Lifestyle travellers Paivi and Santeri - Travel stories and books

Travelling in Victoria, Australia

2012-01-30T07:05:00.000+07:00

Visiting a Western country after a while was like a nice little holiday. We had potable tap water, a functional public transportation that was almost never late, relatively clean streets and public toilets that had toilet paper.

The weather was a surprise. We headed to Australia in January to be sure that it would be warm. Indeed, the first three days were fantastic: almost 40 degrees Celsius which reminded us of the lovely summers we spent in the French Riviera and in Sicily. After a few days, however, the temperatures drop to 18 and at night to 12. We were wondering where does the image of Australia as the land of beaches, surfing, and suntanned people come from.

Deadly Sun and Expensive Living

The sun in Australia, as well as in New Zealand, is piercing thanks to the hole in the ozone layer. Sunblock is an absolute necessity from early morning till late afternoon. The annoyance was comparable to malaria mosquitoes in Africa. Fortunately sunscreens are sold in huge economic packs and they are cheap. We bought a big bottle to take with us to South-East Asia.

Almost everything was ridiculously expensive, much more so than in most parts of Europe. This doesn't make Australia a tempting tourist destination at the moment except for world travelers for whom high salaries and the friendly working visa policy are an attraction. Even Australians find it cheaper to vacation overseas. Probably the American and European economic crises will hit Australia at some point and this might make Australia a more lucrative choice for tourists again.

Austria, The Country Of Kangaroos

We spent most of the time in Melbourne, but explored also surroundings. In Mansfield, 200 kilometres northeast from Melbourne, we had an awesome hike to the Australian Alps and also spotted some kangaroos.

In Dromana, 60 kilometres south of Melbourne, we experienced lovely countryside with lots of blackberry bushes and plum trees and a popular beach called Safety Beach. The name comes from sharks that the beach used to abound. In the old days, there were abattoirs that threw their leftovers to the sea attracting a bunch of sharks to the beach. When the practise ended, the beach was named Safety beach to assure people of its safety.

Do you know where does the name kangaroo come from? According to a long-standing myth, James Cook is supposed to have asked a native “What is that?” They replied “Kangaroo,” which means I don’t know in aboriginal language.

Friendly people

Customer service in Melbourne was very good. People are not in a hurry but have time to be nice to each other. Melbournians are in fact pretty gregarious. Strangers started to talk with us and engaged in long conversations. A few times we stumbled upon people whose husbands or mothers had been Finns.

Victorians come from pretty much everywhere in the world, nowadays especially from Asia and Russia. This means that you can also get all kinds of groceries in ethnic stores—although of course with Australian prices. Also wine and spirits are expensive although Australia is a wine-producing country because of high taxation. Despite of this, Australians love to drink. There are plenty of supermarket-sized liquor shops even in smallest suburbs and towns and some of them are even drive-in ones.

Cheers!

A new quarterly newletter

2011-12-31T05:39:00.000+07:00

TV Nomads (Q4/11)

Ao Nang, Krabi, Thailand

2011-12-15T12:38:00.007+07:00

Päivi's parents came to visit us in Asia. It was their first time outside Europe, so it was easiest for them to select a package tour. We ended up spending two weeks in Ao Nang in Thailand.

Ao Nang (or Aonang) is near Krabi (or Crappy) and an hour or so from a more famous tourism destination Phuket (or Fuck-It), and the island of Phi Phi (pipi means sick in Finnish). They are all popular holiday destinations for Finns. In fact, we have not seen so many Finnish people in the same place since our visit in Finland in 2006.

Plastic Bottles And Feasting

Ao Nang is touristy and in consequence, there are a lot of unnecessary and polluting services available. People travel even the shortest distances by tuk-tuks or taxis, and restaurants sell refreshments in tiny throw-away plastic bottles and boxes.

We were surprised to learn that the hotel (by Aurinkomatkat) refused to order us water in reusable 20-litre bottles. That is the local way for obtaining drinking water in Thailand. We managed to buy one bottle directly from a lorry and paid the deposit (2.50 €). After that, the hotel fortunately agreed to re-fill the bottle with the normal price (0.35 €/20 litres).

The place used to be a backpacker hide-out but there is nothing left from those days. Nowadays it is a just like any other tourist trap. For vegans it is a nightmare, as there are only flesh-based meals available. Luckily, there is a big Tesco in Krabi for self-catering. We ended up enjoying fresh fruit from the sumptuous local markets most of the time.

Night Crawlers But No Jellyfish

In the evenings, streets were cluttered by turtling tourists and aggressive touts jumping on everyone making walking rather an unpleasant experience. Perhaps that is why people used so much motorised transportation. On the other hand, we spoke with a few entrepreneurs and according to them, the amount of tourists had dramatically fallen this year. They were downscaling for worse times ahead. Also same old problems with visa-runs persist.

Ao Nang is not a place we are going to miss, but it made seeing Päivi's parents possible. For them, it was a soft landing on Asian soil and we enjoyed the great weather, blue sky (after China), and the possibility to swim in a jellyfish-free sea.

Macau: More Portuguese Than Chinese

2011-12-11T14:01:00.006+07:00

If China is a big factory and Hong Kong a huge electronics shop, Macau is an enormous casino. The Chinese come to the city to gamble as gambling is not officially allowed on the mainland.

We loved Macau—not because of Las Vegas like bling-bling—but because the city is walkable. It is always nice to go to places, especially in China, where you are not pushed and squeezed from all directions in an overcrowded subway. There was also less spitting, pollution, cutting in line, elbowing, and other Chinese specialities.

Former Portuguese Colony

The city is charming with its narrow Portuguese-style alleys. We happened to be there during the Fringe Festival and got a chance to see and film a performance on the main square. Another big plus of the Portuguese heritage is that you can buy good red wine with almost South European prices. The best of all, though, is potable tap water. Guess casino money can do something good, too. The overall impression was much like fancy Brunei, except Brunei is a Muslim state making money by selling oil.

Macau welcomes travellers from the EU by 90-day entry stamps.

China today: Abundance and Megalomania

2011-11-27T21:12:00.002+07:00

We visited China for the first time four years ago. Although we had expected some development, we were surprised. Everything was brand new, bigger, higher, and faster, in a word megalomaniac.

We travelled to China to see old and new friends all over China and visited Shenzen, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Wuhan.

Chinese railways used to be fast, efficient, and affordable for long-haul trips. The new phallus-shaped bullet trains were even too fast and much more expensive. We are not in a hurry but enjoy the travelling itself, and don't mind slow and time-consuming train trips so for us, the value was low. Now there was considerably less choice as the government is pushing people to choose bullet trains by cutting down ordinary train lines in order to get returns for their investments.

Many Changes in Four Years

Another tangible change was vastly improved Internet censorship. Earlier it was easy to circumvent the Great Chinese Firewall (GFW) by using open proxies and anonymisers. This time everything was blocked including instructions, proxy lists, and client downloads. The only way left is to have friends outside China providing a VPN connection or an ssh tunnel, or to buy a vpn service from foreign companies exploiting the situation. Our friends helped us by providing an ssh tunnel to Finland. Thanks to that, we were able to continue blogging, sharing photos, and participating in social media.

Our friends had prospered and lived in abundance. They had more cars, bigger cars, lavish houses, maids, fancy downtown offices, and consequently much less time and much more stress. China appears to have absorbed well the Western self-destructive values of ever-lasting growth and worshipping materia.

Air pollution was worse than ever. Päivi was coughing and we could rarely see the blue sky. The cities were covered in constant haze. We would have much rather travelled slowly through cramped railway stations and walked, if the country had been cleaner, the sky bluer, and people happier with more time for each other. We hope to experience that kind of change on our next visit to China. For us, less is more.

How To Make Passwords Safer?

2011-11-14T18:30:00.005+07:00

What makes passwords insecure? The answer is simple: because they are changed too seldom. If passwords were time-dependent and changing constantly, they would become less useful for crackers.

Internet abounds with instructions how to select a good password. They tell you do's and don'ts, but they all have one weakness in common. If the password is stolen, it doesn't matter whether the password is good or bad, because it will be available for misuse until it has been changed. If part of the password changed for example depending on the time and date, the password would become useless for crackers.

Time-Dependent Passwords

Automatically changing passwords do not exist yet. Basically, such a system would require that part of the password consisted of numbers or letters present in the date. The logic behind the password would have to be defined when entering the password for the first time. The user could define which part of the time and date will be included. It could be for example the date or three first letters of the name of the weekday. The user could also choose whether to insert this information to the beginning or to the end of the password.

The biggest obstacle in using time-dependent passwords lies in thinking. Passwords would no longer exist as relics that are difficult to invent and troublesome to change. They would become nomadic, ever changing. After overcoming this mental block, password checking libraries should be updated to meet new requirements and afterwards also all software and services requiring logging in. No doubt these changes would be less expensive than current costs that result from cracked systems. If you like the idea, feel free to propose this to the vendors whose software and services you use, and promote it.

7th Wedding Anniversary

2011-11-12T10:13:00.003+07:00

The previous wedding anniversary we celebrated in Italy.

Images From Hong Kong

2011-11-11T12:53:00.002+07:00

Zen And The Art of Making Money

2011-11-10T21:02:00.004+07:00

We listened to an audio book called Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (1974). A friend had recommended it. We found the book rather confusing: a lot of fancy words and concepts but fundamentally nothing about nothing.

Our MP3-player played the chapters accidentally in a random order making the book more challenging than it was meant to be. It attempted to discuss philosophy using Eastern concepts of Zen Buddhism like Eckhart Tolle in Power of Now (1997), also recommended by a friend, with the exception that Tolle uses mystical language of Indian gurus instead of Pirsig's kitchen philosophy. Power of Now is pseudo-spiritual new age literature.

Explaining The Unexplainable

Both writers try to describe enlightenment verbally. It is a challenging task as the words form an obstacle for understanding. They try to give meanings to the meaningless and fill the void with empty concepts. One can only experience enlightenment, not tell about it or sell it.

If people who buy these kind of books are not yet lost, they surely will be after reading them. What are philosophies or religions needed for? To understand death and find the meaning of life plus tools to stay alive and to become immortal in the eyes of others, remembered after the death. Paradoxically, buyers only make the authors rich and immortal. Perhaps both books should have been called Zen And The Art Of Making Money.

Pirsig's book is a bunch of copy-paste quotations from various famous philosophers, random lists of things combined with author's musings on philosophy and naive remarks. If you are interested in learning philosophy in a form of an entertaining story and proper explanations, we recommend instead reading or listening to Sophie's World by Norwegian Jostein Gaarder (1991).

Behind the Great Chinese Firewall

2011-10-31T19:02:00.004+07:00

We are currently in China and no longer able to access our blogs, Facebook, photo albums and many other Internet services. The censorship is now more advances and strict than it used to be. We will continue blogging and reply to comments after we leave the country. Meanwhile, please send us e-mail. See you!

Impressions of the Philippines

2011-10-16T16:45:00.004+07:00

Visiting Ajay and Maria, Russian travelivers, draw us to the Philippines. We arrived in Clark, a former US military base, which we found nice and green but as expensive as Botswana. From there we headed to Manila where we enjoyed a typhoon for a few days before continuing to Dumaguete on the island of Negros where our friends currently live.

Päivi had visited the Philippines twelve years ago and many things had changed: the country was now more American, English was widely spoken, and the cities looked less undeveloped. We didn't have to travel muddy roads cars getting stuck and people having to push nor did we experience excessive power outages (which locals call brown-outs) daily as Päivi had feared.

The Filipino culture has become very American, even to an irritating degree. Tipping is expected and junk food chains are everywhere. The upsides include that almost everybody speaks English and the customer service is rather polite. We were also delighted by the availability of inexpensive oat meal flakes in the supermarkets.

Weather and Beaches

It was raining a lot, more in Manila, a bit less in Dumaguete. The amount of rain and typhoons depends greatly on the location. The rains were mostly showers except when the typhoon hit Manila. That rain lasted for two days and caused some flooding, though a lot less than the international press photos insinuated. Temperatures were between 25–34 degress Celcius and nights warmer than on Borneo. If you want to have a beach holiday, it's a good idea to go to some of the major tourist sites like Boracay as the majority of the coast line is not tempting for swimming. The beaches are brown and stony, there is quite a lot of trash in the sea, and probably also jellyfish.

Getting There and Around

There are three major means of public transportation: flying, buses, and jeepneys. Flying is relatively inexpensive, but you will be ripped off with outrageous terminal fees (4€–15€ depending whether your flight is domestic or international). On top of that, you will have to pay the regular flight taxes. An honest way would be either charging taxes or terminal fees, not both. If you want to avoid flying, there are inexpensive long-distance buses and jeepneys for short stints. Walking is a bit challenging as there are no sidewalks and some drivers get irritated by pedestrians. Traffic is chaotic even in small cities because of a huge amount of recklessly driving tricycles, kiosks on three wheels.

Dangers and Annoyances

You will see a lot of armed guards with shotguns, pistols, and rifles in front of banks and shopping centres everywhere you go. We haven't witnessed such paranoia anywhere else. The amount of guns topped even Kenya. Every time you enter a shop, you will be searched and your belongings will be checked. It is most likely that you will be asked to leave your bag in a locker. We have the habit of asking in such situations: “If you don't trust us, why should we trust you?” In Dumaguete, the most annoying detail in security check was that we were forbidden to take our reusable shopping bag with us. When we refused to accept their polluting plastic bags and carried the stuff in our arms, the guards ran after us thinking we had stolen the goods.

The Spanish influence of the conquistadores can be seen in Catholic religion, afternoon siesta (between noon and 2 PM), and the vocabulary (e.g. cincuenta, cinco, basura, multa). Locals like cockfights which are as disgusting as bull-fights in Spain and zoos in the rest of the world.

If you don't mind rain and love drinking, smoking, dating Asian girls, eating junk food, and enjoying dirt cheap living costs, the Philippines is your paradise. For us the biggest plus was potable tap water, rare luxury in Asia.

Kampung Life on Borneo, Malaysia

2011-09-29T21:59:00.009+07:00

We spent four months in a farm in the middle of nowhere enjoying immensely peace, quiet, the lack of internet, our own compost, washing with rain water, and the local laid-back rhythm of life.

Our base was in the state of Sabah in Kampung Takuli. Although Sabah is part of Malaysia, people want to distinguish themselves from the West Malaysians (peninsular Malaysians). They are proud of their own slowly disappearing tribal cultures and history.

The main native people of Sabah are Kadazans, Dusuns, Bajaus (also known as sea-gypsies), and Muruts. The house where we were staying belongs to Dusun people whose culture became most familiar to us. The Dusun were known to be peaceful farmers who hid to underground holes when head hunters attacked in the old days. Today many of them have left kampung (countryside in Malay) searching for work elsewhere, usually in bigger cities. Our host, Justin Wong, had worked and lived years in Singapore but returned four years ago. Last year he started growing chillies in the farm.

We helped Justin in small tasks such as watering chillies before he got a farm hand from East Timor. After that we were mainly writing and keeping the house habitable. June, July, and August were exceptionally dry for the tropical rainforest area. The longest dry period we witnessed was two weeks and water was really needed—otherwise all the plants had died out. As we were sharing the rain water reserves with plants, there was practically no washing or cleaning during the dry periods. Full days of direct sunlight are too much especially for small seedlings which have to be covered with nets to prevent leaves from burning, they needed the water more than us.

Weather

In September the rains started. They can be really heavy but do not necessarily last long. During a rain shower, the metal roof of our house kept such a loud noise that we were not able to hear each other. As the rain water collecting system was leaking in the kitchen, the room got cleaning every time it rained. Luckily it did not rain in our combined lounge and bedroom. It could have been fatal for our electronics.

The actual rainy season should start in November-December and then the nearby village of Beaufort is usually flooded. Locals told us that during some days of the year it is impossible to go out because all the streets are under water. When the heavy rainfall is expected, people horde groceries and stay inside until floods are over. Usually this takes a couple of days. We got a taste of what it is like when we arrived in Beaufort in June. We had to exit the railway station from the backyard walking on the rails as the front yard was covered with water. There were warnings not to step into the water as it carried some diseases. Another problem during the rainy season are mosquitoes and snakes climbing to houses to escape floods. We did not want to experience that first-hand.

While paper factories are raping Brazilian rainforests for paper production, oil companies are converting Borneo rainforests into palm oil plantations. At the same time the climate change is damaging the ecosystem.

Getting There and Around

The public transportation is non-existent in the countryside. Instead, there are private people who drive illegal pirate vans. There are no timetables nor any written information about prices, routes and places of departure so for tourists staying just a short time it is not a viable option—especially because tourists are supposed to take expensive taxis or “charters,” which are pirate vans reserved exclusively for their use. At first pirates refused to transport us, but after seeing us walking in the kampung area they began to recognize and accept us.

Vans proved to work fine. Once a week we walked 11 kilometres to Beaufort early in the morning right after sunrise, visited Internet café, bought groceries for a week, and took the 10 am van back to kampung. There were several drivers, but the word had spread about us so even new drivers always knew where to stop without us telling them directions.

There were no other foreigners in the area so we were quite a sight wherever we went to. People greeted us and the most courageous ones came over to talk. Sabah people are quite shy so most of the time they contented with “Good morning!,” waiving or honking their car horn. We felt a bit like Queen Elisabeth on our morning walks and jogs, and when visiting Beaufort.

Dangers and Annoyances

One of the main challenges of living in the countryside is drinking water. There was a communal water pipe in our house, but it had been broken for quite some time. The local water company had assessed that fixing it would have cost ~1000€—quite an outrageous price considering the local price level. Luckily, Santeri managed to fix the pipe in a few hours awarding us luxurious running water.

Another problem was the quality of water like in many undeveloped areas. Sometimes it was clear having no taste or colour, but within a couple of hours, it could suddenly turn yellowish. Sometimes there was algae which meant that it might have not been potable even after boiling. We had a big stockpile of water containers which we filled whenever water was potable. This way we could tide over the days of muddy contaminated water. The problem of the drinking water is paradoxical as Borneo has many rivers and the yearly rainfall must be among the highest in the world. Still, people suffer from the lack of water or of bad quality.

Electricity is usually badly, even dangerously installed. Power cuts occur once in a while, but during our four-month stay they were very short, usually lasting only a couple of minutes. The longest cut was two hours. We do not even want to think about the amount of problems during the floods both with potable water and electricity.

Compared to West Malaysia, Sabah is more easy-going, friendlier and less arrogant. Definitely worth a visit or even a long stay. If you prefer urban areas to kampung, KK (Kota Kinabalu) is a cute little town with nice green areas and waterfront. The same visa rules apply in Sabah as in West Malaysia. Europeans get three months when entering the state from any foreign country and can make a visa-run quickly, cheaply, and easily to Brunei by bus and boat via Labuan. We had been warned that Borneo is expensive, but we found it as cheap as Italy and Thailand thanks to government price regulation and dirt-cheap fuel prices.

Fancy Brunei

2011-08-18T06:37:00.013+07:00

Tiny Brunei is extremely friendly for visitors. During our short trip, many people came spontaneously to talk with us, cars stopped politely for us pedestrians, and in the market we got a bunch of bananas as a welcome gift.

It is easy to appreciate this wealthy, clean, and organized country. Sadly, it is just a stop-over for many tourists, including us. The capital Bandar Seri Begawan, known as BSB, has very little to offer. The city is easily walked around in an hour or two, and there is little to do except visit mosques or admire the old stilt houses of Kampong Ayer, the famous Water village. The country reminded us a little bit of Monaco in its wealth and quietness, although it is much less densely packed. It also bears some resemblance to Bhutan, except that Brunei is not arrogant and materialistic like Bhutan which only accepts rich tourists willing to spend a lot of money during their stay.

One of the most extreme things you can do in BSB is actually walking. Everybody seems to have at least one car and there are no walkways outside the city centre. We walked an off-the-beaten-track route from the airport to Gadong shopping area along a busy highway, some six or seven kilometres in the bush with snakes, but fortunately they were more scared of us than Päivi was of them. Some policemen smiled widely when they saw us trekking and crossing busy highways running like crazy.

Brunei has a great public transportation system. The small minibuses look exactly like Tanzanian dalla-dallas in Dar-es-Salam except that they are cleaner and less packed. They operate all over the city for 0,7 €/trip except for the ferry terminal Muara for which you have to pay doubly as Muara is located 21 kilometres outside the city. The traffic stops early. The last buses leave around 6.30 pm. After that, practically all the capital's shops will also be closed and it's time to retire to a hotel. We visited BSB during the Ramadan, but heard it had nothing to do with the quietness. "There's nothing here", an Indian businessman told us.

Hotels are expensive but there is always the good old, safe and sparkling clean Hotel Airport waiting for tired passengers! The only minus was the lack of free Internet connection. Most of the airports offer nowadays a free wifi.

Visa-Run from Malaysia to Brunei

We visited Brunei to renew our Malaysian entry permit. The trip was quick and cheap. From Menumbok, Sabah, we first took a ferry to Labuan Island (1,5 €; 1,5 hours), Sabah's tax free paradise which abounds liquor shops, and from there a speedboat to Muara (9€; 1 hour) in Brunei. The whole visa-run from Sabah to Brunei and back cost us about 25 € per person and it can be managed in one day if in a hurry. A big plus for the ferry companies is that they offer a free wifi in both terminals, in Muara and Labuan. Some travel guides misleadingly claim that one gets only a 30-day entry stamp instead of the full 90 days in Labuan. You will get your full 90 days just like in West Malaysia.

Keywords: Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan, BSB, Kampong Ayer, Muara, Labuan, Menumbok, Malaysia.

Built-In Failure

2011-08-09T07:47:00.004+07:00

Have you ever wondered why people buy so much medicines? Or why there are always more problems than solutions in every piece of software? The reason to that and many other glitches in our world is the built-in failure.

Think about it. What is the function of medicine manufacturers? To make and sell as much medicines as possible. If their medicines cured customers permanently, they would soon be out of business. They need to make people sick keeping them barely alive to be able to maximise their profits. Therefore it could be customers' best interest to avoid using medicines. Which other built-in failures do you recognize?

When troubles are good for business

Software companies help their customers by providing solutions to problems. Their business depends on the problems and it thrives on problems — less problems is a problem. So creating solutions that actually increase problems is better for business than solving any of the existing problems. More problems mean more sales and profit. For a customer, the best solution is not to buy any solution at all.

In the society, the police is a good example of a built-in failure. The police is supposed to make a country safer for its citizens and deal with criminals: to protect and serve. What would happen if the police actually took care of them? They would not be needed any more. So, its in their best interest to keep crime levels high for justifying their existence and spread insecurity.

On the personal level, built-in failure happens when you try to do something, or you say, for example, I will try to do my best. To be able to keep trying, you need to fail because if you succeed, you cannot keep trying any more.

Impressions of Travelling by Train in Thailand

2011-06-07T11:13:00.002+07:00

Monkey Temple in Prachuap Khiri Khan

2011-06-07T11:10:00.001+07:00

Truth Today: A Red Shirt Demonstration in Bangkok

2011-06-07T09:25:00.004+07:00

Laos: A Vegan's and Sportslover's Paradise

2011-05-14T21:36:00.005+07:00

We spent a month chilling out in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. The place is fabulous if you don't long for any activities. There is nothing special to do except enjoy the laid-back Lao lifestyle.

A visit to Laos doesn't ruin your budget. You can get nice double rooms with fan or air-con and wifi starting from 70 000 kip (6 €). Eating out costs you 1-2 €. We had a rare luxury of finding three all-you-can-eat vegan buffet restaurants 20 000 kip/person (1,7 €) each. Considering how small Vientiane is, the offer was abundant. As Laos is a former French colony, there is also plenty of baguette and red wine available.

The city is charming. You can clearly see the colonial past in boulevards and attractive green areas. There is only a little traffic and pollution compared to other South-East Asian capitals and the only annoyance—if you can call the timid approaches that—are the constant solicitations of tuk-tuk -drivers.

Open-Air Gym and an International Film Festival

Along the Mekong river there is an excellent possibility for jogging and training in an open-air gym for free. It is popular among locals early in the morning, but there is always room for a few more people.

We happened to be in the city at the time of the Second Vientiane International Film Festival. We went to see a series a Burmese short films and participated in the discussion about the difficulties of Burmese film makers. None of the films shown had been aired in Myanmar because of censorship. According to the directors, the country lacks the concept of documentary. The festival was free of charge, but in the theatre there was plenty of seats left.

Expensive Withdrawals and Short Visas

There are plenty of ATMs in Vientiane, but it is good to note that every withdrawal will cost you an extra 40 000 kip (3,5 €) on top of exchange losses and charges of your own bank. Also the maximum withdrawal is quite small, two million kip, so if you are staying a long time, it is a good idea to take cash with you and exchange it. The best currency to bring in is Thailand Baht. Kip cannot be exchanged outside Laos.

The downside of Laos is that you can only get a one month visa. After that, you have to exit the country and buy another visa, or extend it in the immigration office, which is slightly more expensive. The way to Thailand is not long, only some 20 kilometres (5000 kip or 0,4 € by bus), but the whole idea of a visa-run doesn't make much sense. In Laos you can do it as many times as you want. Despite of that it is still a short-sighted business model that drives tourists away, especially when the nearby countries Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia, offer visa-free stay.

There has been some progress in Laos' visa policy, however. We considered visiting the country five years ago but at the time there were only two-week visas available with the same price (US 35 $), which was too much for us. We are glad that now we came for a visit, and it is also quite possible that we will return later after the rainy season is over. It is hard to imagine a better environment for writing a book or relaxing.

Recycling Tricks To Consume More

2011-05-03T20:09:00.008+07:00

Do you sort your trash? Where does it end up? Why?

We were waiting for a bus in a bus station in China. While sitting in waiting room we were watching locals performing their duties. In the middle of the hall there was a trash can with two departments: one for recycling materials and the other for mixed trash. At the end of the day a cleaner came and emptied them both to the same trash bag.

Not Only In China Or New Zealand

That woke up our interest. After China we have been travelling in Europe in France, Spain, and Italy, and met travellers from all over the world. We have been asking about how recycled materials are handled in different countries. Most of them did not know, but those who did told, that after recycled waste is collected, it is put together and burned for energy.

Europe is not an exception in burning trash. The same happens in green New Zealand. When we lived there we noticed, that recycling is a matter of honour for locals. Our neighbours were keenly washing their trashed, packing them to green plastic bags, and a recycling car collected the bags to recycling centres where the trash was put on display for a few months so that anyone could go there and pick it up if they needed them. Finally all leftovers, which usually totalled all the collected recyclables, were shipped over to Australia for burning them. “The system has it weaknesses, but it's better than doing nothing”, commented the local official who was responsible for the recycling scheme.

Cleaner Conscience Instead Of Nature

In Italy mafia is in lucrative recycling business. They make money disposing super poisons. The stuff is loaded into old tankers which are sunk to the sea. Less dangerous poisons are buried into mountains like nuclear waste in Finland. Near Naples they are also disposed to ditches carrying them to sea. The results are similar to burning trash: all poisons end up to nature and return to the circle of nature, because it is cheaper that way.

Do you know how that works where you live? How big amount of the trash you sort ends up re-used, where is it processed and used, and what is made out of it? Or is it just burned together with all other trash? A phone call to your city hall will help clarify this matter. Please share the information by for example leaving a comment to this story.

If the trash simply is burned, recycling is actually harming nature more than helping by tricking people to consume more, driving consumerism. In that case the only sustainable solution is polluting less by reducing consumption.

Keywords: recycling, environment, ecological, ecology, circle of nature, sorting trash, green, trash, waste, poison, pollution, Italy, France, Spain, Finland, New-Zealand, Naples, Italy, Mafia, nuclear waste, super poison, consumerism.

True Finns And Fake Finns

2011-04-24T11:28:00.006+07:00

We were reading an old Bangkok Post newspaper and saw news about the recent parliamentary elections in Finland. A nationalist party called Perussuomalaiset was translated in the news as True Finns.

The translation is hilarious. More accurate alternatives might have been Simple Finns, Basic Finns, or Elementary Finns (like in elementary school). The logic would follow better the party's ideology: We don't want foreigners to live in our fridge, steal our food, drink our vodka and seduce our women. Go away evil foreigners!

The nationalist party is exploiting Finnish racism. Most Finns are proud to be racists, but they do not reveal their thoughts publicly. Racism has been an integral part of Finnish culture and Finnishness for ages.

During the World War II, Finland was allied with Nazi Germany. There were concentration camps in Karelia and some crazy Finns were planning to conquer the Soviet Union and create Great Finland. Those war criminals were never charged and the atrocities have not been confessed nor apologized. Instead, Finns are proud of their war heroes, independence and—racism.

The positive outcome of the 2011 election result is that now Finns are openly what they are: xenophobics. The downside is that the ours what the voters are craving after, don't really exist as everything in Finland has either come from Russia or from Sweden.

Nationalism serves the interests of the elite like it has done for centuries. Voters are being promised a brighter future but the politicians will be the only ones enjoying it. Fortunately corruption and greed will quickly fix the situation. Or does anyone know any political party that has kept their promises and acted for anything else but their own good anywhere in the world?

Malaysian Beach Paradise: Perhentian Islands

2011-04-19T12:29:00.008+07:00

Perhentian Islands are a paradise for swimmers and divers: water like gin and no poisonous jellyfish around.

We were practically all the time in the sea swimming. We haven't had many chances to enjoy jellyfish-free seas during the last years. Penang coast has jellyfish. In Mombasa, one jellyfish found Päivi right away when we went swimming for the first time in Diani Beach. Before that we were staying in the Mediterranean which is unfortunately also infested with the nasty swimming companions. Some days were OK to swim but many times we went to the beach just to see the warning flags.

A paradise for msg and meat eaters

There is not much else to do in Perhentian than swim, dive and sunbathe. It is a perfect place to chill out. For party animals the place is probably a disappointment as alcohol is not widely available and it is rather expensive. Just a few days before we arrived, the police had raided all the bars and destroyed one of them.

We enjoyed the peace and quiet. Food was the only thing that made us return to the mainland. There were no vegan and msg-free food available in the restaurants and when we bought toast—the only food available apart from flesh-flavoured instant noodles—fearless giant rats raced our chalet all night long to get their share of the toast. It was a sleepless night.

Good old island scams

Compared to other South-East Asian tropical islands, it is pretty much the same. There are scams when getting into the island. In addition to the jetty ticket, 50 Malaysian ringgits (12€) for return, you have to pay an extra 5-ringgit (1€) conservation fee. It is a government enforced fee. Poor Malaysia needs desperately the money for keeping the beaches clean. Despite our donation, there was some trash on the beaches, but not too much. This kind of milking foreigners reminded us of Gili Air in Indonesia and Jericoacoara in Brazil. Remote locations that require special transportation are always perfect spots for rip-offs.

If you go to the Small Island, don't take the offer to go straight to the Long Beach. They will call a special taxi boat which costs you extra. The way from Coral Bay to the Long Beach is only a 10-minute walk. From the Long Beach you can get a chalet with 20-40 ringgits (5-10€) with shared shower and toilet facilities. Not bad!

Living in Penang, Malaysia

2011-04-18T10:04:00.001+07:00

We spent the last couple of months in Penang, Malaysia. The island is interesting with its Malaysian mix of people. There are the Malays, the Chinese and the Indians plus a lot of Western pensioners who are after warmer weather and cheaper living.

The island is densely populated and touristy, much more than we expected. Some parts remind Spain's Costa del Sol with ugly highrisers and terrible traffic. It is a pity because the island itself is beautiful. There are only a few unspoilt places left.

We had a chance to live in a Chinese neighbourhood away from the hassle. People greeted us in the street and dog owners stopped to talk with us. Because we were always walking, people offered us rides probably thinking that we are too poor to own a motorbike. Sometimes they thought we were lost because we were so far away from the touristy areas where the Westerners hang out.

Easy Living

The tiny island is quickly explored. Normally a couple of days should be enough for a visit. We stayed longer because we finished writing the Finnish manuscript Urban Nomads—Adventurers or Vagrants which was interrupted in Africa by the scamming landlord. We had a possibility of signing a rent agreement of a nice condo with a sauna, swimming pool and gym at affordable price for one year but we thought the contract was too long and flat too big. Now that the manuscript is in commentator's hands for some months, we are free to explore.

The weather is quite nice outside the monsoon season which is supposed to be from November until February. This year March and April were exceptional. There was plenty of torrential rain. On some days, we couldn't take our daily walk. The humidity makes everything grow mold so we experienced some flu-like symptoms like coughing. In Malaysia mold is considered an aesthetic problem rather than a health hazard. The marks are covered by paint. We are using vinegar to kill the mold.

Penang is good if you want low living costs and easy living without much excitement. That is why so many pensioners choose Penang. For Europeans, the visas are easy. You get automatically three months which is renewed with every exit for free.

Cerebral Malaria in Africa

2011-04-15T10:20:00.005+07:00

There are many man-eaters dwelling in Africa, but the most dangerous ones are the mosquitoes. We decided to travel without preventive malaria medication and here is how we did it. The next twelve months will show how successful that was.

There are many variants of malaria. The most dangerous and common species of malaria parasites is P. falciparum causing cerebral malaria. It is responsible for 80% of all infections and 90% of all deaths. Within 24 hours, it reaches the brain and can cause coma, which reduces the chances of survival significantly. A mosquito gets the malaria parasite by biting someone who has malaria and then transmits it to everyone she bites. The only effective way to not get it is stay out of Africa or avoid mosquito bites. We chose the latter option.

A Deadly Nightly Hazard

Malaria mosquitoes are active at night. Some people told us that the dangerous time begins at 8pm, others talked about 10pm. We went to bed at sunset around 7pm and woke up around 5am at sunrise. At night, the most common way to protect yourself is to sleep under a mosquito net. The net is hanged from a hook in the ceiling. We had a few times some very well fed mosquitoes inside the net. The first one was hiding under the bed when we lowered the net and the second time happened when there was a dog sleeping in the same room. In the middle of the night, she jumped to our bed opening the net for unwanted visitors. It can become quite hot inside the net as it also hinders air flow and blocks the effect of a fan.

Another option is to use insect poison to kill mosquitoes. There are devices spreading poison all night long. All you have to do is to remember to refill the poison liquid, or change the poison pad, and plug the device. This means that also you will be inhaling the poison. The room has to be relatively air tight and there shouldn't be any screens on the windows. Otherwise the poison will flow out without expected effect.

The last night in Africa we stayed in Jollyboys' Backpackers Hostel in Livingstone, Zambia (see the photo). It was the rainy season meaning also mosquito high season in one of the worst malaria areas in Africa. We were quite surprised to see that in our dormitory of sixteen people we were the only ones having a net, which we had to go and buy by ourselves because the hostel offered none, nor spraying or any other protective measures.

Medication benefits only the drug factories

From what we learned from Africans we met, the malaria has resistance to the drugs taken in advance that medicine factories eagerly promote in Europe. That's why we decided not to take anything. In the best case, we would have gotten a false feeling of security and in the worst some nasty side-effects. Folklore is also suggesting that eating a lot of raw garlic helps to keep mosquitoes away. We did that, too, as we love raw garlic, but the only definitive reaction we received was empty seats around us in buses and aeroplanes.

There is no way to predict the malaria risk. We met many people who had lived decades in Africa without medication and had never had malaria, so there seems to be hope. But on the other hand, we also met people who only stayed in Africa for a couple of weeks and got sick right away. If you want to be on the safe side, it is perhaps best not to travel to malaria areas at all. Trying to avoid mosquitoes is quite stressing and no matter how careful you are, some of them will anyway bite you.

Key words: Malaria, prevention, preventive, medicine, P. falciparum, Tanzania, Zambia, mosquito, poison, net, medication, cerebral, brain, hospital, antimalaria, chloroquine, doxycycline, mefloquine, lariam, primaquine, atovaquone, proguanil, malarone, heliopar.

Santeri Is Running For The Finnish Parliament

2011-04-01T09:50:00.006+07:00

Santeri has accepted candidacy and runs for the Finnish parliament in the elections held on the 17th of April 2011.

We are organising our haste return to Finland and preparing for the election campaign. Santeri is looking forward to working in the parliament making Finland a better country to live in.

The candidacy was announced in the campaign kick-off together with the new electoral web site revealing the party he joined and his political alignment. You can help us and express you support by spreading information about the candidacy, and by donating money for the campaign.

Santeri's Truly Unique Election Themes

There are many things Santeri is going to promote including racial tolerance, anti-nationalism, individual freedom, veganism, paganism, cutting down the use of motorized vehicles and equality. He is also determined to fight for downscaling the Finnish public sector at least 50% for balancing the country's economy, and promoting nation-wide downshifting with the slogan: less is more. Saving the world will save us.

We are not worried about the late start of the campaign as Santeri is fairly well-known in Finland thanks to his prior appearances in the high-level media like TV and nationwide newspapers, and his reputation as a tough and unyielding entrepreneur. We decided to let other candidates smear and knock out each other, and join only the end-game for the final victory.

Thank you for all the support we have received so far and please let us know if you happen to know any free houses near Helsinki city centre available for rent for four years. The price is not a problem as Finnish politicians are fairly adequately compensated and enjoy many lucrative means of income including election support and the possibility to raise their own salaries. A garden and a sea view would be a plus.

Welcome to visit Santeri's campaign web site!

PS. If you have any questions or you want some further information, please visit the campaign web site for answers before leaving comments or contacting us. Thank you.

Keywords: Santeri Kannisto, Finnish Parliament, candidate, election, vote, support, MP, Member of Parliament, https://sites.google.com/site/AanestaSanteriEduskuntaan/.

Less Harmful Nuclear Power

2011-03-21T03:48:00.004+07:00

Nuclear power is said to be less harmful than coal. It does not pollute environment and release radiation into atmosphere like burning coal.

If the cooling system of a nuclear power plant fails, it's less harmful to let some steam out than risk overheating the reactor.

It is less harmful to convince the public that everything is fine, because otherwise there could be a panic causing more harm than the minor radiation leak.

It is less harmful to cool down the overheated reactor with sea water and return the radiating water back to the sea than letting the reactor melt.

It is less harmful to tell to the public that the radiation leak was as nominal as normal background radiation and not harmful at all than driving people to hoard radiation meters and iodine.

It is less harmful to tell that the reactor exploded but the casing will hold than cause an uncontrolled mass migration because of the lethal fallout.

After the reactor has melted, it is less harmful to convince everyone that the reactor will soon be sealed and further radiation leaks blocked.

It is less harmful to tell people that the reactor seal is holding and they are safe than unveil that they are going to die soon because of radiation. There is no reason to burden their last days on earth with technical details.

Could it be less harmful to downshift and reduce consumption to better match the capacity and resources of earth instead of using nuclear power?

No Thanks To International Women's Day

2011-03-09T15:18:00.010+07:00

Yesterday was International Women's Day. The day has been celebrated since 1909. Why didn't we participate?

For us the celebration is chauvinist. There should also be International Men's day celebrated with equal intensity. Now the women's day exists only to promote differences between men and women, not to make them more equal. Equality does not mean creating barriers, but uniting.

Why Not Every Day?

If the English language speakers would like to increase equality, the whole language should be fixed. Words that separate genders—like pronouns he and she—should be replaced with gender neutral words and in some other languages masculine and feminine forms should be removed. Finnish language has very few gender dependent words and those remaining are currently being rooted out and replaced with gender neutral terms.

If you want to celebrate women, why don't you do it every day? We have proposed the same approach for Valentine's day, which we have replaced with True Friend's Day. We celebrate it every single day of the year except on Valentine's day.

La Habanera Got A Face-Lift

2011-02-18T09:18:00.013+07:00

Six years has passed since we published the first edition of La Habanera—a book discussing our escape from the Rat Race. It is the first book we wrote together and our first free e-book.

At the time we wrote the book, we made a rough English translation hoping that someone would assist us in revising the language. In the past years several people had offered to do the job, but no one had managed to finish the big job yet.

A few weeks a go we got an e-mail from a fellow urban nomad who had read the Finnish book offering to do the English revision. Now face-lift is ready, language revised, and the book has a new, typographically fixed layout. La Habanera—The Escape From The Rat Race 4th Edition is hereby published in our new electronic library.

A Trip To Memory Lane

When we were proof-reading the draft the content felt still valid. A few things have changed: we are no longer smoking, drinking, devouring flesh, committing gluttony, or visiting cafés and restaurants. We also prefer walking instead of using motorized vehicles. Everything else is pretty much the same. Reading the old text was a trip to memory lane luring us to visit La Habanera and Brazil once again.

La Habanera has also been translated into Hebrew by Noam. So far the book has attracted hundreds of thousands of readers and it is the most popular book we have written. We would like to thank everyone who has volunteered to help, Tomi for making the English language revision and everyone who have sent us feedback about the book or read it. Thank you so much for your support and please let us know if there is anything we can do for you.

Happy True Friend's Day

2011-02-15T08:51:00.003+07:00

Three Reasons To Travel To Africa: Volunteering, Charity & Safari

2011-02-08T19:36:00.023+07:00

We spent two months in Eastern and Southern Africa visiting Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Botswana and Zambia. Travelling was exciting as always, but all the countries we visited had a serious problem with the services and products—very little value for the money spent—and an attitude problem towards white people, mzungus. We were puzzled: Why so many travellers had recommended the area to us?

After two months' touring we understood that travelling, working and living in Africa is motivated by three things: it is a way to relieve guilt, an opportunity to gaze at wild animals or to get kudos as a seasoned traveller.

The possible dangers of travelling in Africa were discussed every time when we saw other travellers and locals. Here and there you will be mugged, might get malaria, or meet natives practising cannibalism. When returning from Africa, these same fearsome travellers become heroes in the eyes of others.

You Have Everything—We Have Nothing

One of most vexing things for us in the East and South Africa was the relationship between white and black people, or the rich and the poor. A common presumption is that all whites are wealthy and they come to Africa just to share their money with locals. This mentality applies to all interaction including begging, selling, renting, transportation, and robbing. According to African logic, the rich should have a bad conscience for having materially so much more than the poor. Besides, white people belong to the bad Colonialist race and must pay for their heritage. If you resist, things get complicated, and even if you give something to locals, you mustn't expect any gratitude. You are just doing what you are supposed to do, fulfilling your part of the deal.

We encountered racism towards white people and tourists for the first time in Brazil in the beginning of our trip. Beggars approached us demanding a cigarette or some money on the grounds of our race and status as travellers. We didn't give them anything nor did we do any spontaneous charity or volunteering in Africa. We are not compassionate enough to be thankful for being hassled.

The mentality was ever present and annoying. When getting approached by a gang of bad-smelling and dirty hawkers trying to touch us and staring at us angrily, someone less courageous might have interpreted their marketing effort to be a threatening situation or even a robbery, and given up his or her valuables to avoid further inconvenience. This was a very common situation in the areas where we travelled. People were more aggressive in the touristy places which always attract fortune-seekers. South Africa and the capital of Botswana were a bit different because they are more developed, but on the other hand the price level was even higher than in the neighbouring countries and value lower. In a world-wide scale, Africa is the low-value-leader while Asia is its high-value opposite.

If you don't have riches or a guilty conscience, you might feel sick and tired after travelling a while in Africa. The greed and open exploitation was far more prominent in East Africa than in any other country we have visited. But for the sake of fairness, it is important to realize that it is—to some extent—part of the tourist scene everywhere in the world.

Volunteers, Charities And Missionaries

Many people travel to Africa to show off how great and caring they are. They become volunteers or start a charity to help and spread the Western gospel of consumerism to ignorant natives just like missionaries did in the old days. Having a nice car and a mobile phone seem to be strict necessities for Africans even if they live in a house build from cow dung and without running water. Polluting is in today's world a privilege and it defines your value as a human being. The more you buy, the better person you become.

Donating to the poor relieves guilt. It works the same way as giving money to a church. If you sin, you pay, and after the remission you are free to sin again. However, it is far cheaper and less polluting to get rid of your sins by going to a local church or to get an appointment with a psychologist than travelling to Africa.

Volunteering and charities continue the traditions of colonialism and slavery. Westerners think that as we come from the civilised world, we know everything better and must educate ignorant locals. It is also called patronising. In its worst form it makes locals objects and positions them as children who must listen quietly and obey. A curious detail is that the majority of travellers we saw were white women. Is the reason nurturing instinct?

Pestering Animals in Safari

Animal watching is another popular reason for a trip to Africa. Having photos with wild beasts on the background proves that you are not afraid. Travellers are naturally happy to pay safari organizers a lot to make sure that they are not in real danger because in fact they are afraid. Isn't this a strange way to demonstrate courage? We managed to see many wild animals just walking around and travelling by bus. We spotted monkeys, crocodiles, camels, zebras, rhinos, a giraffe and many other animals without chasing them.

If you really want to pester animals, you can do it easier in a local zoo. There the pitiful means of money-making are stuffed into small cells so that tourists can easily take photos. In Africa, you need to hire a driver to pursue the poor animals and corner them for photo shooting. For us, game parks, national parks and reserves are nothing but zoos, and Africans proved to be passionate animal-lovers only when they were making money. We saw many times locals throwing stones at stray dogs just for fun.

No Thanks To The Guilt And Zoo

Our original thought was to stop on the way and rent a flat for finishing our newest manuscript. We tried and failed. After that, we didn't find any suitable place with necessary facilities and at affordable price. For us mzungus, Africa is surprisingly dear, even more expensive than Europe except that we don't get any value for our money. What good is air-conditioning, hot water, fridge and TV if you don't have electricity?

After two months' touring, we were relieved of the puzzle of the fascination of Africa and also the compulsion to stay around any longer. We took a turn to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to ponder our experiences, finish writing the manuscript and enjoy life. We might return to Africa later to explore the West and the North about which we have heard—once again—so many good things.

Key words: Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Zambia, South Africa, guilt, church, charity, poor, mzungu, white, whites, safari, East Africa, Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, missionary, mission, consumerism, consumption, western ideals, car, mobile phone, shit house, running water, poverty.

From South Africa to Zambia by Bus

2011-01-25T15:59:00.005+07:00

Zambia is best reached overland from south as roads and buses are considerably better in South Africa than in Tanzania or Malawi.

The trip is easily done in two parts. The first leg from South Africa to Botswana is monopolized by Intercape Mainliner. They have daily departures arriving 9 pm to the capital of Botswana, Gaborone. If you have over 20 kg of luggage, prepare to pay a rather ridiculous fee for the overweight. From Gaborone you can take a bus to Zambian side, either in Livingstone or Lusaka.

Grey And Developed Gaborone

The Intercape Mainliner was half empty when we boarded from Johannesburg. The trip went smoothly in a Western-style bus through northern countryside. The border formalities were quickly done and cost us nothing. The citizens of the European Union get a lavish 90-day entry permit.

Arriving to Gaborone included some hassle. The workers of the bus company offered to call taxis to take passengers to hotels. According to them, there were no hotels near the bus stop and it was dangerous to walk downtown at night. As we don't like taxis, we kindly turned down the offer and decided to have a look at the city ourselves.

In the bus stop one fellow passenger, a young Botswanan woman clinged on us asking for help. She said she was afraid of going around alone and asked if she could follow us. Soon she started to ask for money for taxi and tried to borrow our non-existent phone. We got rid of her, and after that found out that there was a hotel right around the corner, though an expensive one (80€). We found a more reasonably priced option with the help of local police. Still it was expensive, 45€, and included facilities we didn't use like satellite TV, fridge, air-con, hot water, telephone, and wifi. We just wanted to sleep but as it was raining and we were pretty tired, we stayed.

Later we found out that Gaborone lacks budget accommodation just like the rest of Africa. This little city of 500 000 inhabitants is built mainly for administration and business. It is pretty dull for sightseeing and the main attraction are the parliament houses.

The weather in Gaborone was chilly and rainy although it was summertime—much like in Europe. We wanted to continue onwards as soon as possible and with as few stops as possible because every stop in Africa means a lot of hassle: lurking pickpockets, touts, and hawkers. We bought tickets straight to Livingstone in Zambia with Gaborone-Lusaka Express which took off the same evening.

A Hurryless Express Bus

This time the bus was considerably downgraded. The seats were cramped: three seats on the one side, two seats the other. Also the roads started to deteriorate. It was raining the whole way and the bus was hydroplaning as the tires were in less than perfect condition. Inside was chilly and sweaty because of humidity. People were sneezing and coughing and of course we got a flu afterwards, too.

Despite the company's name “Gaborone-Lusaka Express”, the bus stopped in every little village and even in the middle of nowhere to let people out or to the toilet. The worst delay was in the border, though. First we waited for the border to open and after that for the next bus to arrive as there was another bus for the Zambian side. This took four hours after which we waited for the ferry to cross Zambesi River.

Livingstone Tourist Heaven

Our destination, the city of Livingstone was a one-hour-drive away from the Kazungula border. It was touristy because of nearby Victoria Falls that attract bungy jumpers and other fearless adventurers.

The small city centre is full of backpacker places, hotels and motels. We hadn't seen so many tourists on our trip - not even in Diani Beach in Kenya. Fortunately we could escape the rush to the countryside some twenty kilometres away from the city. We stayed in Crocodile Creek's peace and quiet sitting in the outside lounge and watching crocodiles to swim by. Quite a paradise and a perfect ending for our East and South Africa tour.

A Dead-End Called Dar es Salaam

2011-01-24T15:34:00.010+07:00

Travelling to Dar is pretty straightforward but getting away is challenging unless you want to spend a lot of money on flights or ride the potholed roads on crappy buses.

Our first option was to take the Tazara train from Dar es Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia. For that we bought a Zambian visa from the Zambian Consulate and paid 75.000 TSH (40€) each for a single-entry, three-month visa. The Consulate had no lights nor air-con on when we applied for the stamp but the next day when we returned to pick our passports, there was electricity. Did our visas pay their due bill?

Tazara Train

The Tazara train station is five kilometres away from the city centre. We went there early in the morning to buy the tickets right after getting the visas. There was already a queue at 7 am. The ticket sales counter opened officially at 7:30 am and in reality at 8:00 am when the salesperson finally arrived.

Unfortunately there were no tickets available as the train was broken—or fully booked as they explained the situation. The next available train would have been 1,5 weeks later. We couldn't wait because of our short Tanzanian transit visas. Moreover, we had already walked around Dar es Salaam so many times that there was nothing more to see.

We rejected the train and shopped around for cheap flights to neighbouring countries. We visited altogether some twenty airline companies and travel agents. The flights to Lusaka, Zambia, were outrageously expensive, almost US 500$ (376€) per person. With that money both of us could have flown to Mumbai.

Bustling Buses

There is obviously not enough competition in flight business in Tanzania to keep prices decent. We decided to visit the bus station and ask their offers, too. That was a hassle. Right after stepping out from Dalladalla, a local minibus, a bunch of hawkers and touts started jumping on us. While we walked past all bus companies, we had a tail of thirty eager bus ticket sellers behind us. Everybody was shouting at the same time: “Where do you want to go?”, “Which company?” We couldn't even hear our own thoughts not to mention that the sellers tried to become too intimate. They were touching us and insisted on shaking hands.

All the offers we got were naturally mzungu prices. We had earlier learned from two Indian guys in the Zambian Embassy that the normal bus fare to Lusaka is 22.500 TSH (12€) per person. For us, however, the price was 85.000 TSH (45€) per person. Maybe they had better buses?

We decided to have a look at the vehicles. In photos, and from a distance, they looked acceptable, but a closer inspection revealed that it was only the outer paint jobs that were well done. The interior was rather absent. Motors, tyres and suspension had seen their better days in the previous millennium. The artificial leather seats without any kind of air-con promised a very sweaty ride of over 20 hours in an overcrowded couch. It was not an option for us.

The Solution

We started searching for cheap flights to Johannesburg thinking that we can more easily move upwards from South Africa where roads and buses are in better condition. This proved to be a good strategy. We found a 144€ flight with Zambesi Airlines with a stop in Lusaka. The price was twice cheaper all the way to Johannesburg than to the first stop in Lusaka. No logic at all as is often the case with airline tickets.

Zambesi Airlines served us well. It would have been even possible to exit in Lusaka but the weather was so rainy and chilly that we decided to go all the way—not to mention the second delicious warm meal waiting on the plane.

Dar es Salaam proved us that the old wisdom about remote and undeveloped places is still valid: “You pay or you stay”.

Key words: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, travelling, flight, cheap flights, Lusaka, Zambia, Johannesburg, South Africa, Zambezi Airlines, bus, Tazara railway, train.

Nose-picking in Tanzania

2011-01-09T13:59:00.007+07:00

According to a popular travel guide, there is not much to see in Dar Es Salaam except the outlying island of Zanzibar. This means less hassle and rip-offs in the city itself, which is not necessarily bad, especially if one is coming from Kenya.

We took a swing to Tanzania's capital, Dar Es Salaam, to apply for a six-month visa to India but learned that they only grant three-month visas in the Tanzania embassy. We were kindly advised to apply the visa from Finland. That cryogenic treatment is not really tempting. Was this the famous Indian hospitality or bureaucracy?

We came from Mombasa, Kenya, by bus. The ride took nine hours with border formalities. The road was partly potholed rodeo and the driver was speeding the tarmac parts. Once he was passing by a truck and hit a cow damaging the bus and killing the poor animal.

The Must-See Sights In Dar Es Salaam

Dar Es Salaam is easy to walk around with a compass and a free photocopied map available at the official tourist office. We didn't try taxis, but the amount and eagerness of drivers predicted a lot of expensive, unnecessary sighseeing.

One of the city's main tourist attractions is a modest Clock Tower in the heart of the city. It works with solar power and shows four different times. All clocks had stopped. It is therefore advisable to choose carefully the time of arrival so that the clock you want to see will be on time.

Zanzibar is the main tourist attraction in the area. It is particularly famous for Arab architecture, which is— according to us—best experienced in Arabia, not in Africa. We skipped the overly expensive ferry trip and touristy hassle.

Not Cheap But Not Expensive

In Dar Es Salaam, you can get a decent hotel room with a fan, TV and breakfast for 25000 TSh (13 €). We spent the first night in a 14000-Tsh-hotel and had a mini-safari with bedbugs and other exciting nightly man-eaters. In the morning, we upgraded our accomodation and found a nice hotel in a busy local area where we were the only mzungus, white people.

Taxi drivers went crazy when they saw us and started yelling “Mzungu, mzungu!” There was also mzungu prices in some shops, and some hotels even had separate prices for residents and non-residents like in Russia, one number but in rubles for Russians and dollars for foreigners.

Other similarities with Russia—or the former Soviet Union—were local supermarkets. The first time we went to one of the biggest Tanzanian supermarkets called Shoprite, the lights were dimmed and there was no bread available because of electricity shortage. The shelves had some stuff, but the selection was poor. Still there was a lot of people guarding the precious few goods. Prices were much like in Kenya but obviously too dear for locals. They seemed to do their shopping in the market or in small local kiosks.

The Nose-picking Nation

English is spoken but not as widely as in Kenya. Most of the people speak Swahili and can have trouble understanding English words pronounced in a non-African way. We got by with the help of a map and compass as locals could not always direct us to the right place.

Dar es Salaam does not feel like a really African city except in one thing: public nose-picking. We have not seen such a dedication to this sport anywhere else in the world. Even the kitchen maid was practising it while putting our two breakfast bread slices to a plate.

Our journey continues. More news coming soon—stay tuned.

Kenya: Surprisingly Expensive For Mzungu

2011-01-05T05:11:00.011+07:00

We are leaving Kenya despite our wishes to stay around a bit longer. Renting a flat didn't work out the way we expected—instead, we got a mzungu treatment. Mzungu means a white person in Swahili and it is often derogatory.

We started our trip from Nairobi and stayed there a week. The city was OK. We didn't feel unsafe despite the city's reputation of "nice robbery", Nairobbery. The only downside was the temperature. On daytime, it was a bit above 20°C and during the night 14-15°C. Heading to the coast was more pleasant because the temperature rose on the better side of 30°C.

Renting is Tricky Business Everywhere

Renting a flat is challenging everywhere in the world as only lawyers are worse conmen than real estate agents. This is what happened to us in Diani Beach in Mombasa.

We rented a two-room flat from a local Ukunda businessman called Solomon who owns the Ndoto Apartments. We wanted to start with a three week trial period and told him that if everything goes smoothly, we will stay in the flat up to six months. We also agreed that during the busy Christmas season we would stay six nights somewhere else because our landlord had a reservation to the flat.

The first two weeks went fine and we liked the flat. It was quiet and comfortable for writing and the beach was near for our morning jogging and walks. But then, after the two weeks, Solomon suddenly came to us and begged to pay him three months' rent upfront claiming that he needed the money badly for paying the electricity bill. The sum was 45.000 Kenyan shillings (420 €). After he got the money, everything changed, especially the landlord himself. He became arrogant and didn't appreciate us as customers any more.

Water started to leak from the ceiling threatening to destroy our laptops but nobody came to repair the damage. We had to put basins to avoid flooding. Then the Christmas came and Solomon moved us—one day earlier than agreed—to a barn that used to function as a brothel. It was within his compound, just beside geese and goat staples and the junk yard. Solomon claimed that his original idea had been to place us in some nice hotel and said that he had even negotiated us a good price for the stay, but when we went to see the room and they saw that we are mzungus, the price suddenly jumped 12-fold.

From Rags to Riches

While living in the barn, we got to know a bit more about our landlord's life and business practises from the village people. We learned that he had been a beach boy selling himself to old mzungu women. He had made his fortune by marrying an elderly Western lady who was still living in the compound. She had lost all her investments and fortune to Solomon by signing some papers without checking them properly while madly in love. She had later divorced Solomon but stayed in the premises apparently sharing Solomon with his second wife—a local woman with four children.

We saw the lady a few times tiptoeing in the shadows and avoiding other people. Once she replied to our greeting looking away. The unfortunate past may explain her behaviour. She seemed to be a prisoner in her house.

Take the Money And Run

We were supposed to move back to the flat in six days but before the six days had passed, Solomon came to us again and said that we would have to stay in the barn longer or find another place. This time our patience and flexibility were tested a bit too much. None of Solomon's suggestions were part of the deal we had made. We started to argue with him. We got Solomon to promise that we can move to another, almost equal flat in his house.

A few days passed and the good old ritual repeated. Now Mr. landlord was acting even more arrogantly, which according to some locals was because of the high season and getting so many customers. December is the only busy month in Mombasa. During the other months holiday flats are empty, especially from March when the rainy season starts. But naturally if you ask the prices, the never-ending high-season is always on as we wrote in our Brazilian tourism guide.

Solomon got seemingly irritated by our counter arguments and offered to return us the money. This was what we wanted. We had had enough and wanted to leave as soon as possible but it wasn't so easy. Solomon of course didn't have the money. He said he would return it some day soon which didn't convince us at all. We had heard that some of Solomon's guests had had to take him to the local police station before he had returned their deposit. Their guess was that Solomon would never give up the money, no matter what we did.

The Final Act

On the 29th of December when we were supposed to be back in the flat, we climbed to Solomon's roof-top lounge to meet him. He was in good spirits, laughing with some guests who had just paid for him for their stay. Assuming the best, we were cheerful, too, until Solomon came to us. He started once again giving excuses and telling that we would not be able to move to the flat, or in general, to any of his flats because now all of them were rented to some other people who were paying more than us. He said that we could stay for free (in reality with the same high price we had paid for the flat) in the one-room tiny barn a week or two more, but for sure no more than a month.

So the landlord wanted to rent the flat we had paid for to other people; to eat and save the cake! We confronted him. He had one more trick in store: his friend could accommodate us while waiting for our flat to be free, until the 3rd of January. He insisted us to have a look at the flat and that was also locals' advice, who were quite convinced that squeezing the money back from Solomon would prove to be impossible. The guy was always broke.

The other flat was acceptable, but in the middle of the discussion Solomon slipped out that he had agreed with his friend to give him all our money as a compensation for the three months' stay. He had no intention of giving the original flat back to us. We had really had enough of his stupid games and asked him to give the money back right away and reminded him of the favour we did by giving him the upfront rent so that his Nairobi guests were able to enjoy electricity on their Christmas holiday. Finally he put his hand into his pocket, took out a wad of notes and gave us our money back.

We were relieved that the Kenyan renting story was finally over. We didn't feel like asking around any more flat offers nor even staying in the country. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Living a few weeks under pressure, having constant issues with trust and money, and feeling cheated were not increasing anyone's happiness. At best, there were only losers in this game. We lost a few weeks of the time we would have needed for writing our newest book. Solomon on the other hand lost everything: his customers, reputation, and our money he had been hoping to keep. He will have some dry months ahead when the few tourists vanish after the so-called high season and the rains arrive.

We found it sad that so many Kenyan people see mzungus, whites, as walking money bags. They assume every white person to be so rich that they deserve to be treated badly and cheated. This unfortunately also applies to some Kenyan Couch Surfers, who only use CS to earn money. We received some uninvited approaches made with this aim.

New Year Wishes

We are all one. By harming each other we end up harming ourselves. Money and possessions do not increase happiness, love does. And happiness can not exist in the past or future, old years or new years.

We wish you a happy present, this magical moment that contains all the time in the world. Let the happiness fill your life right now—no matter if you are a mzungu or non-mzungu.

Former Mzungus

Key words: Solomon, Ndoto Apartments, Ukunda, rent, renting, rental, flat, Diani Beach, Kenya, cheat, scam, mzungu, steal, money, police.

Happy Next Gregorian Year (Q4/10)

2010-12-31T16:06:00.002+07:00

Our latest quarterly newsletter is out: Happy Next Gregorian Year (Q4/10).

Enjoy!

Season's Greetings

2010-12-20T16:13:00.003+07:00

Virtual Matatu Ride In Mombasa, Kenya

2010-12-04T19:05:00.002+07:00

Greece: Life in the Middle of the Crisis

2010-11-22T13:07:00.010+07:00

We stopped by in Greece for a few weeks before heading to the south and witnessed life in the middle of the financial crisis.

There is no denying that the country is suffering despite the bailouts and international donations. So far people have been denying the gravity of the problem but now the reality is slowly sinking in. One can clearly hear and feel the downbeat atmosphere when speaking with people.

Many have lost their jobs, working hours have been cut, and salaries are paid late if at all. Corruption is as wide-spread as in Finland, but not so cleverly hidden. Better off are those who know people in strategic positions and can find their way past the enormous queues in hospitals and get good jobs.

Immigrants on Transit

Many young people rely on their parents as there are no job opportunities for those who lack experience. The Greek are skilled in languages but hesitate to move abroad. Family ties are strong like in other Mediterranean countries and keep people sedentary.

There are plenty of illegal immigrants arriving from Afghanistan and Iraq through Turkey and heading towards Italy. The city of Patras is one of the hotspots for the refugees. They try to hide in trucks as Greece is only a transit country on their way to the real EU. We saw many of them trying to get into parked vehicles in front of the port in Patras. Most fail miserably as security measures have been tightened and the Italian side of the border in Brindisi looks like a prison camp with metal detectors, fences, and vehicle scanners.

What will be the future of Greece? Obviously the problems won't be erased in a year or two. In Finland, there was a financial crisis in the 1990's which took almost ten years to overcome. Taxes were raised, and at the same time the public services collapsed. After the crisis the country was clearly divided in two: the rich who could afford private services and the poor who were put into eternal queues.

There are also other countries in similar conditions waiting for discovery. It is a self-deception to think that any of these crisis could be solved by donating more tax-payers' money. The issues are on a structural level and in people's attitudes. The whole political system would have to be fixed first.

A Few Practical Tips For Travelling In Greece

We enjoyed Greek markets where you can find lots of good quality fruits and veggies for a good price. Supermarkets, on the other hand, are outrageously expensive. For example olive oil begins from 4€/l whereas in Italy you get a litre with a bit over 2€. Both countries produce olive oil. The general price level was a surprise, especially as the wages are very low. A normal salary for people having already worked a few years can be 1000€/month while the minimum salary is 528€.

The distances are not great but it is a good idea to take time for travelling. Public transportation is slow and always late. Athens is a natural starting point for any travel in Greece, but the city is busy, ugly, and polluted. The islands offer visitors more beauty and nature. In fact, you don't have to go further than Kalamata on the island of Peloponnesos. There you have heaps of beautiful beaches, sunshine and cleaner air.

Reading maps with Greek signs can be challenging. There are many ways of translittering the Greek street names so for example Google maps does not necessarily recognize the word you typed in. The Greek letters are similar to Russian, and also some other similarities between the countries can be found such as corruption, people smoking a lot, and an undeveloped toilet culture. Toilet papers are put into a special rubbish bin as toilets get easily stuck.

Bear in mind that credit cards and bank cards are not widely accepted. Even if there is a card reader, it won't probably accept international cards except maybe in some up-scale shops and airline companies. Another curiosity is that banks exchange currency for their own customers only. Tourists should do their exchange in special exchange offices offering worse rates.

We enjoyed our stay but our mind was already a bit elsewhere — in our next destination, East-Africa. We stayed almost three years in Europe enjoying visa-free living, potable tap water and predictable cultures. Although weather was much better in Greece than in Sicily, the cold and damp winters are no longer our cup of tea, and the excessive predictability becomes boring.

The BookMooch Experience

2010-11-19T13:27:00.011+07:00

We have been collecting books for our Urban Nomad research. It's been challenging as local libraries don't offer much literature in English, and on the other hand getting rid of piles of books ordered from online book stores before heading back to the road is not an easy task. We discovered an Internet service called BookMooch that seemed to offer a solution.

How the System Should Work

We registered to BookMooch on the 20th of July. In the beginning a new user is expected to fill an inventory. This means typing into the system the books you have and are willing to send to other users. Sending books gives you points which you can use to get books from others; three points if you send a book abroad and one point for domestic delivery. You get 0.1 points for each book you add to your inventory. When you ask for a book, it's called mooching, and it costs you two points abroad and one point domestic.

The system is rather clear and simple to use when and if everything goes fine, but this was not the case with us. We wrote to the profile that we prefer e-books to printed books, which was a taboo subject. Soon there was an e-mail from New Zealand claiming that e-books are illegal and soon after that our profile was edited behind our back with blatant lies about e-books being illegal. In the meanwhile, nobody from the administration bothered to contact us.

Now we have points left for ordering five to ten books, but some anonymous person from the BookMooch administration disabled our account so that we are not able to use the points. The system worked extremely well for getting rid of books, but unfortunately not that well for receiving books in return.

Too Good To Be True?

After our profile was edited, we fixed it back to its previous glory and added there a message to the administration:

TO BOOKMOOCH STAFF: Next time you edit profiles without without permission, please contact the profile owner first and make sure that you know what you are doing. That is common courtesy. Thank you

That was probably too much, because the next day the account was placed under “vacation” and soon after that, the profile had been emptied. Functions for editing profile, mooching books and contacting other members had been disabled with the following message:

You can't use that feature yet

Before you can use that feature, we need you to confirm your email address. A confirmation email will be sent to you in the next 24 hours, once an administrator has reviewed your account.

If you do not receive a confirmation message, it may be that your email address has a spam filter which is rejecting the message. You might want to try using a different email address at BookMooch or checking your spam filter.

You can email tech support if you need help.

Needless to say, trying to contact the administration was a waste of time. No replies, nothing. Also the guy who owns BookMooch, John Buckman, did not bother to respond.

Digging BookMooch a Bit Deepers

When the damage had already been done, we began to dig out what went wrong and read documentation provided in the web site and the Internet. We had not violated the terms of the site, but there was a hilariously ignorant notion at the end of FAQ telling that eBooks are not allowed because of “many issues with copyright, DRM, and no shipping for it to work with BookMooch at this time”. Perhaps expressing our liking of eBooks was too much.

A quick search of the Internet provided some interesting background information. We were not the only ones getting the BookMooch treatment. Here is what another former BookMooch user writes about the system in a blog comment:

(--) His [John Buckman] administrators are using the site to make money out of Bookmooch by creating their own accounts and mooching expensive books and giving away cheap books in return! Then they sell the books they've mooched. If a member competes with them in mooching hard-to-find or expensive books their accounts will be closed or suspended indefinitely based on ridiculous reasons, which are meaningful for only themselves! (--)

The site doesn't offer any venues for removing private information and at the same time it reserves all rights for selling private information to anyone. After checking the sites privacy statement, there was no doubt that the community was managed by fear and with serious lack of transparency in privacy as well as in the work of the administration:

- if you abuse the trust of the community by attempting to, or succeeding at “gaming the system”, violate the terms of use, or other forms of cheating or fraud, we reserve the right to publicly publish all your confidential details and identify you as someone we believe has betrayed the trust of the community.

Would you like your private information to be published when some anonymous administrator decides to get a vendetta on you for an unknown reason? The company operates under Californian law which explains the lack of privacy. Considering the site's code of ethics, practices of BookMooch administration and the outcome of our test run, we are not able to recommend BookMooch.

Other stories about BookMooch: BookMooch sucks, Review of Bookmooch.com, comments, librarytwopointzero: Proper review of Bookmooch, comments, LibraryThing discussion forum: BookMooching, shelfari discussion forum: i need help..., Book Chase: "When Free Books Aren't Really Free", Jingles got ripped-off 22 points.

Search words: John Buckman, BookMooch, book, exchange, scam, cheat, trading, selling, expensive, books, admin, adminstrator, administration, privacy, Amazon, bookmooch.com, de.bookmooch.com, es.bookmooch.com, fr.bookmooch.com, it.bookmooch.com, jp.bookmooch.com, pt.bookmooch.com, se.bookmooch.com.

Goodbye Europe (Q3/10)

2010-11-12T19:48:00.001+07:00

We have posted our latest quarterly newsletter to all subscribers. If you want to receive and/or read our letters, please sign up here. Enjoy!

Messina: The City Of Cars

2010-11-10T21:38:00.009+07:00

The Italians have many similarities with the Chinese. In both countries family ties are strong, government corrupted, there is trash everywhere, but people are most warm-hearted and hospitable. Moreover, in both countries people love to eat pasta (or noodles) and they feel strongly about their religion. The Chinese worship money and the Italians the Pope.

These striking similarities drew our attention right after arriving in Italy and they still feel the same after one year when leaving Italy. Despite the evident problems, we enjoyed the country a lot and ended up staying a whole year in Sicily in the two corners of the island, in Trapani and Messina.

East versus West Sicily

Trapani is more touristy than Messina. Thanks to this, the city has a bit better trash handling system, a cleaner look, and a smaller rat population. In Messina, we often spotted rats on our evening and early morning walks.

Cars are very important everywhere in Sicily and traffic is chaotic. Even the shortest distances required motored transportation. When jogging, sometimes cars seemed downright decided to hit us. The worst times were early Sunday mornings, when roads were crowded by drunk drivers.

In Sicily, cars are needed not only for moving around, but also for having sex. When walking on the beach we were wondering why there was always so many cars around, especially on lunch break. Soon we realised that secret lovers drove to the beach to enjoy each other's company in privacy. In Italian family houses there is seldom such luxury available.

North versus South Europe

Vertical differences are more visible than horizontal. The difference between South and North Europeans can be summarized in the dichotomy proactive versus reactive.

North-Europeans live for the future. They work hard, plan, save, and make investments for a better future. They make regular checks on their house to see that everything is working, and repair the things that can possibly cause harm sooner or later. In Finland, there is a saying that it is no use wiping your ass when the shit already happened. People think it is always better to prepare oneself for different kind of situations well in advance.

Italy is the opposite. Their saying is: "Non ti bagnare prima che piova", Don't get wet before it rains. They live more in the present moment and only care about the problems that are visible and cause substantial harm. Money is spent whenever one has some, and if a pipe is leaking in the house, a temporary solution is figured out instead of a big, costly renovation. This usually costs more in the long run, but who cares?

We knew the Latino mentality after spending a year in Argentina so we were prepared and did not get as frustrated as in Buenos Aires. Moreover, compared to their Southern American relatives, the Italians have more honour. If they fail to keep their promises, they are at least a bit ashamed about it.

Guilt is an essential part of Italian culture although people seem very careless and easy-going. The Catholic church makes society conservative and burdens people with guilt. The Italians feel guilty about not taking enough care of their parents or children, not being successful in life, not having a job. This guilt is naturally important for the church, because it makes people give them money for relieving guilt.

Summary

We enjoyed Sicily for many things. The best were of course the Sicilians themselves who appreciate foreigners coming to the island. Locals do not judge you by your appearance nor do they refuse to serve you if you don't speak Italian. English is not widely spoken but you will always get by anyhow. It is all about good will and mutual trust.

Another thing we liked a lot was the abundance of berries and fruits. We got to eat lots of blackberries, mulberries, prickly pears, chestnuts, strawberry tree berries (arbousier), figues, oranges, mandarins, apples. In Trapani we also had good time with stray dogs and in Messina we were dog-sitting Olive.

We decided to move on as Sicily already felt a bit too familiar. A change was needed. Happy travels and hope to see you around!

Our Sixth Wedding Anniversary In Sicily

2010-10-23T23:59:00.001+07:00

Today was our sixth wedding anniversary (Pasta-Peanut-Pistachio) and we celebrated it in Sicily, Italy. Here is a set of photos we took. Tomorrow we will celebrate Päivi's birthday and next week begins our 7th year on the road on our everlasting honeymoon trip.

Earlier wedding anniversaries:

Environmentally Friendly Way

2010-10-02T23:07:00.004+07:00

Amilo LA 1703 Overheating Problem Fix

2010-09-04T23:35:00.007+07:00

After our previous laptop was stolen in Spain, we bought a new one. We trusted German quality and chose Fujitsu-Siemens. The laptop has worked otherwise fine, but in warm weather (25 degrees Celsius or more) it shuts down automatically because of overheating.

All laptops, especially when used outdoors or while travelling, gather lots of dust to the cooling fan. Amilo LA 1703 is not an exception. It requires opening the case and cleaning the fan every 2-3 months. During the past months we have also been using a cooling platform with three cooling fans getting power from a USB port. On top of that, most CPU intensive tasks required a large stand-alone cooling fan pointed to the computer. Sometimes even that was not enough. The laptop is optimised for speed over stability.

Computer geeks love to tweak their hardware for squeezing out extra speed by overclocking CPU. Our solution was the opposite. We underclocked the processor by twenty per cent and this solved the overheating problem. When the cooling fan gets older and less efficient, we can compensate by underclocking the processor even more. If your laptop is suffering from similar symptoms, you might want to try Rightmark CPU Clock Utility for reducing speed and thus lowering CPU core temperature. Our next laptop will hopefully work without any cooling fan.

Keywords: Fujitsu-Siemens, Amilo, LA 1703, overheating, problem, cooling, fan, shutting down, shutdown, crash, dust, cooler, stuck, cooling platform, CPU, AMD, Semptron, Turion, 64 Mobile Technology, Cool'n'Quiet, powernow, processor, overclocking, underclocking, laptop, notebook, fix.

A Walk With Olive

2010-08-21T01:14:00.001+07:00

Trapani: A Taste of Laid-back Sicilian Life

2010-05-30T15:57:00.005+07:00

Trapani became quickly one of our favourites, and we ended up staying half a year. The city is nice and small with both the Mediterranean sea for lovely seaside walks and jogging and a mountain for hiking. Local lifestyle is laid-back, people friendly, vegetables good and reasonably priced, and there are lots of lovely stray dogs running around. What more could one ask for?

During the winter and spring Trapani was quiet and we seemed to be the only foreigners around. In May budget flight tourists came and the busier summer season started. The beaches were cleaned from trash and a lot of businesses were put up for tourists. It seemed like a good time for us to move on to some less touristy destinations.

View Trapani in a larger map

We recommend Trapani in the spring or in the fall to avoid the high season. The winter (January-March) is very cold as there is not necessarily heating available. This winter the temperature dropped down to 7 degrees Celsius and the wind was harsh. It is also a good idea to prepare yourself to the city's rubbish problem. There are lots of trash in the streets excluding the tourist-polished mountain city of Erice, Trapani's neighbour, and a huge amount of cars not really caring about pedestrians and air quality.

What to do in Trapani? We simply enjoyed walking around, especially in the waterfront, the historical centre, and hiking to Erice. Trapani is a small city where everything is within walking distance. On the left you can see a little map that can perhaps be of help when you visit Trapani. Thanks to our long walks, we got many dog friends around the city that we visited regularly to say hi. Some of the dogs are cautious about people and keep distance, others enjoy petting, but none of them are angry nor aggressive. Simple pleasures of life are the best.

Have a nice summer!

Welcome To The City Of The Dead

2010-05-10T00:57:00.004+07:00

Puppy Daycare Service

2010-04-22T17:14:00.001+07:00

We Appear on Finnish TV Today

2010-04-02T17:32:00.001+07:00

Last autumn a Finnish TV crew visited us in the Southern France making a documentary about previous economical depression in Finland in the beginning of the 1990's. The documentary is called Lamastalgia and the last 8th episode will come out today on Finnish TV.

Lamastalgia is a series about experiences of the previous depression and bank crisis in Finland. Santeri introduces the theme as software entrepreneur and also talks about the it-bubble and its bursting. Päivi accompanies Santeri and in one scene we are together writing our newest book, an IT-thriller called Takaportti.

The shooting was one of the few scheduled days for us last year and reminded us of the rat race we left in 2004. The previous time we were filmed for TV was in Antaiji Zen monastery in Japan.

Lamastalgia 8/8 will come out on Yle Teema channel twice:

Premier Friday 2nd of April 2010 at 9 pm
Review Sunday 4th of April 2010 at 2:45 pm

The series is unfortunately not available online. Santeri's and his former company's (SOT Finnish Software Engineering Ltd.) whole story is available in a book we wrote called Platinainen pilvenreuna.

Click Here For Good Luck

2010-04-01T00:00:00.009+07:00

[Suomeksi]

We saw various good luck charms, charts, cards and amulets in Cambodia. Santeri has now developed a software with which you can generate your own lucky pattern.

Good luck charms are not just myths. In many Asian countries they have an important cultural and religious role. In western countries people tend to ridicule them as Eastern mumbo jumbo, but we believe that you don't lose anything by trying.

Software Generating Lucky Patterns

Santeri's software is programmed with Python. It emulates the pattern of the Phnom Penh Wat Sam Rong Ander temple's lucky charm. Looking at the pattern or printing it and keeping it with you is believed to bring you good luck and protect from bad luck. Many locals recommended good luck patterns for us and so we started to carry a few Yom Bak Boy -cards in our backpacks.

The software is simple and works with any web browser. Click the button below and wait a second for loading and initialization. After that the it will produce your personal good luck pattern. You can watch and save it to your computer, or print it to carry with you. Please note that you need to use a colour printer with 600 dpi or better, otherwise the Moiré effect will spoil your printout.

Please check also our earlier april fool.

Europe Is Not That Expensive

2010-02-26T18:07:00.022+07:00

We have now lived and travelled two years in Europe and heard countless complaints from fellow travellers about Europe being too expensive, especially for people coming from dollar-economies. Europe has been expensive, but no more than for example Cambodia, Hong Kong, or Bolivia.

It is possible to travel in Europe with US 500$ / month for anyone who cooks his own food, prefers hospitality exchange and renting rooms instead of using hotels, and is willing to give up renting cars and using taxis.

Public transportation, trains and buses, and budget flights are the cheapest way to move around. The more south you travel, the cheaper they become. Hitch hiking can take some time, but it is an excellent way to meet people.

*Public transportation cost examples in Spain, Italy and France*
	From-To	Miles	US $/ person	US $/ mile
Train	Italy Ventimiglia – Genova	100	13.20	0.13
Train	France Nice – Toulon	93	29	0.31
Train	Spain Barcelona – Valencia	227	30	0.13
Bus	Spain Alicante – Granada	218	37.50	0.17
Bus	France Cagnes-sur-mer – Nice	8	1.40	0.18

Being a member of hospitality exchange communities makes travelling even cheaper. Hospitality exchange works well in Europe except in Spain where many hosts are males looking for female company. If you ask your host, s/he is probably eager to help you to find a room or a flat for rent for a longer stay.

Drugs Are Dear

Alcohol is relatively cheap in the south, especially wine in wine producing countries. White and red wine can cost less than US $2 / bottle. However, stronger liquors are more expensive as taxes are usually tied to the alcohol percentage. The more north in Europe you move, the higher price you pay for alcohol. Nordic countries and Finland are the extreme.

Addictions are expensive in Europe, while they are less expensive in, say Asia. Cigarettes have high taxes, the higher the more north you travel. Also coffee costs a lot, especially in coffee shops. The easiest way to cut costs is by stopping to poison yourself. If a cup of coffee in a coffee shop cost the same as two pounds of carrots, you can easily figure out which one keeps you in better going.

Eating And Sleeping

*Food prices in Italy and France*
Product	France, US $ (9/2009, 1,42)	Italy, US $ (2/2010, 1,35)
Milk, 1 gallon	3.0	2.5
Bread flower mix, 1 pound	0.6	0.7
Cheese, pound	3.1	8.8
Apples, pound	0.6	1
Bananas, pound	0.6	1.2
Potatoes, pound	0.2	0.2
Onions, pound	0.4	0.4
Eggplant, pound	0.9	0.5
Sallad, each	0.7	0.6
Eggs, each	0.1	0.1
Lentils, pound	0.9	0.9
Wheat flowers, pound	0.3	0.2
Crushed tomatoes, pound	0.5	0.4
Granulated Coffee, pound	7.2	10.1
French Red Wine, bottle	1.39	6.8

Eating in restaurants and staying in hotels or hostels are the most expensive ways to travel in Europe. A full tourist meal costs easily over US $30 dollars / per person. With the same price you can buy vegetables and fruits for one week. They cost in a local supermarket, e.g. Lidl, under $US 0.5 / pound everywhere in Europe. The same applies to accommodation. One night in a 3-4 star hotel costs almost the same as renting a room for a month. In two years we have only stayed three nights in a hotel, renting flats or rooms most of the time instead.

Basically the same rules applies to all other countries as well. If you want to show off, visit tourist attractions, and be scammed, travelling will be expensive no matter where you go. On the other hand, living in a modest and ecological, sustainable way reduces costs and enables travelling anywhere.

Visas And Winter

We have enjoyed hassle-free life as we don't need visas or living permits in Europe. These meaningless pieces of papers can cost quite a lot of money when travelling, some US $300-500 per year. They also cause a lot of unnecessary and unnecessary travelling, offer unpleasant experiences and cause uncertainty because of the despotism of local officials. This applies to all countries. Our Chinese and Serbian friends have been rudely mistreated by EU countries when applying for visas.

Winter in Europe is far from pleasant and one of the biggest reasons to stay away. In the north, houses are properly heated, but temperature differences inside and outside can be over 70 degrees F. On top of that, the more north you go, the darker it gets. The south is the opposite: there is no heating and houses are built to be cold as hot summer weathers are form a bigger problem for locals than cold winters. Sometimes it can be 32 degrees F inside at night. For outdoor people who like walking, temperature differences are not pleasant not to mention the physical changes winter makes to the body. And think about the amount of polluting energy wasted for heating. On the other hand potable tap water helps to reduce the amount of plastic bottle trash.

All in all, Europe doesn't differ from other travel destinations. By consuming moderately and choosing for less expensive options, you can travel well anywhere in the world. Hope to see you around!

Travel Photos And Videos

2010-02-22T22:33:00.047+07:00

Here you can find all of our travel photos and videos.

Photo Albums

Thailand, Krabi, Aonang

10 Dec 2011

Photos: 27

Macau

28 Nov 2011

Photos: 8

Visiting friends in China

24 Nov 2011

Photos: 21

Hong Kong

11 Nov 2011

Photos: 15

7th Wedding Anniversary

23 Oct 2011

Photos: 8

The Philippines

16 Oct 2011

Photos: 20

Borneo, Sabah, Malaysia

29 Sep 2011

Photos: 35

Khouadin vegan buffet in Vientiane, Laos

29 Sep 2011

Photos: 13

Brunei

16 Aug 2011

Photos: 34

Cherating (Little Bali), Malaysia

5 Jun 2011

Photos: 9

Laos, Vientiane

14 May 2011

Photos: 23

Malaysia, Perhentian Islands

19 Apr 2011

Photos: 17

Malaysia, Penang, Chinese New Year

18 Apr 2011

Photos: 13

Zambia, Botswana, South Africa

25 Jan 2011

Photos: 13

Tanzania

9 Jan 2011

Photos: 9

Kenya, Nairobi, Mombasa, Diani

31 Dec 2010

Photos: 16

Greece, Patras, Kalamata, Athens

22 Nov 2010

Photos: 16

Italy, Sicily, Messina

31 Oct 2010

Photos: 20

6th Wedding Anniversary

23 Oct 2010

Photos: 10

Oleg & Vadim visiting Sicily, Italy

10 Jun 2010

Photos: 54

Italy, Sicily, Trapani

May 31, 2010

Photos: 24

Italy, South

Oct 31, 2009

Photos: 40

Italy, Rome & Vatican

Oct 30, 2009

Photos: 21

Italy, People from Pisa

Oct 28, 2009

Photos: 18

5th Wedding Anniversary

Oct 23, 2009

Photos: 29

Italy, North

Oct 13, 2009

Photos: 15

France, Marseille, Toulon, and Nice

Sep 7, 2009

Photos: 47

France, Corsica, Bastia and Corte

Nov 30, 2008

Photos: 11

France, Languedoc-Roussillon

Nov 19, 2008

Photos: 13

We Were Robbed in Spain

Nov 6, 2008

Photos: 11

France, Midi-Pyrénées

Oct 10, 2008

Photos: 12

France, Limousin, Aubusson

Sep 29, 2008

Photos: 20

France, Hippie Cheese

May 26, 2008

Photos: 16

France, Auvergne

May 19, 2008

Photos: 5

Franche-Comté, France

May 12, 2008

Photos: 12

Switzerland, Basel

May 3, 2008

Photos: 7

Bourgogne, France

Apr 19, 2008

Photos: 14

Hong Kong

Mar 19, 2008

Photos: 30

La Loire, France

Mar 19, 2008

Photos: 19

China by Train

Dec 18, 2007

Photos: 54

Chinese Life in Fuzhou, China

Nov 27, 2007

Photos: 15

Nanjing, China

Nov 19, 2007

Photos: 8

Palladium-Porcelain-Panda

Oct 23, 2007

Photos: 13

Tibet

Oct 11, 2007

Photos: 50

China, Hohhot (Huhehaote)

Oct 1, 2007

Photos: 20

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Sep 27, 2007

Photos: 27

Vietnam by Bus

Aug 17, 2007

Photos: 33

Cambodia

Jul 22, 2007

Photos: 25

Cambodia, Angkor

Jan 27, 2007

Photos: 42

Cambodia, Phnom Penh

Jan 18, 2007

Photos: 33

Malaysia

Dec 23, 2006

Photos: 20

Myanmar

Nov 20, 2006

Photos: 13

Thailand, Our Wedding Anniversary

Oct 23, 2006

Photos: 7

Singapore

Sep 23, 2006

Photos: 22

Thailand, Chiang Mai

Aug 24, 2006

Photos: 32

Japan, Antaiji, Osaka

Aug 17, 2006

Photos: 84

Russia, Vogul Tour

Jul 24, 2006

Photos: 28

Russia, Trans-Siberia

Jul 12, 2006

Photos: 96

Russia, Rainbow Gathering

Jul 6, 2006

Photos: 32

Estonia, Tallinn

Jun 30, 2006

Photos: 24

Finland

Jun 10, 2006

Photos: 87

Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary

May 26, 2006

Photos: 22

Romania, Italy, Spain

May 17, 2006

Photos: 74

Argentina, Uruguay

Apr 19, 2006

Photos: 33

Bolivia, and around the Andes

Mar 3, 2006

Photos: 57

New Zealand

Oct 26, 2005

Photos: 64

Sydney School House Hostel

Oct 24, 2005

Photos: 9

Australia, Sydney

Oct 22, 2005

Photos: 21

Indonesia, Bali & Gili Air

Oct 12, 2005

Photos: 33

Argentina, Leaving Buenos Aires

Aug 12, 2005

Photos: 29

Argentina, 70's Party

Jul 15, 2005

Photos: 38

Argentina, Buenos Aires by Winter

May 15, 2005

Photos: 27

South Africa

Mar 14, 2005

Photos: 49

Argentina, Home

Mar 11, 2005

Photos: 43

Argentina, Buenos Aires

Feb 14, 2005

Photos: 22

Brazil, Sao Paolo

Feb 8, 2005

Photos: 9

Brazil, Rio de Janeiro samba carnival

Feb 7, 2005

Photos: 31

Brazil, Salvador de Bahia

Jan 26, 2005

Photos: 18

Brazil, Gaibo

Jan 19, 2005

Photos: 5

Brazil, Fortaleza

Nov 18, 2004

Photos: 45

Brazil

Nov 13, 2004

Photos: 24

Brazil, Brasilia

Nov 6, 2004

Photos: 13

The Netherlands, From Amsterdam to Sao Paolo

Oct 31, 2004

Photos: 5

The Netherlands, Honeymoon

Oct 28, 2004

Photos: 12

Finland, Our Wedding

Oct 23, 2004

Photos: 50

Finland, Päivi's Bachelorette Party

Oct 14, 2004

Photos: 17

Finland, Santeri's Bachelor Party

Oct 9, 2004

Photos: 20

Finland, Savonlinna Opera Festival

Jul 22, 2004

Photos: 12

Videos

Music video: Texting Away

Waterfall in our kitchen in Borneo

Monkey Temple in Prachuap Khiri Khan

Travelling by train in Thailand

Bangkok, Thailand: Truth Today

Matatu Ride In Mombasa, Kenya

Environmentally Friendly Way To Use Cars

A Walk With Olive

Benvenuto a Necropolis

Puppy Daycare by Päivi & Santeri

How Are Pasta and Olive Oil Made?

Video Greeting from Monaco

Greyhounds of Domaine De Pharamond

Tietoverkkotrilleri Takaportti

Fish Carousel

French Understanding of a Happy Holiday

Demonstrations in France

French Elevator Hightech

Matkusta Suomeen -mainoselokuva / Travel to Finland product placement movie

French Parking - Timing Is Everything

Christmas in Monaco

Eco Car Wash

Picture Puzzle

Mountain Boarding

Images of Aubusson

French Wedding Nuisance

Happy Mother's Day!

Asiakaspalvelu - tiedettä, taikuutta vai talonpoikaisjärkeä?

Ikea

Kake-Teppo

Hohhot, China

Kake-Teppo Reloaded

Chinese-Mongolian Border Corruption

Trans-Mongolian Railway

Platinainen pilvenreuna

Photo Albums By Year

2004-2006 from Finland, Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Bolivia, Romania, Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Hungary
2006-2007 from Finland, Estonia, Russia, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Mongolia
2007-2008 from China, Tibet, Hong Kong, France, Switzerland, and Spain
2009-2010 from France, Italy, Greece, Kenya
2011 from Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, Malaysia, Laos, Brunei, Borneo, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China...
2012 from Australia...

All our videos are available at YouTube.

Changes In Layout And Functionality

2010-02-22T16:26:00.003+07:00

We have changed some functionality and layouts of our web site. Please let us know if you encounter any abnormalities or have ideas how to improve the user experience further. Thank you for visiting us!

Books By Päivi & Santeri

2010-02-22T16:21:00.017+07:00

We make our living by writing business books and fiction.

Currently we are working on a research project on urban nomads, people who travel continuously from one country to another without steady home, address, and work.

We have been writing together since we started to travel in 2004 and enjoy it. Päivi had also written before working as researcher and journalist. For further information, please see her CV.

Our published books are available in Finnish. We also have some free e-books in Finnish and other languages including English, Spanish, and Hebrew.

Bibliography

	Tietoverkkotrilleri Takaportti (Backdoor, IT thriller, fiction) Kustannus HD, 2009.
	Asiakaspalvelu. Tiedettä, taikuutta vai talonpoikaisjärkeä? (Customer Service—Science, Magic or Common Sense?, a studybook) Amk-Kustannus, 2008
	Kullattu kakkalapio (Gilded Pooper Scooper, satirical short stories, fiction) Siniplaneetta, 2007 Also available as audio book (mp3) and e-book (pdf)
	Platinainen pilvenreuna Santeri Kanniston erokirja tietoyhteiskunnasta, yrittäjyydestä ja GNU/Linuxista. (Platinum Extreme, Santeri Kannisto's autobiography) Amk-Kustannus, 2007
	Johtamisen pakolliset kuviot (Compalsory Figures of Business Management, a guidebook) Talentum, 2005
	Suolatut säkeet (Vitriolic Verses, Doctoral Ph.D. Dissertation) SKS, 1997

Free e-books, click to download (pdf)

	Parisuhdekirja Onnelliset yhdessä (Happy Together, a book on couple relationships) Päivi & Santeri, 2009.
	La Habanera The Escape From The Rat Race Also available in Finnish and Hebrew. Päivi & Santeri, 2005
	Tourism Guide For Brazilians Finnish translation Turistiopas brasilialaisille was published in Gilded Pooper Scooper Also available in Spanish. Päivi & Santeri, 2005
	Suolatut säkeet (Vitriolic Verses, Doctoral Ph.D. Dissertation) The discursive formation undergone by Finland and the Finns from the seventeenth century to the end of the nineteenth century. Päivi Kannisto, 2008

About Päivi & Santeri

2010-02-22T01:58:00.016+07:00

We are a couple, Päivi and Santeri Kannisto. In 2004, we met each other and after living together for three months, we got married, left Finland, and started to travel the world.

Since then we have been on the road and travelled three times around the world. We are urban nomads, vagabonds, authors, loiterers, or homeless dropouts, depending on your point of view.

When we find a nice place, we settle down for a while. The longest stays have been in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Chiang Mai (Thailand), Toulon (France), Sicily (Italy), Hongkong (China), and Cheviot (New Zealand).

We make a modest living by writing books. For us the financial secret behind full-time travelling is consuming less rather than earning more. Many people in the world get by with less than 1 €/day.

Before our travels we worked in business. Päivi was Management Consultant and Santeri run his Open Source software company called SOT Finnish Software Engineering Ltd. Our professional CV is available in LinkedIn and Päivi's complete CV and bibliography in her literary blog.

At the time we met, we didn't enjoy working any more and wanted to do something more meaningful. We have written a book called La Habanera about the reasons why we left the rat race. It is available as a free e-book.

Currently we are working on a research project on urban nomads. We have interviewed 30 fellow travellers with the aim of making mobile lifestyle better known. The project arose from our own experiences. People have been either amazed, envious or scared about us and our lifestyle. We would like to show that travelling life is possible for anyone who is willing to question choices in life.

We don't have a telephone or an address, but feel free to contact us by e-mail. We hope to hear from you and wish you happy travels!

Call for participation

2010-01-19T00:35:00.009+07:00

Are you travelling the world? Do you know any full-time travellers?

We are making a survey on travelling people for writing a book. Are you travelling full-time or do you know someone who is? We need 20-30 persons representing different nationalities, who have been travelling continuously for at least four years in various countries.

The idea of the survey came from our own mobile life style. The people we have encountered have been interested in travelling people's way of life: who are they, why do they travel, how do they earn money. We believe this kind of information is needed not only for general interest, but for societies. Current nation states cannot answer to the needs of travelling people. Visas, passports, residence and working permits are making mobile life difficult, sometimes even impossible. Boundary-breaking information is needed to increase understanding between travelling people and their hosts.

We intend to make the interviews personally with the people who are currently residing in Europe, and use Skype with others. The interview takes approximately two hours. Our deadline for completing the survey is autumn 2010. After that we will analyse survey results qualitatively (discourse analysis) and write a book on the 21st century nomads.

The research is academic and non-profit.

Feel free to contact us for further information or to express your interest in participation by e-mail at paivisanteri.nospam@gmail.com. For further information please see Päivi's CV and academic merits. Thank you.

Keywords: Survey, interview, research, participate, community, society, national feeling, nationality, address, domicile, long-stay, visa, work permission, residence permit, passport, travel, travelling, traveller, modern nomads, nomad, nomadic people.

Season´s Greetings

2009-12-22T23:45:00.003+07:00

Images And People From South Italy

2009-11-15T21:39:00.003+07:00

How To Make Pasta And Olive Oil?

2009-11-10T15:51:00.000+07:00

Images from North Italy, Vatican, and Rome

2009-11-04T03:22:00.002+07:00

Our fifth wedding anniversary in Italy

2009-10-23T23:00:00.012+07:00

Today was our fifth wedding anniversary and we celebrated it in Saló by the lake Garda in Italy. Here is a set of photos we took. Tomorrow we will celebrate Päivi's birthday and next week is the 5th anniversary of our everlasting honeymoon trip.

Here are the previous wedding anniversaries:

Greetings from Monaco

2009-10-13T04:12:00.001+07:00

Walking with dogs in Mouans-Sartoux, France

2009-10-11T01:49:00.001+07:00

Fish Carousel

2009-09-15T20:39:00.002+07:00

French Riviera, Provence-Alpes-Côte d´Azur, France

2009-09-07T20:10:00.005+07:00

Eleven months and four seasons in the French Riviera plus altogether 1,5 years in France and still not fed up. Like Hong Kong and Brazil, France is one of the countries we are likely to return.

If you are heading to the South of France and wondering what would be the best time to go, we recommend spring (March-June) when the area is less crowded and windy. Summer is nice, but there are far too many people. Beaches are jam-packed and traffic can be chaotic.

Marseilles is not only soap

We started our Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur tour from Marseilles. Many French people dream of living at least one year in this lively port city. There are a lot of immigrants which is why the city is also called "Ville arabe", Arabic city. Some parts of the city look like bazaars with street markets and rubbish all around. The city is not particularly clean, but it sure is lively.

Marseilles is a sunny city, but when the wind was blowing, we really had to concentrate in keeping our feet on the ground. Nice is different with its own micro climate. It is open to the sea, but protected from the wind by surrounding hills. In general, the climate in the Riviera is mild even in winter. In December some people were taking sunbaths and even swimming when the rest of France was shivering in the cold.

Nice is nice

Marseilles and Nice could not be any different. One is loved by the French and the other by tourists. Nice is considered posh by many French people, but tourists love it, obviously because of its climate. There are lots of flights from all over Europe to the tiny airport.

In Nice we rented an apartment with Päivi's parents. The city is very touristy all year round and does not feel very French at all, in fact, but rather like an Italian city. The famous beach boulevard, Boulevard des Anglais, is perfect for walking or jogging. On Sundays everybody is there to see and be seen.

Public transportation in Nice area is functional. There are frequent bus connections to all neighbouring cities including Monaco and Menton. A single trip costs one euro whatever the distance. Moreover, when going eastwards, there are superb views over the Mediterranean sea. Little towns follow one another and are worth a hop-on-hop-off bus tour. Päivi especially enjoyed Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat, where you can hike around the small peninsula.

Toulon is the Mediterranean base of the French Navy

From Nice we moved on to Toulon where we stayed the following nine months helping our friend Patrice with his renovation work, and writing books. We finished two manuscripts, a thriller called Back door (Takaportti in Finnish) which will come out on the 29th of September and a book on couple relationships called Happy Together (Onnelliset yhdessä) for which we are looking for a publisher if we choose not to publish it ourselves. Both books are in Finnish.

Toulon has a more French feeling to it compared to Nice. Some people think it is not part of the wealthy Riviera despite its geographical location in the area. There are a lot of unemployed people and immigrants from Africa. The city is not snobbish but a perfectly ordinary French city that just happens to be on the Mediterranean coastline. Toulon hosts the French Mediterranean navy with some huge war ships including their crown jewel: the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.

Doing this and that

We enjoyed daily walks to the nearby mountain, Mont Faron, which is peaceful all year round. The French seem to appreciate more beaches than mountains. There are numerous little paths and roads circulating the mountain so we could select a different route every time. There is also a nice picnic area on top, in a pine tree forest. Cars are the only nuisance. Even when going for a hike, the French have a compulsary need to use their precious tin cans. Apart from walks we had lazy days cooking, washing dishes, watching films, reading and playing computer games.

The weather was sunny most of the year. In winter it sometimes got bitingly cold because of the Mistral wind that is blowing from the The Rhône valley. Springtime was cool and summer warm and dry. There is very little rain, but the wind is quite often strong, sometimes more than 100 km/h, which is rather annoying. Houses are howling and banging because insulation is not particularly well done.

Climate change has effected area which can be seen on the beaches. There are poisonous jellyfish and sometimes swimming is prohibited. Pollution in the city is occasionally quite high, especially on work days when everybody is rushing to work by car. We lived in the city centre and it took a while to get used to the noise and pollution. Now we are heading to discover some smaller cities with a bit less traffic and noise. Perhaps after some more silent times we will long back.

Annoying bug in Blogger worked around

2009-09-06T17:31:00.000+07:00

Blogger has failed to fix the annoying bug in their search function that rendered our country selection non-functional. Unfortunate condition began in July 2009. As a workaround we rebuilt the country menu using labels. The solution is far away from elegant but appears to function properly.

This reminds us a bit of what happened with Sony Imagestation. First they stopped fixing critical bugs and a few months later they announced running their service down. So, we are open to suggestions about other web logging platforms to replace Google's Blogger. Sorry for the inconvenience and thank your for you understanding and tips.

Happy travels,

Päivi & Santeri

French understanding of a happy holiday

2009-05-21T21:30:00.002+07:00

Here is a video footage showing how French people enjoy their holidays.

Carrefour Product and Service Quality

2009-04-02T23:39:00.006+07:00

Carrefour states the following at the their website:

"Quality is one of our main source of competitive differentiation and is part of the fundamental policies defining the implementation of the Group’s strategy. It always corresponds to what the customer explicitly or implicitly wants and must be clearly perceived as such. The value for money must be the best."

We bought last week a pair of no brand jogging shoes from Carrefour. After one week they broke down. Yesterday we went to exchange the shoes and the reaction was unpleasant and rather unexpected.

The lady in the customer service booth explained that jogging shoes only have a warranty for textile parts, not for sole. So because there was a hole in the sole of both shoes, nothing could be done. We asked her kindly to provide us proof that we had talked with her about the issue. This would have been necessary for filing a consumer complaint against Carrefour, but she refused without explanation.

Next we asked her name so that we could at least refer to the incident in the complaint, but she refused again. Instead she lost her temper. Our next question was to speak with her superior. She showed a photo of the store manager in a poster hanging on the wall, but added that the manager would be too busy to talk with us anyway. So our only option for having a proof was to take her photo so that she could be identified later if necessary.

At this point the lady got really mad and asked the guards to take our camera. The photos were erased, but the guards agreed to ask some kind of boss to help us. The boss came, yelled at us something in French and ran away. That was their understanding of the quality of service as one of our main source of competitive differentiation.

The shoes cost us 8.90 € and they lasted for less than one week. Our expectation was one year or more, so the annual price of the shoes would have been 462,80 €. According to Carrefour policy quality always corresponds to what the customer explicitly or implicitly wants and must be clearly perceived as such. The value for money must be the best. What do you think, is 462,80€ for jogging shoes the best value for the money?

One can only speculate what will happen when a customer discovers something dangerous in Carrefour food products or children toys. Perhaps someone will have to die before Carrefour shows respect to customers and follows the rules of responsible commerce. Do you dare to use Carrefour?

Keywords: Carrefour, product, safety, service, quality, responsible commerce, boycott, group, strategy, customer service, food product safety, dangerous, problem, trouble, concern.

Increasing Search Engine Ranking

2009-04-01T06:48:00.011+07:00

Every blogger would like to be at the top of search results in search engines. Here is a tip for enhancing your blog ranking significantly without penalties or spam.

Search engines list web pages with a so called ranking system. By adding the following code you will make sure that your blog is at the top of search results. Those who act rapidly, will get the best results as rankings are awarded in the order they are indexed.

Click the red box below and copy the code. Write a new blog entry and paste the code to the end of the story. When Google will index your pages next time, it will discover the code and increase your ranking depending on how fast you act compared to your rivals.

<META CONTENT="Top10" NAME="Ranking"/>

Demonstration against Sarkozy in France

2009-03-22T16:24:00.007+07:00

There were demonstrations today in France against Sarkozy and his government. We took part in one of them.

Country: France

French Elevator Hightech

2009-03-08T16:14:00.006+07:00

The French had a pretty weird numbering system in their elevator.

Country: France

French Parking - When Timing Is Everything

2009-01-29T21:14:00.006+07:00

Typical French parking in the middle of the road and a lucky last minute escape before the police toes the car away. One would expect him to be happy but the guy looks annoyed.

Country: France

Christmas Kitsch In Monaco

2009-01-03T00:24:00.005+07:00

Christmas in Monaco in 2008.

Country: Monaco

French Cheese

2008-12-17T21:37:00.007+07:00

[Suomeksi] [History] [Categorization] [TOP 10] [Market Culture] [French Diet] [R & D] [Quiche recipe]

Welcome to a virtual cheese tour de France. We tasted the country's sumptuous variety of cheeses to prepare this little gift to you.

According to a French proverb there is a different cheese for every day of the year in France (un fromage par jour de l’année). The proverb is modest, though, as there are some one thousand distinct local cheeses. President Charles de Gaulle once asked how can you govern a country who has so many kinds of cheese (Ernest Mignon: Les Mots du Général, 1962).

History

Cheese making does not originate in France, but most probably in the Middle East or Central Asia. The earliest archaeological evidence of cheese making has been found in Egyptian tomb murals, dating to about 2000 BC. According to a legend nomadic tribes learned cheese making accidentally by storing milk in a container made from the stomach of an animal. The milk turned to curd and whey by the rennet of the stomach.

In Ancient Greek and Rome people knew already a dozen of distinct cheeses. Cheese was an everyday food for the rich and the soldiers. Homer's Odyssey describes Cyclops making and storing sheep's and goats' milk cheese. The production methods were similar to the current ones: milk was coagulated, the curd pressed, salted and aged. Historian Pliny described the cheeses favoured by Romans. According to him the best cheeses came from Nîmes, that is from the South of France.

In the Middle Ages cheese was made in monasteries, and many of the now known cheese brands like Le Munster and Le Maroilles, were already recorded. The French word cheese ('fromage') appeared for the first time in 1500. It comes from the Latin word 'forma' that meant the mould used for cheese making.

Today France is the third biggest cheese producer while United States is number one and Germany number two. USA produces cheese mainly for home market whereas France is the number one cheese exporter in the world. The world's largest cheese consumer is a bit surprisingly Greece with its feta cheese (27,3 kilos per person per year. France is the second largest consumer (24 kilos per person per year). The statistics describe year 2004.

Categorization And Quality Control

Cheeses are traditionally divided into seven categories:

Category	Examples
Fresh cheese	Brocciu
Soft, fresh cheese with a floury rind	Brie, Camembert, Chaource
Soft, fresh, and rind-washed cheese	Epoisses, Maroilles, Munster, Pont l'Eveque
Blue vein	Roquefort, Fourme D'Ambert, Bleu de Gex
Goat cheese	Crottin de Chavignol, Selles-Sur-Cher
Hard, unripened cheese	Cantal, Morbier, Saint-Néctaire, Tomme
Hard, ripened cheese	Comté, Beaufort, Abondance

Some French cheeses have been awarded an AOC label (l'appellation d'origine contrôlée, controlled term of origin). All AOC products have to hold to a rigorous set of clearly defined standards. They must be produced in a consistent and traditional manner, and ingredients have to be acquired from specifically classified producers in designated geographical areas. Most of the AOC cheeses are named after the production area and others are not allowed to use a part of that name even if it is a town name.

The purpose of the AOC label is to control quality and maintain traditions. The oldest AOC cheeses date from 900-1000. Since then the production methods have varied a lot and some of them have resembled each other only distantly. When the EU started to control AOC cheeses in 1992, a big amount of producers were kicked out. Today AOC cheeses represent 17 per cent of the yearly production in France. There are some 150 AOC labelled products (cheese, butter and cream) in Europe.

Our TOP 10

We tasted all kinds of cheeses and Santeri got back the kilos he lost in Asia. Our pilgrimage changed finally into a cheeseless diet. The concept of light cheese is quite unknown in France as fat is an integral part of taste. It is better to eat good cheese more seldom than some plastic and rubbery substitutes daily.

We found our favourites quickly, but the choice for TOP 10 was hard. We tasted only a couple of cheeses that we didn't like (les Tomme and light cheese Fromage de Montagne). There would have been many more good cheeses to add on the list like Le Beaufort, L'Epoisses, Le Livarot, Le Chaourche, Le Pont l'Éveque and Le Reblochon. Please click the photos below to see enlargements.

1. Le Vieux Lille is a good old smelly cheese. It is made from cow milk in the province of Nord-Pas-de-Calais in Northern France, near Belgium border. Vieux Lille is quite unknown to many French people, but those who know call it "Le Puant de Lille", "the stinky Lille". The smell is really strong, but so is the taste. Vieux Lille is made from another cheese called Le Maroilles. Le Maroilles is sank in brine for three months. The rind of the cheese is smooth and the colour goes a bit orange. Inside cheese is ivory-coloured and very soft ('coulant'). It looses its shape easily and becomes a bit sticky. Mine workers in the North used to eat Vieux Lille down in the mines. Obviously the stink didn't annoy anyone there. It is easy to imagine how horrible Chinese people would find Vieux Lille as they don't eat any cheese. When we tried to find some cheese in Carrefour in China, we were given a pot of yoghurt. Try Vieux Lille and other strong cheeses with crêpes and marmalade.

2. Le Munster (AOC) is an old cheese made from cow milk. It comes from the Northern provinces of Lorraine ja Alsace near German border. Benedictine monks started to produce Munster already in the 7th century to preserve milk and feed the ever growing population surrounding the monastery. Munster's rind is yellow or a bit orange. It is tasty and it has a strong smell. Like any cheese the taste is stronger if the cheese is made with unpasteurized milk. Munster is flat and round (diameter 13-19 cm, height 2,4-8 cm, weight 1,5 kg). Try cumin bread with it. A cold beer or white wine of Alsace makes a perfect companion for this great cheese.

3. Le Maroilles (AOC) is another cheese with character made from cow milk. It comes from the province of Nord-Pas-de-Calais near Belgian border. The cheese carries the name of the monastery of Maroilles where it was invented in the 10th century. Maroilles is square by shape and its rind is reddish orange. It resembles a bit Pont-l'Éveque and Munster. Le Maroilles has a strong smell and taste just like Vieux Lille, L'Époisses and Munster. It goes well with rye bread.

4. Le Roquefort (AOC) is made from sheep milk. It's a classic known in more than 70 countries and the most popular one of imported French cheeses. Roquefort was the first cheese to get an AOC label in 1925. The history of Roquefort is long as it was already known in the 9th century. It is produced near the Pyrenees in the town of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon. The city held the monopoly for production already at the times of Charles VI in 1411. Nowadays there are six private companies producing the cheese and a cooperative who collects milk from more than 2500 sheep farmers. Roquefort is made only from unpasteurized milk. There are huge cellars in the city where cheeses are aging in cold and humid (95%) air. It is due to this mysterious alchemy and the slow aging process that favours the growth of Penicillium Roquefort from which the cheese gets its unique taste. The production process takes at least three months. Roquefort is a strong and salty blue cheese. It has a lot more salt than any other cheese. A good Bordeaux or Côte du Rhône goes beautifully with it. You can also try it with gingerbread like the Finns do.

5. Le Cantal (AOC) is an excellent pressed cheese made from cow milk. It comes from the green province of Auvergne. Cantal is impressive. It is a huge cylinder-shaped piece which weighs 35-45 kilos (diameter 36-42 cm, height 35-40 cm). The cheese is pressed twice. To get one kilo of Cantal ten litres of cow milk is needed. Milk can be pasteurized or unpasteurized. Cantal matures in fresh, sombre and humid cellars. It is sold at different ages. Young Cantal ('jeune' or 'douce') is 1-2 months old, middle-aged Cantal ('entre-deux' or 'doré') 2-6 months and old ('vieux' or 'caractère') more than 6 months. When the cheese gets old, it gets a slight orange shade. Taste varies. In young Cantal you can taste flavours of butter, vanilla and toffee whereas old Cantal is a bit spicy and stronger. It is better to buy the cheese when it is slightly dry as it gets tastier.

6. Goat cheese has a unique, strong taste who some people love and some hate. We tasted numerous farm cheeses, AOC cheeses (e.g. creamy Le Ste-Maure de Touraine) and cheeses with different spice and herb coatings. They are all excellent, but we also discovered that a simple industrially produced goat cheese sold in supermarkets is tasty. With goat cheese you just can't make a bad choice. The biggest difference with farm cheeses and industrially produced cheeses is shape and texture. Industrially produced goat cheese is usually a cylinder, whereas farm cheeses can be small round buttons, cylinders or pyramids. Texture varies from soft to hard ones in farm cheeses while industrial cheese goes easily to pieces. The cheapest, industrial goat cheeses are also perfect for cooking. They only cost some 6-8 Euro per kilo (2008). At the end of this blog you can find a recipe for a French goat cheese quiche.

7. Le Camembert de Normandie (AOC) comes from the province of Normandy as the name says. The production is allowed only in five departments. Camembert was invented accidentally by Mme Marie Harel who intended to do Brie. The production began in 1791. Camembert is made from cow milk and the process takes 35 days. The cheese is sold in small round boxes. The rind of the cheese as well as the taste is soft and creamy. It smells strongly of land. All Camembert cheeses are very alike. The use of unpasteurized milk makes the biggest difference.

8. Le Morbier (AOC) comes from the province of Franche -Comté, near Swiss border. It is made from cow milk (Montbéliard and Pic Rouge de l'Est) and the process takes 1,5 months. Morbier is easy to recognize as there is a dark line in the middle of the cheese. It is wood charcoal ('cendre du bois' or 'ligne cendrée') with which the curd is protected. The rind of the cheese goes from beige to orange. Its taste is a kind of mixture of Brie and blue cheese. It is not very strong, but nice and creamy.

9. Saint Felicien comes from the province of Rhône-Alpes from the region of Ardèche, where some hippies moved after 1968-movement to herd goats. Saint Felicien was originally made from goat cheese, but nowadays it is made from cow milk or a mixture of the two. The name of the cheese is unprotected and it is usually produced industrially. It is sold in round plastic boxes of 180 grams. Saint Felicien is soft and spreadable. It has a medium strong taste and it's creamy.

10. Le Mont-d'or (AOC) is made from cow milk in the province of Franche-Comté and also in Switzerland. It is sold only between the 10th of September and the 10th of May. Mont-d'or is soft and creamy, very sophisticated, and it has a slight flavour of smoke. It is sold in round cylinders weighing 700 grams. Mont d'or is often enjoyed like fondue. Make a small hole in the middle of cheese, pour some white wine, heat the cheese and enjoy it either with a spoon or as a dip.

Market Culture

The French appreciate farm cheeses ('fromage fermier'). These cheeses can best be found straight from the farm or from the market. There are markets in every city and even in small villages every week. Markets are a social happening where people go to chat and to have some coffee.

Farm cheeses are made from unpasteurized milk. It is an advantage as the taste is better. There is a long tradition in the use of unpasteurized milk and people are not afraid of the natural bacteria of milk. On the contrary, it has some advantages as unpasteurized products do not cause constipation like pasteurized or UHT treated products. In some other countries where people are used to industrial, often overly hygienic production this would be a cause for concern. Pasteurization can also be government-imposed. In France the use of unpasteurized milk is opposed by a big dairy company called Lactalis. It has more than 40 factories and 34 500 employees. It is a paradox that the inventor of pasteurization, which kills the good taste of cheese, was French. Mr Louis pasteur, a chemist and a biologist, showed his students in 1865 that heating killed bacteria of milk.

The French have become more eco, or bio conscious. They want to buy their cheese from a farmer who they know. Animal diseases like mad cow disease have brought people to farms to see how and under what kind of conditions the cheese is made. The French also like to support small companies instead of big international or national chains. In small towns and villages people often buy from their friends and producers buy each other's products.

Industrially made cheese is avoided, at least when showing off to other people. In reality, people buy more cheese from the supermarket as it is cheaper. The price difference is huge. The cheapest industrial cheeses cost 4-10 Euro a kilo, whereas farm cheeses can cost 15-40 Euro a kilo (2008). Farm cheeses are delicacies and industrial cheeses everyday products. Even though both are consumed, the French tend to judge the dominance of industrial cheeses as in the next quotation from a French playwright Eugène Ionesco:

Il y a toujours des comptoirs, il y aura toujours du vin, mais le Camembert, ce n'est plus la meme chose. Il n'y en a plus de bon. ça se fabrique industriellement. C'est plus facile, les jeunes sont plus paresseux. (Eugène Ionesco: Le Solitaire, 1973)

There are always bars, there's always wine, but Camembert is not the same any more. You can't get any good. It's industrially produced. It's easier and young people are lazier. (Eugène Ionesco: Le Solitaire, 1973. Translation PK.)

When buying cheese from the market vendors offer people pieces of cheese for tasting. After that it is difficult not to buy anything, the fact that sellers naturally know. When visiting the same market often there is a pressure to buy from the same vendor you know and support his businesses. We didn't like this social pressure which does not favour real competition based on prices and product differentiation.

Big supermarkets have huge cheese counters where you can buy both industrial and farm cheeses. You don't necessarily have to travel to remote farms although some cheeses can only be available in specialized cheese shops or at certain time of the year like Mont-d'Or.

Cheese In French Diet

Cheese is an integral part of French food culture. An old French proverb holds that a meal without cheese is like an eyeless beauty (Un repas sans fromage est une belle à qui il manque un œil. Brillat-Savarin: La Physiologie du goût.)

Cheese is served at the end of the meal, 'entre la poire et le fromage'. The saying dates back to the Middle Ages. Traditionally after the meal people always ate fresh fruit and cheese. The cheese plate can crown both lunch and dinner whereas in the breakfast cheese is unknown. For French it would be funny to eat cheese in the morning like many Scandinavians do. They prefer breakfast cereal or bread and marmalade.

With cheese the French usually serve bread or salad or just cheese. Bread has to be as neutral as possible, baguette being the best choice. If possible, take a saltless baguette. On a French cheese plate you can usually find 4-5 cheeses, but for an everyday meal 1-2 is enough.

It is a good idea to take cheeses out of the fridge at least one hour before eating so that they warm up to room temperature before eating. This way they regain their taste. If room temperature is not too warm, you can also store cheeses outside the fridge, but preferably in the dark. Not everybody likes the strong taste of cheese, though. They place the cheese plate in veranda or put some thyme or laurel on the shelf to cover the smell.

Cutting the cheese is an art. There are rules for every shape of cheese which you can get from cheese shops. The easiest rule to remember, however, is to cut cheese so that everybody gets the same amount of rind. It is not considered good and many people don't eat it all.

The French consume most Emmental and Camembert. Emmental is used almost only in cooking. Another popular choice for this purpose is Couloummiers which is cheap. The most popular AOC labelled cheeses are hard cheeses like Comté (43 555 tons/year) and Cantal (18 828). The third is Roquefort (18 719) and the fourth Le Reblochon (16 636). The statistics date from the year 2005.

one of the most well-known cheese brands in France might be The Laughing Cow, La vache qui rit, which was introduced in 1921. The Laughing Cow has very little to do with cheese, however, children seem to like it. Many hotels also serve it at the breakfast for foreigners. In Vietnam, it was the most easily available substitute for cheese.

Research & Development

European Union has lowered cheese production in France so that now there is underproduction. Cheese making is, however, tempting for some young entrepreneurs who dream of countryside life. They are the new followers of 1968 and hippie movement. However, farm work is far from a daydream. There are no vacations or days off. Cows, sheep and goats have to be milked twice a day. You can read about cheese makers' life at our blog as we visited a goat cheese farm in the province of Limoges.

Farms develop their own cheeses to differentiate in the fierce local market. They get help from regional Cheese Technicians who consult, give courses and assess quality. We met one of the Regional Technicians, Mr. Michel LePage, who has also consulted Swedish farms who wanted to start making cheese from unpasteurized milk. In Sweden the farms arrange cheese tastings so that customers have a chance to try out new products.

In France there are competitions and expert panels. When assessing cheeses technically experts pay attention to curd, texture, colour, and taste. There are also some cheese clubs (club de dégustation) for whom cheese is an excellent way to show off.

A Cheese Recipe

Goat Cheese Quiche

5 eggs
1 small pot of crème fresh
salt, pepper
1 goat cheese (180g)
10-15 walnuts
100 g grated cheese

Beat the eggs, crème fresh, salt and pepper. Add crushed goat cheese and walnuts. Mix and add grated cheese. Spread on a shortcrust pastry. Bake in oven (180-220C) until the quiche is ready.

Cheesy Season's Greetings!

Now you are ready for smelling and tasting French cheeses. Remember though that "Nothing is free except cheese in a mousetrap" like Russians say. You will get fat if you fail to consume cheese moderately. Oh, and if you take a photo you can "say cheese" in French, it's "dites fromage".

Separatist Corsica, France

2008-12-13T02:03:00.014+07:00

Corsicans don't leave the French cold. Some people recommended the island for us warmly, while others advised to avoid it. We wanted to see ourselves what to think about this small, separatist island and its trigger-happy inhabitants.

We avoided the high season and headed there in December. It turned out to be a good choice. We saw only a couple of other tourists, but still enjoyed relatively mild climate. In the summertime it is said to be very hot, crowded and crazy expensive as there are some two million tourists in Corsica every year.

The easiest way to go to Corsica from France is to take a ferry from Toulon or Nice to Bastia, or to Ajaccio. The 10-hour voyage was comfortable as the ferry was half empty and we could sleep on the restaurant benches. We arrived in Bastia which is a small, beautiful port city. Corsicans say the city is for rich people so housing tends to be more pricey than in other parts of the island. People were friendly and we didn't detect the suspiciousness that we had been warned about.

Corsican Separatism

Our next destination Corte was different. This tiny university city is one of the strongholds of Corsican separatists. When we arrived to the city, some of the French names in bilingual street signs were sprayed over and the abbreviation FLNC (the National Front for the Liberation of Corsica) was written on approximately one third of the buildings in the city. There were also texts like "Arabe fora" or "I Francesi Fora" (IFF). Arabs and French, go away.

Corsican people don't like foreigners. The reason is historical. Corsica has always been vulnerable to invasions thanks to its exuberant coastline (more than 1000 kilometres). The enemies had an easy access to the island. Corsica used to be part of Italy, but it's now under the French governance. Corsicans show their dislike by putting bombs to the houses and cars of French people living in the island. Usual targets are politicians, high civil servants or rich, foreign landowners. We met a Corsican policeman who had been working there for four years, and during that time there had been some 50 bomb attacks. Outsiders are rarely hurt in the attacks.

Corsicans are proud of their piece of land and want to keep it for themselves. They have their own language and culture, and they are not too interested in external influence. This concerns, of course, only a minority of Corsicans, namely those who are staying in the island. Corsica has some 280 000 inhabitants whereas there are some two million Corsicans living outside the island, for example 300 000 in Marseille alone.

Separatist movements are appreciated among the islanders, although sometimes they only fight with each other. We saw some Corsican students who were part of a student association called Jeunes Paoli, which is a bit like Hitler Jugend used to be in Germany in the eve of WW2. At the time Jeunes Paoli students were striking in the university because of administrative problems, namely corruption. They had chained all the doors so that the students couldn't go to their classes.

The World's Slowest Train

From Corte we continued to Ajaccio and crossed the country by a cute, little diesel train of three wagons. Train is quite a nice way to travel through the island although Corsicans themselves don't trust it. There are often strikes and the connections are not frequent. In addition, Corsicans are, just like the French, extremely dependent on their cars and couldn't imagine living without their precious, unecological tin cans. In Corsica travelling by car is not convenient as the floods wipe out tiny serpentine roads and block access to villages.

We were not in a hurry, so train was more enjoyable. It is extremely slow. A 70-kilometre trip took two hours but the views were stunning: snow-topped mountains, clear water mountain rivers, and lots of forest that cover 40 percent of the island. The weather changes a lot according to where you stay and even within one place. We saw beautiful and warm sunshine, rain and a hailstorm during one day. Up in the mountains there was snow. As the distances are short, you can easily ski in the mountains and swim in the sea during the same day. In December, however, the sea was a bit too chilly for us.

Questionable Value

Compared to the mainland, Corsica is unreasonably expensive, but that is likely to apply to foreigners only. Outsiders are not welcomed and if they enter the island, they must pay for it. That appeared to be the Corsican attitude. Food wise the prices were quite OK. In bigger cities there are supermarkets where you can find reasonable prices, although fruits and vegetables tend to be much more expensive than in France as most of the products are imported. It is not hard to imagine how bad it can be during the high season.

Customer service varied from very rude to very friendly as everywhere, so we can't really say that we agree with those French people who avoid Corsica because of its people. Corsican separatism, however, is as funny as Tibetan: the place could never survive without French businesses, money and infrastructure. It was a beautiful place to visit, but we don't see the point in dividing this tiny world to even smaller pieces. It would be better to get rid of all countries as they divide people instead of uniting them.

Country: France

Perpignan and Montpellier, France

2008-11-20T04:24:00.011+07:00

We returned to France to explore the South coast. Our route started from Perpignan near the Spanish border. We were welcomed in a French way: SNCF (the French railway monopoly) was on strike so we had to take a bus instead.

We were told that Perpignan is the poorest city in France. There are a lot of immigrants and gypsies, who wore black clothes instead of the traditional gypsy outfits. The city is pretty divided and there are separate areas for each group. The city centre is old and quite dilapidated and thus one of the poorest areas. The alleys are narrow and colourful with a lot of laundry hanging on lines in front of windows.

Warm South Coast

From Perpignan we continued towards Montpellier stopping in the little city of Narbonne on the way. Montpellier is nowadays one of the biggest cities in France. It used to be the 20th city only some fifteen years ago, but holds now the 8th position thanks to the university students and job seekers.

Montpellier people come from all parts of France and they have a healthy attitude towards their home town: it's just a city, nothing to boast about. The city is young unlike the neighbouring Nîmes which dates from the Roman era.

The train ride to Nîmes was just half an hour. On the coast distances are really short, but note: none of the cities are really on the coast unlike in Spain. Not that it mattered this time, though. The weather was warm, but not warm enough for swimming.

Hiking and eating berries

Southern France is the area of Occitan, a Romance language. It is taught at school, but has no official status in the country. Street names are in both languages, though, which gives a nice, exotic touch to the area.

We had a chance to get acquainted with local vegetation and landscape as we went hiking near Nîmes. The arbutus (in French arbousier) trees were blossoming and their berries were really tasty. A nice break from the busy city life.

Country: France

The Most Dangerous Country In The World

2008-11-10T00:37:00.009+07:00

[Suomeksi]

People have been asking us what is the most dangerous country we have ever visited. The answer is - quite unexpectedly - Spain. We have been in Brazilian favelas, South-African shantytowns, Bali after the 2005 bombings, Thailand during the 2006 military coup, and dealt with the Russian militsiya-mafia without any problems. Then we went to Alicante, Spain, and got robbed. That was the first robbery during the four years of our travels in over 50 countries.

We didn't go to Spain with high hopes as the previous visits had not been very pleasant. We had been in Madrid and Andalucia, got bad customer service and were treated rudely and unfriendly. Despite of that we wanted to give Spain another try. After all, the climate is nice and living is less expensive than in other EU countries.

Minor Setbacks

We went to Spain from France through the impressive Pyrenees and continued towards the South along the East coastline. We stopped in Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante and Granada. Unfortunately nothing had changed. Service was bad and we discovered several cheating attempts: we were being lied to, the prices changed suddenly upwards, our VISA card was not accepted, and we were constantly short-changed. These things happened in railway ticket offices, big supermarkets like Mercadona, and Internet cafés. Nothing serious, though. We didn't fall to these traps thanks to learning them in Brazil. It was only after being robbed in Alicante bus station that we decided to abandon Spain. We lost our laptop, a hefty amount of cash, and our trust to the country.

Filing the police report appeared to be mere paperwork. It was obvious that the police wasn't interested in solving the case. There are simply too many open cases. Crime is increasing and people don´t even bother to report petty crimes. Päivi interviewed the PR Officer of Alicante police station to understand why. The story will be published in Matkalehti next spring.

Päivi the Quijote and Santeri the Pancha

As the police was not helpful, we went to the bus station to watch how the robbers operate. We spent there three days and took photos of the crooks. It was easy as the same thing happened every day. The robbers came to the bus station when buses and crowds arrived, circled between the buses like vultures, rushed to open trunks, and stole whatever they could. After that they returned to their nearby nest in a bar called Poppey. The best working time for robbers were Sundays and the siesta breaks of the police from noon until 2:30 pm.

Quite soon the robbers started to recognize us. When one of them saw Santeri photographing him, he got aggressive and tried to hit Santeri. Look at the photos and see for yourself. Nevertheless, we got some good photos which we gave to the police with no luck. We felt like Don Quijote and Sancho Pancha fighting against the Spanish windmills of crime.

We filed a complaint to the bus company ALSA as our stuff was stolen from the trunk of the bus. We had placed it there for the ten seconds while we took off our bigger backpacks. The bus company´s only concern, however, was to argue that the bag wasn't inside the trunk when the robbers took it. And when this failed, they tried to put the blame on bus station security. That made us to wonder if they were co-operating with the robbers and sharing the profits. We had no other option but to take the case to the European Consumer Centre and wait for the results.

Finally, just before leaving Spain, our cooking knife was confiscated in Valencia train station by the security guards. Earlier the knife had travelled with us through eight countries by bus, train, and aeroplane. Guess they did not have anything better to do.

Business As Usual

Our experience is by no means unique. One of our travelling friends was robbed three days later in the same bus station and most of the people shared our experience telling that either they or their friends had been robbed in Spain.

Crime undoubtedly has a negative effect on tourism. Even when people have an insurance a theft or a robbery will spoil the vacation and the tourist is not likely to return. Tourism is one of the main industries in Spain and it is already suffering as many tourists seem to prefer East European countries. These two trends contribute to deeper financial problems in Spain and cause more crimes.

Spain has already been in depression for a year. The GDP has dropped, inflation is high, unemployment is rising and real estate prices collapse. Experts forecast that property prices will decrease even 50 per cent more within the next three years. We saw a huge amount of empty buildings and business locations which were built with high hopes.

Sadly enough, Spain is not a country to be recommended in spite of beautiful nature, sunny weather, sea, beaches, and low prices. Special thanks to the wonderful people we met in Spain for balancing the negatives.

Country: Spain

Robbery

2008-10-20T19:49:00.002+07:00

Our computer and a lot of money was robbed in Alicante, Spain yesterday.

Mountain Boarding In Toulouse

2008-10-13T15:19:00.007+07:00

Toulouse is a lovely and sunny city near the Pyrenees profiting from Southern France's mild climate.

French people love their Southern cities: Marseille, Montpellier and Toulouse. Toulouse cannot boast with beautiful coastline as its rivals, but it still draws some 10.000 new inhabitants every year. They are attracted by the liveliness of the city. There is a lot going on all the time.

Migration causes social problems and some of the suburbs of Toulouse have a bad reputation. Well, you couldn't figure this out just visiting suburbs as they seem to be very peaceful, but in the big French riots a few years ago Toulouse people were for example burning cars, and the atmosphere in the city was tense.

We had again a chance to meet great people. Our original idea was to stay only a few of days in the city, but our visit stretched to one week. We went to see mountain boarding, collected beetroots with local organic farming association members, and Päivi rehearsed some African dancing. All these are very popular in France. This time we didn't explore much the surrounding areas, but we will surely return as we heard so many good things e.g. about the hippie area of Ariège. Besides, France is one of our favourite countries.

Our travels took us towards Spain through the impressive Pyrenees. There was a slow local train that stopped in many lovely picturesque villages. At the border just beside Andorra we continued first by bus in the most mountainous area, and then by train. The views were awesome with autumn colours and the weather got gradually warmer and more humid.


Country: France

Aubusson, Limousin, France

2008-09-29T21:51:00.011+07:00

We stayed four months in Aubusson, Limousin, to finish our newest manuscript, a thriller. Aubusson was an ideal place for us. There is only some 5.000 inhabitants and nothing to see.

The city is nice and quiet except on some Saturdays when wedding guests drive through the city honking car horns. We had absolutely everything we needed there: a nice apartment, more than one supermarket, and a library with a wonderful, friendly staff. Thank you, Sylvie!

The Capital Of Tapestry

Well, the nothing to see -part was not completely true. There is one thing that draws tourists to Aubusson: tapestry, that is handicrafts that are hanging from the walls and storing dust. They are made a bit in the same way as carpets used to be made in Finland with a thing called hand loom. Aubusson's tapestry is world-famous. Even Bret Easton Ellis's protagonist Patrick Bateman in American Psycho owns a piece of tapestry originating from the city.

The weather was superb, most of the time 20-35 degrees Celsius. People tried to scare us with continuous rain, but the reality turned out to be quite different. This summer was exceptionally dry. This part of the country gets usually a lot of showers and that is why it's called the Green Desert.

We cooked and baked a lot as we had a big oven in our apartment. It felt luxurious after Asia where we had to fry everything in a wok pan. Another blessing was heating. At some nights the temperature dropped down to 10 degrees Celsius, but we could just turn heating on unlike in Hong Kong. Thanks to the quietness of the city, we had the door unlocked all the time. There wasn't even any key.

Pluses And Minuses Of Europe

We have now stayed half a year in Europe. People have been asking us what does it feel like after a few years' break. Here are some of our pluses and minuses of Europe compared to Asia, where we spent the previous two years:

+	Tap water is potable and tastes good.
+	A wide selection of dairy products (milk, cream, whey, sour cream, yoghurt, cheese)
+	Toilets have a seat and they don't get stuck.
+	We blend in (although people think we are Germans).
+	No visas needed.
+	Things go usually as expected = no hassle.

-	Cold and rainy weather except in the summer.
-	People are busy and don't have time for each other.
-	Public transportation is crazy expensive and bad in some areas (especially in Limousin, France).
-	In general higher prices with no added value.
-	Unhealthier diet with all cheese. Santeri has gained the weight he got rid of in Asia.
-	Things go usually as expected = boring.

Country: France

Hippie Cheese

2008-08-17T04:00:00.009+07:00

Some forty years ago a group of people decided to return to nature and leave big cities, mainly Paris.

Hippies were driven by the ideas of simple lifestyle and communities. They ended up farming, producing cheese, or making various handicrafts such as pottery. Nowadays they appear to run in the rat race just like those who stayed behind, and family seems to be the only form of community that survived.

Limousin is one of the old hippie areas, though most of the goat farms are located further in the South. There are about 3500 goats in the province. The cheese production is marginal on a national scale, but the producers are dedicated and passionate according to a leaflet published by local farmers.

The Secret Of Goat Cheese

We met a couple, Richard and Véronique, who are running their goat cheese farm in Pontarion, near Aubusson. They offered us a pragmatical insight to the secrets of cheese making; how to turn one liter of goat milk with a drop of rennet and a bit of the root of cheese into curd cheese in a day, then put it into moulds, add a bit of salt, turn it a couple of times, and finally let it dry in a steady temperature. Please check the photos to see how it happens.

Producing cheese is hard work and does not attract the young who appreciate more their 35-hour work week and vacations. Richard has to get up early to milk his 58 goats. After that the goats have to be taken to the paddock. In the evening the goats are fetched back into the barn and milked for the second time. This routine has to be performed every single day around the year. It results 180 liters of milk, which Richard's wife, Véronique, turns into delicious goat cheese. 0,75 liters of milk gives 150 grams of fresh cheese which will dry up in a few days to a ready-made cheese puck weighing 75 grams.

Cheese Is Like Wine

The age of cheese correlates to the price similarly to wine. It is stored in a temperature-controlled fridge for aging. Some are contaminated with penicillin for making blue cheese. The shape is either a leaf, a cylinder or a puck. The leaf is called La Feuille du Limousin. The shape comes from a leaf of a chestnut tree, which is the symbol of Limousin. The taste depends on aging but mostly on food that the goats are eating. In this farm goats feed on grain, grass and hay.

On top of farming and production there is a twice a week trip to the local markets in Bourganeuf and Aubusson for sales. Markets have an important social function for French people. Buying products from farmers is also considered a sign of support to their efforts. According to Véronique, people are nowadays interested in how their food is produced, and they like to visit farms, especially organic. However, EU is inventing new laborious regulations and trying to forbid unpasteurized milk which is vital for producing good cheese with a strong taste.

If you are interested in cheese, we recommend to visit Véronique and Richard in Limousin:

Richard and Véronique Weimann
La Roussille Chavanat
23250 Chavanat
France
Tel/fax +33 5 55 66 60 29

We must confess that we have never seen such hard-working hippies, not even in Finland. As a result of our cheese pilgrimage and after taking hundreds of cheese photos we are considering to write a book about cheese. Thank you, Véro and Richard!

Country: France

Generic Travel Blog

2008-08-08T20:54:00.006+07:00

With this brand new generic travel blog generator you can generate automatically new travel blogs wherever, however, or whenever you travel.

Building An Ecohouse in Franche-Comté

2008-06-18T12:00:00.009+07:00

Our friends Thomas and Li are constructing an ecological house of straw bales in Héricourt in the province of Franche-Comté, France. We helped them doing all kinds of construction work without much prior building experience and got hands-on with ecological challenges.

We painted, plastered, varnished, worked on parquet and tiles, cleaned dust and construction waste, cut the grass, weeded the garden, cooked, etc. It was fun to do some physical work for a change, or not really work because we were volunteering. We were especially happy because it was not our house as we are perfectionists. All tiny gaps and unsymmetrical lines here and there in any house would drive us crazy if we had to own it.

What made the house special?

Thomas was motivated by the idea of building something outside the mainstream. He wanted to prove that it is possible to build a house without harming nature. The house is passive which means that it will consume only a minimal amount of external energy. It will use for example sun for heating and rain water for showering and drinking. However, we are still convinced that a tent is more ecological than any house can ever be.

For us it was interesting that Thomas used wood in building like people do in Finland. In France, stone is usually the choice and the art of wood building is still considered high technology although more and more people are becoming aware of its advantages. Still some people are afraid that a wooden house is harder to sell than a stone house.

Some past eco-experiences

Thomas' project was perhaps the first sound effort we have encountered so far. Although financial interests had blurred and inflated a bit the original goal of eco-friendliness, it was not driven by sales and marketing efforts like most bio, green, eco, and organic things appear to be. Growth can never be sustainable, the whole idea is absurd, unless there is an unlimited amount of resources available in the world.

We have felt most of the time that people are just showing off with eco-products. They want to indicate their support to small businesses claiming to produce eco-friendly products and make sure to buy healthy products for their own good. These people have been young, environmentally conscious, and not too wealthy. This is a bit sad in a way that businesses use blatantly their customers' naivety to make more money without really caring for the nature.

One good example of eco-marketing are energy-saving lamps. They save a little bit of energy and might even last longer, but have you ever thought how much more damaging their production is than that of regular bulbs, and what kind of materials are used for them? In addition, if you throw away the good old bulbs to exchange them to new ones, you certainly cause more ecological damage than do any good. The same applies to new eco-cars. Getting rid of an old, still functional car will pollute much more than driving with a new eco-car could ever reduce pollution even if we forget completely the impact of the manufacturing process itself.

If you consider ecological issues a bit deeper, you end up playing the social game of yes-but. Cars are not ecological at all, but walking is. Yes, that is correct, you might say, but you need a car to be able to go to work. Another example. We can claim that having lights at home is not ecological. You could sleep during the dark time and stay awake when there is sunlight like people do in Cambodia. However, the answer of the modern man is yes, but you need to be productive also when there is no light. You can play this game forever and eventually realize that making money and thinking in an ecological way are opposites to each other. No business can ever be ecological. The only way to be truly eco-friendly is to live without money or otherwise you will be just falling into various marketing traps and cause more damage with your actions.

Green perspectives world wide

In New Zealand we saw how a well-designed recycling scheme can turn to an environmental problem. Everyone was washing all their tin cans, glass jars, and bottles with washing liquid and warm water. They put them to green bags in front our their houses and then a car came to pick up all the green bags. The waste was taken to local recycling centres and put into shelves for a few months so that anyone who was interested in the stuff could have the ones he wanted. After that, the recycling waste was transported with big trucks to harbour and shipped to Australia for processing as New Zealand doesn't have any facilities of their own. Just think how much energy the whole process consumed and how much additional pollution it caused.

Similar things happen everywhere. It is simply not enough to appear to be eco-friendly and go halfway, but ask what is the total ecological impact. In France yoghurt is sold in small plastic cans and there is no ecological packing (i.e. bigger packages made of carton) available. French eco-freaks still buy the products because they feel there is no choice. However, the choice is not to buy such products because buying them will encourage companies to continue doing so. It shows that buyers are silently accepting the idiocy.

Our conclusion is similar to the one Arto made in his article about eco-travel: if you purchase the cheapest products and try to minimize the amount of money you use, you end up living more ecologically. Even the choice of your living place matters. For example living in Finland is consuming much more energy and spoiling the environment than anywhere closer to the equator with a milder climate. And, on the other hand, if you want comfort, to own things and to think highly of yourself, you will end up living non-ecologically. But in both cases that is your choice and yours alone.

Back to the track

And now back from ecological issues to Franche-Comté. Thomas and Li are building their house in Héricourt, which is a small town located between Belfort and Montbéliard and serves as their suburb. From there we continued to Besançon, a little-known city but certainly worth a visit if you want to dig a bit deeper in French culture than just visiting Paris. The city is attractive with old buildings and a river crossing the city centre, and the people of Besançon are delightfully modest. They are proud of their simple life style compared for example to wealthier, more touristy and more expensive Dijon.

Have A Warm Midsummer Or A Mild Midwinter!

In our previous article we discussed tourism related issues.

Country: France

ASUS International Warranty

2008-06-03T19:23:00.006+07:00

Our previous laptop broke about 1.5 years ago. It was a no-brand one with just one year warranty. When we were selecting the new one we wanted to have one with two years international warranty to make sure it would serve us for at least that time. After comparing various models and their warranty conditions we ended up trusting in ASUS.

The laptop had quite a good price-quality ratio as long as it was functioning. There were minor compatibility issues with sound card which never worked for simultaneous playback of midi's and recording the output to audio. Some drivers that came with the laptop were crappy and others crappier, but without using them it was pretty OK.

Go back to Thailand

A few weeks ago while travelling in France there was a problem with the keyboard. Enter key functioned only every once in a while and required pressing hard. This proved to be pretty annoying when trying to write a book or chat with friends. After a quick research on the Internet we found quite many reports of similar problems in the model we have (A9RP). One review was praising the laptop but at the same time warning about weak keyboard.

Changing the keyboard is rather easy to do so we decided to go to a local computer store selling ASUS. The person serving us told that the company would hardly do any warranty exchange in France as the computer was bought in Thailand. He told us cheerfully that one of his customers with a broken ASUS had to go back to USA for the warranty fix. Then we were told to call to a service number. If we had called to that number they would have probably played us endlessly some expensive evergreens. When asking how much a new keyboard would cost, he told it's about 50 € which is more than the value of an old broken laptop.

After-sales scam

We decided to contact them and get the problem fixed. There was no warranty service information on their web site excluding the phone number. Paying for getting their faulty product fixed sounded stupid so we filled out their web form. After a few days we got a reply explaining that keyboard is not included in the warranty. When we sent them a copy-paste of the International warranty rules where there is no such exclusions they didn't reply to us any more.

The next thing we'll have to do is to contact European Consumer Centre who solved our problem with Air Europa, and stop buying ASUS products in future. It's in a way pity because with proper warranty the laptop would have been worth of recommending it. Now we can only recommend to avoid ASUS as it does not appear to have international or actually any kind of warranty, at least outside Taiwan.

Burgundy Vineyards

2008-05-19T19:34:00.007+07:00

The province of Burgundy (Bourgogne) is famous for its vineyards and white wine. We spent a month in this beautiful area and continued our cheese pilgrimage.

Päivi's parents came to France to have a holiday with us and rented a summer cottage (gîte) from a little Burgundy village called Clavoillon. There were about one hundred residents and hundreds of funny-looking beef cows all over the paddocks together with some donkeys. The village and scenery was much like in Cheviot in the South Island of New Zealand, except a bit hillier.

Smelly cheeses

The village itself was beautiful and quiet, ideal for a relaxing holiday for ever so busy Finns. We enjoyed lazy days reading, cooking, having walks, and exploring nearby, picturesque villages. Wildlife offered occasional surprises including a fox, a wild boar just like from Asterix comics, lots of forest moles and hawks, and an owl.

The biggest city nearby was Beaune (pronounced like Bonn in Germany), living from wine tourism. The city is very wealthy and bourgeois like Dijon which is also popular among tourists, both French and foreign. The cities are full of little souvenir, wine, cheese, and delicacy shops. Wine is here a bit like Buddhism in Tibet, and sometimes cheese looked like a means to show off. It is a sacrilege for the French to buy cheese or bread from a supermarket, or in general favour industrial products.

In addition to Päivi´s wine tasting we continued our cheese pilgrimage. The most famous Burgundy cheeses are l'Epoisses, La Chaource, Le Mâconnais, and Le Langres. L'Epoisses became our favourite. It is one of the strongest cheeses leaving a nice smell indoors and sticking also to hands. If you want to avoid gaining weight but enjoy cheese, you can just sniff some l'Epoisses!

The previous travel story from France was about Le Centre.

Country: France

Two Rivers: La Loire and Rhein

2008-05-12T03:19:00.006+07:00

Two of the blood veins of Europe, rivers La Loire in France and Rhein in Germany and Switzerland are like night and day. The French worship their rivers whereas the Germans and the Swiss harness them.

We spent a month in the valley of Loire and explored cities of Blois, Orléans and Tours. We met again great people who introduced us to the best of France. The areas were near Paris, just one or two hours away by fast TGV trains, but the mentality is completely different. People are not stressed and arrogant, fighting with each other in metro and traffic chaos like they sometimes appear to do in the busy and important capital.

The spring was on its way and the weather was from time to time quite chilly. It was also raining a lot, more than in any other country we have visited. This shouldn't have been a surprise at all as France is, on a global scale, a Northern country excluding its Mediterranean provinces.

For us the main attraction were again the people, but also the food, namely the exquisite French cheeses. When visiting a French grocery giant in China and asking for cheese, we got some yoghurt instead. After two years in Asia without much dairy products we really enjoyed the selection of over three hundred flavours and brands of cheese that the country has to offer.

Cuckoo Clocks And Cowbells

From France we continued to Switzerland that we had earlier passed. It is peculiar how many myths there are about Switzerland which is, after all, located in the heart of Europe. It is supposed to be boringly conservative, picturesque, and dirt expensive without much other than the Alps to see.

We travelled to the German-speaking area which was very German indeed. People were not paying too much attention to external things like their looks. Basel was jammed with pharmaceutical factories and their huge chimneys, the river Rhein busy transporting goods and people dressed casually. Also the consummation of abusive substances is more like in Germany than in France.

If the churches of Switzerland were made of wood, they would all have been burned down long time ago, like many churches in Finland are. They have an irritating habit of reminding everyone about time by chiming the bells every fifteen minutes, and the number of hours every full hour. Fortunately the Rolexes do not do the same. Otherwise they would drive everyone crazy around the world.

We met again some great, very non-conservative people and had a chance to enjoy a couple of parties. The sun was shining, temperature was already more than twenty degrees Celsius and life seemed quite easy-going though busy as in Europe in general. We again remembered that time is money, or at least a noisy nuisance when talking about Switzerland.

Country: France, Country: Switzerland

Armchair Travelling, Part 2

2008-04-21T20:31:00.006+07:00

Suomeksi

The series about travel literature continues. This time we'll take a plunge into the world of fiction and reality TV, where life itself is a travel.

Travelling is a convenient theme for a writer as it contains a lot of action. Aristotle already said that action is the vital principle and very soul of drama. When only depicting the innermost of the protagonist, the story often becomes a formless monologue full of self-appraisal and self-pity. So why not to do something and seek some adventures for a change!

Action!

Travelling is often used to describe a change that the protagonist goes through in his life. This so called bildungsroman is a novelistic form which concentrates on the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the protagonist usually from childhood to maturity. Some of the most well-known examples of the genre are Paulo Coelho's Alchemist, Hermann Hesse's Siddartha, and John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, To That Which Is to Come.

The power of action-driven description is best revealed not only in bildungsroman, but also in plays. Instead of talking, the characters are depicted by their gestures, movements, and actions rather than their thoughts and sayings. There are also examples of the same kind of style in novelistic fiction, for example in Finnish literature in Raija Siekkinen's books. Her short stories are often puzzle-like when only concentrating on the outside and almost relieving to read in this era of analysing and explaining everything away.

I travel, therefore I am

Travelling offers, therefore, exciting plots for a writer: adventures, exotic milieus and fascinating characters. If the Athenians were attracted by Odysseus' trips to the land of Cyclops, the audience of today is fascinated by reality TV in which protagonists carry out weird chores in strange and sometimes even dangerous milieus.

The plots of reality TV-shows follow the classic formula of folk tales: the protagonist meets people who either help him or try to hinder his mission; sometimes he wins, sometimes he looses, and usually there is also some romantic adventures included. The growth of the protagonists is being followed by interviewing them of their relationships. Quarrels are often mere social porn, but it seems to satisfy the audience's ever-growing hunger for scandals. The protagonists are chosen among common people and they are competing for a handsome prize which makes the show more tempting.

Who would like to watch a TV series of a man, who works from nine to five, goes home to watch TV and drink some beer? Except if the story is ironic as the British series The Royle family. The protagonists spent most of the time on their couch watching TV and making remarks about the programmes and recent happenings in the neighbourhood. Their greatest travels were done from the couch to the fridge.

The first part of the series "Armchair Travelling" dealt with non-fiction travel books.

Mobile Phone Cliff

2008-04-01T07:40:00.006+07:00

Suomeksi

We visited a very special and little known, almost a hidden sight in Hong Kong called Mobile Phone Cliff. Local people don't usually tell foreigners about it and we found the place quite accidentally when looking for a vegetable market. It was fascinating.

Stressed people go to the cliff to throw away their mobile phones into the sea. Here is Päivi trying to spot some deserted phones.

Life can be really stressing in the metropolis. It is not just pollution or elevated suicide rates, but also rage against various gadgets taking over peoples' lives. We met one Hong Kong couple, Matilda and Chris, just after they had got rid of their mobile phones.

All kinds of mobile phones are thrown away, even the most expensive ones. We saw the following wet apparatus floating in the sea. Hong Kong children often come to the beach down the cliff during low tide to collect mobile phones. They dry the batteries and sell them to a local electronics shop, Mongkok Fortress, to earn pocket money.

Oh, and happy 1st of April!

A year ago we wrote about A Once In A Lifetime Experience in Cambodia.

Country: Hong Kong, Country: China

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