Macau people burn paper replicas of money, food, utensils, gold bullion, even mobile phones, to send to their ancestors on the other side. This is the time in the Chinese calendar to do the burning Well that is what our local Macau Chinese expert told us at the Sunday meeting.The idea of sending messages to loved ones on the other side has a long tradition in Chinese history. I've done it on occasions, writing a letter using paper and pen and burning it. It's good. People here do it in big metal bins on the footpath all over town.
- sorry layout in this blog sucks, I need to redo in firefox, later, to make it look nice. Some sections are moved about other repeated, the layout on IE is not good, - I move one thing and it has funny effects on othe parts of this layout... Haiko
It applies equally to tourism. The act of observing and gawking at a tourist spot, creates a definite, often negative, effect.
An effect I like to keep to the absolute minimum.
People ask me what I do when I travel, don't I want to see the Casinos and the tourist spots ?
Casinos no, some of the tourist spots yes, but when I travel I travel ad hoc, without a fixed itinerary, I travel in a funny way, wandering about, exploring, photographing, and most of all blending in, not wanting to be noticed by anyone, just passing through looking like a 'regular', a local expat whatever...
For example: Yesterday I walked past and watched the huge tenement high risers, like anthills, like a termite colony, - we humans live in huge concrete cities... (not for too much longer I think, that makes me appreciate even those termite hills, as a unique thing in history. Funny how much the time/history perspective makes me appreciate things I would reject otherwise.)
And in those termite hills, at sundown hundreds of families go to the playgrounds, hundreds of lively squiggly shouting kids, eager and excited by life. Each one family, each one a story, each child (mostly) carefully looked over and after by a mother and father, each little life weaving itself into the tapestry of memories that the old men and women of the future will remember 70,90 years hence...
Talking with younger travelers last Sunday I realize how far the travel scene has moved and I start to feel my age... .
In the late 70's overland travel on YOUR OWN with a backpack was a NEW way, not established. There were odd articles here and there, by crazy dudes who tried it and lived to tell the tale.
I took a train all the way out to Geelong as a 17 year old High School student to talk to a guy who had 'done it'. He gave me good advice, much of which has become part of my mode of travelling.The method basically conisted of finding the first cheap traveller hotel - and asking other travellers what the best next stop was. "where do you stay in Singapore ?""Becoolen street has cheap accommodation, some flats are converted to cheap hostels.""Where have you just come from ?" "Jakarta.""Oh, what place d'you recommend ?"etc... Lonely Planet's famous yellow bible "South-East Asia on a shoestring" was in everyone's hands, it was small, 2nd edition, and it was sketchy, but it was a start, enough to go on. In those days you didn't insist on as much detail. A rough outline was enough.
Remember the hippy generation had ripped through Western society not very long ago, the echoes were still around. Maybe I'm one of those echoes... ?
(quavery voice)"In those days: there was no internet." (shock and horror !!!! how can one live without the internet arghhhh .... ) Today it is inconceivable to travel without the net.
Backpacker places provide it as a matter of course. To get mail I wrote to my parents 6 weeks in advance: "send mail to Calcutta GPO Poste restante until May, then stop 2 weeks before I get there because the mail will not reach me in time. Each major city had GPO Poste Restante sections where budget travellers would check to see if there was a letter from home. It was another hub of exchange. Everyone going through piles and piles of letters.
It was part of the 'ant trail' as I called it. When ants meet they stop and wave their antennae at each other, communicating in some way. The travel scene was like that, the stop-overs were the cheap hotels. You couldn't book these places, you just turned up, that was how it worked.
It was part of the challenge to set off into the wild blue yonder. The motto was:"if you can book it, it's too expensive" because the only hotels you could book easily were Hiltons and 5star places. By fax, phone of travel agent.
The typical accommodation of the 70's was fan operated, small rooms, bare bones, clean, neat, simple and Zen like. There are only a few left in Macau. Even I don't stay there anymore (--- much). Below is a picture of one such remaining place, a famous moview was filmed there in the 70's
---o(O)o---
Lots of schools in the area I'm staying in.
Walking around when the schools all finish, the remarkable thing was that almost every child had a mother or grandmother/father to taken them by the hand and pick them up and walk them home. Not many car pickups, there simply is NO space in this tiny island.
Speaking of using the Internet for social circles reminds me: In the previous email, I forgot to explain that the way all those strangers got to know each other and arranged a meeting last Sunday in that ice cream shop was through
www.Couchsurfin.org. It is set up for people to develop a network of trust and allow those they trust to stay on their couches/Sofas - basically provide some space for people to crash overnight ! The idea has been around for ages. Servas had this concept in the 1960's to 1980's before internet - when all was done by snail mail. I stayed at a Servas host in Singapore in 1985. The current incarnation of this idea is couchsurfing and other similar sites. I won't explain it all here, you can find out more at: www.couchsurfing.org My flat is too small for hosting people, so I only meet people for tea/coffee for a chat, there is no compulsion to provide overnight hosting. I usually stay at Hotels/budget backpackers when I travel. Unless work pays :-)
---o(O)o---
I've moved to the Institute for Tourism Training Hotel the last two nights. The hotel is really classy and nicely done up, take a look if you want at: http://www.ift.edu.mo/pousada/eng/index.htm
I like the clean-ness. They are s***tscared about this silly Swine flu and go nuts on face masks. The place smells strongly of insecticide in fact it positively stinks of the stuff. I hold my breath as I walk quickly through the lobby.
The insecticide is doing more harm to staff than any flu virus would.
These are the vagaries of big bureaucracies...
the Hotel one notch down wouldn't dream of such extremes.
The air in Macau is around 28-33 Celsius, humid, pleasant if you like that kind of thing (I do). The hotel has the aircon on instant-freeze-dry mode, at cryogenic freezing levels close to absolute zero - ok a little exaggeration, but you get the point. It's the deep cold that hits you in the chest, hurts the lungs as you breath when you come in from outside.
Another reason to walk quickly through the lobby.
Why they do these things ? These are mysteries beyond the wisdom of the Sufi's themselves I think.
Then they wonder that some people get phlegmy and chesty.
A tip I picked up from an older traveler years ago: always take a suit jacket as protection when you change from hot to cyrogenic aircon. I even take a small silk scarf. It's the change over that is the tricky time, after 20mins the body adjusts and all is cool (pardon the pun).
Suit jackets serve the double function of looking nice and more formal which is important in Asia (and Australia I'm noticing to my surprise).
---o(O)o---
- sorry layout in this blog sucks, I need to redo in firefox, later, to make it look nice. Some sections are moved about other repeated, the layout on IE is not good, - I move one thing and it has funny effects on othe parts of this layout... Haiko
This evening at 10pm as I walk back to the hotel I pass an old man, bent over, having difficulty walking pulling a bamboo woven garbage container. He seems to have pain in his legs. By the looks of him, he's a cardboard and plastic recycler who does this all day. Wearing only shorts he makes his snail's pace way across the road. On the other side three men sit drinking beer and playing cards. see photo below:
---o(O)o---
The act of observing alters that which is observed. It is an old principle known as the 'observer effect' which has found application even in quantum physics where it is known as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. It applies equally to tourism. The act of observing and gawking at a tourist spot, creates a definite, often negative, effect.
An effect I like to keep to the absolute minimum.
People ask me what I do when I travel, don't I want to see the Casinos and the tourist spots ?
Casinos no, some of the tourist spots yes, but when I travel I travel ad hoc, without a fixed itinerary, I travel in a funny way, wandering about, exploring, photographing, and most of all blending in, not wanting to be noticed by anyone, just passing through looking like a 'regular', a local expat whatever...
For example: Yesterday I walked past and watched the huge tenement high risers, like anthills, like a termite colony, - we humans live in huge concrete cities... (not for too much longer I think, that makes me appreciate even those termite hills, as a unique thing in history. Funny how much the time/history perspective makes me appreciate things I would reject otherwise.)
And in those termite hills, at sundown hundreds of families go to the playgrounds, hundreds of lively squiggly shouting kids, eager and excited by life. Each one family, each one a story, each child (mostly) carefully looked over and after by a mother and father, each little life weaving itself into the tapestry of memories that the old men and women of the future will remember 70,90 years hence...
---o(O)o---
Talking with younger travelers last Sunday I realize how far the travel scene has moved and I start to feel my age... .
In the late 70's overland travel on YOUR OWN with a backpack was a NEW way, not established. There were odd articles here and there, by crazy dudes who tried it and lived to tell the tale.
I took a train all the way out to Geelong as a 17 year old High School student to talk to a guy who had 'done it'. He gave me good advice, much of which has become part of my mode of travelling.The method basically conisted of finding the first cheap traveller hotel - and asking other travellers what the best next stop was. "where do you stay in Singapore ?""Becoolen street has cheap accommodation, some flats are converted to cheap hostels.""Where have you just come from ?" "Jakarta.""Oh, what place d'you recommend ?"etc... Lonely Planet's famous yellow bible "South-East Asia on a shoestring" was in everyone's hands, it was small, 2nd edition, and it was sketchy, but it was a start, enough to go on. In those days you didn't insist on as much detail. A rough outline was enough.
Remember the hippy generation had ripped through Western society not very long ago, the echoes were still around. Maybe I'm one of those echoes... ?
(quavery voice)"In those days: there was no internet." (shock and horror !!!! how can one live without the internet arghhhh .... ) Today it is inconceivable to travel without the net.
Backpacker places provide it as a matter of course. To get mail I wrote to my parents 6 weeks in advance: "send mail to Calcutta GPO Poste restante until May, then stop 2 weeks before I get there because the mail will not reach me in time. Each major city had GPO Poste Restante sections where budget travellers would check to see if there was a letter from home. It was another hub of exchange. Everyone going through piles and piles of letters.
It was part of the 'ant trail' as I called it. When ants meet they stop and wave their antennae at each other, communicating in some way. The travel scene was like that, the stop-overs were the cheap hotels. You couldn't book these places, you just turned up, that was how it worked.
It was part of the challenge to set off into the wild blue yonder. The motto was:"if you can book it, it's too expensive" because the only hotels you could book easily were Hiltons and 5star places. By fax, phone of travel agent.
The typical accommodation of the 70's was fan operated, small rooms, bare bones, clean, neat, simple and Zen like. There are only a few left in Macau. Even I don't stay there anymore (--- much). Below is a picture of one such remaining place, a famous moview was filmed there in the 70's
These days carrrying your phone and buying local SIM cards is the norm. I had to go to shops and buy things to get coins, walk around to find a phone box...I find it hard to keep in the loop without a phone these days, still I didn't want to bring it this time.
Now the traveller's social scene is on the internet, and travel tips and the ant trail has moved to the NET. You meet on the net, develop trust, sus each other out then meet in person. One uses whatever tools are around.
---o(O)o---
Lots of schools in the area I'm staying in.
Walking around when the schools all finish, the remarkable thing was that almost every child had a mother or grandmother/father to taken them by the hand and pick them up and walk them home. Not many car pickups, there simply is NO space in this tiny island.
---o(O)o---
Speaking of using the Internet for social circles reminds me: In the previous email, I forgot to explain that the way all those strangers got to know each other and arranged a meeting last Sunday in that ice cream shop was through
www.Couchsurfin.org. It is set up for people to develop a network of trust and allow those they trust to stay on their couches/Sofas - basically provide some space for people to crash overnight ! The idea has been around for ages. Servas had this concept in the 1960's to 1980's before internet - when all was done by snail mail. I stayed at a Servas host in Singapore in 1985. The current incarnation of this idea is couchsurfing and other similar sites. I won't explain it all here, you can find out more at: www.couchsurfing.org My flat is too small for hosting people, so I only meet people for tea/coffee for a chat, there is no compulsion to provide overnight hosting. I usually stay at Hotels/budget backpackers when I travel. Unless work pays :-)
I'd never been to the other islands of Macau, Taipa, and Coloane. I got a great nightime sightseeing tour of the those other parts from a friend I met using the same site (couchsurfing.org) as for last Sunday's meeting. Photos of the nightime tour here.
---o(O)o---
I've moved to the Institute for Tourism Training Hotel the last two nights. The hotel is really classy and nicely done up, take a look if you want at: http://www.ift.edu.mo/pousada/eng/index.htm
I like the clean-ness. They are s***tscared about this silly Swine flu and go nuts on face masks. The place smells strongly of insecticide in fact it positively stinks of the stuff. I hold my breath as I walk quickly through the lobby.
The insecticide is doing more harm to staff than any flu virus would.
These are the vagaries of big bureaucracies...
the Hotel one notch down wouldn't dream of such extremes.
The air in Macau is around 28-33 Celsius, humid, pleasant if you like that kind of thing (I do). The hotel has the aircon on instant-freeze-dry mode, at cryogenic freezing levels close to absolute zero - ok a little exaggeration, but you get the point. It's the deep cold that hits you in the chest, hurts the lungs as you breath when you come in from outside.
Another reason to walk quickly through the lobby.
Why they do these things ? These are mysteries beyond the wisdom of the Sufi's themselves I think.
Then they wonder that some people get phlegmy and chesty.
A tip I picked up from an older traveler years ago: always take a suit jacket as protection when you change from hot to cyrogenic aircon. I even take a small silk scarf. It's the change over that is the tricky time, after 20mins the body adjusts and all is cool (pardon the pun).
Suit jackets serve the double function of looking nice and more formal which is important in Asia (and Australia I'm noticing to my surprise).
---o(O)o---
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