Travelfish newsletter Issue 299 : Kawah Ijen + Travel writing is an inexact science + You are what you pack
Hi all,
New on Travelfish this week is Banyuwangi, Kawah Ijen and Kalibaru in Indonesia's East Java. This includes updated coverage of the amazing Kawah Ijen volcano. David is now on Ko Maak in eastern Thailand for an update, while Cindy is finishing off her loop through remote northern Laos.
This week’s soapbox looks at how travel writing can be an inexact science. Our book review is on Andy Ricker's The Drinking Food of Thailand while our featured story is about what we pack for the road, and how, with a bit of foresight and planning (neither Stuart’s strong points), you can reduce your environmental impact while travelling in the region.
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Soapbox
An inexact science
Travel writing is an inexact science. Restaurants close, good places go bad, bus stations move and secret beaches grow into hell holes. It happens. All the time.
Obviously, sometimes we get facts wrong. A bus timetable may get mixed up, or a room price is incorrectly jotted down (though often staff tell us incorrect rates too), or we say a dorm is fan-cooled when it is actually air-con. With Travelfish being an online publication, errors are easy to fix.
Travel guide researching may sound like a dream job, and while it has its excellent moments, more often than not the bliss is book-ended by endless days of monotony and drudgery. Really! Our writers work their backsides off, and Sam and I are forever in their debt for what they deliver to us, which we are then able to pass on to you, dear reader.
So it grates when I hear of travellers giving our writers (and it is almost always the women who write for us who get this) a hard time in person on the road. Our writers maintain anonymity when checking out places, but sometimes they'll let other travellers know what they're doing; over dinner in a restaurant, sitting next to someone on a bus.
If you’re a traveller who meets one of our writers—who are among the only freebie- and discount-eschewing travel guide writers left on the planet—and you feel the need to criticise the way they do their job, please do us all a favour and instead drop me a line direct. I'm easy to reach—if you get this newsletter you already have my email address. I'm equally easily found on Twitter at, you guessed it, @travelfish.
If something is wrong on the site, or if there is something you don’t agree with on the site, I assume full responsibility. Take it up with me, please.
Good travels.
Stuart
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What we’re reading
The Drinking Food of Thailand by Andy Ricker with JJ Goode
Flicking through Andy Ricker’s The Drinking Food of Thailand, I was immediately and naturally drawn to the recipe for Isaan fermented pork-and-rice sausages, one of my favourite Thai foods. Is there any chance I would make these at home? Pretty much no. I don’t have a sausage maker, nor a sausage funnel. But when it comes to being pleased at holding this hot little 2017-published recipe book in my hand, does it matter? No.
Thank you
Just a few quick words of thanks to businesses who have decided to advertise direct with us on Travelfish recently. If you know a business, small or large, who may be interested in advertising on the site, please send them our One Page Media Kit!
Asia Highlights offer tailor made travel through Vietnam, Take Me Tour offer experiences with locals out of Chiang Mai and, last but not least, Akha Kitchen offer Thai cooking classes in Chiang Rai.
Featured destination
You are what you pack
“You are what you pack” isn’t a saying. But if it were a saying, I'd be a disorganised, unprepared traveller and my travel companion Sally would be the opposite.
Maybe it is a real saying.
On our recent trip through Java I was astounded at the volume of gear she was carrying, especially compared to what I had. We published a story on the site today which goes through both of our bags to see just what Sally had that I didn’t (spoiler: loads). What it really illustrated was that Sally is a far more prepared (and environmentally responsible) traveller than me.
But preparedness aside, it was interesting to find all this gear I had simply never heard of before. I mean sure, backpacks, day packs, money belts—this is all standard stuff. But I had to Google what a Sol emergency bivvy bag was, and others, like a titanium spoon or coffee cup ... well it would simply not occur to me to pack (or even buy) some of these things.
However, it would have been interesting to total up the pollution index of our trips. I bought disposable water bottles along the way (though generally big ones) so over a 3.5 week trip I probably went through something like 15 to 20 plastic bottles of one size or another. Sally used not one. (Yes, I am buying a metal one tomorrow.) Likewise, the plastic bags I didn't avoid from minimarts were sometimes reused for my increasingly toxic clothes on the trip, but I could just have easily used fabric bags from home and refused the plastic at the store (and should have, obviously). I'd have an instant coffee in the morning, while Sally, with her complete coffee making kit, could easily turn her nose up at the coffee satchels.
Plastic bottles and bags, coffee satchels and straws are all things that you can replace with reusable equipment, which is often not that expensive. Every plastic bottle you don’t use is one more that isn’t going to end up as landfill.
Me, I’ll be going shopping tomorrow to make an effort to reduce my impact on a country which is already poorly handling enormous mountains of plastic. If you haven’t already, please consider doing the same. If you want some ideas, give the story a read as I guarantee Sally will have had stuff in her pack you’ve never even heard of before.
Travelfish partners
We work with a number of partners on a commission basis and this helps keep us in business. Please consider using the following links to make any reservations as a commission may end up being paid to us, with no impact on what you pay. Thank you!
Flights: roundtheworldflights.com
Places to stay: Agoda, Booking
Tours and activities: TourRadar, GetYourGuide
Ground transport: 12Go Asia
Travel insurance: World Nomads
News from the region
BURMA: UN Special Envoy claims Aung San Suu Kyi could be guilty of crimes against humanity
“Professor Yanghee Lee, who’s now been barred from Burma, said she’d received many death threats and was even warned of a planned assassination attempt.”
CAMBODIA: Cambodia discovers nest of critically endangered 'royal turtles'
“The southern river terrapin, known in Cambodia as the “royal turtle” because its eggs were historically reserved for royalty, is one of the world’s 25 most endangered freshwater turtles, the WCS says.”
INDONESIA I: We surveyed Borneo’s orangutans and found 100,000 had ‘disappeared’
“Worryingly, however, the largest number of orangutans were lost from areas where the forest remained intact or where only the tallest trees had been selectively logged. Here the species is in decline because it is hunted, just like any other edible animal on Borneo.”
INDONESIA II: Jakarta is the world’s fastest sinking city
“To cope with the unfolding crisis, the city is building a $10 billion sea wall to keep flood waters out, but that’s only a temporary solution. Parts of the city, home to nearly 10 million people, have sunk over 10 feet in the last few decades, and some areas are submerging at a rate of up to seven inches per year.”
INDONESIA III: The freelance traffic guides conducting Indonesia’s congested streets
“Indeed, working as a pak ogah is not for the faint-hearted, and it comes with risks, from breathing exhaust fumes to standing in the sun for hours on end. While Amrir says he has never been hit by a car, another pak ogah named Kino, 17, who also goes by only one name, almost had his leg broken recently when a Go-Jek (motorbike taxi) driver ploughed into him.”
THAILAND: Boxing fever grips Thailand's boys but doctors raise health concerns
“But as more Thai children, even some preschoolers, flock to Muay Thai, physicians and children’s rights bodies warn the sport could cause chronic health problems, such as neurological disorders.”
VIETNAM: Why Vietnam isn’t talking about 1968
“Among Vietnamese citizens, memories of the Tet Offensive are brought up publicly only in vague terms that portray the party in a celebratory light, says Nguyen Quang A, 72, a retired businessman and former communist party member turned dissident activist in Hanoi. “I think they want to bury all the old memories, because that undermines their legitimacy,” Quang A says of the communist party in Vietnam.”
Travel writing
INDONESIA I: Taking a street food tour of Denpasar, Bali with chef Will Meyrick
“This is Denpasar’s historic centre and many buildings date back to the 1950s, or even earlier. Later, Pak Ali, whose grandfather arrived from Yemen when it was under British rule, will talk me through the evolution of his neighbourhood.”
INDONESIA II: The Indonesian tribe that rejects technology
“The Baduy tribe from Banten in Indonesia practice seclusion and reject all modern technology to protect their ancient traditions. For centuries their way of life hasn't changed. Electricity is outlawed, along with modern modes of communication and formal education. Power lines stop at the border of their lands. But the outside world is creeping in. ”
TRAVEL ADVICE: How to get by in a country where you don’t know the language
“Pointing with your hands and nodding or shaking your head, Mr. Thibault said, are an easy way to communicate with locals in the country you’re in. “Gestures are almost all universally understood,” he said.”
Interesting site
Boating on acid
“Adventurer, George Kourounis takes a small inflatable rubber raft out onto the world's largest lake of sulphuric acid at the bottom of the Kawah Ijen volcano crater in Indonesia. The acid is so strong (ph of 0.5) that an aluminium soda can sizzles when it touches the lake.”
Travel shot
The walk back out is also quite fabulous. Photo: Sally Arnold
Till next time
That’s it from us for now. As usual, enjoy the site’s new additions and drop us a line if there’s something in particular you’d like us to cover in Southeast Asia.
Travel light!
Stuart, Sam & the Travelfish team
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