The Amazing Race – Travel Lovers’ Porn

        Yep, I said porn.  Because that’s essentially what the Amazing Race is – Travel Porn.  It’s exciting.   It temporarily allows you to live vicariously through someone else, doing things so out there you might not have even fantasized about them.  It teaches you new tricks to try in real life.  And it satisfies that travel craving, while leaving you wanting more.  The best part is that, instead of having to go back into the special part of the video store, you can get it for free Sunday nights on CBS.

          For you uninitiated (shame on you), the premise is simple: race around the world with no advance knowledge of where you’re going next and very limited funds, completing various tasks as fast as possible, and if you finish first you get a cool million dollars.  If you finish last at certain checkpoints (called pit stops) you’re eliminated.  That’s it.  This is proof positive that the journey is the attraction more than the final destination, as the ending is usually one of the most  anticlimactic parts of the whole race.   But on the way you got to see just how cool the world is.

            I’m insanely jealous of the challenges they’ve gotten to do over the years.  I won’t lie, I would totally blow off my job/friends/whatever to be able to do what the racers get to do.  After seeing it on the race, I tried ziplining and, as you’ve probably noticed from my past posts, I’m hooked.  Now I just want to push my boundaries farther.  Over the years they have rappelled down Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janiero, climbed the Eiffel Tower in Paris, navigated the chaotic train system in Mumbai, herded llamas in Peru, made noodles in  Macau  and shopped at street markets in South Africa.   According to the previews, next week they’re climbing the Singapore Flyer giant ferris wheel in Singapore.  It’s nuts.  The general public may  not  have access to all of the incredible things that the racers get to  do, but for the most part the places are acessable, and with a little bit of research  you too can  enact  your own Amazing Race.  They show some off the beaten path  locations/attractions that you might have missed otherwise  and  I  have to admit that occasionally at work when someone will ask  me what there  is to see in Coober Pedy, Australia (amongst other random destinations that I  don’t know anything about and have definately  never been to) I draw on what I’ve  seen on TAR and  answer that there are opal mines and houses built underground to escape the heat.   It’s helped me finalize more than one sale, let me tell you. 

             Despite the fact that it’s essentially a game show on a global stage, The Amazing Race is at it’s heart a travelogue, and, just like Globe Trekker or Rick Steve’s Europe, it gives you a glimpse at the conditions, attractions, and people of places all over the world.  India is always a good example, as so many of the racers go there expecting nothing but  poverty and crowds, but leave surprised at the resilliance of the people and the beauty of the countryside. Through their eyes we see it, too, and gain a greater appreciation.  I had never heard of Wat Po, the temple of the Reclining Buddha in Bangkok until I saw it on Season 1, but it blew my mind and that one episode gave birth to a fascination with Thailand that I still have to this day.    You can bet your ass I made sure to go to that temple and take craploads of pictures when I finally made it  to Bangkok.   

            The  racers might be doing everything at warp speed, they’re still traveling and facing the same trials and tribulations that we all do on our vacations.  They have to fight with the same flight cancellations and lost cabbies we all do, and watching them deal with these we can learn  – both from their mistakes and  their successes.  Case in point: never be rude to an airport ticket agent. They have  your vacation in their hands, and with one  little keystroke they can  sentence you to a fifteen hour flight in the middle seat in the back that doesn’t  recline and is right beside the squirming kid.  In season 2 when everyone was jockeying for flights from Iguassu Falls, Brazil to Cape Town, South Africa, team after  irate team was told there was no space on the  earliest and most convenient  one-connection flight via Frankfurt.  That is, until Danny and Oswald, the fabulous, suave and super polite guys from Miami asked.  Suddenly seats miraculously appeared and they cruised to a happy first place, all because they were the lone rational team.

     Finding a local guide is another great tip that teams commonly use.  Granted, on the race teams, particularly Mirna and Charla, will do everything short of kidnapping locals to get their insider information.  Please don’t do this.  Ask nicely.  Leave a tip.  But this is still an awesome idea.   Locals know more about the destination than anyone, and they’re usually just as excited to learn about your hometown as you are to learn the ins and outs of theirs.  This can get you from point A to point B much faster and tip you off to new, out of the way places that you would not have otherwise ever known about. 

      During all of this, the teams are navigating all these stressful challenges with their friend/partner/relative.  I always say the test of any relationship is a vacation, because your communication skills tend to shut down when you’re stressed and fatigued.  The “villans” in each season are not usually the teams that are horrible to other teams, but the teams that are horrible to one another.  The classic example is Jonathan and Victoria in season 5, where he not only screamed at her the whole way, but actually physically shoved her in anger.   Just watching the way these teams melt down serves as a reminder  not to act  like that to your friend/family member/anyone, no matter how jetlagged you might be. 

         And my personal favorite tip the I’ve learned from TAR: “Rapido” does not mean fast in every language.  It’s not that teams haven’t tried, but when you’re in Windhoek, Namibia, the cabbies are just going to give you a “stupid tourist” laugh and continue moving along at whatever speed they want to.  That being said, it’s always a good idea to learn a few words in the local language.  I’m not suggesting taking the Berlitz course or anything, God knows the teams usually can only learn what they get from the other passengers on their inbound flight and they get around pretty well, but a simple ”yes”, “no”, “thank you”, “how much?” and “where’s the bathroom?” can get you a long way.  Particularly the bathroom one.

          I could go on, but really, you just have to watch it yourself.  Even if you don’t glean anything more from the show than some pretty destinations and a whole lot of fun, it’s worth it.

Tags: 108 coin ritual, Bangkok, fun, interesting, Jet lag, The Amazing Race, Tips, travel, travel porn, Wat Po

I wrote a book! What a novel idea.

Travel agent by day, novelist by night.  For years my routine regularly involves going to work just as Holly, but when I get home I put on my cape and morph into my alter-ego Rocket Girl (or Travel Junkie, or Grammatically Correct Girl, whatever, I haven’t come up with a good Super Hero name yet) and curl up with my laptop and hammer away.  It’s not going to save the world (unless, of course there’s a massive flood and the world needs to use it as a flotation device), but my efforts have finally bore fruit and my novel is finally complete.   You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to say that.  I’ve finally written something that passes my anal-retentive “is this good enough to show other people?” test!  Insert happy dance here.

It’s an action/mystery work of fiction, but, naturally, there’s a giant amount of travel thrown in.  This is me, here.   Here’s the gist (I’m not going to spoil it now!): five years ago a group of people witnessed a brutal murder in a Seattle bar, and the killer was never captured.  In the interim, the witnesses have dispersed all over the globe, either trying to escape bad memories or through job commitments.  When suddenly someone begins unexpectedly hunting down and killing the witnesses, two survivors take it upon themselves to warn the others, but when standard phone calls/e-mails fail, they take to the skies.  Thus begins an international cat-and-mouse game that spans the planet from Seattle to Bangkok, Sydney to London, one where motivation, trust and the truth are put to the ultimate test and a missed connection could leave them permanently delayed.

Ooh, that actually sounds pretty good.  I’ll have to save that.

Anyhow, I’m so crazy-happy-over the moon that it’s finally done, but now I’m entering a whole new phase of the writing process.  The first hurdle is, of course, sucking up that fear that your closest friends and family (or as I like to call them, the “focus group”) are going to read the first draft and hate it (not that they’d actually say that, I do love them for a reason, but still…).  Then there’s the next step of “how the hell am I supposed to get this published?”  This is the new adventure, the research, the nerve-wracking submitting my manuscript for its blind dates in hoping we’ll find the perfect publisher and soon end up on Chapters shelves everywhere.  I’ve had articles published before, but this is a whole different animal, not to mention a hell of a lot more postage to mail.  You know that super-excited-but-scared-to-the-point-of-nearly-loosing-bladder-control feeling?  I’m there.

I don’t know how this is going to progress, but I can’t wait!  Of course, I’ll blog about it every step of the way.

Woo hoo!  My book is done!

Tags: Bangkok, Book, fiction, London, published, Seattle, Sydney, travel agent, USA, writer

Not problems, “Adventures”

                There are certainties in life.  Death.  Taxes.  Travel problems.  If you’re talking to someone who claims to travel frequently and everything always runs perfectly smoothly, they’re either a liar or in complete denial.   Shit happens, the trick is to just roll with it and remember that one day you’ll be looking back at this and laughing.  Not everything on your vacation is going to be particularly memorable, but if something gets messed up/goes wrong/is not what you expected, I guarantee you’ll still be talking about it years from now.

             This I know from personal experience.  Being an agent means nothing when I’m standing on a curb in Kuala Lumpur for two hours, waiting for my airport transfers which never showed up.  The phone conversation with the company rep went something like this: 

Rep: “Are you sure you have arranged transfers?”  

Me: “Of course I’m sure, I’m the one who freakin’ booked them!”

Rep: “Oh.”

       And I still had to make my own way to my hotel.  But on the flip side, if I hadn’t been stuck there for so long, I never would have met some of the nicest people, complete strangers who went way out of their ways to help me out, or seen an incredible lightning storm.

            Over the years all sorts of crap has happened to me.  One time I was staying at a hotel in London, and one of the beds only had three legs, so it tilted at an interesting angle.  When maintenance was called they went all high-tech and brought phone books to prop it up with.  This same room had no less than 6 lights in a five by five room (well, it felt that small, anyway), but only three light bulbs, so half the time you tried to turn something on and got nothing.  Maintenance was creative with their solution to this one, too, answering our request for more light by, while we were out sightseeing, moving those three bulbs to the other lamps.    This was the only available room in the hotel, so changing rooms wasn’t an option, and, as it was a non-refundable, prepaid reservation, I didn’t have the funds to pay out of pocket to move to a new hotel in pricey London.  But the location was great, steps from Paddington Station and Hyde Park, across from a cute little square that had live music some evenings for free, and surrounded by pubs and restaurants.  Even knowing how crappy the hotel was, I would stay there again if it was the only one available in that area (and they could guarantee me light bulbs)!

                  Another time British Airways accidentally misprinted my boarding pass, sending me to gate 25, which was down this long gray hallway and felt like I was hiking to the middle of nowhere.  Ten minutes before my flight closed, I discovered that gate 25 went to Cairo and my flight back to Vancouver actually left from gate 5.  Ten Minutes, twenty gates, and this was at London Heathrow Airport, where each terminal is roughly the size of Luxembourg.  It was very Amazing Race, running screaming through the crowded airport, dodging fellow travellers and hurdling luggage.  I was the last person on the plane, and I smelled like a gym sock for the next nine and a half hours (I’m sure my seat mates appreciated that), but I made it.   I’m actually pretty proud of this, I didn’t think I could run that fast!

                Then there’s the time I was in Bangkok and we got the great idea to take the water taxis down the Chao Phraya river after dark to get a great view of Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn from the water.  It started off swimmingly, water taxiing up, and stopping for a drink as we waited for darkness to fall.   Finally the conditions were perfect and we go to board the water taxi, only to have people shaking their heads and saying “no” repeatedly.  By now we had a fairly good idea of how the water taxi system operated, so we knew we hadn’t done anything wrong, but we couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t let us on.  Turns out that after the evening rush hour, all the water taxis only ran upriver, so we were stuck, on the wrong side of the river from our hotel, with no way of getting back.  A taxi was looking like our only option (and not a good one at that, as our hotel was a very long – and expensive – distance away, and bartering with Bangkok taxis, especially for two women alone at night, was not a particularly appealing or safe thing to do). 

            The water taxi operators pointed us to a cross-river ferry that would, at the very least, get us back onto the correct side, so we hopped on that, the only passengers at this time of night.  The view wasn’t the one we had been going for, but you could still see Wat Arun, and it was spectacular.  This dropped us off in the midst of a night market, not a big, nice one like Chatuchak, but a clutch-your-purse-to-your-chest-and-look-around-furtively one.  Fantastic.  And it only got better, as when we reached the street there were no taxis to be seen, only Tuk Tuks.  Every guidebook harps on how dangerous these little riding lawnmower taxis can be, but we were desperate, so we climbed in and agreed on a price to Hua Lamphong, the closest subway station I could remember the name of.   Oh my God, this was a blast.  Screw the guidebooks, zipping through the dark streets in little more than a pop can with an engine was exhilarating.    We took them as often as possible after that.

             It had started off as a big, stupid mistake, but it ended up being a really fun, incredible night that still makes me smile when I think about it.  Murphy’s Law states “anything that can go wrong will go wrong”, but I prefer Holly’s Law, “Anything that can go wrong could go wrong, and if it does, roll wth it and laugh about it later”.   At the time it may really, really suck, but everything, good or bad, only makes your vacation into more of an adventure, and isn’t that why you’re traveling in the first place?

Tags: airport transfers, Bangkok, BlogSherpa, Kuala Lumpur, London Heathrow, memories, travel problems, tuk tuks

Bangkok – Wat a great place

             I had read that Thai hospitality was legendary, but I never expected to be greeted by the King as I landed at Bangkok’s new Suvarnabhumi airport.  Or, more specifically, a giant banner of him, accompanied by the words “Long Live the King.”  I took it as a sign of good things to come, and over the next five days, the city did not disappoint.

            This is a city of sensory overload.  Seven million people and at least five million motorbikes meant the chaotic energy of daily life was inescapable.  It was not unusual to see three or four people, some in full high-heeled business attire, with a child or a dog in their lap, squeezed onto one bike as it wove through traffic.  Even the peaceful Wats (temples) could make your head spin with all their intricate detailing.  Every inch was painted, gold leafed or sculpted to perfection, and just as I took one picture another caught my eye. 

            My personal favourite, and one of the main reasons I wanted to come to Bangkok in the first place, was Wat Po, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha.  I had caught a glimpse of the giant golden deity on TV my freshman year in college and had been fascinated by it ever since, but standing in the narrow building, staring up at a face the size of a Volkswagon, I was wowed.  Buddha was so peaceful entering Nirvana.  I had no concept of how big 140 feet long and 50 feet tall truly was until I saw regular-sized tourists looking like the Lilliputians from Gulliver’s Travels. 

            As if the massive gold leafed body was not enough, the soles of the huge feet were painstakingly incrusted with mother-of-pearl, depicting the 108 auspicious signs of the Buddha.  And toe prints!  Keeping with the theme, 108 bronze bowls were lined up along the back of the statue, and for a small donation you could buy dishes of 1-satang coins that, when one coin is dropped in each bowl, is said to bring good luck and karma.  That was an offer I couldn’t resist, the satisfying “ping!” of each coin hitting the bowl echoing through the building.

            All donations went towards the upkeep of the beautiful Wat, and the friendly resident Monks were also selling terracotta tiles that you could write a personalized message on, and which would then be used to re-tile the roof.  It cost pennies, but the knowledge that a small piece of me would remain at Wat Po for years to come was priceless.  If I had my way, I would have stayed at Wat Po for years to come!

            As I exited the Wat there was another banner of the King smiling down at me, as if to say “I told you it was going to be good.”   Was he ever right.

Tags: 108 coin ritual, Bangkok, BlogSherpa, King, monks, public transportation, published, Reclining Buddha, temples