Travels in the Riel World

Sure, you know about Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. But what do you know about Zoroastrianism or Yoruba? A number of readers may be familiar with the Baha’i faith, but have you actually heard of the African Mami Wata religion? Chris Wary published a unique and interesting article recently on Matador Travel, profiling six unique religions that he suggests are virtually unknown in the West. Following are his overviews of two of the six religions. The entire story is definitely worth a read.

Zoroastrianism- Zoroastrianism is based on the teachings of the first millennium BCE Iranian prophet Zoroaster. There are estimated to be between 150,000 and 210,000 Zoroastrians in the world today, mostly in India and the United States.

These small numbers mask the historical importance of this religion. Both Eastern and Western religions can trace ties back to Zoroastrianism, meaning the religion has most likely had more impact on the world than any other belief system.

Zoroastrians believe in one universal God, Ahura Mazda, who is in conflict with the forces of chaos, led by Angra Mainyu. Humans need to take an active role in the conflict by performing good deeds and having good thoughts and words. The conflict will ultimately be brought to an end when Soashyant, a savior, comes to Earth and reanimates the dead.

Yoruba- The Yoruba religion is the beliefs and practices of the people located in the areas that are now Benin and Nigeria before they encountered other outside religions. There are no specific numbers documenting the number of followers, but many believe that Yoruba is the largest African-born religion in the world. It has also heavily influenced several Afro-American religions such as Lucumi in Cuba.

The main belief of the Yoruba peoples is that all humans have a manifest destiny, referred to as ayanmo, to become one with the divine creator, known as Olodumare. Our destinies are determined through our thoughts and actions in the physical world. The Yoruba see life and death as cycles in the physical and spiritual realms while the spirit moves towards union with Olodumare.

If you’re looking for a getaway that will also satisfy your inner scientist, then Popular Science has just the solution. Proving that there are travel destinations out there for every taste and interest, the magazine recently came up with a list of eight “geek getaways” in the United States. Such as:

Vacation with Martian Experts - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Pasadena, Calif.

If you can’t go to Mars (and you probably can’t), JPL may be the next best thing. This historic lab is the hub for the nation’s latest Red Planet research. You’ll see the Space Flight Operations Facility, where scientists monitor current missions, a Space Simulator for virtual testing, and a Marscape, where prototype rovers practice maneuvers. JPL offers a free, two-day open house every May, but private tours (also free) can be arranged year-round if booked in advance.

Watch a Parking Garage Buckle - Earthquake Simulators - Buffalo, Reno and San Diego

Never seen a “shake table” shake? Visit these labs to witness the massive platforms, equipped with hydraulic actuators, simulate the force of the world’s most devastating earthquakes. Structural engineers test everything from bridges to million-pound parking garages, sometimes shaking structures for two months at a time.

Learn Real Crime-sleuthing Skills on a Corpse Farm - Body Farms - Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina

Ever wonder what happens to your body after you die? Forensic-anthropology labs at the University of Tennessee, Texas State University and Western Carolina University are the places to find out. These facilities feature “graveyards” ranging from a garage-size plot in North Carolina to an eventual 26-acre site in Texas, where scientists study donated bodies as they decay. You can’t tour the actual “de-comp” yards, but you can learn about the recovery of remains at crime scenes and disasters such as 9/11.

Check out the entire article for all eight recommendations.

Boston, Massachusetts

A street lamp in the shadow of the Hancock Tower in Boston’s Back Bay district. If you’d like to see a few more Boston photos, check out my nine-picture photo essay of Boston.

Where are the fittest people in the United States? We’re talking about a city, here. not an Olympic training village. I bet you’re not guessing Washington, D.C., are you? Home to all those politicians and government bureaucrats. And yet, according to a recent American Fitness Index study that was released by the American College of Sports Medicine, residents of the nation’s capital are in fact among the most fit in the country. The D.C. area finished first among 45 metropolitan areas.

The study ranked the cities on 30 measures, ranging from the cardiovascular disease death rate to the percent of residents who bike or walk to work. Forbes.com published an overview of the results.

According to the index, Washington, D.C., residents are healthier than other Americans for a number of reasons. They have increased access to farmers’ markets, at 13 per 1 million residents, compared to a national average of 11. Fewer residents smoke and have diabetes, and nearly 90% have health insurance compared to a national average of 86%.

Still, Thompson was surprised to see the city rank first for the second consecutive year. “[It] is not mentioned in discussions of cities that have a strong fitness orientation,” he says. But the data demonstrated only a handful of weaknesses, most of them having to do with the limited number of recreational facilities.

Well, if Washington, D.C., was an unexpected contender, some of the other top cities are not as much of a surprise. The rest of the top 10 are: Minneapolis, Denver, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, San Diego, Austin and Virginia Beach. You can check out the entire list of 45 ranked metropolitan areas, or see a Forbes slide show of the cities.

What does it all mean in the end? Well, obviously, you can be fit anywhere. It’s a personal lifestyle choice. But this list does give you an idea of which regions care more about issues of health and lifestyle and thereby provide access to a more fitness friendly infrastructure. Just as with the list of bike-friendly cities that I recently covered, it’s one more piece of information if you’re looking to live in a place that shares some of your lifestyle values.

You want to do some extensive, long-term travel, but you just can’t imagine how to pay for it or manage it all. A couple of weeks ago, I referred you to an article by Nora Dunn on how to travel full time for surprisingly little money. Now we have more advice, this time from Dave Bouskill and Debra Corbeil, aka Canada’s Adventure Couple. They have a bunch of excellent and practical advice in post on their website titled, ”How to Live Your Life to Travel the World.”

People tend to think that we live our lives with no vision of the future and no equity what-so-ever just spending our money until it runs out. Others tend to think that we are independently wealthy, spoiled in the fact that we just have a lot of money. As a matter a fact neither is true.

Here is an overview as to how we live our lives and still manage to take extended trips around the world as part of the middle class demographic.  In the past 10 years, we have traveled to 37 countries. Not on short week long vacations at an all inclusive resorts, but on trips that last for months at a time, where we delve into the culture and live with the people.

Dave and Deb report that they never travel on borrowed money and continue to invest for retirement even while they’re on an extended trip. At home, they keep their expenses to a minimum so they’re able to save for their next journey, and they lodge in inexpensive local guesthouses or even campsites while on the road. If you want some good tips for living the traveling life, please read their entire piece. They’re great advocates for the reality that anyone can do extensive travel if you plan ahead and keep travel costs low.

Anyone who enjoys good travel writing has doubt become acquainted with the words of Pico Iyer. He’s written some wonderful books and essays about his journeys around the planet. And now he has penned a piece of travel advice for the website Real Simple. It is, appropriately enough, a simple and elegant listing of 10 things that every traveler should do in a new destination. An excerpt:

Savor every moment of your first few hours. First impressions really are worth a thousand others. I often scribble a hundred pages of notes when I visit somewhere new. But then, when I get home, it’s always the first page or two?the taxi ride in from the airport, my first foray out onto the streets?that captures something vivid and essential before my ideas and prejudices begin to harden. So stay away from e-mail, CNN, and anything that reminds you of home and just soak the place in.

Embrace the prospect of being a tourist. Some snooty types will tell you that they’re “travelers,” not tourists. But if being a tourist means wanting to see all the attractions that make a town unique, then what’s so bad about that? Take the three-hour city tour on your first day in Atlanta so you know where things are and what you wish to return to. When traveling abroad, visit the shops recommended by tour guides, if only to see what’s available from people who speak English. Don’t be shy about asking a local stranger how to find the national museum; she may just offer you a guided tour along the way.

Check out a bookstore.It’s a great way to learn about the interests of the locals. On almost any street in New Delhi, for example, a bookshop is bulging with works on palaces, textiles, spirituality, and the Kama Sutra; in Salt Lake City, the offerings are somewhat different. And in a store like the independent-minded Elliott Bay Book Company, a local institution in Seattle, you’ll find a universe so compendious that it seems to be an anthology of the city’s distinctive grace notes. Poking into even the smallest of these places not only opens a new door to a city but also offers the promise of a good read to keep you company at night.

All good advice. See the entire article for his seven other tips.

Wow. Just last Friday, I had a post about the role that the Internet and social media were playing in the Iranian election. Little did anyone know how this would truly explode in the days after the apparently fraudulent results of Iran’s voting were announced. Tens of thousands of Iranians have been protesting in the streets daily and they’ve been using social media to both coordinate their efforts and to distribute information and photographs to the rest of the world.

Although the Iranian government did successfully shut down text messaging services, they’ve been far less successful in doing anything about Twitter, which people can post to from a variety of devices and computers. It’s become so important as a communications tool, in fact, that Twitter delayed a scheduled maintenance shutdown until it was the middle of the night in Iran. The NY Times, meanwhile, has published a story for two consecutive days about the post-election impact of social media in Iran.

Here is an excerpt from yesterday’s story:

As the embattled government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to limit Internet access and communications in Iran, new kinds of social media are challenging those traditional levers of state media control and allowing Iranians to find novel ways around the restrictions.

Iranians are blogging, posting to Facebook and, most visibly, coordinating their protests on Twitter, the messaging service. Their activity has increased, not decreased, since the presidential election on Friday and ensuing attempts by the government to restrict or censor their online communications.

On Twitter, reports and links to photos from a peaceful mass march through Tehran on Monday, along with accounts of street fighting and casualties around the country, have become the most popular topic on the service worldwide, according to Twitter’s published statistics…

Twitter users are posting messages, known as tweets, with the term #IranElection, which allows users to search for all tweets on the subject. On Monday evening, Twitter was registering about 30 new posts a minute with that tag.

And from this morning’s report:

…Monday afternoon, a 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran.

The request, made to a Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, is yet another new-media milestone: the recognition by the United States government that an Internet blogging service that did not exist four years ago has the potential to change history in an ancient Islamic country.

If you’re interested in following along yourself on Twitter, one of the more popular posters from inside Iran is persiankiwi. Or, you can also follow the popular Atlantic writer and blogger, Andrew Sullivan, who tweets as dailydish and has been prolific in keeping up with events.

Last Monday, I had a post about Old Towns around the world, and one of the districts featured in the Sydney Herald article that I wrote about was in Hoi An, Vietnam. As a follow-up, here are a few photos that I took in Hoi An during my own visit there:

The architecture of Hoi An’s Old Town

More architecture

View of a local street from a pedestrian bridge

And, a woman carts around produce in a shoulder basket.

It’s not news anymore that use of the Internet and social media was a key factor in propelling the U.S. presidential campaign of Barack Obama. In fact, Obama was so successful with these tactics, and social media is now so ingrained in the lives of millions of Americans, that it would be inconceivable for a future campaign to not utilize these tools. Apparently, even other countries have taken notice, and not necessarily the nations you’d immediately think of in terms of politics and the Internet. Like Iran. But it’s true - the Iranian presidential election is taking place today and it has been significantly affected by the opposition party’s use of the Internet as an organizing tool.

The two main contenders in today’s election are the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a former prime minster, Mir Hossein Mousavi. A story in the Washington Post provides a look at how Mousavi’s camp has utilized social media during this election:

Over the weekend, a government organization refused permission for his campaign to use Tehran’s 120,000-seat Azadi Stadium for a rally originally planned for Sunday. But in less than 24 hours, using text messages and Facebook postings, thousands of Mousavi backers gathered along Vali-e Asr Avenue, Tehran’s 12-mile-long arterial road.

Many brought green ropes or strings, which they tied together to form a giant chain in Mousavi’s signature color. Groups wearing green head scarves or green T-shirts arrived from schools and universities. … “Thanks to Internet and text messages, we can rally big crowds in a very short time,” noted Ghadiri, who wore a green shirt emblazoned with Mousavi’s portrait.

A fascinating article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, meanwhile, took a broader look at how Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are changing the face of Iranian politics:

In Iran, where mosques once served as the primary campaign stump for political candidates, Facebook is changing the face of the presidential election. Nearly half of Iran’s 46 million eligible voters are under age 30, which means victory in Friday’s presidential election can be achieved only with significant support from young voters.

No candidate seems to understand this better than primary reformist challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who has become the country’s first politician to wield the power of the Internet as a major campaign tool. To reach out to Iran’s youth, he created a page on the popular networking site Facebook, which as of yesterday had garnered more than 30,000 supporters. Mr. Mousavi also uses Twitter and has even launched his own YouTube channel.

“Reformists are using Facebook to bypass official state media, which explicitly or implicitly favors the current administration,” said Mehdi Semati, associate professor of communication at Eastern Illinois University and editor of the book “Media, Culture and Society in Iran.” …

“In some ways, you can compare it to the campaign of Mr. [Barack] Obama. A lot of it is grass roots,” Mr. Semati said. “Many student groups are organizing it.”

Will the reformists succeed in ushering in a new political era in Iran by capitalizing on the Internet? Stay tuned. We’ll know later today.

Sex has always been pretty much a taboo subject in the Arab world. It’s simply something that wasn’t discussed openly. Now, though, the first cracks are appearing in that wall of silence, and one of the individuals who is shedding light on the subject, interestingly enough, is a 45-year-old Emirati woman who quotes the Koran and doesn’t go out in public without covering her face. Such is the interesting, sometimes paradoxical world of the modern Arabian Gulf. The NY Times has a story on the topic.

Wedad Lootah does not look like a sexual activist. A Muslim and a native Emirati, she wears a full-length black niqab — with only her brown eyes showing through narrow slits — and sprinkles her conversation with quotes from the Koran.

Yet she is also the author of what for the Middle East is an amazingly frank new book of erotic advice in which she … urges Arabs to transcend the backward traditions that limit their sexual happiness. The book, “Top Secret: Sexual Guidance for Married Couples,” is packed with vivid anecdotes from Ms. Lootah’s eight years as a marital counselor in Dubai’s main courthouse. It became an instant scandal after it was published in Arabic in the Emirates in January, drawing praise from some liberals and death threats from conservatives, who say she is guilty of blasphemy or worse.

Ms. Lootah, a strong-willed and talkative 45-year-old, is one of a small but growing number of Arabs pushing for more openness and education about sex. Unlike earlier generations of women who often couched their criticism in a Western language of female emancipation, Ms. Lootah and her peers are hard to dismiss as outsiders because they tend to be religious Muslims who root their message in the Koran.

Well preserved Old Town districts are a favorite destination for both travelers and preservationists. There is something special about feeling as though you’ve not only landed in a new country, but have also stepped back in time a bit. The Sydney Herald in Australia recently published a nice article about some of the best Old Towns around the world. Here is a sampling of their list:

Hoi An, Vietnam - The Old Town, with its narrow cobblestone streets, low tile-roofed houses and ancient wells, is a spicy wok-full of Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese styles. Cars are banned, pedestrians rule and conical hats are the order of the day.

Hoi An was relatively untouched during the Vietnam war and the old buildings, with their wooden fronts and unique “yin” and “yang” roof tiles, are now protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The faded houses are ageing gracefully, old ladies carry their produce across their shoulders in cane baskets and the damp smell of the river lingers in the air.

Lisbon, Portugal - Lisbon, the city of seven hills, is one of the most enchanting cities in Europe. Its sense of weathered grandeur set within a natural amphitheatre of hills, together with its breathtaking views across the River Tagus is hard to match.

The old Arab quarter, also known as the Alfama, is located on the south-east slope of the hill crowned by Castelo de Sao Jorge. Moors, Christians and Jews have all lived here. The Alfama retains its medieval layout, with winding alleys, steep steps and wrought iron balconies. Bright washing flaps in front of colourful house fronts, Fado music drifts from bars and blood-red geraniums drip down whitewashed walls.

Shanghai, China - As Shanghai races to reinvent itself before hosting the 2010 World Expo, Old China Town, with its colourful street stalls, traditional shops and teahouses, is an unexpected surprise…Old China Town, surely, is Shanghai’s attic. It’s where this modern metropolis stores its trash and treasure.

Chinatown includes the Old Town Bazaar, Yu Garden, Shanghai’s old city wall and the famous Confucian temple. The red lacquered buildings, the curved roof tiles, the old men playing mahjong are all present and accounted for in this exciting theatre on the street.

Check out the article for the entire list of favorite Old Towns.

In the search for the best places to live, many people would look for a city that is considered bike friendly. It suggests, at a minimum, that fitness and environmental values are important to local citizens. And, if you pick the right home, it also means that you could possibly commute to work on a bike, or at least have easy access to bike trails for weekend jaunts. But what cities are the most bike friendly? Hal Amen has put together for Matador Travel a list of 15 urban areas worldwide that are considered friendly to bicyclists.

Not surprisingly, Amsterdam and several other European cities are near the top of the list. He also includes such places as Cape Town, South Africa, and Perth, Australia, as well as a half dozen North American entries. Here is a sampling of his “pedal heavens:”

Amsterdam, Netherlands - The “bicycling capital of Europe” tops many lists—including this one, it seems—as the most bike friendly city anywhere. Safe and extensive route networks, serious governmental promotion, and a bike culture that transcends class boundaries are all reasons why 40% of the city’s traffic moves on two wheels.

Copenhagen, Denmark - In the Danish capital, nearly a third of the workforce gets to the office by bike. By some estimates, that’s more than 1 million kilometers pedaled every day!

Portland, Oregon - … Most people consider the bike capital of the U.S. The only thing as impressive as Portland’s bicycle infrastructure (including a 260-mile network) and commuter stats (almost 10%, the highest in the country) is the camaraderie of its cyclist community.

Boulder, Colorado- Denver’s little hippy bro to the north dedicates 15% of its transportation budget to improving and promoting bicycle travel. Nearly every major roadway has a designated cycling area, and they’ve even instituted a pilot program to get kids biking to school.

See the entire article for descriptions of 11 other bike friendly cities.

Some of the most popular tourist destinations in the world are religious sites. But you don’t have to be a pilgrim or a spiritual seeker in order to appreciate a sacred place. I’ve recently come across several articles that approach religious tourism from a variety of angles. Take a look.

For starters, the world’s most visited religious destinations. Sure, you can guess that some of the entries would be the Vatican in Rome or the city of Jerusalem in Israel. But there also destinations on the list that are more obscure, at least to Westerners. For instance, among the nine sites are:

Tomb of Imam Reza in Mashad, Iran- The name of Iran’s holiest city translates as “place of martyrdom” — after the eighth Shiite Imam, Reza, a direct descendant of Mohammed. The Imam’s tomb is the most important Shia site in Iran, and estimates of pilgrim numbers range from 12 to 18 million.

Mount Tai in Tai’an, China- Regarded as the first of China’s five sacred mountains of Taoism, Mount Tai is located just north of Tai’an City, in China’s coastal Shandong Province. The mountain served as a sacred retreat for emperors during the ancient Zhou Dynasty, and was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1987. Taishan Temple lies at the foot of the mountain, and some 7,000 stone steps lead to the Azure Clouds Temple at the top. About 7 million visitors come to the mountain each year.

Then, an interesting story on the world’s most unique monasteries and cathedrals, complete with some stunning pictures. There are 11 destinations listed, including:

Church of St. George in Ethiopia- Located in Lalibela, Ethiopia, this rock-hewn church is fascinating in that, upon approach, it appears to be an enormous cross carved down into an enormous rock. At the base, however, one can see its true purpose. It is a church. Created in the early 13th century, it is considered by some to be the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Paro Taktsang in Bhutan- Finished in 1692, this monastery was built around the Taktsang Senge Samdup cave, the most well known of the thirteen “tiger lair caves in which Guru Padmasambhava is believed to have meditated in the 8th century. Legend says the Guru flew to each cave on the back of a tiger, hence the name. The monastery hangs on a cliff roughly 700 meters above the valley floor.

Finally, one person’s view of the ten most beautiful cathedrals of Europe. Yes, Notre Dame of Paris and St. Basil’s of Moscow are on the list. But the eight other selections also include:

Hagia Sophia of Istanbul, Turkey- Former patriarchal basilica, a mosque and now a museum, Hagia Sophia is one of the greatest structures ever built. Created between 532 and 537 as a church on the orders of Justinian, emperor of the Byzantine Empire and home to many holy relics, Hagia Sophia was the Patriarchal church of Constantinople and the religious ground zero of the eastern Orthodox World for almost 1000 years…The greatest example of Byzantine architecture, Hagia Sophia was the largest cathedral in the world for 1000 years, until the completion of the Cathedral of Seville.

Sagrada Familia of Barcelona, Spain- Designed by now famous architect Antonio Gaudi, Sagrada Familia is a Roman Catholic cathedral still under construction in Barcelona. Work on the cathedral started in 1882 and Gaudi himself worked on it for 40 years, 15 of which he dedicated exclusively to it, until his death in 1926. When asked about the deadline of his project, now scheduled to 2026, Gaudi said “My client is not in a hurry.”

The most visited, most unique and most beautiful. A lot of ways to look at travel. What cathedrals or other sacred sites would be on your list?

Sedona, Arizona

Wildflowers and red rocks at dawn. If you’d like to see more photos, check out my 10-picture photo essay of the red rocks of Sedona.

Actually, for less than $14,000 per year. That’s what Nora Dunn promises you can do. The self-styled professional hobo, she recently wrote an article on how to travel full time for a whole lot less money than you’d think it would cost. This is how she introduces herself:

I “retired” from the rat race at the tender age of 30 to embrace my life-long dream of traveling the world, before life had a chance to get in the way.

So far, I have frolicked in the Rocky Mountains, fallen off the grid in Hawaii, managed tropical hostels, survived Australia’s worst-ever natural disaster, led eco-treks on Llamas, and nearly froze to death in a camper van. (The traveling life is rarely a dull one.)

I am not rich. I am not a trust child, nor do I have rich parents, a sugar daddy, or a stream of income that allows me to live the high life on the road. Full time travel doesn’t have to be expensive, and after two years on the road, I’ve learned plenty of tricks to travel the world without breaking the bank, and without an end in sight.

In the article, she provides tips on cheap airfare, free accommodations, working while traveling, rethinking travel expenses, and more. It’s chock full of good information. If you have any desire at all to engage in long-term travel, you need to read her story and take notes.

You’ve done it. Planned a trip to India. Now, what should you know about the country and its customs before you go? Shreya Sanghani has written a guide for you, which was published by Matador Travel and provides an overview of 10 Indian customs that you should know about before your trip. An excerpt:

Questions and eyes - What might be considered intrusive in many Western cultures is only a matter of course in India. Also, people will generally be very curious about foreign visitors, and this can take the form of unabashed staring.

There’s a lack of privacy among the teeming millions of India, and the concept of personal space as you know it might not exist. Try not to take it too personally if people on the street seem to be staring at you all the time, and if Indian acquaintances and friends ask you questions that you think are none of their business. Most of the time, it’s just friendly curiosity, and if you smile at a staring stranger, many times you will get an amicable smile back.

You’ll be hounded - You might be seen as a rich foreigner thanks to the exchange rate, and many times you’ll be followed around by beggars, beckoned into shops by over-eager store keepers, and hailed by expectant taxi drivers. Make sure your local friends tell you what the standard rates are, because if you’re looking to do some great shopping or have a comfortable public transport experience, you need to be in the know.

Indian festivals- With so many religions and cultures, you will come across fairs, celebrations and merrymaking of all kinds. Whether it is the shimmering lights of Diwali, the colors of Holi, the extravaganza of Durga Puja, Navaratri, Onam, Dusshera, Id Ul Fitr and Christmas, you’ll encounter indigenous customs, amazing Indian cuisine and total festive abandonment.

Read the entire article for the other seven Indian tips and customs.

Americans love road trips, and Memorial Day is the traditional kickoff to the summer travel season. So many of the trips we take, though, are to visit national parks or beaches. These are classic journeys and there’s nothing at all wrong with them. But why confine yourself to a traditional road trip? With so many amazing sights and so many miles of roads meandering across the continent, the possibilities are endless for crafting journeys to fit almost any imaginable interest.

To that end, I created my own version of a literary road trip through New England. It brings you to the towns of ten authors, from Mark Twain and Henry David Thoreau to Jack Kerouac and Robert Frost, among others. Along the way, you’ll also encounter some of the prettiest landscapes in the region.

You can read my description of the journey here, and use this Google map to follow along or to plot your own version of this trip.

View Literary New England road trip in a larger map

Hap