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For more photos like this, explore the Nature Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
Get top-notch professional 8x12 Glossy & Matte prints of this and any of these Top Fifty Prints for just $11.50, 16x24 Glossy, Matte & Lustre for $35.00 at EarthPhotos.com.
(Photo from EarthPhotos.com.)
Travel in former Soviet lands has a special place in my heart. When I first began to travel a little off the beaten path, in the late 80's and early 90's, the lands from the Arctic east of Finland to the Adriatic east of Italy, and all the way east to the Pacific Ocean, were in greater or lesser spasms of turmoil. Some of my fondest travel memories include wicked cold, gloomy trains and bad sausage - all part of the experience of travel in the dying Soviet Union.
With my own personal souvenir pieces of the Berlin Wall in my bags (that I had proudly chiseled from the wall myself), I spent the night on the floor of East Berlin's Lichtenberg Station in the first days of 1990, having missed the late train to Prague, where the revolution still surged ahead. From Tallin, Estonia, we watched Finnish TV with considerable alarm (and couldn't understand a thing they said) as they displayed maps of the nearby Sosnovy Bor nuclear plant's leak on 25 March, 1992. Once on a train bound for Moscow, I woke up with a bag of potatoes at my feet where my camera should have been. I found the camera several compartments down the aisle. I've forgotten what happened to the potatoes.
Here are a couple of new articles about trips around the former Soviet Union's still unkempt borders that you can take today:
- A few years ago we sailed across the Black Sea on a working ferry (not a luxury cruise liner), the M/V "Yuzhnaya Palmyra," from UKR Ferry shipping company, Istanbul to Odessa, Ukraine. This same company puts on what is probably a little more adventurous travel experience elsewhere across the Black Sea, from the Georgian port of Poti to the Ukranian port of Ilychevsk.
Read about it in the article The Ukraine-Georgia Black Sea Ferry is no package tour from georgiandaily.com, which starts like this: "The ferry connecting Ukraine and Georgia across the Black Sea is, depending on one's point of view, either a tourist experience from Hell, or one of the world's last properly adventurous sea voyages."
I'm in.
- This morning comes the BBC article Belgrade-Sarajevo railway reopens after 17 years. The former Yugoslavia wasn't part of the old Soviet Union. But when Russia's dominion collapsed, the former Yugoslavia was thrown into much worse paroxysms than much of the former Soviet space.
As the article puts it, in the 1970's & 80's "Golden Era" of Yugoslavia, "People could start the day in an Ottoman-style cafe in the Bosnian capital before taking an easy six-hour ride in comfortable carriages to party in Belgrade."
Put me down for that one, too.
*****
The book to read is Murderers in Mausoleums, Jeffrey Tayler's Moscow to Beijing adventure around the old Soviet rim.
(Top photo, of the UKR Ferry Shipping Company's M/V Yuzhnaya Palmyra at dock in Istanbul, from the Turkey Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. See also the related Ukraine Gallery and Georgia Gallery. Bottom photo, of a pedestrian street in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, from the Former Yugoslavia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)
Embedded in an otherwise serious article in the New York Times about an impounded cargo plane and apparent arms sales by North Korea:
"The crew was detained and the cargo confiscated but not immediately. The crew had enough time to buy six large bottles of beer at a duty-free shop, which were confiscated from them in the detention center where they are now being kept."
The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak and his counterpart Abhisit Vejjajiva from Thailand did one of those things politicians do, along with presiding over commissions, launching initiatives and kissing babies - they held a ceremony, this time to "name a bridge" that spans their border.
But this wasn't just a bridge. The newly christened Friendship Bridge connects predominantly Muslim Malaysia with a predominantly Muslim area of otherwise Buddhist Thailand that has seen a continuing low-grade separatist violence for years. (Here's some background.)
Nothing like a traveling pack of officials to turn up the heat. Ten have died since Monday, with more than a dozen wounded including three soldiers who inadvertently set off a bomb in Yala province, according to Australia Network News. Elsewhere a patrol protecting teachers was attacked and political banners were booby-trapped with bombs. In all, the Australian story reports five bombs wounded fourteen during the Prime Ministers' visit.
Or, says the Malaysia Star, four bombs exploded in Yala on Wednesday killing a policeman and wounding three officials. Or, if you prefer Malaysia's Bernama, two were killed by nine bombs during the visit.
Oh, and by the way, the two leaders arrived by helicopter. Too dangerous to use the bridge.
*****
The tourist trade seems to purr right along in a universe parallel from the violence. I'm not aware of any related violence reaching the Malaysian resort of Langkawi (the Four Seasons there looks fabulous, but that's more of a topic for When Money Doesn't Matter) or an array of Thai resorts, at Phuket, Koh Phi Phi, Krabi and elsewhere. All these vacation spots are within, say, a little over a hundred miles of the conflict.
And, of course, the heavily used rail route between Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok crosses the area of conflict. The Man in Seat 61 has extensive descriptions of passenger train service between those points. The schedule for the luxury Eastern and Oriental Express train shows 35 departures in 2010 between BKK & SIN.
We traveled - without incident - on that E&O train a few years back. We were interested whether there would be any acknowledgment of potential danger from the E&O crew. Not a peep. "Studied avoidance" by the crew. "Complete lack of local knowledge" by most of our fellow passengers.
(Top photo from Koh Phi Phi, Thailand, about 200 kilometers - 124 miles - from the border. Bottom, the Eastern and Oriental Express. Both from EarthPhotos.com. For more photography see the Thailand Gallery and the Malaysia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)
Not as hard as you may think. This 10,860 foot (3310 meter) peak is Europe's most active volcano. Can you name it? The island on which it's located? The country?
The answer is after the jump.
A good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey & EarthPhotos.com.
(Photo from EarthPhotos.com.)
See the Russia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com for more.
To mark the climate change meeting in Copenhagen, you might enjoy a short three-minute clip from The History Channel called "How the Globe Was Made." It's about receding glaciers, with pretty pictures of the Swiss Alps (Via A Distinctive World).
(Photo is the Gergeti glacier on Mt. Kazbek, Republic of Georgia, from the Georgia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)
"Sarkozy spends £250,000 of French EU budget on shower he did not use"
Well this is fun. That headline, from the Guardian, comes from a story reporting that during the French EU presidency, the French president "sanctioned an elaborate upgrade of the Grand Palace in Paris
for an EU-Mediterranean summit – one of his pet initiatives to mark his
turn at the EU helm.
"Nearly £300,000 was spent building a conference podium, nearly £200,000 upgrading the gardens and grounds, and a total bill for the Sarkozy shower of almost £250,000.
"The audit report said the cost soared because of the complications of installing a state-of-the-art shower to the president's specifications in a listed building.
"The president never used it – instead going back to the Élysée palace during the three-day summit to freshen up. The shower has since been dismantled."
*****
But, um, the elaborate facility in the photo is NOT the French president's. It was ours, in the owner's suite, on a trip across Lake Malawi on the MV Ilala.
Not to give the wrong impression - the Ilala cruise was a great deal of fun, sailing across placid, inland Lake Malawi from Monkey Bay, Malawi for a couple of days alongside the Mozambican shoreline to Likoma Island, which is part of Malawi.
The Ilala was an authentic, agreeable experience and the trip was served up in inimitable African style. Here's the Ilala at anchor in Monkey Bay (left, on the left), and below, a man paddles his canoe toward Cobue village in Mozambique, a photo taken from the Ilala that was the EarthPhotos.com most popular photo for a while on our return from Malawi.
Read a story about our drive through Malawi, called Everlasting: Malawi here. And see more photos in the France Gallery and lots more of the MV Ilala, the Mozambican shoreline, Monkey Bay, Likoma Island and the Malawian capital Lilongwe in the Malawi Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
Here's a favorite HDR photo taken at the early morning floating market at Can Tho, in the Mekong delta region south of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Take a CS&W photo journey through Vietnam from the Cambodian border to China. And read an excerpt from our story Hurtling Through the Mekong Delta.
Find almost 400 more photos from around Vietnam in the Vietnam Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. And see the EarthPhotos HDR Gallery.
Get top-notch professional 8x12 Glossy & Matte prints of this and any of these Top Fifty Prints for just $11.50, 16x24 Glossy, Matte & Lustre for $35.00 at EarthPhotos.com.
(Photo from EarthPhotos.com.)
This is one of Beijing's most compelling sites - the Temple of Heaven, from which the Ming Dynasty emperors offered sacrifice to Heaven. The Temple of Heaven complex is bigger than the huge Forbidden City. The thinking was that "As Chinese emperors called themselves 'The Son of Heaven,' they dared not to build their own dwelling, 'Forbidden City,' bigger than a dwelling for Heaven."
China thinks of itself as the Middle Kingdom, meaning "the centre of civilization." Some say that alongside this high national self-regard, the Chinese national psyche is prickly - that "the Chinese can instantly turn hostile to foreigners at any perceived slight." About a year ago CS&W published, via the Chinese blog Danwei, a funny map of countries that have hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.
Now, via Shanghaiist, enjoy this fun set of maps about what people from specific regions of China think about the other regions of China.
(And enjoy photography from all across China in the China Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)
A band of freezing rain
swept over the Hotel Cabo de Hornos, turning the waters of the Strait of
Magellan dirty gray. Puerta Arenas’s “oldest and grandest” hotel was, well, it
was just a hotel. All of its walls were painted a determined mustard. A bare
minimum of staff kept the Cabo de Hornos open and we all watched cold squalls
spray over the strait.
The Pan American highway
stops at Puerto Montt, 816 miles of Chilean coastline to the north, so there
are no roads to get down here and there is little tourism, because you have to
be damned determined to get here.
Feliz Navidad. Punta
Arenas was closed tight, for we came in on Christmas night.
*****
I think I snared the last
car for rent in southern Chile.
In the morning I stopped
for coffee and touched Magellan’s shiny toe (this was so destiny would bring me
back), on the plaza, then I found Hertz.
“Buenos dias. You have a
car?”
“No.”
A happy smile.
“If I go to aeropuerto?”
“No.”
I looked across the street.
“Budget?”
This “no” betrayed a smug
certainty, and at the same time a creeping regret that he wasn’t helping. He
allowed that I could always “ask the question” across the street at Budget and
furthermore, the man down the street at Santander might have uno auto. He
wouldn’t open until ten and it was scarcely 9:30. Still, that was something, so
I bid him and a man washing cars adios.
At Budget they had big
smiles but no cars.
“For today!?” He acted
amazed.
The season's first snow visited Georgia's Appalachian mountains over the weekend. Here at the farm a half day of snowfall hid the ground and brought the birds to the feeder in search of food.
(See photos of Rural Life at EarthPhotos.com.)
With articles like Dark Clouds and Fraught Moment for a Fragile Nation, we've worried over Thailand's fate as its King Bhumipol has been hospitalized since September. The king rallied from Siriraj Hospital to travel to the Amarin Winitchai Throne Hall in Bangkok's Grand Palace, where he addressed his subjects Saturday on his 82nd birthday.
“My happiness comes from the development, security and normalcy of the nation,” the king said in a brief response to well-wishers broadcast on television. He asked the nation’s officials and people to perform their duties “for the benefit of the nation.”
The AP notes that these were the monarch's first public comments since being hospitalized.
As the Bangkok Post writes, "After the king delivered his address he returned by motorcade to Siriraj Hospital."
(Photo from EarthPhotos.com. See more photos from Thailand in the Thailand Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)
The wooden bridge in this picture, first built in the 14th century, is the main landmark in a lovely lakeside city of about 60,000.
Can you name the city? The country?
The answer is after the jump.
A good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey & EarthPhotos.com.
(Photo from EarthPhotos.com.)
Looking for the best way to track the annual Masaai Mara wildebeest migration in real time? Sure you were.
Try this site. Maps, charts, nice graphics. We'll put it in the "Travel Tools" sidebar.
Photo from EarthPhotos.com.
We're heading to Namibia in a month. Let's hope we get off to a smoother start than last time. Here's what happened then:
If you fly from Johannesburg to Windhoek, you mostly fly over Botswana. After an hour the clouds stop in a line and below it’s scrub and salt pans, no roads. Before noon you find yourself under a blazing sun, 45 kilometers east of town at Windhoek Hosea Kutako International Airport.
No difference between this patch of scrub and any other between here and Windhoek. Except maybe this particular bit of land used to belong to somebody important’s brother-in-law.
We had a voucher for our rental car that read, “Thrifty Car Rental, Windhoek airport” across the top, but walk past the Avis and Hertz and Imperial counters in the arrivals lobby and hmmm, no Thrifty.
Once we worked out that in fact Thrifty only had a city office and we found the man they’d sent to haul us in, and once we waited just that one quick additional hour for another flight carrying another client – once we made it to the Thrifty Car Rental office in Klein Windhoek, they were happy to ask for another hundred NAD (Namibian dollars) for the transfer back to the airport when we dropped the car off, it being so far and all.We declined to pay extra for that.
When we finally left Windhoek, at the first police checkpoint on the Rehoboth road south of town, we had the chance to perspire for the better part of an hour with a stout, entirely agreeable police woman at a shed by the road. There was no registration on our windscreen, you see, a fact noted by the astute policeman at the roadblock (but news to us) and so we’d have to go back to the car rental office.
From the Toronto Star:
ALICE SPRINGS–Australian authorities plan to corral about 6,000 wild camels with helicopters and gun them down after they overran a small Outback town in search of water, trampling fences, smashing tanks and contaminating supplies.
From the Guardian:
The animals have caused chaos in the Northern Territory town of Docker River, smashing water tanks, destroying fences and approaching houses. State officials have described the siege as a "critical situation" and warned that the town did not "have the luxury of time", after the camels blocked the town's airstrip – preventing medical evacuations – and began to contaminate the water supply.
Camels were introduced to Australia to help tame the outback. Until the rail track was laid to Alice Springs in 1929,
"camels brought everything. pianos, motors, furniture and supplies. The arrival of these beasts of burden ws a time of high excitement. Mail, newspapers and long-awaited clothes and cosmetics orders also came this way."
*****
Take a look at this modern day cattle pen at the Undoolya Farm outside Alice Springs:
There's a water hole inside the pen to help round up the cattle. Note the metal bar at the top of the entrance to the pen, on the left. It's to keep out the taller camels.
Working camels on the other hand, like those at top, who take tourists on sunset rides along Cable Beach in Broome, are well cared for.
See 400 photos from all over Australia, including the working camels of Cable Beach, in the Australia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
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