by Roy -

This article is written by Shivam Gupta. Shivam is a a traveller at heart and an adventure lover based in New Delhi

I was in Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, about three weeks back. Like always, I didn’t have a Lonely Planet or any other guidebook with me, as I believe they make one reach the touristy popular places and hide the real charm of a place. I was wondering how to explore and experience the real Vietnam while making this travel unique and mine.

At the bar at a backpacker’s hostel I met two guys, English and American respectively, who had just finished touring entire country. They did this on a Honda motorcycle and rode from the Southern part all the way up till Hanoi. When I enquired more, I learned that it took them roughly two weeks and they had purchased the bike and not rented them, which is what I had assumed. This seemed like a wonderful idea to me, as I wanted to witness the authentic culture, meet real people and go with the flow. Also, it sounded much better than booking tourist packages and taking buses/trains from one city to another.

Within a few days, after more research and enquiries, I found out that these Honda/Sym/Suzuki bikes can be bought by a foreigner for anything between US$ 500-1000 depending on the condition, year of manufacture etc. However, there was one make that was way cheaper and had a classic feel to it – the MINSK, an old soviet make which is hardly ever seen on the roads as they aren’t manufactured anymore but is commonly used by working class heroes to transport pigs, cows and bags of rice from a village to another.

A black Minsk

I bought it for 275$ from an Austrian tourist and spent another 20$ tuning her up at a local workshop. It’s a 125 cc, single cylinder, classic black Minsk.

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 225 user reviews.

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by Roy -

This article is written by Ajay Jain

Wherever you have tourists, you will have souvenir and trinket sellers. And some of them make for great portraits. Like the two Bedouin women I met in Petra.

They were selling interestingly shaped stones, bead necklaces, bracelets, rings, little statuettes and other souvenirs. And dolls made of rags. When they saw me taking me pictures, they cooperated but kept emphasizing I buy a doll from them. I would have had they not been asking JD 20 for it (One Jordanian Dinar = US$ 1.4 / Indian Rs. 65 approx). The negotiations continued as I clicked – we eventually settled for one JD for each as a tip – no purchase. When I say we settled, I mean I offered and stuck to it!

I would have loved to chat them up but there was a language barrier naturally. The only common vocabulary were ‘dinar’ and the amounts. Many Bedouins continue to live their traditional nomadic ways, earning money through petty professions like these. Many of them still stay within Petra – and Government efforts to relocate them have failed. The former see Petra as their ancestral home, and refuse to cooperate. One would not imagine that ‘subjects’ can defy their ‘king’ like they would in a purely democratic set up, but apparently there are those who do – and get away with it.

Ajay Jain

2 Nov 2010

http://kunzum.com/2010/11/02/jordan-petra-say-hello-to-the-bedouin-women/

 

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 155 user reviews.

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by Roy -

The Amazon rainforest, Vietnam’s Halong Bay and Argentina’s Iguazu Falls were named among the world’s new seven wonders of nature, according to organisers of a global poll.

The Halong Bay, Vietnam

The other four crowned the world’s natural wonders are South Korea’s Jeju Island, Indonesia’s Komodo, the Philippines’ Puerto Princesa Underground River and South Africa’s Table Mountain, said the New7Wonders foundation, citing provisional results.

Final results will be announced early 2012, said the Swiss foundation, warning there may yet be changes between the provisional winners and the final list.

Sites that have failed to make the cut include Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro, the Dead Sea and the US Grand Canyon.

Jeju Island South Korea

Residents of Jeju welcomed the announcement, with a 2, 000-strong crowd  bursting into cheers of “We made it”, the Yonhap news agency reported.

Jeju Govenor Woo Geun-Min said the listing would open “a new chapter” for the island’s tourism industry.

“This will greatly help attract tourists to Jeju, enhance investment and bolster awareness about Jeju’s agricultural products, ” he told journalists. The island is renowned for its tangerines.

The poll organized by Swiss foundation New 7 Wonders has attracted great interest, mobilising celebrities including Argentinian football star Lionel Messi calling on fans to pick his home country’s Iguazu Falls.

The results come after a long consultation process lasting from December 2007 to July 2009, when world citizens were asked to put forward sites which they deemed were natural wonders.
More than a million votes were cast to trim the list of more than 440 contenders in over 220 countries down to a shortlist of 77.

The group was then further cut to 28 finalists by a panel of experts.

Anyone in the world was then able to vote for the final seven via telephone, text messages or Internet social networks.

Founded in 2001 by filmmaker Bernard Weber in Zurich, the foundation New7Wonders is based on the same principle on which the seven ancient wonders of the world were established. That list of seven wonders was attributed to Philon of Byzantium in ancient Greece.

New 7 Wonders said its aim is to create a global memory by garnering participation worldwide.
But even as the natural wonders poll came to a close, the New 7 Wonders foundation has set its eyes on a new survey — the top seven cities of the world. Participating cities will be announced on January 1, 2012.

28 Nov 2011

http://travel.hindustantimes.com/travel-stories/7wonders.php

Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 269 user reviews.

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