Not knowing hindi has not somehow kept me from falling in love with the following unashamedly kitschy songs ... ... by no coincidence most of them feature Raj Kapoor
In no particular order
Gum hai kisike pyaar mein
Babuji Dheere Chalna
Aaj Phir Jeene ke tamanna
Ajaa re ab mera dil pukara
Yeh raat bheegi bheegi
Har dil jo pyaar karega
Mere tootay howay dil se
Chittee na koi sandesh
Pyaar kiya tho dharna kiya
Bindiya chamkegi
Chup gaye sare nazaare
Ab raat guzarne wali hai
iPhone ... Not my favorite gadget ... in fact there's more than a few things I don't like about it, but when it comes to being a travel companion it's Numero Uno for the moment or at least until the Android sheds it's baby teeth and can take a real bite of the app market.
1. This one's on fire, even if you're Dancing in the dark - Bruce Springsteen
Sometimes you need a flashlight to unlock something, or look in your bag, or just read something quickly. Times like that are a-plenty when you travel .. so go get the free flashlight from John Haney Software.
Price: *Free*
2. Money, money, money must be funny in a rich man's world - Abba
Quick how much is 4800 Baht in US Dollars? Or how much should you get for 800Euros in Laotian Kip or Cambodian Riel or Thai Baht, and how many Canadian dollars is that? When you need to juggle all of this you need Currency by Jeffery Grossman.
Price: *Free*
3. Look around you, ... come to me, you're there when I need you - Little River Band
AroundMe is wonderful. It uses GPS to locate you, and then tells you what's all around you ... ATMs, Restaurants, Bars (this alone saved my life every night), Movie theatres, Hospitals, Gas stations, Hotels ... you name it, it's got it. Accurate, relevant, and easy to use, with Maps, distance from current location everything you need and nothing else.
Price: *Free*
4. Picture yourself in a boat on the river ... with tangerine trees - Beatles
The iPhone camera can take some superb pictures, and I have the proof on my facebook journals. Okay it can't zoom, it cannot do bokeh, and it's hard to take night shots, and at 2 megs you're not going to be able to posterize it, but the lens is sharp, and somehow it has a knack of capturing the right tones and nuances, but it does take some practice.
Price: *Free*
5. On a dark desert highway ..., Welcome to the Hotel California - Eagles
The problem with backpacking and making up your itinerary as you go along is that you need to be able to get a place to crash in the evenings.
If you want to check in any time you like ... you need Hostel Hero. I used it throughout my trip to find and book hotels (there's a small booking fee) and most times the reviews and the pictures were spot on.
Price: *Free*
6. In my pocket a piece of paper ..., as I wander through the streets - Cat Empire
Personal Assistant may simply be the best app ever just in terms of how well it helps you keep track of your personal stuff ... Credit Cards, Bank Accounts, Frequent Flyer miles, Investments, Bill due dates, Expiration dates, ebay bids, even (where supported) cell phone usage, your Starbucks card (I know WoW heh) ... strictly speaking you don't need this for travelling but when you're on the road the ability to monitor all of this from a distance allows you to take that two month backpackers route you always wanted without having to lose a lot of sleep in the process.
Price: *Free*
7. I still haven't found what I'm looking for - U2
uPackingList is great to get organized for the trip, with various checklists for activities, things etc ... what makes it insanely great is the amount of thought that's gone into the listed items ... takes the headache out of trying to remember all of the lists. And the whole thing is fully customizable ... you can setup your own lists, add/delete items etc
Price : Both *Free* and paid versions (not sure what's in the paid version)
8. Wherever you go, whatever you do ... - Richard Marx
The Lonely Planet city guides - don't leave without it, but hey now you can get them in your iPod for quite a few cities and that means that much less weight to lug around. The indispensable and still the best written of all the guides out there imo. The depth and coverage they provide can go a long way to making sure that you can trip the light fantastic without falling down the wrong stairs.
Price : .99 for the Lonely Planet App and $15 for each city guide
Note : There is a free app called Quintessentially City Guides that provides a more abbreviated version for over 40 cities. It's pretty good in it's own right.
9. If I could save time in a bottle - Jim Croce
Trip Journal allows you to capture pictures, take notes with GPS info and assign them to waypoints that you can later track on a map. A set of waypoints can be collated into a trip. It certainly makes it easy to share your trip experiences, but the idea of typing notes using the &^%@# virtual keyboard on the iPhone is enough to give me the heebie Jeebies so wasn't all that great for me, but hey it is indeed useful but for just note taking I'd much prefer using iJot ($2.99) instead and that's what I ended up using a lot.
Price : $1.99 (the free version is seriously crippled with 3 waypoints only)
10. If you could read my mind love, what a tale if words could tell - Glen Campbell
iTranslate does a fantastic job of translating phrases from one language to the other, but if you don't know how to read scripted languages such as Thai or Arabic it's not going to be very useful without also buying the voices (which is not available for all the languages as yet). So yes it may not work everywhere but where it works such as English to German, or French to Italian etc it does the job.
Price : *free* (Each voice costs $1.99 extra - 16 languages are covered). Also comes with a $1.99 plus version (not sure what extras come in there)
Note : There's also a MyLanguage Pro that can transliterate plus does 20 language voices, not sure what else it provides ... costs $4.99
11. Keep on talking - Mobb Deep
Global.AQ Lite lets you send text messages for free (it's based on about 1 credit for messages to most credits and they give you seven credits per day). Incoming texts send to your Global.AQ Lite is free, so this is a great tool to use on wi-fi networks when you're travelling.
As an aside using go-sim or the national geographic international SIM card or anything similar allows you to get incoming calls for free in about 70 different countries, if you want to keep the same number through your various trips and get a better rate than your normal roaming charges. However it is always going to be cheaper to get a local sim in the places you go to, and this is usually my preferred option. I use Global.AQ and emails to send people my numbers as it changes ... Recently I went through seven different countries in two months and I could have used an international SIM card for that to save me the hassle of getting different SIMs in each place. The costs are getting cheaper and cheaper each year. Its anywhere between 50 cents to 2$ for outgoing calls, incoming is free in 70 countries and ranges between 35 cents to 1$ for others. So it's a good emergency option. Once somebody comes up with a decent dual SIM phone you can have both, a local SIM for cheap/outgoing incoming and an international SIM for folks to get in touch with you.
Also VoIP products like Skype/Truphone/iCall etc can be used to make/get calls as well, so that's always another option as well. Not sure if I like being tethered to a wireless net just to do this though as they all work off the wi-fi zone.
12. Rock the Casbah - Clash
All said and done what's the point to all this travelling if you're not painting the town red right?
:)
For starters check out ClubMonk, Eventful and Locly to find out clubs / see what's happening around you, get Google Latitude to locate the friends you made on your various soirees using their cell numbers (they need to have Google Latitude on their phone for this to work), and then finally use AirMe to share the pics of the event with your mates
Paris is the kind of place that you can't just visit once. It's a fascinating place ... I love taking my camera and wandering around ... it's so photogenic. I also love the place because you can live cheap and still dine like a king, or when you have some shekels to splurge you can really enjoy la dolce vita (sorry I'm not French enough to coin the right phrase for that one heh). And the people can be friendly, maddening, vivacious and cut you out sometimes all at the same time.
First things first. Getting around ... If you haven't been to Paris and used it's Velib system you haven't experienced it's fantastic rental bike system. You can rent it by the day, by the week or by the year for 1/5/30 euros. The first half hour is free (if you arrive at a full station you get an extra fifteen minutes), after that the price goes up on a sliding scale. The intent is to keep the bikes in circulation but with 1000's of stations, you can keep switching (you can have unlimited number of half hours). In any case if you need an hour it's one Euro. It's a great system and it means you can now get around the city without spending any more than 5 euros for the entire week you're there. I love this system, and it's one of the reasons I love going back to the city.
If you're there in the winter use the metro instead. Get a Navigo card (5 euros) and load a week worth of unlimited travel for about 16 euros. Single trips are usually one and a half euros. The card is reusable so don't throw it away.
Staying need not be expensive. If you don't mind renting a couch or an apartment check out Craigslist Paris, Paris Marais. or even the local backpacker hostels you could get a bed or a place from 20 Euros a night to an apartment for 250Euros a week. My personal favorite is Hotel des Arts Bastille which I've rented from 50 Euros to 60 Euros a night and is very nice round about the Bastille. Another good place is Hotel Du Commerce for 50 euros for doubles (shared bathrooms) if there's two of you on Rue De La Montagne Sainte fairly close to the Sorbonne and Notre Dame.
If you're lucky you can get the second floor of the bookstore Shakespheare and Company for a few hours of work a day. Not always easy to get and you need to speak french fluently so that kind of ruled it out for me, but my friend from London stayed there once and I liked it very much when I visited her there.
Next the most important thing. Drinking. Wines can be found fairly cheap everywhere but you have to know what you're doing. I'm the kind of guy who needs a few pints once it turns dark so I usually head to Chez Georges an old dive but with good food and cheap beer. It opens around 7PM on weekdays (it's closed on the weekends). It's a few blocks north and east to the Arc De Triomphe, at 1 Rue du Mail in the second arondissement. It might be wise to call for a table before you get there if you plan to have dinner. The food is excellent and in fact I also eat there most evenings because of how good the food is and how reasonable the price is. But the main draw are the beers, two euros for most selections.
The best museums in the world I think are in London, England and in Paris. And what's mind boggling is they are free. I've counted at least fifteen museums in Paris that are free and are absolutely superb. Even the ones you have to pay to get in like the Musee D'Orsay are cheap and again absolutely superb. Highly recommend the Louvre (you'll need at least three days and a GPS to make sure you don't get lost in there)
Check out the bakeries and the middle eastern places (they're everywhere in Paris these days) for low cost sandwiches, entrees and/or tasty snacks. Or if you prefer beverages to food go to Le Baron Rouge for nearly fifty wines that cost about or less than 3 Euros a glass. Or on Thursday nights go to the Galleries on Marais (they serve free wine and sometimes cheese)... Yeah go on call me a cheap bastard :) but the wines are delicious and so are the art in these galleries.
And there's lots of free tours. The walking tours by Sandeman are really good. (You give tips to the guides). There's another one by Fat Tire Bike tours that begins near the Seine which isn't bad either. The guides are volunteers (usually from North America or England) and I like that better because I made friends and was able to make their party scene in the night with them.
There's loads more to do there ... one of my favorite things to do is to find a Laduree's cafe (there's several) and get one of their coconut macaroons. Also the Buddha Bar (expensive) is a great place to have a drink and hors d'oeuvres, and as you probably know the lounge music is hauntingly good. Good enough to have made it to ten bloody expensive internationally best-selling CD collections.
Paris along with Cape Town, Rio, London, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Venice, Miami remain one of the most quintessentially fascinating cities you can ever hope to visit. I mean imagine going from an authentic Hammam (steam bath) experience (try Hammam de la Grande Mosquée though it is very crowded by the locals on weekends), to the treasures of the Louvre, followed by a trip to the cafes of Montmartre, or lose yourself in the vibrant Jazz scene amongst the traditional clubs on the left bank such as the Caveau De La Huchette a medieval cellar ... there's no end to the surprises you can find on the market trail on the local flea markets such as the sprawling Marché aux Puces de Clignancourt, the quiet, tree-lined Marché aux Puces de Vanves and the contemporary design market Les Puces du Design. One of the few remaining flea markets where you can uncover gems at bargain prices on bric-à-brac stalls is the Marché d'Aligre, although be warned if you don't have the french for it don't attempt it :) Or visit the new star on the block if art is your scene ... visit Centquatre 104 or catch a film at Le Cinemathaque Francaise ...
Life is an adventure. And nowhere so can you live it with the intensity you can in Paris. Go on. Just do it :)
May 25'th this year Buenos Aires will celebrate 200 years of independence. For those of you who make it out there here are some suggestions on what to do your first few days in town as you warm up for the party to end all parties in 2010 (and don't forget to check out Creamfields for some of the dreamiest trance you'll ever trip hop to ...)
No? well next time you're going to Berlin you should try one. Go to theshychef.wordpress.com/ to make a reservation and find out more. There's also a great NYTimes article about this at travel.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/travel/14h... There's a Srilankan restaurant on the 31'st floor of a Hell's Kitchen complex in NY, which you enter through a porn shop downstairs. While this doesn't qualify as a secret restaurant in that it is not unlicensed, unregulated, unadvertised, it does have the cachet of being a restaurant for only those in the know ... In some cases, these hidden restaurants offer entertainment along with the food. One of the oldest “secret” spots still running, the eight-year-old Mamasan’s Bistro pays homage to its founder, a DJ/vocalist from Guam, by playing hip-hop beats during its dinner programs—located in the upstairs apartment of a woman known only as Lynette, somewhere in San Francisco’s Mission District ... but don't lynch me if you can't manage to find it. Remember a fight club is a fight club only as long as the hordes don't find out it exists ... ditto with supper clubs and underground restaurants :)Have you ever been to a secret/underground restaurant? These are not regular restaurants but more apartments that have invitation only events for five or six.
India, Malaysia and Singapore were just brief stopovers on this vacation. Family, friends, catch up on sleep that kind of thing. Two weeks of this and I was in Thailand, where from Bangkok we made a trip to Pattaya and avoided all the crowds and sleaze and the quiet daytime beaches by staying in a resort outside town where there was nothing to do except sleep, swim and get some Thai massages.
The real trip started when I headed from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. I took the day train which leaves around 8:30AM and reaches Chiang Mai about 8:30 in the night. It cost about 600+ which is 20$, and included a couple of meals on the train. The train stops only a few mins each station not enough time to get food so anybody planning on using this train should pack some along as the train rations are just nibbles.
Chiang Mai has a lot of day trips on offer. I did the Doi Suthep mountain temple, some village visits, a whitewater rafting trip, some waterfall bathing on the way back etc. It's all good. And also spend a few days just exploring this old town with it's moat all around the city and the ruin's of it's 11'th century walls all around town. The town is built in the shape of a square enclosed by this moat and wall. Evenings I'd visit the night market a charged bazaar with all kinds of stuff on offer. I avoided the night clubs as I'd learned in Thai here it's basically a dive for the sex tourists. I almost went for a Thai boxing show but then decided to catch it on the local tv when I found out it was free. Can't say it was all that great.
I had to move from my first hotel and then I found this place just close to the edge of town at the end of Chang Klang road (which is where the night bazaar is held) and they charged me 50 baht per night including towel for a two bed room with en-suite shower. Quite the deal ... the joint is called Trekker Camp and Nikki the manager turned out to be a part time singer in a local Thai bar. I went there with him the first night and listened to him croon Thai versions of Beatles, Neil Sedaka numbers and on request he played me "Holiday" by Scorpions all in Thai of course :)
My room-mate was a french guy from East Africa called Phil. HE didn't seem to sleep much and I was given to understand that he used to work for the CIA and he told me that he was on call but when I tried to get more specific about all of this he mumbled off into mystery. However he and me bought each other a few beers and exchanged smokes and all in all it made for an entertaining time. It looked like he was planning on staying there for a long time to come.
From Chiang Mai I made my way by slow boat to Laos. It's a two day trip and we stopped over at a place called Pak Beng en-route. Immigration cost $42 (the Canadian visas were the most expensive) and the trip itself was 1750 Baht (which is about 60$)
Luang Prabang was quite a surprise. Very small town, but very clean and sedate with French colonial architecture in spots. No mall, no cinema theatre even and zero hustling. The people were all calm, cool and spoke almost no English but their friendliness and willingness to meet you halfway made it easy to deal with them. Food was a mixture of vietnamese type noodle soups and thai style fried rice dishes etc. Not much to do in this town, but they have a few day trips ... I didn't bother doing any of them instead spending the days just exploring the town on foot in all four directions.
From there I flew to Cambodia, to Siem Reap by Laos Air. Costs about 220$. I could have gone by boat there too but didn't feel like doing one more of those boat rides.
Siem Reap is a real hustler's town, with Tuk Tuk drivers, doormen everybody hustling you. Their standard line was "You want young girl? Real cheap" ... and everywhere around you there were posters by the Cambodian government warning you that child prostitution was a crime and that there were serious penalties for anybody involved.
Angkor Wat ... the ruins were indeed spectacularly interesting and definitely worth seeing. I visited about seven different temples in and around the Angkor Wat location and only thing I regretted was not making the trip earlier in the morning before the tourist hordes showed up ... plus the strong afternoon light didn't make for good pictures.
Beer Lao was the pick of the lot and while it's the only thing mostly available in Luang Prabang, it was also easily available in Cambodia. However except in Chiang Mai its not very easy to find in places like Bangkok.
I also liked Luang Prabang the best of all the towns I'd visited but that being said Chiang Mai has a lot more to offer to the tourist and I enjoyed my stay at Chiang Mai the best. I visited the Blind institute there and had a massage by a blind masseur which was simply outstanding and dirt cheap. 100 baht for an hour, which is about 3.5$
There's a lot more trip notes obviously, but the main thing about SE Asia is a little money goes a long way if you know what you are doing. You can pretty much live on 10 to 20$ a day including your accomodation but if you are willing to go up 30 to 40$ then a lot more options become available.
