Archive for July, 2007
The traveling chef
Anthony Bourdain is a well known author and host of the Travel Channel show No Reservations, where he expounds on the topics of food and travel. Recently, he did an online interview with the website Gadling. An excerpt: How did you get interested in travel? Were your foreign experiences limited to your trips to France [...]
Can soccer unite Iraq?
The sport of soccer appears to have achieved – if only temporarily – what politicians have failed at, which is to unite Iraqis across sectarian divisions. The underdog Iraq national team pulled off an improbable series of upsets, defeating Vietnam in the quarterfinals, South Korea in the semifinals, and then three-time champion Saudi Arabia in the [...]
Do the French think too much?
That’s the question posed in this recent article in the International Herald Tribune, which in turn quotes from a debate taking place among some French leaders. France is the country that produced the Enlightenment, Descartes’s one-liner, “I think, therefore I am,” and the solemn pontifications of Jean-Paul Sartre and other celebrity philosophers. But in the [...]
Bolivians love fiestas
There is a short but entertaining article in the Christian Science Monitor about how fiestas are ingrained into the Bolivian way of life. Our cab turned a corner in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, on a rather drab, wet, Sunday afternoon, onto a spectacle of twirling skirts and top hats, as women danced down the street. [...]
Things we take for granted
Like, um, light. I was struck by this Associated Press story about students in the African nation of Guinea who spend their evenings in the airport parking lot so they can study under the street lamps there. The sun has set in one of the world’s poorest nations and as the floodlights come on at [...]
Making a home in Shanghai
Talk about a change in lifestyle. Emily Prager just wrote an interesting story for the NY Times about her decision to uproot her life and leave New York City in order to move to Shanghai. I left Manhattan a year ago, after a lifetime there…I decided to move myself and my 12-year-old daughter, Lulu – whom I [...]
The allure of Easter Island
Easter Island may not have been voted in as one of the world’s new seven wonders recently, but that doesn’t lessen the allure of the place for those travelers willing to make the long journey to this Pacific island. David Swanson recently wrote for the Boston Globe about his own experiences there. Travel to the ends [...]
Traffic and culture
Does a country’s culture influence its traffic conditions? Sure, why not? After all, some countries have orderly traffic in which a majority of drivers adhere to rules, whether they like them or not, and other countries have seemingly more chaotic roadways, but nevertheless a traffic system that is understood and followed by locals. These things [...]
Kashmir – tourist heaven or disaster area?
That’s the question posed by Washington Post writer Emily Wax, who contrasted the considerable beauty and charms of this South Asian locale with the violence that comes with being a disputed border territory between India and Pakistan. The heavenly side of Kashmir… Everyone from Buddha to Led Zeppelin found inspiration in the stunningly beautiful Kashmir Valley, with [...]
Japanese juries face cultural obstacles
In the U.S., the system of jury-based decisions is a commonly accepted foundation of our legal culture. Not everyone relishes the prospect of reporting for jury duty, of course, but no one questions the basis of a legal system in which individuals are judged by a jury. That isn’t the case everywhere, however, not even in every [...]
To Hades and back
That’s how Diane Speare Triant described her recent trip to Greece’s beautiful Mani Peninsula, where some ancients had suggested the entrance to Hades was located. When someone poses that perennial question, “What did you do on your vacation?” our family has a zinger of a response: “We went to Hades and back!” To be sure, Mani [...]
Tech savvy Koreans still consult shamans
South Korea may be a technically savvy country (it has one of the highest per capita rates of broadband internet subscribers in the world, well ahead of the U.S.), but that doesn’t stop them from consulting shamans when they need a little luck or assistance. According to this article, in fact, shamanism in Korea is more popular than [...]
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Bob Riel is a writer and a traveler. Go here to read more about Bob, his work and the Travels in the Riel World blog.
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My travel memoir - Two Laps Around the World: Tales and Insights from a Life Sabbatical - is about two round-the-world journeys with my wife.
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