Between rum drinks, wine and lunch, we got to know the two couples we were traveling with, one who lives in Burgundy and runs a Bed and Breakfast, and the other who live about 20 kilometers from Aix-en-Provence where I went to college. We ended the day with a last dip in Grande Anse and watching the sunset coming back towards Pointe du Bout.
I don't want to get all sentimental on you but I will a little anyway. If you come to the Caribbean without getting on a sailboat and seeing the island from the water, you're really missing a huge part of the charm. As we were swimming in the late afternoon, we looked around and finally saw the Caribbean that we had loved so much six years ago: a beautifully quiet place where the underwater landscape is as interesting as the scenery on land. Ok I warned you I was going to get a little sentimental here but I promise I'll stop now.
Here's the website with pictures of the boat: http://www.plaisance-martinique.com/TarifSortie1.htm
Very early tomorrow morning, too early, we leave for Barbados and then it's back home to San Francisco via Miami. Rain in the Bay Area, if you can hear me, please stop so we have time to adjust back to the cold winter temperatures we haven't missed these past six weeks.
Helene
]]>Helene
]]>We're still in the Caribbean, currently in Guadeloupe. Sorry for the lack of updates but Internet cafes can be hard to come by here and when we do find one, a lot of times it's closed!
Guadeloupe is turning out to be a great place, so far we've almost all of Grande Terre stopping in lolos, small shacks on the side of the road, to taste coconut sorbets, and local dishes such as chicken colombo (a type of curry) and yummy but huge local sandwiches. Tomorrow we head to Deshaies which we heard from other travelers is a beautiful small town on Basse-Terre. On the way, we'll visit the Musee du Rhum and possibly try a few different concoctions, all for the sake of research of course!
Talk soon, Helene
]]>Helene and Josh
]]>After spending a few days in Roseau, the capital, we've moved towards the interior of the island. Roseau is a happening city with people blasting reggae in cars and stores. The music is mostly Christmas reggae, any Christmas song to the rythm of reggae sounds great but our favorite so far is "Put Jesus in your Christmas."
Tonight we're staying near Trafalgar Falls in a very cool place called Cocoa Cottages. Our room has curtains instead of doors and the entire house opens up to the jungle, it's amazing. More later!
]]>Tonight we'll be taking a red-eye flight to Puerto Rico. There we'll meet some friends, visit the Bacardi Rum factory and see as much of San Juan as we can. On Tuesday, we all fly to Roseau, Dominica where we will spend two weeks. This will be the beginning of a six-week trip that will also take us to Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Check back here for updates on our travels!
Helene
]]>And for those of you traveling with kids in the US who are looking for baby-sitters while on vacation, I just heard about a cool new service called Care.com. This website has a directory of local baby-sitters who have been screened by the company, A quick search by zipcode gave me a list of qualified baby-sitters with a detailed profile of experience, availability and usual rates.
]]>Happy trails!
]]>Out of Town
Roadtrip anyone? Redken and Flavorpill want to send you spelunking for culture in the hinterlands. We're looking for four readers who ooze on-camera charisma to travel to Small Town, USA, where you'll host your own webisodes to be aired on outoftown.tv. Deadline for NYC entries is Friday, June 8.
Click here for www.outoftown.tv
And in case you're too lazy to check out the rules, here they are:
HOW TO ENTER: Go to Out of Town website (www.OutofTown.tv) to enter to win a three (3)-day/ four (4)-night all expense paid reconnaissance mission to Small Town USA for Flavorpill Productions. To qualify, potential contestants are requested to provide personal information, two images of themselves to show their unique style and urban originality, and a response to essay question, "Why do you think you are the best person to go to small Town USA reconnaissance for Flavorpill?"
GRAND PRIZE: For eligibility, each entry must also include all requested items and images. Once submitted, entries become the sole property of Sponsor (as hereinafter defined). Sponsor is not responsible for lost, interrupted, or unavailable network, server, or other connections, miscommunications, failed computer hardware or software or telephone transmissions or technical failures, garbled or jumbled transmissions or other errors of any kind, whether human, mechanical, or electronic; including without limitation the incorrect or inaccurate capture of entry information online, or for lost, late, incomplete, damaged, stolen, misdirected, or illegible entries. Entry materials/data that have been tampered with or altered are void.
]]>June 6, WEDNESDAY>>
SACRED TOURISM How do we Americans approach spiritual places? Cultural critic Erik Davis is interested in how pilgrimage has been transformed from religious practice to personal exploration. Mountains or streams or even kitschy buildings can become sites of spiritual psychogeography. Davis, author of The Visionary State, will discuss some aspects of sacred travel - commodification, globalization and romanticization – that tend to be overlooked when we think of pilgrimages today.
June 14, THURSDAY>>
TONY WHEELER Here are the two main factors that have changed independent travel over the past 30 years: cheap airfare and Lonely Planet, the publishing company founded by Tony and Maureen Wheeler. In his new book Tony Wheeler’s Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil, Tony visits those thorns in George W.’s backside (Iran, Iraq and North Korea), as well as friends, or former enemies like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Libya. Tonight he’ll be presenting images and discussing his travels to these unusual destinations.
June 20, WEDNESDAY>>
CHINA It seems everybody wants to go to China. The Olympics in Beijing
next year will introduce the country to still more tourism. Carolyn Heller is co-author of the new Lonely Planet China and has traveled extensively through the north and west of the country. She will discuss the practicalities of traveling in China and present different itineraries, including to lesser visited areas.
Incense at Hindu temple
Lunchtime
Pham Ngu Lao Backpacker area
Pile of copies of Lonely Planet books
Piling it up on the motorbike
Rice seller
Selling books and souvenirs
View from cyclo
Women selling books
Photos by Helene Goupil
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Moveable feast
Cyclo driver taking a nap
A view of De Tham street, heart of the backpacker area
Bookseller
Child and his grandma selling cigarettes
Ducks and clothes
Photos by Helene Goupil
]]>For those of you who aren't familiar with World Hum, it's a great travel website that's been going since 2001. It's run by Jim Benning and Michael Yessis.
Congrats to both of them!
Read interview here
Helene
]]>
Working in the hotel room in Hue
In the streets of Hanoi
Checking out a new bar and figuring out what's next on the list
Taking pictures of maps and notes as he traveled to make sure he didn't lose any information
Josh takes a break after checking five hotels in Cat Ba (and checks a restaurant at the same time)
First day of research in Sapa after night train
Chatting with the locals in a Zao village near Sapa
Waiting for a ride to Lao Cai
Looking very eager to see what e-mails are waiting for him!
Helping out the boat driver in the Mekong in Ben Tre
Unpacking and repacking
Trying out Saigon street massage
And finally writing it all up at home
Not pictured are countless stairs walked up and down to check hotel rooms, dozens of plates of spring rolls and glasses of iced coffees as we checked out restaurants and cafes, too many Halida/Saigon/Hanoi beers, bus rides, motorbike rides, planes, jeeps, bicycles, and bloody feet from walking everywhere.
In the meantime, in case you're wondering what happens to feet when you wear the same pair of flip-flops for a month, here's what it looks like:
More pictures coming! (yes they'll be more interesting than the one above, I promise)
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