Issue 2
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COMET - MAY 1998 - ISSUE 2 For people who like their travel news down loaded, not loaded down. Brought to you by Lonely Planet (http://www.lonelyplanet.com) IN THIS ISSUE The Scoop - Travel News From Around the Globe In the Spotlight - Is Travel in Cambodia Still in the Too-Hard Basket? Two Cents Worth - Have Your Say in the Comet Poll Compass - Follow Your Nose For a Chance to Win LP Books Top 5 - Weird Stuff From Some Out-There Readers The Grill - Inside a Greenpeace Backpack Soapbox - To Hell and Back Q & A - Tarot, Astrology and Tibetan Border Crossings You Said it - Travellers' Tales & Tips What's New On the LP Web Site Talk 2 Us How to Subscribe and Unsubscribe *** Issue 2 - May 98? No, you didn't sleep through April and miss an issue. We launched Comet towards the end of March, but we really want to hit you with all the latest travel news, views and competitions at the start of every month rather than the end. So we've skipped right over April and gone straight to May. Expect to see Comet on your desktop at the start of each month from now on. *** THE SCOOP A handful of headlines for world travellers Argentina The Argentine government has waived the need for tourists to obtain a visa for a stay of up to three months. Multiple entries are permitted, and travellers in Argentina wanting to extend their stay by a further three months can apply for an extension (although a fee may apply). Short term business travellers aren't covered by the waiver and must still obtain a visa. Ireland The latest in package tours to Northern Ireland incorporates a bit of 'reality tourism': visits to IRA inmates in Long Kesh prison, the opportunity to march in the annual famine walk and a stay with a Catholic family on Falls Road in Belfast, the site of many bloody confrontations between Catholics and Protestants. Organisers of the tours to Ireland believe many travellers are now looking for more 'meaningful and outward looking' travel opportunities. Japan All Nippon Airways (ANA) will temporarily suspend its strike until early May, when Golden Week holidays commence. The strike by ANA pilots and crew, over reduction of salaries, began in early April and has caused major disruptions to international air services. Find out what else is happening on your planet: http://www.lonelyplanet.com.au/news/newsweek.htm *** IN THE SPOTLIGHT Does Cambodia's rocky political landscape make it a no-go zone for travellers? If you're planning a visit to Cambodia you've probably been watching recent events there closely. Pol Pot's death certainly made the front pages, but things were hardly uneventful before that. Prince Norodom Ranariddh's visit in late March sparked off a wave of violence and protests in the streets of Phnom Penh, giving the city a taste of the pre-election jitters. Presidential elections are due in July, but the democratic process hasn't really taken hold and any unrest is still likely to spill over into trouble. This time around it was limited to supporters of opposing parties throwing rocks and sticks, but almost any violence in Cambodia these days is likely to resonate with ghosts of the recent past. But don't go cancelling your plans just yet. Chris Taylor, a Lonely Planet author who visited Cambodia recently, says the country is tense, but safer for travellers than it was when the current edition of the book was published in 1996. Read on at: http://www.lonelyplanet.com.au/news/news.htm *** TWO CENTS WORTH Travellers rest their weary bones in some odd places at times. In Cappadocia, Turkey, you can rent a room in a pension carved out of volcanic rock in the Goreme Valley. In northern Queensland, Australia, you can kip in a tree house at Mission Beach. And of course if you're trekking up a mountain or sailing around an archipelago, just about any cosy cliff face or nice, soft deck will do. Where's the most unusual place you've ever slept on your travels? Have your say on the Thorn Tree: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/choice/adtt.htm *** COMPASS Okay, okay. We have to admit you WERE pretty good last month. Loads of Comet readers picked our mystery destination, which was the Hanging Church (also known as Al-Muallaqa - the suspended, Sitt Marium or St Mary's) in Cairo, Egypt. The lucky winners were: Norman Albi, Atilla, Marise Bout, Erik Jan Braakman, J Clark, Shirley J Cook, Chuck Danek, Murray Deerbon, Vicki Dunstan, Barbara Fudge, Carlos Gajardo, Jean-Pierre Golay, Simone Halpin, Tania Maddigan, Eduardo Montuani, Patrik Steijvers, Beruta Sunaklis, Gianni Vernetti, Debra Walcot and Ian Wee. So this month we're going to make things a little harder. Name the festival described below (and town, region and country that hosts it), and we'll put you in the draw for 20 Lonely Planet prize packs, each containing a new Deep South guidebook, USA phrasebook and Sean Condon's new road book 'Drive Thru America' (published by Lonely Planet's travel literature series, Journeys). It's Christmas Eve and you're floating down a powerful river in darkness. The 20-foot-tall tepee-shaped wooden structures lining the river bank that you saw earlier in the day have disappeared into the night, and all you can hear above the chugging of your boat are the distant screams of kids at the carnival back in town. From somewhere in the thronging crowd on the river bank a uniformed official checks the direction of the wind and gives the anticipated signal. Suddenly the sky bursts into flames and the river is illuminated by the bright light of hundreds of bonfires scattered alongside it for more than 19 kilometres. Think your internal compass is working? Email us at: comet@lonelyplanet.com.au *** TOP 5 Comet readers sent us some great Top 5's this month. For its sheer perversity, we couldn't go past Matthew Feierabend & Diane Robinson's contribution: the five most morbid destinations in the world. 1. The 'Rat Temple' (Karni Mata Temple), Deshnok, Rajasthan, India. In this temple, rats are revered as priests as it is believed they will be reincarnated as holy people. Watch the rats eating all the vegetarian food left out for them while scratching their greasy flanks, biting one anothers' scabby ears and running over people's feet (even yours if you're not careful). Devotees eat the leftover food once the rats have finished with it, believing it will bring them good luck. (A dose of hepatitis is more likely.) 2. The shrine to Maximon in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. Santiago Atitlan, a village by a Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, hosts Maximon, the saint of booze and cigarettes. Come and watch healing ceremonies at which a sick person is covered with old clothes and then soaked in alcohol spat from the mouth of a priest. Avoid the drunken priests as they reel about, shaking herbs over people to remove evil spirits. Gawp at the doll, Maximon, which is coated with scarves. Priests stick lit cigars in its mouth and pour alcohol down its throat (which they drain out later and drink themselves). 3. The 'Museum of the Mummies' (Museo de las Momias) in Guanajuato, Mexico. The Museum of the Mummies contains many dead people lying or standing in glass cases in dramatic positions, all with dry, brown skin like old paper through which the bones show. Some still have teeth or eyes. The volcanic soil in Guanajuato preserves the bodies. When, in the 19th century, people could no longer afford the rent to keep their relatives buried in the cemetery, the rellies were dug up and were to be burned. Once the government saw their mummified state, it put them on display instead. The mummies were initially propped up against the walls but visitors took bits of them as souvenirs, hence the protective glass cases. This is truly a museum to die for. 4. Skull Island, near Munda in the Solomon Islands. In the early part of this century, missionaries to the Solomon Islands, horrified by the people's headhunting habits, ordered them to burn the skulls of their enemies they kept as proof of their superior power and the skulls of chiefs they kept out of respect. Instead, the people transported the skulls in secret to an island, where they continued to worship them. The skulls rest on mounds of coral and grin inanely through the palm trees. Skulls of past chiefs are kept in carved wooden caskets. The island can be reached by boat from Munda. 5. Palace and Hall of Justice (The Kertha Gosa) in Klungkung on Bali, Indonesia. See murals of demons sticking poles into every orifice imaginable of their suffering victims. The demons grin in delight as the blood spurts and the victims writhe. Not for the squeamish. Matthew & Diane picked up a free LP guide for their trouble. If you think you've got a winning idea for a Top 5 on anything from the most inspiring cities for an artist to live in to the best rainforest treks in the world, send it to us and we may publish it in an up-coming issue of Comet. Email us at: comet@lonelyplanet.com.au *** THE GRILL Time to grill Karen Rickard, assistant to the campaign manager at Greenpeace Australia, on the art of travel. COMET: Where were you when you discovered nature at its best? KAREN: I can't decide - either on the Zambezi River or on top of Mt Kilimanjaro. COMET: In which foreign country do you feel most like a local? KAREN: In South Africa, for two main reasons: their sense of humour and the SKY! The stars are the same as ours. COMET: When were you so scared you nearly forgot to breathe? KAREN: I was slightly lost on the last night of climbing Mt Kilimanjaro and getting hallucinations from hypoxia. I thought the mountain had me. COMET: Where are the best sunsets on the face of the earth? KAREN: In the Okavango Delta in Botswana. COMET: What's the dumbest advice you've ever given while on the road? KAREN: It was in Amsterdam: "No, let's go to one of those cafes BEFORE we go and get our new tattoos." *** SOAPBOX The Thorn Tree, LP's on-line travellers' bulletin board, has been to Hell (Norway) and back since mid-April, when Jay first mused about the most bizarre place names in the world. Truffledog's early (and largely unprintable) contributions sent travellers thumbing through their old journals, battered road maps and perhaps even the odd atlas for some nominations of their own. Two weeks and 78 posts later, we'd been on a whirlwind tour of Chunky (Alabama), Dildo (Newfoundland) and Moron (Mongolia). Not content to stop there, we headed on through Lizard Lick (North Carolina) Normal (Illinois), Monkey's Elbow (Kentucky) and Toad Suck (Arkansas) before taking a break in Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (Canada). Of course, no journey to weird sounding places would be complete without a brief mention of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (Wales) which, as everyone knows, means 'St Mary's Church in the Hollow at the White Hazel Near a Rapid Whirlpool and the Church of St Tysilio of the Red Cave'. Keep driving down the road to Weirdsville: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/choice/fdtt.htm Or burn rubber to another branch of the Thorn Tree and create a post of your own: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorn/thorn.htm *** Q&A Every month we receive a mind-boggling range of questions from travellers on everything from arranging a round of golf in Scotland via the Internet to whether rooms in budget hotels listed in our guides include refrigerators. (Er, not usually.) One ageless and evergreen question from confused travellers is how to get into Tibet from China or Nepal independently without wasting hard-earned cash on an official (and unwanted) tour of the capital, Lhasa. If we had a psychic official from the Chinese authorities on staff, we'd probably be able to give you a firm answer - the rules seem to be a well kept secret and change from week to week. We regularly receive conflicting reports from travellers about the 'latest' rules being enforced. In March, Don, John and Krisztina wrote to us about some of the conflicting advice they received from the authorities in just one month. The group entered Tibet on a group visa with two other travellers. In Lhasa, they decided to split up the group visa and try to extend their stay on individual visas. The PSB (China's Public Security Bureau) told them this was possible but would cost US$75.00 per person, although if they travelled to Chengdu (in China) they could get cheaper visas for an extended period. Three of the five went to Chengdu, only to discover the cheaper visas were for a maximum 20 day extension only and no individual visas were issued. LP author Robert Storey returned from Tibet recently. Here's his advice: The good news is that the Lhasa-Kathmandu road reopened in 1993 after being closed to foreigners for over three years. The bad news is that there are still a few bureaucratic hurdles to clear - you will have to pay for an unwanted tour in Lhasa and there is a shortage of public transport on the Chinese side. Travel agents in Kathmandu can make all the arrangements. The first problem is visas. Yes, you can get Chinese visas in Nepal, but you officially have to be booked on to an organised tour and you will definitely not be given more than one month. If possible, get your visa somewhere else (such as Hong Kong) and ask for a two month visa if you plan to do extensive travelling in China. The next thing is the mandatory Lhasa tour. All foreigners wanting to visit Tibet must book a three-day tour around Lhasa - whether they want it or not - for a cost of roughly US$100. This sounds cheap until you realise that the tour lasts about two hours a day for three days. The tour operator is usually unwilling to go anywhere until there are 10 people in the group, so if you're travelling solo, you may have to wait until enough people arrive to make quorum. Transport is the next hurdle. Public buses operate on the Nepalese side right up to the border, but there's not much activity on the Tibetan side. People going from Lhasa to Nepal normally get to the border by rented jeep, and since the jeeps return home empty, the drivers are more than happy to find travellers waiting at the border looking for rides to Lhasa. Average prices are Y700 to Y1000 per person to Lhasa, but you can bargain. The problem is you might have to wait a while for an available jeep. There are regular bus services to Shigatse, from where there are daily buses to Lhasa, but buses between Lhasa and the border only run three or four times a month. Walking from the border to Lhasa is not recommended, but going by bicycle might be feasible. The trouble is the Chinese authorities. Some travellers are allowed to go by bike and some aren't. The Chinese themselves do not seem to know the rules, and finding out what will be permitted next week or next month requires a knowledge of astrology, crystal ball reading or tarot cards. Got a question for your fellow travellers? http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorn/thorn.htm *** YOU SAID IT Some of the latest UNVERIFIED reports & tips from travellers Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a pleasant and relaxing country that has an interesting and strange love of Bob Marley. I was there for the anniversary of his death on 11 May, and around this time many people go Marley mad. Marley music was everywhere. In Bobo students dressed in fake dreadlocks, and in Ouagadougou there was an absurd Bob Marley concert. It was, in fact, not a concert at all, but a series of people dressing up as Bob and miming along to his tunes. This was fun but it got weirder with the introduction of a horse on stage, followed by a mock coffin, a cat and a beautiful white dove (that we all knew would eventually get sliced up in the overhead fans). (M D Tinker, March 98) Cambodia As an alternative to the usual sights, why not try a massage by the blind masseurs of 'Seeing Hands', which is part of the NCDP handicapped centre on Norodom Boulevarde in Phnom Penh. A one hour massage costs US$3 and is very relaxing. (Martin Gray, January 98) Finland All ferry lines running between Stokholm and Finland (Turku, Helsinki and Mariehamn) offer super cheap 'cruises' (kryssningar) for a couple of dollars. These are usually good for two nights on the ferry and a full day in Finland. If you're just looking for a one-way ticket, you can book into one of these and then just hop off in Finland. It's cheaper than buying a (regular) one-way ticket. Ray Baker (March 98) Japan KSC is a monthly magazine published in Kyoto. It is the organ of the Kyoto Social Club, produced by volunteers and (so far) non-profit. The magazine is free and can be found in Maruzen Bookstore, the Pig & Whistle and many other locations around Kyoto. It includes a nice restaurant guide: all the restaurants listed have been thoroughly checked out by KSC dinner party groups. KSC club offers an alternative to sitting around in 'foreigners' bars'. We organise dinner parties, picnics, seminars etc. The club has no political or religious affiliations. Its Web site features up to date, useful information about Kyoto, including the contact details of English schools and consulates and emergency telephone numbers: http://www.geisya.or.jp/~techedit/ksc (Michael Wilkins, April 98) Sri Lanka In Beruwela, Sri Lanka, we were advised not to talk to the beach boys but always to go on the expensive organised trips. We talked to other travellers, some of whom suggested that we speak to Ronnie, one of the local lads. We tried him out on a river trip and it was good valued so we decided to go further afield. We eventually used Ronnie as our guide, interpreter and booking clerk on a personalised trip to all the places we most wanted to see. We also managed to avoid all the things we didn't want to see (like the 'cultural dances' - sorry, but if you came to England would you want to see Morris Dancing?). We weren't herded around as you are on organised trips, we stayed as long as we wanted to, we learnt an enormous amount about Buddhism, the Tamils and Sri Lankan cricket and it worked out cheaper because we weren't paying a commission. The money goes directly into the pockets of locals. (Andy Crowe, March 98) Take me to your reader. For more travellers' tales: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/postcards.htm *** WHAT'S NEW ON THE LP WEB SITE Good Gobi, it's Mongolia! Take a wander into nomad's land: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/dest/nea/mon.htm Bask on the sunny side of the alps in Slovenia: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/dest/eur/slo.htm Isabella Tree shakes a tail feather with Papua New Guinean highlanders in Islands in the Clouds: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/journeys/islands/islands.htm Raise the dust in Mexico or raise a pint in London - just two of the books hot off the press this month: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/prop/newlist.htm#out Up-coming guidebook releases include Chicago, Venezuela and Bahamas, Turks & Caicos - perfect for starting dreaming or getting packing: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/prop/newlist.htm#soon You can find Lonely Planet: On the web at: http://www.lonelyplanet.com On AOL (keyword: lp) And on Minitel (3615 lonelyplanet) *** TALK 2 US Is Comet the greatest thing to happen to travellers since a broke Swiss soldier decided to hock his knife, or about as useful as a backpack full of wet matches? Let us know how we're doing: talk2us@lonelyplanet.com.au *** SUBSCRIBE & UNSUBSCRIBE Subscribing and unsubscribing to Comet is dead easy. Do it all from your desktop. To subscribe: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/comet To unsubscribe: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/comet/uncomet.htm Don't have web access? Send us an email and we'll do it for you: comet@lonelyplanet.com.au Lonely Planet now produces two different newsletters: Comet (monthly via email) and Planet Talk (quarterly via snail mail and bookshops). If you're currently on the mailing list for Lonely Planet's quarterly printed newsletter, Planet Talk, but would prefer to receive Comet instead, let us know: comet@lonelyplanet.com.au COPYRIGHT All material in Planet Talk is copyright (c) 1998 Lonely Planet Publications. All rights reserved. Although we have tried to make the information in Comet as accurate as possible, the authors and publishers accept no responsibility for any loss, injury or inconvenience sustained by any person using this newsletter.
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