I'm not intentionally trying to go back to places in Austin from a long time ago. This just happened to be the venue for dinner tonight. And the funny thing was that I had pretty much the same thoughts tonight as I did the last time that I was here: the place was in the same genre as Morton's, the lighting was very dark, and it was darned cold in there. It is an appropriate place for a business dinner though.

Now that the majority of the teams have hit the ice down in Antarctica, things are starting to get very busy indeed. Weather continues to be an issue of course, but most of explorers are now trying to find a groove and get into a rhythm that involves skiing (and in some cases biking!) on the frozen expanse of the coldest, highest and driest desert in the world.

One of the biggest stories of the day is Richard Parks restarting his attempt at the speed record for skiing from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole. You may recall that parks set out on that quest last week only to find that the high winds and copious amounts of soft powder were making it impossible for him to make good time. In just a few days he was already falling off the pace, so he elected to return to Hercules and wait for a better weather window to relaunch. That window is now open apparently, as he'll start his second attempt today. Parks arrived back at his starting point on Tuesday, then took a rest day yesterday, ahead of his restart this morning. He now has 23 days to try to reach the South Pole and the clock is ticking.

The other story that came out yesterday was the evacuation of Eric Phillips, who was a the polar guide for one of the teams taking part in the 2013 South Pole Allied Challenge. Phillips was apparently suffering from altitude sickness after the teams were flown to the 87th degree prior to the start of their race to the Pole. Apparently he had fluid in his lungs, so they made the wise choice to fly him back to camp for an assessment. If he responds well to treatment and shows signs of improvement, he may rejoin the team in a day or two.

Elsewhere, Daniel Burton celebrated his 50th birthday out on the ice yesterday. He is attempting to ride his bike to the South Pole and so far things aren't going particularly well. He spent 10.5 hours on the move but covered just 6.5 miles (10.4 km), well below what he had hoped for. He does say that the slope he has been climbing since leaving Hercules Inlet is starting to get less severe and the snow is getting harder, both of which bode well for his plans. Hopefully he'll be able to pick up speed soon, because at his current pace he's traveling about half the speed of the skiers. That means he'll have a very long trip to the Pole, if he can reach it at all. I give him high marks for determination however, as he has refused to put his bike on his sled and ski any distance, which is in contrast to another explorer who is attempting to bike to the South Pole as well.

Australian kite skier Geoff Wilson managed to catch the wind today and made good progress in the process. He says that by late afternoon he had knocked of about 40 km (24 miles) before the breezes dissipated once again. The forecasts call for better winds in the next few days, so he hopes to capitalize on them and cover more ground.

Chris and Marty Fagan seem to have developed a good rhythm and are already making great progress on their attempt to ski to the South Pole. The husband and wife team are already just 540 miles (870 km) from the Pole, which sounds like a lot but is actually a good number considering the number of days they've been skiing. They're knocking off a steady 11-12 miles (17-19 km) per day as they make solid progress toward their goal.

Finally, the Willis Resilience team has actually reached the South Pole, although not on foot. This expedition started with a driving tour of the Antarctic that allows them to conduct scientific research of the impact of climate change on the continent. They're also collecting ice core samples as they go, so that they can be examined by researchers back home after the expedition wraps up. After being out on the ice for about a week, the team has already driven 1790 km (1112 miles) as they cross Antarctica. In a few weeks however, Parker Liautaud and Doug Stoup will return to the Pole on skis as well.

That's all for today. More to come soon I'm sure.

Chongqing: bring a gas mask

The first time I was in Delhi, in 1970, the air was so unbelievably filthy that I got out of town as fast as I could. Like many cities-- Los Angeles and Bangkok being two good examples-- Delhi is a lot cleaner now. But not so much, apparently, as I thought it was when I was there last year. According to the World Bank in 2004 it still had the second worst air pollution of any city in the world. Numero uno was Cairo. Here's the list of the 20 most polluted:

Cairo
Delhi
Calcutta
Tianjin
Chongqing
Lucknow
Kanpur
Jakarta
Shenyang
Zhengzhou
Jinan
Lanzhou
Beijing
Taiyuan
Chengdu
Ahmadabad
Anshan
Wuhan
Bangkok
Nanchang

Twelve are in China and five are in India. I'm finishing up on Robyn Meredith's NY Times best selling book on the economic changes in India and China in the last two decades, The Elephant And The Dragon and she has a lot to say about the overwhelming pollution in both countries.

Nothing can prepare visitors for the pollution in China... One of the worst places to breathe on the planet is the world's biggest city: Chongqing, China, with a population of 30 million people counting the exurbs, about the same number of people as live in the entire state of California. There the New China coexists with the Old China: skyscrapers and construction sites decorate downtown, but scrawny bong-bong men wait for work on street corners. Bong-bong men are paid sixty cents an hour to ferry heavy loads-- from building materials to groceries-- up and down the city's hilly streets using bamboo poles slung over their shoulders. They must have powerful lungs, not just strong legs: the city is half dark most days. Sunlight barely reaches the ground, dimmed by thick, gray smog. Skyscrapers just three blocks away are mere outlines because of air pollution. Emerging from the inside of a building onto the streets prompts one's eyes to water. The air is filthy but that is not all. The raw sewage produced by 30 million people-- 30 million-- is dumped straight into the Yangtze River as it flows past. The countryside nearby is not the place to go for fresh air: there you notice that the leaves of trees-- along with everything else-- are coated with black dust from the coal mines and factories in the region. More acid rain falls on Chongqing than anywhere else on earth.

...Nearly a third of China's rivers are so polluted that they aren't even fit for agriculture or industrial use, according to Chinese government statistics. Village doctors have documented increased cancer rates near polluting factories and chemical plants. Untreated waste water dumped into China's famed Yangtse River is killing marine life and turning its water "cancerous," according to Xinhua, the state-controlled media outlet.

...Lack of enforcement of environmental laws is also a big problem in India. Its capital city, Delhi, used to have pollution levels ten times higher than the nation's legal limit, mostly because of the high-pollution taxis, trucks and buses on its roads. Delhi has the world's worst air pollution in 2002, but managed to clean up its filthy air after being taken to task by India's Supreme Court. The overhaul began in 1997. Some steps were long overdue: the city finally banned lead gas. However belatedly, the city reduced pollution from Delhi's power plants by installing scrubber to clean up smokestack emissions and requiring them to burn cleaner coal. It banished motorized rickshaws and buses built before 1990 from the roads. In 1998, the court required all city buses to run on compressed natural gas (CNG)-- a cleaner fuel than gasoline-- by 2001... Just 10 percent of sewage is treated in India, with the rest dumped into waterways, along with industrial pollution. India's rivers-- even the holy Ganges-- have become sewers.

I still remember leaving a restaurant in one town after dinner and seeing some kids behind it filling up the "bottled water" from a garden hose.

This was a completely random find. We were out of dinner options, and were actually on our way to getting some Teochew porridge down the street. But then we came across this place, and figured that we might as well give it a try (22A Havelock Road #01-14, 8247-0444). I liked it a lot more than I thought I would, especially since their prawns were super fresh, and the sauces worked for me. Now, it wasn't anything spectacular either (and I don't eat this stuff enough to know the difference between the many other shops around town these days), but I'm still glad that we ate here. One of these days, someone is going to have to teach me the tricks behind mastering that slippery inverted grill.

Photo © Ashley Gilbertson-All Rights Reserved
The announcement that the VII Photo Agency launched VII The Magazine has already been reported and blogged about for a few days already. The magazine is a syndicated online publication with photo stories and interviews with VII photographers.

The beta version of VII The Magazine is presented in the Herald Scotland newspaper, and in Lens Culture.

The first issue of the magazine features multimedia slideshows of projects by several VII photographers, as well as interviews with Jessica Dimmock and Ashley Gilbertson about their projects featured on the site.

I was particularly interested in Ashley Gilbertson's interview, and struck by one of his statements:

"If you show me one more picture of a soldier kicking in a door, I'm going to blow my head off."

I sense Ashley speaks for, not only war photographers, but for many of the sentient public who's been subjected to repetitive and unimaginative visual (and intellectual) presentations of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who's had (if they're anything like me) enough of the same stereotypical coverage which passes for cutting edge reporting in our media. I call it the stagnation of war photography...the same scenes over and over, perhaps from different angles...and with no back story. In fact, if I didn't read the captions beneath these images, I wouldn't be able to tell if it was in Iraq or in Afghanistan...or whether they'd been made yesterday or a year ago. Stagnation.

Ashley's powerful and poignant photo essay The Shrine Down The Hall, which shows some of the empty bedrooms of the over 5000 U.S. military personnel killed in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, rammed home the horrors of war much more effectively than seeing (and hearing) yet another photo essay by a gung-ho war photographer following US soldiers in an Afghani village, rounding up "Taliban" members (or whatever the caption writer decides they are), covering their heads with potato sacks while pointing guns at terrified women.

We need to see more work like Ashley Gilbertson's and much less of the kicking of Afghan or Iraqi doors....please.

This weekend I paid my first visit to The Wonderful Barn near Lexlip in County Kildare, and as you can see from the image the name does do it justice! This bizzare construction was built in 1743. The work was commissioned by Katherine Connolly, widow of William 'Speaker' Connolly. He had made his fortune from land transfers, following the confiscations by the Crown of lands belonging to supporters of James II after the Williamite War ended. He had the first Palladian Mansion built in Ireland - Castletown House near Celbridge in County Kildare.

William Connolly died in 1729 and was said to be the wealthiest man in Ireland at the time of his death, leaving Katherine as his widow. She had The Wonderful Barn constructed in 1743 not only as a functional grain store, but as an unusual architectural feature which undoubtedly catches the eye. It is said that she also had philanthropic motivations for constructing this complex building. 


There had been a severe famine in Ireland in 1740-41, she kept the local people employed working on projects like The Wonderful Barn and the 42 metre tall Connolly Folly which she had constructed in 1741. 

The Wonderful Barn itself stands approximately 22 metres in height, and has a tapering cone, circled by a cantilevered staircase with a crow’s nest viewing gallery.
The Wonderful Barn is certainly worth a trip out, and is a fine (and unusual) setting for a stroll. There are a number of allotments on the lands today, the site itself is reasonably easy to access with paths running around the main features. To get there follow the Celbridge Road out of Lexlip, when you pass a large housing estate on the outskirts of Lexlip called Elton Court on your right hand side drive on around 50m and the gate leading  into The Wonderful Barn will be on your right.

I hope you enjoy this blog, we're trying to cover as many sites as we can across Ireland. If anyone has any suggestions about sites you'd like us to cover please do leave us a comment. If you enjoy information and images of Irish heritage sites then do follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ If you'd like to support us then please consider downloading an audioguide to one of Ireland's wonderful heritage sites. They are packed with original music and sound effects and are a great way of experiencing the story of Ireland. They only cost €1.99 and are fun whether you are at the site, or listening from the comfort of your own home. If you enjoy stories of the turbulent medieval period in Ireland try our guide to Viking and Medieval Dublin, visit us at www.abartaaudioguides.com for free previews and to download your free audioguide to the Rock of Dunamase  or the free audioguide to the wonderful heritage town of Kells in County Meath
 

  

 

There are few places on Earth as remote and challenging as the Karakorum. Much of the area is so far away from civilization that is largely remains unexplored even today. Which is why I found this article over at K2Climb.net so interesting. It tells the tale of Michael Beek, a German trekker, who has spent the better part of 35 years exploring the Karakorum. During that time, he has come to know the people that inhabit the area and much of it's landscape.

However, last July Michael decided to get off the well worn trekking paths and head into areas that were far less traveled. Along the way he claims to have viewed K2's North West face from a location that no other westerner has ever seen it, and had the honor to name three mountains and two mountain passes.

At times, he was in such remote areas that border's between countries became indistinct and he had to rely less on the sketchy maps that he had with him and more on satellite images and the help of Pakistani guides.

Beeks sems to exhibit the spirit of adventure. He looks for and finds all kinds of challenges in his exploration, and certainly isn't afraid to get out into some remote areas, isolated from human contact. It sounds like a great adventure to me, and I'd love to hear more about his expedition.

BackPackingLight.com is a great resource for ideas and tips on how to travel lightly in the backcountry, and I'd say that it's easier now then ever to "go light". New, higher quality equipment, focuses on taking the weight off our packs while still providing us with the true backpacking experience. This especially holds true in Spring, Summer, and Fall, the time when most of us get out and camp. But what about Winter?

Well, you can use many of the same techniques int he Winter as well, but obviously the need to stay warm and dry chaneges things dramatically. That's why Backpacking Light has put together this helpful article as well as an accompanying podcast with lots of great tips to for camping in the colder months.

The focus is on such topics as "Keep Warm Without Getting Wet" and "Keep Your Stuff Dry". But my personal favorite is "Eat, Eat, Eat, Drink, Drink, Drink." Words to live by throughout all four seasons I say. The podcast/mp3 file is found at the top of the page and can be downloaded or listened to directly on the page.

I thought I'd post this advert for the National Geographic camera bags because it was entirely shot with a Canon 7D. Johnnie Behiri is the photographer who produced it.

By the way, I just read that the producers of the Dr. House television series have shot a soon to be aired episode with the Canon 5D Mark II. Incredible!

Another gem I found on Gizmodo is a $6 do-it-yourself thingamajig that allows rack focus (aka follow focus). I'll drop by Home Depot and see if I can make one for my 5D Mark II. A video of a similar project is also here.

With a ATR6250 microphone affixed on my camera's hot shoe, and this home-made follow focus ring, I'll be schelpping quite a contraption.

The Canon's EOS 7D can be considered as an entry-level "professional" DSLR, positioned between the EOS 50D and EOS 5D Mark II, and I'm tempted by it because of its many still photography interesting features; one of which is its speed reaching 8 fps (for the first 16 frames) and an average 7.1 fps for 144 frames. This almost compares with the speed of the Canon 1D series dSLRs. More to follow on this topic.

For some reason, I was craving this place for lunch today. And to my surprise, they were serving five grain rice, complete with a rich and punchy curry. Now, those shrimp weren't as exciting as I would have hoped, but nonetheless I still like the quality of the ingredients that they use here, particularly that dou miao.

Lately I've been stuck. I know I have more to write about Bali and, of course, I need to get going on Thailand. And I've got a yen to write about Egypt and Cappadocia... but every time I sit down at the computer Down With Tyranny beckons louder and I wind up doing the Paul Revere thing and writing about encroaching fascism under George W. Bush. But I'm not writing at a computer terminal right now. I'm writing on the back of a corporate executive summary for a board of directors meeting I'm on my way to. I'm at the Burbank Airport at the Southwest Airlines terminal on my way to Oakland, about an hour away, as the (big) bird flies. My meeting, in San Francisco, starts in about 3 hours. To me, Bali and Thailand and Abu Simbel sound a helluva lot more exotic and interesting-- as least as tour destinations-- but I know San Francisco is one of the most popular travel destinations on earth. So I'm not going to let the fact that I lived there for the whole of the 80s stand in the way of me dealing with this short trip as a kind of travelogue.

Preparations were easy. Southwest has lots of flights between Burbank (convenient and less hideously encumbered with hassles than LAX) and Oakland (almost as hideously encumbered as SFO but still a bit more convenient, especially for arrivals. Leaving... well I'm convinced that whichever bureaucrat who runs security there either is bucking to be the most gratuitously obnoxious security czar of any secondary airport in the country-- or is just the reincarnation of some concentration camp kapitan with some unfinished issues to work out.) And the fares are cheap and the airline amenable to discounts for early bookings.

And the hotel... well, when I was president of Reprise Records and TimeWarner was picking up the tabs, I got used to staying at suites in the Ritz-Carlton. Now I'm either traveling on my own dime or, as today, on the dime of a much (much) smaller company and their corporate discount is with a boutiquey hotel owned by Kimpton, The Triton. The location is great-- downtown, a couple of hops and skips from the Chinatown dragon gate-- and I was able to walk to every meal and every meeting and to the Museum of Modern Art. Besides which-- its a pretty good hotel. Rooms start at $149 and work their way up depending on things like supply and demand and room size. (I'm jumpin' ahead a little but they have these cool, cool suites-- starting at $239-- each designed by the celebrity for which it is named: Jerry Garcia, Santana, Woody Harrelson, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Graham Nash...) It's a rock'n'roll hotel and it feels very comfortable in a pleasantly eco-friendly, artsy, odd-ball kind of way. There's great music in the lobby and elevator (sounds like my iPod), very friendly, down-to-earth service, bold, vibrant colors and fabrics and loopy furniture everywhere, bizarre art, a masseuse and a tarot card reader in the lobby and a wine hour every evening... very San Francisco contemporary. Sumptuous luxury like the Ritz? No. Comfortable, efficient and friendly? BIG TIME!

Friday night after the meeting that was the raison d'etre of the trip, 2 old pals, Sandy Pearlman, who I know since 1965, and Michael Snyder who I first met in the late 70s when we were co-writers on the BERKELEY BARB, joined me for dinner at Piperade a Basque restaurant at 1015 Battery. None of us had been there before although the chef-owner, Gerard Hirigoyen, is an old friend and has founded an old fave of all of ours, Fringale. Piperade is much better. Gerard has always been a sublime chef but years and years of perfecting it has culminated in one of San Francisco's great foodie havens. The menu is mind-blowing and unique (but only hints at what your palate is about to experience. (A few weeks ago I wrote about a Basque superstar restaurant in Madrid, el Amparo, widely acclaimed one of Europe's best. Piperade was far better-- and far more healthful (and far better priced).

All 3 of us were completely sold when our 3 tipiak (small plates) arrived: dungeness crab salad "Txangurru" with basil, roasted pepper and mango; piquillo peppers stuffed with goat cheese, pine nuts and golden raisins; and grande white beans with chopped egg salad and boquerones (sort of like anchovies). The flavors were distinct and vibrant and I kept thinking how I should have just made a dinner of an assortment of these incredible appetizers (about $10 each). I stopped thinking that when the handiak or big plates, came. Michael has filet of monk fish with braised fennel, carrots and lemon-cumin relish. Sandy and I each ordered braised seafood and shellfish stew in red pepper sauce. Let me just say that I do not remember the last time I took up a spoon to scarf down the last of any sauce left after I had eaten my meal! So did I really, really like Piperade? I brought 2 other friends, Jimmy and Maureen there for dinner the next night!

Today I'm featuring the work of Darren Ornitz, who as a freelance photographer, traveled for 14 months in Africa and Asia including Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Yemen and Oman.

Quite a number of photographs in Darren's East Africa gallery are of Lalibela, one of Ethiopia's holiest cities, and a center of pilgrimage for much of the country. The population of Lalibela is almost completely Ethiopian Orthodox Christian, and having spent a few days there photographing during the Epiphany celebrations, I can only describe it as "Biblical".

Part of the East Africa portfolio are some photographs of Zanzibar, and more specifically Stone Town. A UNESCO listed old city, Stone Town was David Livingstone's base when preparing for his final expedition in 1866. The above photograph is of Stone Town.

Darren studied at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse until transferring to Fordham.

Michael Snyder is an old friend of mine from San Francisco-- as well as a talented writer, discerning critic and celebrated raconteur. He's the Around The World Blog go-to person for all things New Orleans. And he just returned from there and wrote up a report anyone interested in visiting post-Katrina New Orleans will want to read.

New Orleans Lives!

Make no mistake.
 
It's more than a bit broken. But New Orleans and its people are unbowed, and I had a tremendous time there this past weekend.
 
Yep, I'm back in San Francisco after my usual early-Carnival sojourn to the Big Easy. It was exhilarating, exhausting and left me feeling a little melancholy. And I wouldn't have missed it for anything.
 
The areas of town that are geared to entertainment -- the French Quarter, the Marigny and the Garden District -- are fine, although you can see evidence of repairs in progress, and some places (such as the Acme Oyster Bar) have yet to reopen due to personnel shortages. The first parades ran (albeit a little scaled-back) with a slew of cuttingly satirical, and brutally-topical floats, and beads and doubloons a-flying; the parties rocked, especially the annual all-night bash at Jamie's warehouse (a wild menagerie of fun-loving, incredibly creative people in beautiful, sexy and/or hilarious costumes); the food was exquisite (i.e. dinners at Irene's, Adolfo's and NOLA; beignets at the Cafe Du Monde; and some libations to delight: Restoration Ale and Carnival Bock from Abita, and the Chocolate City Stout from Crescent City Brewhouse); the Krewe of Barkus doggie parade went off without a hitch on Sunday afternoon as canines and their owners, done up in hilarious fashion to reflect this year's theme "The Wizard of Paws," strolled the Quarter to appreciative crowds; and my friends -- those who stayed or returned, and those I only just met -- were as gracious, warm and welcoming as ever.

I don't want to forget the music and clubbing I did: There was some eloquent small-combo chamber jazz from pianist Ellis Marsalis, the patriarch of the musical Marsalis clan, at Snug Harbor; techno-house dancing at Oz; the Bob French & Friends jam session Monday night at Donna's with the great Kermit Ruffins -- the Satchmo of the modern era -- sitting in on trumpet and vocals, and the brilliant humorist and comic actor Harry Shearer kicking back at the bar; and an ass-whuppin' midnight show by Nashville Pussy (X-rated, trailer-trashy Deep South metal-punk) at the best rock club in the Quarter, One-Eyed Jacks.

A mordant sense of humor was in evidence, no matter where you went. The Krewe of Carrollton dubbed its parade "Blue Roof Blues," in reference to the omnipresent blue tarps that FEMA used to cover houses left open to the elements by the storm; they recycled old floats to fit the "blue" theme. So, to pay tribute to the Blue Man Group, they took a float that was previously used as a tribute to Gandhi, completely spray-painted the bald figure at the front of the vehicle in a rich shade of blue and -- Voila! Hairless spiritual sari-wearing pacifist becomes freaky, post-modern performance artist!

And the novelty T-shirts, at souvenir shops from Bourbon to Decatur, were particularly prickly: a "Girls Gone Wild" shirt with the meteorological symbol that represents a hurricane duplicated under the names "Katrina" and "Rita"; a FEMA shirt that spelled the acronym "Federal Employees Missing Again"; a New Orleans Police Department shirt that said "Not Our Problem, Dude"; New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard depicted as the Three Stooges; and my favorite, which takes the poster art for the recent film "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory," and replaces star Johnny Depp's face with Ray Nagin's, alters the background to a post-Katrina NOLA skyline, and the title to "Willy Nagin & the Chocolate City -- Semi-Sweet & a Little Bit Nuts." Anger transformed to humor.

This is not to diminish the tragedy. Parts of the city are devastated. For instance, I made it over to the periphery of the Ninth Ward, and even now, it looks like a bomb went off and laid waste to everything. Although it will take years (and a much better series of levees) before those neighborhoods are back to something approaching they're previous condition (or hopefully, something better), there are clean-up crews and builders who are toiling every day with the determination to resurrect and improve upon that which was destroyed.
 
New Orleans will survive, and it's ready to accommodate those who love it, or will love it if they visit. It's a national treasure, and it needs us. I encourage any and all of you to go there and support the most unique, exotic and seductive metropolitan area in North America.

 There are a few more days left until Mardi Gras. And how about Jazz Fest in April? It's coming up, and it's a music-lover's dream. I'm just sayin'...

Photo © Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved
Here's another lovely audio slideshow by Chico Sanchez, a freelance photographer based in Mexico City. Chico worked in Venezuela, collaborating with Reuters, European Pressphoto Agency, Agencia EFE, and freelances for various newspapers and magazines.

The title of this audio slideshow is The Angel.

This time, Chico documents the spiritual side of Flamenco, whose mystical, almost religious origins, are almost forgotten by the admirers of this genre of music and dance. Chico is well placed to do so...he's a native Andalucian, a musician and was involved in flamenco himself.

I would have loved to see a flip book effect in Chico's work...various shots of a dancer (or singer for that matter)...and arranged in such a way that playing the slideshow would have animated these almost-identical stills.

The well-known flamenco style of music and dance is emblematic to the culture of Spain, although it is actually native to only one region: Andalusia.

Gypsy, Sephardic, and especially Arabic musical influences are found in flamenco. For me, one of the best flamenco singers is Diego Ramón Jiménez Salazar, known as El Cigala, whose album Lagrima Negas fusing Cuban rhythms and flamenco vocals, made it an international success.

ThePoles.com has posted a new Polar Update with some news on the still ongoing arctic expeditions.

Rosie Stancer continues to make progress in her bid to go solo to the North Pole. She spent much of the day yesterday in white-out conditions, gaining 8 nautical miles in the process. After 13 hours of trekking though, the conditions began to improve and the clouds lifted. Hopefully conditions are much clearer for her today. Her last reported position was at 86 54 00N 56 21 22W, which means she still has some work ahead of her.

Meanwhile, Thomas Ulrich and Børge Ousland continue their epic voyage as well, but have reportedly run into a polar bear already. The pair of arctic explorers were surprised to see a bear so far North, and it has prompted them to set up a fence around their camp at night to keep hungry bears away. They've made steady progress as well, despite their own whiteout conditions, having notched 17km over the weekend.

The Polar First Team has made it into Iqaluit on Baffin Island, where they bumped into Will Steger's Global warming 101 Team who happened to have British Adventurer (and Billionaire) Richard Branson along for the ride. Jennifer Murray reports that the record weather delay in Iqaluit is 42 days, a record they don't really want to break.

Finally, the results for the Polar Race are in and you can check to see how your favorite team did. I don't know about you personally, but I was rooting for "The Blue Tits".

Yesterday's wonderful snowboarding video was so well received that I thought another one was in order. Today we have pro snowboarder Eric Jackson shredding some steep lines in the backcountry in one of those scenes that is great to look at but I wouldn't want to try it myself. I'll leave these antics to the experts while I work on mastering the bunny-hill. If this doesn't get you stoked for winter, I don't know what will.

ERIC JACKSON - FULL PART from Friday on Vimeo.

I started the AroundTheWorldBlog because readers of Down With Tyranny would grumble whenever I'd write about my travel experiences. On the other hand, I always get nasty comments whenever I mention politics on this one. So I was trying to figure out which blog to put this one on. I have to admit I'm not certain where it's going to end up as I sit down to write it. It's almost a truism to say that you meet interesting and worthwhile people when you travel, people with diverse opinions and points of view. Yesterday I actually met two people, unconnected to each other in any way whatsoever, who both admire George Bush. Although I once made friends with a Vietnamese kid in Ho Chi Minh City who was too polite to admit he detested Bush without a good deal of prodding, these two are the first I ever met overseas who really and truly thought Bush is a good president.

The first one, an Australian marine engineer (he works on a boat), was so appallingly stupid that he was unable to figure out how to get into Brazil. I met him at the Buenos Aires airport, both of our planes having been delayed for hours and each of us passing the time in the airport locutorio. I don't remember his name; it might have been Pete. He told me that he had flown to Sao Paulo from Madrid, part of those long, zig-zaggy trips round the world Ozzie's are always in the middle of. Because Australia has as big an oafish and pig-headed national leader in John Howard as we have in the U.S., Australians are the other nationality who have to jump through hoops to get into Brazil. Pete wound up in a detention center and was nearly thrown back onto a plane for Madrid. Someone took pity on him and sent him off to Buenos Aires. His plane back to Cairns leaves from Sao Paulo. I explained how he could get a Brazilian visa in Buenos Aires but he had already decided to try to sneak across the border in Iguazu, something which many people do and which usually works. But not always.

Anyway, I just happened to mention that the Brazilians don't allow Americans and Australians in easily, the way they let Europeans and Argentines in, because our two national leaders have made it so hard for Brazilian tourists to come to our countries. I used an adjective or two to describe Bush and Howard. Oy! Did that set off a firestorm! Pete is like a posterboy for racism and within a second he was on automatic, spewing every bit of stereotypical nonsense you ever heard about "spear chucking cannibals with bones in their noses" (exact words) flooding into Australia and changing the place. Imagine that! He worships Howard for his strength-- and because Labor would give everything away to the spear chucking cannibals (including advance fighter jets). I was finally able to calm him down and get him to talk about man-eating seawater crocodiles, something Australians like talking about even more than John Howard, although he eventually got into a rant about how the spear chucking cannibals and Chinese flood into northern Australia by boat and are all eaten by the seawater crocodiles.


The manager of the hotel I'm staying at in Ushuaia, Las Hayas, is far more genteel and sophisticated. I couldn't imagine Alec ever getting thrown into a detention cell and deported somewhere. While I was writing about the seawater crocs eating Chinese immigrants he introduced me to Prue Leith, founder of Leith's, one of my favorite London eateries. She was just checking out of Las Hayas to take a Russian icebreaker to Antarctica.

Alec is a veritable fount of conventional wisdom. This morning he told me how Ushuaia experiences all four seasons each day (although it's nearly 5PM and today we only had what I think of as winter, cold, rainy grey winter). When it comes to politics, though, he's like one of those founts of conventional wisdom who listens to Rush all day and when you press the right button... out it comes. Our first conversation started with him telling me how Bush fights hard for America and how he's really a good president for the U.S. Of course I calmly disabused him of that notion and explained that Bush is the absolute worst president America has ever had and that he has done nothing whatsoever for the U.S. except bring it down. Alec had a lot to say about Argentine politics as well, of course, and he introduced me to a delightful new word, "rabanito." It's the word for radish and when an Argentine applies it to a person, he's refering to someone red on the outside and white on the inside. The genesis of the word was a Cuba-loving soccer coach, César Luis Menotti (1978 World Cup winner) who loved rolexes and fancy cars as much as he loved Castro and Che.

Meanwhile, by the way, I'm taking notes about Tierra del Fuego and I'll do a piece on the hotel, the restaurants and all that. It's a pretty classic tourist trap, well on it's way-- though not there yet-- to being spoiled by commercialism. You can see how Ushuaia is turning almost Disneyland-like in its headlong rush to cater to more and more tourists who come for the one real attraction-- it's remoteness, something which, of course, is disappearing. The vistas are undeniably spectacular. Everywhere you look is just breathtaking, except when you look at the expanding town itself.


UPDATE: UGGHH... MORE RIGHT WINGERS

The kinds of people who travel abroad tend to be relatively open-minded. Mostly you meet liberals, not conservatives. Conservatives are, by nature, distrustful and afraid to travel to foreign places, afraid of strange food, strange cultures, incomprehensible languages, afraid of the uncertainties of traveling outside of the U.S. (I always notice that Americans, unlike any other people, seem to be greatly put off when people speak something other than English. Americans seem to assume people are talking about them-- or plotting to blow something up-- if they hear a "foreign" language.) Anyway, a good 75% of the Americans I meet on the road are non-conservatives. It's nice, you can almost bond with anyone by denouncing Bush.


Yesterday's trip to penguin island was an 8 hour expedition with 12 people, half of whom spoke English and half Spanish. The English speakers were yours truly, a British guy in his late 20s finishing up a 6-month sojourn through Latin America and a family of 4 Coloradans just back from Antarctica. The husband was outgoing and friendly, if a bit loud and pushy, but within 5 minutes of meeting him he seems to have taken offense that I referred to Tancredo as a cretin and a fascist. His wife's vibe was 100% right wing dragon lady. My attempts at non-partisan friendliness were not returned. Instead, they insisted on opening the bus' windows to let in the "fresh air," which never got above 40 degrees. After the 8 hour trip they tried to pressure the guide and driver into extending it by several hours by going to a forbidden area, regardless of the fact that no one else on the bus wanted to go anywhere but home (not the least of which, to escape all the fresh, near freezing air they made sure the bus was filled with).

The English guy told me he is a Conservative but we got along fine and I was eager to figure out why someone in England in the 21st Century would ascribe to conservatism. He was unable to enlighten me, knew very little about where the Conservative Party stood on any issue ("I've been out of the country for 6 months," was his excuse) and, other than his loathing for Tony Blair and his worship of Dame Thatcher, he seemed to ascribe to reasonable positions on all the issues he described as being important to the British electorate: immigration and integration into Greater Europe.

Everyone else I've met down here from the U.S. seems to be a Democrat or, at least, anti-Bush. This even though it's pretty expensive to travel in this part of the world unless you want to backpack and stay in hostels.

When we last checked in on Philippe Gatta, the ultrarunner attempting to run the length of the Great Himalaya Trail, a distance of 1700 km (1056 miles), in just 40 days, he was waiting out the weather. Philippe had gotten caught in the mountains just as Cyclone Phailin was hitting the mainland. That storm ended up dumping an unbelievable amount of snow across the region, burying portions of the trail in waist deep powder. It has gotten so bad in fact, that the Frenchman said that the snow was actually reaching the second story of some of the taller buildings in villages that he was passing through. When he returned to the GHT late last week, he found some of the higher passes blocked and impassable. Those conditions have caused him to reassess the expedition and come at it from a different direction – quite literally.

On Saturday, Philippe posted a note on his Facebook page that said that all the passes above 5000 meters (16,404 ft) are closed and would not reopen for sometime. Possibly not until spring. So, he decided to abandon his run where he was at and return to Kathmandu temporarily and then head back out to the trail, launching the next portion of his run from Lukla in the Khumbu Valley. That's the starting point for climbers and trekkers heading to Everest of course. His plan was to run from Lukla to Namche Bazaar and from there head to Island Peak, a 6165 meter (20,226 ft) mountain in the Khumbu region with the intention of climbing to the top. Island Peak is a trekking peak without any technical climbing involved, but considering how much snow it is currently buried under, it will still be a real challenge at the moment.

Another update came yesterday that indicated that Gatta had arrived in Namche after running just 3 hours and 15 minutes to get there. Anyone who has made that trek will tell you that is an impressive time considering it usually takes the better part of two days to walk there. That includes hiking up the famous Namche Hill, which includes some substantial gains in altitude. He'll likely spend a day there resting before beginning the hike to Island Peak.

So, while the objective the run has changes, Philippe is still pushing ahead with his adventure none the less. It appears an attempt to run the entire GHT is done for now, but he'll continue to apply his unique skills to explore the Khumbu Valley. It should be interesting to see how the trek to the mountain goes and if he finds success on Island Peak.

Good luck Philippe!

Photo © Francesco Lastrucci-All Rights Reserved
Here's the work of Francesco Lastrucci, an Italian freelance photographer who specializes in editorial stories. He's currently based between Italy, New York and Hong Kong from where he works on projects involving Europe, Latin America and East Asia.

From Francesco's diverse editorial stories, including a story of the ubiquitous areca nut and betel leaf chewing in Taiwan (as indeed it is in many other Asian countries), and its marketing by beautiful young women, I chose his excellent work on Kashgar, the capital city of the Uyghur.

The Uyghur live in modern Xinjiang, the westernmost province of China, but the name Xinjiang is considered offensive by many Uyghur who prefer to use Uyghurstan or Eastern Turkestan. Kashgar is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 inhabitants, and its old city has been deemed overcrowded and unsafe for its residents, and will have at least 85% of its structures demolished. Demolitions have already begun, with many of its former denizens forced to move.

Kashgar’s old city has been called “the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in Central Asia, but it is now being razed by the Chinese government which plans to replace the old buildings with new.

The Daily Record has a short, but alarming, article about Conrad Anker's plan to climb Everest using the same gear that George Mallory and his team had back in 1924 on their ill fated attempt at the highest mountain on Earth.

Anker was part of the team that found Mallory's body on Everest back in 1999, and he claims that he's been "haunted" by it ever since. He may be haunted by something else if the weather turns bad on his climb. Apparently the climb will be filmed to be included in a movie project down the line.

I'm not sure about you, but I personally like the new gear we have these days. I'm kind of attached, literally and figuratively, to my fingers and toes. If I were going up Everest in retro gear, I think I would have chosen the gear that Hillary used. At least he was successful in his attempt. :)

Thanks GoBlog!

Update: As usual, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Fortunately, I have smart readers who are always around to set me straight. Carl has passed on two very cool and interesting articles on the gear that Mallory used and how well it would work on Everest. The first article discusses how after building replicas of Mallory's gear it was determined that not only could Mallory and irvine have survied at high altitudes, they would have been able to climb quite comfortably. The second article is a follow up to the first, with experts actually stating they would rather climb in the Mallory gear than the more modern stuff. The argument is that the the older gear was plenty warm, comfortable, and didn't restrict climbing as much. They did note, however, that it was probably tougher to pee in. ;)

Thanks for the education Carl! Always appreciated. :)