Travel Tips for the Modern International Traveler

1.  The internet gives you access to local news in the areas you will be visiting.  In addition to accurate up to the minute news, you can read ads and find out about interesting things that are happening at the time you will arrive.  Begin your foreign cultural immersion while still at home.

For example these are the online English language newspapers I read regularly to keep up on things happening in the places I travel to:
Philippines  http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/
China: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/
Beijing: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/
Uganda:  http://www.newvision.co.ug/Home.aspx
Bangkok: http://www.bangkokpost.com/

2.  The internet gives you access to local radio stations.  

 This can be really good if you are traveling to someplace and you will be driving yourself.  You can begin to get an idea about traffic patterns.  

It is also a good way to find out about performers in town and other things to do.  

When you’re away from home, you can still follow your favorite radio shows online.

Here’s an app that helps with this.

                                       

3.  Try a meet up website.  Going to someplace exotic, remote or off the beaten path?  Can’t find a lot of good information about that area?  Trip advisor.com and virtualtourist.com are okay for finding out about normal stuff.  But if you want to really get specific information or you want to find out about things not so commonly found on the internet, then you might want to try my tried and successful method.

Go to some online meet up website and write a profile that says exactly what you want.  For instance you might say “I want to meet someone who can tell me about some good local restaurants”.  Or whatever you are searching for.  You might say “I’m looking for someone who would like to go visit local restaurants with me and my wife, where we can try local food in good restaurants that only local people know about.”

You will be surprised at what you can learn about some place before you even go there.  And there is almost no village or town anywhere that doesn’t have some internet café full of locals looking for something interesting to do.

• COUCHSURFING: This is an excellent place to meet people & even find a place to crash for a night or more. If you travel to experience the local culture and lifestyle then check this site.  https://www.couchsurfing.org

•CITY OF A THOUSAND WELCOMES: Here’s a great idea if going to Dublin, meet someone and talk over tea or coffee. Arranged by the website. A free service supported by civic sponsors.  http://www.cityofathousandwelcomes.ie/

•TRAVBUDDY:  This website is designed just for travelers to meet other people and other travelers.  http://www.travbuddy.com/

There are dozens of options for online meet ups, but these samples will give you some good ideas for getting started on a new kind of travel experience.  WARNING: Scams are rife on the internet. There are dangers involved in this style of meeting people.  Do your own due diligence and don’t whine to me if you get mugged or kidnapped by Al Qaeda terrorists.  Do let me know if you have a good time!

4.  MEETING PLANNER:  I don’t use this all the time, but lately I have had many online meetings and phone conferences with people scattered through various time zones.  This  app makes it easy to choose times that are okay for all who are involved.
http://www.timeanddate.com/iphone/meetingplanner.html

5. Here are some aids I use on almost every trip I take.  I’m not a huge frequent flier, but last year I was on about 30 flights to & between the USA, Canada, Mexico, China, the Philippines, and Thailand.
•SEAT GURU:  I love this website to find the best seat.  It’s not as good as having flown on a plane yourself and scoped out exactly the best seat choices, but it is nearly as good.  There is a phone app for this website. http://www.seatguru.com/

•AGODA:  There is no better hotel website.  It doesn’t cover all of the world yet, but it will.  I have never found cheaper rooms on another website for the same hotel.  Easy to use.  Great coverage in Asia and some other parts of the world. Recently started in Mexico and is absolutely #1 for hotel shopping in Baja California.  www.agoda.com

•GOOGLE EARTH OR MAP:  I use this tool before every trip to a new location.  I like to study the map view.  Then I like to go to the street view and just look around at where I will going to for the first time.

•Kindle Ebook reader:  I use the simple $49 version that has wifi ads when turned on. Those ads don’t display while I’m traveling.  The Kindle and Amazon.com are the GREATEST things to come out of the computer age for travelers like me.  I could write a dozen pages about how much I love this device. Kindle app available for all computers, smart phones and tablets.  Don’t leave home without it.
www.amazon.com



Have a fun and safe vacation,
Keith Jones
Baja Jones Adventure Travel
www.bajajonesadventures.com

Kabul, Afghanistan The making of an antique rug

It was May or June of 2009.  I rode in another Toyota Corolla.  We were on our way to do some shopping.  We also needed to download some files online.  The connection at our office just wasn’t fast enough for what we needed to do.

All the foreigners I know in Kabul ride around in Big Black Suburbans (military contractors) or Big White Suburbans (NGOs).  Me, I’m always in some beat up old gray colored Toyota.  But I think it makes my life more interesting this way.

As always when I’m out in public in Afghanistan, I had on an Afghan style hat.  I was slouched low in the seat, so I wasn’t easily visible from outside.  For a small city, Kabul has some terrible traffic problems. 

From what I could see, the congestion was caused by various embassies and other big government compounds whose security forces closed off the roads that at one time passed by those compounds.  This indiscriminate closing of roads has left parts of central Kabul heavily congested.

To avoid some of this traffic congestion, our driver used side roads.  On one of these unpaved dirt roads a large reddish brown rug lay in the middle of the road.  All the cars and trucks just drove over it.  Big puffs of dust billowed from beneath the rug with each passing car.

I couldn’t understand why someone would throw a seemingly new rug into the road.

My friends laughed when I asked them why the rug was there.  “Keith, my friend, they are making an antique Afghan rug there.” 

I joined the laughter, thinking this was a lot like the Chinese sculptors who bury swords in the earth to make them into antiques.

Author Bio:

Keith Jones is the founder of Baja Jones Adventures, Jones Adventures, Tigress Tours in Thailand and Butanding Tours in the Philippine Islands and has led thousands of people to Mexico and other interesting locations around the world. He specializes in gray whale tour, blue whale tour, gray and blue whale combo tour, giant panda bear tour, walk a tiger tour, shark tour, African safari tour, African gorilla trek, arctic narwhal tour and Magdalena Bay whale watching tour. He also writes about Baja travel and gray whales. Keith Jones is the author of Gray Whales My Twenty Years of Discovery.

Vegetable shopping in Kandahar

I have a short story to tell, from when I was in Kandahar in the winter of 2007. This was before I knew Ajmal. But I thought some of you might be wondering about me, an American acting as the campaign press secretary.  This tale might help you to know me just a little better.

My first experiences with the people of Afghanistan came when I was living in Kandahar and went out exploring the City. I was told by everyone that it was dangerous for me to go out in the City of Kandahar.  I could be kidnapped or worse.  I believed them, but life should be lived fully.  Hiding in a compound all day and all night just isn’t my style.

My friend Raziq tried his best to find some traditional styled clothing to fit me.  You can see from the photo I was just a bit larger than the clothing he eventually brought to me.  After donning my disguise, I rode with Raziq and another friend from Kandahar Air Base into the City of Kandahar in an old Toyota Corolla.

Raziq was concerned about roadside bombs, so I had my hat pulled low across my face and a gray and white shawl wrapped high around my neck.  I had grown a slight graying beard.  From a distance, while I was seated in the Toyota I might appear to be an Afghan.

While in town we had lunch at an excellent restaurant where I enjoyed the best cucumbers and yogurt I have ever eaten.  Then we visited the gold sellers street where this photo was taken.

Later we stopped at a vegetable market, because I was in town to buy some large quantities of fresh fruit and vegetables.  I left Raziq and his friends talking and I roamed alone through the mounds and piles of carrots and potatoes and other fresh vegetables.

My attention was attracted by a loud cracking sound, much like fire crackers or small explosions.  But the sound was not that of a rifle or a bomb.  I was curious and walked toward the main street.  Standing on the edge of the curb I leaned out looking to my left to see what all the commotion was about.

I should have been more aware of my surroundings.  It was only later that I realized while I was walking toward the edge of the road all the other people in the market were slowly moving back away from the road.

Suddenly a convoy of ISAF vehicles appeared from around a bend in the road.  The noise was a warning klaxon on the lead vehicle.  All the people of Kandahar recognized this cracking sound as the warning that a military convoy was coming through. 

The armored vehicles were moving way too fast for the narrow road conditions.  A poor carrot farmer whose overloaded cart laden with carrots and pulled by an ancient graying donkey fell into a pothole on the side of the road. The cart overturned as the convoy roared by.

I stared at the soldiers or private contractors as they sped past me.  The last vehicle in the convoy was driven by a particularly crazed individual.  He saw me standing alone by the curb.  So he veered sharply toward me so that the right side wheels of his armored vehicle ran through a big puddle of very brown muddy water.  The water shot out from beneath the tires.  I was drenched from the waist down in a disgusting brown muck.

The old man standing across on the other corner with the overturned cart, looked near to crying.  Anger and frustration were lined in his sun withered face.  I walked over and gave him some help to push the cart upright. Then standing in ankle deep water I helped to throw the 50 kilo bags of carrots back into the van.

By the time we were finished loading his cart, I was truly filthy.  I took a couple loose carrots and fed them to his calm and sturdy donkey.  He said, “salaam aliakum” and  I repeated the words back to him.

Returning to the back corner of the market where my friends were waiting I was greeted by some strange looks.  I had left them wearing spotlessly clean, new clothing.  I returned covered in mud that had turned the lower half of my legs and shoes a dark beige color.  My hands were dirty brown.  I even had mud in my hair.

I just looked back at them and said, “my friends I now know what that strange noise means.”  Thankfully we had finished all we wanted to accomplish that day, so we climbed into the beat up Toyota and headed out of town.  That’s when I noticed a gathering of nomadic people, off in a distant field.  A wedding celebration was just beginning.

“Raziq,” I said, turning to my friend who was sitting in the back seat fingering his beads, saying a silent prayer of thanks that we had made it out of town safely.  “Raziq. do you think the bride and groom would mind if an American invited himself to their wedding party?”

But that wedding party is a tale for another day.  I hope you enjoyed my tale about shopping for vegetables in Kandahar.

Keith E. Jones

Author Bio:

Keith Jones is the founder of Baja Jones Adventures, Jones Adventures, Tigress Tours in Thailand and Butanding Tours in the Philippine Islands and has led thousands of people to Mexico and other interesting locations around the world. He specializes in gray whale tour, blue whale tour, gray and blue whale combo tour, giant panda bear tour, walk a tiger tour, shark tour, African safari tour, African gorilla trek, arctic narwhal tour and Magdalena Bay whale watching tour. He also writes about Baja travel and gray whales. Keith Jones is the author of Gray Whales My Twenty Years of Discovery.

Walking from Phitsanilok toward Sukhothai and Myanmar – by Onanong Hukharn

Cars and buses were driving very close to us on this part of the road west of Phitsanilok.  Keith decided to tie a blue shirt onto a stick.  Then with his stick and rag we walked along, him feeling safer, but I felt shy a little!  When we walked many people looked at us with strange expressions on their face.  They thought we waiting for the bus or maybe that we had no money to buy tickets. 

One couple stopped their car.  Both of them were very nice and friendly. “Where are you going Kha?” (that is a polite greeting like sir or ma’am)  Sukhothai I answered! 

They said ,”Oh dear that far from here please get on the car we going the same place”, then they asked me more questions.  “Why do you have to walk?  Are you not tired? Why are you doing this?”

I replied, “We will walk all the way across Thailand. This trip is really spectacular.

They had more questions like “where do you sleep?  Do you bathe in the rivers?  What do you eat?”  And the most difficult question for me to answer, “Why are you walking?  You will get hot and tired.”  I tried to explain we were doing this because nobody had ever done it before.  I said “kah we meet nice people like you and get to know more about Thailand.”  The nice couple offered me a ride one more time before driving away.

As they drove away I felt even more shy (sic embarrassed) about what Keith and I are doing. But I told him I would do this, so I must do it. 

This ends Onanong’s comments for now.

The day went by quickly.  It was a day without any really memorable events.  We walked, we rested and then we walked again.  Some days are like that, even on a great adventure. 

As my watch moved toward 3:00 p.m. we arrived at the outskirts of Sukhothai.  Once we passed the City sign and had officially entered the city, Onanong flagged a songthaew (pick up truck taxi).  We pushed our packs into the back on the floor between the bench seats.  Weary from the 18 kilometers (10 ½ miles) we had walked that day we stepped into the back of the songthaew to gratefully ride the next 2 kilometers to the TR Guesthouse where we planned to stay for the next couple of nights.

The Songthaew dropped us a few blocks from the guesthouse, leaving us a short walk before we would get to dump the packs for  few days. 

A clean brightly decorated bakery was temptingly situated just where I clambered from the back of the truck taxi.  There was a display case filled with various cakes and pastries.  After a long hot day of walking a piece of cake sounded heavenly.  I left my backpack lying at the door of the bakery while I purchased a full double layer chocolate and vanilla cake.  Meanwhile Onanong waited patiently, not once reminding me that I was still supposed to be on a healthy diet plan.

At the guesthouse, once inside our room I placed the cake on a table.  Since we planned to stay in Sukhothai 4 or 5 days, I emptied my backpack so I could launder everything.  Then after a shower, shave and a second nice hot shower I went out with Onanong to find some dinner.

After dinner we returned to the room. I had big plans to eat that cake we had bought earlier.  Sitting down to a small table in the room I pulled out a folding knife I carry. It is spring loaded to open and has a very sharp 7” blade I use for peeling fruit or cutting cake.

As I made the first slice, a swarm of large red ants burst from the cut in the cake.  I jumped back, cursed and then finished cutting that piece of cake.  By then the ants were swarming all over the tabletop.  I quickly moved my laptop off to one side of the table. 

With the large slice of cake removed, we could see ant tunnels throughout the cake.  Apparently these industrious ants had found an entrance to the bakery display case and in just a few hours had set up house in my cake.

I closed the box on the cake and ants and folded it inside a plastic bag.  By then it was late.  I was tired, Onanong was tired so we just left the cake, thinking the ants were trapped inside the bag.

I slept in until sunrise the next morning.  As the sky grew bright enough for me to see easily in the room, I climbed from bed and opened the laptop.  The Macbook Pro powered up while I brushed my teeth.  Then sipping a cup of hot tea I opened my email program and began downloading mail from the night before, which time is daytime in the USA and Britain.

I noticed a few of those red ants crawling near the laptop and brushed them to the floor.  As I waited for the email to download the laptop screen began to get strange colors and missing spots.  Clearly something was wrong.  I jammed a USB memory stick into a port and as fast as possible began transferring my most important files, those I knew were not backed up on my backup drive.

As I finished and ejected the small memory stick my laptop screen was turning some awful blue and orange colors one pixel at a time.  I just sat and watched the computer turn to garbage.  Finally I turned it off .  Then knowing what I would find I picked the dead thing up and began shaking it.  Perhaps 50 or 100 red ants swarmed out and ran in circles on the table top.

I was too disgusted with myself to bother the ants.  I ignored them as they swarmed around the table searching for their next portable home.  I looked at Onanong, shrugged my shoulders, said “let’s go change this for a cake with no ants”.  I grabbed the ant riddled cake and headed for the door.  Onanong was quiet, waiting for me to explode in anger.  But how can you blame ants for searching out all those warm crumbs of food that had accumulated in the spaces on the keyboard between the keys. 

There’s probably more than one lesson in this story, but I never bothered to try and figure out what I should have learned from the incident.  I found new cake without ants.  I eventually bought a new laptop.  I still eat too many sandwiches and salads while I write on this laptop.  I do try to put it away in the carry bag at night when I’m traveling.

Ants Attack my Laptop

November 2011 and I found myself walking across the widest part of Thailand.  For about half the walk my Thai friend, Onanong accompanied me.  While it is not too unusual to see a backpacker in Thailand, it is unusual to see them actually walking with a goal other than to drag their packs from one guesthouse to another as they move down the road a hundred yards from one guesthouse to another. 

It is even more unusual to see Thai people walking any lengthy distance.  On this stretch of highway Onanong was walking along with me.  She is a tiny woman, standing 150 cm (4’-11” ) and weighing just 42 kilos ( 92 pound).  Her backpack perched high on her back seems larger than her when she walks in front of me. 

We were walking from the city of Phitsanilok toward Sukhothai the ancient capital city of the Kingdom of Siam.  Part of the road wound perilously through the mountains, a narrow, winding thread of concrete that at some places had no shoulder so we were forced to walk on the roadway or on a steep and slippery dropoff. 

This stretch of road was really dangerous.  I had visions of a car or bus careening around a corned and just knocking me and Onanong off the edge of the cliff like roadside.  We couldn’t walk on the opposite side of the road, because the road was blasted and carved into the rock mountainside.  We could not risk being caught between the sheer vertical rock face and some careless driver. 

To add to our visibility I took a broken branch and used the sturdy stick like a flagpole to tie a bright blue shirt onto the end of it.  I carried this makeshift flag so that it stuck up higher than my pack, fluttering in the breeze.

“Keith, what is that for?” Onanong asked as I cobbled together this makeshift warning device.  I explained it was so drivers might see us better.  Then in characteristic Thai fashion she didn’t say much more about my warning flag.  However as we started walking again, I noticed Onanong was lagging behind me a bit.  The gap of 10 yards made it seem as if she wasn’t really with me.

Later that day Onanong confessed I embarrassed her carrying the flag.  The entire idea of walking and sleeping in strange people’s yard was quite embarrassing to Onanong.  So much so, that when she walked with me, we generally found some National Park campground or a guesthouse or lodge to room at overnight.  Only when I was walking alone did I sleep in yards, schoolyards and on some temple grounds.

For me this adventure was a challenge of the physical kind.  Walking 5 to 15 miles, day after day, carrying a backpack when the temperature was pushing 100 degrees in the shade was tough for me.  Getting up in the morning, eating a banana and then waiting while the Ibuprofen eased the pains in my body enough that I could get up and carry the pack again was challenging for me.

The mental difficulties that Onanong faced as a devout Thai woman trying to throw off the cultural shackles of 2000 years of history, to do something beyond the comprehension of the average Thai was far more difficult a challenge to overcome.  Whenever a friendly driver would stop and offer us a ride, Onanong was forced to face the same barrage of questions each time.  “Pi, you need a ride?  Are you walking because you cannot afford to buy a ticket on the bus?  Are you okay?  Is this farang (foreigner) forcing you to walk so he can save money on bus fare?  You want to go to Myanmar, why don’t you ride?”

Onanong’s challenge was of the mind, something far more difficult to overcome than the few aches and pains I suffered with during our walk.  She could not swallow 2 Ibupropen then wait 15 minutes for the embarrassment to go away.  It dogged her every footstep.

Onanong wants to say a few words about this walk.  Here is what she has to say.