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Posted Sunday, December 30, 2007, 5:18 PM by Lonely Planet
Me - I'm off to Spain - what about you? A straw poll of my cubicle-comrades also puts New Zealand, India, Samoa and New York on the travel agenda for 2008.
Is it hard to see why I'm going from this:
To this:
Share your travel plans for 2008 here, or for more ideas check out our Bluelist of recommended destinations for 2008.
Labels: Travelsnitch
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Posted Thursday, December 27, 2007, 7:56 PM by Lonely Planet
Here at Lonely Planet we suggest it does, but then why am I so confused? After a few days safely stashed away in the stupor of the silly season, I've just today again reached for the papers.
I'm having greater difficulty digesting what I'm seeing online, in print and on the tele, than the clogging concoction of peanuts, chocolate, tarts and turkey I ate on Christmas Day.
As 2007 comes to a close, I'm left wondering whether anyone out there has any understanding why the world is so, well, (insert your favourite word for broken here).
Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated in Rawalpindi, Pakistan; landslides and flooding have killed hundreds in Solo, Indonesia; holiday road tolls keep rising; the 'war on terror' is costing the US $15billion a month; thousands in Sudan still go hungry.
Can we hope for something better in 2008? And will travel alone help?
Labels: Travelsnitch
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Posted Wednesday, December 19, 2007, 7:19 PM by Lonely Planet
Under an Arabian sun, the hottest skateboarders, BMX riders and motocross athletes compete for medals and money while pushing the boundaries of gravity and sanity. For the third year in a row, Dubai's Festival City, a massive shopping mall and outdoor pavilion in the middle of the Middle East plays host to the X-Games. 
With temperatures hovering at just under 32° Celsius (90° Fahrenheit), a dusty breeze kicks up from across Khor Dubai (Dubai Creek) and with it the aroma of rotisserie shawarm (roasted mutton served in flat bread) wafts in.
There's a street-course full of ramps, stairs, rails and ledges, a motocross jump (70 ft.+) and a 12 ft. tall vertical half-pipe. With ESPN cameras everywhere, instant-replays of the sickest tricks are played out to a pop-punk beat on a giant screen TV. In fact, if it weren't for the skyscrapers (including the Burj Dubai, the world's tallest at 141 stories) looming in the background and the multicultural crowd in the foreground, I could be in Anytown, USA. A group of preteen expat kids saying 'Yeah!' and raising horned fingers only adds to the illusion of being back in California.
Behind the 'skatebrats' I see a pair of veiled Muslim women, a couple of bearded Pakistanis in bengalis (oversized nightshirts) and two Emirati men in dishdashas (an all white gown and tribal headdress combo). 
On a break from the vertical and intercultural action, I pick-up a copy of Rage, a free local skate magazine put out by Rage Skate Shop.
The zine is the fruit of a vibrant, diverse skate scene taking root here in the desert. Transplanted hometown heroes like Chef Spanky (a 17 year-old Lebanese skater and chef), Ibrahim Wadhai (a 15 year-old Iraqi skater out of Abu Dhabi) and Meriem Aissa, an Algerian snowboarder (often found on the artificial slopes at Ski Dubai) grace the pages of this local rag.
Only in Dubai are you as likely to skate with an American or Canadian as you are with an Iraqi or a Moroccan. And with three skateparks - Wonderland, Mamzaar Bowl & Hayyaa! Springs - not to mention loads of contests, visiting out of town pros (Ryan Sheckler & Bam Margera being the two most recent), in addition to jam sessions, punk rock shows and the X-Games, the only logical conclusion to come to is that Dubai has got it going-on.
- Baxter Jackson
Labels: Festivals and events, Middle East
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Posted Tuesday, December 18, 2007, 7:26 PM by Lonely Planet
It's a couple of weeks since cyclone Sidr struck Bangladesh and the news crews have moved on. In my earlier blog, posted in the aftermath of the storm, I described the situation around Dhaka. Since then I have been in the southwest where the cyclone first made landfall.
I was expecting to find a depressing scene of devastation down here, but at my first stop, Bagerhat, a name that should be familiar to all those who followed the story on the news I found that signs of destruction were very limited. A local guy even had to point them out to me, 'look', he said, 'our national disaster' and pointed to a couple of fallen trees in a pond.
Further south still, on the edge of the Sunderbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, we'd heard that up to 90% of the forest had been destroyed. We ventured down here with a conservationist and were both in agreement that yes, here on the coast, the destruction was bad, but 90% of the forest destroyed - no way, not even close.
I am in Bangladesh to research the next edition of the Bangladesh guidebook and must make it very clear that I didn't go to the southwest specifically in search of cyclone damage - I am only reporting what I saw in the areas I needed to cover. Yet I couldn't help but notice how, despite what the newspapers said, the real destruction always seemed around the corner.
That got me thinking that the only news story you'll see about Bangladesh is one of disaster. Looking around me now the country I see is not the basket case of myth but is instead a beautiful, forward looking nation deserving of a better portrayal. How forward looking? Well, tell me how many western nations have banned plastic bags throughout the country or insisted on all vehicles in the capital (and shortly elsewhere) running only on natural gas? But of course, good news like that isn't news.
- Stuart Butler
Labels: Asia and Pacific, Breaking travel news
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Posted Monday, December 17, 2007, 8:53 PM by Lonely Planet
They say volunteering has its challenges, but I didn't think a simple shopping errand could be so complicated. I was to head into Arusha to buy some timber and steel from the hardware store. It was my first time driving in Tanzania, so the first step was to interpret the road rules.
The what? Give way? Right of Way? Not seemingly so!
Add to that the mix of bicycles, pedestrians, trucks, cars and Dulla-dullas (mini buses) - it was a touch stressful. I had a couple of passengers riding on the back of the Ute which the policeman who stopped me wasn't too happy about it. A bit of negotiation and a gift of 5000Tsh and the problem was solved - and a lesson learnt.
I hit a bit of a low towards the end of the week - perhaps some culture shock I didn't anticipate. Maybe it was the experience with the police or the general hustle and bustle of Arusha life, I don't know, but after a day or two to adjust (spent reading, eating and relaxing) I felt a lot better.
A friend of ours, Br. Frank O'Shea who has been running the Edmund Rice Secondary School (where I helped out with their IT) is retiring this year, so we were invited to his place for a farewell BBQ and beers - a great way to round off our first and slightly hectic week.
Back to the building...
- By day he's a Lonely Planet web producer but by night Ben Schwabe is the volunteer IT manager for foodwatershelter, an Australian NGO that builds eco-friendly children's villages with education, social and health facilities in developing countries. For the next six weeks he will be working on the ground as part of the Kesho Crew in Tanzania. Stay tuned for his next update.
Labels: Africa, Sustainable and responsible tourism, Volunteer
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Posted Sunday, December 16, 2007, 7:23 PM by Lonely Planet
Under a candescent kaleidoscope of lollypop lighting, steaming mugs are clutched between mittens on a carpet of crunching snow. In Vienna, the countdown to Christmas has begun. Six weeks out, the Christmas markets open with no advertisement, no grand announcement and little publicity, but the day the wooden huts fling open their shutters, crowds amass to catch the first glimpse of the icing-covered treats on offer. By nightfall, multi-coloured fairy lights stud the sky. 
Glühwein (hot mulled wine) flows through revelers' veins each night; a steaming concoction of red wine dangerously laced with cinnamon and cloves, or a hint of orange or lemon and a lethal splash of brandy. And there's punsch, generously spiked with schnapps and sugar. Of the flavours on offer (apple, pear, orange...), wildberry is surely the most thrilling; the bulbous raspberry waiting at the bottom of the mug bursts in your mouth like a liquor bomb of alcohol and sugar. They're heady brews, but the fact they come in innocent Christmas-themed mugs makes having another seem totally ok.
So how do the Viennese decide which of the many Christmas markets to go to? Over the course of December they'll go to them all but a few of their favorites are;
Schönbrunn (Schloß Schönbrunn, 13th District,10am-8.30pm)
An up-market market, Schönbrunn offers the pleasure of eating potato chips curled before your eyes from real potatoes in the grounds of the former summer home of the Habsburgs.
Karlsplatz (Karlsplatz, 4th District, 12pm-8pm)
If Egon Schiele was still alive, you'd find him at Karlsplatz. The art-crowd of Vienna brings resplendent Karlskirche down to earth with spaced-out performance art and bio-stalls; you can even choose chai over glühwein.
Spittelberg (Spittelberggasse, 7th District, 2pm-9pm)
Beloved simply because it has always been, Spittelberg market weaves through cobblestoned lanes and so overshadows the local restaurants that they've no choice but to give up their doorways to glühwein stands.
Perhaps it's the Christmas spirit, perhaps it's just the spirits, but walking through a Viennese Christmas market in sub-zero temperatures can be one of the warmest experiences you'll have all year.
- Marika McAdam
Labels: Europe, Festivals and events
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Posted Wednesday, December 12, 2007, 8:52 PM by Lonely Planet
Tried of skiing? Dab hand at snowboarding? Wondering what to do next? Well wonder no more, the next big craze to hit the slopes this year is airboarding. Yes, that's right, speed-freaks tired of carving up the slopes on two legs have taken to hurling themselves off mountain slopes on an airboard - that's a large inflatable lilo to you and me!
Invented by Swiss designer, Joe Steiner, ten years ago the airboard is actually a 4ft inflatable sledge with hard runners underneath. It can reach speeds of up to 80mph, although stopping is somewhat harder - there are no breaks so short of hurling yourself sideways into a skidding halt you best just prey for a soft landing.
Unsurprisingly, skiers and snowboarders are non-too-keen on sharing their slopes with such hazardous neighbours, but you can find a list of European and American slopes at www.airboard.com.
- Paula Hardy
Labels: skiing, snow, Travelsnitch
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Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2007, 7:46 PM by Lonely Planet
We may not remember the broad sweep of events, but some childhood memories can be crystal clear many, many years later. I'm continually surprised how many sharply etched memories I have of Karachi in Pakistan, because I was only 5-1/2 years old when I left. 
So those memories of a huge whale carcass being dragged into Keamari harbour, the scary jellyfish stranded on the sands of Clifton Beach, the buzzard that used to peer down from atop a flagpole outside the house where my family had an apartment on Bath Island Road, the camel carts, the man who did sleight of hand tricks outside my father's office at the airport, they're all the memories of a small child.
It was not until many years later that I returned to Pakistan, travelling along the Asia Overland Route, the 'hippy trail' of the '70s which took me through Afghanistan, over the Khyber Pass and down on to the plains of the subcontinent to continue in to India and up to Nepal.
More years passed before I finally got back to Karachi, clutching a photo of the house where we'd lived so many years earlier. In the family photo album I'd even found a snapshot of a small me standing beside the cook's even smaller daughter, after my mother had managed to insert our Morris Minor between her and a rabid dog and told me to open the door and get the kid inside. 
I was back in Pakistan again last year, in the sensitive Kashmir border area inspecting an aid group's work after the disastrous 2005 earthquake. There was one connecting theme to all these visits and indeed to the experience of many other Pakistan visitors I've talked to over the years. We've all enjoyed travelling in the country and found the Pakistanis we've encountered friendly, outgoing and helpful. Not quite the image we get in the news, is it?
Labels: Asia and Pacific, Been there done that
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Posted Monday, December 10, 2007, 2:49 PM by Lonely Planet
Within an hour of leaving Nairobi airport we arrived at the Giraffe Centre in the city's Lang'ata surburb where I had my first ever contact with these amazing animals. Not only contact, but intimate contact; we fed them pellets which we held in our lips and the giraffe grabs the pellet with its incredibly long tongue! 
After spending the night in Kenya we woke up super early for the five hour bus trip to Arusha, in the foothills of Mt. Meru, Tanzania where foodwatershelter's first children's village is being built. The journey though bumpy and hot was spectacular. Seeing Maasai wandering in the bush and witnessing the vast open spaces, it was hard to comprehend having been in Perth only 24 hours earlier.
The last part of the journey to the volunteer house was perhaps the most striking. We're living in the Sinon district just south of Arusha and our ute ride through Unga Limited (the slum named after the adjacent flour mill) was both heart breaking and joyful. The poverty is all too visible, and yet most people seemed excited to see us, welcoming us with waves, smiles and greetings - especially the over excited kids; "Hello Mzungu! How are you!" they shouted as we bumped past in the dust. 
My first bit of actual volunteering work ended up being for a local secondary school who were having some IT problems - I'd come here to do some practical hands on work like brick laying or wood work and here I was two days after arriving helping out a school with their website! It wasn't until day four that I finally got to help the foodwatershelter building foreman Darren with some carpentry on the "Kesho Leo" building site. I think next week (when the blisters on my soft office-worker hands have healed) will see a more productive week for me!
By day he's a Lonely Planet web producer but by night Ben Schwabe is the volunteer IT manager for foodwatershelter, an Australian NGO that builds eco-friendly children's villages with education, social and health facilities in developing countries. For the next six weeks he will be working on the ground as part of the Kesho Crew in Tanzania. Stay tuned for his next update.
Labels: Africa, Sustainable and responsible tourism, Volunteer
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Posted Sunday, December 09, 2007, 3:16 PM by Lonely Planet
When the online team at Lonely Planet are not cadging free photos off flickr or napping under their desks we enjoy trawling totally useless but fun websites.
Here's some of this week's favourites:
* 1001 secret fishing holes
* 25 un-safest cities
* Dig to the other side
* Celeb-favourites.com
* Fatal Crash Data Maps
Have you got any to share?
Labels: Travelsnitch
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Posted Thursday, December 06, 2007, 8:31 PM by Lonely Planet
Travellers in Fiji have been warned to evacuate or head for higher ground as a 'super hurricane' heads towards the South Pacific island nation. Cyclone Daman is expected to reach Fiji's second largest island Vanua Levu sometime on Friday night but winds of up to 200km per hour have already been reported.
According to local media airlines operating in Fiji have cancelled some international and domestic flights due to the category four cyclone. Air Pacific has advised that all their flights scheduled to depart from Nadi today (7 December) have been cancelled
For up to date information about the weather conditions visit Fiji Meteorological Service or check for alerts on Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Labels: Asia and Pacific, Breaking travel news
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A warehouse-come-trapeze centre in south London has been filled with geodesic domes and psychedelic adornments in honour of America's Burning Man festival; the bar, decorated with fluorescent papier-mâché skulls.
Tonight's 'decompression party' is an attempt to deal with the deflating experience of returning to consensus reality after Burning Man, the pagan rave in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.
In San Francisco, home of the festival's founder and the city with the highest population of 'burners', they even organise a decompression street fair. As well as offering a chance to don cosmic costumes and catch up with friends from the playa (the prehistoric lake bed where the festival takes place), such events are a reminder of Burning Man's idealistic social mission.
Its aim is to positively affect the way people live all year round and, in that spirit, the group Burners without Borders has been providing help to earthquake-struck Peru. The group has raised almost US$3000 and sent a disaster relief carpenter to lead construction projects in Pisco.
Community spirit is obvious in the organisation of tonight's party. Requests for assistance fill online forums - from a loan of a kipper tie to crash space for burners coming from other parts of Europe. People spend days turning the industrial unit into an ultraviolet wonderland, and stay to clear the floor of glowsticks at the end of the all-nighter.
The accents heard above the pounding music reflect the worldwide community of burners. I speak to a Parisian Euroburner, one of about 30 French folk at the knees-up, and to the landlord of the playa's very own English pub. He's already planning for next year's Burning Man, due to take place around Labor Day (September 1). No wonder - it requires some serious logistics to turn a patch of desert into an event with the global, year-round reverberations on display tonight.
- James Bainbridge went to Burning Man researching for A Year of Festivals, out next year; you can read his blog from the festival here.
Labels: Burning Man, Europe, Festivals and events, The Americas
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Posted Wednesday, December 05, 2007, 1:14 PM by Lonely Planet
It's three in the morning in the Red Pepper nightclub in Sanya, a beach resort on Hainan Island off the south coast of China, and I'm surrounded by leggy and legless beauty queens. A few hours earlier, the 57th Miss World contest ended with Miss China being crowned as Miss World. Now, the losers are consoling themselves with champagne and cocktails
For the 106 contestants, it's their first taste of freedom for a month. Over the last four weeks, they have been confined to a luxury hotel in Sanya, a fast-growing resort that caters mainly to well-off Chinese tourists and Russians escaping their frozen winter. Allowed out only in the presence of chaperones, or the formidable Julia Morley, the British chairwoman of the Miss World Organisation, they are literally letting their hair down to the sound of cheesy Eighties classics.
While Miss World is regarded as an anachronism in the west, or worse as a sexist display that demeans women, the contest remains popular in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe. The South American beauty queens in particular are a driven bunch, some of whom have clearly spent large sums on enhancing their natural assets. Other contestants, though, seem more laidback, treating the experience as a fun way to see a bit of China.
But for the Chinese, hosting Miss World for four out of the last five years has had both economic and propaganda value. Hainan used to be best known as the place where China's emperors exiled those who had displeased them. Now, the island receives 16 million tourists a year and tourism is helping lift the locals, whose only other options are fishing and farming, out of poverty. And with 23 year-old Beijinger Zhang Zilin reigning as Miss World in the same year Beijing will host the Olympics, the government must be glad it ended its ban on beauty contests five years ago.
- David A Eimer
Labels: "Festivals and events", Asia and Pacific
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Posted Tuesday, December 04, 2007, 3:27 PM by Lonely Planet
On my first day in the Ubon Ratchathani province in Northeastern Thailand 3,405 people received free eye exams and eye glasses if they needed it, thanks to an organisation called Give the Gift of Sight. "Slow day," one of the volunteers said.
Their humanitarian mission has just wrapped up and the group is hoping to give away all of the 65,000 recycled glasses that a family of eye glass specialists brought from Italy. Give the Gift of Sight is handing out heaps of sun glasses as well to stop the sun damage they're seeing. 
(photo by Zack Seckler)
Farmers, monks, and villagers come from miles around to get their eyes examined. There was one old man with new glasses sitting in the middle of the hectic scene looking at the detail of his own weathered hands, amazed. Imagine what it must feel like to suddenly see that you're living in an old body.
The area is famous for "forest monks," and on Wednesday I went out to see a group of monks who went to the Give Gift of Sight clinic that morning - one of them was the 6 millionth recipient of the program. Some of the monks were quite flash in their flowing orange robes and new sun glasses, and others were hunched over Buddhist text, reading with their new spectacles.
The head monk showed me around the temple, and probably because I kept asking him questions about Buddhism took me to the outdoor meditation area - where bodhi trees grew between red bricks - and made me meditate with him for ten minutes. I felt truly honored.
"Did you get what you wanted?" Pete Simsamer, a Thai high school student who volunteered as a translator, asked at the end of the trip.
"Yeah," I smiled at him. "I got more than I wanted - in a good way."
- Josh Krist
Labels: Asia and Pacific, Thailand, Volunteer
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Posted Sunday, December 02, 2007, 9:28 PM by Lonely Planet
It's out with the Maltese Lira and the Cypriot Pound as the two countries switch over to the Euro on January 1, 2008. With Malta and Cyprus on board there will be 15 nations and 318 million people using the currency.
Regular travellers to Cyprus and Malta are urged to use up or exchange their leftover local currency before it becomes redundant. Using the Travelex Cash Passport is another option as it allows you to keep your leftover foreign currency for up to three years.
Labels: "Europe", Breaking travel news
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