance, honors those same ideals and celebrates the far-reaching effects that jazz has had on countless music genres. "There is the strict definition of jazz," says festival co-founder Andre Menard, "that it has to be music that has some content, spirituality, and capacity for improvising. You can find that in many other music forms now. Jazz is the great classical music of the 20th century, so for us it's the main trunk, it's where everything starts."
A relatively new addition to the program is the Montreal Musician and Musical Instrument Show (MMMIS; July 5-8, noon-9pm) which promotes music-making through over 150 exhibits, workshops, interactive activities, tutorials, jams - all free!
This year the party starts on Thursday, June 28, and continues for 11 days with performances by Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, Wynton Marsalis, Bill Frisell, Ravi Coltrane, Cesoria Evora, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Femi Kuti, Chaka Khan, Manu Chao, Pink Martini, The Coup, Skye, and heaps of musical geniuses you may have never heard of...yet.
- Emily K Wolman
Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas
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Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007, 4:11 PM by Lonely Planet
A skeletal white pretzel erupts fifty feet into the air, ringed by a low wall of stones, animal skulls and rusting bits of unidentifiable machinery. 'Tis a wonder there aren't more car pile-ups in Imlay, Nevada. One minute drivers are dodging tumbleweeds skipping across the highway, and the next, this... thing glides into view.
Motorists who don't rubberneck and crash find themselves at Thunder Mountain, one of the weirder (and taller) roadside monuments on an otherwise uneventful interstate freeway. An architectural ode to injustices against Native Americans, it was pieced together by a troubled soul named Frank van Zant, who lived and built here until he ended his life in 1989. Mortared with a smash-up of bricks and bottles, car windshields, manual typewriters and scraps of whatever he had on hand, it's a folk art jumble of historical references, made piercing by the haunted faces of massacre victims.
Perpendicular to the highway, clumps of oddly-angled auto carcasses form a fence, the passenger compartments weighted down with old beer cans and the ubiquitous tumbleweeds. Perhaps they're a commentary on industrialised society. Or maybe they just wrecked and got pasted into the scenery.
This was Beth Kohn's last stop on her epic journey through the Southwest States, researching for the upcoming, kick-arse USA guidebook.
Labels: The Americas
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Posted Sunday, June 24, 2007, 8:28 PM by Lonely Planet
"The street is closed ahead! The best way to get there is on a horse - which I have, for a good price..."
So goes the latest scheme for ripping Pyramid visitors of their money. It's unique only because tourists are accosted while they're still in their taxis, waiting for the traffic to ease on the way to these megaton monuments.
Dr Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, has tried to improve the situation at the Pyramids. Whereas visitors used to have to run a gauntlet of postcard vendors, horse touts and men offering camels for photo ops, now only a handful of people are allowed onto the plateau. The rest are kept at bay by a giant concrete wall topped with barbed wire, as well as police standing sentry on camelback. The day I visited, I saw a brief but exciting chase between them and a rogue horse tout who'd been making a beeline for a crowd of tourists.
But Dr Hawass hasn't actually solved the problem. The residents of the village at the base of the pyramids have been making their living off visitors for hundreds of years, so physically blocking them from tourists has only forced them into more creative solutions. The line of scrimmage has simply been moved a few kilometers away. Moreover, the tourism police admit they don't have any control over the horse touts - yes, the official rate is LE35 per hour, "but you're still expected to bargain".
Moreover, the experience on the Pyramids plateau itself is not friendly to the independent traveler. Visiting on your own, you're still prey to the occasional guard who asks for baksheesh for showing you an alleged "ruin" - the abandoned neo-Egyptian concrete police station - and you may also be squashed flat by a tour bus careening down one of the new paved roads. Trudging through the sand, away from the buses that are the antiquities council's bread and butter, you just might start to think a horseback ride is just what you need. If only you'd listened to the guy who jumped in your taxi...
Zora O'Neill is updating the Cairo chapter of Lonely Planet's Egypt guide, and enjoying her visit to her old home.
Labels: Africa
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Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2007, 12:25 AM by Lonely Planet
With hefty fare rises, overcrowding and frustrating delays it's easier said than done ditching the plane for the train, however much you want to travel with a clean conscience. But the deal got a little sweeter today when Greenpeace volunteers turned up at airports across the UK offering British Airways passengers the chance to exchange their domestic tickets for a seat on a climate-friendly train.
The proliferation of short haul flights in the UK - there's over 30 a day flying the 320km between London and Manchester - is the main cause of the massive growth of emissions in the country. With flying causing 10 times more damage to the climate than taking the train, the volunteers (decked out in fetching flight attendant attire) were encouraging passengers to stand up to BA who have, according to Greenpeace, proved to be one of the worst offenders when it comes to restricting greenhouse gas emissions.
Would you swap your air ticket for an equivalent train ticket?
Labels: Europe, Sustainable and responsible tourism
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Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2007, 5:43 PM by Lonely Planet
Toothy monster reptiles once rumbled over the earth. In northeastern Utah, the towns in their former stomping grounds still enjoy playing up ancient history.
In the rolling hills of Jensen, a huge cache of dinosaur bones was discovered in 1909 at what's now Dinosaur National Monument. And no one lets you forget it. At a gift shop outside the park, kids and adults gawk appreciatively at the site-specific mascot. An undeniably family-friendly and photogenic specimen, this dino-buddy sits saddled up in a parking lot framed by pure blue sky, awaiting its Hollywood moment. Climb aboard the telescoping neck of this docile sea-green charmer, and if you've been good, maybe it will ride you off into the sunset.
A femme-y hot pink behemoth with feathery eyelashes welcomes folks to nearby Vernal, where the natural history museum hands out free dinosaur hunting licenses. That's as in spotting, so don't break out any prehistoric recipes for dinosaur steak. They are extinct, after all. The museum's outdoor garden looks like a chill-out zone for extras on the set of Jurassic Park. It's teeming with life-size replicas of giants like a woolly mammoth and a Tyrannosaurus rex, so there's a decent chance of bagging a few, if only on paper.
Beth Kohn has almost finished her Southwest States research for the USA guidebook. Last stop Nevada.
Labels: The Americas
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Posted Sunday, June 17, 2007, 4:44 PM by Lonely Planet
How far would you go to add a few more bedrooms? For one family in Moab, Utah, an expansion of their digs involved oodles of elbow grease - and two decades of actual digging.
About 60 years ago, dusty uranium miners outnumbered slickrock mountain bikers in these legendary red rock ridges, and Albert Christensen decided that the family homestead was a tad too small. With the help of his brothers, he bore into an imposing stone face and whittled out a swinging subterranean wonder-pad. Chiselling with hand tools and setting off dynamite, he hauled out massive cartloads of sandstone, creating more than a dozen pillared and spacious rooms called Hole N'' the Rock.
After fashioning a surprisingly comfortable and climate-controlled residence, Albert didn't hibernate and kick his feet up. Not merely a caveman, he was also a Renaissance man. His attempts at taxidermy culminated in two alarmingly unhappy-looking stuffed horses, and who knows what his wife thought when he proudly arranged them in the living room. Perhaps viewing the sheer exterior as a blank canvas, he carved a pop-out memorial to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his spare time.
Now uninhabited, a whitewashed and billboard-sized marker lures visitors seeking home improvement ideas.
Beth Kohn is exploring the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook. Next stop Utah's dinosaur country.
Labels: The Americas
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Posted Thursday, June 14, 2007, 3:18 PM by Lonely Planet
As anyone who has travelled to Southeast Asia will probably already know, everyone is talking about Laos. The Land of a Million Elephants is expecting a record number of tourists in 2007. And many of them are coming to trek through the pristine forests and stay with the chilled out locals in remote villages. In short, they're coming to trek out of their comfort zones and into the 'real Laos' - and I can tell you, it's quite a trip.
This year there will be more trekking options than ever. In the south, new community-based treks are attracting travellers to the remote Xe Pian National Protected Area and the gothic karsts and valleys of Phu Hin Boun NPA, while the elephant viewing tower at Phou Khao Khuaoy NPA near Vientiane has also become popular. Further north, treks out of Vieng Phouka, Phongsali and Muang Sing are all vying with the original Nam Ha NPA experience for a slice of your trekking dollars.
The whole point of these treks is to channel your money into the pockets of those who would otherwise have to abuse the forest, or sell it, in order to live. Significantly, these projects appear to have strong support from the Lao government, which has even written community-based ecotourism into its national poverty reduction strategy. Congratulations, Lao government, for your vision.
However, all this seems to be at risk since one of Laos's ecotourism pioneers, Sompawn Anthisouk, was abducted while on his way to an appointment with the police in January. Pawn, who is a co-owner of The Boat Landing, Laos's best-known and longest-running eco-lodge, hasn't been heard of since he was taken. Nobody has claimed responsibility, Lao newspapers haven't reported it, and the police investigation has still not produced any answers despite witnesses who claim to have seen the abduction.
Just who those men were remains a mystery. What is in less doubt, however, is that the incident has raised some big questions about the future of eco-tourism in Laos. If Pawn is released these doubts will probably disappear. But if he remains missing, attracting the investment needed to grow this sort of tourism - and help alleviate poverty - might be much more difficult. So for the sake of his family and his country, we're still hoping to see Pawn back working in Luang Nam Tha.
Andrew Burke is the author of Lonely Planet's Laos guide.
For more information on Laos ecotourism try:
www.ecotourismlaos.com
www.ecotourismlaos/forum2007
For more discussion on Pawn, go to the Thorn Tree.
Labels: Asia and Pacific, Sustainable and responsible tourism, Travelsnitch
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Posted Tuesday, June 12, 2007, 4:25 PM by Lonely Planet
They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and maybe that's a good thing. Some of the food and drink you find there just shouldn't make it home.
America's infamous bastion of dirty feel-good hedonism dishes out some seriously sinful culinary creations. Away from the glitzy dining at the Strip mega-resorts, meal prices drop and your cholesterol may spike to previously unimaginable levels. At one Downtown area casino, the fast food could be referring to the immediacy of your next coronary. For a mere 99 cents, treat your refined palette to some deep-fried Oreo cookies, and taste what happens when a sandwich creme cookie drowns in oil. Or sidle up to a deep-fried Twinkie, America's favourite shelf life-indeterminate sponge cake.
After a dose of comfort food that feels so wrong and tastes so right, a little liquid nourishment is in order. This being Vegas, it's got to be B-I-G. How about your favourite cocktail supersized beyond your ability to carry it? The Carnaval Bar sells drinks so gargantuan that the hookah-sized glasses attach to your neck with a leash. Almost three feet long, they're salaciously called a 'full yard with a strap-on'.
Bon appetit!
Next stop Utah for Beth Kohn - if she can get off the toilet in Vegas. Beth is exploring the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook.
Labels: The Americas
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Posted Monday, June 11, 2007, 5:33 PM by Lonely Planet
Say you owned a million acres of world-class real estate with to-die-for views. But access - such a headache! And the tourists you craved were already happy going to another, less out-of-the-way, vista point. What to do?
The Hualapai tribe in Arizona found themselves in this exact conundrum. Their land, part of the Grand Canyon (you may have heard of it), couldn't attract enough diehards willing to navigate its scenic yet butt-busting unpaved road. So they came up with a novel idea. Let people walk over the canyon!
A highly controversial yet fascinating case of 'if you build it, they will come', the Grand Canyon Skywalk is a slender and see-through glass horseshoe bridge jutting out from solid ground and levitating over a 4000-foot chasm. To prevent scuffing of the 5-layer glass floor, everyone must wear surgical overshoes. There's canyon ahead, behind and unspeakably far below. The terror-stricken prefer shuffling along near the handrail, though a fair number plonk down their sizeable admission, sashay up, peer down and decide to call it a day. Studying the abyss, one's mortality feels fragile, and the Skywalk's shadow appears like a partial halo.
Brashly commercial desecration or brazenly cool creation? Your call.
Beth Kohn, having dealt with flying saucers and walking on air, is now heading to Las Vegas for another sort of high. Beth is mucking about in the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook.
Labels: The Americas
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Posted Thursday, June 07, 2007, 5:05 PM by Lonely Planet
If your space ship had to crash land somewhere on Planet Earth, Taos, New Mexico would be the perfect low-profile spot. The locals would just figure it was a new Earthship.
In the high desert scrub just outside town, adobe-coloured mounds bulge from the ground, wavy walls sparkle with a brilliant mosaic of embedded glass and then there's the fanciful turrets. A community of groovy off-the-grid houses called Earthships, the structures look like ornately camouflaged objects that might blast off any minute.
Tidy stacks of old car tires and empty beer cans aren't the aftermath of a booze-fuelled car promotion, but the raw materials for these 'biotecture' buildings. Constructed from unorthodox recycled materials, each house is completely self-sufficient, harvesting solar and wind power, collecting rainwater in huge cisterns and reutilizing grey water for landscaping or vegetable plots. A mixture of packed sand, tires and aluminium cans form the exterior shells, and embedded glass bottles filter sunlight into mesmerizing indoor rainbows. Flanked by distant snow-peaked mountains, guests can overnight in comfortable yet sustainable sumptuousness. The passively heated solariums riot with plants and playful multihued interiors rival those of an upscale boutique hotel.
So consider your refuse bin and imagine the future of housing.
Beth Kohn is getting down and dirty in the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook. Flying saucers. Earthships... Wonder what the hell she'll do next? Stay tuned.
Labels: The Americas
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Posted Wednesday, June 06, 2007, 9:39 PM by Lonely Planet
From pulsating Latin American documentaries to slick Korean gangster pics, innovative Aussie flicks and broody Eastern European dramas the Sydney Film Festival's 2007 program promises the best in world cinema. Starting this Saturday Sydney-siders will pack their thermos, don their most interesting pair of glasses and head into the dark for 17 days of back to back movie-going.
Our resident Lonely Planet film buff Ghita "just back from Rotterdam" Loebenstein says don't miss Red Road an exceptional and artfully constructed psychological thriller. She also gives props to Fresh Air, a charming Hungarian film about a stuffy mother-daughter relationship and Syndromes and a Century, an enchanting Thai film that twists itself ever so slightly into peculiar and almost mythical forms. For a bit of Icelandic action Children and Parents lends a minimalist lens to the intertwining relationships between a set of children and parents.
Music documentaries to look out for include The Dixie Chicks' Shut Up and Sing which has had a great response wherever it has shown and the Oz hip hop flick Words From The City.
Sydney Film Festival: 8-24 June 2007
Been to any festivals this year and have your own film recommendations? Let us know.
Labels: Asia and Pacific, Festivals and events
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Posted Tuesday, June 05, 2007, 5:21 PM by Lonely Planet
I recently spent two-and-a-half-months traversing the length and breadth of Thailand while on assignment for Lonely Planet. Yes, it was one of the most unique experiences of my journalistic career. But here's a nasty surprise for all you aspiring guidebook writers out there: Vast stretches of my work week were often mind-numbingly dull. Nevertheless, I still managed to acquire a few priceless nuggets of international knowledge along the way, some of which you, dear reader, are about to become the lucky beneficiary.
1. Sex tourists are often good for a laugh
In the majority of Thailand's most infamous red-lights districts, such as Bangkok's Patpong, it's actually quite likely you'll encounter a greater number of camera-toting tourists than the Dirty Old Men of Southeast Asian lore. Interested in taking a disturbing go-go bar field trip you'll be able to dine out on back home? If so, pay a visit to the popular-again Bangkok alley known as Soi Cowboy, or to its nearby neighbour, a building known as Nana Plaza. Both are located in Sukhumvit.
2. Osama bin Laden has been fully embraced by the free market
This one is weird. I first noticed the trend three years ago in Malaysia, where I saw a pre-teen boy in a day market wearing an Osama T-shirt. In Thailand, I spotted Osama masks, stickers, posters and banners.
3. The dark side of the Full Moon Party (and I'm not talking about the overdoses)
The legendary dance party, which takes place on Ko Pha-Ngan whenever the moon is full, has been a famed backpacker milestone for years. Yet travellers have lately been expiring during the FMP at a surprisingly rapid clip. In April, an Israeli tourist was stabbed to death during a bar fight. In early 2005, an overloaded Samui-bound speedboat capsized, leaving seven dead. And what's up with all those drunk people napping in the ocean?! Please, friends: Look alive out there, 'kay?
4. In Thailand, train travel is free
Okay, not really. But it's mighty close! I beg of you, Thailand-bound backpacker: Get off the VIP bus circuit at least once during your journey, head to the nearest train station, and go somewhere. Anywhere. Just like travelling in Thailand, the journey will be a ride you'll not soon forget.
Dan Eldridge has just finished researching the Thailand chapter for Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a shoestring. He's now heading home for a nice cup of tea.
Labels: Asia and Pacific
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Posted Sunday, June 03, 2007, 5:18 PM by Lonely Planet
Otherworldly aliens dwell among us, at least in Roswell's many souvenir shops.
If you've ever thrilled to The X-Files, the incident at Roswell, New Mexico is already filed away in your top secret memory banks. In 1947, as Cold War hysteria sent Americans into a tongue-tied tizzy, a mysterious object crashed at a nearby ranch. No one would have skipped any sleep over it, but the military made a big to-do of hushing it up, and for a lot of folks, that sealed it. The aliens had landed!
International curiosity and local ingenuity have transformed the small city into a thriving extraterrestrial-wannabe zone. Downtown, bulbous white heads glow atop the street lamps, a fast-food chain takes the shape of a celestial spacecraft and the windows of the local music store have little space-dudes jamming on electric guitars. Inside the popular UFO Museum, pale elongated beings with huge eye sockets turn up everywhere. Aliens pop out of Christmas stockings in the gift shop and a huge silver-sequined flying saucer could be a back-up disco ball for the galactic 'in' crowd.
The crash heard 'round the world has even given the city a new logo- a spaceship with an outer space-friendly slogan: 'Visitors welcome.'
Beth Kohn is hovering through the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook. Alas, Beth didn't see any flying saucers, but stay tuned - next stop Earthship, Taos.
Labels: The Americas
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