Natalie's blog

Travel kit essentials

2010-05-07T07:37:00.000-07:00

Last year, whilst working as the travel editor of my student magazine, I decided to do a travel-health special, including a list of travel-health essentials that you should always take on the road. A group of my writers teamed up to make their suggestions, and the results were quite funny. As it's nearly summer, and a lot of people are probably planning their next trip, I thought I'd share my writer's tips with you. So here is a list of travel-health essentials that you should never be without:

(Compiled by Eliott Fellinger, Anthony Lock, Sam Langan and Venetia Stefanou)

Condoms – Because STDs don’t take holidays (unless they’re intermittent). 

Sunscreen – This will stop you getting skin cancer whilst making you look all shiny and sexy, everyone’s a winner (except cancer). 

Malaria tablets/injections - Because death by mosquito bite sucks. 

Honey - Apparently it can help heal small wounds and burns whilst doubling up as a tasty lip balm. On the other hand you might get mauled by bears.

Antibacterial wipes - Because the best places in the world don’t have washbasins or showers. They are perfect substitutes whether you’re in Glastonbury or Guyana. Contains alcohol too!

Alka Seltzer – This is the simplest way to cure hangovers and headaches and you don’t even need to use frying pans or squeeze grapes!

Tiger Balm - A Chinese health medicine that breathes new life back into muscles and aches and is also great for soothing insect bites. No Tiger included in the ingredients.

Clothing - Long sleeved and long legged clothing is appropriate in any weather condition, attractive I know, but you’ll be laughing when some fool in your tour group is in sunburn hell because they didn’t cover up.

Mosquito Clicker - Or “the Zapper,” or the Frank Zapper if your feeling funky. This little baby gives you a small electric shock to rid you of that annoying itch given off when a Mosquito decides to feast on you. Available on Amazon.

Lemons – Apparently spiders hate them so get your juicers at the ready if you’re off to the jungle!

Tampons – Obviously a necessity for girls. Trying to get hold of these where you don’t speak the language can turn into a horribly detailed game of charades in front of a foreign chemist. Guys – I hear they are also good for nosebleeds...

Energy snacks – Keeping your energy levels up is always a good idea whether you are climbing Mt Kilimanjaro or going on a wet walk through Wales so don’t forget to prepare with a packed lunch!

Magicool –Spray it in the car on a hot day, in your pokey little hostel room with no air-con or even on yourself. It instantly cools you down, which is a Godsend in really hot countries.

Sense of humour - Essential for getting on with locals when traveling, because you can get (nearly) everything else on the road!

Tres Bon Ceylon

2010-05-05T16:15:00.000-07:00

(apologies in advance for the poor photo quality in this post - I didn't own a digital camera when I went to Sri Lanka, just a disposable one, so these photos are all scanned in.)

The WTI competition has gotten my friend's tongues wagging recently, and travel seems to be first thing that comes up in all my conversations since I entered the competition. One of the main things people seem to ask me is "what is your favourite country?" My answer is, and probably always will be the same: Sri Lanka.

So why Sri Lanka? Well, firstly I'd say that the people in Sri Lanka are probably the nicest people I've ever met. I spent just over two months working in Sri Lanka, first as a school teacher, and on an elephant conservation project, and I received nothing but kindness from the people I met there. On a crowded bus ride from Bentota to Colombo, a friend of mine said to me "Sri Lanka is just the most peaceful country I've ever been to...apart from the war of course." This made us both laugh, because the war seemed so detached from our lives out there. It wasn't something that the average Sri Lankan seemed to concern themselves with, they just took it as a given and got on with their lives. There has been a lot of controversy in this country over the incidents that lead to the war finishing, and I've heard people say that they wouldn't like to visit Sri Lanka after what has happened, but it is very difficult to judge a country from the outside, and Sri Lankan people are not to blame for the governments mistakes. Sri Lanka is an amazing country, with lots to offer, and now that the war is over, there has never been a better time to visit.

So what else makes Sri Lanka special?

The history: Sri Lanka has an amazing history, and some beautiful historical sites. If you visit, you absolutely must visit the cultural triangle - an area which includes a world heritage site and ancient cities more than 2,500 years old! I visited three of the places in the cultural triangle: Dambulla, Sigiriya, and Anuradhapura.

Dambulla has a golden temple and caves covered in religious paintings and statues of buddha.

Sigiriya has the remains of a 5th century palace, cut out of a huge rock. The climb to the top takes a few hours, but it is worth it for the stunning views of Sri Lanka. This was my favourite of the places in the cultutral triangle as I loved these lions feet cut into the rock half-way up:

Anuradhapura is an ancient city that spans a huge area of land and is a UNESCO world heritage sight.

The food: As an island, Sri Lanka has a lot to offer in terms of seafood. I ate spicy prawns almost every day that I was there. The food seemed like a blend of Chinese and Indian cuisine. One particular Sri Lankan specialty that everyone should try is roti. Roti is a kind of coconut pancake often eaten for breakfast. My Sri Lankan friends ate theirs with an extremely spicy lime-pickle sauce, but I preferred mine with apricot jam.

The breathtaking sights: In my two months in Sri Lanka I tried to see as much as I could, but I could literally spend a year travelling around Sri Lanka. It's beautiful dense rainforests, picturesque beaches, and tea fields in the mountains were a real treat on the eyes.

I took this photo on a lagoon trip, just outside Sri Lanka's commercial capital Colombo.

This is a statue of Buddha on the top of a hill in Kandy, which can be seen from miles away.

This is one of the beaches on the West of Sri Lanka. The beaches in the North are supposed to be more beautiful, but I visited in 2006, when the war was still in full swing.

This photo was taken from the top of a mountain called Adam's Peak, the highest mountain in Sri Lanka, and also a pilgrimage site. It's hard to tell in this photo, but the views are stunning. It took us almost 6 hours to climb to the top, but we got there just in time for sunrise, which was amazing to watch from the top of a mountain!

The beach parties: There aint no party like a Sri Lankan beach party! I've done a fair bit of travelling around Asia, and one of the most disappointing things I find is that every party I ever go to on the beach is just full of tourists. This was something I didn't find in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan people seem to know how to party, and the beach parties often included barbeques, bongo drum playing, dancing, playing carrom (a Sri Lankan board game, sort of like a small version of billiards) and drinking a lot of Arak (coconut rum).

The amazing wildlife: Sri Lanka really has it all in terms of wildlife - stunningly beautiful birds and butterflies, leopards, elephants, wild monkeys, crocodiles etc. I saw a lot of amazing animals on my visit. Sri Lanka has some great spots to see all the different wildlife. On my visit, I went to a safari park, and did a trek through the rainforrest where I saw wild monkeys and some weird snakes and insects. I worked in an elephant sanctuary, and even saw a crocodile reclining on a rock on a lagoon trip, at which point my tour guide said "shall I poke it with stick?"

This was one of the baby elephants at the elephant orphanage I worked at (pinnewala)

And here is a monkey I befriended on the beach.

This was a surprisingly heavy tortoise I met in a turtle sanctuary. The day I went there it was turtle hatching season, and the man running the place had thousands of tiny newborn turtles that he had taken from the beach and hatched in the sanctuary so they would not get taken by poachers. That night we went with him and released them all into the sea. It was an amazing experience.

And here is a snake charmer!

Back to the old school, back to my roots

2010-04-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I've reached the final round of the World Traveller Intern competition, and just uploaded my final application video, which is on my lovely hometown Nottingham:

The whole competition has rushed by so quickly I haven't really had much time to reflect on it. It is still very hard to believe that I have made the top ten, especially considering I only heard about the competition two days before its deadline, and had to be persuaded by a friend to even put my first video up.

This last part of the competition has left me feeling very strange. Every time I watch one of the other videos, I get a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. The reason I suppose that is, is that at this point of the competition, everyone is so talented, it's very hard to imagine who might win. All my friends keep telling me that this is the perfect job for me, and I know they are right, but then all the other applicants get the same comments and I just think: what makes me special? We all have different sets of skills, so what are STA looking for in their interns?

I want to win this more than anything, mainly because its the opportunity I've always been looking for and now its so close to my grasp it will be very difficult to let it go if I don't win. I think I could make a good job of it, after all my career plans revolve around travel journalism, and it's something I'm going to be doing regardless of whether I win or not, but to win the competition...well I suppose that would really help me get my foot in the door of a notoriously difficult career.

I feel like I've really stretched myself during the competition, and that is definitely a good thing. I've learned how to make movies, improved my blog, and found out a lot about social media that I never knew before. These are all such great skills, and I'm so thankful that STA gave me the push that I needed to learn them.

My plan for if I don't win is to get a job teaching in Sri Lanka and save up money until I have enough to travel around for a year. Then I'm going to attempt to make some socio-political documentaries in Asia. If that sounds interesting to anyone reading this, please get in touch as I would love to build up a crew - I still have a lot to learn and I think I could learn a lot from the other WTI applicants, as well as other travellers.

If you liked my video, feel free to vote for me here, it would really help my cause!

The finals!

2010-04-23T05:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I actually made it through to the final round! I've beaten hundreds of other applicants to make it through to the top 10, and now have to make one final video to try and secure myself a winning place. My video is going to be on Nottingham, a vibrant and unique city that often gets overlooked. To find out why I made it this far, visit: The STA World Traveller Intern homepage and check out my application video.

I should have my Nottingham video up soon, so keep checking back for updates. I also need all the votes I can get, so if you like my video, click the VOTE NOW button on my STA homepage.

A little cultural insight: photo of the day

2010-04-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this isn't exactly a person, but I had to get this photo in somewhere. I found this monkey in a temple in central Phnom Penh, Cambodia. About two minutes before this photo was taken it was snacking on an enormous piece of chocolate that it stole from a tourist, and has clearly been well over-fed!

A little cultural insight: photo of the day

2010-04-09T02:21:00.000-07:00

Today's photo was taken in Suzhou, (pronounced Soo Jo) a sleepy suburb of Shanghai. This Chinese man slowly makes his way down a canal that backed on to people's houses:

A little cultural insight: photo of the day

2010-04-08T04:11:00.000-07:00

I spotted this man selling fruit on a East Coast beach in Thailand. I liked his snazzy outfit so took a picture of him:

A little cultural insight: photo of the day

2010-04-07T06:21:00.000-07:00

This Chinese girl teaches her dog how to surfboard in Hainan:

A little cultural insight: photo of the day

2010-04-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

Having just read Paddy's newest blog post, I've been inspired to start a daily series of photos of the interesting people I have met along my travels. I'm kicking it off with this photo of a Cambodian mother and her daughter selling fried spiders on the side of the road at a bus stop just outside Phnom Penh:

Five tips for solo travellers

2010-04-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

I came across this article on the Lonely Planet website about ways to combat loneliness when traveling abroad. Whilst some of the tips were handy, they were a bit geared towards older travelers, so I thought I'd add a few more student-relevent ones of my own:

1: Stay in hostels: hostel bookers is a really useful website for finding a good hostel. It lists user ratings, so you can see which hostels are most popular. Not only does this mean you can pick the nicest hostel, but it means that you will stay at a busy hostel, thus ensuring there are plenty of people to make friends with.

2: Network: Talk to everyone when you travel, locals, tourists, backpackers, whatever. Don't ever be afraid to start up a conversation with people. I often find people are very enthusiastic to talk to you when they learn you are travelling by yourself. Find out from other travellers where the best places to stay are, and ask locals what they recommend you see whilst you are in their country. They are sure to be able to give you some historical information and tips that you wouldn't have had otherwise, don't just follow your guidebook, it can't tell you everything.

3: Use an alternative to your normal cashcard: If you are travelling by yourself, one of the main concerns is getting robbed. If you have all your money taken off you and you are completely by yourself, it really puts you in an awkward situation. STA travel have come up with a great solution to this problem, with their travel cashcard which allows you to top it up with credit, and then use it just like your normal cashcard at any ATMs which accept mastercards. It's not linked to your bank, so if its stolen, you will only loose the money that is on it, and you can block it instantly should you need to. Just make sure you carry your actual cashcard in a different place to the STA card. Money belts are useful for storing things that you need to keep secure.

4: Organise group trips/tours: Sandeman's New Europe tours offer free walking tours throughout most of the capital cities in Europe. They are very popular, and give a great introduction to the city, as well as being a good way to meet people.

5:Arrange to meet people along the way: Ask everyone you meet where they are going next, and if they are moving on to any of the same places as you, get their email and arrange to meet them. Also TravBuddy is a social networking site for people looking for people to travel with. You can create a profile and search for people who are travelling to the same places at the same time as you. Be warned that there are a few weirdos on the site though, and if you do arrange to meet anyone, make sure you meet in a safe, and crowded place in case anything should go wrong.

Thailand - worth a visit?

2010-04-03T16:25:00.000-07:00

I'm writing an article for my student magazine Hullfire at the moment about whether or not Thailand has been ruined by tourism. Ever-popular with student tourists, Thailand’s reputation seems to precede it. Whether it’s the idyllic islands, sex tourism, infamous beach parties, or the Leo DiCaprio film The Beach that attracts the millions of visitors that swarm into Thailand each year, this prominent South East Asian country certainly seems to have made its mark on the tourism business. In fact when I spoke to the STA branch manager in Leeds, Ewan Clarke, he said: "“If you take Australia out of the equation, I’d say Thailand is probably the most popular single destination to go to.”

So what makes Thailand so special? And is there still a chance to experience some real Thai culture when, according to www.1stopthailand.com/facts, up to 12 million visitors are flooding in on a yearly basis? Well of course there is!

Here's some highlights:

Cooking Courses in Chiang Mai:

There are dozens of schools offering to teach you how to cook Thai food in the Northern city of Chiang Mai. Most classes last about a day, and start with a trip to the market to give you an introduction to Thai ingredients. The strong smells and vibrant colours of the market make for a great start to the day. You then go back to the kitchens, where you can chose which meals to cook. Popular dishes include: Tom Yam Soup, Papaya Salad, Pad Thai, Thai spring rolls, and Red/Green Curry. In my course, we all shared each others dishes, so we were able to try every meal on offer and sample a real variety of Thai cooking. At the end of the day you are usually given a cookbook with all the recipes in to take home with you.

Jungle treks:

There are many jungle treks on offer in the North of Thailand, an activity which gives you the chance to escape the bustling citylife of Chiang Mai and Bangkok, and experience some of the breathtakingly beautiful scenery that Thailand has to offer. Most treks include an overnight stay in a hill tribe village, and sometimes bamboo rafting and elephant riding are included too. I chose to escape the tourist-heavy treks on offer in Chiang Mai, and went slightly further North to a little town called Pai to do my trek. The trek was amazing, although very challenging as we were walking for eight hours a day for two days. My feet literally started bleeding on the second day, as you can see in this picture:

Our tour guide was fantastic. I think its really important that you find the right tour guide for you, as some people told me that their tour guides shot animals in the wild for dinner, or smoked opium pipes. Perhaps these things appeal to you, so you should pick your tour guide accordingly. My tour guide, however, simply told jokes the whole time, which made the walk a lot more fun. He even made us cups out of bamboo, and then encouraged us to use them for drinking games in the evening!

The guide also took us to see two different hill tribes, which was an insightful experience. Some of the hill tribes are still very remote, and often still wear traditional clothing and live essentially very rural lifestyles. There is some controversy about whether tourism is having a damaging effect on these tribes. But I'll reserve my judgment on this one. Go there and decide for yourself!

The idyllic beaches in the South/East Coast:

I'm not really a beach kind of person, but have to say that the picturesque beaches in Thailand really are worth checking out. The Southern beaches have whiter sand and clearer sea, but are more crowded with package-holiday types, whereas the East Coast beaches are more deserted, but not quite so beautiful, and the sea is not so great for diving in. Films such as The Beach might make you wonder if there is still unexplored islands left in Thailand, but whilst this might be the case, you'll have to race all the other tourists still looking for the illusive deserted islands. This being said, if you visit Thailand out of peak season, there is much more opportunity to get one of the Southern beaches practically to yourself, provided that you stay away from the bigger, more popular islands such as Koh Samui and Phuket.

Koh Samed was my favourite of the Thai islands. Located on the East coast, Koh Samed is a relatively small island quite easy to get to from Bangkok. Although its beaches are not perfect, it offers some cheap accomodation and is a beautiful sight to see at night, when the whole island lights up with glowing lanterns in a myriad of colours, and fire shows make for great entertainment when sitting at the waters edge enjoying a bucket of alcohol in the evenings!

The opulent temples:

(picture from google images)

Travelling round South East Asia for two months, I saw more temples than I care to recall, however there really are some breathtaking temples in Thailand that are well worth visiting. My favourite was Wat Doi Suthep, a golden temple on the top of a hill in Chiang Mai. The hour long drive up the hill is well worth it, and you can get amazing city views from the mid-way point. Here it is at night, lit up beautifully:

and here it is in the daytime:

(picture from google images)

food, glorious food

2010-04-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

So I actually made it into the top 50 finalists of the STA travel intern competition! Which means I'm only 49 people away from my dream job. Here I am on the STA travel intern home page:

I now have to fill out another form of information, which includes some rather tricky questions. One of the ones I am really struggling with is "What travel experiences have you had?" The reason I am finding this particular question so difficult is because I have had so many amazing experiences, I couldn't possibly tell them all, because it would be pages and pages of writing. So how do I paraphrase all my experiences and break them down into mini, manageable chunks that the STA travel team will want to read about? So far I've just written up my travel highlights, but for some reason this seems to keep coming back to food, thus the title of my blog today. It would seem that food really is an integral part of my travel experiences, whether it is because my search for a tasty dinner leads me into some kind of adventure, or because of the people I end up eating with. A taste, just like a smell can trigger some of the most powerful memories.

Here are my top 4 favourite eating experiences:

The meal with the crow:
I had been working in Sri Lanka for almost two months when I started to really miss English food. It wasn't so much meals in particular, but specific items that were hard to find. Cheese was one of them, and mayonaise was the other. I was craving mayonaise like nothing else, and so every time I went to eat, I would desperately scour the menus for the all-illusive mayo. Eventually, just as I was about to give up, I found a restaurant that offered egg mayonaise sandwiches. It was a rather Westernised restaurant, and had extortionate prices, but I was willing to pay anything for a taste of that mayo, so I ordered my sandwich, and sort of explained my story to the slightly confused waiter, who I think took most of it in. He came out after a while with my sandwich, and said: "you lucky girl, this last one!" and sat the plate down in front of me. At that exact moment, to my utter horror, a rogue crow flew in from outside, picked up my sandwich and flew off into a nearby tree! I was so suprised I wasn't even upset about the sandwich, more baffled at why this crow was so obviously bullying me! I didn't get to eat any mayonaise until I got back to England two weeks later, but I did get to watch the crow try and steal a steak only ten minutes after its intial attack, and fail miserably, bringing the steak and plate crashing to the floor, and enraging the German customer who had ordered it.

(picture from google images)

Club food:
In my first week in Thailand I made my way down to Koh Samed, an island on the East Coast, with a couple of Korean girls I had met in Bangkok. We quickly made friends with a group of Thai students, who took us to their favourite club which backed on to the beach. After a couple of buckets of alcohol, we were keen for some food to sober us up, and we noticed that there was a noodle soup bar at the side of the club. In England everyone is always snacking on chips and kebabs at the end of the night, so I was rather relluctant to believe a noodle soup could be quite as satisfying, but we sat at the bar and ordered the vegetable noodle soup. In Thailand noodle soup is always served with a little range of condiments which usually includes dried chillies, vinegar, and a couple of other bits that I didn't recognise. I had tried using these condiments to improve my soup in Bangkok, but hadn't found the taste very satisfactory. The Thai group we were with, however, skillfully added the right amount of each thing to our soups and I was to discover that a piping hot bowl of broth tastes like heaven after two buckets of Sangsum. The flavours were amazing. The soup was tangy, spicy and refreshing, and now every time I go on a night out in England, I always find myself longing for another hot bowl of noodle soup at the end of the night.

A taste of something different in Vang Vieng:
Before I arrived in Vang Vieng, I read in my Lonely Planet book to avoid the TV-restaurants food at all costs, because most of the restaurants use the same menus, and their attempt at western food isn't too great. As soon as I arrived, I immediately set out to find somewhere that would sell authentic Laos cuisine. My searches fell a little short of the mark, and I spent my first night eating a rather repulsive spaghetti and tomatoe sauce dish, that tasted like baked beans. I was running out of money a little at this point, and had heard that many farang (foreigners) were working in bars in Vang Vieng for free food and drink, so I went on a search for a job. Luckily for me the first bar I went into had jobs available, and I quickly settled in to my new job, making good friends with the manager, Peng. On my third day, Peng invited me to have a meal with his family, an experience I was hardly expecting to find in tourist-flooded Vang Vieng, and I happily accepted his invite. We sat down to the best meal I ate during my whole time in Laos. There was fragrant sticky rice, green-tinged (I have no idea why) sweet rice, tangy fish soup, and spicy papaya salad. The taste of each dish was amazing, and we ate entirely with our hands (apart from the fish soup). Not only was it the tastiest meal I ate in Laos, but experience of eating with a Laos family, who gladly explained to me how to eat each bit as I attempted to use my hands as spoons, was unbeatable.

(picture from google images)

Learning to cook Thai-style:
I think Thai food is some of the best food I have tasted on my travels. It's diverse, flavoursome, and utterly delicious. Whilst I was in the North of Thailand, traveling through Chiang Mai, I decided to take a cooking course so that I could carry on eating Thai food at home. The course was in this beautiful outdoor kitchen, surrounded by plants, and we began the course by shopping for ingredients in the market, where I was able to learn all about the spices and vegetables that go into Thai cooking. I learnt how to make six different meals on my course, including Thai Green Curry, Tom Yam Soup, and Papaya salad amoungst other things, and after making each course, we sat down to eat what we had produced. After six courses I literally didn't want to look at food ever again, but the experience of cooking all my own Thai food was brilliant, and I have made lots of the dishes again since.

I take pictures of my food sometimes when I'm traveling. Check it out on my Flickr

STA travel intern 2010

2010-03-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

Have just entered STA's travel competition. They are looking for two people to travel the world and blog about it, which just sounds like my dream job. My life seems completely entwined with STA travel at the moment as I went in to their convent garden store the other day to discuss prices for my gap year, and also interviewed an STA branch manager for an article I'm writing on Thailand. I quite like them as a company, they seem really genuine, and clued up about travel.

2010-02-21T11:29:00.001-08:00

Things have been fairly hectic lately, my course requires me to read about three books a week, which has proved to be quite a struggle this semester alongside essays, and editing Hullfire (my student magazine). On top of that I am now trying to apply for jobs and things for when I leave uni, I really don't want to be hanging around working in London and sleeping on my mum's sofa, so am trying to find a good job abroad, where I can make enough money in six months to do a further six months traveling.
Anyway, in the midst of all this, I managed to do another photoshoot for Hullfire, although to be honest I'm not very happy with it, for a number of reasons that I won't go into. I'm getting itchy feet in regards to Hullfire now, I've put three years of my life into it, and I'm desperate to move on to bigger and better things. Anyway, here is the photo:

2nd Photoshoot

2009-12-14T14:18:00.001-08:00

After lots of panic over which models to use and where on earth to shoot it, my second attempt at styling a photoshoot actually turned out pretty perfect. We found this great little coffee shop with leather, vintage chairs and some great props, and the clothes worked really well with the background. Here is the final picture:

Here's a few behind the scenes pics too:

Photoshoots

2009-12-05T08:23:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to organise a new photoshoot for my student magazine, and thought I might as well upload the photo of the first one I did in November. I'm really hoping that the new one will be better than this one. I think i made a mistake in using so many models, and the styling was a little over the top. I'm really looking forward to giving the whole thing another go. Will upload the new one next week. This photograph was taken by Jonno Witts.

Vang Vieng

2009-12-02T11:15:00.001-08:00

I'm currently working on a piece of writing for a Rough Guides competition. You have to describe a place you know well in 500 words and it has to have an 'on a budget' theme and be in the style of Rough Guides. This is what I've got so far:

Once just a remote town on the intersection of Laos’s capital Vietienne, and world heritage city Luang Prabang, recent years have seen a rapid economic growth in the little town of Vang Vieng. Fresh on the lips of the mosquito-bitten travellers of the South East Asia trail, Vang Vieng has a reputation which certainly exceeds its size, and quite rightly. This rural town is centred around the picturesque Nam Song River, and is surrounded by breathtaking limestone karsts with many caves to be explored for the intrepid traveller, although for most visitors, this scenery is just an added bonus, as thousands of tourists flock to Vang Vieng each year for one reason only: tubing. Something of a pilgrimage activity these days, initially tubing (which consists of floating down the river on an oversized piece of inner tubing) started as just a small event, with a few bars scattered down by the muddy waters, serving up Beerlao to the passers by. Tubing these days, however, is now an sport in it’s own right, and traditional wooden bars perched over the river offer much more than just alcohol. Rope swings, mud-slides, and events such as limbo, tug-of-war, and mud-volleyball are just some of the activities on offer, and the lucky winners can inebriate themselves further with free buckets of local whisky.
Whilst the infamous “happy” pizzas, excessive drinking, and party-culture don’t appeal to everyone, the locals certainly seem to have adapted comfortably, and instead of creating the dissidence that can be seen in much of neighbouring country: tourist-popular Thailand, Vang Vieng still enjoys a very Lao ambience of relaxation and fun, in a laid back setting. You won’t find high-rise hotels, or package holidays here, and the traditional guesthouses still retain their unbeatable prices. With everything within walking distance, and very little to do but appreciate your surroundings, it is hard to overspend in Vang Vieng, giving it a great appeal to the penniless travellers passing through, many of whom find it hard to leave, resulting in the bars being filled with working farang (foreigners). Bar work and promoting are both easy jobs to find in Vang Vieng, and will earn you not only social status amongst the travellers, but the priceless guarantee of accommodation, food, and even better, all the alcohol you can drink. If working isn’t for you, however, it’s quite easy to live on just a few dollars a day, with budget guesthouses away from the main strip still charging under 50,000 kip (less than five dollars) in the high season, and a wealth of street food vendors offering tasty, cheap alternatives to the more expensive TV restaurants.
Love it or hate it, there’s a certain appeal to Vang Vieng’s paradoxical combination of party-town and relaxation Mecca, It’s rare to find a place where local and western culture interweave so harmoniously, and regardless of the obligatory tubing, there are many other reasons to visit this unique and beautiful town now, before the inevitable westernisation takes its toll.

Arts Reviewing

2009-12-02T11:04:00.000-08:00

Here's a small collection of articles that I wrote last year, but never really did anything with. Thought I might as well upload them.

Shanghai Living, the Hu Yang solo exhibition

China has been the focus of everyone’s conversations since the start of this year’s extremely controversial Olympics and its extensive political problems seemed only too obvious in the face of its blanket press coverage over the summer. While most people had their eye firmly on Beijing, 1490km south in China’s largest city, Shanghai, contemporary photographer Hu Yang was attempting to make his own political statement about the state of his country. The Shanghai Living exhibition featured a series of images that Hu Yang believed would highlight the current issues, not only in commercialised Shanghai, but throughout China.

Far from the sterile photos of The Bird’s Nest that featured in the papers, Hu Yang’s collection depicts a lively jumble of both wealthy and poor people living a stone’s throw away from each other in Shanghai. His juxtaposition of affluence and poverty makes a bold statement about Shanghai’s segregated economy.

Hu Yang photographed over 100 different people around Shanghai in their own houses, breaking down a very private culture and exposing the underbelly of a city where capitalism lives next to communism and slums exist mere metres from grandiose blocks of flats and high-rise hotels. Spending 14 months delving into people’s lives, Hu Yang photographed them in their most personal space – their own homes. The images are captivating because this invasion of privacy gives them an almost voyeuristic feel and provides a unique glance into the culture and the people of Shanghai.

The photos in his collection have a naturalistic feel to them, their instantaneous nature lending them a sense of raw beauty. One photo shows a rich Shanghaiese couple sat on their immaculately upholstered sofa with spotless cream and gold walls. The upright, awkward positions they are sat in and their pale, emotionless faces look as cold and unfriendly as their bourgeoisie, Henry VIII-style house. In a stark comparison to this, another photo captures a group of migrant workers lying in bunk beds in a worn-out room. The green-tinged walls are flaked and damp, and the workers have dirt ingrained into every wrinkle on their well-tanned faces.

By taking photos of people in their own homes, Hu Yang creates a very personal depth to the pictures. His subjects look so natural, so calm in their own environment that their emotions shine through. Each photo seems to have its own narrative, each face telling its own story. In one photo a fashionable-looking boy is sat in a chair staring at his extensive shoe collection. In another a man is leaning back on a wooden chair, staring at his laptop in a room that is filled to the brim with books. It is possible to derive your own stories from these photos and that is what is so exciting about them. People’s homes say so much about them and whilst some of the photo’s subjects are clearly too poor to be able to afford to decorate their houses properly, they have personalised them in their own way. One photo in particular captures this perfectly. A woman is sleeping in her bed, surrounded by pictures cut out of magazines and supermarket fliers. She doesn’t have enough money to paint or wallpaper her house, but she has still stamped her own unique mark on it.

Hu Yang’s skills with lighting and eye for palette make the photos more than just a picture book of social commentary; it makes them beautiful as art. The collection is a perfect example of how a political statement and an artist’s eye can create something that is both visually amazing and socially powerful.

Bass in your face – Tortured by Coki

The first time I heard dubstep was 2005. I was working in a bar when a DJ played the song Tortured by Coki and I was mesmerised. The irregular bassline, lack of lyrics and repetition seemed both confusing and enthralling. I had never heard anything like it, but the more and more I listened to the track, the more I found it interesting. Tortured is a fantastic example of dubstep, one of England’s newer electronic music genres. Dubstep appeared in early 2000 in London, where its unique and underground scene quickly spread to the rest of the country. It draws influences from grime, garage, and drum and bass, but has a distinctively different sound from all three. Characteristically dubstep uses looped bass lines and is very repetitive, with a dark undertone to it. Whilst Dubstep can hardly be compared to classical music, contemporary composer Phillip Glass once described the repetition within his songs to have a lulling, calm effect that makes the listener forget time as they are taken in a continuingly duplicated loop of music. This loss of time is certainly something that I feel equates to Dubstep, although rather than making the listener feel calm, Dubstep is slightly unnerving and mysterious.

Coki’s Tortured has a very atmospherically scary feel to it, which certainly matches its title. It begins with a steady drumbeat and a looped bass line which then ascends in pitch and reverses upon itself after the bass drop. Snares have a reverberated echo on them, which gives the song a sense of tension. Much like common drum and bass, Tortured uses lyric samples at intervals throughout the piece as more of a backdrop to the music than an essential element.

Tortured, like many dubstep tracks, is so simple and has so little to it that it is almost haunting. However, to make the most of it you need powerful speakers, subwoofers especially. Dubstep production company Digital Mystikz, which includes Coki, opened their own club called DMZ, which was created with a sound system made specifically for playing dubstep. The effect of playing the genre’s serenely low bass lines on extremely loud speakers is that the music quite literally creates a reverberating bass line within your chest. Enchanting.

Ghost Dances by Christopher Bruce – A masterpiece of contemporary dance.

Whilst studying performing arts a few years ago, I stumbled across a piece of ballet that changed my perception of dance forever. Far from the aging techniques used by ballets such as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, Contemporary ballet Ghost Dances, choreographed by Christopher Bruce, is a richly unique and exciting work of art.
Contemporary ballet has its roots in The Rambert Ballet Dance Company, where Bruce himself was trained. Rambert Ballet used a combination of modern and post-modern techniques to achieve something new and versatile. Ghost Dances is a perfect example of this concurrent mix. Whilst its political basis breaks away from the fairytale narratives of traditional ballet, it still retains the serene beauty of classical dance.

The dance itself is Bruce’s response to Augusto Pinochet’s reign of terror during his Chiliean dictatorship in the 70s. This is illustrated through the use of Latin-American Folk music, and Bruce incorporates indigenous dance techniques such as salsa, giving the dance a more country-specific flavour. Whilst Ghost Dances has no actual plot, it tells individual stories of the men and women who disappeared during this time, as Pinochet secretly killed thousands of political dissenters.

At the beginning of the piece the audience is introduced to three ‘Ghost Dancers’, who are dressed in rags with faces painted to look like skulls. The Ghost Dancers remain on stage throughout the piece and symbolise death and oppression, looming ominously over the other characters. Their dance is fierce and angry, alternating between unison and solo performances. Their technique is very different from that of traditional ballet, where chorus dancers often perform in perfectly-timed unison, as the Ghost Dancers move slightly out of time with each other and occasionally deviate into different dances altogether. This gives the piece a much more natural and improvised feel. Because the dancers are not perfectly in time with each other, the audience is not given the impression of a rehearsed, structured piece of ballet; instead they are presented with something that feels more free-flowing, versatile and expressionistic.

In the next scene a group of dancers take to the stage and perform as a group, in some nameless happy occasion like a party or wedding. Whilst the scene is jovial and light, it is still darkly permeated by the Ghost Dancers’ presence in the background. The other dancers are a group of men and women who are barefoot and dressed colourfully in traditional Latin-American clothing without a tutu or ballet shoe in sight. Where classical ballet uses clothing to express the dance itself, Bruce’s choice of clothing expresses his theme. After their celebration, the performers split off into couples, families and friends and dance together, including a love dance between one of the couples. The happy pan-flute music and lively mixture of salsa and ballet expresses their happiness. They flirt by pulling away and coming together, and a set of jumps and upward moves, such as lifts, personifies their high spirits. Halfway through this courtship the Ghost Dancers seize the man and carry him away, where he remains motionless in their arms, leaving the woman alone on stage. After this she dances alone, in a slow, repetitive melancholy, performing a few simple movements over and over again. She incorporates a contemporary dance technique called retraction, which is where the body literally folds in upon itself. She pulls her head down to her chest, bringing her arms up high behind her as if in great pain. She expresses her emotion beautifully, in a way that is almost impossible to do in over-structured classical ballet, marking the mournful power of the piece.

The magic of Christopher Bruce’s choreography is its original style and dramatic inclination that result in a rare and emotive beauty. Putting a political message into his piece allows the audience to connect with it in a way that is unusual of ballet. It is both moving and technically brilliant, and its contemporary elements make it accessible to even the most cynical of reviewers. Bruce proves that ballet is not just for bourgeoisie society and I doubt that even someone who was fastidiously critical of this genre of performance could fail to be moved in some way by Ghost Dances.