My memories, too, have sepia tones (Luang Prabang, Laos)
I think I am finally beginning to understand something about my travels. There are places I will never make it to again. When I was younger I would go places because I could. It would never concern me that I may never go to Continue reading
There is a certain magic in the train journey – the whistling train leaving from the winter station – bringing to mind the romantic movies, the sweet whispered goodbye on the platform, your lover chasing after you Continue reading
I did not use a filter for this photo of Venice
Fresh off the boat, you are in Disney World. You have arrived from across the laguna on a vaporetto, a public bus that is a boat, reminding you of the ride across the lagoon to the front entrance to Disney World. And, suddenly you are in Disney World. The clear not-yet-noon Italian sun impersonating the Florida light, casting simple Continue reading
Where to start? It was almost what I expected. The crowd. The sea. The rusting towers above the rusting arcades. The boardwalk speckled with hand-holding teenage lovers. People packing into Nathan’s hot dogs. The scent of sea and fries.
I have tried to explain my attraction to Coney Island. I grew up in the Midwest, landlocked, except for lakes. We had one carnival a year, for a week every July. There we would ride the vomit rides, drink lemon shake-ups Continue reading
Longboat, Mekong
This morning we took a trip down the Mekong River, as famous at it is exotic, from Luang Prabang to the Kuang Si Waterfalls. Along the sleepy shores, jungles rose up perfect green mountains, punctuated by dirt roads, allowing access. The shore alternated from limestone cliffs to lush forest to san
dy banks, where a dozen children would play, their clothes spread across the banks as they splashed each other beside parked boats and bamboo paddles stuck upright into the ground. On another shore water buffalo waded Continue reading
From the top of Diamond Head: a sea and a sea of high-rises
Can Waikiki, the perfect paradise, since covered with concrete, reflect the days of yore?
Why do you feel this way in paradise? Why do islands and resorts tear your heart this way?
You have landed in Honolulu for the first time. You walk through the terminal, concourses open to the tropical air, and you want to exchange your currency, so strange is this place. You snag a cab to the city, as you can’t wait for the airport shuttle to make a dozen stops en route to your hotel.
You hop into the back of a 1984 Cadillac taxi cab, windows rolled down, your driver smaller than your large suitcase. You cruise into the city on the interstate (we’ve all heard the same jokes about an “interstate” in Hawaii). You arrive at your hotel and, tired of sweating in your jeans, run into the restroom to change into shorts. The check-in line is too long. The elevator takes too long. You want to run into your room (how is the view?). Your key fumbles in the lock. You dash to the balcony. The view is a postcard. Your life is a Brady Bunch special, but that is the way you want it. There is Diamond Head, which proves that nature holds some power over man, even as development snakes closer and closer. There is the beach. That is why you are here.
You dash to the suitcase, dig through. Where are your swim trunks? Here they are! You change in the room, forgetting, not even caring, to close the curtains. You dash back to the elevator. What could cure jetlag like sea water?
Perfect palms in the perfect paradise
That’s it?! The beach seems so small, but it snakes along the coast and out of sight. The sun is perfect, the palm trees are perfect. How could they not be? In paradise, the palm trees are perfect.
Look! There’s the Royal Hawaiian, still pink after 50 years. Look! There are the surfers, clumped together, heads like little ducks bobbing in the waves. You don’t want to sit here in the sand, you jump in. You can’t help noticing how hot the surfers are. Who wouldn’t notice. You turn away to face the water and run in. That nasty cramped cabin, strangers coughing at 30,000 feet are forgotten. You want to stay for a long time.
You wonder what Waikiki was like fifty years ago. You wonder about Cancun. You wonder what it would have been like to spend a year here. If paradise feels this good after an eight-hour flight, You wonder how paradise would seem after a steamer journey. You realize there are not many who are still alive who can remember journeys before the Pan Am Clipper.
You thank air travel for bringing paradise to you so quickly. So cheaply.
You mourn for a lost culture. You mourn for lost buildings and lost parks. You mourn for the paved gardens.
You are torn. You celebrate for the Midwesterners who remember Waikiki from their honeymoon. You shed a tear for those who will never see this place, this concrete version of paradise. A land which retains its beauty no matter how much concrete is poured. No matter how tall the hotels, Diamond Head is still here. At least for now. And for now, it’s all yours.
By Matthew Stone
Travel to Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawai’i
Sittin on the dock at Put-in-Bay
I spent a day on an island off the coast of Ohio. This induces laughter among my friends because they think I am kidding. Yes, Virginia, Ohio has islands.
Put-in-Bay is a village on South Bass Island, which looks like a cheesy invented Victorian village, dropped in Lake Erie. But the truth is that Put-in-Bay has been around since the Victorian era, and some of the restaurants & inns are still in use. As I envision it, after arriving by ferry from the mainland, men would head to the beach, perhaps even daring to get their woolen bathing suits wet. Ladies would parade the streets with their parasols. At least in my mind. There was once an amusement park here, and once an 800-room hotel, which could serve meals for nearly a thousand in its ballroom. Not that there were enough visitors to support that, as the hotel declared bankruptcy within one year of opening, was sold at auction not long after, and burned down before it reached its 30th birthday.
Now, tourists hire golf carts and bicycles and putter from one end to another (on a 3-mile long island, this doesn’t take long). We visited the beach at South Bass Island State Park, situated steps from where the Hotel Victory once stood. The beach was as rocky as Nice, France. The water was pleasant, although I only went in up to my ankles. What was not pleasant was the sunfish floating belly up and the fat man (why must all beaches have a fat man?), pasty from the long Ohio winter. We ate at an outdoor cafe, as I always do, then headed to Heinemann’s Winery.
Stop laughing at me again. Ohio has wineries! And while many were created in the wine popularity boom of last 30 years, there is a great enological history here. Ohio led the nation in wine production in 1860 (of course California hadn’t been invented yet). At the turn of the last century, there were 17 wineries on this one island, so a visit to the 130 year-old Heineman’s Winery is more than just a place to get loopy on sweet wines, like catawba and reisling and concord. It’s a historical place to get loopy on sweet wine. We had the keys to a golf cart, so we couldn’t get sloppy. But there’s always next time.
By Matthew Stone
Travel to Put-in-Bay, South Bass Island, Ohio
Cesky Krumlov through the castle walls
The backpackers were here first, as it always seems to be. Somehow, they find the cool places, because they are usually more willing to deal with the inconveniences most of us will not cope with: no running water, holes in the ground posing as toilets, tsetse flies, cholera. I am certain there is magic in these secret hideaways, but I like to wait until some level of infrastructure is there.
We had been told by a friend, who was told by strangers in a hostel, that there was a beautiful city in Southern Bohemia, 3 hours south of Prague, called Český Krumlov. I found a picture on the internet, and I was sold. I had copied two pages from a guidebook at the library, and I was prepared. Of course, here there were neither tsetse flies or cholera, and the toilets were equipped with the latest in flushing technology.
On Wednesday, we went to the bus terminal to catch the 8:00am bus to Český Krumlov. We stepped onto the bus, and were greeted with a scent of yesterday’s sweat and today’s body odor. The odor, while not unsurvivable, would not have been the most pleasant way to spend my first few waking hours. There was an upside. There were no chickens. We faced a decision: do we run across town to try to catch the 8:30 bus from another station, try to buy tickets for the next day, or just chicken out? Perhaps it was just not meant to be. Maybe we were not meant to visit Český Krumlov, but we thought we’d give it a chance and visit the ticket agent just in case.
It was magic. She was able to reserve us round-trip tickets for the next day, with seat assignments, for about $15 per person. I love this country. Karma was on our side. When we arrived the next day, there was no bus odor, and the comfortable ride took us through some beautiful scenery on the way to Southern Bohemia.
From the bus station it is about a ten minute walk down a winding road into the old town.
Cesky Krumlov
This whole area is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And it’s beautiful. The streets are now lined with boutiques, restaurants, and rooms for rent. But the flavor of the city has been maintained. Every bend in the old cobblestone streets would uncover a new vista – up to the castle, out over the river, perhaps a quiet alley with a small vegetarian restaurant.
We walked up to the top of the tower, which is by far the highest building in town. We were able to book a castle tour in English. Or it may have been Czech. As soon as the tour started, we were sorry we had not signed up for the Spanish tour. Those who chose Spanish, French, or Italian were given a script to read about as we went to each room. The rest of us tried to assist each other in comprehension. Most of the tour was like understanding a foreign newspaper. I could pick up a word here or there, and, by using the context of the room and her use of gestures, would try to figure out what she was talking about. Bless her heart for trying, but the tour was a little too long and a little too boring. During the tour it started raining, so we spent our last hour in town relaxing in a cafe with a view over the red rooftops, writing postcards. Very pleasant, indeed.
Since our trip, Rick Steves has made a show about Český Krumlov, but I was there first.
View of the inland fjords
On the fjord again. Just can’t wait to get on the fjord again.
Every travel guide to Norway recommends the Norway in a Nutshell tour. When else will you be able to ride 4 forms of transit in a 10-hour period through mountains and valleys and the old Norwegian favorite: fjords.
I knew this excursion would wear me out. When I explain it, you’ll know why. 8;00am – the train leaves Bergen. 2 hour train ride. Train arrives at Voss. Immediately board a bus. Take a 1 hour bus ride. Immediately board a ferry. Take a 2 hour cruise. Exit the ferry for a 1 1/2 hour lunch break. Take a 1-hour train ride up the mountain. Immediately board another train for a 2-hour ride back to the city. Arrive in Bergen at 6:00pm. Basically, this is the equivalent of a transcontinental flight – nearly 10 hours of sitting-on-my-butt travel. For those wanting to take the Norway in a Nutshell, take a day to relax at one of the cities enroute, and absorb the atmosphere, breathe the mountain air, take coffee on the hotel balcony overlooking the peaks. Sometimes there is too much scenery, too much movement, and not enough time to enjoy the moment. The tour was not rushed; actually it was paced very well. But it left me wanting more.
I’ll save the details & give you some pictures. The majesty of the fjords is too much to comprehend. It’s too much to photograph. Two hours is too quick. I want to stop in the little villages and watch the weather change and the sun set.
We did get to see snow from the train in Myrdal, Norway. I don’t think it ever quite melts there. But my most incredible snow moment was one that not many people experienced. Most were sitting in the covered areas.On the ferry ride, there was a high snowy peak tucked up and behind two of the fjord walls, creating a small wind tunnel. There was one perfect moment when the wind blew directly from the peak to our boat, and I could watch the snow blowing 2,000 feet above, then down the narrow valley to land on me, giving my face a brief chill. It lasted about two minutes. It was incredible to imagine the journey that snow took just to land on some stranger from Texas passing by.
Yeah, the road just about drops off
We were in a full-sized bus, but somehow we made it down about 10 hairpin turns just like this one. I don’t know how you practice for a drive like that. At one point I saw a sign for an 18-degree slope. That’s steep.
This isn’t the best picture I took, but I think the seagull adds something. It was one of those who followed along
My fjord pics couldn't compare to a postcard, so I photo-enhanced them
with our cruise. There are waterfalls everywhere. The cliffs look almost like those on the Big Island of Hawaii.
I just can’t do justice to the surroundings with my photographs. It was so windy on the deck that I couldn’t stay out for more than about 10 minutes, which made every minute that much more special.
The top photo either:
1) Takes me back to Shangri-La from the book Lost Horizon
2) Looks like a Peruvian Andes landscape, or
3) Makes me want to yodel
This was taken from the balcony of a hotel where our bus stopped on the tour.
Rambling streets of Prague
I have been absorbing Prague very slowly. The buildings (nearly all of them) are so old that they look better in black and white. If I took a picture & removed the retail store on the first floor, I could convince you it was taken 90 years ago. Today is Monday, and there are packs of tourists – tons of them – mostly following the tour guides, each holding up a different colored umbrella so they can be easily followed. The guide with the green umbrella is speaking French. The yellow umbrella guide is telling the tales of the streets in English, another Japanese. Yet another French. It is hard to absorb a city crowded with tourists, difficult to get a grip on what makes it tick.
I cannot believe it is Monday in May. I do not wish to envision a Saturday in July. Very seldom have I encountered an actual city this ensconced with tourists.
With Tuesday crowds like this, I wonder what summer is like
Here, immense crowds gather at the hour to watch the chiming of the astrological clock in one of the major squares. It lasts 60 seconds, and you really have to focus to see it.
It is not like New York, because the tourists share the streets with those shuffling off to work. Nor is it like Chicago or even Miami. It is like Disney: people wandering, taking pictures of everything, stopping at cafes, walking into shops. It is as if we had entered the gates of a theme park. There are Brits here to party and Czech schoolkids on a field trip. There are grandmas and grandpas right off the bus tour. Here and there is someone hustling to work in a suit, not often, but just enough to remind you that people really live here. Not only does it look like Disney, but it seems Disney-safe. Within the gates of this “magic kingdom” are restaurants, cafes, and pubs. I would venture a guess that there are more crystal and glass shops per block than anywhere in the world.
The buildings, Art Nouveau, Baroque, a few Art Deco, are perfectly preserved. Nearly every building is worthy of a photograph, but my senses are overwhelmed. There are too many people. There are too many stimuli. Do I look up at the architecture, do I look at the shop windows, do I read the signs, do I take a picture, do I watch where I’m going?
The narrow streets intersect with each other in any number of strange angles. Here, a plaza may have 5 streets entering it, or maybe only 2. A street may be 2 blocks long, but not many exceed 5 blocks. Directions are almost fruitless, and getting lost provides the best reward. A map is a necessity, and after 12 hours of wandering, my internal compass is working and I think I have a handle on the city. I do not know what street I’m on, but I can tell where I’m going. But there’s so much more to see.
