Common Sense and Whiskey

Border Moves Set Up Possible Russia-NATO Conflict

The crackle of Cold War confrontation could be about to resurface. Russia has made no secret of its unhappiness with next week's defiant NATO military exercises in Georgia.

Today, Reuters reports that Russia takes control of rebel borders with Georgia. Formal Russian control of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia borders puts Russian and NATO troops in not quite eye to eye proximity next week at the NATO exercise.

The Georgia Times says "NATO military training will be held on Vaziani military base in Tbilisi from May 6 to June 1. 1100 soldiers of the 18 countries will take part in the maneuvers." Tbilisi and the South Ossetia border are roughly thirty miles apart.

(Photo of a billboard in Tbilisi celebrating Georgia's "Rose Revolution." More in the Georgia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. See also the Russia Gallery.)

Photos with Wings

We display a fair bunch of winged creatures in the Birds Gallery at EarthPhotos.com, and there are some newly added individuals in the Costa Rica Gallery too, like the inquisitive little fellow shown here.

Last week a friend passed along the avian photography of Douglas Herr at Wildlightphoto.com. It's fabulous. Check it out.

Disappointing List of Top Travel Destinations

This list of Americans' top ten travel destinations, from RickSeaney.com, is completely, entirely depressing:

1. London
2. Rome
3. Paris
4. Cancun
5. Punta Cana
6. Puerto Vallarta
7. Barcelona
8. Venice
9. Florence
10. Amsterdam

My fellow Americans, where in this list is the imagination!? The curiosity about cultures different from your own!? Any sense of the vast, wild, vivid planet!?

For anyone inclined to push just a little harder than Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower, come along with us this summer on Common Sense and Whiskey. In July we'll visit a few places a little off the West Europe/beach circuit: Szechan and Xinjiang provinces including the Sunday market at the ancient town of Kashgar in China, and then passage into Kyrgyzstan and on to Kazakhstan.

Not a margarita or a hammock in sight.

Throat Singing. Mare's Milk. Yurts.

Our stay in Mongolia didn't work out exactly as we'd planned because planes flew into the World Trade Center scarcely 30 hours before our arrival. We were just a wee bit preoccupied.

But there's nice reporting on the state of the capital, Ulan Bataar, here, in the Asia Times.

(See photos in the Mongolia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)

Sochi Olympics Watch #4

Sochi, Russia, home to the 2014 Winter Olympics, held elections yesterday to choose the leadership that will govern through the games. The Kremlin-backed candidate, Anatoly Pakhomov, took about 77% of the vote.

The principal challenger was Boris Nemtsov, a young reformer who was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Republic representing the closed city of Gorky (later renamed Nizhny Novgorod) in 1990. Nemtsov took a distant second 13 per cent of the vote and has promised a legal challenge.

President Dmitry Medvedev insisted this month that Russia “had, has, and will have democracy.” Headlines like these invite skepticism:

Russia: Opposition Charges Election Fraud in Future Olympic Host City
Russian mayor faces poll fraud case
Pro-Kremlin candidate wins Sochi mayoral poll amid claims of fraud
Activists decry Russia's latest case of ‘managed democracy'
Opposition Vows To Contest Ruling Party's Sochi Win

Sochi is about twenty miles up the Black Sea coast from the Republic of Georgia, with whom Russia fought the summer war of 2008, and less than 300 miles from Beslan, home to the 2004 school hostage crisis that killed at least 334, and Grozny, epicenter of the Chechen conflict that, by the most conservative estimates, killed 30,000 civilians.

Get your tickets early.

(See photos in the Russia Gallery and the Georgia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)

Fifty Photos: #19

This photo, from a temple in Cholon, near Saigon, Vietnam, is today's contribution from the Top Fifty Prints collection at EarthPhotos.com. Get top-notch professional 8x12 Glossy & Matte prints of any of the Top Fifty Prints for just $11.50 at EarthPhotos.com.

The Country that Disappeared - in Photos

I’m not entirely clear about everything that happened that night. Perhaps you’re the same way about certain New Year’s Eves.

I remember that well before midnight I sat atop the Berlin Wall beside a teenaged East German, our legs dangling off the western side. He’d never been beyond the wall. Looking back west there were dozens, maybe hundreds of American flags. There was a lot of love in the air.

Out there in the crowd, wearing a costume that twinkled like a Christmas tree, American performer David Hasselhoff sang while standing on one of those heavy-lift cranes they use to work on utility poles. Looking back I thought I must have made that part up, until I saw video confirmation.

One thing I’m sure of is that the Berlin Wall was made to be very, very hard. There was a great crush of people as far back to West Berlin as you could see, and everybody was determined to chisel out his own piece of the wall before the whole thing went away.

I borrowed a hammer and chisel and pounded away. You’d isolate a golf ball sized bit of concrete and the final blow would send it skittering along the ground where someone else would happily scoop it up and be gone.

I eventually carved out my pieces, which are now encased in plastic with the date 31 December, 1989.

Before the new year was out, East Germany was gone. The magazine Der Spiegel has captured the zeitgeist of the country that is no more, in 45 photos taken just before and after reunification in 1990, in this online gallery.

Friday Photo Quiz #23

This is the leadership compound just outside a national capital. Can you name the country? The capital city? The answer is after the jump.

A good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey & EarthPhotos.com.

(Photo from EarthPhotos.com.)

It's OURS. No, we still say it's OURS.

Apparently,  Argentina isn't comfortable within its boundaries. It has reasserted its claim to the British overseas territories of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas to Argentines) and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. In addition Argentina claims part of Antarctica as Argentine Antarctica, a claim which overlaps British and Chilean assertions.

And a 50 kilometer (31 mi) long border with Chile in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field is awaiting demarcation as required under a 1998 treaty.

Argentina occupied the Falklands in the 1982 Falklands War. To reclaim them, Britain staged its bombers and troop carriers from the mid-Atlantic island of Ascension, refueling them in flight.

As for tourism today, the Falklands bills itself as "a sanctuary for rare and spectacular wildlife. From cliff-top colonies of nesting black-browed albatross, to sprawling elephant seal harems - the Falklands offer unrivaled wildlife access."

Lan Chile ran a weekly Saturday morning flight from Punta Arenas to the Falkland capital for years, but I don't see it on the Lan timetable just now. The other way in by air is via the British Ministry of Defense's MoD Airbridge - twice weekly non-commercial flights from the United Kingdom.

"Flights fly south from the RAF base at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire every Sunday and Wednesday, and north from the Falklands every Monday and Thursday. Flight time is appproximately 20 hours, including a refuelling stop on Ascension Island at the mid-way point (where visitors can stop-over should they choose)."

We'll have much more about the MoD Airbridge in December, as we're planning an Airbridge flight from Ascension to Brize Norton.

(Photo of Buenos Aires from the Argentina Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Brown Dismisses Falkland Islands Claims (news.sky.com)
• The Falklands issue (bbc.co.uk)
• Falkland Islands not on table, says Brown (guardian.co.uk)

How to Use Violence Without Leaving Incriminating Evidence

We're heading for our eighth trip to China in about three months time. If you're visiting China this summer, you probably will not want to disturb the peace.

Finding Trolls in the Surf

"Icelandic elves, for example, can have long, spindly legs, big ears, or crazy hair but they don’t wear pointed hats or shoes. Such garb is found on an Icelandic dwarf, perhaps, but he could just as well be wearing a long cloak or a beard." - from GoNomad.com

Because the summer is so short, and the days so long, people all across Scandinavia are emerging from hibernation about now, and will live hard and furious for the next several months.

But it's mighty cold in winter. If the weather's brutal outside, you have plenty of time indoors to dwell inside your head. Which may account for the persistent Icelandic belief in fairies, elves and dwarfs. On the other hand, This may be another explanation.

(Photo from the Iceland Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)

Sri Lanka Tea Country

The Tamil Tigers invented the suicide belt. They are accused of being complicit in the May 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at a campaign rally in India. In a harrowing attack for travelers, Tamil Tiger rebels armed with mortars stormed Sri Lanka's only international airport in July, 2001. Since 1976 the Tamils have vexed successive Sri Lankan governments - until now.

As the last days of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as a regular fighting force may be upon us, we thought we'd revisit a bit of our stay in Sri Lanka's tea country during a national election campaign ten years ago:

    - Over the front seat, Tyrone was explaining how buffalo milk mixed with honey is the local equivalent of yogurt, when up came two signs, one explaining we’d achieved 6187 feet, the next, over the road, read “Welcome to the Salubrious Climes of Nuwara Eliya.”

Straight through the scramble to the far side of town stood the old British Grand Hotel. You wonder what it was doing here. Nuwara Eliya (pronounced “Noo-relia”) is an old British hill station, full of well-tended proper English gardens and lingering British built structures like the Grand Hotel – dark, wooden, rambling, musty and old.

The story goes that the Sinhalese preceded the Tamils to Ceylon and when the British arrived, the Sinhalese were unwilling to work for the slave wages the Brits wanted to pay. So the Brits recruited the Tamils and brought them up here to pick tea.

The good Tamils, as Tyrone called them, (not the trouble-causing ones agitating for independence in the north) got housing, a stipend, a garden and a quota. After that they got a premium for the tea they picked, per kilo.

*****

A little after six o’clock on election day morning, two loudspeakers chanted the call to Allah just beside a glass-enclosed Buddha statue just by the traffic circle. The sun hadn’t cleared the hills but it was set to be a glorious morning, birds and dew run riot.

At this hour, the town served mostly as a staging area for the bus station. People queued and a few stores lumbered open. At a milk bar (that’s a name for convenience store used from here to New Zealand) I bought toothpaste and remarked how it would be a nice day.

Dazzling smile: “It is election day, sir!”

China Earthquake Anniversary Approaches

The first anniversary of the brutal Wenchuan earthquake north of Chengdu in Sichuan Province, China is almost upon us. Photographer Thomas H. Hahn, a former resident of Chengdu, takes a look as the recovery effort.

Fifty Photos: #18

This photo, of a leopard in the Hong Kong zoo, is today's contribution from the Top Fifty Prints collection at EarthPhotos.com. Get top-notch professional 8x12 Glossy & Matte prints of any of the Top Fifty Prints for just $11.50 at EarthPhotos.com.

Travel Blog Wisdom

    "With the possible exception of a Caribbean all-inclusive resort, you won’t find a more impressive collection of brain donors than on a cruise." - elliott.org

More Travel Way Off the Beaten Track

    "The very name provokes head-scratching and blank looks: Guyana? The most common reaction, after the initial puzzlement, is to ask which bit of Africa it is in (Guinea? Ghana?)."

- From Guyana: Green and Troubled Land on moreintelligentlife.com.

Friday Photo Quiz #22

At 4,095 metres (13,435 ft), this is the tallest peak in this country and on the world's third largest island. Clue: Three countries share this tropical island.

Can you name the island? The country? The peak? The answer is after the jump.

A good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey & EarthPhotos.com.

(Photo from EarthPhotos.com.)

Don't Try This at Home: Wild Papua New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland. With less than one per cent of the planet's land area, it contains up to "10% of the total species on the planet." In West Papua, part of Indonesia, there may be as many as 44 uncontacted tribal groups. A trip to visit any of the people on the island is a real eye opener (See photos from the Goroka Show, an annual tribal show in the PNG highlands).

Based on conversations we had on a trip along the Sepik River, which is in the country of Papua New Guinea, on the eastern side of the island, we wrote earlier about male initiation rites, here. Here is a brief excerpt:

    “We believe the father gives us the knowledge but the blood comes from the mother and so it must return to her. So my mother’s brother came from another village.

    “The night of the skin cutting we stayed up all night. When it was very late the men made us go into the water and stay for one hour so our skin would get soft. Ohhh, it was so cold!

    Lawrence massaged his temples.

    “When it was time I laid down on top of my mother’s brother. So the blood would fall on him. And they cut me.”

    With a flourish he raised his right sleeve to show the results.

    “Sometimes they cut your back but I asked they only cut my arms because I had to go back to work. “

    He had to have time to heal. But he didn’t heal. He was infected.

    “I asked for medicine but my grandfather refused. He asked me, ‘What have you done wrong?’ I said nothing, nothing over and over but he kept asking me until finally I admitted I had stayed with my girlfriend the night before.

Read the entire article on the "Sepik River, Papua New Guinea."

That's male initiation rites. Now comes a video describing female initiation rites. Have a look:

(See photos from Papua New Guinea in the Papua New Guinea Gallery on EarthPhotos.com.)

Maximizing Your International Travel Dollar

Our mailbox is laden with expensive glossy catalogs from high end travel providers. Mountain Travel Sobek, “Celebrating 40 Years of Adventure Travel,” sends a very nicely done 204 page 2009 catalog offering, for a couple of examples:

12 days in Namibia for $7795 per person, starting and ending in Windhoek, including internal airfare and the company of others (price offered is for four or five people). Including Clara and Herb from Cleveland, your close proximity partners for nearly two weeks of Land Rover trips and box lunches, whom you’ll meet on arrival, this epic journey departs from Windhoek twice each year, on Mountain Travel Sobek’s schedule.

Or how about 13 nights in the Republic of Georgia from $3695 (again, not just you, but from 4 – 12 people)? This one starts in Tibilisi, twice a year, again on Mountain Travel Sobek’s schedule.

Not to fault Mountain Travel Sobek. This is what they do. You’ve seen the Perillo Tours ads for travel to Italy? Same thing. You’re buying it? They’re selling it.

So don’t buy it. Do your research and hire local people. They not only have local knowledge, but they’re also often quoting in local money, and the money you spend with them stays local.

My wife Mirja and I flew into Windhoek, for example, by ourselves, and spent a bare fraction of that group price. And it was simple:

Silly Museums: #9

Welcome to The Corkscrew Museum, in Menerbes, "one of the most beautiful village in France in the center of Luberon."

It's "A private collection of over one thousand pieces from all over the world, dating from the middle of the XVIIth century to the present day."

(Photo from the Corkscrew Museum website.)