Perceptive Travel Blog

A Different Kind of Medical Tourism

Alison Stein Wellner — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:45:22 +0000

Of course you are obsessed with death.

Everyone alive is, we all know it’s out there, waiting for us. The only thing that varies between people is the depth and degree of repression of this knowledge.

Travel, of course, is not about death.

Travelers don’t like to think about demise, as a topic — except for the legions who visit cemeteries, concentration camps battlefields, memorials, slums and sites of natural disasters. And anything to do with the Titanic.

A theory: travelers have a preference for death by war or natural disaster, which seem avoidable by dint of geography and luck, rather than by illness, which after all may be lurking within those Bermuda shorts at that very moment. Which may be why, despite a penchant for “living like a local” when on vacation, tours of hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices have never really caught on.

Part of the reason why “authentic local” itineraries often avoid medical facilities is the problem of turning human struggle or suffering into spectacle. This was an issue of concern when I visited Kalaupapa National Historic Park on Molokai, the quarantine site for people with Hansen’s Disease.

In other words, a leper colony.

Yes, the setting is beautiful. But from 1866-1949, this was also a very effective prison — bounded by the Pacific Ocean on one side, and beneath highest sea cliffs in the world on the other. There was only one road to “topside” Molokai, an arduous three mile trail with 26 switchbacks, and a guard at the top.

Today, the trail remains the only way to visit the settlement and the park from the rest of Molokai, without an airplane. And although Hansen’s Disease is now very manageable as a chronic illness, there are still patients living there — they chose to stay after the quarantine was lifted.

For that reason, although it is a national park, visitors are only allowed access on a guided tour. Also for that reason, tour does not include the Post Office and the grocery story, and other places that a resident would be likely to go in their daily lives. One exception is the Catholic church. And you can see the mixed feelings that tourism creates for its residents:

In case you can’t read it, it says: “Do not touch or steal anything from this church pew!! This means you…tourist!!”

These are thorny issues. Less complicated, although perhaps no less unsettling, is to visit a museum of medical history. Oh, do we have some good ones in this country. More on that next week.

The February edition of Perceptive Travel

Liz Lewis — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:46:57 +0000

From the eccentric to the spiritual to the dangerous, this latest edition of the award winning Perceptive Travel webzine provides armchair traveller with thought provoking travel stories.

Regular contributor Bruce Northam kicks off this edition of Perceptive Travel webzine with A Different State of Mine in Canada’s Yukon Territory, discovering his own inner grown-up in the place full of ‘bearded brew-sippers, sassy female bartenders sporting armpit hair, and at-home First Nations artists’.

In Setting Foot on Celtic Sod, Becky Garrison’s traveler’s pilgrimage to Glendolough takes an unexpected turn when the quiet and deserted ruins she heads off to visit appears, at first glance, to be nothing more than an overcrowded tourist trap.

In No Salad Days at the Buenos Aires Thieves Market, Camille Cusumano has to cross over a river of toxic garbage to experience the world’s largest illegal market.

Editor Tim Leffel covers this month’s world music reviews, looking at some albums from Brazilian and Central Africa.

And another regular contributor Susan Griffith writes this month’s travel book reviews.

Plus, as usual, there is some free stuff to win. This month’s grab bag will be a pair of

travel chopsticks from Grand Trunk, a set of three Dry Organizer Sacs from Innate, and a Survival Medic kit from Adventure Medical.

Of course, you have to be in to win.

If you’re a subscriber to the monthly Perceptive Travel e-mail, then just follow the instructions in the latest newsletter.

If you’re not on our monthly e-mail newsletter list, sign up by clicking here.

You can also follow Perceptive Travel on Facebook

At the Buenos Aries Thieves Market, Reputation Meets Reality

Tim — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:49:12 +0000

By Camille Cusumano

“Everywhere I look I see dead eyes,” thinks a Buenos Aires expat as she visits the Feria la Salada, a market that lives up to its reputation for danger and desperation.

“You cannot go to this market, es muy peligroso,” said my friend Carmen. I watched her big blue eyes bug out, emphatic with the probability of harm befalling me if I went to Feria la Salada. We sat in the comfort of my 10th floor apartment in Recoleta, Buenos Aires’s upper-crust barrio. Another Argentine friend, Oscar, nodded in agreement with Carmen. I had just greeted him hello and noticed his neck was fragrant with Paco Rabanne cologne—real Paco, not the knock-offs reportedly available at the market in question.

“Oh, but I have a private bodyguard,” I joked, referring to a fellow journalist, Marc Haefele, from Los Angeles, who had invited me to check out the market with him. He piqued my curiosity, saying, “La Salada is a thieves market.” It was the world’s largest illegal market, he told me, denounced by the European Union, but locally pronounced unstoppable because tens of thousands of customers support it weekly.

The hints at danger, which I often find exaggerated by locals who listen to the news more than I do, ramped up my desire to take a glimpse. I had been living in Buenos Aires for nearly three years, absorbing the culture mainly in sultry tango dance halls and classes. I was streetwise enough to deal with rowdies and mischief makers. Besides, I wanted to get out of my complacent routine here in chic Recoleta. That black market was said to sprawl in a malignant belt of land, replete with polluted meadows, just south of Buenos Aires. Time to get a close-up view at the underbelly of my adopted home, I mused.

Oscar, who like Carmen, had never set foot near La Salada, said dismissively, “It’s full of the junk they sell at Retiro bus station.” The Retiro was one of my favorite offbeat places in the city. (Only once did I have to shrug off would-be pick-pockets.) My mind kneaded a vision of stall after stall with Hong-Kong-like knock-offs crossed with Tangiers’ bazaar-like ambience. It’s big, it’s unstoppable, and it makes the news regularly. So there must be something to see at La Salada.

The market opens at 3 am on Sundays. Mark said we had to get there early to get the good stuff. So we met at my place at 5 am and hailed a taxi. The first driver said, “No, I don’t go to La Salada, too dangerous,” and took off. The second taxi said the same and sped off. The third one, a good-natured driver, said, “I’m heading home that way, so I’ll drop you.” He asked which point of entry did we prefer, Punta Noria or Punta Mogote. “Whichever is safer,” I said. “That would be Mogote,” he said.

A Rank River and the Dregs

La Salada started in 1991 when a handful of Bolivians set up shop on the forgotten land near a rundown swimming pool park long past its prime. They found it profitable to sell “imported” clothes at a market they called Urkupiña. Eventually two more markets sprouted and joined forces. According to La Nacion, the gangly collection of flimsy bamboo-and-sheet-metal booths or warehouses on 20 hectares of the banks of the River Riachuelo moves some $9 million weekly and employs 6,000 people to serve the 20,000 customers who come from all over the country. And it’s all illegal.

As we rolled along the ingress road, Marc told me that indeed the land here was designated during the Juan Peron years (half a century ago) as a resort for the poor. The roadside was now lined with billowing tall grasses, reeds, willow trees and a deep layer of the usual Styro-plastic urban trash, bagged and otherwise, no less visible than if the place were a designated dump. A vivid heap of some synthetic fabric cuttings in a fluorescent rainbow of colors that might have been pretty in another setting caught my eye.

As soon as Marc and I paid the cabbie, he spun around and high-tailed out of the no man’s land. We joined an ant line of people (largely Bolivian, Peruvian, Paraguayan, and other much-lamented undocumented workers of Argentina). To get to the market stalls we had to cross the Riachuelo River, rank with years of slaughterhouse detritus and god knows what else. I started having my first misgivings.

The river was so thick with trash you could cross it on foot but risk its flesh-dissolving waters. No flora or fauna survived in it. The tonnage of humanity drawn to this Hades of merchandising had to use one of two pedestrian bridges, one more hair-raising than the other. We chose to walk the plank, a sling of metal, with jerry-rigged wire railing gone in most places. The thick, hideous stew of toxic garbage in the river below threatened life much more than the actual 30-foot fall. One blogger described the potential fall like “bungee jumping without a rope.”

But the pilgrimage, four and five people deep, moved relentlessly to the altar of mercantilism. Just before Marc and I were to mount the metal sling, I spotted the three-cup monty, or shell game scam, off to our right. I wondered what sucker they were ripping off. Two men and two women were obviously in cahoots. How many times had I seen this game pulled off on unsuspecting riders of San Francisco’s Muni bus—street guys getting 20 bucks a pop? Then, as I passed, one of the women tugged my arm lightly, not unfriendly, and encouraged me to play. It was me and Marc they’d had their eye on all the time. I had carefully dressed in loose cargo pants, all my few valuables in tightly zipped pockets. I wore my decrepit running shoes. I’m dark and Argentine looking, how could they spot me among the thousands of shoppers here?

“Get your hands off me,” I scowled, angrily pushing the woman’s hand away. “Fock you,” she yelled violently after me.

“This isn’t good, Marc,” I said. “Getting into a defensive mode is not good.” It was not even 6 am. I was cranky and not yet caffeinated.

In less than ten minutes we were across the river, joking about whether an engineer had lately examined the safety of the structure. I discreetly removed my 18-karat gold earrings from Florence and tucked them in a Velcro-locking pocket. I had brought my camera but would never take it out of my left zip-lock pocket.

We were in the heat of the market. We could only proceed with the packed crowds languorously. The flow was one huge sloe-eyed sea of poor people hungry for Stuff. Need or whim for that stuff could only be measured by the beholder. “Everywhere I look I see dead eyes,” I muttered.

Continue to Page 2 – Buenos Aires Market

Quiet moments: Western Highlands of Scotland

Kerry Dexter — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 07:02:35 +0000

The road to Fort William, in the western highlands of Scotland, travels along the banks of Loch Lomand and rises up through the mountains near Glen Coe. The road, and the weather, are ever changing, offering landscapes such as this one

That ever changing weather and that winding road are two reasons I choose to do this journey with Citylink, the bus service which has routes covering most of Scotland. If you’re think wait, I’ve not had the best experiences with travel by bus, I’ll say that I’ve found Citylink coaches (that’s what long distance buses are called in Scotland) to be comfortable and clean, and usually on time, and the people who run them to be friendly and professional. Traveling this route by Citylink also puts you in touch with local people gong about their travels for work, school, and family in a way taking a tour does not. There are several schedules which allow you to travel this road as a day trip from Glasgow — the trip takes about three hours one way — or if you wish, the route from Glasgow continues on further up into the Highlands and all the way to Skye in the Inner Hebrides.

Watching the landscape unfold is reason enough to travel this road. Fort William is a center for mountain adventure and outdoor activity, located between the shores of Loch Linne and Scotland’s highest peak. Ben Nevis. so there are many things to explore there, as well. Among them are an annual festival of mountain themed films, mountain biking competitions in the summer, and contemporary and traditional music in its pubs and clubs all year round.

Consider subscribing to Perceptive Travel through email or
RSS feed. thanks!

Somebody Please Put Something On That Poor Polar Bear

Brian Spencer — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:36:51 +0000

We were ready to get the hell out of Siam Paragon, as usual.

The cramped ground floor food hall was heaving with tourists and locals and young students and office workers on break. The roar of Thai-language conversation, and children screaming, and tourists blathering, and lunch trays clinking was fast reaching a suffocating pitch. There was nowhere to sit in the sprawling dining area, and navigating through these cattle-like herds at anything more than a sluggish shuffle was like playing a game of Twister while walking.

Patiently dealing with crowds like the ones typically found at Bangkok’s busiest megamall, particularly on weekend afternoons, is a skill one naturally develops over time while living here, but everybody has their limits. Having sufficiently accomplished what we came to Paragon to achieve–buy a new book, look for cheese bread, eat lunch–it was time to escape the feverish madness indoors and plunge back into the buzzsaw of whistles, buses, motorbikes, and candy-colored taxis that pump up the volume of the city’s orchestra of traffic rumble. That’s just how it is in Bangkok’s central commercial districts of Siam Square and Pratunam; I wouldn’t have it any other way (most of the time).

Something in the lower level just outside the entrance of Siam Ocean World drew our attention, though, as we rode the escalator up from the first to second floor. Something… odd. Something… not quite right. Something… inappropriate. Something… hilarious. We got to the second floor and turned right around to go back downstairs and further investigate.

Oh my.

My wife and I snapped photos through incredulous tears of juvenile laughter. We took turns posing with the bear, and snickered to ourselves when others posed with the bear. It was so revolting and egregious and amazing and, in a certain way, so perfectly Bangkok.

That poor, poor bear. She must have been so embarassed with nobody there to cover her up. I mean, really: no respectable bear would be caught dead in public wearing a red hankerchief around its neck.