The horse, which had collapsed 300 meters short of the finish line, was in its final spasms of death when a khaki-vested American stumbled up and started snapping pictures. Bearded and rotund, with gray-flecked hair and a bulky rack of photographic equipment, he struck a vivid contrast to the Mongolians crowded in around him.
Once he’d fired through an entire roll of film, the man looked back at me sheepishly. “Sorry to be so vulgar,” he said, slurring his words a bit. “This just looks like something that needs to be photographed.”
“It’s your world,” I told him.
Ten meters beyond the restraining cord, a white-frocked pair of Mongolian veterinarians jogged up to assess the scene. The horse’s rider, an exhausted-looking 10-year-old with lather-slicked legs, stood by tearfully.
Beyond the dying horse, the broad, grassy plain hummed with other child riders spurring their horses toward the finish line. Thousands of Naadam Festival spectators crowded the final stretch for half a mile in both directions. Purple thunderheads rumbled above — lending a grand, vaguely sinister air to the scene. I watched as one of the veterinarians plunged a syringe into the horse’s throat.
“It’s my world,” the American went on, “but normally I wouldn’t do this. It’s all that Iraq in me that’s taking the photos.”
“Iraq?”
“Aaaaiiiiiraaak,” he said, drunkenly drawing out his vowels. “Arak. It’s the Mongolian national drink. Complete strangers have been coming up all day and pouring it down my throat. It’s like Mexicans with tequila, only arak is made from fermented mare’s milk, so it’s like getting drunk on yogurt.”
“Can’t say that sounds too appealing.”
“Well, Genghis Khan drank it every day, and he conquered the world.”
“Right. Kind of like Michael Jordan and Gatorade.”
The American smirked. “Sure,” he said. “But don’t say that too loud. People take Genghis Khan really seriously around here. They see him as kind of a combination between Jesus and Napoleon and Tarzan. He’s father of their country.”
“Sure,” I said. “The Mongolian George Washington.”
“Yeah, but Genghis Khan pretty much makes George Washington look like a wig-wearing sissy, doesn’t he?” The bearded American paused and leaned in confidentially. “But then, George Washington isn’t the one who got his balls cut off.”
For a moment, I forgot about the dying horse. “What do you mean Genghis Khan had his balls cut off?”
“I mean Genghis Khan had his balls cut right off. Common knowledge.”
“I’ve never heard that in my life. Who cut his balls off?”
“I think one of his concubines did it. Kind of a Lorena Bobbit thing. I don’t know the details; I just know that it’s a fact. If you don’t believe me, ask around. Someone here is bound to know the whole story.”
On the hoof-trampled plain in front of us, the horse had stopped its spasms. The veterinarians waved in a front-end loader, which rumbled up and unceremoniously plunked the dead horse into a big Russian garbage truck. Unable to resist, the bearded photographer loaded another roll of film and jogged off to capture the best angle.
After watching the garbage truck drive off with the stiffening horse in the back, it was several hours before I could shake the macabre image from my mind.
The mysterious question of Genghis Khan’s missing testicles, on the other hand, nagged me for weeks.
Though it makes for a wonderfully novel experience, traveling to Ulan Bator during the annual Naadam Festival is probably not the best way to experience Mongolia’s capital. Granted, the grand ceremonies, day-long wrestling matches and spectacular horse races are awe-inspiring sights, but — as with New Orleans during Mardi Gras or Pamplona during the Running of the Bulls — Naadam turns Ulan Bator into a cramped cosmopolis of careening tour buses and drunken amateur photographers. And, given the unfettered excitement Naddam inspires in Mongolians, interaction with locals is as futile as trying to engage an American on Super Bowl Sunday.
That I happened to be in Mongolia during Naadam is purely a coincidence. From the outset of my plans, Ulan Bator had simply been the first of a number of stops that my cousin Dan and I had planned to take along a classic 5,280-mile rail trip from Beijing to St. Petersburg. Dan had come all the way to China from Kansas (where both of us grew up) to join me for a journey we’d been planning for over a year.
Our initial 30-hour ride to Ulan Bator from Beijing featured endless glimpses of the exotic — from fog-shrouded vistas of the Great Wall, to camels a-trot in the Gobi, to a set of huge hydraulic cranes at the China-Mongolia border that lifted each train-car off the ground as the wheels were changed to fit the new track-gauge. None of this, however, prepared us for the eccentricities we found on the windy, Soviet-styled streets of Ulan Bator.
There, on the drab urban avenues of Mongolia’s capital, locals armed with Sony camcorders galloped on horseback through the festival crowds. Three dozen Scottish boy scouts, in town for a service project, posed in their kilts near the Mongolian Hunting Trophy Museum (which, according to a report in the tourist newspaper, features “amazing unbelievable big and nice trophies of ibex, elk and rose deer”). In the center of town, a half-dozen different documentary crews prowled Sukhbaatar Square, looking for something that looked Mongolian enough to put on film. Sneaker-shod locals rubbed shoulders with tourists bedecked in full Mongolian costumes.
Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi’s 100-person entourage (there as part of a state visit) crept from event to event in a heavily guarded motorcade, looking impressive and ridiculous at the same time. English-language newspapers advertised gay and lesbian peer education workshops, the eight-lane Mon-Kor bowling alley had just opened for business and — for the first time in festival history — the Naadam wrestlers were being tested for performance-enhancing drugs.
Aside from our tour guide and bus driver, the first true Mongolian I met in Ulan Bator was a man called Mr. Blue. Though I chatted with Mr. Blue on a couple of different occasions, the only vivid thing I remember from our conversations is his story about why camels’ penises point backward.
Middle-aged and dressed in J. Crew-style casuals, Mr. Blue originally approached Dan and me at Suhkbaatar Square, offering his services as a tour guide. Since we already had a guide, we declined. When I saw him the following day, we exchanged pleasantries — and this led to a conversation that rapidly moved to the topic of camel penises, a well-rehearsed shtick that is no doubt part of Mr. Blue’s daily routine.
Apparently, not long after the world was created, God (or, at least, the Mongolian equivalent deity) realized that it was too troublesome to rebuild animals every time they died. Seizing on a brainstorm, God decided to redesign animals so that they could reproduce themselves. In a moment of inspiration, God manufactured a number of sexual organs, and called the animals in to be fitted. One by one, the animals came to claim their new appendages, until every animal had a penis except the arrogant, dilly-dallying camel. When God called the camel in to claim the final penis, the camel decided he didn’t like the looks of it, and trotted off before God could attach it. Angered by the camel’s insolence, God threw the penis at the camel and it attached backward, as it remains to this day.
In retrospect, it’s a shame we never hired Mr. Blue as our guide the day of the horse races. After all, he — as an apparent expert on genital-related Mongolian mythology — might have elaborated a bit on Genghis Khan’s fate.
My time in Ulan Bator was not entirely dominated by phallocentric yarn-spinning. In fact, much of my time in Mongolia was spent in the countryside, where — because accommodations in the city had been long since booked for the festival — Dan and I stayed in a ger (a traditional Mongolian felt tent) campground with other members of our tour group.
Many travelers don’t care much for tour groups, because organized tours tend to “denarrate” one’s travel experience. “Denarration” (to borrow a word coined by Douglas Coupland) is when one’s experience ceases to contain elements of chance or drama or unexpected discovery. Thus, the problem some travelers have with tours is not that they aren’t interesting or educational or enjoyable — but that organized tours don’t leave one with much of a story to tell. Somehow, lighting your long-stem Mongolian tobacco pipe with a glowing brick of cow dung loses its verve when you arrived at the nomad’s tent in a Korean-made mini-bus.
This in mind, my most vivid memory of the tourist camp comes not from the horse rides or the lamb stews, but from the time Dan and I skipped out on the planned activities and hiked off into the smooth curves of the Mongolian landscape. Since there were no trees or fences or roads to guide (or impede) our way, we walked in a straight line toward the horizon for nearly two hours. Keeping a steady pace, we stopped only to examine the occasional dried cow skull or the odd piles of half-melted glass left behind by the nomads. Marmots peered out at us from the edge of their holes, wallowing in cuteness, as if impassively waiting for someone to saunter up and nominate them as Olympic mascots. We eventually halted our hike at the crest of a rounded ridge and took a seat to stare out at the sloping sea of grass.
Although most visitors to Mongolia rave about the humbling emptiness of the steppe, perhaps Kansans such as Dan and myself are best equipped to appreciate its beauty. As home to the largest contiguous stretch of virgin tall grass prairie left in North America, the aesthetic appeal of Kansas is like a simple folk tune that one learns to appreciate over the course of many seasons. Mongolia, on the other hand, has enough virgin grassland to swallow up the entire landmass of Kansas five times over. Taking in the Mongolian steppe is like looking at Kansas on steroids — a joyous Wagnerian symphony of blue sky, open spaces and grassy curves stretching out to everywhere.
Too often, as citizens of the 20th century, we draw our conclusions about the world by tracking the urban quirks and innovations that bring change to improbable places such as Mongolia. Visitors to central Asia early this century spoke of such change when the head monk of the Mongolian lamasery was said to have developed a taste for pornography, sunbathing and firing his American-made shotgun. Historians later trumpeted change in the 1920s, when the Communist Party seized control of a country that (as a subsistence-based nomad culture) had no workers to unite. The notion of change was reiterated by optimistic journalists in the 1950s, when Chinese-made textile mills and Russian-sponsored chemical factories gave Ulan Bator a sense of urban bustle. These days, urban crime, Internet cafes and sports utility vehicles on the streets of Ulan Bator tempt me to recast Mongolia as a California-in-the-making.
But one afternoon in the enormity of the Mongolian steppe tempered my urge to generalize. The grassy expanse beyond the urban limits of Ulan Bator hinted that — in the open spaces of the world — pre-history itself still holds a quiet upper hand on our noisy little parades of change.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
While in Mongolia, I never did find out what happened to Genghis Khan’s balls.
To be honest, I really didn’t ask around much, since I feared broaching this topic with Mongolians might seem as crude and irrelevant as asking Christians how divinity affected the odor of Christ’s bowel movements.
Ultimately, my curiosity was sated in a distinctly denarrated manner — not by a wizened Mongolian hermit claiming to be descended from the Khan himself, or an Indiana Jones-style archaeologist leading an Ark of the Covenant-style quest for the dismembered gonads — but in a library, miles away from the Great Khan’s domain.
According to this legend, Genghis Khan was hunting one winter’s day when he killed a rabbit in the snow. Noticing the striking contrast of the rabbit’s blood on the snow’s surface, he decided that he wanted a woman so perfect and beautiful that her skin was as white as snow, and her cheeks as red as fresh blood. The kingdom was searched, and such a woman was found — the new bride of the prince of Ulankhota.
On threat of death, the prince handed his wife over to Mongolia’s great warrior, but she — still faithful to her true love — entered the Khan’s chambers with a knife hidden in the folds of her garment. When Genghis came to her that night, she responded to his advances by cutting off his genitals, then jumped to her death in a river. The Great Khan, it is said, fell unconscious from the shock, and never awakened.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
Dan and I left Ulan Bator one day after the Naadam closing ceremonies. As our train pulled out of the city, Mongolia’s capital had already shifted down to a quiet, sleepy pace that — in comparison to the kinetic colors of Naadam — almost made it seem abandoned.
Within 12 hours of our departure from Ulan Bator, my cousin was still safely cruising into the heart of Siberia. I on the other hand — in a bizarre collusion of circumstances involving a Russian tank commander and two particularly unpleasant train provodnitsas — somehow managed to strand myself and two of my cabin-mates 250 miles from Ulan Bator at an obscure Russian border town called Naushki.
Such was the luck that greeted the next leg of my trans-Siberian odyssey.
Tomorrow: Stranded in the land of Gog and Magog
Three hours before I’m due to fly out of Bangkok, I take one last stroll
down the swirl of sights and sounds that is Khao San Road. This is my final
visit to Thailand’s famous backpacker ghetto, and — since I’ve spent more than
20 nights here since arriving in Southeast Asia last December — I have
returned to savor this place one last time.
Out in the street, young travelers from countries such as Switzerland, Israel
and New Zealand nurse beers at plastic tables, while others line up at
food stalls to sample sliced pineapple, vegetarian noodles and banana
pancakes. Tuk-tuk drivers hail passengers at the corner, while Indian
tailors pace the sidewalk in front of their stores, chanting their standard
mantra (“Sir, try a suit. Very good price, sir.”). Sidewalk vendors hawk
jewelry and cigarette lighters, bootleg tapes and fake press passes;
storefront vendors sell souvenirs ranging from Nepalese jackets to Balinese
masks to novelty T-shirts that read “SEX INSTRUCTOR (First Lesson Free).”
In the alleys, uncertain dogs jog through the shadows, unowned and
omnipresent. Placards advertise tattoo parlors and laundry services,
traditional massages and hemp-fiber clothing. Colorful stickers on travel
agency windows advertise bus and ferry services to Phuket, Ko
Samui, Ko Phi Phi and Chiang Mai. Backpackers crowd into dingy
Internet cafes to check their Hotmail accounts and surf the Web for travel
updates, while suspiciously healthy-looking kids prowl the street with small
cards that read “I want to go to school. Please give me 10 baht.” Video
movie noises rumble out from open-front restaurants, blasting that time-honored
Hollywood litany of screams and explosions, of people calling each other
bastards and sons of bitches.
Sometime next spring, a Leonardo DiCaprio movie called “The Beach” will
forever change the way people see this corner of Bangkok. As the hype
surrounding the release of the movie kicks into high gear, reporters from
around the world will descend on Khao San Road to make their own wide-eyed
assessments of this scene. This publicity, along with the movie itself,
will inject a new romantic stereotype into a place that is already
over-romanticized and over-stereotyped.
Everyone who lives or travels in Thailand, it seems, has their own
assessment of what Khao San Road represents. Local Thais, whose opinions
are fueled by a sensationalistic press, consider Khao San Road a place of
drugs and licentiousness, of freaks and cheapskates. Bangkok expats dismiss
Khao San Road as host to a steady rotation of unwashed cretins who call each
other “dude” and sit around comparing tattoos. Upscale tourists avoid the
place as instinctively as they would seedy neighborhoods in their own hometowns.
But perhaps the harshest critics of Khao San Road are the backpack travelers
themselves, who consider the place a watered-down version of
Asia — a tie-dyed front for conveyor-belt tourism, an insipid gathering
place for pseudo-hippies and hipster wannabes. “The Khao San Road scene is
way too clichi for my taste,” I once overheard a young traveler confide to
her friend. They were both sitting in a cafe on Khao San Road at the time.
In reality, Khao San Road is a place that slithers inside its own
stereotype. As Alex Garland wrote in “The Beach,” the novel on which the movie is based,
Khao San Road is “a decompression chamber for those about to leave or enter
Thailand; a halfway house between the East and the West.” Khao San Road is
not designed to be a static, aesthetic part of Thailand, but a pragmatic
duty-free zone — a neutral territory that has learned to continually
reinvent itself in the image of what young budget travelers want.
In this way, Khao San Road stands as an apt symbol of a travel revolution
that began a decade ago and has almost been completed.
Most people are probably not aware that this travel revolution is in
progress — let alone that it’s almost over. This is because the revolution
has been carried out by a mocked and maligned entity known as the
middle-class world citizen. Middle-class people, after all, don’t have
revolutions; middle-class people have trends.
In his 1988 book “Video Night in Kathmandu,” Pico Iyer called tourists “foot
soldiers of the new invasion.” At the time, he was referring to the
expansion of Western culture into once-isolated parts of Asia, but his
observation also underscored a simple fact: that Westerners of moderate
means were increasingly able to access and enjoy less expensive parts of the
world. “Anyone with a credit card,” Iyer observed, “could become a lay
colonialist.”
Not long after Iyer wrote this, the fears and assumptions of the Cold War
were abruptly rubbed out and replaced with a phenomenon dubiously dubbed
the End of History. Suddenly, after 70-odd years of world wars and
cold wars and great depressions, the world’s frontiers began to open up in
an unprecedented manner. New travel destinations sprang up in places like
Romania and Namibia and Cambodia. Iyer’s tourist “foot soldiers” quietly
began a revolution based upon a single screaming secret: that anyone with a
bit of initiative and a decent guidebook could afford to leave home and seek
out their own variation of paradise.
The problem, of course, was that it didn’t take long for these brand-new
paradises to become very crowded places. Moviegoers who watch “The Beach”
will see this notion illustrated in a very vivid manner.
But beyond aesthetics, the middle-class travel revolution wreaked havoc on
our accepted ideas of exclusivity. Traditionally, international leisure
travel had been a luxury of the rich, and independent shoestring travel had
been a counterculture franchise. However — as more and more 18- to 35-year-olds made their way into the sleepy, inexpensive corners of the world
– the once-cozy alternative leisure-class became socially crowded. Since
countercultures tend to replace conventional hierarchies with more arbitrary
ones, this resulted in an ill-defined (and sometimes hostile) protective morality that pervades backpacker circles to this day. This also is vividly illustrated in “The Beach.”
Currently, much of this puritanical chagrin is focused on a budget-travel
publishing company called Lonely Planet. First written on a kitchen table
in Melbourne more than 25 years ago, Lonely Planet started out as a
photocopied travel newsletter and has since grown into the largest
independent travel publisher in the world. Sometimes referred to as the
“Backpacker’s Bible,” the Lonely Planet guidebook stresses cultural and
environmental awareness, and has been instrumental in opening up many parts
of the world to penny-pinching wanderers.
The problem many travelers have with Lonely Planet, however, is that the
Backpacker’s Bible has won too many fundamentalist converts. Popularity has
resulted in hegemony, hegemony has resulted in backpacker ghettos and
backpacker ghettos make travelers feel like they never left home. As one
of the characters says in Garland’s novel, “One of these days I’m going
to find one of those Lonely Planet writers and I’m going to ask him, ‘What’s
so fucking lonely about Khao San Road?’”
At the heart of this travel puritanism lies a slippery question: What,
in this day and age, is the correct way to travel?
A century or so ago, this question wasn’t an issue, since the only people who traveled
were soldiers, sailors, merchants and explorers. Later, when Victorian-Age
prosperity spawned the gentleman and gentlewoman adventurer (the prototype,
however remote, of today’s world traveler), this question was still not that
important, since international travel was merely a method of showcasing
one’s status to the folks back home.
These days, however — with world travel turning into one big, grudging
egalitarian democracy — we are compelled to aspire to a greater ethic in
our wandering. Since as members of a mass culture, we resent being
mere consumers, we have been forced to look for something that goes beyond
social status and financial mobility. Defining how we travel, in effect,
has become a matter of individualist self-perception: It has become
inseparable from how we define ourselves.
Some travelers in Southeast Asia (the party crowd that haunts the islands of
southern Thailand comes to mind) define themselves in terms of fashionable
anonymity and self-gratification. Others, perhaps
taking the budget-travel role too seriously, pride themselves on traveling
with as little money and information as possible, defining themselves
through a minimalist-obscurist sense of one-downsmanship.
The most dynamic demographic within the new travel morality, however,
encompasses the folks who try to abide by the laws of “cultural sensitivity”
– which stress education over recreation, and interactions over
transactions. Since this is the most visible and self-aware sub-group
within the backpacker milieu, it will certainly bear the most scrutiny when
the independent travel phenomenon enjoys its brief window of movie-related
publicity this spring.
Fortunately for the pundits, there are countless hairs to split when
examining the philosophies behind culturally sensitive travel. This is
because the central conceit of “cultural sensitivity” is that it plays games with
our displacement as travelers — it shuns the role of tourist by mimicking
the role of insider. And — considering how it’s almost impossible to
separate objective standards of sensitivity from our sentimentalized notions
of how the world should be — this opens up the proverbial can of worms.
Is the traveler who hikes into the jungle to interact with the natives
having an authentic intercultural experience, or is he negatively
interfering with the natives’ lives by flaunting his modern, internationally
mobile lifestyle? Is the traveler’s unconditional respect for people’s
archaic lifestyles doing them any good if their life expectancy is 47 years,
their infant morality rate is 15 percent and their literacy is nil?
Furthermore, isn’t temporary friendship a self-indulgent gesture when the
people the traveler befriends will likely never see him again, and might
have benefited more from a less personal but more tangible contribution to
their economy? Aren’t — by literal standards of cultural sensitivity —
the best travelers actually the herd-like group tourists, who experience the
country from the safety of their air-conditioned buses and don’t disrupt
anything that hasn’t already been disrupted?
Though such questions make for interesting debates, the attempt to impose a
static model of travel correctness is ultimately self-defeating, since —
rhetorically, at least — the most culturally sensitive travel option is to
stay home.
- – - – - – - – - – - -
Just before I leave for the A2 airport bus stop, Khao San Road gives me one
last surprise. A couple hundred yards down the street from me, crowds of
travelers part to make room as a fife-and-drum corps composed of
tourist-police officers marches its way up the road. Clad in crisp brown
uniforms, knee-high leather boots and shiny motorcycle helmets, the
officers belt out a tuneless dirge, looking as anomalous here as space
aliens. All along the sidewalk, travelers stop to smile at this unexpected
sight, and for an odd moment, this corner of Bangkok seems downright
magical.
In its own way, Khao San Road is a triumph: It is a quirky microcosm of how
the world is changing — and how the world is changing the way we see
ourselves.
In a few more months, the middle-class travel revolution will end as all
middle-class movements do: with assimilation. Once “The Beach” hits the
theaters, the notion of independent world travel will be officially
mainstreamed into the Western psyche — and the world as we know it will be
conquered for the umpteenth time.
Fortunately, the ramifications of world conquest aren’t as spiritually empty
as they might seem. In a personal sense, the world has only grown larger and
wider and wilder. Travel is and always will be an act of faith and
creativity — even more so as it comes to resemble the lives we lead at
home. And, while the social implications of globetrotting may have become
hopelessly complicated, this merely allows us to reclaim travel for what it
should be: a private act of discovery.
As the crash-helmeted fife-and-drum corps reaches the end of the street and
makes a hard right turn, Khao San Road resumes its dynamic hum. I shoulder
my pack and walk into a world that is more laced with possibility than ever.
I’m planning a trip to San Francisco in August and would like to find a
hotel that won’t break my budget. I’ve seen some hotels listed in the
under-$100 range, but I’m a little fearful of what I’ll find. Are there any
sources you can recommend?
San Francisco does indeed have decent places to stay under $100 per night, but often they don’t advertise widely and some concessions may be necessary, such as a shared bathroom.
There are a million guidebooks to the city, of course, but if I had to pick one for your purposes I’d turn to the recently published second edition of Lonely Planet’s “San Francisco,” by Tom Downs. Lonely Planet’s U.S. office is across the bay in Oakland, and Downs lives in San Francisco. Guidebooks written about the publisher’s own backyard tend to be pretty polished and accurate.
Add to that Lonely Planet’s focus on independent travelers, and you get a nice range of budget, middle and top-end lodging choices, not just Sheratons and Marriotts. In the San Francisco book, there are a dozen budget hotels described in the Union Square area alone, and many more in the other parts of town.
It’s also worth checking with one or more of the discount hotel brokers that book rooms in San Francisco, although they tend to provide better savings on moderate and expensive hotels. Among them are San Francisco Reservations, California Reservations, Quikbook and Central Reservation Service.
When using reservations services, ask about any booking or cancellation fees and consider how their rates compare with the hotels’ own quotes.
The San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau site has a search engine through which lodging can be priced, located and booked, including a category for rooms under $75. Contact numbers are provided, so you can call and quiz the front desk about its quality and character.
My daughter and I will be driving from Paris toward the Alsace in early July
and we need accommodations for one night about an hour west of
Strasbourg or the Alsatian Wine Route. Can you steer us toward mid-priced lodging?
If you can pin down where you plan to stop, several resources can help you find a suitable place, including a Hotels and Travel on the Net site for the Lorraine region west of Alsace. Besides listing a number of hotels in the area you’re likely to stop in, it has links to local hotel directories.
The French Government Tourist Office site can lead you to regional information, including Lorraine and Alsace lodging and tourist services.
The FGTO also has a telephone hot line for obtaining specific information about travel throughout France: (410) 286-8310. Agents handle questioners who call Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (EDT).
France-bound travelers seeking moderately-priced lodging can dip into “An Insider’s Guide to French Hotels $50-$90 a Night for Two,” by Margo Classe, Wilson Publishing, about half the book is devoted to Paris, but there also is a section on Nancy that describes 15 hotels.
One other guidebook note: “The Michelin Green Guide to Alsace, Lorraine
and Champagne” has just been translated into English. You can find
retailers that carry Michelin guides by calling (800) 223-0987. The
Michelin site, by the way, has a
route-planning feature that supplies some basic information at no
charge. More extensive data is available if you subscribe at the site.
What’s the rule on ticket-change fees when a passenger has to change flight plans because of a medical emergency? My in-laws and we were planning a little vacation. My father-in-law had a cancer relapse and had to change his flight plans. Consequently, we wanted to change our plans, but Delta would not waive a $75 reissue fee because they maintained it wasn’t our medical emergency. Their reservationists said they had no discretion.
Airlines make their own rules on ticketing policies such as change fees — and airlines can waive them when they want to. But it is very common for them to resist waiving the change fee in medical cases. In fact, I was surprised when the above correspondent said that Delta Air Lines agreed to waive the change fee for his ill father-in-law, because over the years I’ve heard many complaints from passengers who suffered medical emergencies — even hospitalizations — and their airlines still refused to give them a break on the fees.
This is just one way in which the airlines have earned the animosity of the flying public. In a similar vein, people find it beyond comprehension when they try to book a “grievance” or “compassion” fare to attend a funeral or visit a dying relative and find that the fare is still prohibitively expensive. One might argue that airlines are in business to make money and can’t be expected to “give away” seats. Then again, they give seats away daily in the name of frequent flyer awards, which are intended to build customer loyalty. Might not giving people a break in hardship cases build customer loyalty as well?
Trying to head off congressional regulatory action, the airline industry on June 17 promised to do better, though there was no mention of ticket-change fees. Gerald Greenwald, chairman of United Airlines and of the Air Transport Association Executive Committee, said the airlines “have felt the whip from Congress, we’ve heard the bell ring from the flying public.” He also said, “The commitment of the airlines to improve customer service is real.”
Anyone trying to make headway with an airline should recall Greenwald’s statements and quote them freely.
The ATA plan calls for each airline to assign a customer service representative to handle passenger complaints and ensure that all written complaints are responded to within 60 days.
I advised the person who posed the above question to call back Delta and speak with a supervisor or the airline’s customer service department. He later e-mailed me that he had spoken to Delta’s customer care department — which finally agreed to waive the change fees for the rest of the family, upon documentation of the illness.
It’s worth noting that the reservation agent never mentioned that corporate court of appeal, nor did a supervisor until asked about it.
I’m driving my son from New Jersey to Calais, Maine, for summer camp and we would like to take in the scenic Maine coastline. Can you suggest sources directing me to the not-to-miss sights?
The Maine coast offers gorgeous scenery and quaint towns, but research your trip well. Some of the most scenic routes require driving the length of the coastline’s fingerlike peninsulas, which are great for dramatic effect but make for slow going if you’re in a hurry to get somewhere.
A great guide for plotting scenic drives is a Reader’s Digest book called “The Most Scenic Drives in America: 120 Spectacular Road Trips” (1997). One chapter is devoted to the Maine Coast, covering U.S. Route 1 from Brunswick to Ellsworth, with various side trips to such places as Popham Beach State Park, Boothbay Harbor, Pemaquid Point, Rockport, Camden (with its windjammer fleet) and the Penobscot Bay area.
There’s much more to the Maine coast than just that section, of course, and the state spews out a wealth of drive-planning information via the Maine Office of Tourism and the Maine Publicity Bureau.
Moon Travel Handbooks publishes the “Maine Handbook,” by Kathleen M. Brandes (1998), and the Insiders’ Guide series includes books on “Maine’s Mid-Coast” and “Maine’s Southern Coast.”
Among California’s better-known seasonal phenomena are the return of the swallows to San Juan Capistrano every spring and the inevitable impasse between the state Legislature and the governor over the state budget every summer. With this year’s budget deadline now looming, there are signs that negotiations may once again turn nasty.
There was hope that this year would be different. For the first time in 16 years, the governor comes from the same party that controls both the state Senate and Assembly. But new Democratic Gov. Gray Davis is quickly finding that some members of his own party are emerging as his most vocal opponents.
One key internecine battle is erupting over the governor’s proposal to spend $335 million for a new state prison to hold 4,500 convicts. Over the last six years, the Democratic-controlled Legislature has been the primary obstacle in blocking new public funding for prisons. Those spats were annually written off as mere partisan squabbles between Democrats and the former governor, Republican Pete Wilson.
But Davis, like Wilson before him, was elected with the help of the powerful prison guards union, which spent $2 million on an independent campaign on Davis’ behalf. More prison construction means more prison guards, and more jobs for the union. Meanwhile, a union spokesman claims California prisons are in a state of crisis, and a failure to build new prison beds could soon lead to federal mandates to release prisoners because of lack of space.
“This proposal being backed by the governor is exceedingly modest,” said Jeff Thompson, legislative director for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA). “Gray Davis has inherited a six-year delay on prison construction authorization and I think what you’re seeing is a sincere attempt on his part to take some modest steps toward solving these problems.”
California has built 21 new prisons in the past 15 years, a construction boom that a spokesman for the attorney general’s office called “the largest publicly funded construction campaign since the pyramids.” California voters routinely approved new bonds to build new facilities to house a prison population that has mushroomed by more than 500 percent since the mid-1980s, thanks in large part to tougher sentencing laws.
But in the 1990s, as the state sunk into recession, voters neglected to pass new prison bonds, leaving the state with more criminals than it had rooms to house. In spite of the earlier construction boom, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the state still needs six new prisons, with a total price tag of more than $1.5 billion, to meet the current need.
Left-leaning Democrats, including Attorney General Bill Lockyer and the leaders of both legislative houses, have advocated reform in sentencing and increased funding for crime prevention programs, as well as developing more cost-effective ways of treating nonviolent offenders. While still in the state Senate, Lockyer routinely blocked new prison funding in the state budget, while former Gov. Wilson was unwilling to support his push for more literacy and drug treatment programs in prisons.
Some of Lockyer’s proposals have again been written into this year’s versions of the state budget issued by both legislative houses, and have been endorsed by CCPOA. But some Democrats, including Sen. John Vasconcellos, chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee, said they would not support any budget that provided funding for a new public prison.
“I don’t see the scenario in which Sen. Vasconcellos votes for a budget bill with funding for a $355 million prison,” said his spokesman, Rand Martin, “especially when the state is not providing the necessary resources to rehabilitate people.”
The latest spat between Davis and legislative leaders underscores the disappointment that many Democratic lawmakers privately voice when discussing Davis’ first six months in office. Though Davis promised from Election Day forward to “govern as a moderate,” many Democrats have bristled at his incrementalist pace and seeming unwillingness to stray too far from the policies of his moderate Republican predecessor.
The first big split between Davis and fellow Democrats came over Proposition 187, approved by voters in 1994 to eliminate many social benefits to undocumented residents. Many Democratic lawmakers, particularly the state’s Latino caucus, were angered when Davis decided to revive the issue in the courts, even though it had been ruled unconstitutional.
Legislative leaders were also quick to criticize Davis for not consulting them before he announced his new budget last month. Democratic lawmakers now say they are finding out the hard way that though the governor’s party may have changed, the endemic animosity between the legislative and executive branch remains.
“Traditionally, the legislative leadership has resented being bullied by the governor,” said one Democratic assemblyman. “Normally it’s around budget time that the Legislature flexes its muscle. The inherent tension between the branches of government doesn’t change with political parties. It’s built into the system.”
Senate President Pro Tem John Burton put it more bluntly. “No budget will be rammed down our throat,” Burton told reporters after Davis’ budget news conference. In addition to the philosophical opposition many Democrats have to building new prisons, Davis’ plan also eats up a sizable chunk of money that could be used for legislators’ pet projects. Every year, the state budget is loaded with new swimming pools, local parks and recreation centers that lawmakers cling to during budget negotiations.
“I’m sure there’s no shortage of other suggestions on how to spend the money,” Thompson said. “But I think the governor wants to be responsible.”
“Look, it’s nobody’s first reaction to say, ‘Hey we’ve got $335 million to spend. Let’s go build a prison,’” said Davis spokesman Michael Bustamante. “But the reality is, there is a tremendous need for space for inmates. The alternative would be to release prisoners early, and that is absolutely, unequivocally, unacceptable to Gov. Davis.”
Fifteen minutes before I was supposed to leave Tokyo on a flight bound for Los Angeles, I was paged. As my name rose above all the other airport sounds, I started to feel sick. I just knew it, the deal was too good to be true; I should have been suspicious of the whole scheme from the very beginning. These guys are probably professionals who have the scam down to a science: They find an unsuspecting person who can’t afford a regular ticket — i.e., me — and sell her a round-trip ticket from the United States to Japan for $200. Only there’s one hitch, they say: You have to give up your baggage space and accompany some “freight” — contents unknown — overseas.
Now it was all coming down: I was going to be arrested for the contraband they were trying to smuggle out via my ignorance.
When I approached the Singapore Airlines counter and nervously told the woman my name, she informed me that I had been upgraded from coach to business class.
“Is that all?” I inquired. Yes, that was all.
As it turned out, flying as a courier was as simple as IBC Pacific, the company I had gone through, had said it would be — and it was all legit. In fact, as I found, being a courier is probably the cheapest way to travel internationally. All it takes is a little flexibility, persistence and willingness to fly on one of the most restricted tickets in the market. And this is an especially good time to try the courier route: Veteran couriers say the cheapest tickets of all are available in September, October, January and February.
Students, professors, retired folk and anyone else with a block of available time and some flexibility in their lives are in the most opportune position to take advantage of the approximately 45,000 round-trip courier flights that take off each year. Although Kelly Monaghan, author of “Air Courier Bargains,” says those with a “certain amount of silver in their hair” tend to be more reliable — translation: They show up — it’s not difficult to become an air courier. In most cases, all you need is to be at least 18 years old (or 21 depending on the company), have a valid passport, dress appropriately (meaning no wrinkled jeans or torn T-shirts), lay off the alcohol in flight and be willing to bring only one carry-on and to travel by yourself. Most assignments are for fixed amounts of time, somewhere between a week and 30 days long, with courier duties both going and returning. What you do in between your departure and return date is up to you (even jumping on another courier flight is an option); the only requirement is to show up at the airport about an hour before other passengers on both directions, so you can check in with the courier company representative.
And just to clear up confusion — as an on-board courier, you fly on regular passenger planes, not in the back of some rickety old two-engine plane, jammed between boxes of cargo stacked up to your shoulders. “You’re no different than other passengers — you eat the same meals and get the same coach accommodations,” says Ron Bracey, an agent for Jupiter Air, a popular courier company located in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hong Kong. “You fly the same as other people who might have spent a couple hundred more dollars than you did.” Also, Monaghan adds, one more advantage to being a courier is that the companies will make sure you don’t get bumped on overbooked flights, and will even pay to have you upgraded if need be (which might explain what happened to me).
To even start hunting for a courier flight, you have to first abandon all notions of how the regular airline pricing system works. Because with the courier companies, it works just the opposite: The closer it gets to the departure date, the cheaper the ticket becomes. On some occasions, particularly if it’s just a few hours (or sometimes even a few days) before the flight is supposed to leave, the ticket may even be free.
The reason courier companies release seats at such low prices is because they need someone, almost anyone, to physically sit in the plane they’re having their cargo loaded onto. Courier companies are in the freight business, and the freight they ship ranges from the mundane, such as legal documents, to the exotic, like a long pole. Most of the time couriers don’t even know what it is they’re accompanying, only that each bag can weigh up to 70 pounds (although I have heard about one courier who found out that the “freight” he was accompanying included bottles of champagne that Paul McCartney was sending from London to some fortunate soul in L.A.).
According to the International Association of Air Travel Couriers, for a courier company, shipping something on a passenger plane as luggage is often cheaper and faster than sending it as air cargo. Luggage will be quickly loaded and unloaded along with the passengers, whereas shipments sent as straight cargo will commonly sit in customs for days before getting cleared.
The possibility for illegal substances exists, but all freight is X-rayed before departure, and for the on-board couriers’ protection, they are not allowed to touch the luggage. After years of shipping freight back and forth, the courier companies say that customs officials are well aware of the couriers’ hands-off role. “The entire operation is aboveboard. A freelance courier just carries the paperwork — a job that doesn’t exactly require a Ph.D. in nuclear physics,” states the Web site for the Air Courier Association. A U.S. Customs spokeswoman said she had never heard of a courier getting in trouble for something a company had shipped.
To become a courier in the United States, most likely you’ll have to fly out of one of five cities — Los Angeles and San Francisco if you’re interested in traveling to Asia, New York to Europe, Miami to South America and Chicago to both Asia and Europe. You can arrange a ticket either through a courier company directly, which Monaghan recommends, or pay a fee and go through an association, which also has its advantages: The ACA mails out the fares from the different courier companies to you and the IAATC posts them on its Web site twice a day and sends out two publications.
Broadly speaking, there are two ways of arranging a courier ticket. You can specify where and when you want to go and see if anything is available, or you can ask what deals are currently being offered and choose one that appeals to you. Most of the time, couriers can get deals upwards of 50 percent off the regular ticket price. Some last-minute round-trip prices currently offered on the ACA Web site include Bangkok for $150, Madrid for $175 and Quito, Ecuador, for $170 (all fares from the U.S.).
The secret is to know when to buy, and if what’s being offered is a good deal. Monaghan recommends calling a few airlines prior to contacting the courier companies, so you’re armed with how much an ordinary ticket costs. When I first called IBC about six weeks before I wanted to fly to Tokyo, it quoted me $400. Since a regular ticket was only a few hundred dollars more at that time of year (several years ago), I waited until two weeks prior to the departure date, when the $200 fare was being offered.
“It’s tricky because in a way, it’s a take-it-or-leave-it proposition,” says Monaghan. “There’s not a huge amount of competition route to route, so if you want to go to Rio, for example, you may find just one company that goes there — so you have to take what they have to offer.” If you wait, you might get a better deal — or you might get no deal at all.
While the notion of taking off to Paris on a moment’s notice is very romantic, Byron Lutz, editor of the IAATC’s fare-related publications “The Shoestring Traveler” and the “Air Courier Bulletin,” says that few people are really willing to pull themselves away on short notice from their daily grind. The IAATC and other companies often keep a list of people who say they are available to go at any time and yet, when they go down that list, few accept. “They say, ‘Oh, man, $100 to London, I’d go any day but today.’ Then we say then how about tomorrow? Then they say, ‘Oh, any day but tomorrow.’ They talk a good story but when it comes to jumping on the plane and going, it doesn’t always happen.”
They may not have the time, but do you?
Most business travelers don’t know that in Tokyo it’s possible to find a free tour guide, book a reasonably priced hotel room and get paid to eat a meal. By following a few tips, you can find travel to the capital — whether for business or pleasure — unexpectedly affordable.
If you’re coming to town for an extended stay, you should know about a week-long air-and-hotel package that offers a tremendous value, a deal that was unthinkable two years ago, when the dollar was trading at only 80 yen. Both Airport Travel (800-310-5549) and Travis Pacific (800-227-4352) are offering one-week stays in Tokyo with round-trip flights from the U.S. on Singapore Airlines and accommodations at the Tokyo Hilton for $999. A half-day tour of Tokyo is included as well.
If you’re not traveling on a package deal, of course, you’re on your own getting from the airport to downtown. What are the options? Well, you can always take a taxi — but even if you’re getting reimbursed, $200 for 40 miles of traffic seems excessive. The NEX (Narita Express) train is faster and a ticket costs only about $25. (All figures in this article are calculated using an exchange rate of 125 yen to $1.) The slower Keisei line costs even less. Another option that is slightly cheaper than NEX is the Limousine Bus. While it might take a little longer than the train, the big advantage of the bus is door-to-door service from Narita Airport to most major hotels.
One of those hotels, the Keio Plaza Inter-Continental, offers business travelers an especially good deal. Members of the hotel’s “Executive International Club” can take advantage of guaranteed U.S. dollar rates starting at $190 for a single room. Membership offers a variety of other perks, including full American breakfast, health club passes and extended check-out time. And if you want to take a client out for drinks, the Keio’s second-floor “Let’s Bar” offers a budget-friendly happy hour special: Between 5 and 7 p.m. weekdays, all drinks are 600 yen (about $5).
Other Tokyo hotels such as the Okura, Tokyu and Four Seasons also have membership clubs and offer special rates and package deals. In addition, prices at the Prince chain are always good. Rates start at 13,000 yen (about $104) per night at the Sunshine City Prince and 14,500 ($116) for a room at the Shinjuku Prince.
In your travels around Tokyo, taxis should be avoided, except for short jaunts. The subway is faster and much cheaper, and the new automatic fare cards make it even easier to navigate the extensive train system. If you’re in need of help, most ticket-takers can offer rudimentary guidance, or look for stations marked “Information” in the main subway stops. Of course, many passersby can also speak English and will be happy to help a lost traveler.
At the end of the business day, a good way to get rid of stress
is by plunging into a traditional Japanese bath. The Jakotsu baths
in the wonderfully old-fashioned Asakusa area of Tokyo have indoor and outdoor pools, as well as a rock garden and
waterfall. A plunge into the past is cheap too — less than $5. (For information within Tokyo, call 3841-8645; from outside Tokyo, add the prefix 03.)
If you’re shy about getting naked with the natives, there are other things
to do, many of them free or surprisingly inexpensive. The Edo Tokyo museum
(03-3626-9974) is a huge complex that chronicles the city’s history
between the years 1603 and 1868. Admission is $4 and there’s a taped
guided tour available at no additional cost. For a frothy diversion, visit
the Suntory Beer Plant (0423-60-9591) in Fuchu — about 20 minutes by subway from downtown Tokyo — for free tours and beer
sampling. Window-shopping illuminates another side of Japan. Try walking the streets of the Ginza for mind-boggling department store displays; Shibuya for specialty boutiques; or the aforementioned Asakusa for temples and traditional shops.
For an inside look at a traditional sport, visit a sumo
training session. Tickets to the wrestling matches themselves are expensive and hard to come by,
but visits to the Kasugano (03-3631-1871) or Azumazeki (03-3625-0033)
sumo stables are free. Before you go, have your hotel concierge call
to make sure the wrestlers are in town. And while you’re at the
stables, remember that no photographs are allowed — and that excessive noise bothers the big guys. You wouldn’t want to get on a sumotori-san’s wrong side.
A more conventional way to get up close and personal with the Japanese is to arrange a free guide through the Tokyo Metropolitan Student Goodwill Guide
Club (03-3201-3331). The Home Visit Program is another terrific complimentary
service that arranges for foreign visitors to spend a few hours in a
Japanese home. A little advance planning is required in this case: You have to apply in
person 24 hours or, preferably, two days in advance at the Tokyo
Information Center (First Basement Floor, Tokyo International Forum,
3-5-1, Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku). Highly recommended. In Tokyo, call 3201-3331 for details.
Of course, road warriors do not live by window-shopping and people-meeting alone. Sometimes you have to eat. When it’s time for a meal, here are a few tips. Look for a teishoku (pronounced TAY-sho-ku); this is a set menu meal with drink, side dishes, entree and dessert all
included. Most restaurants offer them, and they are always the best deal. Department store restaurants
are generally not too expensive and usually have plastic food displays in
their windows, great for pointing and ordering.
Many Japanese hotels also have surprisingly good and affordable buffets and set
menus available. The Palace Hotel buffet lunch in its Swan
restaurant starts at 3,000 yen ($24) for lunch and 4,000 ($32) for
dinner. The elegant Park Hyatt Hotel has a set menu Japanese lunch in
the gorgeous Kozue restaurant for 3,700 ($30). A set dinner at the
hotel’s Girandole is about the same. The Top of Ginza, at the Ginza
Dai-Ichi Hotel, offers buffets that cost about $16 for lunch and $38 for
dinner.
Big eaters can take advantage of all-you-can-eat restaurants such as
Sutamina Taro (03-3604-9689) in Adachi. For around $20 diners can stuff
themselves with sushi, grilled beef, rice curry, salad, cake and drinks.
If you really want to impress your colleagues, show your sutamina by taking on one of Tokyo’s eating contests: The
Ramen Koshin restaurant (03-3412-2531) challenges diners to eat a jumbo
bowl of ramen in 30 minutes. This $20 ramen is big enough for 4 people —
but if you finish it, it’s free. If you can put away two big bowls, you get 30,000
yen ($240 bucks!).
The Japan National Tourist Organization offers a wealth of free information on cost-cutting and culture-exploring in Tokyo. For an extensive list of inexpensive restaurants, and a rich range of other tips, visit the JNTO Web site.
If you live in the United States or Canada, you may also want to contact the following regional JNTO offices:
One Rockefeller Plaza, Suite 1250
New York, NY 10020
(212) 757-5640
jntonyc@interport.net
401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 770
Chicago, IL 60611
(312) 222-0874
jntochi@mcs.net
360 Post Street, Suite 601
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 989-7140
sfjnto@aol.com
624 S. Grand Avenue, Suite 1611
Los Angeles, CA 90017
(213) 623-1952
jntolax@interramp.com
165 University Avenue
Toronto, Ontario M5H 3B8
(416) 366-7140
TorontoJNTO@Inforamp.net
