Lost? No Thanks, I Prefer Wicker Baskets

Imagine Tolstoy's War & Peace, a 1200-or-so page novel, were a four-hour movie. There are very few novels longer than War & Peace, and very few movies that break the three-hour mark. But, as a novel, they say it's the best of all time. Would you watch a new four-hour version?

Most of us would, particularly if it starred someone like Brad Pitt or Cate Blanchett.

I bring this up because of the ongoing Lost fever. A couple months ago, The New York Times profiled the Texan/Missouran Gregg Nations (yes, Gregg with three Gs) who is tirelessly responsible for the show's needlessly confusing web of character myths and storylines -- he's the one to keep all the ins and outs of 100 unresolved characters issues straight in for making new plots decisions for still-undetermined future episodes, he tracks it in a well-guarded compilation the show's producers call the 'bible.'

In other words, TV's Tolstoy has had no plan.

Lost, which mercifully ends after next season, has already given us some 90 episodes (which cost $12 million each to create), or approximately a 60-hour movie.

That's equivalent, using the analogy above, to a 18,000-page novel. Have you read the greatest novel of all time, at 1200 pages? Would you read anything at 18,000 pages? I don't know. It sort of feels, to me, like going to a poetry slam and enduring a contest reading 'some old crap found on the back of a envelope'?

Anyway, just wondering if there's a better alternative for our little life space between work and sleep time, perhaps making wicker baskets?

Top 5 Wicker Basket Sites:

• PSP (not PCP) Basket tutorial
• Making a Clamshell Flower Basket
• Jon's Buschcraft woven basket
• Cleaning your basket
• Wicker Basket poem

Top 5 Things My Vietnam Guidebook Says that (Beating Chest...) the Others Don't

Though I have my own Vietnam guidebook, I always pick up the new Vietnam guidebooks and carry at least one (usually Lonely Planet or Rough Guide) when I travel around Vietnam. But there are several biggish things, in my humble opinion, that my site covers that you don't find in those (yet). Including these five:

1. DIY MEKONG IS POSSIBLE! That's right, you don't have to take a group tour from Saigon. I wrote for Transitions Abroad a couple years ago about how the Mekong Delta has changed, and that some gui debooks (and nearly all travelers) hadn't noticed yet. I went on my own for nearly all of my research trip -- and got much more out of even the commonly visited places like Vinh Long and Chau Doc. (Like offers to sleep over on floating house boats, crossing Ben Tre on roads and ferries not on maps, and reaching bird sanctuaries not mentioned in any guidebook.)

2. BACH MA STOP-OFF BETWEEN HOI AN & HUE. Yes, the buses make the short trip -- so does the train -- but an excellent $75 or so splurge for a private car with driver gets you on the lovely Hai Van Pass (skipped by the new road), and gives you enough time to visit the overlooked, underrated Bach Ma National Park mid-way between the two destinations. A one-way trip with a hired car reaches that, plus a beach and Danang's Chan Museum if you like, and will drop you off at your hotel in the early evening.

3. HUE'S DMZ BUS TOUR ISN'T VERY GOOD. Sorry, but it's just true. You spend about nine hours of a 12-hour trip on the bus. You're far better off going by public bus to Dong Ha town and arranging a private trip with actual vets from DMZ Cafe, or with Stop & Go Cafe in Hue.

4. WHEN IN HUE, EAT HUE-STYLE FOOD. Hue is home to approximately 1400 of Vietnam's 1700 contributions to world cuisine. And most cannot be found outside the former capital for the kings. These are generally served in very local, very cheap places -- often in bite-size 'tapas'-style portions -- and with a little extra chili kick.

5. HALONG BAY ROCK-CLIMBING TOURS. American-run SloPony offers all sorts of interesting adventures for those not wanting to cram into another Halong Bay cruise. The past few years, they've expanded many rock-climbing routes where you can drop into the emerald waters.

Top 10 Things in Robert Reid's Head

On a sticky Sunday evening...

1. Nouveaux pant-folding techniques. Something tells me there are better, more advanced and efficient pant-folding techniques out there I don't know about yet. And it hurts me to admit it.
2. U-Turn Travel. Wall St's crashed, jobs are slashed, Facebook/Twitter's out of control. Could it be this is the year of a grand U-TURN? That means, post cards while traveling -- not emails -- and drawing the bus driver's swooping moustache, not catching it on Flip Video.
3. Boring NBA playoffs. After 'March Madness' gave us maybe one upset in 30-some games, the NBA playoffs are shaping up to be more blah -- until LA and Cleveland meet up.
4. Eight-five degrees is about seven degrees too hot. I'll say it: summer is overrated. One warm Brooklyn day and I'm looking at a night shower (second of the day).
5. New York Times' Travel Section Today. A full section covering 'Europe for every budget,' or, um, $250 and $1000 per day. $1000? Lost opportunity for a $100, $200 and $350 per day breakdown. I'm guessing $1000 is way over most people's heads about now. I'd say $250's over mine.
6. The Wrestler. Saw it last night. Not really that good, despite the performances, but loved the unabashed use of '80s metal (Accept!). And I like Mickey Rourke's take on the '90s: 'the '90s sucked.'
7. The weird Hansel & Gretel house in Brooklyn's Bay Ridge. Went out to Brooklyn's southwesternest neighborhood, where the Verrazano Bridge connects the borough with Staten Island, to walk along the water and have some Vietnamese food on 4th Ave. By pure accident, stumbled into an infamous Hobbit-styled home. A Papa John's ad was rubber-banded to the gate.
8. Top 10 lists. Are they getting out of hand?
9. Pretty, cute, hug-me flowers. I'm probably sissy for thinking it, but it's nice seeing lavender and pink flowers on browstone-street trees for a couple weeks every spring.
10. Battle re-enactment etiquette. Are first-time battle re-enactors made to fall first during mock battles? How many years does it take to graduate to 'survival' status?

Traveler of the Week

THE RED SOX FAN IN THE WHITE SWEATSHIRT

I'm not a baseball fan, but a visiting friend was keen to see the Yankees/Red Sox game on last night. I obliged. Four hours in, it was tied in the 11th inning. I was talking about the aggressivity of Kevin Youkilis' goatee -- that thing just blares 'THIS IS MY FACE, THIS IS MY GOATEE, LOOK AT IT NOW, DAMMIT' -- when he smacked a ball out of the park, ending the game with a 5-4 Boston win.

On the replay I noticed something wonderful. Just priceless. A gray-haired fan -- sitting in the front row, directly behind the catcher -- waved his arms in a 'touchdown' gesture as he rushed toward the aisle and out of the park. Immediately. Didn't bother watching the ball sail past the Yankee infield. Didn't bother saying 'so long' to his buddy in the next seat. He was quicker out of the gate than Youkilis.

Please watch, and re-watch, this priceless moment as sports and travel merge:



I'm guessing that, when traveling, Mr White Sweatshirt is a tick-the-box traveler. He spends as long gazing at the Grand Canyon as the Griswalds in Vacation. A 10-day trip to Europe would probably claim Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, Amsterdam canals, the Berlin Wall, Venice gondoliers and the Rome Coliseum. That's just how the guy works.

Still speed sells -- as the Oakland Raiders surprise pick of Darrius Heyward-Bey as the number seven overall pick in the NFL draft moments ago -- and I tribute this swift exiter as TRAVELER OF THE WEEK.

Top 10 Travel Knock-Knock Jokes

A few years ago, Oklahoman Steve Reynolds and I deemed 2006 the 'year of the knock-knock joke' and tried to create a full year's worth of knock-knock jokes, each a 'double joke' with two themes covered in each (eg South America & Pants, Central Asia & Preparedness for Lunch). Ultimately it failed.

Here are the top ten travel-related ones.

1. Knock knock
Who's there?
Pakistan
Pakistan who?
Pakistanwich, you might get hungry

2. Knock knock
Who's there
India
India who?
India-vent you don't pack a sandwich, we can pick up tacos

3. Knock knock
Who's there?
Venezuela
Venezuela who?
Venezuela Jennings die?
'twas 2002, wasn't it?

4. Knock knock
Who's there
Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh who?
Ho Chi Minh looking for Ho Chi Mamas

5. Knock knock
Who's there
Kuala Lampur
Kuala Lampur who?
Kuala Lamp, ur, I might to say Polar Bear Lamp

6. Knock knock
Who's there
Komsomolsk*
Komsomolsk who?
Kom-som-olsk-ary guys with pitchforks, let me in, kind sir
'kay

[* A WWII monument in Komsomolsk, Russia, is pictured at the top of the post, from my 2008 trip]

7. Knock knock
Who's there
Morocco
Morocco who?
Morocco roll record collection got stolen
That sucks

8. Knock knock
Who's there
Canada
Canada who?
Can a dang fool, such as yourself, not fix the doorbell?
Sorry 'bout dat

9. Knock knock
Who's there?
Guatemala
Guatemala who?
Guate mal ar a store nearby? I'm needing some new acid washed jeans

10. Knock knock
Who's there?
Falklands
Falklands who
(I'm) Falkland sick of this
True 'dat

Jeffersonville, NY Diner

Two hours from New York City, my wife, three-month-old daughter and I are spending a few days away mid-week, when country room rates are cheap. Go into Ted's in the 'village of Jeffersonville' for breakfast at 8:45am. New York Daily News for sale, not Times. Cheaply framed photos of John Wayne holding a gun looking down six booths on the right wall. To the left is a counter, with nine stools (and one guy wearing a knit cap). In the middle are eight tables, all dutifully with four seats and full ketchup bottles. In back, Ted (I think) sees the stroller. 'Oh, here, you take this one,' he steps up from the back booth. 'It's wider.' He sweeps up some fallen 'Capt'n Crisp' cereal and heads to the kitchen. Nineteen eighties country music is on -- George Strait and other baritones. In walks an old couple, guy with cowboy hat on. Waitress stops by to resume the day before's conversation on a recent trip to Las Vegas.

On the table are placemats with hand-printed two-color advertisements, like I used to eat from in Texas and Oklahoma in the '80s. Ads for barn makers, bakers, salons, insurance agents and excavation workers.

Afterwards we stop by a cafe advertising wifi. One table. Crammed with cheesy knick-knacks -- plaques reading 'God answers prayers,' a Blues Brothers CD stand for $300. A chai takes 15 minutes to make, you make your own coffee. More '80s country. Same station I think.

The whole thing reminds me of '70s footage -- faded color, old buildings and dated sense of commercialism. But clean. After a dozen-some years in New York City, I think I need to know my state better.

Travel Numbers

Our pals at Gadling wrote about the fall in inbound tourists coming to the US -- down 9% as a whole. I wondered how that compared, in this era of recession, with Europe and found that, for one, Britain saw a 20.5% drop in December 2008 compared with a year before.

Meanwhile, the WTO reports a few places actually are seeing a rise in tourism, including Nicaragua, Uruguay (!), Korea, Egypt and Turkey.

Despite the numbers, it's hard to argue that 2009 is, potentially, the 'year of the traveler.' The tourism industry -- those who run hotels, book flights, organize tours -- are scrambling, as numbers go down. But that means a big price fall for those of us that do hit the road. It's particularly good for Americans. Travel to Russia is something like 20% cheaper than last year when I was there for Lonely Planet. The British pound has fallen 50% on the US dollar from a year ago, the Euro 20%.

Top 10 'Top 10' Travel Lists

The secret to success? Ranking things. Here are some of the endless 'Top 10 travel' lists that caught my eye in no particular order.

Top 10 travel faux pas (Guardian)
Top 10 Little Rock (www.toptentravel.com)
Top 10 travel destinations for singles (Shermans Travel)
Top 10 things to do in Winnipeg (PreviouslyBitten)
Top 10 squirrel attacks (Mirror -- just because attacks are travel too)
Top 10 weird summer festivals, 2007 (Gadling.com)
Top 10 travel innovations of the past (top?) 10 years (MSNBC)
Top 10 great places to eat some candied treats (USA Today)
Top 10 hostels of the month (Hostel World)
Top 10 gay travel films of all time (originally in Advocate)

Moldova Report!!

(April 9, 2009) I've been following the posts -- at Twitter's hashtag #pman (referring to Chisinau’s central square Piata Marii Adunari Nationale) -- the past 24 hours. And I still don't know whether the media rush to call it the "Twitter revolution" is really accurate or not... Continue my report at Gadling.com.

I heard yesterday that, apparently, the BBC radio wanted to interview me about the Moldova situation because I co-authored Lonely Planet's Romania & Moldova guide. They might, they might not. What do you do, particularly when you're way over here in Brooklyn Town? All day yesterday I followed Moldova's protests -- by Twitter and clunky ol' email. (I got far more out of the latter.) Then woke up at 5am for a possible morning call, a dozen scrawled notes about me detailing Moldovan politics, Russian tension, quirky highlights and monk activities.

At 8:15am I heard 'no thanks.'

Anyway, it was interesting. And I learned a lot. So I summed up a bit of what's going on, why, and what visitors can see there for Gadling.com today.

Twitter Revolution

I'll admit it, I'm hooked. I've been following the protests in Chisinau, Moldova all morning via Twitter. Locals sending constant updates marked with the 'hashtag' #pman (for the central square Piata Marii Adunari Nationale) are giving updates and, mostly, links to stories on TV reports from JurnalTV.md of arrests. Some may be alarmist (eg 'proof of communist conspiracy'). It's hard to gauge.

Yesterday 10,000, maybe 15,000, protestors hits the center of the only post-Soviet nation to vote in a communist leader. They were contesting last week's election results, which one outside monitoring group deemed 'adequate' and the Chisinau mayor deemed 'fraudulent.'

As many as 170 locals, some carrying neighbor Romania flags, have been arrested per some reports, while one tweeter told me 'there are many people' in the park, 'but not sure how many.'

Real-time reports, or apparently so.

'Main Street' Baseball

Are we sheep? New York City is all a-glow over the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field built with $2 billion of state and federal money for the two highest-salary baseball teams in the country. It's particularly bad situation with the Yankees. Their new stadium cost the city $1.5 billion, average ticket prices rose 76%, and the number of seats diminished by 5000 (the Mets' new home has 14,000 fewer seats -- now having to cut back on Little Leaguer events). Now pro teams around the country are hoping to get some of the stimulus-package funding to pay for stadiums.

America's sport?

I'm going with minor league baseball this year, the populist sport in a year when, in my mind, domestic travelers should consider more 'main street' itineraries to ensure their money goes to places that need it the most. That is, not pooling all the funds of a trip into a single resort or destination -- but spending it in private businesses visited along the way, on road trips, by stopping off in towns not seen as usual destinations (ranging from a few days in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh to Spokane, Washington or Fargo, North Dakota as it works to recover after the recent floods).

For here in New York, it's hard to beat the two minor league teams. The Brooklyn Cyclones and Staten Island Yankees (farm teams for the Mets and Yanks, respectively) have far superior locations -- both on the water. The Cyclones, right in the heart of Brooklyn's just-opened Coney Island, and the SI Yanks on the lip of New York Harbor [see view from outfield seats]. Non-bleacher single-game tickets against teams with colorful names like the Vermont Lake Monsters are about $15. Comparable tickets at Yankee Stadium run $150 to $375 each.

In late summer I might even go see the Little League World Series.

Brooklyn Twitter Guide

If I can tweet, anyone can.

I met up with some travel writers tonight in New York, including Jen Leo -- the editor of the Los Angeles Times' interesting Travel Web Buzz column. In about 20 beer-soaked minutes she gave me a 70-minute lesson in Twitter, and convinced me to get more serious about it. 'I'm a Facebook grouch,' she said happily. 'I don't friend anybody anymore.' Then she paused to 'tweet' me a website she was talking about.

I feel very 21st century all of a sudden.

As part of it, I'm going to try and assemble over the next few weeks a 'TWITTER GUIDEBOOK TO BROOKLYN,' where I'm stationed. Basically this will translate into short reviews of places I like around the country's coolest neighborhood of late.

HOW TO USE THE 'GUIDEBOOK'
Start a Twitter account.

Then hit 'search' at the bottom of the page and hit '#rot_bkln' (for ReidOnTravel_Brooklyn).

Posts will be ordered in reverse chronological order, beginning with most recent. Each post will begin with the neighborhood in question:

• Dwntn (Downtown)
  
• B-Hts (Brooklyn Heights)
  
• BoCoCa (Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill & Carroll Gardens)
• RHook (Red Hook)
• ParkSlope
• ProsHts (Prospect Heights)
• FtG (Ft Greene)
  
• Willbg (Williamsburg)
• Grnpt (Greenpoint)
  
• Bush (Bushwick)
  
• Coney (Coney Island)
• BrightB (Brighton Beach)
• etc

I will try to cover a favorite restaurant or two, bar or two, attraction or two of each neighborhood. Then add a hotel or two.

So if you need a Ft Greene bar, you'll need to scroll down to 'FtG' and find a bar mention. (Bad example: I haven't done it yet.)'

We'll see what happens.

Russia!

I complained about Russia's foreigner prices yesterday, and got paid back -- in reverse karma* -- with a box of new shiny copies of the Lonely Planet Russia guide, which I worked on last year. You never get tired of seeing your name in print.

Last year I wrote a little blip on the scene in Vladivostok for The New York Times, which only touched on all that's happening in that wild city. A real Wild East. A recent mayor is in jail, so is an older one. Early business deals were punctuated with gunfire on the streets. These days, streams of Japanese and Korean cars are imported in big ships to the former navy docks daily -- you can see parking lots full of them awaiting clearance in immigration. Apparently after the Soviet Union fell, Boris Yeltsin tried to sever thoughts of such trade and the city threatened secession! The issue came up again last year, and protests hit the street. They do love their cars.

Usually the peripherals and personals of a trip -- little observations on secondary things, personal experiences with angry tram drivers or friendly bee keepers -- don't find homes in a guidebook. They're the sort of thing to blog about, to build with in a more inspirational feature article. But I did manage to squeeze in a first-person box on 'Car City' in this guide, where I drop by a 'car auction' and see if I can bid on a 1977 Soviet Lada. They tried to sell me an $18,000 Toyota instead. I passed.

Actually this is a good year to go to Russia. Last year, my dollar got me 25 rubles -- now it's getting 33, a 32% change benefiting the greenback. Inflation, meanwhile, has only risen 4% this year (affecting many imported goods in particular). So this might be the time for that Trans-Siberian Railway trip.

*Real karma came later, a black eye after someone's forehead slammed into my face in the last 15 seconds of a Brooklyn basketball game.

Ha! Foreign Prices in Rhode Island

ONE PRICE FOR ALL!

One of the more frustrating things for some travelers, and me included at times, is the concept of charging the people who have crossed the globe to see your place and chip in money into the local economy, MORE for the same services locals get. 'Foreigner pricing.' It just sounds bad to say it. Of course, some argue that taxes locals pay warrant a 'discount' on their part -- but it can sometimes feel more opportunistic even slightly xenophobic.

Russia, home to some of the world's most expensive destinations, is an obvious example, a nation clamoring for NATO status but holding onto Soviet pricing policies where foreigners sometimes pay, according to In Your Pocket guides, six to 20 times the local rate. Late year, I traveled through the Russian Far East, and frequently paid five times the amount for dated Russian museums with Russian-language exhibits geared to Russians, who rarely go. At one hotel, I paid an extra $20 for being non-Russian. After awhile, you sort to feel cheated, even unwelcome. There to update Lonely Planet's Russia guidebook, I joked with fellow Russian authors that New York City should hold a 'Russian prices day' when Russians had to pay $80 not $20 to get into sites like the Museum of Modern Art.

In Cambodia, according to the blog Cambodia Calling, foreigners pay 500% the fee for 'garbage collection,' tacked onto electricity bills. Worn out by the discrepancy, and the fact that rubbish is just thrown into piles, the blogger started a compost pile to deal more responsibly with what they throw out. Good for them.

In today's New York Times, I see that Massachusetts and Rhode Island have gotten into the act, allowing locals 'discounted' tolls if they use the E-Z Pass. Now federal courts are saying it may be unconstitutional, due to 18th-century clauses to help provide a common market between the newly formed states.

This is different (it's a discount for local commuters, not an extra tax for outsiders), but I agree it needs to be reversed.

And it can be. I've seen such pricing discrimination change in other places. On my first trip to Bulgaria, in 2004, foreign prices ran rampant -- now, as Bulgaria's joined the EU -- they don't exist.

Of course, when you're haggling for a t-shirt at Saigon's Ben Thanh Market, you're on your own.

Hotelicopter

Someone with a lot of time on their hands, and a bit too invested in The Onion perhaps, has concocted a slightly humorous joke of Hotelicopter.com -- a flying helicopter based on a mammoth Soviet 'copter to allow travelers to overnight in luxury rooms. It's easy, fun and you get to skip the '$8 sandwiches' and 'long security lines' of airports. Apparently some people believed it, mocked by Wired magazine blog.

I've never slept on a helicopter, but I did ride in a Soviet one a couple times. Once was in the mid 90s when I traveled from Saigon to Con Dao Island, a gorgeous place that was a prison camp during the French and American wars in Vietnam. The ride was super fun. The pilot -- visible from our seats -- pointed to giant headphones (1976 DJ, or 2004 hipster) to 'block out sound.' I could smell fuel and tried to read through the warning signs in Russian. When we began elevating, the pilot clicked on music in our headphones -- a mix straight from the late 1970s, with secondary Bee Gees songs and French disco.

A few years ago in Kamchatka, Russia [pictured on board, left] -- the peninsular volcano zone dangling across the Bering Strait from Alaska -- I joined some Swiss tourists who had hired a Soviet military helicopter to go out for the day volcano-spotting and track down a reindeer herd shepherded by nomads. Stunning views. In a green field between isolated snow-capped peaks, we eventually located a storm of reindeer, moving and grazing in a wide frightening circle. Maybe 1000 of them. We landed, helped the nomads make a teepee-type structure, started a fire and had some tea. They offered to kill a reindeer for us, but we refused.