Cahokia Mounds, the Late Woodland Culture continue… September 28, 2008
Posted by dodo in : America, Central America, Destination, Hotels, Map, Memorial, North America, Sightseeing, Tour, USA , 2commentsMound 72 is most interesting, even though today it seems a fairly insignificant ridge of earth. Excavations revealed that at the precise point where the meridional line passes through the end of the mound, a huge pole — about three feet (1m) in diameter — had been erected. Radiocarbon dating of material in the eight-foot (2.4m) deep pole (the pole had clearly been very tall) gave a date of AD 950 for the time when the pole was placed in the ground. The excavations also showed that the mound had been constructed from a series of earlier submounds that were then reshaped and covered over to give the long ridge form. (more…)
Cahokia Mounds, the Late Woodland Culture September 28, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cars, Europe, Museum, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, USA , 2commentsThis 2,200-A0 (890HA) site is situated just to the east of St Louis, in southern Illinois, close to Collinsville (not, confusingly, near the town of Cahokia). It is the remains of a large city and ritual complex which was first occupied around AD 700, developed, flowered, declined and was abandoned by AD 1500. At its peak it covered some six square miles (1,550ha) and had a population of about 20,000. It was certainly the largest community in prehistoric times in what is now the USA, and its influence extended for great distances. (more…)
Traveling US, don’t forget to buy a Car with the Fantastic Auto Loan, we can do it September 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : America, Europe, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tour, Travel Gear, Trip, USA , 2commentsTraveling in the US is not that easy. I am used to enjoy a European rail pass holiday on the train. The territory is too big for backpacker like me to walk or take crowed bus. It is impossible to take a convenient touring train or bus. Having a little trail off road, it is my favorite. (more…)
How safe is Air Flight Journey? Commercial Airplane Accidents and Safety September 13, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Airlines, Flight Schedule, Round The World, Tickets, Travel Clinic, Travel Gear, USA , 3commentsThe most dangerous part of flying is the journey from your home to the Airport and back!
Commercial aeroplane accidents are rare events. Even so, a jetliner crash is major news all round the world, often renewing the question: how safe is it to fly? The information in this article was provided by courtesy of Boeing Aircraft Company. It attempts to answer some common questions about commercial aviation and describes the effort being made to make jet travel even safer than it already is. (more…)
Greece Delphi: the Sacred Centre, the Navel of the World continue… August 8, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Airlines, Cars, Europe, France, Hotels, Motel, Museum, Rail Pass, Tickets, Trails, Travelling Bag, USA , 3commentsThe village of Kastri was built over the site of the sanctuary and this proved a problem in the nineteenth century when archaeologists wanted to examine the famous oracle site. International rivalry developed over the excavation rights. France won, but at the expense of rehousing all the villagers of Kastri at another site, New Kastri (now the modern Delphi), just over 1/2 mile (1km) to the west. French archaeological investigation has gone on to a greater or lesser degree ever since. (more…)
In Pursuit of the American Dream July 18, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Motel, Museum, Paris, Tour, USA , 5comments“Kis mah grits,” said the waitress, conversing with a regular customer as she served me up a 99-cent breakfast in the diner at Orlando Airport.
I was frequently to hear Americans exhorted to kiss each other’s fried porridge, in a parody that seems to be the last legacy of the Southerner who occupied the White House in the dark days before Ronald Reagan. Kissing grits has supplanted the fashion for kissing ass, which is surprising in an upwardly mobile society.
An hour later I was drinking (what else?) Florida orange-juice beside a motel swimming pool while the early-morning sun gently warmed away jet-lag. The lady on a nearby lounger ordered the waiter to put a slug in her juice. (more…)
Passing on Victoria Water Falls, Shooting the Zambezi, Escape into Africa July 10, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Botswana, Hotels, Lodges, Passport, South Africa, Tour, USA, United Kingdom, Victoria Falls, Zambia , 4commentsA white line still bisected the bridge, but its meaning had gone and the menace with it. Now the only sentry was a baboon sitting on a fence barking at a warthog on the other side of the road.
Early morning, sun up but cool, just two of us on the bridge at Victoria Falls, between Zimbabwe and Zambia. We looked down at the pale green Zambesi 300 feet below. Cecil Rhodes had wanted the bridge built close enough to the Falls to catch the spray. Usually it does. However, this was September and the “Falls” in front of us were just a curtain of rock. The rains had been good; not good enough, though, to make up for years of drought.
Only on the Zimbabwean side did the river reach over and plunge in. Its noise was like distant motorway traffic.
We were about to go down the river on a rubber raft. We were to start at the bottom of the Falls and travel six miles down the Zambesi through zigzagging gorges . . . and over nine rapids. Why on earth had we agreed to it? Sarah didn’t even like putting her head under water in the bath. As for me, the wake of a passing launch under a scull on the Thames was the nearest I’d ever got to white water. (more…)
Getting High in the Yemen Question: how can you see London, Paris and New York simultaneously while sitting in a Remote Corner of the Arabian Peninsula? July 9, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Africa, Air Tickets, Beach Resorts, Cars, Europe, Hostels, Hotels, Lodges, London, Museum, Oceanarium, Round The World, Tour, USA , 3commentsAnswer: adopt the national pastime of North Yemen and devote the entire afternoon to chewing the narcotic qat leaf. Our host, his eyes dreamy and his cheeks bulging with the drug, rocks with laughter at his own joke.
We had landed that morning to find ourselves catapulted into a medieval Manhatten, a confusing world of centuries-old mud skyscrapers and lavish exteriors that make a mockery of the Middle Eastern practice of living behind blank facades. Resting in a secluded courtyard we watch a veiled face peer out from behind a half-opened shutter high up on a crumbling wall. A basket lowers itself to the ground from a distant rooftop. A train of three camels, loaded down with bundles of qat, squeezes through a tiny alleyway and lurches past the massive studded door of a mosque. (more…)
Asian Beijing Travel and Finest Art Exhibition Tour July 5, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Australia, China, Europe, Hotels, Japan, Restaurant, Tour, Travelling Bag, USA , 3commentsThe tourist coaches disgorge their contents into the forecourt of the Jinling Hotel, Nanjing. The colours and shapes of middle-class Europe, America, Japan, Australia, stream through plate glass doors and stand in dazed clusters among their luggage, whilst tour leaders completeyet another set of check-in formalities.
Polished chrome and marble reflect luxuriant indoor gardens. A pianist’s vacuous tinkling drifts from the intercommunication system. It could be the foyer of an international hotel anywhere in the world.
Outside, late autumn sunshine filters through the industrial haze. A complex of fountains makes dark splashes on patterned paving. The white-painted concrete fence marks a boundary, on the far side of which the other China, in sober-suited rows, peers with impassive curiosity at this world within their world, as we stand before cages at a zoo. We are aware of another China. It flows past endlessly on jangling bicycles; it smiles from doorways and factory workbenches when we are shown round. (more…)
Villages, Boats, Boulevards, Bars, Break in France and Italy, Aegean Tour July 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Cars, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Europe, France, Hotels, Museum, Oceanarium, Paris, Planetarium, Restaurant, USA , 3commentsNapeoleon greeted us when we arrived in the palm-fringed port of Ajaccio and disembarked onto the jetty. Corsica’s capital exhibits boulevards, bars and boats in honour of its most famous son. The white-glossed vessels glide out slowly with their cargoes of rich French and Italian mariners, perhaps south to Sardinia or Sicily before venturing upon Poseidon’s homeland in the depths of the Aegean.
We wound up into the mountains for three hours at the back of a stifling minibus, rucksacks on knees, to arrive at Petreto-Bicchisano to au-pair and keep shop for two months. The villages of bleached stone are perched on crags, almost indistinguishable in the dense green forests. Grey stones on distant, wispy mountaintops become crosses and tombstones as one ascends. Every village has its protective saint and little dark chapel. Children play in the street with its one-thousand-foot drop to the bronze river below. The old women in black do not shout warnings. It seems that one is born to Corsica with an instinct of its precariousness. (more…)
Meal in India; Travelling Across Indian Crazy Kumbh; it could happen only in India July 3, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Cars, Destination, Europe, Flight Schedule, India, Restaurant, Travel Insurance, USA , 5commentsInevitably Melas such as this also drag the weird, wonderful and absolutely berserk out of the Indian woodwork, and that night they all seemed to have appeared in Hardwar (apart from the infamous and lusty Bhagwan Rajneesh, holed up somewhere in Uruguay). There were the magicians; the Yogis; the jugglers; the preachers; the Hari Krishna devotees (looking more at home if no less limp than they do wandering down Oxford Street); and, perhaps the craziest of all, the Sadhus. Many of these supposed spiritual pioneers of Hinduism were sitting in large groups smoking their chillums (pipes) filled with marijuana, which they held high above their heads, and which were no doubt taking these holy men even higher. The Mahatma condemned this sort of hollow spirituality saying, “These men were born only to enjoy the good things in life”. However, this couldn’t be said about some of the “Naga” Sadhus who, standing near the river, painfully demonstrated their rejection of desire by piercing their penises and hanging rocks from their genitals. This extraordinary self-mutilation didn’t even merit a free radio. Maybe they should have kept their lingams in their lunghi? (more…)
Climbing, Riding, Sightseeing Midnight on Mont Blanc continue… July 2, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Cars, Europe, Germany, Greece, Hostels, London, Memorial, Mexico, Motel, New York, Travel Insurance, Travelling Bag, USA , 3commentsBernie pulled on the rope and cursed me for stopping; I plodded on. My feet hurt.
Four days later, the train heaved its way out of the valley towards the end of the Bionnassay Glacier. Through the glass I stared at the pine trees and the brilliant meadow flowers. The carriage filled with the perfume of tourists, up for the day, and the sweat of climbers, rucksacks balanced on their knees, all heading for the Blanc. When the track wound alongside a cliff the small girl sitting opposite looked out in disbelief as the trees gave way to nothing. She pulled her eyes away in fear and looked around the train — the view there was worse, rucksacks, hairy knees, ice-axes, unshaven climbers lost in contemplation of the weather.
We arrived at the top station and the train disgorged. Tourists wandered slowly across to the cafe or to the viewing platform from which they could look up at the great bleak sweep of the mountain opposite. Down the valley the world became more sane, as the stone desert below the glacier gave way to meadows and woodland. (more…)
Naked Amongst the Guzerat continue… June 26, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Art Gallery, Caracas, Europe, Hotels, Library, Memorial, Museum, Restaurant, Round The World, USA , add a commentI had fallen for the young champion Brahman bull, which always greeted me fluttering endless black eyelashes. I had seen him give sperm for freezing, so I suppose we were on rather intimate terms. “Juan has gone over to the electric ejaculator,” Lina announced coquettishly. For reasons of economic progress, Juan had been advised to limit the natural servicing methods of breeding and adapt to artificial insemination. Little realising that I was to witness a ceremony normally forbidden to women, and which few foreigners see, I accepted an invitation to watch my beautiful champ perform. The animal was roped and harnessed within a secure pen. Hector’s arm then disappeared to the elbow to clear the animal’s rectum of faecal residue. Into it he inserted a metal objected shaped like a toy submarine which was attached to an instrument-box by two long wires. (more…)
Unforgettable Florence Tour June 20, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Hotels, Italy, Lodges, Restaurant, USA , add a commentThe Villa La Massa at Candeli, mentioned in D.H. Lawrence’s letters as an appealing residence, is now a restored, modern-convenienced fifteenth-century hunting lodge on the south bank of the Arno below San Miniato al Monte. It is also a combination of Palazzo and Fawlty Towers. We reserve a table at 7 in its “Verrocchio” restaurant, but at that hour are told to wait until 8, at which time the manager calls, apologizes that the chef is not ready, and asks us to spend a few minutes at the bar. The Massa’s nine other guests, formally dressed Germans, are already there and, having been told the same thing, plainly annoyed. At 8:30 we stroll by the cypresses and the river, which at this altitude and in freshet season sounds like a rushing Rocky Mountain stream. Eventually, at about 9:30, the high-vaulted Gothic restaurant opens and a maitre d’hôtel in an orchestra conductor’s frack takes our orders in German; or, rather, enumerates the limited selection of available dishes, prices unlisted, or unascertained, or unknown. A piano, semitone flat in the upper register, loudly serenades us with sentimental German songs. (more…)
Pleasant hollow QUELUZ continue… June 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Aquarium, Art Gallery, Coliseum, Dolphinarium, Gymnasium, Library, Lisbon, London, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Portugal, Restaurant, USA , add a commentThe interior of the palace (which was partially destroyed by fire in 1934 but felicitously restored) is entered from the cour d’honneur. The cheerful lightness of first room, a corridor known as the Sala das Mangas, derives from its wall-to-ceiling revetment in blue and yellow azulejos, the characteristic Portuguese decorative tiles. A key position in the palace is occupied by the ceremonial reception room, the Hall of the Ambassadors. This room is also called the Hall of Mirrors, for most of the wall space not occupied by the window embrasures is filled with mirrors in gilt Rococo frames. The coved ceiling is decorated with a large painting, in which members of the royal family are depicted behind a balustrade as if watching one of the evening concerts for which Queluz was famous. (more…)
Pleasant hollow QUELUZ June 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Brazil, Lisbon, Portugal, USA , add a commentThe royal palace of Queluz is situated in a pleasant hollow about nine miles north-west of Lisbon. It belongs to the last phase of the opulent period in Portuguese culture that followed the discovery of gold in Brazil in 1693. At the beginning of the 17th century, foreign artists flocked to Portugal, where they created the somewhat over- decorated Baroque art of the royal palace at Mafra and the churches in Oporto and other cities. Artistically, Queluz represents a reaction against this earlier heaviness a shift from the dominant Italian influence to the lightness of French Rococo. (more…)
Ambitious attempt: CASERTA continue… June 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Flight Schedule, France, Gymnasium, Hotels, Italy, Library, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, Round The World, USA , add a commentImmediately opposite the Great Staircase to the west stands the chapel, which, at the king’s request, repeats the scheme of its counterpart at Versailles. Although Caserta evokes Versailles in concept and ambition, this is the only part of the palace that directly imitates its French predecessor. As at Versailles, the main theme is stated on the gallery level, where coupled Corinthian columns march in stately procession towards the apse. But despite this common feature, the characteristically French ambulatory has been omitted and the proportions of the whole have been to some extent lowered.
The central peristyle also leads to the royal apartments that occupy the south front and the short wing leading to it. (more…)
Ambitious attempt: CASERTA June 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Europe, Spain, USA , add a commentThe royal palace of Caserta, which lies about 15 miles north of Naples, probably represents the most ambitious attempt to rival Versailles. Appropriately enough it was begun by one of Louis XIV’s great-grandsons, Charles III, who founded the Neapolitan Bourbon dynasty. Born in 1716, Charles was the son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife Elizabeth Farnese. Since he was not in the direct line of succession to the Spanish throne, his ambitious mother contrived to have him made Duke of Parma and Piacenza in 1731. Three years later, during the confusion brought by the War of Polish Succession, she dispatched a Spanish army to appropriate the kingdom of Naples for her son. (more…)
My Dairy of Korea Travel June 13, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Aquarium, France, Hotels, Japan, New York, Restaurant, Seoul, USA , add a commentNo sooner does midnight flight 007 take off for Seoul than the stewardesses change from military uniforms and New York-style indifference to flower-patterned kimonos and oriental manners: quick, short bows at every contact. A “heavy snack” is served: hors d’oeuvres (ginseng root), a “starch” course (”France fried potatoes”), bulgogi (marinated beef), and kimchi (fermented pickle of cabbage). The menu reproduces a Yi-dynasty (1392) embroidery of the mythical bird Bong Hwang, which “luckily foresaw coming catastrophe of the country.” The pilot’s English and Korean are indistinguishable, but the all-night TV advertising of duty-free products is mercifully silent. (more…)
My Thailand Travel Diary part 2 June 12, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Bangkok, London, New York, Thailand, USA , add a commentToday’s Bangkok Post features a photo of the float on which a Buddha relic was taken yesterday to Sanam Luang for veneration. Other photos are of barefoot and ragged children from the north who have been subsisting on dried lizards. The front-page story is about monkeys pickpocketing tourists and snapping television antennae in the vicinity of the summer palace of King Rama IV (Yul Brynner). It seems that an attempt was made to entice the marauders into banana-baited cages, but the ruse failed when a long-tailed macaque successfully ejected a clump of bananas before the trap had sprung. A parliament of monkeys was then convened on the palace roof, after which none of them approached the cages again.
Mr. Niloubel, who comes for me at 8 A.M., spends most of my temple- visiting time praying. The solid five-and-a-half-ton Golden Buddha sits in stifling heat, humidity, and incense at the top of steep staircases, the saffron scarf of peace draped over the left shoulder. (more…)
