And now something from the "completely insane" category. Here's a video of a man riding his bike backwards down a road in Trollstigen, Norway. The road is 4.5 km (2.8 miles) in length and features a 10% grade. At times, the rider reached speeds in excess of 80 km/h (50 mph), which seems frightening when you're riding a bike the proper way. Don't try this at home kids.

Blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer found himself in an odd situation a few days back. Canoe & Kayak magazine is reporting that Erik was detained by locals in Peru while kayaking down the Marañón River, one of the main tributaries of the Amazon River. Weihenmayer is in South America with a group of 20 paddlers training for an attempt on the Grand Canyon next year and the team was mistaken for a group of scouts looking for suitable locations to build a dam on the Marañón. This is a highly controversial plan in Peru that has many of the locals up in arms.

According to the C&K report, the kayaking team was held overnight after being confronted by locals who warned them if they had proceeded further down river they would have been met by hostile villagers at the next location. Fortunately, the situation was resolved when it was revealed the paddling team's leader – James “Rocky” Contos – is a conservationist who is campaigning against damming efforts and has even made a film about the situation.

Weihenmayer is best known as the first blind person to summit Everest, but if you check out his website, you'll see that is just one of his many adventures. Erik has also climbed the rest of the Seven Summits, raced in the Leadville 100, competed in marathons and adventure races and a host of other activities.

After it was determined that the paddlers were not part of a dam survey team they were allowed to go on their way. But the situation underscores how passionate many Peruvians are about this topic. Commercial organizations have reportedly identified 20 locations to build a dam on the river, which will substantially alter its course and the landscapes around it.

These kinds of water rights issues are major points of contentions in South America at the moment. Chile is also facing similar resistance to several of it's rivers as well.

CNN brings us this short video, which was produced by Alex Zolbert, who traveled by train north of Delhi to witness and photograph the Dvitya Shahi Snan, or Second Royal Bath, on March 15, at the Ardh Kumbh Mela.

Photographs by Palani Mohan are included in the piece. Palani's photographic career started at the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, and since then he has been based in London, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and now Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia.

As I wrote on my earlier posts about the Hardiwar Kumbh Mela, exuberant hyperbole (and imaginative press releases) describe it as the largest gathering of humanity. It is not. The distinction belongs to the Maha Kumbh Mela which occurs after 12 'Purna Kumbh Melas', or after every 144 years. It was held at Allahabad in early 2001, and was attended by over 60 million people, making it the largest gathering in the world. I would also say that, in my opinion and having been to both Allahabad and Hardiwar, that the latter is an unappealing city and its ghats are not photogenic.

Whether it's over-hyped or not, all of the photographers who attended it over the past few weeks had a wonderful time, and captured magnificent images.

A teammate brought this pack of instant noodles back from Penang, mentioning that this is in huge demand up there right now, with lots of places sold out of the stuff. It wasn't very clear what made this thing "white" until I opened it up this morning, finding a packet of appetizingly-sounding "non-dairy creamer" in there.

I'm not exactly very familiar with this stuff, but it ended up tasting like my recent laksa without laksa leaf epiphany: it was spicy, rich, and with a strong punch of shellfish. It's loaded up with palm oil though, which I suppose shouldn't be surprising given how important that industry is to Malaysia.

YouTube is a treasure trove of classic BBC climbing films. Case in point, this fantastic video on the history of climbing K2. It is almost 50 minutes of footage on the second highest peak in the world and some would argue the hardest to climb. So put your feet up, kick back and enjoy this one. It'll give you even more respect for the Savage Mountain.

 Mellifont Abbey was the first Cistercian Abbey in Ireland, known to the Cistercians in Ireland as the ‘Mother House’, a base from where the Cistercians expanded, adding more and more institutions (known as ‘daughter houses’) across Ireland. The name Mellifont comes from the Latin, ‘Fons Mellis’ meaning ‘Fount of Honey’.

The Cistercian Order was founded by St. Bernard of Clairvaux in Burgundy, Central France in 1098. St. Bernard believed that the other monastic orders had become dissolute and undisciplined, and he founded the Cistercians as an austere and hard-working order who focused on a life of prayer. St. Malachy of Armagh, the Irish Saint and friend of St. Bernard, founded Mellifont Abbey in 1142 with a group of Irish and French monks.


The Abbey was extremely successful from it’s earliest stages, and it developed rapidly. Monks from Mellifont were dispatched to found ‘daughter houses’ around Ireland, within just five years of the foundation of Mellifont in 1147 a daughter house had already been established at Bective in County Meath and within twenty years the Cistercians had establishments in Connacht, such as that founded at Boyle, County Roscommon in 1161. It is recorded that at least 21 abbeys were founded by monks from Mellifont.

The Cistercian community in Ireland faced a grave crisis following the Norman Invasions of Ireland in the late twelfth century. Irish established Cistercian institutions such as Mellifont became embroiled in a power-struggle with the Cistercian establishments that came from England following the invasion. The outcome of what became known as ‘The Conspiracy of Mellifont’ led to a dramatic reduction in the powers and number of monks allowed to Mellifont. Despite these restrictions, Mellifont remained one of the richest monastic institutions in Ireland due to it’s huge landholdings of the rich agricultural land of Meath and Louth.

It was probably due to this vast ownership of prime land that Mellifont was one of the first of the Irish monastic sites to be Dissolved in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Mellifont became the private fortified home of Sir Edward Moore, and it was here that the famous Treaty of Mellifont was signed in 1603 that ended the bloody Nine Years War. Later Mellifont played host to William of Orange, who established his headquarters at Mellifont during the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Of the site itself there isn’t much of the original Abbey left standing today. However excavations have revealed the foundations of many of the buildings, so it is easy to get a good sense of the size and layout of this important Abbey. Mellifont became the standard format for all Cistercian Abbeys in Ireland, and many other monastic orders were influenced by the layout. The cloisters were positioned at the south, and were surrounded by a range of domestic and spiritual buildings, with a cruciform shaped church to the North. The site is certainly worth visiting for its famous Lavabo. This building is in the Romanesque style of architecture, and dates to the early thirteenth century. It is octagonal in shape and served as the ritual washroom, where the monks would wash their hands before entering the refectory for meals. Excavations revealed fragments of lead pipe that brought the water into the central fountain. The interior was decorated with delicate images of plants and birds. A number of fragments of the fine architectural features are on display in the visitor centre.

You’ll find Mellifont about 10km north-west of Drogheda, off the R168 (Drogheda-Collon Road). Guided tours are available from the Office of Public Works from the 30th May to the 28th August. Open daily from 10.00am – 6pm (please note that last entry is at 5pm). Prices are €3 for an adult, €2 for over-60’s, €1 for children/students. For more details please see their website here.

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

All photographs © Neil Jackman / abartaaudioguides.com

It's funny...I didn't even realize until I looked it up just now that this is basically the same shop as that unremarkable RamenPlay place. And yet, it tasted so much better, perhaps because I opted for the shoyu version here; I'm just waaaayyyy too tonokotsu-'ed out these days.

The earthy fishiness of the broth might be a turnoff for some, but it was such a refreshingly savory change for the better, and I liked those curly noodles too. Yes, I'd come back for this, but it's just interesting that they broke away from the RamenPlay branding and presentation here.

I'm a firm believer in traveling as light as possible. For one thing I hate checking luggage. "One in every 138 checked bags was lost during the first nine months of this year, compared with one in 155 bags a year earlier." Now that statistic is for U.S. carriers, which are much worse than reputable international carriers, like British Air, which is what I'm flying on to India. Nevertheless, I don't want to bring anything extra or check anything. So the weather becomes a problem. In Delhi, my first stop, the temperature dips down into the 40s and it cane get colder. That means I need a jacket. In Yangon and Bangkok it never gets below the mid-70s and is as likely to be in the low-90s; no jacket needed. Maybe I can just bring one I hate and leave it in Delhi when I fly to Bangkok.

But what about the monkeys? Do I bring monkey food? Or pick it up when I get there? Are you supposed to feed the monkeys. The ones I've run into in Nepal in 1970 were pretty nasty and aggressive. When I returned 20 some odd years later they had replaced them with tame, friendly docile monkeys. I hear the ones infesting Delhi this year are neither tame, friendly nor docile. They're eating people's small pets, attacking people and trying to steal babies. Does it sound like a Hitchcock movie with simians instead of birds?

Troupes of monkeys are out of control in India's northeast, stealing mobile phones and breaking into homes to steal soft drinks from refrigerators, lawmakers in the region have complained.
"Monkeys are wreaking havoc in my constituency by taking away mobile phones, toothpastes, sipping coke after opening the refrigerators," Hiren Das told Assam state's assembly Saturday.

He said the primates were "even slapping women who try to chase them."

"It is a cause of serious concern in my area, with more than 1,000 such simians turning aggressive by the day," fumed Goneswar Das, another legislator representing Raha in eastern Assam.

And last month the deputy mayor of Delhi died when he fell off his balcony defending himself against a monkey attack. Another bunch broke into Sonia Gandhi's daughter's apartment and wrecked it, while others have been ransacking hospitals and attacking patients. They're out of control but devout Hindus believe they're the incarnation of Hanuman and can't be killed.

The problems stems from humans displacing monkeys from their natural habitat. Tens of thousands of them have moved into Delhi... where the livin' is easy. Gee, and I though all the danger on this trip was going to be in Myanmar.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's a good thing that we didn't pre-purchase those Savour Lounge passes at US$125 (US$99). Sure, it would have gotten us an air-conditioned suite and an open bar, but there were plenty of S$75 (US$59) tickets available at the door on Sunday afternoon, and it was cool and breezy enough at the new Promontory@Marina Bay location that an indoor lounge would have just taken us away from the fun of the nice weather outside.

And while Bo Innovation was still here from HK, most of the restaurants this year were from Singapore (interestingly, Pind Balluchi was here too!). I generally stuck to the few overseas shops that were here, like Gidleigh Park from the UK, but I also really enjoyed the tagliolini from &SONS, a place in Singapore that we'd been meaning to go to for some time. And now that we've tried the goods, we're definitely making plans to go to the proper restaurant someday.

One of my other favorites was actually one of the most simple (and the cheapest) things available: that whipped cheese above from Lugdunum Bouchon Lyonnais in Japan. Still, we departed in less than an hour, hoping not to get sucked into buying additional sets of expensive food coupons like we did last year. Yes, the food was good, and the small portions let you try a lot of different stuff, as long as you're willing to pay the price.

Photo © Some Hot-Shot Photog I Forgot The Name Of
Here's the exclusive opportunity that you've all been waiting for! I announce the "availability" of The Travel Photographer's Pouches which are for sale at the incredible price of only $89.99 a piece...or, if you're inclined to save, only $181.00 for two pouches. Yes, please do the math.

The pouches are (probably) made in China of rugged black canvas, and have two pockets. The Travel Photographer logo is embroidered in the trademark bright teal color, using the Arial font, and with a thread exclusive (possibly) to me. The logo was embroidered using the latest techniques in the lovely town of Oaxaca, using a cranky Japanese machine.

The cost? Well, I bought the pouch for about $5 at a nearby US Army Surplus store, and the embroidery cost under $2...so I figured that a profit of $83.00 a piece seems reasonable. Oh, and shipping is not included in the price.

As to availability; well...here's the thing. I would need to return to Oaxaca to have them embroidered. This may take a year or so.

As I said, these are exclusive and are really really worth waiting for.

Seriously speaking, I found these pouches to be ideal for extra lenses, small notebooks, an audio recorder and other paraphernalia I carry while shooting. And I prefer to use items that carry my brand name instead of products such as ThinkTank, LowePro, etc. If these companies paid me to carry (and advertise) their wares, it'd be different...but they don't.

Despite predicting summit bids on Dhaulagiri last week, MountEverest.net now brings us news that the Spaniards were turned back in their summit bid by a nasty storm above 7000m. The team climbed from BC to C2 on Saturday with the intention of resting before going for the summit yesterday morning. But the mounain had other ideas, as high winds and a nasty storm kept them up all night, and prevented them from pressing on in the morning. Team leader Iñaki Ochoa says that they climbed an additional 300m before throwing in the towel and retreating back to base camp.

At this point, all the teams on Dhaulagiri are in BC and waiting out the storm. It will likely be several days before it passes, and teams can climb back up to Camp 2 to inspect for damage, so we'll just have to wait to see when a weather window will open for the summit once more.

Meanwhile, the the news from Everest is that the North Side is so crowded that teams have to fence off the area they've claimed as their spot to set up camp. There are even reports of armed guards patrolling the Chinese camp, which is said to dominate the area.

On the South Side, snow delayed a lot of departures from base camp as it made the already treacherous Khumbu Ice Falls even more dangerous. The Ice Fall has been particularly active this year with the ice still moving and forcing new paths to be made on a regular basis. For those that don't know, the Khumbu Ice Falls are the most dangerous area of the mountain, and they reguire the Sherpas to lay down a series of ladders that climbers use as bridges to cross the gaps between the slabs of ice. Falling into on of these gaps means falling into a crevasse that you may never get out of.

Photo Courtesy The Guardian -All Rights Reserved
I was saddened by reading an interview with Steve McCurry recently published in The Guardian in which he shares the news that he's preparing a project in which he would be taking portraits of 30 celebrities in their home cities: Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese in New York, Amitabh Bachan in Mumbai. A sort of project that Annie Leibowitz would do...but Steve McCurry? C'mon!

I was also saddened to read that McCurry would be setting the shots, and choreographing the image-taking...the Leibowitz's style. While I'm told by various participants on his photo trips that he frequently stages scenes during his workshops, photographing celebrities requires a different type of discipline, and a different type of mind-set....and is not one hard core travel photographers would be stylistically and intellectually willing to do. Maybe I'm too idealistic?

Naturally, this project will be financially rewarding for McCurry and I wish him the best of luck with it....however, I can't help but feel a twinge of regret (and sadness, as I said twice already) that we are witnessing the dimming of a star.

After all, McCurry is one of the pioneers of travel photography and is an inspiration to many who follow his style....and to read of this new project is an uncomfortable reminder that things are changing in this industry, and that photographers (whether involved in travel, documentary and editorial) need to be sharp, varied and inventive. Resting on one's laurels is always a fatal mistake, and this is especially true in this tumultuous industry.

A photojournalist presented a body of work during the Foundry Workshop in Istanbul, but the consensus was that it was old and passe...and not relevant to the present day and age...photographers or photojournalists clinging to their past are like people breathlessly running after a Third World public bus on a pot-holed road, with young passengers hanging like a bunch of grapes from its doors and windows....and no available toe-holds in sight.

So let's be smart....let's learn multimedia, Final Cut, Adobe Premiere, Soundslides...audio techniques...learn DSLR videography....let's use Twitter & Facebook intelligently...do anything to find a toe-hold. If not, we'll be left inhaling exhaust fumes and waiting for celebrities to show up (if we're lucky).

The wonderful round tower at Timahoe in County Laois has to be one of the finest in Ireland. The Round Tower stands on the site of a monastery, said to have been founded by Saint Mochua in the seventh century AD. 

Sculpture of St.Mochua's Desk, with his rooster, mouse and fly. Created in by Michael Burke with the staff and students of Scoil Mhuire Fatima in 2004.

 St. Mochua was a seventh century warrior who converted to christianity and became a hermit, he had no worldly possessions at all apart from his psalter, a rooster, a mouse and a fly. The Rooster kept the hour of matins for him so he never missed prayers, the mouse made sure he never slept more than three hours a night by licking his ears if he fell asleep while praying, and the fly would mark his position in the psalter so he never lost his place. The dwelling where St. Mochua lived – Teách Mochua – gives its name to Timahoe.

The site is most famous for the wonderful round tower that is thought to date from the early part of the twelfth century. It has the most ornate, romanesque-style doorway of any round tower in Ireland, and in the right light conditions you can make out wonderfully intricate carvings of interlacing chevrons and representations of human heads. This doorway is positioned approximately 5m up from the ground level, with the tower itself standing almost 30m tall. For centuries scholars debated about what exactly these iconic Irish round towers were actually used for, with ideas ranging from them serving as look out points or refuges in case of Viking raids. However it is likely that round towers were primarily bell towers, even their name in Irish 'Cloig Teach' translates to 'bell house'. The towers would have also been highly visible markers in the landscape, serving almost as a lighthouse to weary pilgrims who would know that a Round Tower meant a monastic site, where they can buy accommodation and warm food for the night.

You can also discover the remains of a fifteenth century Franciscan Friary church. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1540's, the church and friary were converted into a defensive castle, though little of that survives today. The nineteenth century church next to the round tower is now used as a library.

Timahoe is a wonderfully peaceful site to visit and is very easy to access. You'll find it about 10km south from Portlaoise on the R426 heading towards Carlow. If you're visiting Timahoe why not try the amazing Rock of Dunamase that is located close by to the north. We have a free audioguide available that will lead you around this magnificent site and tells you the story of its bloody and tempestuous history. You can download the guide for free from www.abartaaudioguides.com and it is now available as a great free audio-visual app for iPhone. Simply download the free Guidigo app and access Dunamase from there.

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+

All photographs © Neil Jackman / abartaaudioguides.com

 One of the most important sites in prehistoric Ireland, Navan Fort (also known as Emain Macha) is an incredible place of mythology and archaeology. Like The Hill of Tara, one of the other great ‘Royal Sites’ of prehistoric Ireland, Navan Fort is part of a large and complex landscape of monuments in an area steeped in the legends of Ireland. It was said to be the capital of Ulaidh and home of the great Ulster Warriors of the Red Branch, Emain Macha was also the seat of King Conor MacNeasa and it is entwined with the story of the great Cuchulainn – Hound of Ulster, who discussed epic battles and heroic campaigns here. The importance of legends relating to Emain Macha lived on through time – the famous Brian Boru spent a night at Navan Fort in 1005 to prove his worth as High King of Ireland. In 1387, Niall O’Neill chose Navan Fort as the location for a house where he could entertain guests – hoping to impress them with his wonderfully historical location.

However, in the 1960s this important site came under threat as a local quarry that was located very close to the northern part of the site, wanted to expand. The quarry was already located adjacent to Loughnashade (or Lake of the Treasures) so any expansion would have meant certain destruction of archaeological deposits. An archaeological team headed by Dudley Waterman began the enormous task of excavating the site, to try to understand more about life in one of Ireland’s most important Iron Age royal centres, and to try to assess how the physical remains could match the historical and mythological descriptions.

They discovered a large enclosure that encompasses an area of around 6 hectares, at the heart of the enclosure there are two visible monuments; a large circular mound and an earthwork known as a ring-ditch. The information that came from the excavation of these features gave a startlingly complex story of activity that stretches over millennia. However the main activity on site seemed to centre around the Iron Age, around 2100 years ago in 90BC.

A huge wooden temple was constructed at the summit of the site, using over 280 large wooden posts.

Reconstruction model of the enormous wooden temple

Strangely there is no evidence to say that anyone lived in this massive structure. Instead shortly after its construction, the temple was filled to the roof with a cairn of limestone rubble, then the wooden structure now completely filled, was then burned down and the remains of the cairn were carefully covered with a mound of soil. This unusual and unparalleled activity is one of the great mysteries of prehistoric Western Europe. Why did they go to this incredibly time consuming labour intensive trouble of building a structure of enormous dimensions, only to then fill it with stones and destroy it by burning? What Gods were they hoping to placate? For what reason? Theories in archaeology abound about this strange behaviour, though no-one can say with any certainty the reason behind it. It is often the case in archaeology that by excavating a site you end up with more questions than you had before you began, the mound at Navan Fort is certainly a great example of that!

Poignantly, the excavators also discovered the skull of a Barbary Ape in Iron Age deposits at Navan Fort. This ape came from Northern Africa or Gibraltar, and no doubt was a little bewildered to find itself in (comparatively) cold and wet Armagh. This ape would have been an object of huge curiosity and was likely to be a treasured possession of the ruler at Navan Fort, who would have shown off his ability to trade with far flung and exotic places. More artefacts of immense importance were discovered in the ceremonial pool, Loughnashade. Four beautifully made bronze horns / trumpets were discovered in 1798, along with a quantity of human bones. These trumpets were the largest prehistoric horns ever found in Ireland and are thought to date to around 2,000 years old. Of the four trumpets unfortunately only one survives today, the other three have disappeared. From the surviving trumpet replicas have been created, to hear what these ceremonial trumpets would have sounded like check out this YouTube video and just try and imagine yourself as a homesick Barbary Ape https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDgv5O8i8RU

We will never truly understand all the secrets of Navan Fort but it is certainly well worth a visit as it is a site that has retained its importance through the centuries. Simply by standing on the summit of the remains of that large temple looking out over the landscape, one can understand how this became known as the great home of the Knights of the Red branch and how it was immortalized in tales of heroes. We strongly recommend paying a visit to the excellent visitor centre, where you can enjoy an exhibition and audio-visual that describes what was found during the excavations.

There are also wonderful living history displays where you can experience life during the Iron Age and guided tours to the site are also available. To find out admission prices and more information please visit http://www.armagh.co.uk/place/navan-centre-fort/

I do hope you enjoy our blog, we are trying to cover as many sites across Ireland as we can. Please do consider supporting us as we need all the help we can get and we'd really appreciate it. You can support us by sharing our blogposts or by downloading one of our audioguides from www.abartaaudioguides.com, they are packed with original music by Enda Seery and sound effects to make a fun and immersive way of hearing the story of one of Ireland’s iconic heritage sites. They cost just €1.99 and you can enjoy them from the comfort of your own home or at the sites. If you want to try them out before you buy we have a number of guides available free to download, including the incredible Rock of Dunamase, Kells Heritage Town and an audioguide that describes all the archaeology discovered during work on the M6 motorway between Kinnegad and Galway, it’s the story of a landscape through its archaeology.

If you’d like to receive daily updates about great heritage sites then please consider following us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Photo © Tom Wool-All Rights Reserved
The Rubin Museum of Art in New York City is showing the photographs of Tom Wool in an exhibition In The Shadow of Everest, which runs until July 26, 2010.

Coming from a fashion photography background, Tom Wool has devoted himself to work for humanitarian organizations. Using a medium format Hasselblad, he photographed Tibet's Rongbuk Valley and its inhabitants in May 2001.

The valley stretches about 30 miles from the base of Mount Everest on the north side, and is home to some 3,000 Tibetans. It's considered sacred, with deep religious connotations to the Tibetans. The valley is home to the Rongbuk Monastery, the highest of any in the world at 17,000 feet above sea level.

The Other Adventure Blog has put together a cool article on the Top 10 most dangerous cave diving sites in North America. The countdown begins with a place called "Temple of Doom" and gets better from there. There are some very nice images, and in some cases video, with each entry on the list. There are some very interesting sites listed, but only for the skilled and adventurous divers amongst us.

While I'm highly intrigued with diving, I haven't as yet added it to my resume of skill sets. Places like the ones shown here are both alluring and frightening at the same time. Perhaps the best way to visit them for most of us is from the safety of the web. :)

Oh and beware the epilepsy inducing banner ad on the site. I felt like it may be more dangerous than some of the caves.

I left home when I was 13, but only temporarily. I hitchhiked from New York to Florida. I only got as far as New Jersey when I was arrested on the Turnpike. The police called my father and made him come pick me up. He was pissed but he gave me the bus fare to get to Miami Beach. It wasn't until later in my teenage years that I left home for real-- this time to go to Tonga, a small island between New Zealand and Hawaii. I hitchhiked all the way to California before being arrested this time-- having stowed away on a ship in San Pedro. After that I discovered airplanes. I had never been on one and they were incredibly convenient. I mean, compared to hitchhiking... they got you there so fast.

It wasn't long before I also discovered that you are better off not checking bags. My primary motivation was getting out of the airport fast and the baggage carousel was always a place I didn't like hanging around. And on top of that checked bags get lost-- a lot. It's easy for me; I travel light. After nearly 7 years living overseas I came back to America with 2 bags; no need to check anything.

Today's NY Times published a story on the worsening checked luggage situation in the U.S. (I never noticed it overseas and I usually feel far more confident checking luggage on foreign carriers. When I fly overseas I never use U.S. carriers, always British Air if I can or another foreign carrier if there's no B.A. flight. "One in every 138 checked bags was lost during the first nine months of this year, compared with one in 155 bags a year earlier."

Holiday travelers can expect to feel the effects of six years of airline downsizing in one way or another. About 27 million passengers are expected to fly during the 12 days surrounding Thanksgiving, 4 percent more than last year, the Air Transport Association said.

But there are fewer airline employees to look after them, and their bags. And to squeeze more flights out of the day, planes are sitting on the ground for shorter periods between flights. So predictably, more bags fail to join their owners, particularly on connecting flights.

“There’s a lot of opportunity for failure,” said Hans Hauck, manager of baggage operations at American’s headquarters in Fort Worth. Since Mr. Hauck started his job in September 2006, American has not met its bag-handling goal in any month. As of late last week, though, Mr. Hauck remained optimistic that he would make his November number. A look at American’s bag-handling operation, which is the biggest of all United States carriers, shows it is making lots of little improvements but still losing ground. American misplaced 7.44 bags for every thousand passengers through Sept. 30, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported, up from 6.04 for every thousand a year earlier. (All but a tiny fraction of misplaced bags are ultimately reunited with their owners.)

And American isn't the only U.S. carrier that can't do the job. Actually none of them can. Anecdotal evidence shows Delta being the airline most poorly run, although supposedly statistics show that the small regional airlines do even worse than Delta when it comes to lost bags and American Eagle was the worst of the worst.

Two of the biggest problems are downsizing, with fewer employees to do more work, and an inability for the system to read at least 10% of the bar codes on checked bags.

About 2 percent are misread and dropped onto the wrong pier. Then, it is up to a worker stacking the bags on carts to notice the mistake. “He better,” said Ms. Wilewski, the baggage manager.

American and other domestic airlines have resisted investing in radio frequency identification tags, which are used by big retailers to track inventory and are far more accurate. The tags cost about 20 cents each so it would cost $50,000 a day for American’s 250,000 bags, plus the cost of hardware to read them at each step in the process.

“We don’t lose enough bags to justify that investment,” said Mark Mitchell, American’s managing director of customer experience.

Is there any State in the Union that elicits a sense of adventure like Alaska? Not only is it the largest state (Sorry Texas!), but it's easily the most remote, mountainous, and wild. In celebration of the 49th State, National Geographic Adventure is presenting Ten Trips into the Alaskan Frontier.

The unique element of this article is that it offers both a modern and classic adventure in a similar vein. For instance, in their section on the Alaskan Range they recommend a classic trek, hiking Denali's Empty Quarter, and a more modern one, Scouting the Iditarod trail.

Should you choose to hike Denali, you'll need a permit for the backcountry, which you can only get a day in advance and without reservations. The article also warns that sections of the trail may be closed due to bear sightings (!) or river floodings. If that sounds a little too rough, then perhaps the Iditarod trail is more your style. You'll hike through Rainy Pass, one of the more prominant sections of the Iditarod sled dog race. Going in the Summer means scenic views, blooming wild flowers, and running streams that are frozen solid when the mushers roll through.

The article has other suggested adventures as well, with both modern and classic options for The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Glacier Bay National Park, Tongass National Forest, and Yukon Charley River and Kondike Preserve A little something for everyone!

Oh, and I found this particular bit of advice quite useful: "Old-timer's guide to bear identification: If it climbs the tree to kill you, it's a black bear. If it knocks the tree over first, then kills you, it's a griz."

Photo © Ralph Childs-All Rights Reserved
Photo © Ralph Childs-All Rights Reserved
Although Ralph Childs participated in my photo~expedition to Bali in summer 2007, he's once again joining Bali: Island of Odalan Photo-Expedition™ which I'm organizing and leading this coming August.

Ralph is an active member of the Arlington Camera Club, and his photographs of a Balinese dancer and of a Pemangku (Balinese priest) have both won awards at this month's competition.

He has indulged in a passion for photography since the late 1960s when he took a Minolta ALs camera to France, and he has continued his passion since. Ralph has already been on four of my photo~expeditions, and this coming August will earn the fifth notch on his belt.

El Zócalo, the heart of Mexico City's historic center, is generally packed

I wonder if PIA has reduced the number of flights into the Swat Valley's Saidu Sharif Airport this week. I suspect hotel rooms are going begging-- unless the Taliban militia has requisitioned them all. They don't need to though. Thousands of residents have been fleeing in every direction as the Pakistani Army prepares for a decisive military confrontation just a few hours northwest of the country's capital. Now Mexico is also in a touristic pickle. (The Swat Valley was one of Pakistan's most beloved tourist sites until the Taliban took it over and started brutalizing, raping and beheading women without head scarves and men without beards.)

In the midst of the drug-related violence and the swine flue epidemic, American Airlines is following the rest of the airline industry reducing the number of flights into Mexico. The tourist industry there is also in bad shape. Starting Friday and for the entire month of May and early June, American will reduce daily roundtrip flights from 42 to 31, citing "weaker demand." Continental is still flying, just using smaller planes and United is cutting its 64 weekly flights between the U.S. and Mexico to 24.

Generally flights to Mexico have been empty and flights back to the U.S. have been full, although today's NY Times is reporting that things are kind a/sorta getting back to normal-- if you think calling off Cinco de Mayo has anything to do with normal.

The authorities have been seeking to strike a balance between the health risk of widespread shutdowns and the economic cost of keeping parts of the economy shuttered. In Mexico, the nationwide impact on industries, including tourism, has cost about $2.3 billion, or between 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent of gross domestic product, Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said Tuesday.

The BBC reported this morning that there virtually is no tourism industry functioning in Mexico City right now. And its nearly as bad in the rest of the country. There are no foreign tourists at all and cruise lines have been canceling stops there.

Walk into the crisp, modernist lobby of the Camino Real hotel in the upmarket district of Polanco, and you will be treated as a bit of a novelty. Guests are far outnumbered by staff. The hotel has over 700 rooms. Less than 40 are occupied. The World Health Organization is the only regular customer these days.

...The closure of restaurants and other entertainment areas in the capital alone is costing as much as 100 million US dollars a day.

The Mexican economy, already devastated by a drop off in remittances from Mexican workers in the U.S., the second biggest source of income (between oil and tourists), is absolutely devastated now. This positively just kills the millions of low wage service workers involved with tourism-- waiters, musicians, maids, cooks, etc-- and it's spreading through the entire economy, which was already weakened by falling petroleum prices. The hotel occupancy rate in Mexico City is around 5%. That's also the estimated percentage that the economy is likely to contract by. Bloomberg is reporting that the swine flu epidemic is costing the Mexican economy about $145 million a day in gross domestic product. It's estimated that Mexico’s tourism revenue could fall 43 percent to $7.58 billion.