Feature Photo: samantha scelera Photo: kalleboo

If you’re heading to Europe for a long trip, you’re probably trying to count the ways you can save money, not spend more. But while it might sound expensive to buy a European cell phone—a “mobile,” as it’s called there—it’s an investment that will deepen your experience by making it easy for you to meet up with fellow travelers, contact local hosts or friends, or change your itinerary at a moment’s notice. Handsets are inexpensive, most carriers have coverage in every European country, and it’s easy to sign up for pay-as-you-go plans.

Many American travelers to Europe are tempted to upgrade their home cell phones to international calling plans. Be warned—many carriers will require you to purchase a new handset, for around $50-100, and international calls may end up costing as much as $1-2 per minute.

Investing in a European mobile isn’t for all travelers. If you plan to visit just one or two countries or your trip is shorter than three weeks, it’s probably cheaper to buy local or international phone cards to use at pay phones (either will only work in the country purchased). In US Dollars, local calls from a pay phone can cost as much as 50 – 70 cents a minute (the UK) or as little as 15 – 20 cents (Greece, the Czech Republic).

But if you want to CouchSurf with locals, meet up with friends living abroad, or make plans to get a beer with the American/Scot/Greek/Dane you met in the last country—all experiences that will greatly enrich your trip—a mobile can’t be beat for its convenience.

Photo: pedrosimoes7

1. Get a handset and SIM card

Most of the major European carriers – Vodafone, Orange, and T-Mobile – offer comparable prices and international coverage, but do some research before you arrive in Europe, if possible, to find the cheapest handsets and best coverage. All three of the companies above have many outlets in most European cities, making it easy to buy a mobile as well as find help as you travel. Handsets should run about $20-30: Vodafone offers several for £15 ($22) and Orange has a few for £9 ($15.50)! List the countries you’re visiting and check if you’ll have reception with the company you’re thinking about using. You probably will; I used a UK Orange mobile while traveling in Europe and had coverage everywhere, from the middle of London to the middle of nowhere in Croatia.

After you buy a handset, you’ll buy a pay-as-you-go SIM card, which is about another $15. You may have to call a special number to activate your card before you can use it. Be aware that unless you pay to unlock your phone (not worth it for a short trip) your phone will only work with SIM cards from your carrier.

Before you leave the store, write down your new phone number and make sure to include the country code.

Since you’ll have to discard, donate, or try to sell your phone to another traveler at the end of your trip, a great option is to try to borrow a European handset from a friend. Of course, this isn’t always an option, but it’s well worth asking around before you leave.

2. Learn the details of your phone and plan

First, learn how to use the phone itself as it probably has some new and confusing buttons. I often mixed up my Orange mobile’s “return” and “cancel” keys, usually deleting texts or getting lost in submenus in the process.

When calling or texting an international number, dial 00, followed by the country code, followed by the number. Phone numbers listed without the country code usually start with a 0, which should be dropped when dialing internationally.

Learn how much calls and texts (which are cheaper) cost within the country where you purchased the phone as well as to other European countries. Calls usually cost about US 30 cents, and texts about 15 cents. Some companies offer rewards or special packages with unlimited texts or free weekend calls that you can take advantage of even as a pay-as-you-go customer. For example, one text package offered by Vodafone offers unlimited weekday evening texts as long as you top up by £5 ($7.50) per month.

Most importantly, learn how to check your remaining balance and learn the helpline number for your carrier. Be aware that there are likely two helpline numbers–one you can call from your mobile, and another you must use when dialing from a payphone or landline.

Photo: echiner1

3. Learn how to “top up” or add funds to your SIM card

This many not be as easy as it sounds. You can usually pay through texting or online, but only after you’ve registered your credit card with your carrier, which may require you to call their helpline. If you’ve bought your phone in a non-English speaking country, don’t be surprised if the automated options are only in the local language. “Speak to an operator” is almost always the last item on the menu, so count the number of options listed and dial the final number to be connected to someone who probably speaks English. Speak very slowly and spell everything twice to avoid a huge hassle. When I called to register my credit card on a UK hotline, the operator misspelled my street name and couldn’t bill my card, costing me a lot of time, money, and frustration when I had to buy an international phone card to call the helpline again from a payphone.

After you’ve registered your credit card, many carriers do allow you to add funds by text. Most send you a text alerting you when your balance is low and ask you to reply with the last 4 digits of your card, the security code, and the amount of money you wish to add. Tada, you’re done! Much easier.

4. Be aware of differences between the UK and continental Europe

If you’re traveling in the UK as well as on the continent, be aware that your rates may be higher once you’re in Europe. Ask your mobile company about special programs, as you can often pay a small surcharge to have cheaper international rates.

Also, the UK uses different plugs than the rest of Europe, so you will need to purchase a UK-to-European plug converter or adapter to use these phones after leaving the British Isles.

If you’re traveling mostly within the UK, you’ll be able to “top up” (add funds) at many drugstores and grocery stores in major cities, either through using a special card or by purchasing vouchers.

5. Enjoy the convenience of having a phone

Having a mobile will allow you to be much more flexible in your plans. Since I used CouchSurfing or stayed with friends of friends on most of my backpacking trip through Europe, a European mobile was essential for getting in touch with hosts and letting them know about late trains or missed connections. Having a phone allowed me to meet up with a French guy I met in Warsaw again in Prague; it let me ask my host in Split what he’d like for dinner from the grocery store; it made it possible to meet up with friends in the middle of a crowded square or a train station. Think about getting one! You’ll find yourself spending less time searching out internet cafés or circling plazas and more time getting to know the people and places you came to see.

Community Connection

Looking for more ways to save while traveling in Europe? Check out 8 Budget Travel Tips to Make Europe Cheap Again and the Top 10 Free Things to Do in Europe.

Feature and Above Photo: Dave Austria

Couchsurfing can be daunting. I mean, how does one navigate the process of asking a stranger for a place to sleep for the night? That’s why I’ve decided to take a page from Kelly Diel’s book and offer all readers the opportunity to ask advice, tips or any questions you might have about Couchsurfing.

I’ll begin with answering a few questions that seem to come up often. Then you’ll have the change the chance to ask anything you’ve ever wanted to know about Couchsurfing.

What’s my Couchsurfing experience?

I’ve been an active member of Couchsurfing for the last four years. I’ve couchsurfed as a family and alone. I’ve hosted tons of people and both created and taken part in Couchsurfing meetups in Europe, the United States, Canada, Central and South America. I even partied and peeled potatoes with the Couchsurfing camp at Burning Man.

I feel comfortable rocking up in any city in any country on this planet confident in the fact I’ll be able to find a place to stay, a group for a drink or simply someone to give advice about how to find a bus to the next town.

I’m happy to help you develop the same sort of resource and community in Couchsurfing as well.

How Can I Create A Profile That Makes Others Want To Host Me?

Of all the questions people ask, oddly, this one rarely comes my way. But I think it is probably the most important. The answer is relatively simple, logical and can be answered as easily as one, two, three.

One. Be yourself. Be real. The more honest you are about who you are and what you want in a host or travel experience, the more likely you are to find what you need.

Feature and Above Photo: Mike {Mike Murrow Photography}”

Don’t be afraid to include your interests and personal opinions. A potential host is more likely to respond to a request when your profile overlaps with similar interests. That connection can lead to a fantastic surfing experience because, believe it or not,you’ve dispensed with all small talk by reading each others profiles and can immediately get down to the business of having fun.

Two. Begin meeting people and building up your friends and references before you send out your first couch request.

When I receive a couch request, I immediately look at how many friends a person has and then read all the references. Friends and references let me know how invested you are in the Couchsurfing community. You don’t need to be an card-carrying t-shirt wearing Couchsurfing ambassador, but I do want to know you’re not just popping on the site for a free place to stay.

References and friends also let me know that others have had positive experiences with you. They allow me to trust you. If we have friends in common, even better.

Three. Make sure your friends and references are real-life, real-time connections.

Nothing sets of my No-Surfing-With-Me alarm bell faster and louder than a profile with all or mostly online-only connections. On online-only friend only tells me that you’ve contacted someone through an e-mail or chat. Maybe you’ve even sent a friend request to someone you don’t know. It tells me nothing about whether you’re a good guest or if you get along with people face-to-face.

I have about 140 friends on Couchsurfing. Only two are online-only. Both of those are people I’ve known for well over a year and with whom I have developed an actual friendship.

How does Couchsurfing differ from other forms of social media?

Please, don’t treat your Couchsurfing account the same way you would Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare or even Linked In. While you’re welcome to e-mail whomever you want for advice — of course they may not respond — the last thing you want to do is fill your Couchsurfing profile with a bunch of people you barely know.

I already told you the first thing I do when evaluating a profile is read references. If a person has tens of references, but none of those people seem to know him beyond a couple jokes and a drink, I still know nothing about that person.

But if you’ve helped someone lay down a concrete floor in their basement, babysat their children and cooked a meal for them, then I know something. Now if you’ve had similar interactions with twenty different people, I begin to get a real sense of who you are.

I admit, when I first began Couchsurfing, I did add friends in an attempt to bulk up my profile. We all do it to some extent. And that is a fine strategy for just about any other social media forum. Not Couchsurfing.

It’s the strength of my connections that matter. You’re asking people to open up their homes and lives to you. Many have children. Would you trust your home and family with someone you know only through a few tweets and a short profile?

So how do you meet people prior to sending out your first couch request?

Simple. Check groups. There’s a group for just about everything, too. From women traveling solo to stamp collecting to families welcome and literally everything in between.

That’s where you’ll find meetings, get togethers, mash-ups, people looking for a coffee, for someone to share a car rental, places to volunteer. Join one of these get togethers. Get to know people in real-time in real life.

I joined up with Los Comelones in Costa Rica a few years ago. They meet once every month or so to try new restaurants in and around San Jose. Randall e-mailed me about it, but he couldn’t go that night. Since that night a group of us met for Peruvian Japanese food, Randall visited us. We’ve stayed with him in San Ramon. We’ve gone out drinking and eating. We’ve cooked together. He’s referred his friends to us and vice versa. I’ve even written an article about him.

It’s amazing where one seemingly minor e-mail can lead.

What else do you want to know about Couchsurfing?

Now it’s your turn to ask anything you want to know about Couchsurfing. Small or big. Complicated or simple. Just ask your question in comments below.

Feature Photo: M Eriksson Photo: chany14

Here at Matador, we believe that travel should be much more than checking destinations off a list as if you’re shopping for groceries.

“Walked the Great Wall, check. Saw the Acropolis, check. Oh yeah, we did the whole Thailand, Cambodia, Laos thing.”

When I travel, I like to learn the language, ask local women where they buy their clothes, who their tailor is and what styles are in fashion. I not only like to sample local specialties, but learn how to cook them. I look for untranslatable phrases, unspoken expectations and other things that may not be readily found in the latest guide book. I find out what the locals do for entertainment, where they like to eat and what newspapers they read.

Here are some other things Matadorians recommend:

1. Gerard Ward: If there’s a language you don’t know, Google common phrases and write them down. Bring a smile, and don’t be shy about how you look. The first mistake is worrying that you look out of place. You are, but that’s not a bad thing. Drinks make new friends (and loosen the nerves too if that’s an issue). Have fun, and get ready to have a few new Facebook friends!

2. Sara Cashman: Make an effort, no matter how pained, to speak the language. People will you see you respect them, and in turn, open up to you more.

Photo: mckaysavage

3. Kate McGinley: Ask the bartenders/chefs where they go out. They’ll never steer you wrong.

4. Daniel Nahabedian: Eat wherever they eat. You sit with them, chat, gossip and share the same meal. Food is something that connects us all.

5. Aye from GotPassport: I agree with Daniel – food, food and more food. Chatting up with local food vendors is half the fun. Try out the local unique attire (respectfully, of course) if there is one. Shop at a market where the locals hang out.

6. Elizabeth Zito:The key for me has been: plan nothing but talk to everyone. Introduce yourself to anyone you can, without hesitation but with genuine energy, and a door opens to an otherwise inacessible world. Your experience transforms from travel to immersion, and the connection left behind between both parties is substantive and lasting.

7. Moriba Jackson: Take the bus.

8. Cherie Ve Ard: Try to make connections before arriving to a new city – discussion boards, forums, being active in social media, dating sites (even if you’re not actually dating.. just be upfront about it), etc. have all yielded us local contacts for a local’s introduction to various cities.

9. Gareth Leonard: Network & build your own community. This is exactly what I have been trying to do in Buenos Aires for the past seven months.

10. Camden Luxford: Eat in the local markets, and go back to the same stall a couple of times. By day three, you’ll be greeted like an old friend.

11. Matador Associate Editor JoAnna Haugen: Get out of the touristy area.

12. Kimberly Dian Kephart: Take a day off from museums and whatnot to just walk and wander. Always be on the alert for the little surprises right in front of you. Street food. And if you have one, ask your concierge.

Photo: zzclef

14. James Wood: Get a haircut! I always try to save my cuts for my travels. It takes you places only locals go, gives you a side you would not normally see. If you are traveling in the developing part of the world, it also saves you some money.

15. Keith Gill: It depends on the locality, but ask questions and learn. Visit with families. If you can, go out for a day or hours spend some time working with or traveling with people from the area.

16. Matador Trips Co-EditorCarlo Alcos: Actually live there. Stay put for a good amount of time. Travel slow. Rent a furnished flat. Observe. Connect.

17. Laura Byrne Paquet: Read local media online before you go so you can chat about local news. Know the basics in the local language – even just “please” and “thank you” will take you far. Stay in an apartment. Take public transit. Use services like like-a-local.com or Chicago Greeters to meet local people.

18. Liesl Wiederkehr: Go to the laundromat! I’ve met some fun people, gotten great tips on places to eat, visit, shop, etc. (and where NOT to go). You have to wash clothes at some point anyway!

19. Matador Life Editor Leigh Shulman: Ask people who live there what they recommend for food, to see, to visit and to stay. Also, stay a bit out of town. It’s usually cheaper anyway. Otherwise, I agree with everyone else: food, language and couchsurfing.

Do you have any other tips for living like a local while traveling?

Community Connection

Want to learn more about living like a local while traveling? Check out 5 Reasons Why Slow Travel Beats Going on Vacation and Why Travelers Should Spend Time Instead of Money.

Photo: kashyap_hc

Work camping is an outdoor lifestyle that can be a good fit for people who enjoy long-term camping, are interested in seasonal work in between travels, or are looking for a way to afford sustained travel.

Both volunteer opportunities and paid positions exist, but all work camping jobs have two things in common: either an RV hookup or on-site housing and the flexibility to move around by working on different camp sites. Jobs vary from place to place, but common positions include camp hosts, desk clerks, park managers, activity directors, wranglers, and tour guides.

How to Find Work Camping Jobs

1. Contact a national park

Several national parks, such as Yellowstone and Yosemite , offer seasonal employees RV hookups or housing in lodges and tent camps. Most national parks have their own website where you can find employment information.

2. Go through a park management company

Many parks and campsites have the same central management company that does all of their hiring. The two most popular ones in the United States are Aramark and Recreation Resource Management . They have positions in campgrounds all over the country.

3. Find work at private campgrounds

If you are familiar with a particular campground, you can inquire about work camping positions directly. There are also national brands of campgrounds, such as KOA, that offer structured work camper programs for travel around different company-owned campsites.

Things to Consider Before Accepting a Work Camping Job

Photo: Velo Steve

1. Type of housing

The work camping lifestyle is easiest for people who own an RV. If you plan to travel around campsites without an RV, it’s important to map out the sites that offer housing ahead of time and find arrangements that you are comfortable with.

National or state parks and private campgrounds are the most likely to offer housing, usually in the form of cabins, lodges, or tent camps. You may want to ask about showers, availability of kitchens or meals, and whether there are pictures of typical accommodations that you can check out online before making a decision.

2. Length of commitment

Depending on what you’re looking for, work camping opportunities can offer full-time schedules or part-time schedules. If you plan to use work camping to save up for your next trip, a full-time schedule would likely suit your needs. Otherwise, working a part-time schedule allows plenty of time to enjoy the park setting.

Work camping can involve working in different places every few months or staying in one place for an entire season. Determining what your expectations and goals are ahead of time will help you figure out what campsites are best for you.

3. Work environment

If you haven’t been to the campsite prior to your employment, it’s a good idea to ask about the work environment. Some places are particularly interested in retirees or couples. Several sites are popular with a younger crowd or offer specific summer programs for high school and college students. Consider whether you prefer a quiet location or a busy campsite where you can meet and interact with other travelers and workers.

4. Payment structure

Some national parks or charities offer only volunteer positions along with free housing or RV hookup. Other sites may deduct a certain amount from your paycheck to cover housing or offer optional meal plans if there is an on-site kitchen. It’s important to fully understand the financial costs and benefits of each campsite before making a determination, and to define exactly what your arrangement includes.

Find the work camping setup that is right for you, and it may prove to be the ideal balance between structured life and the freedom of the road.

Photo: One Laptop per Child Feature Photo: One Laptop per Child

The Internet connection is so slow that you have time to twiddle your thumbs while pages load. That’s if you can find a connection. But no matter how frustrating, you’re determined to blog while traveling through developing regions of the world. You’ve got stories to tell!

Some advice to keep your blog healthy even when your connection isn’t:

1. Bring your own computer.

It sounds like it’d be too heavy for a backpacking trip. But computers are getting smaller and smaller every year, which makes them increasingly easy to carry. Bring a laptop so you can blog anytime you find a wireless connection – instead of waiting until you find an Internet café. When you find a café, connect using your laptop, which probably works faster and better than their computers.

While backpacking through Africa in 2008, I used an Asus Eee PC. I’d recommend it, and it won’t break your bank. By now, of course, there are probably even better mini-laptops on the market.

2. Visit expensive hotels.

Don’t stay there – what backpacker can afford that? But nobody ever said you can’t drink a soda at the hotel bar or hang out in the lounge – and take advantage of their free wireless at the same time. This is why you brought your laptop. The fastest connections aren’t in Internet cafes; they’re in fancy hotels where you need your own computer to access them.

3. Always look for a WiFi signal.

Even when you check into a scummy two-dollar-a-night hostel or find a bed in a remote town, pull out your computer to check for a wireless signal. Sometimes the family who lives across the street or the hotel down the road has one you can access. As the Internet becomes more popular around the world, it’s reaching more remote areas. You might find a connection in places you don’t expect.

Photo: Stephanie Boyera

4. Draft posts in longhand.

Before visiting an Internet café or finding a wired hotel, draft your blog post in your notebook. This will improve your content because you’ll revise the post when you transcribe it onto your blog. It will also help you blog faster, saving money and time – which means you’ll be more likely to publish the post before the Internet connection cuts out.

Prepare photos ahead of time, too. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to upload a handful of photos – after all, photographs are one of the best parts of a travel blog! But just in case the connection is slow, decide ahead of time which photo you’ll use if you’re only able to upload one.

5. Adjust your comment settings.

When it takes a minute for each page to load, you won’t have the time or the patience to approve every comment. Besides, if you can’t find an Internet connection for several days, you don’t want comments waiting for you when they could be on your blog.

Fix your settings to automatically approve comments. If you’re worried about spam, at least adjust the settings so readers who have commented before are automatically approved, and you can approve new visitors’ comments when you have the chance.

6. Depend on an editor.

Don’t hire one. Ask a writer friend at home to serve as an informal editor, one who looks over your posts for typos or other errors, then e-mails you when there’s a problem. You can even give that person access to your account so she can log in and fix the mistakes. When you’re blogging quickly on foreign keyboards and thinking in foreign languages, it’s easy to make errors.

7. Create a Google map.

Set it up before you leave on your trip, and link it to your blog so readers can follow your route. But have a friend at home maintain it – the maps take too long to load with a slow connection.

8. Carry an extra battery.

It will add weight to your pack, but when there’s no outlet to plug into or you haven’t charged your primary battery, it’ll be worth it.

Photo: Aine D

9. Use a discreet carrying case.

Tote your computer in something that does not look like a computer bag – it’s less likely to get stolen. (Same for your camera.) If you’re using a mini laptop, protect it with a sleeve, and then a small messenger bag does the trick.

10. Link Twitter to your blog.

Use a widget that shows your feed in the sidebar. If the connection is too slow to update your blog, you may at least be able to tweet a line or two that will then show up on your site. Even a micro update helps readers feel like you’re bringing them along for the ride.

What did I miss? Do you have other ideas for blogging from developing countries?

Photo: Micah Sittig Feature Photo: LHOON

At 4:45 a.m. you wake to the gently rocking train and the early, absurdly early, Chinese morning light. It gets light around 4:30 now, probably because China rejects the idea of time zones in favor of national solidarity.

Waking up at quarter to five — usually the thickest slog of night with darkness and dreams at their heaviest — and seeing pale green light rising is yet another of those in-between-worlds sensations so frequent in life in China.

Waking up, you are not quite sure where and if you are. Awakening in the train is an unsettling experience. It’s odd to both fall asleep and get up in noticeable motion, like being in another, floating dimension.

Then the light and the snoring senior tour group below quickly ground you in reality, and it’s time to hit the bathroom before fifteen people try to pack it in and brush their teeth and spit over one another and pass each other in the hall and refill their tea thermoses, ah, the humanity!

Soon the masses will be filling the narrow corridors with all their odors and routines and steaming cups of hot tea and jabbing toothbrushes but now, at first light, it’s still calm, there are still feet sticking out from under the covers and snores and the steady, calm sound of the lulling train.

Photo: Fotos Oaxaca

You sit up and promptly catch yourself before you smack your head on the train’s ceiling. You have smartly chosen the top bunk in the hard sleeper class. Hard sleeper isn’t so much hard as cramped; each car contains 10 small door-less rooms which hold six beds.

These are actually quite comfy and come with big, fluffy white sheets which you want to believe are freshly laundered. The three beds that comprise one bunk have different prices; the lowest one is fifteen yuan more expensive than the highest one. This supposedly buys you space and ease except for the reality those in the hard seat classes, random passerby, stubborn grandmothers or people in top bunks usually end up using your bunk as a comfy window seat.

The middle bunk is alright but still puts you full on in the fro of the noodle-sellers and the curious onlookers and the random arm or foot and is much too central for your taste. So the top is the way to go, except for the fact that you have about a foot less head space than the other two bunks so you are constantly curling your neck into absurd S-shapes.

Photo: Fotos Oaxaca

But once you lie down you are in (relatively) peaceful serenity in your own individual universe. You can lie there and contemplate your culturally-determined top-bunk individualism. It’s not the closed door, roomy, soft sleeper compartment with four beds and fake felt roses on the little tables, but it’s not the hard seat with seeds being spit at your feet and migrant workers sleeping in your lap, either.

So you curl your head like a gummy worm to squeeze out of the bed and ease down the little ladder without stepping on anyone’s feet or head. You step into the narrow corridor, rock a little, straighten yourself out, and take in the wheat fields which are passing silently in the morning light.

The morning is hazy white and faintly dizzying, and under it the landscape seems uniform and endless. You make your way to the bathroom, where you pride yourself on your incredible stability faced with a squat toilet and a moving train. Then you splash your face with water, brush your teeth and head back to the two little fold-out seats in front of the window to watch the morning grow and the landscapes slide by.

Slowly the train wakes up around you. People stumble with crazy hair to the bathroom. Old men strut and flex and roam in their tight white long underwear. The senior tour group is up and busting out their bags upon bags of bizarre Chinese snack food. You count four bags alone with the two old ladies in the bottom bunks of your room. They’re wearing the unmistakable red caps of Chinese tour groups. Their male friends, donning the same caps, come over and crowd into the bunks for a little Chinese breakfast party.

You watch as the fiesta unfolds. They break out metal bowls and the women serve up millet congee. Then there are boiled eggs for everyone (some duck and some chicken) meticulously peeled and devoured. Then the freak parade of meats—tubed white sausages, chicken feet, and gooey unrecognizable who-knows-what. Then, refreshingly, apricots and cherries, which leave a big mound of pits on the small table. And finally little white bread biscuits out of an enormous bag that says, “Fine French Bred!” and finally, everyone slumps back in their seat to wait out the final hour to Qingdao.

Photo: Fotos Oaxaca

Whew. You, meanwhile, break out your French press to awe and astound your neighbors with coffee, that scandalous, criminal beverage. You put two scoops of grinds in the French press and fill it with hot water (available in all Chinese trains) as the senior tour group gathers round with looks ranging from outrage to amazement.

They whisper to each other and you hear the occasional “laowai” (foreigner). What’s the foreigner doing?! “Ruining her stomach, for sure!” you’re sure one woman is saying as she clucks her head back and forth. The group of red-capped elderly tourists watches for the full four minutes of brewing time until you push the French press down and serve your coffee, and they wait until you drink it—will she do it, will she do it?!?—before they lose interest.

From there on out, it’s a smooth caffeinated ride through the flat, silent landscape. Gigantic nuclear plants rise out of the haze and fade again into the disappearing wheat fields. You see huge stretches of vegetable fields where the tiny, distant silhouettes of farmers can be seen crouched and lost in work. From time to time a road appears between the ceaseless flat fields and on it is a girl on a bicycle.

Eventually grimy buildings covered in pipes and wires and ancient-looking metal machinery conquer the landscape and you know you’re getting closer. You pass a few rivers and ponds which are a green oily color straight out of animated TV shows. Patches of blue sky show and fade in the gray haze, and then you see the telltale lingering cloud ahead which indicates smog and encroaching civilization.

The train makes a final pass through a landscape that is now dominated by rusted parts and chugging factories of who knows what, and the occasional river bordered in brightly colored garbage, mostly plastic bags. The last kilometer of the train ride is the most brutal. Dozens of orange-shirted migrants, most of whom look older than fifty, are bent over hammering away on the tracks. Even the toughest-looking construction workers have clear plastic thermoses of tea.

The city begins to emerge out of piles of dust and bricks, and finally parallel tracks appear to either side and train cars block the scenery and the train grinds to a final halt. Everyone simultaneously makes a grab for luggage in a free-for-all chaos where it seems as if bags are falling from the sky and limbs are flailing everywhere, and then people book it for the doors. You heave your pack onto your back and step out into the streams of passing people, into the Chinese morning, into Qingdao.

Photo: Duarte Carreiro

I watch Nasreen as she carefully measures out four entire cups of ghee. I feel like I’m breaking out just being in the kitchen with this concoction. Four cups of clarified butter, almost pure saturated fat, is being used for just one dish. The golden globs sizzle and crackle as she tosses in the cows’ feet.

“You know how I learned cooking?” asks Nasreen. “From my mother. Before marriage, I learned everything. How to make chapatis, biryani, kabobs, chicken, mutton…so many things! Before marriage I was so smart and slim, but now I am very healthy,” she boasts as she makes the wrestler pose that inevitably accompanies the word ‘healthy’ in Pakistani English.

Breaking the Hulk Hogan flex, she giggles heartily. “Now you…you are looking so weak. You must eat rice and meat today.”

I smile. We’ve had this conversation on a twice-weekly basis since I moved into the upstairs apartment six months ago. As today Nasreen is teaching me how to cook her style, I decide it’s best not to explain that my version of ‘healthy’ differs markedly from the prevailing concept in Lahore.

To many Pakistani women, the more you eat means the healthier you are, and my stomach simply fails to comply. To terminate an endless deluge of food I often joke, “Bas! Mera pet Pakistani nahin hai!” No more! My stomach is not Pakistani!

Pushing a wisp of black hair out of her eyes, Nasreen rummages through the cabinets and pulls out an array of spices. “First we need to make the salan, sauce, for the biryani,” she explains. Throughout South Asia there are dozens of different biryani recipes, but Pakistan’s staple variety consists of chicken, aromatic basmati rice, onions, tomatoes and a complex cocktail of spices. Nasreen’s biryani is better than any I’ve had at a restaurant in Pakistan or even across the border in India.

She hands me ten garlic cloves along with a stone mortar and pestle. I haven’t used a set since high school chemistry, and Nasreen finds my ineptness amusing. In my fridge upstairs I’ve got a jar of pre-crushed garlic paste.

For me, the need to cook disrupts my daily routine like the arrival of an unwanted and unexpected guest. Almost everything must be made from scratch in Lahore unless you’re willing to shell out for expensive imported items. The temperature outdoors can be over 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and there are often power cuts that incapacitate fans and air conditioners. In the middle of the night, I’ve woken up in a cold sweat, dreaming that I was hosting a dinner party.

I can’t remember ever hearing a Pakistani housewife grouching about how she has got to cook, but it’s something I grumble about at least once a day.

Photo: Duarte Carreiro

Whenever Nasreen comes upstairs to share the latest gup-shup (gossip) about the maid or drop off a utility bill, she asks, “What did you cook today?” If she discovers that I’ve made only soup and sandwiches, she’ll send me a tray of daal and rice or a curried meat dish. More than once I’ve gone downstairs to see her after 9 p.m. and found her thawing substantial amounts of meat.

“Wow, Nasreen Auntie are you having a party?”

“No no. No party. Just my sister, my brother-in-law, their five sons and my three cousins are coming for dinner.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes yes. They are coming are 11 o’clock…you must meet them! I am making mattar qeeema, chicken, shami kabobs and daal-chaval.”

Usually I manage to decline the invitation only after tasting the smorgasbord of dishes. Today we’re cooking for only seven people, but she’s just as exuberant while she explains every step. We finish the salan and move on to the rice. I wonder why we didn’t have both cooking at the same time, since the rice will take much longer to cook. Before putting the rice in the pot to boil it, she soaks it and lets all the tiny insects and broken casings rise to the surface.

“It is very important not to touch the rice. You should shake it; don’t mix it with your hands.”

We wait at least 15 minutes while the rice expels the unwanted elements and sends them swirling towards the top of the bowl. Nasreen picks out each little bit separately and throws it in the sink. I stir the cows’ feet and remove the dish from the flame.

Westerners may look on the lives of Pakistani women and imagine them to be hapless housewives, banished to days of slaving over a hot stove. Only one out of every three women in Pakistan can write well enough to sign her name on official documents, and only a very small percentage work outside the home. It’s tempting to see the kitchen as an oppressive prison, but most ‘inmates’ I’ve met are in no rush to stage a jailbreak.

I once asked a middle class Pakistani housewife if she’d rather be out working. “Work? Why would I want to work? Whole the day I spend cooking, eating snacks, drinking chai with my friends, having some gup-shup…”

Nasreen checks the pot of rice, determines that it’s done cooking, and strains out the extra water. We thoroughly mix the rice with the salan and carefully dot yellow food coloring on the top. As the biryani steams, we set the table and gather the family for lunch.

Pulling off the lid excitedly she exclaims, “See, now you know how to make the real Pakistani biryani!”

And now, it’s time for us to dig in.

Community Connection

Check out Heather’s blog for Nasreen’s biryani recipe. Heather is a student at Matador U.

Photos: Fotos Habana

While it’s still challenging to travel legally, President Obama has eased some of the restrictions and opened up some opportunities. Having just returned from the island, I can attest that the process involves months of planning, tons of paperwork, and plenty of waiting around. But it’s a worthy process for those who are concerned about traveling illegally through a third country and facing the possibility of a hefty fine upon return.

The first thing to know about legal travel to Cuba is that there are two licenses: a general license and a specific license. Traveling under general license is the easiest because you don’t have to ask the government for permission, but you can be asked for documented proof from your trip that shows you traveled under that category.

An extensive list of travel categories is available on the Marazul, Global Exchange or the Center For Cuban Studies.

Some of the categories for legal travel to Cuba are:

Family Visits: This falls under general license.

Professional Research or Attendance at a Conference: This is a general license available to full time professionals provided they spend the majority of their time in Cuba conducting research. This can involve site visits, attending lectures, and other academic endeavors.

The majority of group travel opportunities fall under this category. Some examples of current opportunities are “Reality Tours” that explore everything from alternative healing to music offered by Global Exchange, and a teacher’s delegation being put together through the Center for Cuban Studies.

Journalists: Full-time journalists that work for a news gathering organization can travel to Cuba under general license. Freelancers writing articles on Cuba can obtain a specific license provided they have a publication history.

Study Abroad: Specific Licenses are granted for undergraduate and graduate study abroad programs lasting longer than ten weeks. There are a multitude of American universities currently offering programs in Cuba. Presbyterian College’s program is available to students from any university.

Humanitarian Projects: Under a specific license, groups can take donations and engage in humanitarian trips. Most of these trips are carried out by religious groups such as the Cuba-America Jewish Mission, Peachtree Presbyterian Church, and several others. The Cuba AIDS Project also takes small groups interested in HIV/AIDS outreach.

It’s unfortunate that a decades long political battle deters Americans from visiting Cuba, because there is so much to be learned on both sides from an interaction between Americans and Cubans. Jumping the hoops to travel legally might be worth it for interaction with a place most Americans see only through the media.

Photos: author

When you’re tired of traveling thousands of miles across the globe only to be faced with a hostel-full of your loud drunken countrymen, it’s time to join Couchsurfing. No matter if the idea of staying on a complete strangers’ smelly sofa fills you with horror; you can still use the site to meet knowledgeable locals and avoid all those hostel ‘have you done Peru?’ conversations.

Better still, if you’re moving to a new country and don’t know a soul, Couchsurfing meetings are a great place to start making friends. Here’s how.

Once you’ve joined the site and created your profile, your first stop is to check the CS communities. Most big cities have their own group/forum on the site and even if they don’t, it’s worth checking the events page to see if anything is going on nearby. If a meeting is listed, you can generally assume that everyone and anyone are welcome.

The Meetings

Couchsurfing meetings aren’t (just) about trying to cop off with handsome foreigners although they can sometimes feel a bit like speed-dating. In big popular cities like Buenos Aires, Paris or Barcelona, meetings may be so packed with eager residents and traveling Couchsurfers that it’ll make your head spin. Wherever you are in the world, you’re likely to meet some of the following:

a) The Party People. These young kittens have no job. They probably study astronomy or anthropology. They don’t care who you are or where you’re from. They’re just delighted they have a new friend to soak up the gin with.

b) The Lechers. “Mmmmm, you’re new”, they purr, as they clumsily brush their hands across your knee and look down your top. Couchsurfing may not be a dating site but no one has told them. In their profile shots, they will be wearing the very shortest shorts. They will only want to host girls.

c) The Knackered Travelers. They want to like Couchsurfing they really do, but before they came to this bar, they spent 3 days hiking up a volcano and then got on a bus for 32 hours. They were hoping to collapse into bed when they got here but their host is one of the party people (see above) and now they’re going to a club…

d) The Ex-Pats. When they first arrived here they were full of gleeful wonder but they’ve waited in one long bank queue too many and now they’re all bitter and twisted. They will take real pleasure in telling you everything that’s wrong with the place you’ve just landed in.

e) The Professional Couchsurfers. These will be the people who organized the meeting or answered your question on the forum in 30 seconds flat. They will make it their life mission to make you, and any other newbies, feel all warm and welcomed. They will have 543 positive references and get very cross when they read newspaper articles that describe Couchsurfing as a free alternative to hostelling rather than a cultural exchange.

The City Forums

When you need up-to-date local info on your destination of choice, there’s nothing better than an active Couchsurfing forum. Residents will know exactly how much the airport bus costs, where the drum and bass clubs are and if you need to include a photo on a local job application. Just be sure to ask them nicely, thank them profusely and return the favour to other travellers when you get home.

You can pretty much find anything on a Couchsurfing forum, but if what you want to see isn’t being organized, consider doing it yourself. From camping trips to city tours, piss ups to opera outings, language exchanges to sex toy parties: someone somewhere is planning it. Recent posts in Santiago de Chile included a trainee masseuse looking for people to practice on for free, Chilean Couchsufers and their families taking in solo travelers at Christmas and everyone rallying round to help one of their own who had taken ill in Brazil.

The Groups

Like listening to The Grateful Dead when you’re naked? There’s probably a group for that. Couchsurfing lindy hoppers, gay cyclists, handsome lawyers and high maintenance male backpackers all have their own groups, so why can’t you? For a walk on the wild side, check out funny negative references.

The Private Messages

If big social gatherings aren’t your thing but you want to meet people, it’s worth searching the list of local Couchsurfers for like-minded souls. Look for those with positive references that have logged into the system recently. When sending them a message, be sure to mention something from their profile; nobody likes a cut and paste. If you don’t need a bed for the night, check ‘coffee and a drink’ to find eager tour guides and drinking buddies.

Good manners and positive traveling karma underpin the ethos of Couchsurfing. Don’t forget your pleases and thank yous, and when you’ve been around long enough to know the answer to a question on the forum, be sure to dive in and answer. If you meet someone and have a splendid time, consider leaving them a positive reference. Equally, be honest and leave a neutral or negative one if you don’t.

In a perfect world, every Couchsurfer would want and be able to host and surf but it’s not always possible. If you can’t go the whole hog but want to get involved, remember this: sleeping over can be awesome but just hanging out can be fun too.

Photo: author

Hold on to your seats, ladies and gentlemen: it’s not just mushy peas anymore.

Well, actually, it IS mushy peas, but this time with a celeriac foam reduction and a duck egg Parmesan crostini in a martini glass on the side.

Photo: author

British food hasn’t necessarily changed; it’s just realized that hey, it can stand out on the international foodie scene, too. As Iqbal Wahhab, owner of Borough Market’s glass-walled, light-filled restaurant Roast put it, the British have just recently begun to value their own food traditions.

Photo: author

This is evident in the current foodie trends, which emphasize local legumes and veggies (lots of turnips, potatoes, celeriac, lentils, mushrooms and the inevitable peas), staple British meats (roasted Cornish hens, quail, lamb, pork belly) and of course, fish (avec or sans chips).

There are an abundance of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi restaurants, but I’m going to set those aside for another piece since I didn’t have time to explore them, and I’d like to delve into the emerging phenomenon of traditional British cuisine.

Chefs are dressing up British fare with the type of stellar presentation and attention to detail that one might normally associate with say, Italy or Spain. The local ingredients they have to work with render wild fusion feats unnecessary, and the elaborate blending of exotic foreign cuisines that characterizes so much of American food culture isn’t as obvious in Britain.

As the aforementioned Wahab pointed out, the real work of a restaurantor at the moment is sourcing exceptional ingredients and allowing them to shine. Wild beef and lamb, Stiltons and Blues and Cheddars to make you weep, fresh local fish and oysters, creams and butters from organic British dairies.

So where to begin your foray into British food?

Borough Market

Photo: author

Any good foodie will lose herself for at least an afternoon in London’s Borough Market, wiping tears from her eyes at the gorgeousness of stacked blocks of cheese and plump, speckled free range eggs.

The setting itself is a spectacle; the area has been a marketplace since the 11th century and has that charged historical energy of a place where humans have gathered for thousands of years. With Southwark Cathedral towering stoically behind you and the labyrinth of vendors in tiny winding streets, it can feel as if you’ve drifted back to an 18th or 19th century London market day.

We talked with vendors about the rise of a foodie scene in Britain and they traced it back to the mid-1990’s, when people began expressing an interest in organic, local and seasonal food. Lizzie Vines, one of the owners of Wild Beef, a Devon-based farm which prides itself on being “more than organic” and grazing its cattle on natural, health-rich local foliage, said she’s seen her and her husband Richard’s company take off in the past ten years.

Photo: author

Wild Beef is at the forefront of a foodie movement in Britain, encouraging producers to work with the climate, the fertile soil and the local landscape and to ride the flow of seasonal changes. The result is not only a beautiful steak filled with minerals from diverse plants and grasses, but a sustainable and healthy environment.

Destinations

Community Connection to Israel

Community Connection to Mexico

Photo: author

The cheese-obsessed can also irritate the staff at Neal’s Yard Dairy for hours, grilling them about the fermentation of Brie and asking for sample after sample. I hovered around the huge, photogenic blocks of cheese absorbing them through osmosis, fantasizing about customs officials not finding them in my checked luggage. There were fat rolly-polly blocks going black and blue with age and prestige, cartoonish wedges of cheddar, soft, sighing slices of Camembert. The shop offers cheese tastings and classes.

Then there’s Northfield Farms, which specializes in beef, pork, and lamb, and sources meat to celebrity chefs like the idolized Jamie Oliver. I liked the place because the butcher, Brendan Maguire, had a killer cockney accent and was the one and only Brit in my whole stay to call me “dahlin.” He pointed out that in Britain, a farm can use pesticides 10% of the year and still be organic, and was highly critical of the organic certification process.

From what I observed, Britain doesn’t have the same fascination with the organic title as the U.S does. Local food and knowledge of where food comes from and how it’s produced seem to trump the term organic. Maguire was adamant that food labeled “wild” could never be “organic” as organic refers to food that has to be very carefully monitored and cultivated. I nodded enthusiastically partially out of agreement and partially out of fear of how the cockney accent might take me down if I ventured to disagree.

There’s also locally raised and farmed ostrich meat at Gamston Wood Farm (herbed ostrich meatball, anyone?), award-winning Welsh cheese, hot mulled wine and cider, and a beer shop, Utobeer, which has over 600 beers from around the world and is part of a push to revive British microbreweries which suffered after the major breweries took over many pubs in the 1980’s.

Photo: author

Phew. Alright. On top of all the stalls, there are also restaurants and coffee shops fitted into the industrial framework of the market. We had lunch at Wright Bros Oyster Bar, where I ate each bite of mackerel and spiced potatoes as if it were my last. If you don’t feel like sitting down or doing the restaurant thing, there are steaming pots of curries and paellas which are spooned into boxes to be eaten on the fly.

The Gastropub

Photo: author

The gastropub has become a British institution. I experienced it in Camden, a London neighborhood known for its markets and its goth/punk past. The Hawley Arms is all high ceilings, old wood, and stockinged hipsters sipping pints in front of fireplaces. I had a pint of ale, a “minty lamb” pie (mint, herbs, and organic lamb) and peas and mash. At first I thought the peas were a sort of ironic hipster joke but no, they’re apparently as inseparable from pies and mash as Mac n’ Cheese is from American childhood.

The pub, I must say, cannot be done without a pie. Pork, lamb, beef, or maybe goat cheese and sweet potato for vegetarians. The crust is distinct – strong, dense and flaky at the same time. The best pies will have a crust that can hold its own, and a steaming interior of herbs, meat and veggies. The mash should have a dark, vinegary gravy and a thick texture – nothing like the mashed ‘taters that come out of boxes in the U.S. Top the whole affair – peas, mash, pie – with a dash of vinegar.

Photo: author

You could also go the fish and chips route, although I’d recommend saving that for the latter half of a long, raucous, beer-infused evening, when sitting in the corner of a fluorescent shop with vinegar dripping down your fingers and a plate of piping hot fried food in front of you is nothing less than divine.

Gastropub fare also includes bangers and mash and bubble and squeak, which sound like zany characters in a new age cartoon but are in fact basic tenets of British cuisine. Bangers and mash are sausages and mashed potatoes, and bubble and squeak (way up there in the list of all time greatest national dish names ever) is a mix of veggies left over from a Sunday roast. The roast, exactly what it sounds like, is also a gastropub essential, usually served on Saturday or Sunday (think British, carnivorous brunch).

Photo: author

Whatever route you go, you must pair it with a pint. Then, you can take 5,000 pictures of that pint like I did, since British beer is somehow so photogenic all brown and caramel in its glass. Sadly, microbrews are hard to come across, as most pubs are run by one or another major brewery. Stella Artois, a Belgian brew, is a good standby as other ales tend to be a bit watery and are much less carbonated than American beers.

Pies and Puddings : The Essentials

Photo: author

We seemed to keep running into the same ingredients and concoctions everywhere, perhaps because the emphasis in foodie world is so much on the seasonal. Polenta was the vegetarian standby; a whiter, creamier version with Parmesan, eggplant (aubergine) and zucchini (courgette: yes, Britain is closer to France than we are).

There were halibut and mackerel cooked in butter and served with spinach and/or potatoes, and roast lamb and pork belly, falling off the bone and ever so slightly pink. Beets – beetroot, in British terms – were a popular garnish and added a great, deep sweetness to savory mushrooms and the bite of vinegar.

Warning: just about anything can be a pudding in Britain. If you see pudding on the menu, do not cringe in disgust at the thought of one of those sad little plastic puddles of artificial chocolate or vanilla. No. Pudding can be a fluffy, buttery roll, a sort of hollow and lightweight biscuit, a savory stuffing-esque concoction of meat and raisins, or a desert (sometimes menus will have a whole section labeled “puddings,” which apparently include chocolate cakes and apple strudels). When it doubt as to nomenclature, the British seem to think, call it a pudding.

Cocktail wise, it’s all about the elderberry and the bramble (a Scottish fruit that looks a bit like cassis) mixed with vodka or whisky.

Photo: author

And finally, desert. Oh, desert. I am pulling myself back from the brink of drooling pseudo-poetic rhapsody here to tell you, straight up, that desert rocks. Meringues (sometimes called “pavlovas”) look like puffy white buns, but don’t be fooled. They are brittle and explosive. It is near impossible to crack into one without causing a SMACK! and a burst of debris around the tabletop.

Apparently, according to the waitress who I’m sure disappeared a moment later to mock the clueless American tourists, it is normal to create a mini disaster area of meringue bits and pieces. You then scoop these up, coat them with cream and berries, and get to feel as if you’re not really mowing down a heavy desert because the meringue is so light it melts in your mouth.

Photo: author

The cheese, oat cakes, and chutney combo is also beautiful. Usually you’ll get four or five cheeses, oat cakes, and an assortment of sweet chutneys. I tried the fig, date and walnut chutney spread on a grainy oat cake (a small cracker) with a chunk of soft, pungent Camembert. Yes. I could not speak for a few moments. Then I came around and dug into the cheddar.

To sum up, ladies and gentlemen, don’t blow off British food. It’s coming into it’s own. The British seem to be realizing that they have some phenomenal local ingredients which, when fleshed out and dressed up just a bit, can wow the foodies that normally head on over to France and Italy to eat.

The most distinctive feature of the foodie scene in Britain might be the fact that, despite the enormous popularity of Indian food and curry, the up and coming focus is really on classic, ancient British foods. And since I’m a huge believer not only in the locavore and slow food movements, but also in the assertion that one of the best ways to get to know a culture is through eating, I highly recommend a foray into British food. A pint, a pie, a pudding – and you’ve come to know a bit of Britain.

Above Photo: TeamGeist Photos: bearshapedsphere

“Peanuts, almonds, trail mix?” The woman muttering this louder and louder behind me is disturbing me. After an overnight flight from JFK (“home”) to Santiago’s SCL (home base), I’m on autopilot.

I walk down a hallway with timeless, placeless airport carpet, ride the escalator down past the reciprocity counter, zip through international police, put blinders on in the duty free shop we have to walk through, pick up a cart and my luggage, and hear it again – “peanuts, almonds trail mix.” What does this woman want, anyway?

”
So I turn to ask her.

“Perdón?” I ask.

“Do you have any food products?”

“Yes,” I say.

” And have you declared them?”

“Yes,” I repeat. Satisfied, she motions me past the apple-shaped garbage cans and the tables strewn with printed warnings from SAG (Servicio Agricola y Ganadero) admonishing visitors to declare plant and animal products. Getting nabbed with prohibited items (which can include handicrafts) can lead to fines starting at 100,000 CLP (around $200). Some pricey trail mix.

Chile is a skinny string bean of a country separated from the rest of the hemisphere by the world’s driest desert to the north, the second-highest mountain chain to the east and a giant expanse of coastline to the south and west. It is also an agricultural powerhouse.

Many of its top exports are agricultural products, such as wine and table grapes that grow in a series of valleys that stretch some 1,150 kilometers from Coquimbo in the north to Temuco in the south. It is absolutely justifiable that Chile wants to protect its natural resources and native flora and fauna.

But for the traveler, this defensive stance can turn crossing the border into a surprising game of examine-the-edibles (and inedibles), and wouldn’t-you-like-to-pay-a-fine?

”
The first time I had someone ask me about the contents of my bag, I was returning to Chile from Mendoza (Argentina), and the conversation went like this:

SAG official: You have chocolate.

Me; No, I don’t.

SAG official: Yes, you have chocolate.

Me: No, I don’t.

SAG official: Did you go to Bariloche (Argentina)?

Me: Yes. Oh! I DO have chocolate.

Bariloche is famous for its chocolate. I was bringing some back for some friends and had forgotten it was in my bag. Chocolate is permissible, but it has a forbidden, cheese-like appearance on the x-ray machine, so for giggles I got to unzip my bags and unfurl my dirty clothing to display the box of chocolates, with apologies to my friends who now know they ate “laundry chocolate.”

Cheese is not okay. Neither is yogurt, any cultured milk product, anything that is or could be construed as a seed or legume (including, sadly, a bag of raw pecans I’d once tried to import). Nuts must be dried, salted, preserved and hopefully packaged well.

Meat which is raw, smoked, or made into a sausage is impermissible. Honey is forbidden and so, I guess, was the brown bread I saw a German woman grudgingly part with one day. Maybe it had seeds in it, or maybe it was garlic.

Because heavens to mergatroid, if you accidentally import garlic there will be an international garlic smuggling scandal. I should know, because I am the offending party.

”
It was not that long ago. I had been doing some hiking down in Tierra del Fuego, where the Chile-Argentina border zigzags in accordance with a treaty Pope John Paul II helped to broker. Border crossings were old hat, and I’d long ago learned to consume the fresh food and pack only the dry when crossing back into Chile (Argentina seems not to defend its borders quite so assiduously).

So when the government official asked me, “What’s in the bag?” I proudly responded, “food,” thinking of the cocoa and powdered milk, sugar and mate.

He asked me to unzip the food bag and I did, after which he plunged his hand to the bottom and proudly retrieved a single clove of garlic like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

“And this?” He said.

“It’s garlic,” I responded.

The trouble was that without the “peanuts, almonds, trail mix” reminder I had not declared food products and had therefore committed SAG perjury, quite by accident (and I would like to report in my defense that the garlic had been purchased in Chile not a week earlier).

The result of this was a lecture, having to sign off on a carbonless copy form (in triplicate) admitting to my status as an illegal carrier of vegetable products, filling out a new customs declaration form, and getting to smile sheepishly at a bus full of travelers whose transit from point A to point B I had made significantly more time-consuming.

And now I am registered the length of the nation for my classification error (it turns out garlic is a freshie, not dry food). And though I was not fined, you, dear traveler, may not be so lucky.

So my experienced words of caution to travelers entering Chile: declare anything and everything that might have at one point been alive. Save yourself the cash, the annoyance, the embarrassment. And take a spiffy bookmark as a souvenir. SAG wants you to.

Photo: Katie Hammel Feature Photo: BlogMama

According to news coverage in the United States, there has been a rash of political unrest in Honduras.

These media outlets use words like “rife with economic inequality and corruption” and “violent crime” to describe Honduras, a country not much bigger than the state of Virginia. They note that “the political crisis (has) created turmoil inside Honduras.”

In response, the United States issued a travel alert to the country in July 2009 and the United Kingdom did the same, warning against all non-essential travel in the country due to the ongoing political crisis. Though the U.S. lifted its travel alert on December 8 of this year, the UK continues to advise citizens against visiting Honduras.

Photo: Abouid

Stop the common man on the street in Honduras, however, and he’ll tell you that the situation is far from what’s being described in our news.

Yes, the military made a mistake, which resulted in much of the Western world to advise against travel to the country. Yes, there is graffiti covering the outside of buildings in San Pedro Sulas and Tegucigalpa, but that’s the work of only a small handful of people. And yes, there may be some political unrest, but there has been very minimal bloodshed.

My goal here is not to argue semantics and the power of words with anyone, nor is it to pit he said against she said. Rather, I’d like to share my personal experience with what’s happening in Honduras today. I was in the country on a press trip in early November, and this is what I saw:

People going about their daily lives.

And any present unrest is certainly not targeted toward visitors to the country.

Outside of the political and business capitals in Honduras, there is no sign that anything is out of the ordinary at all.

“One thing is what has been said in the media internationally, but what’s actually going on in the country is another thing, and it is pretty normal,” says Norma Rosales, commercialization officer for the Honduras Institute of Tourism. “Our lives have continued just as they have over the years.”
With the recent and current travel warnings and (I’m assuming) people fearing the worse about the country, I also noticed something else:

The beaches are bare. The restaurants are empty. The hotels are vacant.

And, as a result, the country is suffering … a lot.

Tourism is the largest employer in Honduras, and the industry generated $630.8 million in 2008. While the industry has grown steadily over the past few years—a 19.1% increase in total visitors from 2007 to 2008—Honduras is bracing for 3.6% decrease this year (compared to the expected 6.6% increase).

Though the worsening global economy can be blamed for some of the drop, the political situation in the country and its portrayal in the media probably have something to do with the fact that some hospitality businesses that had five employees are now getting by on only one.

In a country that has to compete with the likes of Costa Rica and Belize, travel warnings issued by Western countries can destroy income that so many people in the country reply upon.

Here is my concern: When people are unemployed, they have to find a way to feed their families. A variety of studies across the world have shown that, while violent crime doesn’t increase with the rate of unemployment, petty crime—theft, burglary and larceny—does. Perhaps we shouldn’t be worried about whether Honduras is a safe place to visit now, but whether the lack of tourism will result in it becoming the place the Western media has already made it out to be?

Don’t get me wrong. I like personal service at a restaurant and miles of Caribbean shoreline all to myself, but it shouldn’t be at the hands of travel warnings that scare, rather than inform, the general public. Take from the recent news coverage and advisories what you want, but here’s my request to you: Do your research and look beyond the mainstream Western publications for information about what’s going on in Honduras—or any country against which travel warnings have been issued.

And if you’re looking for a cheaper alternative to some of the more popular Central American countries, I highly recommend Honduras. In order to get people back in the country, many places are offering steep discounts and low season prices during high season times.

And, just to dispel any concerns that I’m giving lip service to Honduras because I visited the country on a press trip, I’m not. In fact, I’m already scouring airfare to make a return trip with my husband. When countries are worthy of visiting, they get my attention.

Feature Photo: kevindooleyPhoto: longlostcousin

“Travel like a human” is the motto of AirBnB, a website devoted to hooking up travelers with lodging (from rooms and apartments to tree houses and castles) around the world. The site now boasts accommodation in 101 countries and has been getting all sorts of media hype in The New York Times and The Washington Post, among other places.

So what’s this all about, anyway? Essentially, you sign up for AirBnB and post information about the lodging you’re offering, plus photos that make the place look like a drool-worthy boutique hotel. Make sure there are huge windows giving out onto the Champs Elysées or the Tokyo skyline, and funky leather couches with nice end tables and avant-garde lamps in gorgeous lighting. Or aim for a different market and take a straight-up shot of your dog-eaten couch, offering it to poor, weary backpackers for twenty bucks. AirBnB offers a range from the backpacker to the deluxe.

That said, the site is not necessarily a place for the hard-core budget traveler getting by on Greyhounds and ramen. Most of the accommodations are below market rates but still hover in the $50-150 range, which means that if you’re usually dependent on hostels or Couchsurfing, this might not be an alternative.

Photo: striatic

At the same time, the quality you get for that price is most likely going to be infinitely higher than what you’d get in the smoke-stinking ancient hotel with yellowed mattresses that charges a fortune based on location alone.

The apartments, houses and rooms on AirBnB are downright, well, homey…they are, after all, where somebody lives year-round, not some dank pit that houses passerby after passerby.

As for hosts, the site looks like a great way to make some extra cash from your place. If you’re living abroad in a remotely strategic area, with a remotely decent apartment, this is a sweet way to drum up some extra income.

But what stops me is always the awkwardness factor. Do I need to make chitchat? Coffee? Invite the guest out for beers with my friends and I? Feel guilty about having friends over for beers? I don’t like navigating those host/guest boundaries, especially when there’s money involved and I have just met the guest in the last twenty-four hours.

And, I wonder, what sort of issues do these people face with their landlords? I’d like to give hosting a go, but I wonder what my neighbors would say about new sets of foreigners coming and going every week or so. The site doesn’t seem perturbed by rental issues thus far, maybe because most people don’t live with their landlords or interact with them, or because many people are renting apartments and houses they own? I’m not sure, but it seems some sort of legal ramifications might creep up somewhere.

All in all, sites like AirBnB and Couchsurfing are changing the traditional way in which people travel.

What do you think of this, Matadorians? Would you use this service? Would you rent a room, house, bungalow, mattress? Do you like the way these kinds of services are changing travel?

Feature Photo: garryknight Photo: author

Over at Anderson Cooper 360, Chris Guillebeau wrote a post about the things he wishes he’d known before he went traveling. Some of the items on the list? Be aware of different notions of personal space, be firm with people who haggle or follow you, always carry cash, and don’t speak out against the government.

I particularly liked the points about being tolerant of smoking (I would add being tolerant of meat-eating) and not being a colonialist and assuming people who don’t speak English aren’t as intelligent as you are. For as obvious a point as the latter seems to be, many people miss it.

I know I still throw out “the locals” all the time without really thinking about it – it took my husband, a bonafide Oaxacan “local,” mocking me constantly before I grew wary of the phrase. (He proposed setting up a booth on the main pedestrian street with a sign “Ask A Local! 10 pesos.” The travelers quest for contact with “the locals” is a whole separate can o’ worms I won’t delve into here, but suffice it to say that both glorifying and pigeonholing The Locals are bad ideas).

I seem to have moments that linger somewhere between nostalgia and regret after each experience abroad. In China, I wish I’d known just how intense the censorship would be, and psychologically prepared myself for living in a country saturated with propaganda. I certainly wish I’d known to never, ever separate myself from my passport in South Africa, when I had everything stolen in what was a guarded parking lot (it was no longer guarded when we returned from Table Mountain).

And yet, at the same time, knowing these things would’ve flattened out that learning curve that made traveling in China and South Africa so revelatory, and taught me hard and fast. Of course I’d rather not have had anything stolen, and obviously a little practical kick in the ass would have been preferable to the learning experience of weeping in front of a bombed out car in a parking lot. But sometimes the slap-you-in-the-face lessons you learn on the road are the ones that stick with you longest and teach you most.

So if I could choose a few things I wish I would’ve known when I started out, sure, there’d be the practical stuff about taking enough cash, and duct-taping my passport to my body at all times, and all that good stuff. But the stuff I really wish I would have known would be less tangible. Here are a few examples:

1) You don’t have to see or do anything. Follow your instincts. You don’t have to feel guilty for not seeing Machu Picchu if you don’t want to see it, or you have something else in mind. This isn’t to say it’s not worth it to go – but if it’s not in your plans or you improvise something else, that’s ok too. There’s no checklist.

2) Travel can be just as monotonous as anything else. If it feels monotonous, or you start to get disenchanted, stop. Take a break. Go home. Stay somewhere and get a job. But don’t assume travel will always be enlightening, or you should be able to do it forever.

3) You can do almost anything independently if you have the time, patience and perseverance.

And you, Matador readers? What do you wish you’d known? If you could look back through the wormhole at your greenhorn travelin’ self, with wide eyes and an overstuffed backpack, what would you tell him/her? Please share below.

Feature Photo: hojusaram Photos: author

In Busan, South Korea, I head to dinner near Jagalchi Fish Market, the city’s famous seafront area. During the day, the neighborhood is filled with middle aged women sporting short permed hair, rubber dishwashing gloves, rain boots, waders, and sharp knives, skinning and gutting seafood by the moundful. Block after block of stalls showcase creatures from the ocean swimming in tanks, laid out on ice, and piled carelessly on the sidewalk.

The specialty in the neighborhood’s restaurants is hoetjip, Korean-style sashimi. Like most meals in Korea, hoetjip is accompanied by a dozen or more small side dishes, called panchan. Inevitably, the panchan will include plates of the ubiquitous sweet and sour pickled radish, fiery kimchi, spicy gochujang sauce, and sliced raw garlic to add even more potentcy. There are also piles of lettuce greens and shiso leaves for wrapping around bites of meat.

I enthusiastically start in on some of the more familiar panchan like fried seafood pancake, steamed prawns in the shell, and sauteed squid. A cluster of side dishes causes my chopsticks to pause midair. I don’t recognize any of the food, but that’s not what stops me. Part of appreciating food is presentation and on these plates, presentation fails. The chunks of whatever sea creature these are are so downright ugly no garnish could improve the scene.

One plate holds a pile of sea pineapple or sea squirt (meongge), beautiful when alive, with yellow fading into to red across it’s spiky spherical shell like a tropical sunset. Shelled, its butter-colored flesh has a complex flavor combining sour, fruity, and briny, with a dominant off-putting metallic taste that doesn’t merit repeating.

Next, I pluck up a piece of what I later learn is the regrettably named sea penis (gaebul). The name is also unfortunately accurate: when alive, the creature looks like a dismembered, pneumatically-propelled alien phallus. The shape also reminds me of sausage making; at the moment the filling is pushed into the stretchy casing. Dead – for the meat is dead, I poke it to make sure – the sea penis is deflated and small, looking like a flayed worm, shiny and pink like a tongue. Its crunchy and chewy texture is surprisingly pleasant.

My chopsticks finally aim towards the last untried morsels, a substance that can be generously described as resembling chunks of slug. Its glossy, soft flesh is a mottled mix of khaki green, deep brown, mustard yellow, and blue-gray, combined to make a surface both artful and repulsive.

If I saw this beast in my kitchen at home, I’d wonder how it had oozed its way inside from the backyard. But, I’m determined to try anything once, especially if it’s already on the table in front of me. With a deep breath and a deeper sigh, I pick up one of the smaller chunks.

And it moves.

More specifically it contracts, tightening up and getting smaller, tenser, and harder. I instantly drop the meat, snatch back my chopsticks, and wait to see if it will do anything else, like scream. A few seconds later, the glutenous blob relaxes, returning to a more puddle-like, flaccid state.

Being prone to occasional acts of immaturity, I begin to poke the different pieces on the plate, making each piece repeatedly contract and relax. If I do this enough, maybe the creatures will die or creep away. In my gut, I’m hoping for the latter. No such luck however, the blobs stay put.

I’m convinced these are pieces of a recently sliced up larger creature, its nerves firing in an unconscious parody of life, no different than a recently beheaded chicken running around a farmyard There’s no one to ask. None of the staff speak English, and the only other customers in the restaurant are a large party of raucously drunk Korean businessmen.

Once again, I grab a piece of mystery seafood. It predictably tenses up as I drag it through the gochujang sauce, which could make shoe leather taste phenomenal. I pop the piece into my mouth and try to chew, except the creature’s flesh is unyielding to my teeth.

I surreptitiously extract the misbehaving nosh from my mouth. As I stare down the difficult remains of food, I devise a new strategy. After I put another piece in my mouth, I leave it on my tongue, waiting for it to relax, just like it did on the plate.
As I feel the tension leaving the morsel, I attack quickly and chew remorselessly. There’s the brief flavor of ocean before I swallow my first living creature. Afterward, all I can think is, “Where’s my soju?”

Perhaps, being a traveler (or someone at least vaguely interested in travel), you are as obsessed with maps as I am.

I find old maps nostalgic and achingly beautiful. They seem to bring up a swirl of memories, subterranean memories about exploration, fear, fascination, curiosity. The delicate borders of continents like the veins of leaves, and place names in fine print emanating the smells and sensations and mysteries held within their borders. Brazil, China.

It is hard to find the vinyl-ish film and gaudy greens and yellows of modern maps as romantic, but I still love a good map, before, during, and after a trip. A map, arguably, brings a trip into tangibility – you start with the anticipation and the plans, tracing lines on the map, pointing at dots, and then, at some point, the lines become rivers you’ve walked and the dots a city you’ve wandered and slept in. Maps are the most concrete and primitive artifacts of a journey – I was here.

Maps are also, of course, somewhat relative. Early cartographers drew their dragons and monsters on distant seas and used images to suggest the native flora and fauna that might be found in a place. Colonial maps tend to reflect the interests of the colonizer, electing colonial place names and highlighting material resources of importance.

Aerial photography greatly altered map-making to suit the interests of colonial powers at the turn of the century – once resources could be mapped from above, maps could be constructed solely for the purpose of showing where the loot was. A cynical perspective, but one that certainly aided in the colonial mission.

So maps are powerful, subjective tools, which got me thinking that as travelers, how would we construct maps of the places we’ve visited or would like to visit? What would our maps reveal about what interests us in a trip?

There is this beautiful gastro map of India, for example, for the traveler who discovers place through food. Then there’s the brilliant Worldmapper, creating cartograms of the world and individual countries according to criteria ranging from female literacy to radio usage. A really useful way of understanding a country through terms other than physical boundaries and topography.

Maybe you’d map the world by mountain ranges, maybe by deserts – the idea is, all maps are, to a certain degree, subjective in travel, and the way we interpret and use maps depends on the places and ideas that interest us.

To start us off, I think my maps would include a gastro map of Mexico, with a detailed guide to street-side taco stands. And then, perhaps, a careful map of Andean villages tucked between peaks, and a map of small, out of the way passenger train routes in Japan.

So tell us, travelers, what maps would you draw?

Feature Photo: Robert S. Donovan Photo: The Alieness GiselaGiardino

Taxis: the cause of so much hand-wringing, street side bartering, frantic planning, late night shouting, anxious nail-biting, dread, fear, mystery and intruigue. Yes, taxis. As a traveler you may loathe, love, or fear them, but you probably won’t be able to avoid them.

Experiences with taxis and taxi drivers are some of the most common travel survival stories told – the taxi that took you in circles for hours around Beijing, the taxi that charged you 200 times the price, the taxi driver that told you about the past thirty years of history in Brunei, the taxi driver that took you home to dinner with his family. I’ve heard all of these stories, and more.

So with taxis being such a central travel experience, it’s understandable there’s such a wealth of travel lit surrounding them. First off, there’s taxi gourment, a definitively pro-taxi blog that simultaneously explores the lives of taxi drivers and the food and drink scape of Buenos Aires. Relying on the local knowledge and catering to the distinct personalities of taxi drivers, Layne Mosler travels round the city, using taxis and their drivers as a prism through which to understand the local culture.

On the other hand, there’s I hate taxis, a site that channels traveler’s resentment of taxis into a search for other forms of local transport. I hate taxis is inspired, allowing travelers to choose their destination and then investigate a number of transportation options from the airport to the city center (how many of us have gotten into the airport, thrilled to finally be there, only to be overwhelmed by taxi dread?). It’s not as anti-taxi as the name sounds, and is in fact a great source of info for navigating local taxi prices and policies.

These represent twin poles on the taxi spectrum – one appealing to the stress and fear surrounding taxis, the other to people’s fascination with and weakness for that gamble of personality and adventure inherent in a taxi ride.

So, readers, to kick off this weekend, I ask you to share a taxi story below. You can love ‘em, hate ‘em, or be all tied up in ambiguity about them – but I’ll bet no matter how you feel about taxis, you can trace some of your most memorable travel experiences back to them.

Community Connection

Give your opinion on Mexico’s new girly pink taxis. If you’re constantly paranoid about being ripped off, you might want to have a look at how not to get ripped off by a cabbie. On the other hand, if you’re worried about haggling to the point of exploitation, read When Does Budget Travel Become Exploitation?

Photos: author

Taking an extended, months-long trip around the U.S. may not seem financially feasible, but it can be if you have a van large enough to sleep in. If you’re adventurous enough, sleeping in your vehicle can save you hundreds of dollars and allow you to extend your trip by months. This article touches on the whys, wheres, and hows of sleeping in your vehicle while traveling.

Why sleep in your vehicle?

The obvious reason is to save money. If you’re going on a long trip, hotels are way too expensive, and the price of staying at hostels and campgrounds can add up after a while. The cost of staying in your car or van? Zero.

If you have an RV, you’re all set. If not, a small van could be a valuable purchase. I recently spent four months traveling around the country in a 1994 Chevy G-20 conversion van, purchased on Craigslist for about $2500. The conversion van is ideal because it’s fairly inconspicuous – it doesn’t scream out “Someone is sleeping in here!” like a VW van might. I’ve even read about people sleeping in compact cars, though I wouldn’t try that route myself.

Another reason to sleep in your vehicle is that it can be fun to embrace this sort of minimalist lifestyle – and the challenge of finding a place to park and sleep safely every night.

How to sleep in your vehicle

There are numerous websites which describe in great detail how to convert basic vans into living spaces, with kitchens, stoves, televisions, and comfortable beds. That was more effort than I wanted to give. I just pressed a button – the button that lowered the back seat into a bed. The bed was large enough to sleep two comfortably.

My van had shades on every window, which could be pulled down when it was time to hit the sack. The only sort of handiwork I bothered with was installing a curtain rod behind the front seats. The curtain, combined with the window shades, offered complete, total privacy, so that no one knew anybody was sleeping inside.

You should be prepared to adjust your sleep schedule to fit Mother Nature. Even with shades on the windows, it’s likely that the sunlight will wake you around 6 am, so you may want to get to bed as soon as it gets dark, to ensure a full night’s sleep. Also, be sure to keep some blankets on hand, because it will probably get a lot colder at night than you’d think.

The biggest challenge is getting used to the noise around your vehicle. At first, you might bolt up every time a person or car passes by, but eventually you get used to ignoring those sounds so you can relax and catch some Zs.

Where to sleep in your vehicle

Many (if not the majority of) 24-hour Walmarts across the country allow those in RVs to park overnight in their lots. Since I was sleeping in my van, I pretty much followed the protocol for RV parking. It is recommended that customers confirm with the store manager whether the store allows overnight parking. Sites like park free overnight and the Walmart RV Yahoo! Group are good resources to use if you want to determine which Walmarts allow overnight parking.

The site freecampgrounds.com is a good resource for finding cheap or free places to sleep. This site lists campgrounds where you can stay for $15 or less, and also includes information about rest areas in some states. Arizona, for instance, has separate areas at some rest stops where those in RVs or vans can park undisturbed for the night.

Walmarts, rest stops, and campgrounds are ideal overnight parking options because they have restrooms available, should the need arise.

The other good alternative for sleeping overnight is the stealthy, on-street method. Find an urban area with street parking, pull the shades, and settle in. This practice can become an art, as it’s important to look for streets that are congested enough that your vehicle won’t stand out. The last thing you want is a suspicious neighbor calling police to report an unusual vehicle parked in the neighborhood!

One caution with this method – there are a handful of cities, such as San Francisco, that explicitly prohibit sleeping overnight in vehicles, so be sure to know the local regulations. Also, parking on the street means you have no available bathroom. Better keep a pee bottle handy!

How to stay clean

It’s necessary to touch on one last factor regarding sleeping in your vehicle – the question of where to find a shower (assuming that’s important to you.)

Couchsurfing is good for finding a bed and shower for a night (not to mention good conversation with local residents). Springing for a hostel or campground every now and then is an option. Pilot truck stops offer showers for the general public at about $10 a pop. If you’re really cash-strapped or stuck in your vehicle for an extended period, there’s the bare bones method – keep a bar of soap and a washcloth around.

My preferred routine was to sleep in the vehicle for a couple of days, then spend a night couch surfing or staying at a hostel or campground.

Conclusion

Obviously, this type of travel isn’t for everyone. But if you’re adventurous and can get by on minimal accommodations, sleeping in your vehicle can be a great way to bring down your travel costs.

Feature Photo: oceanyamaha Photo: satoru kikuchi

Dagashi is the nostalgic, old time junk food without pretense– the kind many Japanese adults today probably bought as children at a nearby mom and pop shops decades ago.

Alas, kids get more money from their parents these days and want the newer and fancier snacks, causing many old dagashi shops to close. The sight of a dagashi shop is no longer so common, but if you find one, go in with 500 yen, grab a basket, and you’ll walk out with the toothy grin of a child and a handful of unusual treats.

Here are a few unique items with flavors you can’t find at home.

1. Umai bou

Photo: kanko*

Think of a long and perfectly cylindrical Cheeto, with Japanese flavors like spicy cod roe, ume boshi plum, okonomiyaki (Japanese savory pancake), and tako yaki (octopus dumpling balls). I’ve crumbled these up and used them as toppings for steamed rice when I was running low on furikake (seaweed seasoning for rice).

2. Ramune

Ramune is like Japan’s version of Squirt in the classic glass bottle, except it’s got a smoother taste with less citrus aftertaste. A glass marble that acts as a cork is pushed down to the bottom of the jar before gulping. Ramune is also a type of a candy, similar to Sweettarts but thicker and creamier upon melting in the mouth. It comes in miniature plastic toy replicas of the Ramune bottle, Japanese soft drink cans, or fruit shapes. Keep the containers as toys.

3. Dried yakisoba

If you like to snack on uncooked instant ramen noodles, this one’s for you—these uncooked and seasoned yakisoba noodle bits can’t quite be reconstituted as well as instant ramen if you were to add water, but regardless, they’re still yummy.

4. Su konbu or vinegared seaweed

Imagine a Wrigley’s gum-like packet, but instead of gum, you pull out sheets of perfectly rectangular vinegared seaweed sheets. It’s not only far less noisy than chewing gum, it’s also a healthier alternative.

5. Sakura daikon

A slice of daikon radish is preserved in a brine of saccharine sweetness, ume boshi-like acidity , and a neon red color guaranteed to tinge your tongue pink. It’s a pickle snack, much like the kosher dills you used to munch on late at night.

Photo: aki.sato

6. Konpeitou

These colorful little spiky stars are pure sugar—eat enough and you’ll get your sugar high. They’re one of the oldest Japanese candies, believed to have been around before the 1700s. They are possibly from the arrival of the Portuguese—I read that konpeitou came from the Portuguese word confeito, which means confectionary.

7. Fugashi

Fu is a type of Japanese wheat gluten, which puffs up when placed in soups. Fugashi is the brown sugar sweetened version which softens in the mouth with the first nibble. It’s much like a compact and hard cotton candy in texture, but a bit spongier when mixed with saliva.

8. Kinako sticks

Kinako is a dry roasted soybean powder used to season plain mochi—if you are known for pouring packets of kinako in your mouth as a snack, you will love the kinako stick. It’s the condensed version of where lots of kinako are packed together with sugar syrup and rolled into a stick.

9. Yochan Ika

Photo: psd

You either like this stuff or are repulsed by it—it looks like a fruit roll up, but its fishy smell and taste is a giveaway that signals highly processed, flattened squid.

10. Ume jam

A sweetened and unnaturally red jam made of ume plums, it comes in a square packet much like the ketchup at McDonalds. It’s sucked from the plastic packet, or spread between two round wafers before munching.

11. Neri ame

Post World War II, the kids found neri ame to be fancy candy, or so I was told. A glob of brightly colored malt glucose syrup is slathered onto chopsticks which kids can use to soften the candy before sucking.

12. Sakura mochi

This isn’t the real mochi, as it’s ingredients say mostly sugar, rendering it more like a chewy fruit jelly. It comes in a shallow tray with miniature square compartments that hold the candy, and a toothpick to pick out the mochi bits— it comes in different flavors such as cherry, fruit medley, and even Coca Cola.

13. Morocco yogurt

If you spent your childhood in Japan twenty plus years ago, yogurt in glass jars was commonly delivered to the home by Meiji Company. This one is a small plastic replica of a yogurt jar, but filled with a powdered fruity candy instead, which like the vintage yogurt, comes with a wooden spoon for scooping. The candy, unfortunately reminds me too much of fruit flavored children’s konagusuri (powdered medication).

Community Connection

Headed to Japan? You might want to look at Ten Extraordinarily Useful Phrases for Japanese Travelers. You also might want to know what NOT to do in Japan.

Feature Photo: coconut wireless Photo: sigmama

How to hunt out a fresh local meal for yourself in Hawaii.

Hawaii’s tropical climate offers up a full bounty, and you can go foraging for free food in the wild—you’ll find fruits, seaweed, some fish, and an occasional critter.

Fruits

Photo: jessicafm

With comfy hiking shoes, sun screen, and bug repellent, head towards the mountains to pick fruit.

Mountain apples

Look for a tall tree, with reddish pink fruits during the summer months. The fruit tastes like a cross between grandma’s rose perfume and a smooth pear, with an edible red skin and creamy white interior.

Guava

Guavas are very high in vitamin C. The bright pink and seedy interior is best when sprinkled with a packet of sugar or Splenda.

Lilikoi or passion fruit

You’ve found passion fruit if you see a wild tangle of vines, some white flowers, and green oblong fruit which develops purple skin when ripe— its heavenly scent should draw you in before you see it.

Photo: pipiwildhead

The yellow interior has a bunch of crunchy black seeds which can also be eaten.

Breadfruit

The large, poky fruit look as if they’re pineapples or durians from afar— Ulu, or bread fruit can be cooked over an open fire, and its texture resembles Wonder bread.

Mangoes, tangerines, papayas , pumelos and pomegranates

Wander the residential areas keeping a low profile– when you come across a fruit tree loaded with fruit hanging over the sidewalk, you’ve hit a jackpot. I’ve found the best mangoes this way, in spite of having to cut off worm infested areas.

Nuts

These two nuts can be found pretty much everywhere on the island.

Kukui nuts

Photo: theotherway

Kukui nuts were once burned by Hawaiians to make light, or roasted and pulverized into a seasoning for raw fish. The tree bears circular brown fruit that fall to the ground to decay, leaving behind the Kukui nut. It’s poisonous when eaten raw, and edible if eaten roasted—be forewarned that excess Kukui nut consumption leads to diarrhea.

Coconuts

Palm trees are everywhere in Hawaii, and on occasion, you may find the unblemished coconut which had just fallen from the tree with minimal harm. Crack it open with a large stone, sip the coconut water and chew on the nutty white flesh— and of course, remember to use the shells for a coconut bra.

Seaweed

Limu and Ogo are two commonly eaten seaweed varieties found in the Hawaiian ocean, attached to rocks or lining the bottoms of the ocean floor. As there are many varieties, visit this site for a photos and identification guides. I’ve seen those two seaweeds sold fresh in many supermarkets, and enjoyed their salty crunch in salad or Poke (seasoned raw fish cubes).

Shallow water fishing

Photo: Erik Charlton

You don’t need a fishing permit for near shore fishing in Hawaii—all you’ll need is a pole, net, and some bait which you may be able to borrow from a kind local.

Akule and Oama fish

Akule, a miniature mackerel, and Oama, a relative of the goatfish, are the most commonly found near shore fish . These two small fish can be found in knee deep water during the early fall, around Ala Moana Beach Park on Oahu. Visit beachcombers for more detailed information.

Octopus

Photo: IDS.photos

If you’re feeling adventurous, try the ancient Hawaiian art of night fishing— grab a spear and lantern in search for octopi. For a memorable experience to take you back in time, use a kukui nut lamp, and don’t forget to wear a loin cloth made out of the softened bark of the Wauke tree.

Opihi

These flattened cone-shaped clams are rare, as they’ve become over hunted, but nevertheless some can still be found in the dangerous, rocky Napali cliffs of Kauai. If you’ve lucked out and found some, eat the Opihi raw—it’s already been salted by the sea. For more information, visit this site.

Land critters

Wild chickens

If you don’t mind a drier and chewier tasting chicken compared to the store bought variety, there are many flocks of wild chickens that roam the island. I’ve seen them in some city parks such as the Diamond Head Beach Park. Don’t worry about taking just one– the wild chicken population appears to be growing, with an occasional death caused by mongoose attacks, cats, or a speeding car.

With such an abundance of wild food, why bother maxing out your budget at a restaurant?

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/a-guide-to-foraging-for-wild-food-in-hawaii/feed/ 4 http://matadorabroad.com/eating-asian-in-auckland-a-city-guide-to-ethnic-foo/ http://matadorabroad.com/eating-asian-in-auckland-a-city-guide-to-ethnic-foo/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:47:14 +0000 Marie Szamborski http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2284

Feature Photo: tony_the_bald_eagle Photo: wonderferret

An exploration of Auckland’s ethnic food scene.

I often hear the same refrain in New Zealand : “Country’s gorgeous, but the food’s crap.” I wonder if these people have ever roamed Auckland’s international food courts.

Most backpackers have enjoyed the ubiquitous New Zealand meat pie, but there is also a generous amount of good quality Asian food to be had here, and often at a bargain price.

While the term ‘food court’ would normally have you running for the hills, here it often means freshly cooked Asian food. If you’ve arrived here on a round-the-world ticket from say, Singapore, you’ll feel right at home. It’s in these food courts and small restaurants that you’ll find the best Asian cooking in New Zealand.

Photo: wonderferret

So, what can you eat? At my current local food court in the centre of Karangahape Road (K’ Rd. to locals) my choices are Japanese, Malaysian, Chinese, Indian, Thai and a steamed bun stall. And that’s a smaller food court.

Heading downward from K’ Rd., you might want to check out Upper Queen Street for individual restaurants that have prices similar to those of the food courts. If you are staying in one of the YHAs you’ll find this area right outside your door. It’s a mini-Koreatown, but there are also Chinese, Brazilian, and Japanese restaurants.

Photo: Robyn Gallagher

From Upper Queen Street, keep heading downhill. Look for the Strand Arcade which is about a twenty second walk past Smith and Caughey’s Department Store on the left. It’s easy to miss, but worth the effort to find because tucked underneath is another popular food court. The Korean and Chinese stalls are especially good and the portions are huge.

If you head further downtown you can find the original Food Alley, which has been in Auckland for years and is popular with the lunchtime business crowd. It is a two story place on Albert Street with anything Asian you can imagine. And if they don’t have it, they’ll often try to make it for you. My picks would be either of the two Thai stalls or the Chinese hotpot stall, but it’s all good here.

Photo: wonderferret

There are also some great Asian food courts in the Newmarket and Ponsonby areas. Take the Link bus to get to either and then just ask around. Most people can point you in the right direction.

If you’ve rented a car, or are keen to get on a bus, try to take a trip out to Dominion Rd. in Balmoral. Both sides of the street are literally lined with places to eat from all corners of the Asian continent (not to mention your usual burgers, pizzas and kebabs if you’re so inclined). Catering especially to the local communities, some of these restaurants don’t even have English on their signs. But don’t be intimidated. Just walk in and they’ll either produce an English menu or simply tell you what’s good.

Plan to spend between $10 and $15 NZDs for a good feed including a drink from the drink stall, or pay a little more for a full-on feast. New Zealand, and in particular Auckland, has become a truly multicultural place. Although Szechuan hotpot may not be the thing that first comes to mind when you think of Kiwi nosh, it’s become just as much a staple as the classic meat pie.

Community Connection

If Asian food’s your thing, check out these five Asian food blogs. If you’re interested in the wilder side of Asian food, you might want to find out about dog meat and rooster balls. And if you want to recreate the food at home, have a look at essential cookbooks for the culinary traveler..

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/eating-asian-in-auckland-a-city-guide-to-ethnic-foo/feed/ 7 http://matadorabroad.com/five-simple-ways-to-cope-with-flight-delays/ http://matadorabroad.com/five-simple-ways-to-cope-with-flight-delays/#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:56:06 +0000 Susana Vega http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2276

Feature Photo: wavebreakerPhoto: May Mendoza

How many times have you heard the tinny, dreaded announcement – “flight xyz has been delayed and will now be departing….at an indefinite moment in the future.” Here are some ways to cope.

It’s another flight delay. Your life will not come to an end; in fact, it has been presented with an opportunity.

1. Find a kid

Photo: woodleywonderwork’s

If you’re a fan of children this will work for you and endear you to some fellow passengers for being wonderful enough to distract their children for even a few minutes. More importantly – children nearly always travel with supplies. By this I mean crayons, markers, and things to color.

If you have not revisited the wonders of coloring as an adult I pity you and recommend you remedy this as soon as humanely possible. Now go on, find a kid and play.

2. Haiku

I am serious. Haikus are short, simple, and challenging as hell.

The best part? You need nothing but your brain. Vent your frustrations into these little three line gems.

Photo: glindsay65

Even better with company, the history of the haiku is filled with shared poetry, where friends would begin one piece and the next in line would continue and so on and so forth.

Pick a theme. Be raunchy. Be serious. Be ridiculous.

3. Talk

Really. Look around you, you’ll likely find someone as bored as you are. Go over and introduce yourself and never allow yourself to be deceived by appearances. At the very least, you can gripe together. Remember that everyone has a story; the trick is just to listen.

4. Walk

And walk some more. Sure you are tired, but get your blood moving and explore your environment.

Photo: shearforce

How many hours are you going to be stuck in that plane seat anyway? Take this opportunity to be good to your body, enjoy a simple walk and smile at people you pass. It doesn’t matter if they look at you like you’re crazy. Someone who has had an even more wretched time in the airport than you will appreciate it.

5. Write a letter or two.

It’s old-fashioned and old school, but take this chance to think about the people in your life. The people you appreciate, but never get around to actually telling them that you do. No paper handy? Nab a few sturdy napkins. They’re amazingly versatile. It doesn’t matter on what you present your love, affection, and gratitude –it just matters that you do.

The funny thing about travel is that something always happens which is not according to plan. We are used to moving, moving, moving at such a pace that when we are slapped into stillness for some horribly “inconvenient” reason we are at a loss as to what to do with ourselves. Stop, take a deep breath in spite of your irritation and boredom, and enjoy these moments as a gift to get out of the constant motion of your travels.

Community Connection

What are your flight delay stories? Give us your superb, your appalling, your inspiring, your educational, your barely believable flight delay adventures. We know you’ve got ‘em. Sound off below.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/five-simple-ways-to-cope-with-flight-delays/feed/ 10 http://matadorabroad.com/an-essential-guide-to-tofu-in-japan-for-vegetarians-foodies-and-travelers/ http://matadorabroad.com/an-essential-guide-to-tofu-in-japan-for-vegetarians-foodies-and-travelers/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:40:18 +0000 Pele Omori http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2271

Feature Photo: yomi955 Photo: avlxyz

From the long existing tradition of Shojin ryori, or vegetarian monk’s cooking, comes a variety of soy products to keep you healthy and well fed. For a budget traveler, soy products are generally cheap, high in protein, and cholesterol free, leaving you with vim and vigor for sightseeing.

Tofu: A Primer

Tofu is made by boiling freshly squeezed soymilk, and adding a coagulant which transforms the milky fluid into blocks. Tofu, like wine, is believed to differ in flavor depending on where it’s made in Japan—Kyoto is known to have the best, as their water is considered the tastiest. Try to get the tofu from a neighborhood tofu shop if you can, as the goodies are made freshly on the premises, rewarding you with flavors that are difficult to replicate from a supermarket.

Sukui dofu: Sukui means to scoop, and this ultra soft silky tofu is so delicate it requires a spoon for eating. Its beauty lies in its simplicity—all it really needs is a dash of soy sauce and some freshly grated ginger.

Photo: mia3mom

Kinugoshi dofu: a slightly firmer tofu compared to the sukui dofu, this is the one you may have seen in small cubes, floating in your breakfast miso soup. Momen dofu is the firmer variety which holds together better for stir frying .

Flavored tofu: If you still find the silkiest of all tofu to be unappealingly bland and boring, try the egg tofu, a yellow tofu that tastes like a salty flan. The shiso, or Japanese basil, and yuzu (Japanese lime) are my favorites, but the goma, or sesame tofu is just as delicious.

Destinations

Community Connection to Japan

Fried tofu

Photo: avlxyz

When tofu is fried, its texture becomes chewy, and it looks and taste completely different from its original form.

Ganmodoki: These fried tofu and vegetable balls are the tastiest when nibbled piping hot, out of an oil stained paper bag. It’s commonly enjoyed in stewed and braised dishes such as oden or nimono.

Aburaage: You may have seen these at the sushi take out counter in the form of inari sushi, or fried tofu pouches stuffed with rice. Aburaage is made by deep frying tofu slices until the skin becomes blistered and chewy, and its color as golden as a fox’s coat—don’t be alarmed if you see kitsune udon on the menu at a noodle shop, as it refers to the aburaage, and not the fuzzy critter.

Tofu’s edible by-products

During the tofu making process, nothing goes to waste, and the by-products of tofu such as okara and yuba are also treated with dignity, as opposed to ending in heaps in a compost pile.

Photo: eiko_eiko

Yuba: This is the skin that forms atop boiling soymilk, which is harvested and rolled into sheets. In Kyoto, yuba dishes are widely popular, often eaten in clear soups or braised, and there are restaurants which specialize in yuba cuisine. Don’t waste your time reconstituting the dry stuff as the fresh variety is softer and less rubbery.

Okara: Okara’s fiber content tends to be rather high, so consume it sparingly, especially so before a romantic evening. When all traces of soy milk have been sucked out of the pulverized, boiled soy beans, you’ve got okara–on its own, it’s bland, crumbly and dry, in need of major flavor, but this humble by-product is tasty when stewed in a soy sauce broth with vegetables as a side dish.

For those with a sweet tooth, scope out the Japanese health food shops for their sinful okara butter cookies and cakes.

The coagulant

Magnesium chloride, that compound used to de-ice highways in winter, is also the magic ingredient that turns boiling soy milk into blocks of firm tofu.

Nigari : If you’ve been considering Botox, lipo, or Rogaine, try some Nigari –the Japanese believe that this extremely bitter elixir has plenty of minerals to keep you svelte and young. The commercial nigari drinks are made palatable by adding fruit juice. For a nigari spa experience, pop some nigari supplements, and slather yourself with nigari beauty products while lying under the shade of a blossoming Sakura tree.

The milk of tofu

Photo: jetalone

Tounyu, or soymilk: If you’ve been traumatized by the funky after taste of western soymilk, try the Japanese varieties, sold in small carton boxes at any supermarket. The Kibun brand has been around for a while, with flavors such as sesame, malt coffee, matcha, banana and chocolate.

Absolutely worth a try is their sweetened chestnut, or marron flavor, designed to mimic the taste of a French Mont Blanc pastry. For a sweet treat to conclude your soy adventure, indulge in some tounyu flan, which had won over many of my soy reluctant family members.

Community Connection

If you travel to eat, take a look at eating and traveling slow in Italy. Vegan? Check out the ultimate vegan’s guide to finding food on the road. If you’re planning a trip to Asia, read up on dog meat and rooster balls. And, if you just plain believe in the connections between food and place, try tasting place.

Feature Photo: cocoip Photo: flynnwynn

It will happen. No matter how much it may hurt the experienced traveler’s pride, being overcharged by a taxi driver is as inevitable as buying a fake Polo or being given the ’special price’ for the souvenir bracelet because you are so handsome.

My first independent taxi ride occurred in Shanghai. I was eager to test my language skills and looking forward to the adventure of finding my own way. I left front gate of my university and 45 minutes later, was dropped at the back gate. Later I found that I could have walked the distance in about 15 minutes. So began my education.

There are three known ways to be ripped off by a taxi: it is unmetered and you are quoted an exorbitant rate, it is metered and the driver decides to drive you in figure 8’s for an hour, or you are in Washington D.C.

Unmetered Taxis

Photo: Kai Hendry

Unless you know the language, the city, and the price scale, avoid unmetered taxis at all costs. First, they are taking business away from those taxi drivers that work within the system. Second, they are dangerous; there is generally no recourse if you have a complaint and there is always a possibility of something more devious occurring (use your imagination). Third, they definitely have the price advantage in this situation.

However, there are times when you will find yourself in a situation where you need a ride and this smiling man sucking on the Russian cigarettes is your only option.

New Arrivals

Generally people get ripped off immediately after arriving in a new location. They haven’t been able to get any local advice and they are vulnerable to price gouging. When you first arrive in a new city, particularly in the developing world, you will quickly be approached by eager drivers.

Never go with the first person who approaches you, ignore them, keep walking like you know exactly what you are doing.

Photo: StarvingFox

Look around and see where the drivers are gathered and stay away, try to stay unnoticed for a few minutes. Use this time to gather your senses, take everything in and formulate your next move. This will also give the drivers time to calm down from the initial rush and poach other unsuspecting tourists ahead of you.

Pick Your Driver

If after evaluating the situation, you decide to use a non-metered taxi (this is never advisable at an airport, as they will always, always have legitimate transportation if you ask around) try to approach a driver who is away from the group or approach one directly at his vehicle. He will be more likely to bargain when he doesn’t have to worry about peer pressure.

Use Your Map

If you have a map, use it! If you can understand exactly where you are and where you want to go, you will be able to estimate the distance which will give you considerable bargaining power. Once you are in the car, pull out the map and follow your route, or at least act like you are following the route.

The driver may assume you know more than you do and this can help convince him to go directly to the destination. I once gave in and jumped in a taxi in Guatemala without fully understanding where I currently was(no street signs) and quickly fell victim to the classic zoning scheme- more on that later.

The Metered Taxi

Photo: New York Junio 2009

Ahh, safe at last, surely this little machine full of ticking numbers can’t go wrong. Right? Perhaps. But it definitely does not work if it is not on. So first, before you go anywhere, tell them to turn the meter on! I don’t care if its the national holiday, too hot outside or their mother’s birthday. Unless you feel like you have a handle on the route and the price, the meter should be on if they have one. Get out if they refuse.

Be Aware, Be Active

If they have a meter, they should also have a notice in the car from the government agency that licenses them. Take note of this and let them see you looking at their license or a complaint phone number. Developing countries often rely heavily on tourism and taxi drivers know that they do not want to have a complaint lodged against them by a foreign tourist.

If you speak the language even just a little, just saying the word ‘why’ when making a turn will force the driver to explain himself. Even if you don’t understand what he is saying, it will put a thought in his mind that you are an active passenger, not readily duped.

Common Ploys

Never let a driver tell you that it is a holiday and rates have gone up. Never initially believe that it costs more to travel between ‘zones’ of a city. In some cities this may be the case, but I have yet to experience that and even so, the price difference should be negligible.

I was also once told in Malaysia, that union disagreements have forced the drivers to turn off their meters. You can always get out of the taxi and try another one. If you hear the same story then there may be truth to it.

Relax

Now I must say as a caveat to everything written above that I have taken hundreds of taxi rides in a dozen different countries and perhaps a handful have taken advantage of me. For the most part I’ve found taxi drivers to be pleasant and honest individuals. Do not allow yourself to become overly paranoid.

Many times when I have not understood the cost or the the route taken, it was my mistake, not the driver’s. If it does happen that you find out you paid too much, learn whatever lessons you can and enjoy the new story you have about the taxi driver who gave you an unscheduled tour of Lima.

Community Connection

If you’re worried about being scammed abroad, check out five rules for recognizing and avoiding travel scams and ten common travel scams and how to avoid them. If you’re wondering when haggling becomes exploitation, take a look at when does budget travel become exploitation?.

Feature and Above Photo: visbeek

I’m sure there are many excellent dishes on offer at Arun Restaurant. In fact, I have been told as much by fellow diners. But I have eyes (and taste buds) for only one thing on the menu: the fried tofu with tamarind, chile and basil.

I had the good fortune of ordering the dish the first time I dined at Arun, and for almost a year now, I have been incapable of trying anything else. It’s that good—tangy and flavorful, it unlocks some window of pleasure in my brain of which I was previously unaware.

Photo: foodista

I eventually began to have fantasies of recreating the tofu in my own kitchen. In pursuing this goal, I had the enormous advantage of having Oeurn Pav, one of the cooks from Arun, allow me to watch her make the dish one afternoon. “Only the tofu? It is so easy!” Pav had said, boosting my confidence. Then again, she’s been cooking at Arun for twenty years, and when I later studied my scribbled recipe notes at home, there were some definite gaps.

First and foremost, there was the enigma of the tamarind. Pav had already had an enormous jar of thick reddish-brown paste ready to go, but when I asked her how she made it, the details were a little sketchy.

I searched high and low at Psar Chaa to find the right kind of tamarind, and I finally located it near the herbs at one of the vegetable stands—a peeled sticky mass that resembled a petrified human heart and cost 500 riel.

Photo: stuart_spivack/

In accordance with Pav’s instructions, I cooked it in water until it became a bubbling concoction thick with seeds and pulp, but then I needed to strain it and I hadn’t been able to find the kind of netting that Pav uses for the task.

My sous-chef Jason and I experimented with a plastic bag with holes punched in it, but it burst almost immediately. Then he hit upon the idea of using a gray Hanes sock as an improvised cheesecloth, loading tamarind guts into the toe and squeezing until it extruded a smooth paste. It worked, though it gave our kitchen the gruesome look of a medical experiment gone awry, at the center of which was a sodden sock and a bowl of something that looked like canned gravy.

I had no way of properly deep-frying the tofu, but pan-frying produced tofu triangles of a perfect golden-brown that were (dare I say it?) almost prettier than the ones at Arun. From there it was a matter of throwing ingredients like oyster sauce and heaps of basil together in a wok, though this too was a little hazy at times. For instance, there had been an unidentified white powder that Pheak, the restaurant owner’s young daughter, had described as “seasoning.”

“Like…salt?” I had asked.

“Like seasoning,” she had responded.

“Like…MSG?”

“Like seasoning,” Pheak had said, looking at me with pity. I decided to go with salt. Also, despite the name of the dish, I witnessed no chiles used during Pav’s preparation. To compensate, I seasoned the oil with a little chile-marinated garlic, the excellent result of a previous culinary adventure embarked upon by my sous-chef.

Heaping it over rice, I decided that the experiment had been a wild success. My efforts had produced a dish that was nearly identical to my favorite order at Arun, with the added satisfaction of it somehow tasting…well, like me. Plus, there is enough tamarind paste left in the refrigerator for another batch, which I anticipate being far less work-intensive than the first.

As for those readers with less culinary joie de vivre or no socks to spare, you can let Pav do all the work for you for a mere $2.20. But you would miss the satisfaction of unlocking the mysteries of the tamarind.

This article was originally published in the Phnom Penh Post.

Community Connection

You can find Arun and try its signature dish in Siem Reap, Cambodia. If you ‘re not in Southeast Asia but want to live vicariously through the foodies who are, check out these five incredible Asian food blogs. If you love travel and cooking, take a look at essential cookbooks for the culinary traveler.

Feature Photo: author Photo: gnuckx cc0

For those of us who grow up in a country not completely our own, visiting ‘home’ is a daunting task we set for ourselves.

It is something we want to do (eventually) but there is a certain fear that it won’t live up to our expectations or that we may not be prepared for what it has in store for us. Nevertheless, you get to a certain stage in your life when your curiosity gets the better of you and you just have to visit the country which has formed the basis of so many bedtime stories and family re-union fantasies.

Photos: author

This April, I made the journey back to Israel/Palestine after my Palestinian family left as refugees back in 1948. I was the first family member ever to go back, so there was a certain apprehension over whether I would be allowed in and how I would be received considering the fact that the conflict between the two people rages on.

Putting certain issues aside, such as Israeli security, it was the most positive and life-affirming experience of my 23 years on earth so far. Here, I offer some advice to ensure your heritage-hunting trail doesn’t turn into nightmarish.

Go with an open mind

If your family left under difficult circumstances such as wars, discrimination or economic turmoil, try to remember this is only one part of the story. Be prepared to listen and consider all aspects of the conflict. After all, you are here to learn and are by no means the expert. It doesn’t help anybody to go shooting your mouth off about what your grandmother told you happened and insisting that everyone else is simply wrong.

Try to be understanding and if possible disconnect yourself from the situation as this will stop you from taking people’s opinions personally. It’s also a good idea to find out what the accepted political talk is to avoid getting into serious trouble for indiscreet comments about a party/event/government.

Draw emotional boundaries

Visiting your ‘ancestral home’ can be an emotionally draining experience so learn to draw boundaries between what you actively want to explore and what is off-limits. While many trace back family that still live in the country and meet up, you may want to think carefully about this and whether you can handle the implications that come with it.

If you do decide to do this, make sure that you have some means of venting your emotions safely. Talk to someone you trust and who understands the meaning of your journey, also leave time in your itinerary to just relax and reflect on neutral ground.

Share the journey

Traveling somewhere which has such personal meaning can seriously hit you. Hard. It could be anything from visiting the town your parents are from, a monument or just haggling for strawberries with a women who looks uncannily like your granny. I am not saying that you’ll be an emotional wreck but it’s a pretty life-changing experience.

So share it. Especially with your family who will be keen to hear about every little detail of your travel.

Take pictures and not just of the usual sites but the of the quirky details that you noticed (horrendous English spellings is one I love), the people you met along the way, the things that made you laugh/cry/smile. It may be momentarily cringe-inducing but it will be worth it, trust me.

I think I will always regret not taking a picture of an old lady I met on the bus, who told me her entire life story in the space of 5 minutes and then invited me over for dinner.

Also pick up a small, unique present for everyone, like a native flower, a book, a pebble or even a shell. Try to include them in your journey in different ways such as sending a postcard from each city you visit, addressed to someone different. Ultimately, nothing can prepare for this journey so just take time to savor it and hopefully the first time you visit home will be the first of many journeys into self-discovery.

Feature Photo: Tracy O Photo: sushi ina

The thought of being given a hefty fine and thrown in a dinghy jail cell for passing fake banknotes shouldn’t be on a travelers bucket list.

This goal of this article is to help you identify some common characteristics to help identify counterfeit banknotes in your possession.

1. Does It Feel Right?

Thought you learned nothing when handling cash as a restaurant waiter/waitress or cleaned golf clubs at a country club like myself? You’re wrong. The experience of continuously exercising the sense of touch over and over again has taught us what to expect when handling paper currency. The printed paper should feel crisp due to embedded fibers and shouldn’t be floppy.

Photo: Phil Dokas

2. Watermarks

Ever hold a banknote up to the light and notice a faint design? Most forms of paper currency have a watermark when held to the light that will display a picture or denomination numeral.

3. Micro-text and Magnifying Glass

The micro-text of a counterfeit banknote will show signs of being smudged due to the fact that most printers cannot produce the small font. If you were to take a magnify glass to a genuine 2007 Series $5 United States banknote you will notice the micro-text phrase “five dollars” throughout the border edges. A counterfeit version of this banknote might show the text to be smeared instead of being crisp.

Photo wombatunderground1

4. Print & Ink Quality

This feature might be a bit tougher to spot for the untrained eye. The print quality will be very inferior when compared against a genuine banknote. The ink on most banknotes will appear metallic and shift colors when tilted. There could be the possibility of having a counterfeit banknote if the print and ink appear to be blurred but also could be from normal wear-and-tear.

5. Ultraviolet Light

Ultraviolet lights have a few more uses other than examining sketchy hotel bed linens. Many governments have incorporated this security feature within their paper currency. The passing of an ultraviolet light over a genuine 2007 Series $50 Barbadian banknote will reveal that the security thread glows blue while the text glows yellow. In addition, the waves near the flying fish in the center and the Coat of Arms florescence green and yellow.

6. Raised Notes

This is the common counterfeit method of gluing numerals from higher denominations notes to the corner of actual lower denominations currency. The best ways to spot this illegal practice is to compare the numeral denomination to the written denomination.

Still can’t tell? Compare the details (e.g., borders and portraits) near the numerals of a genuine note of the same value to help verify consistency.

7. Foil Holograms

Photo stitch

There are various other features hidden in paper currency to deter potential counterfeiters. When a 2002 Series $100 Euro banknote is tilted, an architectural image and denomination value will appear on a foil hologram. This security feature is usually found on higher denominations to halt criminals from bleaching low denomination banknotes with the goal of reprinting a higher denomination.

8. Anti-Copying Pantographs

This feature appears to be very plain and unassuming to many. In fact it provides a decent layer of protection. This anti-copying security will be activated depending on the method used to counterfeit the note, such as placing it on a scanner. This causes an obvious disturbance within the once unassuming area by producing patterns or words. It shouldn’t be hard to miss the word “Void” when triggered.

9. Chemical Sensitivity

Banknote paper is sensitized to a myriad of common chemical agents used by forgers. Use of acids, solvents or alcohol will cause noticeable stains to instantly appear. Don’t get these noticeable stains confused with typical wear-and-tear or coffee stains.

The possibility of having a counterfeit banknote is usually low as most government’s do a decent job at removing them from circulation. The United States Secret Service, whom are responsible for anti-counterfeiting investigations, has noted that less than 1% of the United States banknotes are counterfeit. This statistic can vary from country to country based on the security features within a banknote and the effort of the local government to remove illegal tender from circulation.

Feature Photo: La Malula Photos: author

Clap, clap, step, step, swing handkerchief overhead… don’t fall, step again, now circle your partner… forward, back and think like a hen…

When most people think of dances from Latin America, visions of tango and salsa come to mind. While living in Santiago de Chile, I learned that these are not the only two options. While those styles of dance are quite popular in South America, the skinny Andean nation prides itself on another less-known, traditional dance called cueca.

Along with Chile’s great wine and talented poets, the cueca is an integral part of the cultural heritage. Every Chilean dances or has danced cueca at least once in their lives. It is done at weddings, parties, and family gatherings, and it is even taught to kids in elementary school.

Though it may not have the international status of other dances from Latin America, Chileans consider the cueca a great source of national pride.

Dancing cueca on the 18th of September is one of the most important ways of demonstrating Chilean pride, if not the most important. The 18th and 19th of September are known as “Fiestas Patrias” (independence day celebrations), or simply “dieciocho” (eighteen), in Chile.

And when it comes to celebrating the national Independence Day, Chileans know how to party. Officially the 18th is two-day celebration, but it is often unofficially stretched out for an entire week. During this time in Santiago and all over the country, parties large and small pop up in the form of “fondas”, temporary locations where people go to eat, drink, dance and be merry.

Last year on the 18th of September, I found myself at Parque O’Higgins, the largest park in Santiago, where numerous fondas had been set up, including “Viva Chile!”, the official fonda of the city municipality. Each fonda was set up with its own food area, bar, dance floor and bands.

Imagine 20 different parties celebrating in one location, some geared towards families, other towards younger people, all in the name of the glorious motherland.

Upon walking into the crowded park I doubted that any of my experiences in Chile would ever be as “Chilean” as this. The air was filled with smoke from the barbeques cooking up choripan (sausage on bread) and anticucho (spears of shish-kebab), the sound of music could be heard from all parts, people in traditional clothing were proudly showing off their costumes and make-shift stages were filled with cueca competitions and performances.

A few friends and I were sitting around a table watching the festivities while drinking copious amounts of chicha and pisco (two traditional Chilean alcoholic beverages both made from grapes), when my Chilean friend suddenly grabbed my arm and announced that he would teach me to dance cueca. Intimidated by the seasoned cueca pros around me, I shook my head and tried as hard as I could to resist.

But alas, the rhythm of the music got to me so I accepted his invitation and stepped onto the dance floor praying that I wasn’t going to embarrass myself. Someone handed me a white handkerchief and it began.

Humble yet subtly flirtatious, the cueca is intended to portray the mating rituals of a chicken and a rooster. Dancers in pairs wave handkerchiefs above their heads, which are meant to signify bird feathers or the rooster’s comb, and move around each other in circles. There isn’t much touching going on and all of the flirting is done with body movement, facial expressions and eye contact.

I followed my partner and tried to copy the other ladies around me who were glancing at me every so often with encouraging smiles. For the first few moments I felt terribly self conscious and awkward. But then as band played another song, I actually found myself getting into the rhythm and really enjoying myself.

I’m sure my cueca was terrible, but I afterward I loved doing it. For those few songs that I danced to, I felt like I was sharing something very important with Chileans all over the country. When you dance cueca, it doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, rich or poor, from northern, central or southern Chile. All that matters is that you’re Chilean, you love your country and you cueca proudly to show it.

Community Connection

Got Chile on the brain? Check out 10 reasons to base your study abroad experience in Chile. Or have a look at what people are listening to in Chile and 8 natural wonders of Chile. And don’t forget about Chile’s best coastal towns.

Feature Photo: _e.tPhoto: grenade

The following is a gustatory sampling of the foodie world Hawaii has to offer.

1. The plate lunch

Photo: arndog

This one’s a gut buster, but it can easily be split between two to three light eaters for a satisfying meal.

A styrofoam plate is loaded with a scoop of rich macaroni salad, two scoops of steamed white rice, and two to three meat entrees of your choice, leaving every square inch of the plate covered with food.

Your entrée choices will differ— you may get Korean barbeque meats, Japanese breaded and fried fish, Chinese style stir fry, or traditional Hawaiian foods such as Kalua Pig and Lau Lau (steamed taro leaf filled with meat). To find a good place, ask locals for recommendations, or follow your nose and the lunch crowds.

2. Crack seed

It’s not what you’re thinking. Crack seed is a term used to describe a variety of dried and seasoned preserved plums, peaches, apricots, cherries and lemon peel, eaten as snacks.

Available at a crack seed shops, supermarkets and even Costco, Li Hing Mui is the classic dried and salted Chinese plum, also available in powdered form to sprinkle over Gummy bears, popcorn, rice crackers and even ice cream.

3. Malasadas

Photo: arndog

If you’ve only known Dunkin Doughnuts, you must try a Malasada– a Portuguese doughnut eaten piping hot, coated with enough sugar to give you sugar whiskers. These are made at the annual Punahou carnival, although there are two Malasada shops, reputed to be the best in Oahu—Champion Malasadasand the classic Leonard’s Bakery.

4. Spam musubi

Spam has a bad rap as the funky mystery luncheon meat loaded with nitrites, yet it’s adored in Hawaii. Try a Spam musubi –a compact rice ball topped with teriyaki spam and held together with seaweed. You’ll find these at convenience shops, supermarket delis, and even at some hospital cafeterias.

5. Desserts of the mochi family

Photo: _e.t

Chichidango is a Hawaiian adaptation of the Japanese mochi— a baked coconut mochi, sliced into squares for chewing. Butter mochi is its relative– made richer with the addition of butter and eggs, and resembling a cross between custard and mochi. Both are commonly sold at bake sales.

Mochi ice cream combines the best of both worlds—chewy mochi and a decadent ice cream center. Bubbie’s Ice Cream is well known in Oahu for having the largest selection of mochi ice cream–my favorites are their lychee, liliko’i passionfruit and guava flavors. Dave’s is another local ice cream shop option, and both have several locations throughout Oahu, making ice cream stops easy to squeeze into a leisurely itinerary.

6. Shave ice, not shaved ice

Photo: arndog

Shave ice has a finer texture than the snow cone, and it’s topped with flavors that go beyond the usual cherry, grape and strawberry — try the Li Hing Mui, lychee, Blue Hawaii, or honey dew for something different. If the flavor options are perplexing, get the rainbow—it’s a mix of flavors and colors.

Extra add-ons include sweetened red beans, mochi balls, a drizzle of condensed milk, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Oahu has 3 well known shave ice shops– Aoki’s and Matsumoto’s in historic Haleiwa town with its long weekend tourist line, and the Waiola Bakery, a small hole in the wall local favorite in Kapahulu.

7. Poke—pronounced poh-kee

A common party food eaten as a pupu (appetizer), poke are chunks of raw fish or seafood, seasoned with Hawaiian sea salt, chili flakes, soy sauce, chives and crunchy seaweed. If you dislike fish, try the octopus, baby crab, clam, or conch varieties. For the best selection and quality, visit Chinatown or the Ward Farmer’s Market.

8. Poi

A thick paste is made by pounding cooked taro and eaten as a side dish with meat. If you find it bland, let it sit for a day, and it will develop a delectable sour taste that many find appealing. Kulolo is a thick pudding made by mixing poi and coconut milk.

9. Squid luau

Photo: arndog

Don’t be put off by its green baby poop like appearance—it’s a tasty mix of squid, coconut milk and soft taro leaves cooked together until soft and runny. I’ve also seen this made with chicken.

10. Kalua pig.

Traditionally, a salted pig is placed in an underground oven lined with banana leaves, and left to cook in the smoky heat for the whole day. For the busy, modern day Hawaii resident, the dish is made quicker by sautéeing shredded smoked pork with cabbage.

Photo: LFL16

11. Lomi salmon

The word “Lomilomi” in Hawaiian means to massage—raw salmon cubes are massaged with Hawaiian sea salt, then left to marinate with chopped onions and tomatoes, like a Hawaiian Ceviche.

12. Chicken long rice

The long rice in the dish is actually the chopped up cellophane noodles that resemble long strands of rice when cooked with shredded chicken and veggies. This dish is thought to have been brought by the Chinese immigrant workers of the past.

13. Haupia

If you can’t get enough coconut, have a block of Haupia—a sliced pudding made of sweetened coconut milk thickened with cornstarch. If you’re more of a McDonalds type person, try the Haupia pie on the menu—chances are, you probably wouldn’t get it back at home.

Community Connection

If you’re headed for Hawaii, you might want to cast a glance at ten surf spots for mortals and look up how to rent a car. If you’re the type that likes to freak yourself out at the possibilities for disaster, creep out with these worst case scenarios.

Feature Photo: wootang01Photo: annemarievanl

Nocturnal nail clipping, exposed belly buttons, and spider killings could all mess with your auspicious mojo in Japan.

If the thought of being cursed with bad luck during your stay in Japan is unnerving, here are some well known Japanese superstitions and what you can do to prevent their jinxes from coming your way.

1. Kita makura or the north facing pillow

Photo: geebee2007

Make sure your pillow isn’t facing north, as it’s the way corpses are positioned at Buddhist funerals. Bring along a compass if you have to.

2. Clipping nails at night

If you’re a nocturnal nail clipper, your parents may die before you see them again- or so the saying goes. Your hostel mates will probably find the sound of fingernail clipping an annoyance anyway when they’re trying to sleep.

3. Sticking your chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice

Photo: gee

Stabbing chopsticks into a bowl of rice may earn you a few uneasy stares, as the gesture is reserved for funeral ceremonies only. To rest the chopsticks, use the hashioki (chopstick rest) provided, or lie them laterally across the rice bowl.

4. Avoid the numbers 4 and 9

You may notice that some Japanese hospitals are missing room numbers 4 and 9. The number 4 is read as “shi”, which also means death, and 9 is “ku”, is the word for suffering.

For those about to give birth, make sure your hospital room number isn’t 43—“shi san” means still birth. I heard that some maternity wards don’t have that room number for those reasons.

5. Whistling at night

Many Japanese superstitions come from old folk wisdom—night time is quiet time, and those who make noise will be targeted by the bad guys.

6. The broken geta sandal

In the west, it’s the breaking of a mirror which signals bad things to come, while in Japan, it’s the popping off of a geta strap. Don’t buy el cheapos from the 100 yen shop if you can’t bear the thought of having a bad luck geta.

7. Pointing your index finger or thumb in the presence of a hearse.

Photo: Jim Epler

Aiming your index finger towards the dead implies insult, but the thumb is supposedly worse— the word for thumb is “oya yubi”, and oya means parent. An exposed thumb, or oya in the vicinity of a hearse means that your folks will be the next to go.

Keep all your fingers in pockets if you’re unsure—that way you won’t wish ill on your parents or unintentionally insult a spirit.

8. Seeing a morning spider verses an evening one

Hold off on killing the morning spider visitor because it’s auspicious, but go ahead and smack the evening visitor, as pm spiders are considered bad luck. I’m unsure how this rule would apply for a pet spider that you see day and night.

9. You may be in your yakudoshi (bad luck) year already

Photo: Kanko

Men and women are known to have different bad luck years when obstacles and suffering are known to peak. If your age is represented below, don’t despair, as a few hundred yen at a local shrine will get you a special amulet or omamori–remember to ask for the one specifically formulated for the yakudoshi, and carry it with you at all times.

As tempting as it may be, don’t open the amulet pouch, as you’ll be hit with a double whammy of yaku doshi and bachi (curse).

Yakudoshi years for men: 24,41,60 (bad luck)
25,42,61 (super bad luck)

for women: 18,32,36 (bad luck)
19,33,37 (super bad luck)

10. Women born during the year of the fire horse

The year of the fire horse, or hinoe uma occurs every 60 years– women born then are considered fiery enough to destroy men, thus rendering them unlucky in love and marriage. If you think you are married to one, or are one yourself, you or your spouse would have had to be born in 1906 or 1966.

Your daughter may be a fiery fire horse if she was born in 2006, and if you didn’t get to have a fire horse daughter but want one, plan to give birth in 2066—the next year of the fire horse.

11. Hide your belly from the thunder god

Photo: quinnanya

If you sleep with your belly button exposed during a thunderous night, you may wake up the next day and realize that that your belly button had been taken by the thunder god—or so the folklore goes.

For peace of mind, get a haramaki– a wide, elastic cotton undergarment, worn over the belly to prevent a belly chill, to steer the thunder god away from your innie or outie (he likes both). The nice thing about haramakis –If you run out of clothes, they can be worn as a micro mini, low on the hips, or as a tube top, and they come in many different colors. My favorite is the pink Hello Kitty one.

Community Connection

Thinking of traveling or moving to Japan? Check out 10 Japanese customs to know before a trip to Japan, and read up on how to get a teaching job in Japan. For a taste of the country’s funkier side, take a look inside Japan’s freaky themed bath houses and bars.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/a-guide-for-the-anxious-11-japanese-superstitions-for-bad-luck/feed/ 8 http://matadorabroad.com/twelve-ways-to-experience-rio-de-janiero-like-a-carioca/ http://matadorabroad.com/twelve-ways-to-experience-rio-de-janiero-like-a-carioca/#comments Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:12:43 +0000 Brooke Lewy http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2023

Feature Photo: over_kind_man Photos: author

As summer in the northern hemisphere is coming to a close, booking a ticket to Rio de Janeiro for a warm, boozy winter escape sounds like a perfect idea.

Magazine articles, travel guides, and that friend of your parents have all told you what to see and do. Most have mentioned Ipanema and Copacabana (and that you shouldn’t leave them lest you be immediately caught in an international drug war), armored cars with drivers, and a visit to the Corcovado.

But there is a better way to experience the city. As a newly minted Carioca (two months and counting), I’ve learned a few tricks that have let me slip in a little better.

Essentials

Havaianas : Buy them. Wear them everywhere.

Futebol: It’s inescapable in Brazil. Go to Maracanã, (the subway is a good way to get there) or find a bar where the game is on and listen to the cheers ebb and flow through the city. Pick your allegiance wisely. Flamengo is the most popular team in the country, likened often to the New York Yankees.

Fluminense is the team of the wealthy. Vasco is mainly supported by the Portuguese community here in Rio. Botafogo is the team of Rio’s middle class, losers to Flamengo in the finals of the State Championships for each of the last three years. Who you choose will say more about you than you might think.

The Beach

Ipanema Beach: The hip high-school and college kids hang out between Posto 9 and Posto 10—there’s an especially tall palm tree that marks the most desirable spot if sociability is what you’re after (if you’d rather just read a book head to Posto 11 or 12).

Groups of guys juggle soccer balls in circles near the surf and girls chat and giggle, and look impossibly beautiful in their tiny bathing suits. The beach in Brazil is a place of sounds and commerce. Vendors traverse the sand selling everything from matte tea to bikini tops. Listen before looking up; making eye contact is a mistake unless you mean business. Copacabana has glossy glass kiosks that are perfect for sunset beers and a plate of aipim to tide you over until your 11pm dinner.

Beach Chairs: All of the tents on the beach rent chairs for the day—the word for chair is cadeira. They’ll take your name and set you up on a spot of sand. You can order icy sodas and agua de coco, and they’ll keep a tally of your drinks. You just pay for everything at the end.

Don’t bring a beach towel. Buy what looks like a hippie tapestry from a perfectly bronzed vendor selling them on the beach (they’re $7) and use it to cover your chair before you sit down (think of how many asses in tiny bikinis have used the same chair).

Eating and Drinking

Juice Bars: Juice bars are one of Rio’s best features and they’re on nearly every corner. Bibi Sucos in Leblon is a great one. Pay the cashier first, and then give your receipt to one of the men behind the counter. He will take it from you and shout your order back.

Your açaí complete (açaí with banana and granola blended in) or your queijo quente (grilled cheese) will be delivered shortly.

Brigadeiros and Food Carts: Try brigadeiros—small chocolate bonbons covered in sprinkles—and tapioca pancakes from the street vendors’ carts.

Opt for the churros if you crave something fried, but make sure you fill it with delicious doce de leite. The popcorn is always fresh, and the corn on the cob is a post-surfing favorite for cariocas.

Nightlife

Late Night: Pizza Guanabara has bad pizza, but a fun late night scene. Only go there after drinking. Cariocas put ketchup on their pizza to cut the grease. Jobi a few doors down is even better.

Lapa and Samba: Lapa is a good place to do said drinking. Most guidebooks tout Rio Scenarium as the best samba club there, but it’s a samba club the way the Hardrock Cafe is a burger joint in New York. The line at Rio Scenarium is long, the cover is expensive, and the lights are too bright for any self-respecting drinking establishment.

Drink outside instead, next to the old aqueduct the locals refer to as the Arcos. Music blares from every window, booze carts sell $1 Skols, and people dance and shout and laugh, sem cover charge.

Bars, Botequins and Botecos: Botequins are the best places to drink, hang out, and spend rainy days. Jobi is a quintessential one, or you could try Devassa (a chain, in the best, most reliable way). Order chopp, iced cold draught beer, and some petiscos or small snacks.

When cariocas eat bolinhos (fried croquettes with bacalau, shrimp or meat in them) they wrap them in paper napkins and take small bites. If you want another beer, say “mais uma,” rather than “uma mais.”

Santa Teresa

Be forewarned about Santa Teresa. There have been many articles written recently about Santa Teresa (as a beach alternative), but hop in a cab and your driver might not even know how to get there. That’s because Santa Teresa appears to hold more intrigue for American travel writers than it does for the average Carioca.

The bohemian vibe is evident in the Mrs. Dinsmoor mansions being reclaimed by the rainforest, but there’s not much to do if you don’t know the tiny bars where Rio’s artists go to hideout and drink. They’re not on the main street, which only has four overpriced, mediocre restaurants and two trinket shops.

Rainy Days: Rio is not a city that is good in the rain. Traffic (jams are called engarrafamentos in Portuguese) is impossible and the city doesn’t have many indoor activities. Most cariocas go to the malls (Rio Sul is the biggest, but Shopping Leblon, Rio Design, Shopping Gávea all have their charms) or to the movies. The O Globo website has listings for films and can tell you what language they’re in.

Safety: In Rio, don’t be afraid, just be smart. It’s dangerous to go wandering into a Favela by yourself. It’s stupid, as in any country, to go walking down sketchy streets late at night. Explore everywhere, just try to blend in as much as possible. Don’t wear jewelry, and don’t carry much with you.

Just about every piece of Rio is worth seeing—the old government buildings of the Centro, the pretty streets of the Jardim Botanico, the Futebol stadiums, the very intimate Botafogo. Don’t ignore the danger warnings, but don’t let them prevent you from experiencing the joys of this city they call marvelous.

Feature and above photos anniemullinsuk

Six months into my exploration of outback Queensland, my money supplies – vastly under-calculated in a country where even a few beers can run up a small fortune – dwindled to a measly wad of $5 bills.

By this time I had already mastered the art of cheap living, working my way from farm to farm and volunteering to work in exchange for a bed and a few home-cooked meals. The time had come, however, to find a ‘real job’.

In the Australian outback, ‘real jobs’ come in the form of backbreaking harvest labor, cattle mustering or sheep shearing, and somehow I landed a job in the latter category. Packing a holdall stuffed with op-shop t-shirts and battered shorts, I left the comfort of my borrowed mattress and headed out into the bush.

A Quintessential Australian Activity

I’d never before thought of sheep shearing as a quintessential Australian activity – kangaroo shooting, maybe, but sheep? England has fields full of them. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. It turns out, there really is no better way to experience the outback than through the murky windows and blistering heat of the shearing sheds.

Photos: author

Our first location, like many to follow, was a tiny complex of sleeping quarters, kitchens, shearing sheds and sheep pens, set in the midst of a vast stretch of nothingness. These sheds are home to the workers for a week or two before the team moves on to another shed and another job.

It’s a nomadic lifestyle, where workers (mostly men) are hours from home in the weekdays and return to their families only at the weekends (if they’re lucky enough to be less than a day’s drive away).

In fact, I wasn’t shearing the sheep. That’s a job left to the men and for once I was happy to admit defeat and step aside, for the sheep are huge, heavy, stubborn and covered in spiky burrs that leave your legs and arms scorched with red scratches.

Instead, I worked as a rouser. Rousers pick up the ‘fleece’ (the wool coats sheared from the sheep) from the shearers and carry them over to be sorted (or ‘classed’ as its known in the trade). Sounds easy but there’s an art and a technique to picking up these huge mounds of wool that can’t be learned overnight.

Add to that the pressure of working under two other rousers twice my age, both of who grew up in the sheds and can pluck a gigantic fleece from the floor in seconds.

My job as a shearer lasted five months before I finally buckled to the pressure of my sore knees and aching back and headed back to the city to recoup.

By this time I was super-fit and covered in bruises, and I’d discovered muscles I never thought I had.

Day to day life in the Outback

But more than the physical pressures and the unique skills I had mastered, those long hours spent in the middle of nowhere stuck in my mind. The juxtaposed moments of solitude and camaraderie could never be experienced in a country that didn’t possess such wide stretches of uninhabited land.

I learned more about the Australian outback and the vastness of the landscape in those months than I could ever have learned by driving through. More importantly, I learned about the people – the resilience of the country people and their deep connection to their environment. I learned that I am stronger, more determined and more capable than I ever knew I could be.

I learned what it means to really work, physically work, for a living.

So many travelers come through these sheds, picking up a few wage packets in exchange for a half-hearted attempt at living in the outback. So many buckle to the physical and emotional pressures of the job in weeks.

But for the rest of the workers, this is their life, their day-to-day routine, and there is no leaving town or gaining a promotion. It’s a way of life that may seem simple and tough in a country of white sand beaches and laid-back cool, but this is the outback, and this is a different Australia from the one so often seen from abroad, or from the eyes of travelers passing through on holiday.

Community Connection

Thinking of visiting Australia? Check out 10 places in Western Australia you don’t want to miss or 15 things you can’t miss in Australia. Or map out a road trip from Melbourne to Sydney along the Sapphire Coast.

Interested in submitting to this column? Check out the submissions guidelines.

Photo: author

Nine months ago my partner Natalie and I quit our jobs and left Seattle to follow our dream of learning Spanish and living for a year in Latin America. We never imagined that our trip would lead us to start our own company.

First, a quick and shameless plug so that you’ll know what we’re about.

Lenguajero is a homegrown startup that connects Spanish and English speakers for online language and culture exchange. In addition, we provide useful resources to learners of those two languages so that they can improve their ability to speak their new language.

Now, onto the fun stuff.

The following are the five steps we took to build a startup while traveling around Latin America.

1. Do what you love

That sounds pretty cliche, but we quit our jobs last year because we realized that we had come to one of those now or never moments. We had talked for years about living in Latin America and learning Spanish. We also talked about grad school, careers, and a family: all things that would make it infinitely more difficult to travel. Now was our chance and we were going to take it.

Photo: Sarah Menkedick

From our previous solo experiences we knew that following the backpackers circuit through Central and South America was not a good way to learn Spanish. (Last time I had tried that I’d ended up in a Nicaraguan jail facing a drug charge, and didn’t even know enough Spanish to bribe my way out of it.)

Instead, we decided that we would pick three or four Spanish speaking countries to live in, and would spend the year living out of apartments as opposed to hostels. This would allow us to make real friends and form real bonds within the communities we were visiting.

2. Spend a couple of months without internet

I’m starting to sound like a heretic I know, but seriously it’s possible. The trick to doing this is going somewhere where they don’t have internet.

Doesn’t exist, you say? Actually, there is a Spanish speaking country here in the western hemisphere – whose name I, as an American, am not going to mention here – that comes pretty close to being devoid of internet.

Photo: author

Yes, you will go through withdrawals. Yes it will hurt, but after a couple of weeks you will begin to forget how important it used to seem to update your Facebook status every 10 minutes, and you might just experience a different state of reality.

You’ll make friends, speak Spanish, get drunk, make an ass of yourself dancing salsa, and get laid. None of which will be broadcast on YouTube and then spread across the world via Twitter.

Of course going two months without internet means that when you do return to the land of high speed you will sit in your hotel room for 48 straight hours drinking coffee and binging on free wifi. For us this binging took place in a country which is better known for producing a different binge-able substance, Colombia.

3. Get bored and have an idea

It wasn’t so much that we were bored with Latin America, but after three months of studying Spanish for a few hours a day, drinking rum, and lying around the beach we were ready for a bit of a challenge.

We settled in Medellin, a city we instantly fell in love with. In our first month of being there we noticed a transformation was definitely taking place. While we were certainly still far from fluency we were really starting to speak Spanish well, and more importantly, comfortably.

It was around this time that the idea for a startup just sort of materialized in front of us. Natalie pointed out that despite the thousands of language learning websites out there, none of them were focusing specifically on connecting Spanish and English learners with one another for conversation exchanges.

Given how much making Spanish speaking friends, and spending time everyday speaking with native speakers, had helped in our own learning process we thought that there was real potential for this type of site.

We had our laptops with us so we decided we’d continue studying Spanish in the mornings, start building the site in the afternoons, and just see what happened.

4. Bring a code monkey (they prefer to be called developers) with you

Fortunately, Natalie, or mi mono de codigo as I call her, just so happens to fit the bill. With a degree in Computer Science and almost five years of experience working at Amazon.com she is about as skilled as they come. And, while I am about as useful as a second asshole when it comes to coding, I had spent the last 8 months before our trip working as a project manager for a software development firm, and had learned a lot from that experience.

While Natalie got to work tackling the technical challenges we faced I did what all good project managers do. I sat around drinking beer and transforming myself into a complete jackass.

5. Take advantage of living in the future

Photo: Jorge Santiago

In the age of the all encompassing “Cloud” you no longer need things like your own servers, or an office full of people to get shit done. Instead we looked to the web for solutions to all of the challenges we faced.

One word – outsourcing. Websites like eLance and 99designs connected us with designers and programmers from around the world, and allowed us to outsource the work that we couldn’t do ourselves. At one point in time I was coordinating profile page design with a guy in Taiwan while Natalie was messaging with a team in Romania that was doing the HTML & CSS for our homepage. All this was done while sipping coffee in the comforts of our apartment in Colombia.

Whether our startup will be successful remains to be seen. What is certain is that living in Latin America while working on this site has provided us a freedom not afforded most startups. Instead of holing ourselves up for 16 hours a day 7 days a week trying to get something done quickly before our funding runs out, we have been able to take a more relaxed approach.

The lower cost of living, the tranquil atmosphere, and the abundance of good beer, better food, great beaches and great people have made “working” in Colombia and Mexico about as fun a job as we could have asked for.

Community Connection

Thinking of studying Spanish? Check out 10 Spanish schools for waves, wilderness and buena onda. Addicted to language learning? Read the true confessions of a language-aholic.

Feature Photo: avlxyz Photo: dinnzbonn

Japan doesn’t have to be exorbitantly expensive. Standing up and slurping noodles, learning to love the supermarket, and munching street eats can help you stick to your budget.

If you’re low on funds while traveling in Japan, there are many fun ways to eat inexpensively like locals, without compromising great flavor and cultural thrills. Below are some possibilities to get you started.

1. Sushi conveyor belt establishments

Photo: avlxyz

This is only for those with the willpower not to gobble up everything in sight, as it can add up when you start counting the plates. For a very light meal, a plate of sushi can range from 200 to 400 yen, and the quality and flavor are guaranteed to be superior to the conveyer belt sushi shops in the strip mall of your home town.

Remember to find somewhere with a crowd or, better yet, a line. It signals good and cheap.

2. The supermarket

Photo: dlisbona

Head to the obento and “to go” isle to pick and choose from little containers of side dishes, sushi, noodles and rice balls. Pretty straight forward—choose what looks good, pay, and have a little picnic under the blossoming sakura trees (if it’s spring). Try not to eat your entire lunch while walking as it’s considered rude.

3. Stand and eat noodle shops or curry houses

Photo: avlxyz

You won’t find any chairs here, or a spot to linger. Choose a dish from the plastic replicas in the glass case outside, and point to it (if you don’t speak much Japanese). The food comes out in minutes, and if you usually love to slurp your noodles, you won’t feel alone, as you’ve got the company of other slurpers.

Many of these shops can be found in busy train stations, as they cater to workers who need a quick bite before going off to battle the day.

4. The food floor in the department store basement

We’re not quite used to Nordstroms or Macy’s having a floor dedicated entirely to food, but this is where you’ll get more schmaltz than option #2 while staying within your budget. For foodies among you, a heavenly culinary experience awaits–there many small shops selling freshly made food presented like a work of art.

Choose from Japanese, Chinese, Korean, French or Italian food to go in containers. There’s also free food in the form of samples, offered by almost every shop—almost enough to supplement your meal. If you feel that the samples were less filling than you thought, just visit more department stores until you’ve had enough.

5. The Yatai

This is Japanese street food at its best, served from small mobile food stalls in the evening hours to feed and inebriate business men after a long day. Yatai can also be found at omatsuris or fairs.

There’s a hodgepodge of unusual foods to try: grilled fish nibbled from a skewer like a popsicle, juicy octopus legs, octopus dumplings, stewed vegetables and meats, grilled chicken, pan fried noodles, okonomiyaki (Japanese style savory pancakes), frozen fruit, homemade popsicles, candied fruit and lots more. It’s a lot like eating from lunch wagons at home, but far more exciting.

6. Bakery meals

Photo: dlisbona

Japanese bakeries are worth checking out to fill your savory and sweet cravings. There are breads and pastries you won’t find at home such as melon bread, red bean doughnuts, fried curry bread, and sweet potato pastries, to name the most commonly found.

Take a tray and choose the most delectable looking. Grab a drink and pay at the front. The bread will expand in your tummy leaving you feeling full until the next meal time.

7. The Izakaya

Photo: securecat

Here’s a place to go if you absolutely must feel as if you’re eating at a restaurant. It’s primarily a spot for drinking and smoking R&R, while munching an assortment of small dishes— much like Japanese tapas.

Most izakayas have picture menus which change according to seasonally available foods. No two Izakayas serve the exact same food unless it’s a franchise—so you’ll never know what you’re going to get.

8. McDonalds and more—Japanese fast food

Photo: George Arriola

Japanese fast food joints are a must-have for the budget traveler- they go far beyond Big Macs, greasy tacos and egg Mc muffins. You’ll still find Japanese food. Try the grilled rice balls, rice bowls with meat, salted cod and egg flavored fries, salads with baby smelt instead of croutons, and green tea flavored soft serve.

Commonly found chains include Lotteria, Moss Burger, Yoshinoya and Dom Dom apart from the beloved McDonalds.

9. Instant ramen noodles

Photo: technicolorcalvary

In the worst case scenario where you’ve only got 300 yen left—equivalent to three bucks, rest assured a full stomach is possible. Visit a supermarket and head to their instant food isle, entirely dedicated to instant ramen. My favorite is the curry ramen with carrots and potatoes that plump up with the addition of hot water.

If you want something even cheaper, there are 100 yen shops around which carry instant noodles for a buck. Not bad.

Community Connection

Interested in Japan? Watch this video about a traditional Japanese meal, or get inside Japan’s freaky-themed bars and bathhouses.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/9-ways-to-eat-cheap-in-japan/feed/ 18 http://matadorabroad.com/learning-experiences-how-to-survive-a-chinese-banquet/ http://matadorabroad.com/learning-experiences-how-to-survive-a-chinese-banquet/#comments Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:32:10 +0000 Sarah Menkedick http://matadorabroad.com/?p=1950

Photo: Jorge Santiago

The first dilemma hit when I tried to choose a chair.

Faculty members did an awkward shuffle, turning this way and that like confused middle-aged couples in salsa classes. I loitered over a seat and pulled back, loitered and pulled back…

Then the deans strolled in with grace and unconcern and seated themselves in the two seats closest to the door of the banquet room. Somehow, everyone unraveled neatly into seats around them without further ado.

I later learned that the seats closest to the most important guests are occupied by the second most important guests, and then the ensuing chairs are filled in the same way, with the least important people being furthest from the guests of honor.

The university staff must’ve known this and waited for the cue from the deans, and the other professors swiftly slid into their places accordingly. I, being the youngest and newest professor, sat squarely across the table from the deans.

It was our first university banquet. I was new to everything in China and I took in the scene with an air of intrigued bewilderment that didn’t leave me the whole time I lived and worked in Beijing.

The younger dean was in charge of the menu. This is a great honor and an even greater responsibility. Unlike in American restaurants, in which each person studies a menu and chooses a dish, in China one person orders a variety of plates for everyone to share. This ordering must be done according to several cultural givens:

There must be way, way too much food for anyone to eat.

There must be a mix of hot and cold dishes, sweet and spicy dishes, meat and vegetable dishes, and dishes cooked according to the different styles of Chinese cooking.

There must be rice and/or noodles. The rice should follow the meal.

There must be soup.

The dean ordered a cold wood ear mushroom salad, a cold Spinach salad, a plate of crunchy chrysanthemum greens, a plate of cold, firm tofu, and the ubiquitous cold cucumber salad with grated garlic.

The dishes kept appearing after that. Again, unlike in an American restaurant in which the entree dutifully follows the appetizer, in China all the dishes come out as they’re prepared. Just as the gong bao chicken is put on the table the sizzling platter of fish with Sichuan peppercorns comes out. Then, three waitresses in qipiaos bring in over-the-rainbow ribs and the Peking duck.

All of these dishes are placed on the revolving banquet table. Guests push the table gently so that each person has access to the array of dishes.

This is when mad chopstick skills come in handy. I had been mastering mine, eating peanuts in the house with a precise pinch of the chopsticks, picking up slippery cashew nuts between sticks of stir-fried celery. I could sneak in and snatch a piece of passing broccoli before it was lost to my neighbor.

The visiting English department head was not so lucky. She knew, however, how to handle the situation with grace. She asked a Chinese staff member to serve her, and the Chinese woman placed small portions of each dish on her plate. She did a fine job of not making the two major cultural mistakes I’d been warned about: stabbing portions of food with a chopstick, and sticking chopsticks straight up in a bowl of rice or a dish of food.

The soup and rice presented she and I with less possibility for peril. I swooped in with my spoon and served myself each after the main courses had been sufficiently depleted. A small bowl is reserved for rice and another for soup, and I learned by example that it’s important to serve each in its proper place. It’s also critical to hold off until the meal is wrapping up; soup and rice are generally reserved for after a meal, as they’re considered to aid in digestion.

Luckily, this banquet was not one of the alcohol-drenched affairs which end with someone stooped over a bowl of fish soup and others gesturing in flagrant, drunken revelry at the waitresses. But I’d heard stories from enough people about this to know that my situation was the exception to the rule. In the case of drunken abandonment, my friends had advised sipping…sipping…slowly…and if necessary, pretending to pass out at the table so as to avoid further damage.

The banquet ended tranquilly, with the dean paying the bill and all of us pleasantly stuffed, sipping green tea. I was, above all, relieved. I’d survived the first major social experience in China, and I hadn’t dropped anything in my lap or lost face or greatly offended anyone’s honor or the group harmony.

I learned something tonight, I thought. I can do this again.

Each Friday, Matador Abroad features a new learning experience. Want to share yours? Check out how at call for submissions: learning experiences around the world.

Community Connection

Interested in China? Check out Christoph Rehage’s time lapse video about a walk across China. Or read our tales from the road from China and Tibet. And if you’re thinking of moving there, you might want to look into how and why to move to China during the recession.

Photo: author author

Most foreign travelers looking to learn Spanish in Guatemala make Antigua their first and longest stop, charmed by its cobblestone streets and its lively bar and club scene. More serious travelers, however, take the 4-hour bus ride to Quetzaltenango (or Xela) for a different kind of experience.

While Antigua offers a lot, there are compelling reasons for giving Guatemala’s second city another look.

Fewer Gringoes

Antigua is well known for its influx of would-be Spanish speakers, and that’s the very reason I recommend avoiding it. With an estimated population of 35,000, many of them European and North American expats, the odds alone suggest you are more likely to end up in conversation with another English-speaker in Antigua.

In Quetzaltenango (almost eight times the size of Antigua) you’re more likely to meet serious Spanish students and groups from universities who stay for stretches at a time rather than the casual travelers learning how to order a cerveza.

And homestays, which are as common as black beans and rice in Guatemala, suffer the same pitfalls as the language schools in Antigua. The abundance of gringoes has converted many a host family’s dwelling into more of a hotel.

Aside from the included meals, your experience ends up offering a hostel environment rather than a glimpse into Guatemalan life.

In Xela, you’ll spend more time engaging with your host family in Spanish there and less time planning your social life with the rest of the U.S. travelers.

Better Study and Volunteer Opportunities

With an estimated population of 250,000, Quetzaltenango has a distinctly more urban feel than Antigua or any of the more remote villages of Guatemala often pictured in photographs. As such, its schools offer a wide array of cultural, volunteer and social opportunities not to be found in smaller locales.

The Instituto Central America (ICA), a 30-year-old Spanish language school in Xela, has a sister organization called ICAmigos which pairs students with volunteer projects ranging from reforestation to literacy.

Meanwhile,the Celas Maya Spanish School emphasizes the importance of education for indigenous people, and offers students language classes in K’iche, the Mayan language of the region.

Hooking up with schools is easy. Book online or inquire after you arrive. Classes at most schools last 4-5 hours per day, in either the afternoon or evening, while volunteer opportunities can take up the rest of the day.

One tip: don’t be afraid to switch schools, teachers or homestays, even mid-week, if things aren’t working out. Teachers have different styles, schools have different philosophies and all homestays are, obviously, unique. You’re there to learn. No one will be offended if you ask the director of the school for another arrangement.

Exploring Xela

On the weekends, you can explore the Mercado la Democracia, a sprawling commercial district of vendors hawking everything from traditional Mayan wares to Pampers and plantains.

Or you can sip coffee on the terrace of Café la Luna and gaze out over the central park of Xela while you practice your verb conjugations. Guatemala is one of the largest coffee producers in the world, and here you can sample some of its finest.

And on any night of the week you can find free salsa lessons. Unlike Guatemala City, spending the night out is relatively safe, and unlike Antigua, you actually have a chance to converse with locals rather than other travelers.

Surrounding Areas

Most schools organize activities in the surrounding area, such as hikes up Volcan Santa Maria, or afternoons at Fuentes Georginas, the country’s most popular natural springs.

To go to Santa Maria, leave first thing in the morning from Xela. The ascent takes 4 hours at a brisk pace, although you’ll probably get passed by Mayan women in sandals balancing baskets and babies on their backs. It’s a humbling experience as you’re huffing your way up.

On the weekend you may encounter a Mayan religious ceremony at the summit, with indigenous people participating in call-and-response style prayers that include shouting, jumping and singing in a mixture of indigenous and Catholic beliefs.

Alternatively, many tour operators and Spanish schools offer monthly moonlit tours. Bundle up and bring a flashlight.

The hot springs at Fuentes Georginas are phenomenal. Spend enough time in any Guatemalan town of decent size and undoubtedly the exhaust from the chicken buses will start to wear on you. These springs are a brilliant relief from the pollution and frenzy of city life.

From Xela, the hot springs are about an hour’s drive. Fuentes consists of four pools, each one hotter than the next, all heated by natural sulfur springs. There’s also a nature walk, restaurant and bungalows if you’re inclined to stay the night.

From Xela, you can take a four-hour tour from any number of operators in town, or venture on your own. Take a chicken bus to Zunil, the nearest town, then another up to the springs.

Xela might not yet be on most travelers’ itineraries in Guatemala — and that’s exactly why it’s worth checking out. Even if you’re set on studying in Antigua, it’s worth it to pop down for a weekend or so to check out what Xela has to offer.

Community Connection

Planning a trip to Guatemala? Read Rachel Ward’s story of losing her travel virginity in Guatemala. If you’re interested in volunteering, check out options for working with A Safe Passage.

All photos: author

How on Earth did I get here?

The cramped lifeboat, rigged twenty feet above the ship’s main deck, swayed in the afternoon storm.

I had been sandwiched between two families outside when the downpour began. Now, having followed a band of Indonesians up a ladder into the covered lifeboat, I hunched over, trying to calm my stomach as they sang a local pop song led by a badly tuned guitar.

When they finished, the guitarist, a wiry man named Agus, looked over at me and smiled. “You scared?” he asked in English, and the rest of his friends howled with laughter. I tried to laugh with them, but all I could think was: How on earth did I get here?

Windows Into a Culture

Pelni, Indonesia’s government-run ocean liner, had shown up a day late to its destination, leaving throngs of us to a humid night in Bitung’s port.

When it finally arrived the next morning, it took the better part of the day to board its eager passengers—men carrying 50 pound bags of rice on their backs, women lugging crates of goods for export, families laden with children and prayer rugs, all of them pushing against the frenzied tide of passengers trying to disembark.

I could have taken a short plane ride from Sulawesi to Ternate, but I was on a tight budget. And though cheap transport in a developing nation can be uncomfortable, even harrowing, often, the cheaper it is, the stranger and richer the experience. As Rolf Potts puts it, “traveling on the cheap can offer you windows into a culture that go beyond the caricatured stereotype of what a place is supposed to be like.”

During their exploration of Indonesia in the 1970’s, the Blair Brothers spent each night of a 2,000-mile journey in coffin-sized, cockroach-infested spaces below deck of a traditional boat. Their reward? A once in a lifetime adventure with the legendary seafarers of the Bugi tribe.

The Pelni ride in economy class couldn’t match the Blair Brothers’ experience, I knew, but I had a feeling it would give me a realer sense of Indonesia than a plane ride most of its population could never afford.

There are certain travel experiences, however, that life back home can never prepare you for. Once I’d made it onto the liner—a mission that lasted two determined hours— I was hit with a wall of cigarette smoke, the stench of food gone bad, and the worst travel conditions I had ever seen.

As the stream of the incoming crowd forced me along, I stared at the absurd amount of passengers stuffed into the first compartment of economy. I’ll find a cot in the next room, I thought.

But every room was the same. The cots— vinyl cushions laid out on metal platforms—were all taken, single cushions staked out by entire families. Old men squatted on the cement floor; kids perched themselves on bags of rice, blocking the entryways to flooded bathrooms.

Televisions blared Muslim sitcoms and government propaganda. The heat was unbearable, each room its own kind of cramped village. And they were endless.

“They don’t care about us: they treat us like animals.”

Pelni’s website boasts that “staying in cabin class is as comfortable as a luxurious hotel.” However, as most Indonesians can’t afford that experience, the private cabins are few.

The web site goes on: “sailing is so smooth, one hardly feels a difference to being on land.” That, too, must be a luxury reserved for the cabin class, because the three levels of economy were so far below deck that its passengers might as well have been inside the liner’s rumbling engine.

“Indonesia’s government— it’s inhumane,” Agus, said, motioning his cigarette towards the main deck below us, where hundreds of people crouched in the rain. “They don’t care about us; they treat us like animals.”

In a country as timid as Indonesia, these words were biting ones. After three months of travel throughout the archipelago, I’d never heard the question of humanity mentioned. Most Indonesians carried a hard-earned reticence, in part left over from the days of Suharto’s oppressive rule.

I could see what he meant. I hadn’t found a cot down in economy; in fact, I hadn’t found any space at all. The stairs leading to each level of the ship were a maze of passengers, each landing more impossible to maneuver. The main deck outside looked like a refugee camp, hundreds of families huddled on tarps, men balanced on the ship’s railings playing cards, boys laid out on beams above, baking in the heat.

The most impressive were the elderly, sitting like little Buddhas, patient and serene. Many of these people, Agus told me, were looking for temporary work, others exporting goods. Some of them had been traveling like this for days, even weeks. Agus himself had another four days before he reached Papua to find logging work.

I gazed out through the hard rain at the passengers below. Did they, too, feel abandoned by their government? For me, this was a twelve-hour ride. I could get off this boat and never come back. I could fly out of this country, fly away over its lush volcanoes, its ocean-side villages where floods took homes, and fevers took children, and return to an air-conditioned, carpeted world.

I felt guilty at that moment—not because I had found shelter from the storm, but because for me, and perhaps only me, the storm was a passing one.

Encounters with Hardship

The sunset burned red, filling the sky with its last light. I had surrendered to our precarious shelter, sending my new friends into fits of laughter with my imitations of Sulawesi slang. Now, the storm over, we stood atop the lifeboat. The island of Ternate had finally come within view.

“Photo?” Agus said, pointing to the camera in my pocket. I took it out and snapped a shot of the smiling group. “Thank you,” he smiled, not caring that he’d never see it.

“Terima Kasi,” I said back in Bahasa Indonesia, wishing I had more words to explain. As travelers, we are often drawn to unfamiliar experiences because they open something in us, free us to be stronger, wiser versions of ourselves.

But it was the locals’ grace and humility, not my own, that gave me that freedom. And they learned it from the hardship I only briefly encountered.

Photo: panoramas

A reader wrote to me:

I’m leaving this comment because since you have lived in Russia and know much more about what’s going on there than I do, I was wondering if you could answer a question for me. I was wondering, do you think it would even be smart at this point for a Black student to go to Russia to study? I was planning on going there after the summer for a year-long study abroad program but after hearing about all the racism I’m thinking that it might not be the right thing to do. Did you have a lot of close calls when you were over there?

This is a painful question for me.

On the one hand, I have had amazing experiences in Russia and I have been indelibly marked by the time I have spent with Russian history, literature and contemporary society. I can’t imagine my sense of the world outside of my interactions with Russia.

On the other hand, I simply don’t know if I can, in good conscience, advise people of Asian or African descent to travel to Russia in light of the continuing problem of racist violence.

In the past ten days, there have been attacks on Bangladeshi and Chinese students in Moscow, in addition to the earlier assaults this year on citizens of Cameroon and Vietnam. Last December, a nineteen-year-old African American was stabbed multiple times in Volgograd on his way home from the gym.

While these are certainly the most extreme types of violence, interviews with African students also reveal pervasive everyday racism in Russian society. If you travel to Russia, you are, quite frankly, playing a numbers game with your life and your well-being.

Photo: author

That said, you can do some things to improve your odds.

Personally, I was never attacked and I never experienced anything worse than dirty looks, stupid comments and mumbled threats. A number of factors probably account for my “luck” and I’ll share them with you, both as useful precautions and as information that might give you some insight into life in Russia for those of us of “non-Slavic appearance,” in case you are still considering your travel options even after the warning above.

First and foremost, I had the gift of genetics and a bad disposition–I am over six feet tall and, generally speaking, not of a soothing appearance; when I would hang out with African friends in Russia, they would joke that I was their bodyguard. To give you a more clear picture, a few years ago my high school students nick-named me “Mr. Buster, AKA Suge Knight.” If your friends haven’t given you a similar handle, then you should up your worry level a little.

Second, as soon as I got to Moscow, I asked other Asian and African residents about safety and took their recommendations very seriously. I rarely wandered around alone after dark. If there was a major soccer game, I avoided the subways and took a taxi instead to avoid the possibility of running into a crowd of drunken racist football hooligans.

In general, I kept an eye out for groups of sketchy-looking young men and walked away from them, even if it meant I would be late to wherever I was going. And, at the insistence of a Russian friend, I typically carried a small, easy-to-reach knife as a last resort.

Lastly, I tried to maintain a serious appearance—I wore a collared shirt and I always carried a briefcase (even when there was nothing inside of it) to look professional. This was mainly to fend off police shakedowns that tend to victimize people who the police think won’t have their papers in order and won’t want to take matters to their bosses or to court. I also worked on the assumption that skinheads targeted people that they perceived as weak, poor or unconnected.

In short, not a day went by that I didn’t consider the very real possibility of being attacked. I told myself that it was worth it to get my project done and I coped with the stress of constant worry. I also tried to focus on the positive interactions that I had with people in Russia.

Which is one reason why it hurts me to give such a negative report. Most people in Russia are not violent racists and I really love many things about Moscow: the libraries, the architecture, the museums, the street food, the random folks who chat with you at the market, the landlord who picks up the rent and stays to talk for three hours, the other migrants and foreigners who share the pain and the pleasures of being an outsider…

If you read through my posts from the year I spent in Moscow, it should give you some idea of my diverse feelings and experiences in Russia.

But can I responsibly tell a young person of color (who could presumably choose to travel to any country in the world) that it’s advisable to sign up for a year in Russia? Sadly, I just don’t think so.

The world is large and there are many options. You shouldn’t have to fear for your life every day.

UPDATE: I later learned of two more attacks on African students in Moscow; five persons were injured and three suffered stab wounds.

Community Connection

Planning on traveling to Asia? Get one traveler’s perspective about why racism in Asia might not be what you think. Matador’s Julie Schwietert has also written an excellent blog post about race, sex and economics in Cuba.

There are some things you just don’t leave to chance when traveling under the nose of America’s most paranoid rent-a-cops, the TSA. Your great-grandfather’s hand-me-down hunting knife. A lighter used by George Clinton. Illegally adopted foreign children. There are some things that are understood as too precious to risk being confiscated.

But sometimes, people just can’t let it go. Below are a few cases of travelers who should have just forked over the extra fifty for the overnight shipping.

A Round of Applause

Sixty-six rounds of applause, in fact, goes to this traveler who must have mistaken his bullets for…well, to be honest, a bullet is pretty inexcusably obvious. Given that bullets are essentially a bomb that uses the gun to light its fuse, sixty-six of the mini-bombs definitely falls under some shade of the Terror Alert color “really f*ing red.”

Photo:Arthurrh

Personally, I recommend starting with one round before moving up to level sixty-six.

The Case of the Case Made of Coke

This one just sounds like something out of a warped episode of Scooby-Doo. At the Santiago Airport in Chile, a woman was arrested for carrying two suitcases…but they weren’t just any suitcases…(cue gasp)

“The drug was not hidden in the luggage. This time the suitcases were the drug,” said Detective Leandro Morales of the Santiago airport.

That’s right, the suitcases were made nearly entire out of cocaine. Specifically, a substance combining cocaine with resin and glass fiber that could later separate the drug through a chemical process. Morales said they nabbed her because the suitcases were heavier than what was inside.

Last Call Before Boarding

Sometimes you’ve gotta know when to cut your losses. But then again, sometimes it might be better to just drink them.

On his way home from vacationing in Egypt, a 64 year-old Dresden man couldn’t wait to get home to have a nice, relaxing drink after traveling.

Photo:andym8y

So, when airport security informed him that it would have to get home some other way, he decided to chug the entire liter of vodka–that’s 22 and a half shots–right at the security gate. A doctor was immediately called to the scene and determined the man would likely die of extreme alcohol poisoning.

Some of his fellow boozing countrymen might have applauded this extreme act of masculinity and intestinal fortitude, but history shows that they’re clearly outmatched by the Bulgarians.

Another Samuel L. Jackson Flick?

The twenty-first century has seen a lot of new fears regarding traveling by plane: Concealed weapons. Shoe-bombs. Snakes. Now, you can add monkeys.

In what might have been the greatest victory for travel libertarians in the post-9/11 age, a man smuggled a small monkey–a foot-tall Pygmy Marmoset–through airport security in Lima, Peru, only to have it confiscated once he arrived at LaGuardia in New York.

Photo:Steve Evans

C’mon, TSA, haven’t you ever heard of animal rights? As long as the monkey remembered to take his shoes off before proceeding through the metal detector, we take PETA’s advice, and give it the benefit of the doubt.

Newsflash: TSA Seizes $7 Billion From Taxpayers

This final FML moment in airport security history is actually more of a public service announcement. In fact, in this case, the people doing the FMLing should be the TSA themselves.

While reporting for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg decided to see just how efficiently the United States’ $7 billion TSA budget was being spent. Be warned: the results themselves are nearly as horrifying as an actual terrorist attack.

A sampler of the items Goldberg succeeded in sneaking past the noses of the TSA: pocketknives, matches from hotels in Beirut and Pshawar, dust masks, lengths of rope, cigarette lighters, nail clippers, eight-ounce tubes of toothpaste, boxcutters, a bright yellow, three-by-four-foot Hezbollah flag, and an “OSAMA BIN LADEN, HERO OF ISLAM” T-shirt.

In his eye-opening article, Goldberg nearly boards a Northwest flight from Reagan National with a forged first-class boarding pass. Instead, he frantically tears it apart in a busy airport bathroom, hopelessly waiting for any reasonably common-sensed traveler to report his suspicious activity to the proper authorities. Safety is, after all, everyone’s responsibility.

So, the next time you see someone a scrambling to hide their pygmy marmoset, liter of vodka, or fueled-up chainsaw, fear not: safety is what you pay taxes for, not something you worry about.

Also: Where does TSA-seized contraband end up? Why, government-seized property auctions and sales, of course! Check out Leftover Loot for a listing of places you can turn one traveler’s suspected terrorist paraphernalia into your very own treasure.

Photo by wili-hybrid

For months, you’ve been excited about you and six of your friends traveling through Southeast Asia together. It’s going to be an amazing trip!

But one month into your six-month journey, you’ve begun to despise the way that Friend 1’s jaw clicks when he eats. You can’t stand the penny pinching of Friend 2 or the fussy dietary needs of Friend 3.

Finally, the whining about everything else from Friends 4, 5 and 6 is driving you crazy.

These people are ruining what was supposed to be the most amazing trip ever!

Photo by Jordan Fischer

Could This Have Been Avoided From the Start?

I know that traveling with a large number of your friends may sound like the coolest thing ever, but the truth is, more buddies often equals more problems.

Try keeping the number of travel companions small. A group of between 2 – 4 friends is a good size.

Next, know who you’re traveling with. Outside of culture shock, learning to co-exist with the people you’ve chosen to travel with is probably the biggest adjustment that you’ll learn to make on the road.

Sure, everyone gets along back home when you’re partying together, but you need to find travel partners who you already know you can spend lots of time with.

It’s also a good idea to learn beforehand what sort of traveling your companions have in mind.

For example, there’s no point having your heart set on temples and jungle treks if everyone you’re traveling with wants to just lay on the beach all day.

Photo by wili-hybrid

Tell your friends what you want to do. If their eyes begin glazing over, you might want to rethink your trip with these people.

Not to suggest that everyone you travel with must want to do exactly what you want to do…but why knowingly put yourself in a position that’s prime for future contention?

It’s Too Late For All That, I Need Help Now!

If you didn’t find out beforehand that no one you’re traveling with has the same travel style, that’s okay too.

Remember that you’re not all contractually obligated to be together 24-7. Everyone has their own reasons for wanting to travel and different places mean different things to everyone.

If plans differ, don’t feel bad about suggesting that everyone does their own thing. Traveling with others requires personal space now and then.

Photo by link

Still no peace?

Try removing yourself from disagreements before they become arguments. Honestly, it really doesn’t matter how your friend thinks that the island of Phuket is pronounced. Just let it be.

Arguing is a huge waste of your time and your trip. In the past when I’ve had problems with my travel companions, I’ve simply gone quiet, speaking when spoken to and otherwise spending my time seeing and exploring. It works.

If all else fails, you can always just tell the truth.

Once while traveling across Italy with a group of friends, several setbacks to our plans, financial problems and outright exhaustion had us all at each others’ throats.

We decided then and there to sit down, drink a bottle of vodka, and tell one another what annoyed us about each other.

This sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it actually worked. From that point on, we were all aware of the boundaries and feelings of one another on various topics. It didn’t completely cure our fighting, but it did help to calm things down a great deal.

Relax, Reflect, Repair

Photo by freewine

Last but not least, don’t forget to be patient with your friends.

Yes, they may say and do a lot of things that drive you crazy. Just try to remember that culture shock and jet lag can make people behave differently than you ever thought they would.

This includes you, too. Anyone who grew up with siblings has probably heard their mother tell them that it takes two to argue. Well, Mom, you were right.

Before you make the big choice to tell all your travel buddies that they are horrible people, take a look at yourself.

Self-reflection is no easy task, but an afternoon of introspection might be just the thing to make you realize that many arguments can be avoided.

Travel can be brutally revealing at times. Don’t avoid the truths that often become evident as a result. It’s all part of the experience. In the end, a traveler who can rapidly adjust to less than ideal situations is a wise one.

The bad times won’t last, so learn to build up your patience levels in order to ensure that the good times do.

Community Connection!

If you want to connect with like-minded travelers, check out the people of the Matador travel community. If you need to go solo for a while, well, we’ve got you covered there too – check out the popular article How to Escape an Undesirable Travel Mate.

Happy travels!

Photo: extranoise

Perhaps it’s the “it’ll never happen to me” syndrome why many of us travelers aren’t as prepared as we should be. If you’re in Thailand, Spain, or Bolivia, would you know what number to dial to get some emergency service?

Some history

In 1937, London became the first city to introduce a system where callers could dial a short 3-digit number to get immediate help. They chose 999 as it was difficult to accidentally dial on the old pulse-dial phones. Calling 999 alerted a switch-board operator by sounding a buzzer and flashing a red light.

The first 911 system in North America was set up in Winnipeg, Canada in 1959 and, nine years later, Alabama and Alaska followed suit to bring it to the US. It wasn’t until the 1980s that 911 became a standard under the North American Numbering Plan.

There were many obstacles to overcome such as being routed to the wrong jurisdiction, but with switching technological advances, almost every single location in North America has an accurate 911 service today.

Photo: Chris.Violette

Emergency service on your mobile phone

Maybe the most useful thing to have in any country during an emergency is a mobile telephone. The GSM network uses 112 as a world-wide emergency number. When 112 is dialed from a GSM phone, the network will automatically redirect you to the local emergency dispatch, if it’s available.

In addition, many countries allow emergency calls to be made from phones without a SIM card (Latin America, however, requires one). Those who can’t function particularly well in an emergency might feel more at ease knowing this: dialing an emergency number from most mobile phones doesn’t require the keypad to be unlocked.

Since 80% of the global mobile market uses GSM technology, it’s well worth the few bucks to get your hands on one when traveling, if your current mobile isn’t GSM.

Local emergency numbers around the world

Even if you’re traveling with a mobile phone, and definitely if you aren’t, you need to know the local “911″ number of your destination. Write it down, memorize it, stamp it on your forehead. Hopefully you won’t need it.

* indicates number for Medical service only – do NOT press * when dialling.

North America:

USA and Canada – 911
Mexico – 066, 060, or 080 (some areas direct 911 to local services)

Asia:

China – 999 in most large cities. Elsewhere, 120*
Hong Kong – 999
India – 102
Indonesia – 118/119*. Search and Rescue – 115. Natural disaster – 129
Iran – 110 (112 from mobile)
Israel - 101* (112 from mobile)
Japan and Korea – 119*
Malaysia – 999
Mongolia – 103
Philippines – 117 (112 and 911 redirect to 117)
Saudi Arabia – 997*. Rescue emergency – 911, 112, or 08
Singapore - 995
Thailand – 1669*. “Tourist” police (English speaking) – 1155
UAE - 998* or 999*
Vietnam – 115*

Africa:

Egypt - 123*. Tourist police – 126
Ghana – 999
Morocco – 15*
Nigeria – 199
South Africa – 10177*. Police and Fire – 10111 (112 from mobile)
Zambia – 991* (112 from mobile)
Zimbabwe – 999

Europe:

United Kingdom – 999 or 112
European Union and many other European nations – 112

Oceania:

Australia – 000
New Zealand – 111
Fiji – 911
Vanuatu – 112

Central America and Caribbean:

Guatemala – 120*
Barbados - 511*
Jamaica – 110*
Nicaragua – 118*
Honduras – 199*

South America:

Argentina – 107* (911 will work in certain areas as emergency dispatch)
Bolivia – 118*
Brazil – 192*
Chile – 131*
Colombia – 112 or 123
Paraguay and Uruguay – 911
Suriname – 115
Venezuela – 171

Source: Wikipedia

Feature Photo: Ed Yourdon Photo: xiaojiecha

It’s inevitable. As a western woman in Egypt, you’re going to get stared at, even leered at sometimes.

As my fiancé and some of her female colleagues were fed-up with the nine months of long looks, catcalls and visual undressings they’d endured in Cairo, they decided to do something about it: they went veil shopping.

I came along to see to observe this retail therapy with a twist.

Our first whistle stop on this veil-shopping excursion was to the old Islamic quarter, otherwise known as Khan al Khalili.

The sliver-tongued touts at The Khan met the ladies’ inquires for veils first with curiosity (“You are Muslim?”) and then, once the girls had donned the veils, with delight: “Very beautiful. You want Egyptian husband too?”

Becky and Kristina laughed and opted for the standard hejab, which revealed only their faces. Jamie took the more liberal Spanish style option, leaving her neck, chin, and ear lobes exposed. Katherine and Mariette, on the other hand, held out for more conservative veils we’d end up finding elsewhere.

Walking through the medieval souq, half the group veiled and half unveiled, the girls chatted and giggled about the novelty of being a Muslim girl for the day.

Photo: emi faulk

The touts were undaunted and continued to court them religiously. In fact, the ladies in the hejabs actually seemed to get more attention than those without it.

Maybe it was because their ankles and arms weren’t covered-up like those of good Muslim girls. Next stop, Midan Ataba.

Midan Ataba is as popular with locals for shopping as Khan al Khalili is with tourists for souvenir hunting.

Thrown haphazardly under a freeway overpass not far from the City of the Dead, this flea market of flea markets seemed a likely place to find the khimar and niqab the unveiled girls wanted.

Slipping on the khimar, a bell shaped drape with a hole cut out for the face, Katherine suddenly became shapeless, her eyes that much more striking. Collectively, we ‘oooed.’

When Mariette pulled the niqab (an all black gown and veil combo) over her lithe frame, she too was transformed.

With only her blue eyes in sight, we stared at her transformation in wonder – she was one of them now. Only her bare sandalled feet gave her away.

Surveying the ring of veils around me, from the liberal Spanish style to the most conservative niqab, I realized that I was to the group what Mariette’s bare feet were to her ensemble – the giveaway. I excused myself and talked to them after the veil experiment, eager to hear what they had to say.

“The Spanish style veil wasn’t actually much of a stretch for me,” admitted Jamie. “Next time though, I’ll cover my arms, ankles and feet too ‘cause I think that’s why we got more attention with the veil than without it – gotta get some of those cute ‘toe gloves’ too, I guess.”

Becky observed:

“At first, it felt funny wearing the hejab but I was having a bad hair day anyway so it was kinda nice to not have to fuss over it.”

Kristina concurred with a nod of her hejab.

“The bell shaped khimar was not my style, too old-fashioned, really. But I’m sure if I wore it, Osama wouldn’t mind,” Katherine said with a wink. “If I were to veil regularly though, I’d go for the Spanish style, I think.”

“The niqab felt strangely liberating,” Mariette said, somewhat astonished.

Photo: turkairo

“I could see and not be seen. It was really exciting to be anonymous for a change and more people spoke to me in Arabic today than probably my whole time in Egypt. Although, it was pretty hot under all that black polyester.”

So if your travel philosophy is ‘to do as the Romans do, when in Rome’ here are some places that will help you do as the Egyptians do when in Egypt:

1. Khan al Khalili

Refine your bargaining skills in the city’s most ancient quarter, ‘The Khan.’ From pashmina to silk and everything in between, they’ll mix and match your hejab to fit that favorite lip-gloss of yours perfectly.

For fun, tally-up the marriage proposals at the end of the day at Naguib Mafouz’s old haunt, Fishawi’s Coffeehouse.

2. Midan Ataba

Rummage under the bridge with the locals through the myriad of colors, patterns and vendors for that special veil that just screams Sofia Loren circa 1950. Score the khimar and niqab here for a fraction of what they go for elsewhere and, oh yeah, don’t forget to breathe.

3. City Stars

Photo: Please Don’t Smile

Escape the heat in Cairo’s answer to Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates. Rub elbows with the Cairene elite and window-shop for the latest in finely stitched niqabs, straight from the runways of the Persian Gulf.

4. Grand Mall

The humble cousin to City Stars, this small shopping center in the middle of affluently green and westernized Ma’adi has more veils than expats – and that’s a lot!

English speaking clerks plus all the accessories you’ll ever need (custom pins & headbands included) make a trip to Ma’adi de rigueur.

5. Al-Ghouriyya

Not far from the Crusader’s Wall of Saladin on Sharia al Muizz li-Din Allah, this is yet another hot spot to ‘veil-up.’

Vibrant hejab shops (staffed mostly by men for some odd reason) plus Thai-made Gucci and Prada knock-offs in the streets make for a strange mix of the local and the international.

Video Link

To see some of the girls in action at ‘The Khan’ check out this video from Lonely Planet TV:

Feature Photo: dan4th Photo: steffenz

As one of millions of people around the world with a life-threatening nut allergy I know all too well the trials of eating abroad. I’ve spent an evening in Paris hooked up to an adrenaline ventilator, been in hospital in Peru and starved myself on a Sahara Desert trek thanks to my inability to pronounce ‘cashew nut’ in Arabic.

The risk of travelling with a nut allergy is very real but I’ve learnt the hard way, a few precautions and preventions can make the ride a lot smoother.

1. Know Your Emergency Procedure

Foreign hospitals often do not understand the severity of a reaction or how to treat it so ensure you are aware of what you need. Emphasize that you need to be seen immediately.

Ask your doctor to write down the medication and dosage to be administrated in case of an attack. Note the pharmaceutical names, as brand names can be different abroad.

If you carry an Epi-pen ensure you know when and how to dispense it and are able to do so yourself. Inform your travel partners of their duties should you become unable to help yourself.

2. Remember: You Can Never Carry Enough Drugs!

It goes without saying that you need to carry your prescribed medication, but make sure you have spares and store them in different places in case you lose your luggage.

Modern adrenaline dispensers such as Epi-pens are not available in some parts of the world so take enough for your journey and leave a repeat prescription at home.

Check the use-by dates of all medication if you are on the road for long periods- even recently purchased prescriptions can have short expiration dates.

Keep your prescription on hand when you fly or you’re going anywhere where your luggage might be inspected- taking a syringe into a nightclub can look suspicious to foreign security!

3. Don’t Eat Like A Local

Food trading standards vary drastically between countries and labeling is often done according to different standards. Be extra diligent when trying foreign delicacies as even common foods may contain unlabeled ingredients.

In Brazil, nut traces (especially cashew nuts) are commonly found in chocolate even if it doesn’t state it on the packet. They also serve a cashew nut juice. In France and Italy, almonds and pistachios are common in all cakes and pastries even if staff tell you they are nut-free. Indian and Chinese food is full of peanut oils and kitchens often use the same pans for cooking different dishes so cross-contamination is likely. Mediterranean dishes are often sprinkled with pine nuts.

Exercise caution of ‘home brands’ abroad- Cadbury’s chocolate in South America is actually made in Panama and does not contain the exact ingredients of the British variety.

Be wary of ingredients like sesame, poppy seeds and coconut that can provoke reactions in nut-allergy sufferers. If you’re not sure, this is not the time to find out!

4. Make Yourself Clear

Even if you can’t speak the native language, look up a few words before you go and carry a small dictionary to check food labels. Keep a card with you to show to waiters or shop-owners if you are not sure of pronunciation.

A literal translation may not suffice- in some languages the word ‘nuts’ refers to one type of nut and frequently nuts such as cashews, almonds and pine nuts, as well as items such as peanut butter, are referred to separately. ‘Dried fruits’ is a good catch-all term but try to memorize as many different names as possible.

Sometimes it is best to be dramatic: ‘I will die if I eat this’ avoids the common scenario of the nuts being scraped off and the meal being returned to you. Severe allergies are extremely rare in some parts of the world so the average waiter is likely to put you down as another ‘fussy tourist’ unless you state your case very clearly (and with a smile).

Photo: zonagirl

5. Plan Ahead

Problems arise when you entrust your food intake to strangers but it’s difficult to avoid these situations on holiday. Many hotels, hostels and tour operators will accommodate your requests if you explain the situation but always double check. Ask to see the packets wherever possible or to speak to the person preparing the food. Take a packed lunch if you are worried.

Contact airlines and bus companies before traveling with them and confirm that a nut-free option is available. Many airlines (British Airways, American Airlines) have banned nut products on-board but consider buying some sandwiches before you board the plane just in case.

Ensure your allergy is covered by your travel insurance- always declare it and shop around for a company that provides full cover. Many companies will cover you if you haven’t been in the hospital in the past year.

6. Eating Out

Experimenting with local cuisine is a vital part of experiencing a new culture so don’t let your allergies put you off eating out. However, it’s best to accept that you will never be able to have a carefree ‘try-anything’ approach to food.

Ask before you eat, even when pressured by locals to ‘just try it’.

Request to speak to the chef if the waiter seems less than knowledgeable about food content- calmly explain the importance that you know exactly what is in it.

Pass on spicy food as this can mask the tingling sensations of a reaction and it’s a good idea not to drink a lot whilst you are eating too- save the wine till you are safely past dessert!

7. Be Paranoid

Different symptoms to what you have previously experienced can occur so monitor any changes and if you experience any of the following, seek medical attention:

Tingling/ itching in the mouth or lips.

An itchy, blotchy rash

Swelling, particularly around the face and throat.

Wheezing/ difficulty breathing

Vomiting/ Diarreaoh

Stomach aches/ cramps

Faintness/ dizziness

There’s no reason to let a nut allergy put an end to your travel fantasies. You need to be warier than other travelers, but don’t let that force you into giving up and staying home.

Community Connection

Even if you don’t have to worry about something as serious as a nut allergy, it’s still important to stay healthy on the road. Try these five useful remedies from easily found ingredients when you’re really far out there. And it can’t hurt to pack these medical books for the road, or to brush up on some tips for staying healthy abroad.