Travelfish newsletter Issue 309 : Surabaya + AirBnb + Liveaboard
Hi all,
Where did that week go? It went quickly as we added our new coverage for Surabaya to the site. Given the tragic attacks that hit Surabaya last week, we received a couple of queries asking about our judgement promoting it as a destination. Our take is that we feel it is especially after events like these better that travellers do not change their plans as long as safety is not a concern. This sends a clear message to the lunatics and murderers driving these campaigns of hate, and avoids hurting innocent people even further economically.
We've just realised that last week we ran our 100th Southeast Asian-related book review, so this week we’re plugging a few of our favourites—we hope you find something there worth reading on your next trip. Our reviews now also include links to buy via Barnes & Noble (along with Amazon and Book Depository).
Meanwhile we’ve been busy on the back-end of the website making some substantial changes to the advertisements we run, plus some other techy matters on the site—hopefully this speeds up the website for you. More on this next week.
Last but not least, we’ve begun working with Liveaboard, a travel start-up that makes it super-easy to book liveaboard diving trips across the region. We have a bit more on them below.
Good travels
Stuart, Sam and the Travelfish crew
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Soapbox
On Airbnb
A legal case in Thailand this week received plenty of news attention when a court seemed to find that condominium owners renting out rooms on AirBnb for less than a month were breaking the law. The Bangkok Post story is a little unclear on the finer points of the story, but for now the case holds solely in the province of Prachuap Khiri Khan (home to Hua Hin).
The issue is far broader than a single province in Thailand though.
AirBnb works hard to portray its business as being people renting out just a single room in their house to help ends meet. In practice however some use the platform on an industrial scale, renting out sometimes hundreds of entire properties. Here in Bali, according to Airdna, there are now more than 30,000 active rentals. Some 83% of these rentals are managed by hosts who run more than one rental. Bali’s most industrious landlord rents out 504 properties on the island—in 2017 they were reported as earning £11.8 million in the year.
The ruling in the case in Thailand suggested that if properties are being run as a hotel then they should be required to register as such. In theory, this would bring with it minimum standards (albeit which are often applied unevenly anyway), but it would also bring them into the tax base and see some proportion of that rental not just going to the AirBnb overlords in the US but also to the local administrations, where it could be used to improve public services and so on. (Yes, I know, a lot of this is in theory!)
We live in a short lane in South Bali. Our landlord lives next door, his brother on our other side. We took a lease on our property for 19 years. There are four other houses on the gang, and three of them are AirBnb rentals. When we leased our house, the others were all long-term rentals. Not any more. Familiar neighbours have been replaced by trundling wheelie bags at five in the morning. As with condominium owners complaining they didn’t plan to live in a hotel, this isn’t really what we signed up for either—just looking down our lane sees the argument that AirBnb breaks down local communities and takes residential properties off the market look pretty solid.
I’d have thought requiring short-term rental properties to be registered as some kind of a hotel business seems a sensible first step. It would establish if the business was operating legally and could facilitate simple things like guest registration with local authorities (something that is a legal requirement across Indonesia). It would also bring them into the tax base. For anyone familiar with the state of footpaths in South Bali, just for starters, this would be a fine thing.
What do you think?
Good travels
Stuart
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What we’re reading
Some favourite picks from our first 100 book reviews
Stuart nominates The Trouser People, River Of Time, In The Time Of Madness, Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, and, he isn’t nearly embarrassed enough saying, The Beach. Sam nominates The Sympathizer, Destination Cambodia (and Saigon), Afterland, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye and The Best We Could Do.
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!
Other advertisers include Asia Highlights offer tailor made travel through Vietnam, Take Me Tour offer experiences with locals out of Chiang Mai, Akha Kitchen offer Thai cooking classes in Chiang Rai, WWOOF Thailand connect hosts and organic farm volunteers and VD Travel offer trending itineraries across the region.
Featured
Surabaya
Large Indonesian cities can be somewhat difficult to love, and when Sally and Stuart rolled into Surabaya on the last days of their three-week East Java research trip, they were pretty shagged and fagged. Despite this, they discovered a slice of the city that they both loved and, by the time they were heading to the station to leave, were already thinking about a return journey to see more.
In the news for all the wrong reasons last week, when three suicide bombings killed many innocent people, Surabaya is a quite cosmopolitan city—a melting pot of cultures that in many ways illustrates the potential of multicultural Indonesia. There are mosques and churches, malls and markets, museums and ruins. The food, even what little they had time to cram down, was as varied as it was delicious.
This is a historic centre. Like Probolinggo to the east, Indonesian free thinkers centred around study groups here, and it was also in Surabaya that the Indonesian flag was “invented” when the blue strip from the colonialist Dutch flag was torn off, leaving the red and white to fly.
The city also makes for a great base for sightseeing—Sally spent the best part of a day travelling out to the impressive ruins at Trowulan while Stuart spent the best part of that same day walking the city, from downtown up to the city’s fascinating Middle Eastern and African quarter, where classic shopfronts, historic buildings and an enormous covered market had Stuart cursing not fully charging his camera batteries the night before.
The city also boasts Hotel Majapahit, which rivals Sally’s fave (Hotel Tugu in Malang) for the title of Travelfish fave digs in Java, but there are also classic old-skool traveller hotels like Hotel Paviljoen, and plenty of modern and comfortable digs across the budgets.
Situated on the north coast of Java, Surabaya also makes for an ideal place to break up a trans-Java jaunt, breaking up the trip from Semarang or Malang (to the west and south respectively)‚ and Probolinggo, Gunung Bromo, Banyuawangi and, of course, Bali—to the east.
So set aside some time and give Surabaya at least two nights—more if you like to eat and/or wander a good walking town.
Travelfish partners
Liveaboard offers online bookings, detailed write-ups and reviews of live aboard operators across Southeast Asia.
Liveaboards are available for booking in Burma, Indonesia, Philippine, Thailand and more.
News from the region
BURMA I: Sanctuary for discarded, injured elephants
“International animal welfare organisation Four Paws has started the construction of one of the largest elephant sanctuaries in South-East Asia for former working elephants in Myanmar.”
BURMA II: Long haul ahead for Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees
“Improving the situation in northern Rakhine State, where the 100,000-150,000 Rohingya still in Myanmar live, is not primarily a development challenge. It depends on the Myanmar government and security forces changing course. ”
CAMBODIA I: Last Post in Phnom Penh
“He then fired the editor in chief, which precipitated a mass walk out. Thirteen staff, including the managing and business editors, have tendered their resignations. There are now no foreign reporters on the paper.”
CAMBODIA II: Leaked report warns Cambodia's biggest dam could 'literally kill' Mekong river
“In its key findings the report notes: “The impact on fisheries would be devastating as it would block fish migration from the Tonle Sap (Cambodia’s Great Lake), a vital tributary to the Mekong and the spawning grounds upstream.””
INDONESIA: How Bad is the Air in Jakarta?
“But typically, North Jakarta has the worst air quality because of its heavy industry and transportation. The use of coal in industrial plants is commonly found in North Jakarta and East Jakarta. That still happens even though the government has prohibited it.”
MALAYSIA: Handbag and jewelry haul puts Malaysia's former first lady in spotlight
“The US Department of Justice alleged in civil lawsuits last year that some of the funds stolen from 1MDB were used to buy jewelry for Rosmah: $27 million for a rare pink diamond and another $1.3 million for 27 gold necklaces.”
SINGAPORE: No solo protests allowed in Singapore
“The law is used to punitive effect. A 42-year-old man was sentenced to six-and-a-half months’ imprisonment and a S$5,000 (US$3,725) fine in April after he was convicted of three charges relating to a solo protest in Singapore’s business district just months after serving his sentence for a previous demonstration.”
THAILAND I: Coup anniversary in Thailand
“Those who want to see an end to military rule and return to democracy planned a mass rally Tuesday on the fourth anniversary of the May 22, 2014, coup d’etat. After camping out overnight at Thammasat University’s Tha Prachan campus in Bangkok’s old quarter, they intend to march on the regime’s seat of power at the Government House.”
THAILAND II: More than 20 explosions rock southern Thailand
“Muslim insurgents detonated more than 20 homemade explosives across Thailand’s south, the army said Monday, in a night of violence undermining junta claims of headway in peace talks with the rebels.”
THAILAND III: Railway to link up Thailand, Cambodia within 2 months
“He said one of Thailand's older diesel-powered trains will operate the route. The train, meant to carry only passengers, will have three carriages, he added.”
THAILAND IV: Thailand’s ruling junta is preparing to hold an election—and to win it
“ “I AM not a vacuum cleaner,” Prayuth Chan-ocha, who heads Thailand’s military junta, insisted last month.” Some would say he totally sucks.
Travel writing
INDONESIA: What this 76-year-old man can teach about healing
“He remembers his father as a disciplined man who would refuse to ride in cars no matter how long the journey. 'It’s healthier to walk,' he would say.”
THAILAND: Is the best way to see Thailand by train?
“Thereafter, your journey down the peninsula flickers by in a daydream. Kids wave, bells clang, jungles crowd the line, and flagmen and signals recede to infinity.”
VIETNAM: A beautiful Buddhist temple hidden away in Ho Chi Minh City
“I was the only foreigner here during my visit, and I’ve never seen it advertised as a “thing to do”. It was well-attended by weekend tourists but not over-crowded.”
WELL DODGY: The mysterious heir of extreme travel
“Despite being a relative newcomer to the insular world of extreme travel – a competitive subculture of people who journey to some of the most obscure and treacherous corners of the globe, often at great monetary cost – Baekeland earned an astonishing amount of trust from the group in a matter of days.”
YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE YESTERDAY: Kevin Kelly on the lost world of 1970s Asia (and why you should travel now)
“ "I met people who would say, ‘I wish I had more time to travel like you do.’ They had more money than time, and I had more time than money. In terms of traveling it’s much better to have more time than more money. ...If you have a chance to travel, just do it. You won’t regret it.” ” A great podcast.
Interesting site
Airdna
Probably more than you’ll even want to know about AirBnb.
Travel shot
Gazing upwards at Cheng Ho Mosque. Photo: Stuart McDonald
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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