Perceptive Travel Blog

Five Books for the Perceptive Traveler

Kerry Dexter — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:02:27 +0000

A unique view of a working river, a practical business book, short stories from the days when Ohio and Indiana were frontier country, a biography, a novel — no guidebooks on the list this time. Each of these books holds ideas of interest to the perceptive traveler, though.

Jessica DuLong is a journalist. She’s also the daughter of a man who works with his hands. Those two perspectives help inform the stories she tells in My River Chronicles.It’s memoir mixed with history, as duLong is drawn to volunteer on the fireboat John J. Harvey, a historic craft which sails the Hudson River in New York. What was going to be a short stint becomes a deep interest, leading her to reflect on this history of the mouth of the Hudson, and the changes that landscape, and the people who work on the river, have seen. Into this she weaves her own experiences learning to work on the boat, including quiet sailings up the river and the boat’s lillte known help during 9/11.

Michael Hyatt’s work is rather different: he’s had experience as an author, a literary agent, and a publisher. He’s the former CEO of Thomas Nelson, a large faith based publisher located in Nashville. He was able to step away from that work and focus full time on writing and speaking by building his platform of relationships, strategies, social media connections, and ideas. He has distilled ideas of how he did that and how you can do the same in his book Platform. Distill is a key word here:the chapters are short, and Hyatt is in love with presenting his ideas through lists and steps. This makes it handy reading for those brief spaces of time that often crop up as you travel. Though it’s likely you won’t agree with all strategies he outlines and points he suggests, it’s also likely that you will find ideas you’ll use, whether you work in the hospitality industry, in business, education, or as a writer or artist, or some other field. Platform is full of lists and bullet points, to be sure. It also contains a number of strategies and ideas that just may have you thinking about your work differently.

Wilderness Plots is made up of short chapters as well, but of a different sort.: they are stories. On his way to researching his works of fiction and non fiction, Scott Russell Sanders at times found stories that intrigued him but just didn’t fit in what he was working on. He put these tales from the history of Ohio and Indiana into small book: stories of a man pursued by a swarm of bees, a woman disconcerted by the effects of progress, a couple heading to a town that turns out not to be a town, yet, and many others. The stories are so vivd that a chance encounter with the book inspired five songwriters to to create music based on the them, too, which became the recording also called Wilderness Plots.

There are stories in Bright Star of the West: Joe Heaney too, but the writing here has a long narrative arc, interweaving the life of musician Joe Heaney with life in the west of Ireland and in Irish music in America during the middle of the twentieth century. Though he’s less well known than the Clancy Brothers, heaney had an equally strong influence on Irish American music. The writing can be a bit dry at times (authors Sean Williams and Lillis O’ Laoire are both academics as well a musicians), the story of Heaney’s life and times is filled with thought provoking ideas about how music and life may intertwine.

All sorts of things intertwine in the novel Interred with Their Bones. As an American director is staging Hamlet at the restored Globe in London, she receives a mysterious visit from a former mentor, a fire breaks out, the mentor lies murdered in the theater, and things pick up the pace from there. The plot tuns on a high stakes search for a lost play by Shakespeare: does it exist? did it ever? and if it does exist, where’s the manuscript? A spooky chase through Harvard’s Widener Library, travels to Spain, Stratford upon Avon, and the American southwest, and a a few flashbacks to Shakespeare’s time keep things lively. Author Jennifer Carrell has academic degrees in English lit, so she knows her stuff. She also knows how to keep that pace of her plot gong while he characters unravel the history involved.

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

The Souks of Oman

Alison Stein Wellner — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:00:05 +0000

I’m not really a souk person, in the core of my soul.

I don’t like haggling, crowds, or stuff, really. But while there’s plenty of stuff to bargain over in the souks of Oman, the two souks I visited were far more chilled out than the ones I’ve encountered in, say, Marrakech or Istanbul.

For example, when I visited the souk in the capital city of Muscat last week, I had time to admire the stained glass domes that marked the intersection of the passageways pictured above. It just wasn’t that hectic.

In part, I’m sure this is due to the fact that Oman is not exactly deluged with Western tourists. But while its neighbors are places where Americans, and especially those with lady bits, may not feel so comfy cozy — Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran just a Gulf away — I felt quite comfortable during my visit there last week.

Oman is trying to boost its tourism trade — many hotels are planning to open; I was a guest of the well-located Radisson Blu — but if I can make one of those incredibly sweeping statements about the population of an entire country, I get the feeling that the Omanis are fairly relaxed by temperament.

The souks are also relaxed, and while the merchants are plenty ready to accept a tourist’s money, they’re still largely serving locals. This was the scene at the souk in Nizwa. I was there on a Friday, which is a big shopping day.

Interesting fact: in Oman, the shopping is traditionally handled by men. Once I learned this, I had an additional excuse to add to my natural disinclination towards shopping: respect for the local culture. Like a good Omani woman, I decided to leave the shopping to my husband back home. I left the souk without making a purchase.

Riding the buses in Madrid

Liz Lewis — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:46:05 +0000

Arriving in a new city, I usually ride the local buses to get a feel of the place.

But on my first visit to Madrid, handicapped by limited time, I decided to take the tourist option and use the hop on hop off sightseeing bus. This highly visible red double-decker bus travels two routes – the historic and the modern – around the city.

Each trip takes around 45 minutes and provides a great overall of places and sights around Madrid.  On boarding, you are given a red headset that you plug into the seat in front of you for a running commentary in the language of your choice. Be warned, though, not all plugs seem to work. It took me three seat changes before I found my commentator. Luckily, with very few passengers on this run, changing seats wasn’t a problem.

It sure made sightseeing around the city easy, allowing me to discover the location of places that I had previously only seen in pictures.

The bus travelled down the Calle Mayor to the Plaza Puerto del Sol, then on to the Atocha Train Station, stopping briefly at The Prado, skirting the Parque del Retiro and heading back toward the Palacio Real..

Sitting up top, on open air level of the bus, it sure was easy to look down onto the street and observe locals and tourists alike.

It’s a bit voyeuristic really.

I could watch people as they wandered along the streets, stopping at lights, and shopping for food and drink.

And from such an elevated location, there was also a much clear view of the buildings, and in particular the monuments and murals that seem to be commonplace along the streets of Madrid.

Along the way, I also learned some interesting things about buses and sightseeing…

- getting a good photo shoot when the bus is moving is impossible.

- whenever the bus stops, you can guarantee that the view will be either blocked, shadowed, or non-existant

-   standing up when the bus is moving is not always a good idea.

- sun burn and heat stroke is a good possibility when sitting in an open air bus.

New Doors Opening and Gates Coming Down in Myanmar

Tim — Sun, 13 May 2012 19:09:45 +0000

Story and photos by Michael Buckley

This is no ordinary gate. It is the tall gate that leads to the house where one of the great heroes of our times lives: Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. “Daw Suu” as she is affectionately known by the Burmese, was locked away here under house arrest for more than 15 years—”a prisoner in her own country,” as she once put it. In November 2010, restrictions were lifted, and suddenly her iconic image (previously forbidden) was plastered all over the place: on posters displayed outside shops and houses, on T-shirts, on calendars.

On April 1st, 2012, important by-elections include the NLD, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, for the first time in two decades. Two days before the elections, she has called a press conference at her lakeside home in Rangoon. Having caught wind of this, I show up–and am dismayed to find a long line-up of press people with big cameras–and press passes prominently displayed. I have no press pass. Indeed, I have no press ID at all. That’s a throw-back to the paranoid era, even a year earlier, when discovery of an unofficial visit by someone with any press affiliation would get you booted out of the country.

I am standing near the gate when it opens–and wave at the press officer, who recognizes me from a previous interaction when I donated some books to the cause. She calls me forward. And by this lucky turn of events, I am the first through the gate that morning. Gate-crashing! I sprint around the perimeter of the garden to stake out a position near the podium where Daw Suu will speak. In the background is the two-story house where she lives: it looks run-down, but I’m sure she has other things on her mind than painting the walls.

It is enthralling to be standing just a few feet away from a person whose courage–and perseverance in the face of extreme adversity–is legendary. A barrage of photographers and videographers home in on her, with camera flashes popping. “Just like Cannes!” says a French photographer.

Daw Suu speaks flawless English, with an Oxford accent. Responding to a question about the elections, she breaks into a smile and says, “We have unreasonable expectations. We’re going to be unreasonable.” She wants to win every seat in the by-elections. She’s been banging her head against a brick wall for 20 years and still she is unreasonable. Question: “On a democracy scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being idealist perfection, where does Burma stand today?”

“We are trying to get to number one,” she quips. As questioning wears on, she sits down, appearing tired. She is 66, and she has been on the road for the last few months, traveling the length and breadth of Burma, speaking at every opportunity, drawing massive crowds.

The Wrong Door

Let’s rewind a few weeks here. The normal mode of operation in Burma is when time is rolled back. Or turned upside-down. Burma is a classic riches to rags story. It was once the jewel of Asia, with a prosperous, thriving economy. Under military dictatorship, the last 60 years have seen the country isolated from the rest of the world, and battered economically with sanctions. Which has created Burma’s strange time warp; it’s out of sync with the rest of Asia.

One place you definitely do not want to experience a time warp is at an airport: as in riding some vintage Russian aircraft. I breathed a sigh of relief when I spotted an ATR-72 turbo-prop on the runway: the flight to Myitkyina. I have decided to take a plane from Rangoon as far north as I can, and head down the map by boat on the Irrawaddy River.

But on arrival in Myitkyina, I discover I cannot get out of the place overland except by train. Fighting with Kachin rebels has flared up, making the river and roads to the south unsafe to negotiate. The fighting has been going on sporadically for the last 60 years. More recently, Kachin rebels have delivered an ultimatum, telling Chinese dam-builders to cease and desist from destroying the environment and flooding Kachin villages. That call has been ignored, and so the fighting has resumed.

I take a short hop by plane to Bhamo, to the south, and launch on the Irrawaddy there, heading for Katha. Next problem: dry season. The river is at a record low, causing boats to get stranded on sandbars–which requires everyone to evacuate to dry land so the vessel can be dislodged.

The scenery is nothing special: the trip highlight is actually rubbing shoulders with Burmese people: men chewing betel-nut, women with cheeks coated in thanakha (home-made sunscreen and moisturizer), cigar-smoking wizened old women. And youth experiencing the joy of acquiring their first cellphone. The price of a cellphone SIM card has plummeted from US$2,500 to just US$200. A bargain! For people poor as church mice, a SIM card is now a possibility, though the price tag represents over a month’s wages.

Page 2- Burma Doors Opening

Through Doors in Romania

Tim — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:57:03 +0000

What comes to your mind when you think of Romania? Probably something having to do with a certain book, a certain creature of the night, and maybe a castle associated with both. But Romania is one of the cheapest places to travel in Europe, a great value just east of a few countries that can drain your wallet faster than you can say “euro zone.”

Romania is part of the EU, but its currency remains independent, which can be a good thing for us non-euro travelers. As I learned during my recent visit, however, there’s also plenty of beauty to take in while traveling around this country. I focused on the doors here to depart from the usual shots, though you can see a few drool-worthy shots and a round-up of three cities here: A Taste of Transylvania.

So here I present a few doorways of Romania, mostly in Transylvania, but the last one from Bucharest.

Transylvania was once part of Hungary, which the Hungarians will never hesitate to remind you, but of course the area has changed hands many times. Here’s a partial list of who tromped through: Visigoths, Huns, Gepids, Avars, Slavs, Bulgarians, Saxons, and Turks. Even when it was part of Hungary, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the real power emphasis being on the “Austro” part. But after a couple world war map changes in the 20th century, this region officially became part of Romania.

Remember now why you hated studying European history in high school?

Anyway, it’s a beautiful area full of a mixed bag of beautiful architecture. The two doors at the top are from a citadel in Sighisoara and a monastery nearby. The wide shot is from a building off the main square in Sibu.

The next two are from a different monastery and a former king’s palace. As you can see, the detail work is simply stunning, from a time back when it was considered normal to take six months or a year to do a custom order job right instead of whipping out a thousand identical ones on a factory floor in one day. Time was not precious; quality was. To honor God, the king, or even your own good fortune, adorning the doorway with work done well was essential.

The last door photo is from Bucharest, showing that time moving slowly was not just a rural concept. This is from Stavropoleos Monastery in what’s left of the historic part of the city. It was founded in 1724.

For more information on the country, see RomaniaTourism.com. Watch for a later feature story in the Perceptive Travel webzine.