Travelfish #386: We are alive and kicking ... just softly!
Hi everyone,
Sorry, I am a day late with the newsletter this week. Last night I got into, I think, the longest card game (our Covid19 past–time) ever with the kids. I think it went for about 764 hours.
Fields on the way to Santisuk. Photo: Mark Ord.
Last week, Couchfish took full subscribers through an entire week in Nan in northern Thailand. I covered a two–day jungle and caving trip with two whining Brits (here and here), then hit the salt mine at Bo Kluea, rode around the top of the province and finished off with a morning market disco . Yes, travel in Thailand is never dull.
In the free to read section, I covered Munduk in Indonesia as a diversion and, on Friday, detailed a very close call I had in Phongsali in northern Laos some years ago.
Stuck on the couch? Give them a read! Membership costs US$7 per month—free if you are a Travelfish member (in which case just email me your Travelfish member name and I’ll add you to the list).
Meanwhile, if you’ve a thing for Thai islands, do check out David Luekens Thai Island Time. He knows his stuff. Last week, David covered Ko Phitak, how to help tourism workers in Thailand’s south and you can read his weekly island wrap here.
Hopefully that will be enough reading to keep you going!
One piece of housekeeping, I’m changing newsletter providers this week, so next week’s newsletter will look a bit different, but it will be the exact same material, 100% free, and you don’t need to do anything.
Cheers and thank you for your support,
Stuart
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Alive and still kicking
I sent out a newsletter the other day and in it I mentioned that Covid19 had destroyed our business (meaning Travelfish.org). It was an off the cuff line that I hadn’t really thought through, and I received a bunch of emails asking what was going on. So, I thought I should clarify what I said.
Given the fact that Covid19 has made regional recreational travelling near impossible, we suspended all research until things settle down. That is it in a nutshell really.
It is, as far as I know, impossible to purchase travel insurance that includes coverage for Covid19. As we have in the past insisted on adequate travel insurance for our writers (which we paid for), this is a show stopper. Even if we were able to get adequate travel insurance, travelling regionally is almost impossible—unless we wanted to concentrate on the top-10 places in Bangkok for a 14-day quarantine ... now there is an idea.
Simultaneously, people have largely stopped travelling (Vietnam is seeing some domestic travel now though, which is a start) and this means they’re booking hotels less and so on—our income in this area has dropped about 99%.
In summary: Difficult to travel, impossible to get insurance, and no money! Happy days!
This isn’t to say however that the site is dead. I’m still busy on a redesign of the entire site, and, well I still have a backlog of research to write up. Couchfish is also keeping me well busy—that is a Travelfish undertaking as well.
So the business is still kicking ... just softly ... and we will still be around when things get up and going again—whenever that may be. And I hope you’ll be able to travel then too.
Thank you to you all for your support during these testing times. It is greatly appreciated.
Cheers from the couch
Stuart
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Ten things worth reading
Bagan time machine
Step back in time and explore Burma’s Bagan.
A different kind of travel
A fascinating and very long read. Go grab a coffee, I’ll wait.
Stinky Asian fruit makes for sexy business as Covid lockdown eases $
Every Southeast Asia corro does a durian story at some stage during their tenure. Here is John Reed’s take.
Laos pushes ahead with sixth Mekong River dam project
The Myanmar Mirage $
“But this view of Myanmar failed to consider its tortured political, social, and economic conditions. It disregarded the endemic civil wars that had raged for seven decades along the country’s mountainous periphery, as well as the racial and religious tensions that underpinned them. It also overlooked the challenges posed by the country’s gaping economic inequalities, the result of rapacious crony capitalism layered on top of the failed economic policies of an earlier age.” A good read.
The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months
I’m drawing a pretty long bow on travel here, but this was easily my favourite read of the week.
Light after the lockdown—the future of travel $
“A third of the cost of the holiday or more might never leave the traveller’s home country.” Indeed. Choose your tour operator carefully.
Is Vietnam the coronavirus-fighting champ of the world?
“But inside Vietnam, the public is starting to enjoy the fruits of its success. Many shops and schools are cautiously reopening. The typical boisterousness of Ho Chi Minh City, though muted in recent months, is coming back, Tran said.”
Indonesia in The Lusiads
“It should be clear that this is not a dispassionate depiction of Earth but one centred on and expressing the militaristic supremacist values of sixteenth-century Portugal.”
Getting away with murder
“They arrived the day after the disaster. There was severe danger to the rescue and investigation teams, and one of the two South Vietnamese military helicopters sent to surveil the crash site was shot down within hours. Some of the crash debris was looted by local villagers before the site was secured.” Fascinating.
Something to read
Pok Pok The Drinking Food of Thailand
Do not buy this book if you are missing Thailand!
Travel shot
En route to Doi Phuka. Photo: Mark Ord
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
https://www.travelfish.org/