They say the best scams are when you’re not sure you’ve been scammed. But you do have to decide and the options aren’t great: you’re either a sucker or a cynic. Marty and I, after extensive deliberation, decided that anything is better than being a sucker.
We had been in Shanghai less than 24 hours when we rose up the escalators out of the Yuyuan Garden metro station and into the midday haze. At the top we were immediately intercepted by three sprightly early twenty-something girls. They wanted me to take a shot of them standing on the edge of a busy intersection with a needle like tower barely discernible through the apricot smog in the background. I clicked, shot and was immediately suspicious. The “can you please take picture” is the perfect (not to mention well documented) in for scam artists. Turns out they were students from Tsing Tao (“like the beer?” “Ha, yeah! Like the beer! You know it?”) studying English.
I was partially disarmed. I had the assumption laden thought that no one who had the dedication to make the crossover from Mandrin to English so successfully would have to resort to grifting to make a living. One told us that the Yuyuan gardens were full this time of day but it was OK because they were going to a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. What luck! I could tell Marty was having second thoughts. “What do you reckon?” he asked me.
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May 10, 2012 – 6:11 pm, by Crikey
Emma Koehn writes: A young monk pads barefoot across the icy foyer, wearing a Foo Fighters tour t-shirt and faded designer jeans, searching for his shoes.
He pauses as I stumble, trying to tie my Converse with frozen fingers. I am a white beacon of clumsiness within this temple compound. Having gained his attention, I blush, mumble an incoherent “Ohiogazaimasu” (Good morning), and stare blankly at his shirt. He slips on a pair of outdoor shoes, lithely exits into the snow and points the way to the temple at which morning prayer will be held.
I am left on the decking with frost melting through my sock as I wonder if monks can listen to rock music too.
This image of monkhood is a little difficult to reconcile, having been promised an absence of pop cultural fare in Koya-san in Wakayama prefecture. It is here that young men and women of Japanleave their Nikes at the temple door and begin an existence among hundreds of temples; studying with the goal of becoming monks and nuns.
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Travel plans are like children, conceive them when you’re tipsy then leave the details until later. Dutch courage is necessary to hit the points on the map boldly, with enough conviction that the ink stains the paper and there’s no turning back.
So it was with my mate Marten and I (the travel plans, not the children). I can’t remember the inner-west Sydney pub but I can remember things really began when the conversation turned towards the breakaway state of Transnistria. I had researched it years before and tried ever since to find someone to accompany me there. Problem was it’s a pretty tough destination to sell.
“The last autonomous Soviet state. It has its own currency, stamps and passports, it runs along the Eastern border of Moldova but is independent.”
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May 3, 2012 – 3:45 pm, by Crikey
Nicole Frisina writes: Laos hit the headlines recently after three Australians died in the space of a month in the tourist towns of Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang. But there is plenty more to say about this little landlocked country than these tragic reports suggested.
My first trip to Laos was in 2007. The twin propeller airplane wobbled and stuttered its way over the Mekong River when the woman next to me asked, “Do you know what the ‘PDR’in Lao PDR stands for?” “People’s Democratic Republic,” I replied hastily, more concerned with the cabin’s full throttle rattling and the obscure angle at which we were approaching the runway. She shook her head and with the dry note of a seasoned development worker, said, “Lao PDR. Please. Don’t. Rush.” The plane skidded to a halt on the tarmac.
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At any given moment on Tạ Hiện street, Hanoi you’ll find a tourist photographing this window for the Creative Oriental Crafts Kingdom (aka COCK). This sign is clearly no accident, but an excellent business strategy, as confirmed by the store-owner in this blog. As it reported:
“As it turns out ‘COCK’ stands for ‘Creative Oriental Crafts Kingdom’. Inside we meet the owner, Miss Huong. She greets us with perfect English and after brief introductions; she proceeds to tell us about the story of COCK… According to Miss Huong, the ‘COCK’ is part of her business strategy. Her front window featured large text ‘Try COCK today please’.”
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April 16, 2012 – 4:37 pm, by Crikey
Freelance journalist Kerryn Koh writes: Once upon a time in a land far away, two naïve and rather idiotic girls set off to find a fabled land near the border of Spain and Portugal. Rumours of its unsurpassed beauty ran rings around them as they eagerly planned their journey, their excitement growing by the minute. Little did they know that these plans would soon become unravelled due to one small detail — the siesta.
The siesta that turns any small, well-meaning village into a ghost town.
Such was the situation we found ourselves in as we disembarked into our ordeal. Alone. Not a soul to be seen. Nobody to ask for directions and nothing to go by except the soon-to-be-misleading-map we had brought along with us. The plan was to hike down a trail to a lookout point. So, being the highly intelligent individuals that we were, we navigated our way to the path.
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I’ve always been a big believer that travel is an easy thing to do. Want to go somewhere? Book a ticket. If it’s somewhere local, book the hotel, camping site, whatever.
If you’ve got one big thing booked, then you’re forced to figure out all the other parts of the plan.
Obviously there are other factors that come into this — children, partners, getting leave off work, financial issues, not wanting to travel alone etc. – but I think the basic premise remains the same.
But for me the biggest travel drama this year is not figuring how I can afford it or when my boyfriend and I can both get time off work, it’s figuring out where the bloody hell to go.
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To the Vietnamese who live around me, it’s clear where I fit in here: I don’t. The differences between us are as plain as the enormous nose on my big fat face.
In Vietnam, I am, and always will be, a “Tây”, meaning “westerner”.
I can hear the call of “Tây-Tây-Tây-Tây-Tây” in any market as vendors announce my presence to each other, making it pretty much synonymous with the sound effect “ker-CHING!”
I’m not offended one bit by this label. Not even when I had new passport photos taken and the shop filled in the “Mr/Ms_________” section on the little receipt with “Ms Tây”, and filed it away under T.
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March 28, 2012 – 4:40 pm, by Crikey
Freelance journalist Carla Pratt writes: We were definitely lost, not that any one of us would admit it. Our gang had been wandering round the same slippery streets, of the very same two blocks, for over half an hour — and the bouncing rain wasn’t easing up. The alleyways of the Old Town of Prague are honeycombed and complex, even managing to defeat a whole group of tour guides such as ourselves, who have been here numerous times.
We passed by the Astronomical Clock Tower for the umpteenth time. It sprayed off a golden hue in the rain like something out of a film noir scene, a jumble of symbols, glittering hands, cogwheels and wide windows which overlook the timeworn square, leering with the weight of its great bell. Given the amount of windows in this city, there’s no wonder it’s the birthplace of “defenestration” — the act of throwing one out of a window.
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March 25, 2012 – 10:14 am, by Crikey
Lilani Goonesena writes: The drive from Chile’s capital of Santiago to the wine country of Mendoza, Argentina, is truly spectacular. The narrow, two-lane road labours through the winding Andes mountain range, passing ski fields and culminating in 27 steep switchbacks snaking up to the border.
Across the border, the road gently slopes down, skirting the magnificent Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas at just under 7,000m and crosses the desert of the Cuyo region. Canyons, glacial lakes and sparse vegetation sit against the backdrop of distant mountains and a skinny Rio Mendoza weaves alongside all the way into the city.
Hundreds of trucks travel this road every day — there’s no railway and flights aren’t cheap — making it an important commercial transport route. Though snowstorms can block the pass for days during the winter months, the border is officially open year round.
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