Intelligent Travel

Amy Tan's Hidden China

Photo of Dimen Village by Lynn Johnson

In May's all-China issue of National Geographic, novelist Amy Tan explores life in a minority ethnic village deep in the green mountains of Guizhou in southern China. The village might as well be in another millennium, as the Dong people who live there follow the same lifestyle as their ancestors did 1,200 years ago. Their language has no written form, so they preserve their heritage through songs that have been passed down through generations. Here's an excerpt from Tan's story about the village Dimen:

In Dimen people sing nearly every day. In classrooms students sit with perfect posture at their desks. They repeat in perfect a cappella pitch what their teacher has just sung. On weekends a troupe of older girls dressed in jeans and pink tops stand before the Singing Teacher and practice fast-paced songs, each taking a solo. Two gravelly voiced elderly women, respectfully called za by all, guide the younger children in reciting simpler chorals.

One of the za has blue-tinged eyes. At first I thought this was a genetic remnant of outsiders who had come through the region—perhaps foreign traders diverted from the Silk Road. Dimen has had many invaders, the blue-eyed za told me. "In 1920 a Chinese warlord kidnapped my mother's 16-year-old aunt to make her his ninth concubine. No one heard from her again." In those days, the blue-eyed za said, people who came stole our things and killed people. Each time, she and her family put sticky rice in their baskets and ran into the mountains to hide.

When the za asked me for eyedrops, complaining that her eyes were cloudy, I realized the blue in her eyes was cataracts. Several people had already told me she was the only one who knew all 120 verses of the epic song of Dimen's history, hours of a bluesy repetitive melody. According to this anthem, the original Dong ancestors of Dimen began as a people who wore no clothes. Invaders had driven their descendants to Dimen. "That old song is boring," two teenage girls later told me. "We're too busy to learn something we don't like."

You can hear a sampling of the songs of this village here, and see more amazing images from Lynn Johnson online at National Geographic magazine's website.

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On the Ground in Myanmar

National Geographic Traveler is always looking to highlight the work of tour companies with strong ties to to their communities. So we were glad to hear that one such company is using its business infrastructure to support disaster relief efforts. Lindsay Thompson, U.S. director of Journeys Within Our Community, sends us a report on aid to cyclone victims in Myanmar:

A week after the devastating cyclone in Myanmar, supplies and relief workers are still being delayed into the country to provide help, support and supplies. Fortunately, organizations like Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC), a non-profit based in the region, are already in the disaster areas, doing targeted, on-the-ground response with its local staff in Yangon. Coordination is underway to aid in providing shelter and provisions for the thousands of families and children in urgent need of help.

With an estimated 100,000 people dead, 41,000 missing, millions homeless, widespread flooding and destruction of homes, the race is on to prevent further death and the spread of disease in southern Myanmar. Critical resources such as food, clean water, basic medicines and mosquito nets are desperately needed as people seek refuge from the floods.    

Because of JWOC's already-standing relationship with communities who have been affected by cyclone Negris, our relief workers are dedicating their efforts to finding solutions for local problems, such as at orphanages, schools, shelters, etc., that aren't getting direct help from larger relief efforts.

Donations are being accepted immediately at www.journeyswithinourcommunity.org, all of which (as in 100%) will go to helping those in need on the ground in Myanmar.

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Tour Guide: World Summit of Indigenous Cultures

IT contributor Erica Schlaikjer will be attending the World Summit of Indigenous Cultures, and offers an invitation to anyone else able to attend.

For those of you traveling to Asia this month, consider attending the World Summit of Indigenous Cultures, which will be held in Taiwan from April 12-17. The two-day conference and subsequent three-day tour of the island's indigenous areas aims to bring together a diverse representation of the world's indigenous peoples — from artists to government leaders — to discuss the intersections between cultural heritage, globalization, and the environment.

The conference's formal list of speakers includes people from the Philippines' Kalinawa Art Foundation, Australia's Seed Savers' Network (via video presentation), and the Taiwan Indigenous Enterprise and Economic Development Association (TICEDA). They'll be exploring these themes including:

1. Indigenous environmental wisdom and protection of the earth's environment;
2. Indigenous belief systems today; and
3. Developing indigenous enterprise.

The tour, which follows the conference, will explore social interactions in Paiwan and Rukai villages, make a visit to a "hunting school" in Taitung and a wetlands conservation project in Mataian, and discover the intricacies of the Pasibutbut, a harvest song of the Bunun tribe that is known for its complex harmonies (you can watch a video of the song here).

Project Manila

While fact-checking Traveler’s City Life department, I frequently discover intriguing city-themed blogs — irreverent, beautiful, informative, and hilarious slices of life. And on some occasions, I reach out to local bloggers to help me track down elusive facts, like phone numbers for tiny cupcake shops in the Philippines or nightclubs in Senegal. Meet Rick Manzano, photographer and author of Project Manila, a photo-driven blog that aims “to change how people perceive Manila.” Read more about Manila in the April issue of Traveler (on newsstands now!).

If you could recommend one part of Manila to visitors hoping to catch an authentic glimpse of the city, what would you suggest?

That would be Malate. The buildings are just fantastic. They may be old and some of them dilapidated, but they tell a lot of stories of how the culture and lifestyles were decades ago. I'm a sucker for good architecture and rich history.

What are a few must-do Manila experiences, in your opinion?

Our Indian friend, whom we met in Kuala Lumpur, flew to Manila a few months ago. My friends and I agreed to have her drink San Mig Light, a famous local beer, and try duck embryo ("balut") and grilled chicken intestines ("isaw"). Personally, I think that's one of the many authentic Manila experiences I'm sure she's going to remember, because certainly she doesn't have that at home. 

How would you describe Manila to someone who's never been before?

I'm pretty sure everybody's got a bittersweet relationship with this city. It's not exactly the cleanest nor the safest. But the contrast makes it all interesting because, I think, more often than not, we find beauty in the midst of imperfections.

What's your favorite neighborhood in Manila? Tell us about it.

I grew up in the southern part of metro Manila (Alabang, Muntinlupa area), which is considered the suburbs. I lived inside a very peaceful subdivision where trees are abundant and birds wake you up in the morning. It's a few minutes' drive to the malls and there are a lot of food joints around. I always enjoy going to a nearby gasoline station—we have coffee shops and restaurants there—to catch up with close friends and enjoy nice conversations.

Photo: Rick Manzano

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China's Go for Gold Campaign

Former National Geographic intern, and friend of IT Erica Schlaikjer is currently living in Taiwan, where she writes and edits the Responsible China blog, which looks at "environmental sustainability, social entrepreneurship, and corporate social responsibility in Greater China." She sends along this report about Beijing's efforts to offset athletes' carbon count.

WWF China recently created the Go For Gold campaign, an initiative that that encourages Olympic athletes, National Olympic Committees, and individual tourists to offset the carbon emissions from their air travel to Beijing for this summer's Olympic Games. Before you hop on that plane, consider that a round-trip journey from New York to Beijing will emit about 6.5 tons of carbon. It'll cost about $137 to offset, which sounds like a lot, but when you consider the hefty price tag of the ticket that you bought to emit those greenhouse gases in the first place, it doesn't seem so bad.

According to WWF China's "green olympics" Web site:

On March 27th, 2007, WWF began a global campaign urging Olympic athletes to "Go for Gold." That is, to donate the equivalent cost of the carbon emissions from their flights to meet the Gold Standard – or equivalent – offsetting projects. These include wind turbines in Madagascar, solar power projects in Costa Rica, biomass projects in India, and other energy efficiency initiatives. It is expected that China projects will begin soon.

By signing on, as individual athletes or an entire Olympic delegation, participants can become a member of the global team in the race against climate change. Even before the Olympic Games commence, these team members will already be taking home the gold for their efforts in offsetting their carbon emissions.

WWF China has a list of suggested sites to help offset your emissions. To hear an interview with WWF China representative Dermot O'Gorman, check out this podcast from ResponsibleChina.com.

Image: WWF Go For Gold

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Cambodia's "Unsettling" Developments

[UPDATE: The AP has a story that looks not only at the issues facing the temples at Angkor Wat, but the monks who reside in the area as well. The author quotes a local prince about the influx of tourists: "For many tourists, coming to Luang Prabang is like going on safari, but our monks are not monkeys or buffaloes."]

Renovation workers warn that water table damage in Angkor Wat could enable the temples to slowly sink

After long years of internal strife at the hands of the militant group the Khmer Rouge, tourism to Cambodia is now booming, with over 2 million visitors arriving last year. But, as we have noted before, a sudden influx of tourists can been a mixed blessing, especially when the necessary oversight is not in place to help stem the surge.

So a recent piece in the Independent did little to assuage our fears for the region. Writer Rob Sharp described the slew of problems facing Angkor Wat, the massive, intricately-carved sandstone temples which are a World Heritage Site, and are now on every tourists' must-see list. Sharp writes:

According to heritage experts carrying out restoration work at the temple, which is one of the biggest sets of religious ruins in the world, a plethora of new hotels, cashing in on the country's near-exponential rise in tourist numbers, is sapping gallons of water from beneath nearby urban areas. They say this could upset the delicate foundations on which Angkor Wat sits and could lead to parts of it—including its famous celestial apsara, or carved nymphs—taking an unheavenly tumble to earth.

Tour Guide: Guerillas in the Midst

We've done a fair share of reporting about gorilla tours and the assorted conflicts they face, but we were interested to hear about guerilla-run tours offered by Aceh Explorer Adventure Tours, which delve into the long history of conflicts in the Aceh region of Indonesia. Aceh's abundant natural resources of oil, gas, and timber were the fodder for the 30-year fight for independence between Aceh inhabitants and the Indonesian army, who relied on the island's resources for their economy. But after the tsunami devastated the region, the Indonesian troops pulled out and rebel groups received amnesty. Reuters reports that now, with a growing need for economic development in the region, tourism is quickly taking hold:

The treks in the northwestern tip of Indonesia are an attempt to lift Aceh out of poverty by developing local tourism projects and reviving the crippled economy after a 30-year conflict and a devastating tsunami in 2004. So just as tourists in Vietnam can scramble through the Cu Chi tunnels used by the Vietcong in the Vietnam war, visitors to Aceh can see where the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) hid from or fought against the Indonesian army (TNI) until as recently as 2005 when the two sides signed a peace agreement...[T]ourists scramble over sharp rocky trails, past teak trees cloaked in creepers, and alongside pristine waterfalls and sparkling rock pools.

Wanting to learn more, we wrote to Mendel Pols, Aceh Explorers founder, to get the scoop on how exactly one convinces former guerillas to be tour guides. The Dutch national, who moved to Aceh in 2004, a month before the tsunami struck, quickly got back to us with the details...

Global Eye: Batu Caves, Malaysia

"Descend," Batu Caves, Malaysia

Photographer: Nisa' Haron, Portland, Oregon.

Details: I photographed the image using my Canon EOS 30D. Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500), Aperture: f/5 , Focal Length: 60 mm.

Getting the shot: As I was leaving the temple and descending down the 272 steps, I spotted this East Indian girl behind me holding on to her beautiful sari and a flower. I quickly photographed her but decided that an image of her from the back would be beautiful. I started climbing back up and did just that. I was lucky . . . the tourists were not anywhere in sight within those few moments!

We like the details of the flowers and how the bright colors of the dress pop out against the gray stone. Have you got a photo you think is worthy of Global Eye? Add it to our Flickr pool.

Photo: Nisa' Haron via Flickr

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Global Eye: South Korea

Photographer: Nancie McKinnon, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. I currently live and work in Daejeon, South Korea.

Getting the shot: June 10th, 2007, at Nuns Temple, Daejeon, South Korea.

The Details: I was a participant in a temple stay program at Jakwangsa Temple (which I highly recommend), and we did a walk to other temples in the area. The Nun's Temple is used by female Buddhist nuns, and as you can see from the photo is beautifully painted and well maintained.

We like the extreme colors in the picture, and wouldn't mind having one of those dragon heads on our wall.

Is your picture worthy of making it to Global Eye? Send your pics to the Intelligent Travel Flickr pool!

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China's New Bus: Zen or Hell?

Ten countries, 16 days, one bus full of intrepid travelers. Sound like the makings for a ridiculous reality TV show? Nope, it’s the Butterfly Bus (which just launched as BuddhaBus, but underwent a spitfire-fast name change to avoid religious offense): an “overland adventure” (in their words). Departing from London, the bus slogs its way to Urumqi, Xinjiang Province, China, in an extreme model of slow travel.

Traversing almost 5,000 miles, passengers along the way sleep over in Warsaw, Kiev, Moscow, Samara, Chelyabinsk, Kostanay, Astana, Lake Balkhash, Almaty, Korgas, and Urumqi. The bus company promotes itself as an eco-friendly mode of transport, touting two tons of spared carbon dioxide emissions compared to a flight from London to Urumqi. The inaugural bus is set to depart September 6 and will cost a hefty £795 ($1,600) one-way or £1,295 ($2,612) round-trip.

Of course, such an unusual journey comes with a few quirky requirements, like, say, transit visas for Russia, Kazakhstan, and China. Critics have been quick to line up against the ambitious launch.

Kyrgyzstan: The New North Pole

Issyk Kul Lake, Kyrgyzstan

Santa Claus is making his rounds early this year. And his first stop: Kyrgyzstan.

Why Kyrgyzstan, you ask? Swedish consulting firm Sweco found that the mountainous country was the most logical place to expedite his world-spanning travels and avoid time-wasting detours, according to the BBC. Kris Kringle's precise location should be latitude 40° 40' (N), longitude 74° 24' (E) (log that into your GPS). The BBC explains Sweco "took into account main population centres and the Earth's rotation. Santa would have 34 microseconds for each chimney stop, and his reindeer would have to travel at nearly 6,000 km (3,700 miles) per second. [Sweco] insisted that helping Santa deliver presents to 2.5bn households worldwide was a serious exercise."

So, as any country would do after hearing it should be Santa Claus Central, Kyrgyzstan held a summit. At the end of February, six Santa Clauses visited the Central Asian country for a four-day festival, with calls for peace among the country's citizens and in an effort to boost tourism in Kyrgyzstan.

Found in Translation

When we got this in our inbox from contributing editor Daisann McLane, we were just as smitten as she was...

Two weeks ago, an email from an unfamiliar address showed up in my box with an eye-catching header: "From Michael Zhang, Translator of Many of Your Articles."

I opened the email excitedly. This was a mystery I've been puzzling over for more than two years. National Geographic Traveler has a partner in mainland China called Trends—they put out a Chinese-language version of our magazine that has become one of the most widely-read travel magazines on the mainland.

"My wife and I have never been outside of mainland China," Michael wrote. "But we are coming down to Hong Kong for a few days on vacation, and it would be wonderful to meet the person whose travelogues I have been translating all these years."

Here in Hong Kong, I'm always thrilled when I see NG Traveler-Trends on the newsstand right next to the English-language edition. It reminds me that the words I write every month in the "Real Travel" column reach a more diverse readership than I can even imagine.

And the Chinese character headlines on the cover of this sister Traveler also brings home the reality that very soon, the largest percentage of the world's tourists are going to be from China. The future of tourism, sustainable and otherwise, is going to be shaped by this nation of new travelers.

Tourists Overrunning Tibet

Tibet, the once remote "roof of the world," has been suffering increasing strain due to rapidly growing tourism. Last year the number of tourists who visited Tibet (an estimated four million) vastly outnumbered the 2.8 million people who actually live there, resulting in a general overload on Tibet’s roads, palaces, and monasteries, reports The Guardian.

To accommodate the constant flood of people pouring in, 775 tour buses are operating within Tibet at all times. That's in addition to three civilian airports (with a fourth in the works) and the high-altitude Qinghai-Tibet Train that connects the capital Lhasa to Xining, China, and brings in over 1.5 million tourists a year.

Matt Whitticase of the Free Tibet Campaign sums up the problem effectively in the Guardian's story: “Tourism is obviously a pillar of China’s western development strategy, but it is putting unacceptable strains on Tibet’s fragile environment.” While China’s government asserts that tourism helps generate the money necessary to protect Tibet’s sacred monuments and general way of life, Whitticase points out that the Tibetan people are not benefiting because the “tourist industry is being run by Han Chinese companies not domiciled in Tibet.”

Go! Go! Bangkok!

Contributing Editor Daisann McLane sends us a dispatch from Bangkok...

I'm in Bangkok now, on the first leg of a "low-carb" (as in carbon) trip around Southeast Asia. Tomorrow I've booked a sleeping berth on Thailand's state railway for an overnight trip down the Thai isthmus, then across by ferry (or taxi) to Penang, Malaysia.

I've been coming to Bangkok for more than ten years, and while I love the city, it has always ranked low on my environmental list. The city sprawls like Houston or L.A., and even though in the last 9 years they've introduced the metro, the traffic jams are still as bad as ever.

The worst offenders by far are the motorbikes. Bangkok's city geography is a strange amalgam of metropolis and village. Cars move (slowly) down wide boulevards, but people and small businesses exist, for the most part, along the sois, the little side streets that branch off from the main avenues. Each soi is like a small town, and if you live far down the soi from the boulevard, you face a long walk.

And so a mini-industry of motorbike taxis has sprung up here. These guys wait at the top of every soi, ready to ferry people, for a small fee, down the lane. They are noisy, and they create an enormous amount of air pollution.

Imagine my surprise then, after settling into my little guesthouse on Sukhumvit Soi 8, to find that there are NO motorcycle taxis on this soi. The hotels and guesthouses at the far end of the soi have purchased these environmentally friendly, electric powered golf-cart taxis. So when I finish my breakfast on the wood patio of the lovely Hotel Salil, I just jump in the golf cart. What a great way to start my green travel day in Bangkok!

Read more: IT's Emily Haile contemplated Tuk Tuk's in Thailand. The city of Adelaide introduced a free solar powered bus to shuttle its citizens around. We give you the lowdown on Ecodriving.

Photo: Daisann McLane

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A Road Paved with...Robbie Williams?

As you know, we’re all for eco-friendly practices here at IT. And when a green initiative pokes fun at a former boy band member and has a travel angle? To be honest, we can hardly stand our good fortune. So imagine our delight upon reading the news that unsold copies of Robbie Williams’ latest solo album will be recycled to pave Chinese roads.

Indeed, British record label EMI has announced plans to ship upward of one million unappreciated Rudebox CDs to China to be crushed and repurposed in street lighting and road projects.

Trudging through China’s streets has never been so satisfying. Take that, smog!

Photo: Alex Vinter via Flickr

Hotel Central: Seaside Chic

Associate editor Susan O'Keefe rounds up a bunch of news from the hotel beat... 

Gated Community: Guests of the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City not only receive access to a private key to the gated Gramercy Park—the city's only private park—located across from the hotel, but they also are welcome to have brunch, continental breakfast, and evening cocktails on the Private Roof Club and Garden—an indoor/outdoor space exclusive to guests on the hotel's 16th floor.

Seaside Chic: While it continues to be expensive to travel to Europe, we love that the chic, modern Best Western Masqhotel in La Rochelle, France, an architecturally rich city on the Atlantic coast, offers guest rooms starting at $134 on their website. The hotel is bright and airy with interiors that blend large pieces of abstract artwork with contemporary furnishings done in leather, plastic, steel, and chrome. With direct access from Paris on the TGV (under three hours), La Rochelle offers fresh sea air and the charming Vieux Port (Old Harbor) where visitors can check out one of Europe's largest aquarium, walk around the picturesque old city, dine at dozens of seafood restaurants, and promenade along the city walls lit up at night.

Global Eye: Northern Thailand

Woman of the Karen Hill Tribe

Photographer: Swoan Parker, Brooklyn, New York

Getting the shot:  The shot was taken in Chiang Dao, Northern Thailand, in November 2007. My camera is a Nikon D200 with a shutterspeed of 1/250 seconds and an aperature of f4.5.

The details: The Karen hill tribe, with a population of approximately 300,000 inhabitants living in northern Thailand, is the largest minority group in that region. The Karen occupy lowland areas engaging in agriculture and the cultivation of rice as well as being skilled at weaving. The Karen wear woven v-neck tunics of various natural colors and turbans.

While visiting a Karen village in the beautiful, peaceful, mountainous area of Chiang Dao, just north of Chiang Mai, I came across this woman sitting on the steps outside of her home. She was sharing conversation in her local tribal language with my guide, Boontan Kamla. There was such a warm spirit about her. She allowed me to “see her soul” and capture the warm nature of her people that was evident in my every interaction.

IT loves how positively genuine this woman appears. Check out those fantastic smile lines on her face!

Want your own photos featured on IT? Add them to our Flickr pool.

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Walking Taiwan: Modern Monk

National Geographic researcher Jeff Chen just finished his 17-day walk across Taiwan for a project he called a "A Walk on My Ethnic Lines." We loved his interaction with a modern-day monk he met on the road...

I told mother I wouldn’t walk at night, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re a lazy college student who usually gets a late start to the day. About a week ago, as we walked down a mountain road at night, a van stopped to offer us a ride. We approached with caution to find only the kindest of all earthly creatures: William, the driver, and his two golden Labradors.

We hop in and he hands me a card.

“Read the card, and you’ll know why I picked you up,” he says.

The card read, “All for one, one for all.” He explained that he was a fellow backpacker and that his club had handed out these cards for its members to share with the world.

The basic concept: Help the world feel at home in your part of the world and others will do so to you in their parts of the world. That night, we stopped at a 7-Eleven (or 7-Enlighten as we like to call it now), and William helped map out some great destinations. He dropped us off at a world-class sleeping spot, a fishing port, where we woke up to the freshest of all starts.

Fast forward a few days and about 60 miles, a simple twist of fate puts us back in touch with William. We’d been walking along the main road and we hear a yelp. The van swerves to the side of the road. He tells us to get in.

Global Eye: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Preparing to Paint the Palace

Photographer: Jonathan Hall, London, U.K.

Getting the shot: The photo was taken across the busy road that runs along the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in October 2007. As anyone who has been to Phnom Penh and experienced its traffic will tell you, I needed to wait quite a long time for a gap to take the picture.

The Details: Phnom Penh comes alive well before the sun rises. All along the Sisowath Quay people are up and about. Large groups of local citizens take part in tai chi, football matches, and various other forms of group exercise. I was also out and about early, watching the activity and taking pictures of the sunrise. I was too early to go into the palace so I decided to walk around it to get a sense of its size. I had walked past these workmen at one point and didn't really notice them. However, on my way back to the entrance I was walking on the opposite side of the road to take advantage of the shade (it gets hot early in the full sunlight) and noticed the men working. After waiting what seemed like an eternity for a break in the traffic, I quickly took a few shots and this was the result. I used a Canon EOS 5D with a 24-105L lens. The ISO was 200, shutterspeed 1/500 with an aperature of f11.

We love this photo because it shows a part of historic architecture that we rarely see -- the upkeep! Want your own photos features on IT? Add them to our Flickr pool.

Photo: Jonathan Hall via Flickr

 

Tour Guide: Bhutan

Senior editor Norie Quintos—currently hard at work on the annual  Tours of a Lifetime issue (May/June 2008)—is looking for deals.

You won’t find a lot of discounting in the boutique tour industry. (Mega cruise ships and large resorts have spoiled us into thinking you should never pay rack rate.) Outfitters are typically small and operate on extremely tight margins.  Nevertheless, one company recently found a win-win way to sell some distressed inventory. Vermont-based Boundless Journeys occasionally offers up spaces on upcoming tours to the highest bidder. Explains regional manager Karen Cleary,

Last year, we found ourselves in the position of having a cabin on a small Galapagos cruise suddenly come available due to a last-minute cancellation. We decided to send out a call for bids to our relatively small e-mail distribution list. We received several bids and the couple who got it ended up saving 25 percent off the regular price. In this industry that’s a pretty screaming deal.

Want to try it? Boundless has a few spots open right now on a 12-day trip to Bhutan departing April 15. The retail price is $3,995 per person. All offers must be submitted to info@boundlessjourneys.com by January 25. To get on the list for future “Make Us an Offer” trips, sign up for the company’s e-newsletter.

Night Skiing Deserves a Quiet Night

Among my favorite skiing "firsts" – the first black diamond hill (ouch), my first time experiencing real powder (at Mt. Snow, which was amazing for an East Coast girl who grew up grinding down ice), the first time I realized I loved being cozy in the the lodge nearly as much as being on the mountain –  is one night in Pennsylvania when for the first time, I skied, in jeans, under the lights. Part of the fun was experiencing the juxtaposition of the senses: seeing the warm glow of the lights against the snow while feeling the sting of the cold on my cheeks. Skiing at night was both dangerous and exciting, and the mountain, despite it's low altitude, looked somehow more regal, like a high school gym that had been decorated for a dance.

So while I wouldn't recommend skiing in jeans at all these locations, I would suggest checking out the New York Times' roundup of ski resorts, both here and abroad, that offer night skiing. Here are a few of their picks that stood out:

• Zermatt in Switzerland offers night skiing only four times a year, when the moon is full and the sky is clear. The brave nosh on fondue before swooshing down the 10,180-foot slope, which is illuminated only by moonlight.

• Vermont's Stowe Mountain resort  lures night skiers to the top of the mountain, where they host cultural fare like jazz dinners and Dominican Republic-themed nights in the lodge. But we think half of the fun is getting there  – they offer blankets, cider and a lantern to keep warm on the gondola ride up. Cost is $75 per person. Check out this  great video to get a virtual Stowe nightskiing experience.

• Niseko ski resort in Japan offers some of the largest swaths of night skiing in the area, and some of the best nightlife as well. See a video of Niseko night skiing here.
  

Got your own night skiing recommendations? We'd love to hear from you in the comments below.

Photo: Stowe Mountain Resort

Global Eye: Guilin, China

Chinese Man with Umbrella

Photographer: Meredith Missroon, Atlanta, Georgia.

Getting the Shot: I was walking along the banks of the Li River in Guilin, China. It was raining which was kinda romantic, but not too great for photos. I was just shooting everything I saw, rain or shine. When I saw this man walking along the banks of the river, I knew I had to capture him. There's a feeling of enchanted loneliness in this shot.

The Details: The Li River is truly like no other place on Earth. This was the first place in China where I actually felt like I was transported back in time. I imagined the first Westerners to see this scenery and how truly amazed they must have been. I was prepared for so many of the things we saw in other cities: the Great Wall, the Terracotta Army, etc. But traveling down the Li River, I genuinely felt like I was in a completely different and unique part of the world. I can't imagine that scenery in any other country, on any other continent. As we progressed down the river, I thought how amazed those first Westerners must have been by all the beauty China kept to itself for so many centuries."

IT loves this image because the colors seem so bright despite the dreary rainy day. (And since it's rainy in D.C. today, we could use a spot of color.)  Want your photo up on Global Eye? Add them to our Flickr pool.

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Walking Taiwan

On the first of this year, National Geographic researcher Jeff Chen set off on a walk across the East Coast of Taiwan, an exploration he's calling A Walk on my Ethnic Lines, to explore his multi-ethnic identity. For 260 miles over the span of three weeks, he's been filming, photographing, audio recording and blogging his journey to explore the other half of his ethnicity. We asked him to write up a bit about his trip so far.

It's 4:10 a.m., and we have to go pray. I'm not cut out for monastery life.

For the past two nights, my longtime friend and I have been sleeping at a Buddhist monastery on the East Coast of Taiwan, eating vegetarian food, shoveling cement, making chocolate candies, and mopping the temple floor.

I'm here on a self-administered project I've decided to call A Walk on my Ethnic Lines. This exploration of my ethnic identity has been bubbling around in the depths of my gut for some years now, so when the opportunity came for me to fly to Taiwan this winter, I took it.

It's not the first time I've been here, but it is the first time I've been here with a critical eye on the half of me who is formed on this island. My other half, I would argue, is something along the lines of White American.

I started walking a week ago more than a hundred kilometers north of where I am now. My travel plans were to walk south and meet people. I've hitched a couple of rides and taken a short train ride, but they were all either tangential to meeting people or for the sake of convenience to some of my hosts. I've slept by train tracks and staked a tent near waterfalls. Today is the start of the second segment of our walk – 150 km to Taitung, a comparatively larger city than what we've seen so far.

Tour Guide: Go Differently to Asia

"Don't follow the crowd. . . Go Differently" is the motto of a sustainable, responsible tour company offering volunteering trips and "ethical holidays" to Bali, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Laos, and Thailand.

For example, an ethical holiday to the North Andaman in Thailand would include sleeping in a homestay, learning sustainable fishing practices, helping your hosts cook a traditional meal, and listening to tsunami-survivor stories from locals. The more adventurous can see the annual two-day Surin Elephant Festival in Thailand and volunteer for a week at the elephant mahout camp near Pattaya.

Go Differently explains its dedication to sustainable travel:

By keeping groups small, using knowledgeable local guides, local transport (from trains to elephants), local family-run hotels and homestays in rural villages, they ensure that as much of the price you pay as possible stays locally. Itineraries include major sites (who could go to India and miss the Taj Mahal?) but also take you off the beaten track to experience the true culture of the country you are visiting.

The company has also recently developed a "Vietnam Voluntourism Venture"—a tour so new, it's not even on the website, yet. But IT's got the scoop.

Global Eye: Turkey

Photographer: Fikret Onal from Toronto, Ontario, CA

Getting the Shot: Ortakoy Mosque has a unique heritage in this neighborhood and I had been planning for a long time to capture it. [It was] before sunrise on a Sunday morning right in front of the Bosporus Bridge, where the two continents (Europe and Asia) are almost touching each other.

I was a little bit late and I did not know exactly where the sun would be coming up. And it was an overcast, dull morning and most of the fishermen had already left for fishing. Luckily there were still three vessels there waiting for duty. And there were still some people hanging around, burning their candles at both ends, and a bunch of university students making music, playing guitar and singing all together out loud. The lights on the bridge and the mosque were still on and turned off right after taking this shot. Otherwise, most likely the façade of the mosque would have been too dark.

World In Focus Photo Contest Winners

Our annual Photo Issue, now on newsstands, features the World in Focus contest winners drawn from over 27,000 entries. The Grand Prize went to Mark Unrau of Ontario, Canada, for this haunting image. Unrau snapped this image on the train that runs from Beijing to Lhasa, Tibet. The rail line—one of the world's highest railroad routes—had been completed just a month earlier. Many Tibetans feel the train is bad for their people and culture, but the Chinese have hailed it as a major technological achievement and said it will promote tourism. Unrau wanted to document the controversial new train. He took the photograph early in his 26-hour journey. "The woman was sitting in front of me for the duration of the ride," says the photographer, "and was glued to the window staring out at the expansive scenery."

Visit our website to see more winners from this year's contest. And add your own photos to our Flickr pool to have them featured on the blog.

Photo: Mark Unrau

Inside the Shaolin Temple

The Shaolin Temple in central China, recognized as the birthplace of both Zen Buddhism and the martial arts, doesn't give up its secrets easily. American photographer Justin Guariglia made repeated visits over five years just to get permission to photograph the monks who live there. Watch Traveler Editor in Chief Keith Bellows' One-on-One interview with Guariglia now:

Japanese Temples Glow Green

The Japanese temples in Kyoto are holy places, so it makes sense that they try to "illuminate" us with a "higher power." OK, forgive the puns for a moment to appreciate the fact that the Japanese, recognizing that their temples are major tourist attractions, have begun replacing lightbulbs, both inside the temples and outside for evening displays, with LED bulbs and implementing solar generating systems to help to power them. The Daily Yorimuri reports:

"Kodaiji temple in Higashiyama Ward, founded in 1606 by Nene, the wife of the great warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, recently introduced a solar power generation system to illuminate the premises during evening opening hours this year. Solar panels installed on the back of a truck parked at the temple generate electricity during the daytime that is stored and used to power the evening illuminations."

The Kodaiji temple managers say that their efforts will cut carbon dioxide emissions by about a ton, or the amount 77 Japanese cedar trees absorb in a year. Since the fall foliage is a major reason why people come to visit the temples, it's good to know that both the trees and the holy spaces are working together to save the planet.

Thanks to Jaunted for the tip!

Photo: horsenbuggy via the Intelligent Travel Flickr pool.

The Genuine Article: Chinese Silk

We're loving Laura Morelli's new column for Traveler's website, The Genuine Article. This month, to tie in with our China-centric issue, Laura guides us through the process of buying traditional Chinese silk. She writes:

Many travelers to China are overwhelmed by the choices for silk fabrics, garments, and smaller accessories. The number of silk shops in Shanghai and Beijing alone is staggering. For the most authentic shopping experience, head to one of the regions known for silk. The city of Suzhou, west of Shanghai, for example, developed a reputation as a silk capital because its silk-makers turned out imperial garments from the seventh to the early 20th centuries under the Tang, Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties. At the Suzhou Silk Museum, you can view silks dating back to the seventh century, and train your eye for the many silk shops and factories that lure travelers across the region.

We had no idea, for example, that the Chinese still use a "burn test" to determine whether their silks are authentic. But we think it's best to let the experts handle that, for fear of singeing your souvenirs.

Photo: Mark Thiessen/NGS

Global Eye: Bihar, India

Flying the Rails by Elizabeth Marx

Photographer: Elizabeth Marx, France.

Getting the Shot: This was shot in the Sultanganj Railway Station in Bihar, North India. It was 4 a.m., [and we were] getting off the Farakka express coming from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

The Details:  The train was crowded with orange-clad pilgrims, as every year during the month of Shraavana (July-August) devoted to Shiva. The pilgrims come to bathe in the Ganga River, fill pots of water, and pursue their journey on foot up to Babadam, 108 km further, where there is a famous Jyotirlinga [a shrine to Lord Shiva].

Want to see your own shot in Global Eye? Add it to our Flickr Pool. 

Tourists Riot! "We Were Forced to Shop!"

There's nothing worse than discovering your tour is just a series of pit stops on the Souvenir Express. But unfortunately your options are primarily limited to staying on board until journey's end, or forfeiting your cash and detaching yourself, unsure of how exactly you'll get home. But some Chinese tourists have had enough. Traveler columnist Daisann McLane sends along this report from China:

Yes, tourists really are rioting in China. The booming economy has created a huge market for low-end travel among Chinese from the working classes. And that's created a new shady economy of unscrupulous low-end tour dealers. They offer packages at unbelievably low prices, like three days in Macau, all-inclusive for $60. It's only after you get on the bus--and these tours are always on a bus--that you discover you've signed on for more than you expected. And that the "sights" you'll be seeing are mostly the insides of shops where shoddy goods are sold for many more times than they are worth. That's how the dealers make their profit on these cut-rate tour packages.

The Chinese tourist on one of these scam-o-tours finds him or herself practically a prisoner of the tour company from hell. But one group of tourists from Henan province rose up in anger, and decided they couldn't take it anymore. Here's a dispatch from Hong Kong RTHK radio:

The authorities in Macau have defended the deployment of riot police, to mediate a dispute between a large group of mainland tourists and their guides. About 100 members of the tour group from Hebei returned to the mainland this morning, but two men and three women accused of assaulting police officers remain in custody. Scuffles broke out last night between the police and the tourists, who were angry at allegedly being overcharged, abandoned, and forced to shop by their Macau tour guides.

Is this the future of (un)sustainable tourism?

Berlinski on "Woman Marries Snake"

I recently found myself entranced by an article by Mischa Berlinski, a 34-year-old novelist who traveled to India with his fiancé last year and ended up in a gripping adventure following Bimbala Das, a woman in a remote village who had married a snake because she thought she was cursed. The result, a thoughtful take on a much publicized, greatly misunderstood event, is “Woman marries snake: A peculiar Indian love story,” published in the November 2007 issue of Harper’s. Bimbala, who changed her caste in order to marry the reclusive reptile, became one of those strange news items that fade quicker than you can say “snakes on a plane.” But Berlinski had different ideas. He had just penned his first novel, Fieldwork, (which was a finalist for the National Book Award) and had notions of becoming a cultural anthropologist. So he hired a translator, and drove into a place so humid that his glasses fogged over. He answered a few of our questions about his adventure:

Why did you seek out Bimbala Das after reading her story in the news?

I think part of traveling in India is being confronted every single day with so many mysterious things. You're always asking yourself: Why does he dress like that or act like that? I wanted to try and get to the bottom of just one strange Indian story. That this story caught on in the West made the story even more interesting.

Where is Atala and how did you get there?

Atala village is about 15 kilometers from Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Orissa State. We came by train from Tamil Nadu, in the deep south. I don't know if you've ever taken an Indian train, but it's a wonderful experience. We rode second-class AC, and shared a compartment with a Mr. Aggarwal, Mr. Aggarwal's old college friend, and their families. (It was Mr. Aggarwal's theory that Bimbala married the snake "just to be famous," which as it turns out wasn't so far from the truth.) The children, as I recall, were very noisy, and like to jump from bunk to bunk. Outside the window, there were low flat rice paddies and sometimes a glimpse of the sea and little villages and always another crossing, with motorized rickshaws and motorcycles and bullock carts lined up waiting for us to go by.

Did you tell the people in the village that you were a writer? An anthropologist?

I told them I was a journalist. But I'm not sure that the distinctions between a writer, a journalist, and an anthropologist would have been meaningful at all to the people in Atala, and certainly not to Bimbala or her Guru. The thing that the people of Atala understood chiefly about me was that I was a foreigner, and white, and outside of the caste system. They organized me mentally first by this fact, then by my religion, and then by my marital status, far more than my profession.