Intelligent Travel

The Next Great Travel Writer: Genghis Khan at the Disco

Earlier this month, Traveler Editor in Chief Keith Bellows and Suzanne Roberts, winner of the Next Great Travel Writer contest, traveled through Mongolia together and sent us dispatches from their trip. Over the next few days we'll be publishing the last few recollections from their journey. Today Suzanne describes a night out at the Mongolian disco.

One evening during our trip, we are asked to attend a special dinner to celebrate the beginning of Naadam, the national festival celebrated annually in Ulaanbaatar. The event featured the centuries-old tradition of Mongolian throat singing, dancing, and an amazing little girl who ties her body in knots. Girls in Mongolia start training for contortion at the age of five and are ready to compete in international competitions by the age of 12. This little girl could not have been more than about eight or nine years old, and she did things with her body that I would not have thought possible, including supporting herself on a skinny pole by her teeth.

After dinner, I recruit a fellow traveler, Rucker, a wide-eyed 24-year-old aspiring photographer, to check out a disco in Ulaanbaatar. Although Mongolia was Rucker’s first trip outside of the United States, he is game for anything and happy to be dragged off to a disco. But first we have a beer at an Irish pub, a smoky venue full of locals, expats, and foreigners. A Mongolian singer with a sequined top hat sings “Killing Me Softly” in perfect English. The pub closes early for Naadam, so we head off to Metropolis, a super chic discotheque near the Chinggis Khaan Hotel.

This swanky disco is known for attracting the “children of diplomats.” A round bar occupies the center of the first room. Past the bar, a larger space with leather couches, a glowing neon bar, a dance floor, and a “VIP only” upstairs balcony full of scantily-clad women in stilettos glitters with strobe lights and vibrates with the beat of “trance” music. The space-aged theme reminds me of the queue area of Disneyland’s Space Mountain roller coaster. After being told to move from a couch that was reserved for “one man,” we find another couch, and strike up a conversation with a Mongolian man called Ivan.

Save a Bird, Kill an Island?

IT friend Roger Hamilton just returned from a trip to North Carolina's Outer Banks, where a battle between birds and beachgoers is brewing...

Driving down Highway 12 on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, I sense that something is wrong. “Save a bird, kill an island,” someone had scrawled across an SUV rear window. “Piping plover tastes like chix,” advertises a restaurant on its menu marquee. 

Pretty strong stuff. Better find out what’s up.

My first stop was the legendary Red Drum Tackle Shop, in the village of Buxton. “They” have closed down miles of beaches to off-road vehicles and everything else, says Bob, the owner. All for the sake of three little birds: the piping plover (pictured, above), the least tern, and the American oystercatcher. “They” are conservation groups, a U.S. district judge, and the National Park Service. The conservationists contend that people and vehicles on the beaches prevent the birds from nesting.   

G-Men and Journalists at the Newseum

Contributing writer Cathy Healy has the scoop on a new museum exhibit in Washington, D.C., that appeals to her (and, let's be honest, all of our) lurid fascination with FBI agents and the journalists who chase after them...

Let’s confess: While the Newseum’s exhibit, "G-Men and Journalists," appeals to the luridly curious, like me, it might not be catnip for all.

“UGH,” said one pal when I excitedly told him about seeing the mock-up of the D.C. Sniper's car, which was used for the trial; the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski's actual cabin from northern Montana; and the high-backed wooden chair used to electrocute the man convicted of killing the Lindbergh baby.

I felt extremely uncomfortable watching the Lindbergh video about Bruno Richard Hauptmann’s capture and conviction, which indicated he may have been railroaded by public hysteria, and I averted my eyes from the electric chair—though I can close my eyes right now and picture it anyway.

"G-Men and Journalists" features a dozen main sections, each examining a major case or an aspect of the FBI’s first 100 years, a history that touches many of our most highly charged memories: Waco, the Oklahoma bombings, FBI spy Robert Hanssen (remember the 2007 movie, Breach?), gangsters, the Mafia, and Patty Hearst (the kidnapped newspaper heiress).

Hearst looked larger than life in the famous 1974 photo of her and her captors robbing a bank. In fact, Hearst was a petite woman, judging by the stylish, short coat on display, along with the gun she used. Patty must have been as slim and pretty as her blonde sister, Gina Hearst, who worked at the LA Herald Examiner years later when I was a reporter there. Gina parked in a guarded, fenced, well-lighted area behind the building, and we all understood why.

Give yourself plenty of time to see the videos, and watch the push-pull of agents and journalists—sometimes using one another, sometimes as adversaries. In all, you exit G-Men with much to ponder about the ripple-effects of riveting news on our own personal lives.

G-Men remains on exhibit until June 2009, and a number of lectures are scheduled: Check “Events and Education” on Newseum.org for the latest listings.

The Newseum is the newest museum in Washington, D.C. The 250,000-square-foot building stands at Sixth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., between the Capitol and the White House. It is across the street from the National Gallery of Art. Entrance fees range from free (6 and under) to $20.

Read more: IT covered the April grand opening of the Newseum. Can't wait to fulfill your lurid fascination? Check out the Newseum's online interactive features of the D.C. Sniper, the Unabomber, spies, and much more...

Photo: "The Washington Daily News" Ten Most Wanted page, courtesy of the Newseum

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Plan My Trip! Biking the Bay

IT Editor Janelle Nanos is blogging from the West Coast this week and taking suggestions from readers on where to head next.

Greetings from San Francisco! I lived in this fair city for the summer four years ago, and I'm having a hard time believing it's taken me this long to return. As I'm sitting here typing, I'm listening to the sound of the trolley and am taking in a view of Coit Tower, the Transamerica pyramid, and the ridiculously curvy Lombard Street. But after arriving in town yesterday, all I really wanted to see was the icon that I missed the most: the Golden Gate Bridge.

I'm staying with a friend in North Beach, which is only a few blocks from the hubbub of Fisherman's Wharf, so I decided to revel in the full-fledged tourist experience for a change and join the hordes of bikers who pedal along the Embarcadero. I snagged a bike and map from Bike and Roll and set off to explore the water's edge. Dodging tourists and hawkers along the wharf, I traveled on the bike path past Fort Mason and the tall ships that are currently in town, getting a glimpse of Alcatraz and a bevy of sailboats in the throes of a regatta.

As I approached that art deco wonder that spans the Bay, the fog had rolled in, wrapping its two arches like a shawl. So it was perfect time to snap a few photos and take advantage of small cafe and gift store on the shore, for as I overheard one tourist say, "You can't really resist a place called the Warming Hut." I'm not going to lie, I was expecting to be gouged on food and exposed to a large quantity of Golden Gate keychains, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the gift shop and cafe both shared an overtly green theme, and that all of the proceeds from store purchases go towards supporting the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

Plan My Trip! West Seattle with Pam

IT Editor Janelle Nanos is on the West Coast this week, blogging about her trip and taking advice from readers on where to head next. After gathering some suggestions, she met up with one IT reader for a tour of her favorite neighborhood. She'll be heading to San Francisco next and is still looking for suggestions, so please feel free to leave them in the comments below...

After a few stops in Tacoma, Washington, I arrived safely in Seattle this past weekend and was very lucky to meet up with Nerd's Eye View blogger and friend of IT Pam Mandel, who took some time out of her busy afternoon to show me the old amusement park grounds at Alki Point, which was once known as the Coney Island of the West.

I'd never heard of (or honestly, even conceived of) Seattle's little beach town, but with its amazing view of downtown and a hefty heaping of kitsch, I was instantly smitten. The Point was the place where first settlers arrived in Seattle, and its current iteration, Alki, is a mix of old and new: Stacks of old-brick condos mingle with newer glass developments along the waterfront, and old fishfry shacks cozy up to coffee shops with Wi-Fi. There's a long, winding bike path that snakes along the Sound, and volleyball players—and yes, even a few swimmers—were taking advantage of the beach (the great old photographs in Spud Fish and Chips show hundreds of swimmers in their full-piece bathing suits playing in the waves—causing us to wonder whether the enthusiasm waned or whether our tolerance for cold has slackened over time).

Speaking with Stephen Schneider

While attending the Rothbury Music Festival earlier this month, IT editor Janelle Nanos sat down with Dr. Stephen Schneider, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning climatologist who was running the Think Tank sessions at the festival. Schneider has been talking about climate change since the '70s, he's won the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, and has served as an environmental consultant to six presidents. And now that seemingly everyone is (finally) talking "green," he was just as much a rock star at the festival as the actual rock stars on stage. Nanos spoke with Schneider about hybrid cars, celebrity compost, and how climate change can result in a cultural crisis.

I imagine you often speak at universities and other more formal situations, so this must be a different scene for you. Are you enjoying the concert to far?

I haven’t been to a music festival since I went to hear Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in the '60s, it’s a completely different scene. But they're uniting different groups who have never talked to each other. They’ve decided to add a think tank with serious scientists, business leaders, technologists, and media, to talk about stewardship. And then they're bringing musical acts up on stage to play a few songs, and then we interview them and we get their feelings on the issues.

By getting people together and bringing disparate crowds that wouldn’t normally talk to each other you allow the building of a coalition. And coalitions are what makes politics, and politics is what makes rules, and rules make it possible to solve problems like climate change. They don’t solve themselves.

How has the crowd been responding to the think tank sessions?

I’ve been thrilled at the response of the crowd. I don’t usually give talks where people whoop and holler and have a good time. I can see why these rock stars like to go up there and play. For me it's usually the nerds talking to the nerds. It was fun to follow up Michael Franti (of Spearhead), so I changed my line to get people engaged and then got back into some more serious stuff. That was really cool, I really enjoyed doing that, it was fun.

But what’s really important is the networking that’s been going on. Michael Kang—used to play with the String Cheese Incident—now plays with Pangea. He was on a panel with me, and I learned that he had taken courses at Berkeley at the Energy and Resources Group, so he really understands this stuff. Having him in the front of the room while we’re having a serious discussion about stewardship and ecological threats makes the audience say, "My god, this rock guy, he knows his stuff." It makes it more important in their brains. That’s what’s making a difference in the world. Sure it’s very nice to get us together, to change consciousness while we’re here. But what really matters is networking people who are connected. So now we’re getting people connected. I view that as my most important function.

Have you had a chance to actually see any of your rock star panelists perform? 

Yesterday I was in the tent with a bunch of rock stars who I’ve never heard of and I wouldn’t recognize if I tripped on them. I’m the worst gaper on the planet, I don’t know any of these guys. Give me Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, I know every phrase of every song they’ve ever written. But not this group. But it’s great to watch. And these guys, who are pretty self-inflated in some cases, they’re all sorting out their garbage into compost. And they’re doing it alone, they’re not having their underlings do it. That’s important. That says that nobody is above nature. And I thought that was a terrific symbol I was watching in that tent. There were no stars in there, it was everybody doing their thing. You sit there and watch Snoop Dogg compost and that’s pretty good.

Plan My Trip! Nice Glass in Tacoma

Hello from the West Coast! I've arrived safe and sound in Seattle and have been eager to take advantage of your suggestions. I'll be sending dispatches from my trip over the next few days—and please feel free to continue to help me plan my trip!

Within minutes from arriving in Sea-Tac airport, I worked my way to downtown Tacoma, a smaller city a bit south of Seattle where Dale Chihuly, the glass sculptor whose blown-glass flowers grace the ceiling of the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, is originally from. The Museum of Glass (pictured, left) was completed in 2002 in part to celebrate Chihuly's role in the studio glass movement, and it helped to revitalize the city and redevelop the waterway downtown. Today, the gleaming silver building sits on the edge of the harbor, looking a bit like a blimp set down sideways in the center of the city.

Next Great Travel Writer: The Steppes of Mongolia

Traveler Editor in Chief Keith Bellows and Suzanne Roberts, the winner of the Next Great Travel Writer contest, are blogging this week from Mongolia. Keith sends us this dispatch from the steppes of Gorkhi-Terelj National Park.

On our way out of town we stop at the Gandantegchilen Monastery—the biggest in Mongolia and a survivor of the 1930s Stalinist purges, during which hundreds of monasteries were razed and countless monks executed—and which Suzanne blogged about yesterday.

We head out 70 miles north toward Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, a 2006 location for The Amazing Race. It is in the steppes, which are uncharacteristically green due to this summer's above-average rains. We drive 90 minutes or so, stopping briefly as the rain drives down in sheets at an ovoo, a sacred mound of stones crowned with a tangle of blue flags.

Thought to be an ancient tombstone or shamanist altar where horses once were sacrificed to the gods, ovoos guard hills and passes. We follow tradition and, for good luck, circle the cairn clockwise three times, tossing on stones as we go. We pass fields of yaks and sheep and cows—Mongolia supports 30 million livestock (a sheep goes for $100, a cow is worth $400). An old graveyard spills down a hill. We pass dilapidated buildings, gers singly or clustered in tiny encampments, and a dreary army barracks abandoned by the Russian army in 1990 and now occupied by Mongolian forces.

The gracefully hillocky country is ribboned with spiny ridges and palisades of granite that look like piled cannon balls and billowy clouds—you can read faces and creatures in the deeply weathered rock. Moose, weasel, wolves, and brown bear roam forests of cedar, pine, aspen, and larch. We rumble down a dirt track pooled with water to Melkhi Khad (Turtle Rock), one of the park landmarks—the jumbled granite outcrop that indeed looks turtle-ish, but there's little else to see except the insides of a gift shop in a ger. Inside are pointy-toed sheepskin slippers, soft jackets, leather and fox fur hats, Genghis Khan T-shirts, postcards, leather wallets and boxes, horsewhips, jewelry, and prayer beads. Ten minutes more and we are at our ger camp—Guru.

Next Great Travel Writer: Gandan Monastery

This week, Traveler Editor in Chief Keith Bellows and Suzanne Roberts, winner of the "Next Great Travel Writer" contest, are blogging during their trip through Mongolia. Today Suzanne writes of her visit to the Gandan Monastery.

At the gate of the monastery, a woman crouches into the street, scooping rain water from the gutter with a paper cup into a thermos. Street children wearing plastic sandals and wet socks sell bird seed, and three old women sell small bottles of ablution, so visitors may cleanse their faces in preparation for prayer. Pigeons rise with a flutter into the gray sky. We’ve come to the Gandantegchinlen (Gandan) Khiid Monastery to hear the morning chants. One of the few remaining monasteries after the communist destruction in 1938, Gandan is the largest in Mongolia with hundreds of monks. 

We enter the temple and and see monks sitting cross-legged on wooden benches, reciting the Tibetan chants from yellowed parchment paper. Colorful prayer flags hang from the ceiling—each color a symbol: red, prosperity; green, fertility; white, purity; yellow, eternity; and of course blue is most important to the Mongolian people because it represents the blue sky, and Mongolia is known as “the land of the blue sky.” 

Although the younger generation is not as religious, a majority of Mongolians are Buddhist, and the monks play an important role in their lives. If a mother would like a husband for her daughter, she goes to see a monk, who will read her sutras and pray for her daughter. Some even come to find out which day would be most auspicious for a haircut. I am hoping to go back and have my sutras read. In the countryside, I had my fortune told with the ankle bones of sheep (they roll them like dice and then “read” the bones). My fortune was “He can tell you but you must go after your work to had more attention.”  Though I am not sure exactly what that means, I am a little worried about the verb tense—hopefully a translation error.

Next Great Travel Writer: Dating in Mongolia

Traveler Editor in Chief Keith Bellows, and Suzanne Roberts, winner of the "Next Great Travel Writer" essay contest, are currently exploring Mongolia. Today, Suzanne takes a moment to suss out the intricacies of the Mongolian dating scene.

Yesterday, Keith and I came across Andy, a twenty-something redheaded American expat from Iowa who teaches English to wealthy Mongolians at the small school around the corner from the university. He claims to like living in Mongolia except for the "brutal winters" (he says he saw his breath from September to May—the average temperature in January ranges from a high of four to a low of -16 degrees Fahrenheit). Also, Andy says that when he takes a Mongolian lady out for a date, the Mongolian men become angry because they believe that "foreigners are trying to steal their women."

After speaking with Andy, I became interested in the Mongolian dating scene, and I asked our guide Oyunaa, a beautiful young Mongolian woman (one of whom, I am sure, Andy would be happy to “steal”), about it.

Oyunaa says that a couple will date for about six months and then the father of the man will go to the family of the woman to ask for her hand. In the countryside, the tradition is stronger, complete with the theatrics of the family’s refusal and the staged “kidnapping” of the bride. Over dinner at the posh Winter Palace, I ask Oyunaa about Mongolians marrying foreigners. She says, “That’s okay," but adds, “just not Chinese."