Dispatches from Around the World 

By Contributing Editor for Travel Weekly, Richard Bruce Turen

THE NEW CRUISE LINE FROM THE FOLKS WHO BROUGHT US THE HOTEL OF DOOM

“No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to
get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned… a man in a jail has more room,better food, and commonly better company. “

Samuel Johnson

By Contributing Editor Richard Bruce Turen

 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 More than a few eyes in the cruise industry industry
are now focused on the development of new business in Asia and the Pacific
Basin… Costa was the first line to recognize that potential, placing a ship
in China in 2006.They’ve invested more than 50 million Euros in the Asia market
and they will exceed 100 calls in Chinese ports this year.

            Royal Caribbean has seen huge growth
in the China market since placing the Legend of the Seas there in 2008. Think
about it, 75% of their passengers boarding in Tianjin and Shanghai are Chinese.
What an extraordinary opportunity for Americans to go on a vacation where they
can actually get up close and personal with Chinese citizens. I may require my
clients to do a cruise like that before I agree to send them anywhere else.

            Look at it from the cruise line’s
perspective. The Asia Pacific Region has more than 3.5 billion potential
cruisers. So cruise lines are in a mad rush to set up China-based sales offices
and to find the best way to say “It’s different out Here” in Mandarin.

            But you see, that is the problem.
All of the most intelligent eyes in the cruise industry are focused on the
potential of cruising in China. But no one is paying attention to the growth of
a new cruise line in Asia that threatens to put them all out of business.

            It turns out, you see, that North
Korea is entering the cruise business. Now some might not take this seriously,
since North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, is home to the Ryugyong Hotel,
described by Esquire Magazine as “The Worst Building in the History of
Mankind.” I took that remark to mean that the author didn’t care for the
architecture. We’ll get to North Korea’s cruise ship in a moment but the good
news is that it was not designed by the same team that built the one hundred
and five story hotel, a property so hideous and unsafe that it has not had a
single guest for two decades. You may be able to Google this 3,000 room hotel
if you are lucky enough to find an unofficial photo of the Capital in which the
hotel has not been airbrushed out. North Korea takes its investments in tourism
seriously and the government poured 2% of its entire gross domestic product
into the so-called Hotel of Doom.

            So with this background, what could
we expect from a new North Korean cruise line?

            In early November, 500 Chinese
tourists, travel agents and North Korean tourism executives boarded the “cruise
ship” Mangyongbong in the North Korean port of Rason for a leisurely cruise
down the east coast of the country, disembarking in Kumgang. It isn’t hard to
board this new cruise line. You simply work with the proper travel agency in
China, get yourself to the Chinese city of Yanji, and then do a three-hour
drive to the port. But bring a cushion; the roads are filled with large holes
and small craters.

            The Mount Kumgany Region, the
highlight of the itinerary, is actually quite beautiful and it was a resort
area that was to be co-developed by South and North Korea, accepting tourists
from both countries. Unfortunately, this tourism harmony sort of fell apart
when North Korean guards started shooting South Korean tourists.

            Now, North Korea has a new partner
in the Chinese and they are working to build up a cruise industry while
encouraging outside investment. The Vice Mayor of Rason mentioned in an
interview that people from Jamaica don’t need a tourist visa. But they can’t bring
their mobile phones. Why would North Korean officials believe that tourists
from Jamaica would want to sail out of North Korea on a short cruise? It must
be the ship.

            The invited press, including a
travel writer for the New York Times, observed that the Mangyongbong was a forty-nine
year old refurbished cargo ship with rusty portholes and musty cabins. The
send-off was memorable as 500 locals dressed in workers clothing waved to
people in officers clothing while carnival music blared form two minivans
parked on the pot-hole filled pier.

Then
fireworks went off, flags were raised, and collections of plastic flowers were
tossed onto the open deck.

Cabin
categories were rather straightforward. Many guests were asked to sleep on
wooden bunk beds but those in lower cost categories were assigned mattresses on
the floor. The normal arrangement was eight to a room. Meals were served
cafeteria style on metal trays.

            As the ship sailed, fresh coffee was
served. The entertainment director arranged for Karaoke and decks of playing
cards. A fair number of the bathrooms lacked water. The food, described by the
NY Times as “resembling a mess hall at an American Army Base” was mostly
uneaten. Leftovers were dumped overboard but because of capricious winds much
of the food made it back to the ship.

            Now I could stop here and we could
all dismiss this new cruise product. But I’ve read some of the interviews with
the Chinese travel agents on this inaugural. And several of them felt that, at
about $440 USD for a five-night cruise, it would be a relatively easy sell. It
would appeal to Chinese who do not live along the coast as well as the large
ethnic Korean population along the Chinese border. Chinese tourism to North
Korea is already a reality. And guess what? The Tourism ministry spokesman
alluded to a “much newer” 900 passenger ship to be added to the fleet. But they
are looking for a little “investment” money.

            No announcement has yet been made
about possible pre or post cruise hotel stays using the Ryugyong’s available rooms.

            This important inaugural cruise
ended with a bit of appropriate theatrics as the Mangyongbong crashed into the
pier while docking, turning portions of the pier into rubble.

(Contributing
Editor Richard Bruce Turen is the Owner of Churchill and Turen Ltd. He has been
named to the list of “The World’s Best Travel Specialists” since the list began
in 2000. He is the author of three books including his latest, “Reality Checks:
What the Travel Ads Don’t Tell You.”. Richard recently completed a nationwide
series of appearances on talk radio answering consumer questions from a variety
of audiences.)         

THE NEW SEABOURN ODYSSEY; HARDWARE AND HEARTWARE

“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.” — Dave Barry

A rather elegant invitation arrived in our office announcing another new ship floating in to Ft. Lauderdale. The last few of these have been rather intriguing in that they have signaled whole new classes of ships ordered in the cruise heyday of the 2007 –2008 sales explosion. These new ships were ordered during waves of optimism. It was a time when people knew that real estate provided a 25% annual return and Goldman Sachs had their best interests at heart.

But the new tonnage now arriving in Florida is backed by winds of caution, Will the new ships, almost always bigger and far more costly then their corporate sisters, prove to be sustainable in this new economic climate?

I was anxious to see the new Seabourn Odyssey. Advance reports from Europe had been unusually favorable and I knew that this ship was the first of three, a prototype that would see Seabourn increase its capacity over thirty-six months by 200%.

The invitation was extended to my family. We responded that I would attend by myself. No way my wife was going to bring our four and a half year-old on an overnight preview inaugural.

Then we received a message from Pam Conover, the CEO of Seabourn. In the nicest way, it was explained that I was not welcome unless accompanied by both my wife and daughter.

“It must be some kind of family overnight” I explained to Angela and we prepared to arrange the trip down to Ft.Lauderdale.

Two weeks later, we arrived at the pier joining a small gathering of top producers and press, invited to join passengers embarking on a series of longer voyages.. I kept my eye out for other families with children but could not find any. I began to wonder if we had made a mistake. Perhaps the folks at Seabourn were just being polite.

After checking in to our suite (in this price range just about every cabin is referred to as a suite) we began our tour of the ship. This was the first new ship launch for Seabourn in two decades and, no secret, it did not go all that smoothly. The T. Mariotti yard delivered the vessel late and some of the cosmetic work had to be completed on the crossing over.

But in three and a half hours of peeking into nooks and crannies we arrived back in our suite appreciating the lush, contemporary feel to this ship. It was clearly designed to reassure past Seabourn guests while appealing to newbie’s who understand that 450 guests served aboard a top-grade 32,000 foot vessel is just about the sweet spot when it comes to a yacht-like experience with space and options. This is a breed of Seabourn that will need to appeal to all the Seabourn loyalists, while pulling in a younger clientele with its double size lounges on the Sun Terrace, iPod docks and WIFI, a huge Spa, and the Charlie Palmer inspired cuisine.

The ship’s hub, Seabourn Square is a brilliant rendering, merging library, purser’s services, Computer area, and a coffee bar in an unusually comfortable gathering place. The Spa is the largest in the luxury category, spanning two decks. But what with 24-caret gold facials, and excessive fees to use the two lovely Sky villas, I wondered if the Odyssey’s Spa Manager was given the task of personally paying for the ship’s construction.

There was just so much to like. The intimate Restaurant 2 with its innovation tasting menu is bound to be a culinary and evening destination hit. Seabourn sellers will rejoice in the true balconies on this breed of Seabourn. No need to explain why a standing-room only balcony is both French and chic.

My impression is that the Seabourn Odyssey is the new luxury benchmark by which all other luxury ships will be measured. I don’t see anything on the horizon that will challenge this new breed of high end, contemporary, all-inclusive vessel. That it comes equipped with the security of the Carnival Corporation’s love and attention, and sound financial backing, might be reason alone for the savvy consultant to swear allegiance to this brand.

These were my impressions after touring the vessel. But now it was time to get ready for dinner.

I felt some concern after we got dressed and started down to the dining room. We take our ship inspections seriously and our daughter Bree kept up with us, even running her small fingers across consoles looking for dust. But how would she handle dinner? By this time it was clear that there were no other young children aboard. I was hoping for a corner table next to the kitchen.

As we entered the Restaurant’s vestibule, a number of officers and staff were greeting guests. But, almost as one, they all greeted Bree by name. She was chatting back and forth with them and we were escorted to our table down toward the center of the room.

I saw the large table in the center approaching and hoped we would quickly turn. But we didn’t. With a very exhausted four and a half year-old we had been placed at the table of Captain Mark Dexter, a superbly gracious, Harley-owning Brit who now lives in New Zealand. This is the Captain other lines would love to clone. He is a gentleman with that rare ability to make every guest feel that he is truly interested in their welfare.

There were several top producing agents at the table but Captain Mark focused a fair amount of his attention on Bree. For her part, she somehow was on her best behavior and she could sense the man’s empathy and interest in her. He even managed to converse with her about the merits of her Mac and cheese main course.

I sat there watching this magical evening play out on a magnificent ship with a lone child, a child who was discovered at age two weeks abandoned in a basket, placed in front of a rural department store in southwest China. I marveled at where we were at this moment.

And then, suddenly, in the midst of dinner, Captain Mark stood up. Very quietly, but with a broad smile on his face, and in full view of the entire dining room, he took off the Captain’s epilate attached to each shoulder, walked behind our daughter and gently placed each of them on the shoulders of her dress. He saluted her and sat back down.

Then, several minutes later, Bree loudly whispered to her mother that she needed “to go pottie.” As they walked toward the front of the dining room, Bree, wearing her epilates, ship’s crew and guests saluted her as she passed.

I was too choked with emotion to be very good company back at the table. But I can tell you it was a meal I will never forget.

The next morning we were about to be seated for breakfast when I noticed a familiar figure seated alone on the outdoor aft dining terrace. One of the most respected consumer travel editors sat there staring out in the distance. I went and sat down and then quickly realized why she was seated in this specific position. I followed her gaze as the world’s largest passenger ship came sliding past the first condo building making her way to her berth just behind us. It was the perfect vantage point to see the arrival of the Oasis of the Seas as her upper deck passed just below the windows of the top floor of the high-rise condo at the entrance to the harbor.

As we entered the foyer to disembark later that morning, Pam Conover and some of her officers were saying goodbye beside the gangway. When she spotted Bree, she knelt down to ask if she enjoyed her cruise. Bree told her how much she “loved Captain Mark”.

I realize I have not been particularly descriptive in discussing Seabourn’s newest ship. But, in some sense, I hope I have conveyed something about Seabourn people that is, perhaps, even more revealing about the heart and soul of this company.

The Odyssey never left her berth but I will always remember my time aboard her.

A LETTER FROM VENICE

I am, at the moment, seated at a café, on a side street, just behind the Church of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice. But putting pen to paper is, for some very good reasons, a very daunting task.

It is trip number eleven to this city and I still don’t have a handle on it. Why is it that we feel we have finally seen Rome and experienced Florence? But Venice, ahhh, that’s another story. It is a different city in the rain, a quaint Italian metropolis in the winter, a hot, crowded kaleidoscope of moving humanity framed by water in the summer. But the waters in Venice lap the shoreline less playfully then it does on other Italian shorelines. Here the water is a reminder of an epic battle with the winner predetermined. The water will win.

I flew over through London connecting on a BA flight. This was during the strike action and I was mildly concerned about my Heathrow connection. But BA seemed very concerned about my short hop in coach over to Venice and sent me four e-mail updates to say they were looking forward to welcoming me aboard the A320 and reminding me, much like a concerned parent that my flight would operate.

True to their word, no problems. The only way one could tell that there had been a strike action was the Departure Board. We took off on time and the pilot came on the PA system and mentioned that he was an actual experienced pilot and not a member of BA management. The in-flight entertainment had begun.

Surprisingly a “light meal” was being served by the erstwhile young flight attendant coming down the aisle. I asked him what he was serving, which elicited the explanation “well sir, let’s just say it is a ham and cheese sandwich but without the cheese and with very little ham.”

In retrospect, an accurate culinary appraisal.

Our driver was nowhere to be found as I passed through customs and entered the arrival hall at Marco Polo.

But I did not panic. No Italian driver is going to spend an hour standing behind a rope for an undetermined amount of time doing absolutely nothing. I found the nearest airport bar and found him standing at the counter drinking a cappuccino, his cup resting on the portion of the sign that read “Turen”.

We drove for a few minutes to Piazza Roma, the point where cars from the airport park illegally, as the driver desperately tries to find the water taxi captain, and get passengers and luggage to the waiting boat. I enjoyed the chaos and screaming that accompanied this “transfer” but I would have enjoyed it more had I not calculated that the ride had cost me 15 Euros per minute.

Seated in the boat en route to my hotel, the senses quicken. This is one of the most pleasurable rides on the planet as you get a sense of the lagoon, the water lapping at the shores, and the architectural consistency of this entire movie set of a city.

I sit in the back of the sleek craft because I want to feel water splashing my face on this sunny summer morning. It helps with the jet lag.

Venice, will, I know, seem crowded. In the early nineties, the border police set up tables at Santa Lucia, the main train station, and denied access to the city to anyone who could not prove that they had a confirmed hotel reservation. What would I find this time in prime season?

We cruised down the Grand Canal and I asked my driver to slow it down so I could, once again, savor this experience.

I was deposited at the dock directly in front of The Londra Palace, one of my favorite Venice properties.

Formed by the merging of two former palaces, with more than 140 years of experience servicing guests, the Londra Palace has only 53 rooms. But it more than a hundred windows facing the Lagoon. I occupy a wood-beamed room on the upper floor with horizontal windows cut high into the walls looking out.

There is a delightful rooftop terrace. In the morning, you can hear church bells from the terrace playing a concert in stereo as the bells ring at the same time from several sections of the city.

At night, in the quiet, I could imagine a younger Tchaikovsky, who stayed in room 106 in 1877 while working on his Fourth Symphony. The light never goes off in room 106.

I slept well at this wonderful hotel. And I went to bed thinking I was hearing a piano playing in a room a few floors below.

Last night, I spend hours walking the city. In Venice one does not walk with purpose to find things. One walks to get lost, to get beyond the tourist circle and to see the neighborhoods. But in the area around St. Mark’s Square, I found some signs of the new travel economy everywhere.

In the narrow alleys behind the Basillica San Marco, waiters stood in front of highly-rated restaurants urging customers to enter. But trattoria’s were humming and there were lots of Russian and German voices.

In San Marco , one of the two large outdoor café’s was closed and the area had been turned into a construction site. At the famed Café Florian across the square, a small orchestra and the violinists still play, but most of the tables are empty. Instead, hundreds of tourists stand for a while taking in the scene, wanting to share in the experience, but unwilling to pay inflated prices for a drink or two.

I noted that again as I wandered the Riva degli Schiavoni. Violinists play but no one pays. The masses stand staring waiting for some rich tourists to actually sit and pay for their free show.

There are more tee-shirt shops and more stands selling tourist flotsam. Small groups led by bored guides carrying yellow and red umbrellas pass by.

I look out to the sea. The sun is just disappearing on the horizon, framing the blue canvas tarps and the beautiful gondolas they protect. Sea gulls perform dances above the harbor.

I pass over a bridge and see, to my left, a small line of gondolas returning with their human cargo. In the minutes before disembarkation two of the gondolas break out in song. It is tip time.

Moments later, I poke into the Hotel Danieli, the five-star matron on the Lagoon. Surely, I will find evidence of the luxury traveler within this wood-paneled lobby.

The single desk clerk does not look up from his magazine as I enter. I wander into the lobby area. It is empty. And this is the cocktail hour.

Now, I am determined to return to Venice soon. I cannot accept that Venice is falling victim to economic realities.

The city has never had the best hotels, the Cipriani being the exception. Italians would never say that the food rivals that found in Emilio-Romagna or Umbria, although Da Ivo, Do Forni, and Corta Sconta are certainly exceptions.

But walking Venice, getting away from the tourists, crossing bridge after bridge on foot, is still as rewarding as it always was. There is no place on earth quite like it.

In the prologue to his bestseller, “The City of Falling Angels”, author John Berendt encounters a Venetian Count who explains the city in terms of its rhythm.

“Venice is like breathing. High water, high pressure, tense. Low water, low pressure relaxed. Venetians are not at all attuned to the rhythm of the wheel. That is for other places.”

Venice must always be walked. It is an off-season destination if there ever was one and I would recommend it as a viable mid-winter destination, free of tourists, and filled only with relaxed locals. I prefer it when it rains – Venice is best seen from under an umbrella.

Headed back one night toward the Londra Palace, I notice two handsome Carabinieri on patrol, pausing for a rest in the middle of a small bridge. They remove their hats, posing with the sea in the background. And slowly, people stop to talk to them. Some of the husbands take pictures of their wives with the policemen. There is laughter; the lights on the edges of the lagoon have replaced the fading sunlight.

I hear whispered “buona nottes”.

BREAKFAST GRITS AND A TABLE FOR LUNCH

This road trip started out from our home in southwest Florida. Instead of driving the Interstate we decided to do back roads pretty much all the way to our destination, Savannah. There, I would attempt to realize a long term desire to have lunch at their most famous former boardinghouse. It is on my “bucket list”.

The hours spent driving the back roads that wind up through central Florida make you realize that, yes indeed, parts of the state are really in the south. But it is the south without magnolias and wisteria.

There are orange groves, lots of them, and nothing new for miles and miles. Passing through Zolfo Springs and entering Wauchula, I stop the car to ask an old man in a torn sombrero where he thought I ought to head for lunch.

“Nothin fancy here”, the man said, and then he pointed in the direction of the McDonald’s, adding “that’s about as good as it gets for the next twenty or thirty miles.”

This was not an auspicious beginning for a trip I had planned in my mind for several decades. It was a trip that would help few of my high-flying clients but it would, I thought, help me. It was a family road trip, four nights with plenty of driving at either end. And I couldn’t even be certain I would obtain my goal.

The idea of a road trip is rather new to me. I still have large chunks of the planet, to explore. Driving in the US of A is on the horizon, based on the assumption I will still be a nifty driver in a decade or so. But this trip had to be done because it was filled with purpose and I, perhaps selfishly, thought it was time to realize this one dreamette.

The back roads took us close to Orlando and around Lake Buena Vista heading north. But I realized the same frustration the last time I had driven to Disney World; a profound sadness that there would be no time to visit that other theme park that intrigues me in ways that Disney World never could.

The Holy Land Experience is still drawing crowds, part of the $4 billion religious entertainment industry that includes amusement parks, books, music, rock concerts and a Christian wrestling circuit.

This is a portion of the travel industry rarely covered in the trade publications. The Holy Land Experience charges $31 a ticket for adults and is most crowded in the afternoons with folks who come to see the daily crucifixion re-enactment at 4:30. I vowed to report on The Experience the next time I am in Orlando.

We finally made it to Savannah and parked in front of the new Avia Hotel smack dab in the center of things fronting the restored Ellis Square.

The Avia Savannah may have been my hotel find of the year. The front desk staff comes around and personally takes your hand, sometimes there are hugs from a staff that welcomes you the way a favorite aunt might. Hip, contemporary rooms and southern charm. And these folks weren’t trained to be nice. They were all southerners. It sort of comes naturally.

That night we went down to the bar/restaurant fronting the huge square and ordered several small plates including “Lobster Mac” in a mornay reduction, Low Country Oyster and Fried Green Tomatoes, and some espresso dusted sea scallops with candied pecans and fig balsamic. But I think it was when we decided to order one more small plate of Southern Fried chicken with waffles, firefly vodka, and blueberry praline syrup that we decided we would be moving to this city as quickly as possible.

“What’s with these Avia people,” I wondered, haven’t they read the rules about hotel dining rooms.

The next morning, I was back in the dining room, sitting by a large window, enjoying my everyday breakfast of “100% organic local grits topped with Savannah Shrimp” when I glanced out the window and saw something shocking enough to make me put my fork down.

Across the way, a somewhat tattered looking crowd braved the morning chill in a long line that snaked around the huge building. The line moved slowly and these be trodden folks braced themselves against the cold.

I called the waitress over and asked “there must be two or three hundred homeless people lined up for food. Is this an every day occurrence?”

“Well it’s an every day occurrence”, she replied, “but they’re not exactly homeless. Those are fans of Paula Dean from The Food Network and they’re lined up to get reservations to her restaurant. “The Lady and Sons.”

The next day, using a bit of pull from someone connected to the Savannah scene, we boarded a pedicab in the front of our hotel for the ride over to Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House, smack in the middle of the historic district.

This is what I call a “destination restaurant”. Folks will actually cross oceans to say they’ve been there. We pedaled past Jones Street where a block long line of “hopefuls” were lined up waiting to get seated at one of the large oak tables.

Fortunately, I had secured a coveted back door pass so the pedicab turned in to the alley behind the fading mansions that once served as boardinghouses for railroad workers. We waited outside the back door as the elderly staff came out, from time to time, for a breath of air as they cut turnips and squash, onions, and orange bell peppers in round metal tubs.

Finally they came to get us and we were seated, along with ten strangers who had been seated from the street. I can’t remember everything that was served at that table, family style, but among my most memorable recollections, each a “best I’ve ever tasted” dish, was fried chicken, Black eyed peas, lima beans, sweet potato something, barbecue pork, mashed potatoes, bread stuffing, marinated cukes, sweet turnips and fried tomatoes, beef stew, home made sausages with cabbage and that is just what I hastily wrote down. After steaming bowls kept arriving one of the servers suggested, that we might want to “leave room for a bit of dessert.” On this day, we were served peach cobbler and banana pudding.

We then bussed our own dishes, walked to the Wilkes family member manning the small register in the front room and paid our $16.00 per person bill.

When we walked out the back door our pedicab driver was waiting. We hadn’t asked him to come back but as he explained “No one can walk back to the hotel after lunch at Mrs. Wilkes.”

TO HELL AND BACK FOR $7.00

It is hard to imagine a place like Dharavi. One thinks of hell on earth, but what is that really?

Our theological texts describe hell as a nether world in which the dead continue to exist. It is said to be the realm of the devil and the demons in which the dammed suffer eternal punishment.

Even the pagan Greeks had a concept of hell, perhaps best exemplified by the sentence of Siphysus, condemned to roll a massive boulder up a steep hill, only for it to fall back on him each time he approached the summit. This for eternity.

But Dharavi is so very real, a vision of hell in our time. Sitting on just over four hundred acres in the northern reaches of sprawling Mumbai, Asia’s largest slum sits on the confluence of two rail lines along a former creek bed that now seethes with sewage and collected waste spewed out of 10,000 small “factories”.

Dharavi is home to one million souls. They have virtually nowhere to bathe, children play in festering pools of debris. There is no regular garbage pick-up in this hell.

And, like most of the world’s most embarrassing places, the hellholes on earth that we hide and avoid so we can continue to believe that we are “generous” or “spiritual”, tourists have not been exposed to Dharavi and their residents have been spared the indignity of discovery.

That was until a rather engaging Brit named Christopher Way decided to launch a tour company with his Indian partner, Krishua Pojari, called Reality Tours and Travel. For a little less than $7.00, tourists can take a three-hour guided tour. Touring in an air-conditioned vehicle costs a bit more.

This is a branch of our industry that is not all that new. Known as “poorism”, the fact is that visitors have been able to take escorted coach tours to the poor townships of South Africa, the awful slums surrounding Rio, and even the train stations of major Indian cities where the “lost children” can be found sleeping huddled in corners.

In fact, India is something of a leader in this field. The Salam Balak Trust takes tourists on two-hour tours of the slums of Delhi where the street children are the primary focus of interest.

At the 2007 World Travel market in London, attendees were informed, according to the Globe and Mail, that “safe danger” and “Controlled edge” experiences were one of the hot new areas of travel.

There was speculation that this could include tours of former combat zones, violent outlying communities on the edges of cities, and even live conversations with child soldiers for a bit of money.

London’s Evening Standard has written about poorism decrying the willingness of some travelers, for instance, to pay good money to sleep with a family in an “eight-foot square” indigenous shack in South Africa’s Soweto Township.

We’ve said that today’s traveler craves authenticity and excitement and these tours fill that need for some. They are to travel what ultimate fighting is to sports.

In a recent interview, which will appear next week, I asked Way about the thinking behind his, still small, entrepreneurial effort. I am not at all impartial about this. I think its out and out exploitation. I don’t think you need to “tour” poverty to know it exists.

2 WORLD CHAMPION AIRLINE COMPLAINERS

One of the biggest travel stories of last year concerned a singer-songwriter named Dave Carroll, who complained that United Airlines had managed to break his $3,500 Taylor guitar when employees tossed it into the baggage hold after he boarded a flight at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

Carroll makes a living with his guitar, so he documented months of his failed efforts to get properly compensated. He was in customer service purgatory, a particularly spacious section of United’s corporate organization.

(In fact, the last time I did research with United’s customer service department, I was routed to “Roy,” who finally admitted he was sitting in Mumbai as we spoke. We had a nice chat about what he ate for lunch, a question I always pose to outsourced labor.)

After months of getting nowhere, Carroll penned a country ditty about the experience titled “United Breaks Guitars.” Unfortunately for the airline, Carroll wrote a pretty decent song, and the video depicting baggage handlers throwing his guitar in the air and watching as it hit the ground was funny.

The chorus was sung by three amigos in sombreros: “United breaks guitars.” I can still hear it.

The little video became a monster hit on YouTube, and someone at United woke up one day to discover that this likeable guy’s story-in-song had been viewed by more than 6 million folks. In addition, it attracted news interviews and global media attention.

The hits on YouTube were only part of the problem. When the video went viral, thousands of comments were racked up, almost all of them decrying the service they had received on their last flight.

The outcome was, of course, happy. Dave Carroll is more famous than he was before his flight. He still plays with his band but is now a sought-after speaker specializing in motivational talks about customer service. United claims the video is “being used internally as a unique learning and training opportunity.”

But there is a kind of special ending to this story as reported in the New York Times. Carroll was back on United flying into Denver for a speaking engagement about his experiences with customer service. At the baggage carousel, after all of the other passengers on his flight had departed, Carroll realized that his bag was lost. It was the bag containing copies of his new CD, “United Breaks Guitars.”

Oliver Beale, meanwhile, did not turn to YouTube. At least, not at first. He simply went to management.

Beale is a young advertising executive based in London. He was flying Virgin Atlantic from Mumbai to Heathrow in December when, midflight, he was served a meal that was so bizarre that it generated an immediate letter to the Virgin Group’s iconoclastic chairman, Richard Branson.

It was just a letter to the head of the company. To get the flavor, or perhaps to realize fully the lack of flavor in front of him on the tray, let me serve you just a few of Mr. Beale’s observations to Mr. Branson:

“I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey from hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation.

“You don’t get to a position like yours, Richard, with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power, so I know you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue, hasn’t it? No sane person would serve a dessert with a tomato, would they? Well, answer me this, Richard: What sort of animal would serve a dessert with peas in it?

“I’ll try to explain how this felt. Imagine being a 12-year-old boy, Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning, and you’re sitting there with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that stereo you wrote Santa about.

“Only when you open the present, it’s not a stereo; it’s your hamster. It’s your hamster in a box, and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this.”

Attached was a photo of a plateful of mustard.

“On the right, the chef had prepared some mashed potatoes. The potato masher had obviously broken, and so it was decided the next-best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird. Once it was regurgitated, it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard.”

The photographs that accompany the letter were all over the Internet and would tend to support, in my view, Mr. Beale’s assertions.

The letter concludes that his snack, using some of the same ingredients from the meal previously described, appears to be “an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A crime against bloody cooking.”

This letter has also become an Internet sensation, where it is now widely viewed as the best complaint letter of all time.

You can guess the outcome. Sir Richard responded personally and extended an invitation to Beale to join the company as a consultant in matters of food selections on future flights.

Two stories with a shared moral: One person really can make a difference — though maybe not all that often.

Contributing editor Richard Turen owns Churchill and Turen, a vacation-planning firm that has been named to Conde Nast Traveler’s list of the World’s Top Travel Specialists since the list began. Contact him at rturen@travelweekly.com.

FLYING FROM STEAK TO SAUSAGES

Part 1 of a 2-Part Report

Despite one-third of our latte money getting spilled on the sidewalk, “Pirates of the Caribbean” being re-enacted, for real, off the Somalia coast, and airlines singing “I’ll Fly When I Want To” while they cut capacity, there is one bright spot on the travel landscape.

River cruising on boats carrying fewer then 200 guests is growing at a rather impressive pace in areas as diverse as Europe, China, and Europe. The LA Business Journal says that Basel-based Viking River Cruises, the industry’s largest player, is planning on annual growth of 20%. USA Today, the newspaper for folks who don’t want newsprint on their hands while flying, calls river cruising “the new craze in European Vacations.”

Last year, Tauck was able to increase its river cruise business by an estimated 60%.

            All of this growth is a combination of demand and new construction. The largest player is Viking River, a company launched in 1997 by a group of Dutch and Swiss companies. Today, Viking has 23 vessels and an ambitious building program.

            So I am off to do Viking in the off-season, which is to say, early December. Don’t worry, Angela packed my muffler. But I was buoyed by the hope of grilled sausages and a sip or two of gleuwein along the way. This was a Christmas Markets cruise along the Danube. I want to see why river cruising is increasingly being portrayed as a more intimate, affordable, and less strenuous exercise then ocean cruising on a megaship. I want you to come along with me as this trip unfolds.

            I began with a flight to London on one of American’s 777’s. I flew business because I have lots of miles, not because Travel Weekly insisted on it.

            Just a few impressions of the flight over:

            There is a certain core competence one feels when flying one of America’s major carriers. I knew, going in, that the service would not be memorable but everything was pretty darn professional.

            The video on demand, new, smaller, noise-cancelling, Bose headsets, and the fact that Captain Flex Muscles, or whatever his name was, made only a few unobtrusive announcements, enabled me to relax in anticipation of a nice flying experience. But then there were those petty little disappointments.

            All of the movies seemed to star Jim Carrey. Somewhere, some executive has determined that Jim Carrey making faces is just what we want to see when strapped in flying above the atmosphere. Then I found some old episodes of “30 Rock” and I felt better.

            Dinner sounded great. The menu recommended a Beef Fillet dish from the American Gallery Collection. I think this meant that a famous chef had mistakenly signed off on it.

            Now not to put too fine a point on it, but I had read somewhere that steak is the hardest dish to ruin in the air. Perhaps I wrote that. But the description of the dish sounded encouraging. “Grilled fillet of beef featured with a ratatouille sauce, cauliflower gratin and a medley of baby vegetables.”

            What arrived at my seat was a piece of overcooked beef swimming in toxic brown grease surrounded by four bits of veggies impregnated with the liquid ooze. I asked for two napkins and began clotting the grease in the hope that I could stop the flow long enough to possibly take a bite. No such luck. But I was headed for a river cruise that promised “gourmet cuisine.” I could certainly wait a day or two.

            Having passed on one of life’s three great pleasures, I started work on the second, sleep. It takes about an hour, however, to realize that there will be no sleep because these are not seats that become what we might describe as “beds.”  They are seats that propel you in contortions that are reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter strapped onto his gurney for transport. And what does one do with one’s feet?

            No big deal, I gladly suffer sleep for my readers.

            I groggily disembark to the thrill of Heathrow’s Terminal Five and my BA connection to Vienna where my riverboat departs.

            It was my first encounter with the new Terminal and, being an avid fan of British Airways advertising, I was dismayed at the absence of dolphins swimming to and fro through the building. I thought I had clearly seen that in the ads.

            In place of the dolphins, are a number of pricey, very pricey, uber-brand shops. There are also “guides” stationed throughout the terminal, whose job, it would appear, is to steer the uninitiated into the various sales emporiums. The exciting, new Terminal Five struck me as any other major hub terminal on Rodeo Drive steroids.

            They are advising two-three hours for Heathrow transfers these days, two being the minimum connect time. I could not determine if this had to do with the in-transit security checkpoints or the fact that the Prada and Tiffany check-out lines were backed up.

SEARCHING FOR SANTA AND SAUSAGES

PART TWO

            My first taste of river cruising occurred as I was unceremoniously taxi-dumped, along with my luggage, in front of the Viking River boat. It was sitting all by its lonesome at a mooring upriver from Vienna.

            I am headed off to sample the Christmas Markets on a December cruise along the Danube, visiting ports in Austria and Germany.

            There was a small gangway and I wanted help lugging my luggage to my cabin. There were staff inside but no one came out to help me. So I stood for a while.

            Finally, I left my bags outside and walked aboard to find several staff at the reception desk and officers moving suitcases about the boat.

            “May I help you”, one of the ladies behind the desk inquired.

            “Well yes, “ I replied, “I am a guest who has been standing outside your front door for some time. I was wondering why no one would help me with my luggage.”

            “Oh but it is so cold” she explained.

            My introduction to customer service now complete, I turned to one of the officers and ordered him to assist me.

            First off, let me explain that this isn’t going to be a “travels from hell” piece. I think that Viking River offers extraordinary value. I was paying full fare and traveling with a group of friends and I tried always to remember that one could do this cruise for less then $2,000.

            By any stretch, Viking River is a product for our time. You get from town to town without turbulence, without taxis, and without trauma. Shore excursions are included. I was impressed that many of them were walking tours led by locals with a degree of passion about their home town. That is how I learned that Germany has 1,247 breweries, producing 5,000 different kinds of beer.

Viking River is also, from everything I could determine, rather consistent. It is packaged travel, you do things their way and everything will be fine.

            Cabins are utilitarian but I loved the huge picture window and the water pressure in the shower. River boats are constructed using modular designs. There is no concrete between cabins. Viking had placed me at the very end of the ship so I only had to share the cruise with one couple on the other side of the wall.

            He was a wheezer, a smoker, and a hunter. She felt he should eat more fruit. He felt she should shut up. That was pretty much what I learned about them through the wall, that and the fact that he ought to be sleeping with a C-Pap machine but he clearly had not yet been properly diagnosed. I never met the people “in the wall” but I had fun imagining who they might be.

            I loved the itinerary and I appreciated the ability to just walk off the boat and stroll into town. In Melk we visited the hilltop 900 year-old Bendictine abbey. I had been there before, so I cut out early to stroll down to town along a curving path of stone steps, joined by hundreds of local school kids who had been taking classes at the abbey.

            I stopped to talk with locals along the way and bought some Apricot jam, said to be the best in Europe. The walk back to the ship included a small bridge and a mini-forest.

            Linz was next, a wonderful medieval town with a Christmas market that was heavy on Gleuwein and small sausages, along with candle stalls and Christmas ornaments.

            That, in essence, is what a Christmas market is. A series of decorated wooden stalls selling things that make Christmas seem authentic while fortifying shoppers with grilled, never boiled, sausages that are truly regional in shape and taste.

            In fact, there are about 1500 clearly defined types of sausage in Germany, and, on behalf of you, dear reader, I did my best to taste as many as I could.

            The market in Regensburg was similar to the one in Passau, but it is on a larger scale because Regensburg is a beautifully preserved medieval city.

            My pattern was to sightsee early morning, take lunch at the Christmas market and return to the boat in time for dinner.

            As to the so-called “gourmet cuisine” let’s just say it was eclectic with a style clearly reflecting the kitchen staff’s Eastern European background. Everything was pre-portioned and one could hear, the largely retired American guests refer positively to the fact that “they don’t give you a lot of food like the big cruise ships.”

            Service was somewhat chaotic and never intuitive. My friends and I comprised a group of nine. The maitre’d refused to add a chair on the final night to a table of eight so we could all sit together. I volunteered to sit alone.

            The menus clearly are not designed to be popular with Americans but they tried to be authentic. Among the entrees that appeared during the week was “Pustza grill” described as “lamb cutlet, pork medallions wrapped in bacon and cevapcici with herb butter, baked potatoes, lecso vegetables and sour cream with garlic.”

            The night this appeared on the menu I was seated with a former radio personality and his wife from a small town in Indiana. They were enjoying their cruise but needed help translating the menu.

            The Captain was a large fellow with a beard and a ready grin. He spoke not a word of English, at least not publicly. For the dinner in his name, guests we were offered first “sushi rice with marinated salmon”, then “quail consommé with a cranberry dumpling”, followed by ravioli, pan-friend Mahi and baked Alaska.

            My recommendation is that whoever is planning these menus might do well to lay off the gleuwein.

            The most obnoxious part of my river cruise experience concerned the onboard “lecturer” who had formerly been a waiter or something on the boats. He spoke in a nasal monotone, gave a memorized rendering of virtually every bit of historical background material. But his most annoying habit was consistently asking for applause for various crew members who were just, after all, doing their jobs.

            He would, for instance, insist that the audience give applause as he formally introduced the “wine steward” each pre-dinner briefing. The earnest young man who then proceed to the microphone and show the red and white wine bottles he was recommending for sale that evening. His one minute spiel ended, our host would say “let’s hear it for our wine steward” and two or three couples would offer polite applause. They were probably Midwesterners. While this was all going on, the bartenders in the back of the room would ridicule their fellow crew members to the annoyance of guests.

            We overnighted in Nuremberg, a truly beautiful city filled with recent memories and more then a few reconstructions of historical merit. I saw the site of the trials and, with others, stood outside looking an the imposing courtroom identifiable by the drawn shades on the upper floor.

            Nuremberg’s Christkindelsmarkt is probably the best in Germany. I first saw it on a damp evening, the glow of amber street lights providing background to the colors, sights, and smells of several hundred booths offering porcelains, ceramics, marzipan, hand-made toys, puzzle booths, purveyors of gingerbread, and, of course, more than a dozen stands where men and women in white lab coats dished out rolls loaded with the city’s famed grilled bratwurst.

            And as I huddled under the awning of a booth serving just cooked potato pancakes served with a dollop of applesauce from a huge barrel, two horse-drawn carriages with footmen swept past on the cobblestone street as the horseman in the front yelled out for the pedestrians to clear the way.

            River cruising is not for everyone. But for me, in this town, at this time, as I prepared to leave the potato pancake booth in search of the world’s best sausages,        I was enjoying the perfect prelude to spending Christmas at home.

A LETTER FROM VIENNA

            The Austrian actor Erich von Stroheim, once said that “If I speak of Vienna it must be in the past tense, as man speaks of a woman he has loved and who is dead.”

            In truth, however, based on what I observed during this visit, Vienna is very much alive and it is Mr. Stroheim who is, in fact, dead.

            Long thought of as the gateway to Eastern Europe, a land of spies and Sacher torte, Vienna has to be, for Americans at least, one of Europe’s most underappreciated cities.

            It took me just an afternoon to figure out what I love about this place. Vienna is like someone you meet and fall in love with slowly. But you quickly discover that underneath her charm and elegance there is this highly evolved intelligence. At first it scares you just a bit. Are you up to it? Will it find you out?

            But in the end, you rationalize that it really is always better to fall in love with someone with a brain. There are challenges, yes, but oh the rewards.

            My taxi driver from the airport was not wearing a tie. He had not, in fact shaved. He was, however, listening to Brahms as the BMW cab whisked me to the Hotel Bristol in the city center.

            That night, walking the inner ring of the city center, not far from the Opera House, I heard the most beautiful music coming from somewhere ahead of me. A moment or two later I saw a small crowd gathered under the portico of the Bally store where a lone violinist accompanied a man with the most beautiful contralto voice I had ever heard.

            This is a city of absolutely stupendous buildings. They form caverns as I walk in the frigid air of a December night. But the music keeps me warm and always, as I look up, I see sculptured angels on the tops of facades seeing me safely on my path.

            The oldest settlement in Vienna dates from the Stone Age. Later came Vindobono, a small Celtic settlement that, in the first century, became a Roman encampment.

            In 1945, Vienna was divided into four zones and Austria itself was not fully guaranteed its freedom and independence until the signing of the State Treaty in 1955.

            This history, including the massive bombing of the Second World War, makes Vienna’s intellectual renaissance all the more amazing. I ponder this and take notes while taking “kaffee and Kuchen” at the city’s famed pastry palace, Demel, on Kohnmarkt. From my table I can see the bakers at work on their particular form of “art”.

            Today, about 1.6 million residents live in 853,000 registered apartments and private homes. Almost 50% of the city is green space, parks and small bits of forest. That makes Vienna the greenest city in Europe.

Vienna is a city that answers the question one hears in our profession continually. I don’t care about getting a tan and I don’t          consume drinks with umbrellas. I am not brain dead and I crave culture and sophistication. Where can I go?”

            Get thee to Vienna. The Austrian Actor and Director Max Reinhardt was more accurate in his appraisal of the city then von Stroheim. “God created the world”, he said, “but man created a second world for himself – art.”

            His canvas is Vienna. I thought I might give you a listing of some of my favorite museums. But just to be fair to other cities whose sense of culture is not as sublime, let me tie one-hand behind Vienna’s back by listing only a few of the museums that happen to begin with the letter “G”.

            There is, for instance, the Geldmuseum for folks with an interest in coins and numismatics. I love the Gemaldegalerie der Akademie which features works by Hieronymus Bosch. Then there is the Globenmuseum, featuring a collection of Baroque globes. Those are just a few of the “G” collections.

            In fact, Vienna has more museums and concert halls, more art galleries, and people who appreciate them, then any other city on earth.

Vienna is the antidote for those seeking a vacation that will be as nourishing for the brain as it is for the body.

A LETTER FROM THE WORLD

Part One of a Two-Part Series

She is out there, somewhere, moving silently as she enfolds an average of one hundred and seventy-five fortunate souls, in her generous arms.

            The World is a peaceful place. The Word is a spacious place. The World is the perfect place from which to explore The World

Whenever Albert Einstein was asked to explain science, he would reply that it was “nothing more then a refinement of everyday thinking.” In much the same way, The World of Residensea is a refinement of almost everything ever said about luxury cruising.  In fact, if you are going to toss the term “luxury” about when speaking of cruise ships, you need to invent a category to describe this incredible vessel. Luxury just doesn’t cover it.

For the past decade, I have edited a web site that maintains ratings of the World’s Top Ten Cruise lines. The World is, currently, the world’s top-rated ship. But that is, admittedly, a tad unfair to the luxury lines since one could make a convincing argument that The World is not a cruise ship. She is an elegant refinement. She was built to explore whatever can be discovered while traveling by sea.

Antoine De Saint-Exupery, the French writer and aviator once wrote “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks at work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” That is, I think, a decent expression of the spirit of this venture.

Launched in 2002, and funded by Knut Kloster Jr. and a collection of Norwegian-based shipping all-stars, the World has sailed on to become a 100% sold-out success story. Every one of the 165 private residences aboard are sold out and have been for several years.

Americans were originally predicted to make up about 40% of the ownership but, as things turned out, currently 50% of the owners come from the States.

There are all sorts of wild stories about this quiet ship, most of which have to do with the project’s viability. In fact, The World is about as solid as it gets when it comes to ships that cater to the true luxury consumer. Just three years after launching in 2002, the owners of the apartments bought the company. The World does not employ DSM’s. The ship is happily sold out to 165 owners at prices ranging from $1.4 to about $7.9 million, along with about $240,000 in annual maintenance, supply, and crew fees.

Today, the World is in a sweet spot. It is always sold out. Quite literally. The crew gets paid no matter how full the ship happens to be at any moment so they are quite pleased to be aboard. Success, of course, is often best measured by the things one doesn’t have to endure. There are no marketing meetings ashore with busy executives trying to take the pulse of the masses. Itineraries aboard this ship are not planned so they will sell. They are planned as per the wishes of the owners. They will sail where they want to sail and they will spend a fair amount of time in the ports where it makes sense to remain for a few days. They will go back to parts of the word they haven’t visited for a few years and they are keen to explore areas of the globe that might represent a new pin on that map of the world hanging in the den in one of their homes.

Of course, the question can be asked, “but what has this to do with me?”

Most of the owners are aboard ship for small portions of the year. Two-thirds of the apartments and suites sit empty when they are not sailing. But about a third of the owners put their “units” in a rental pool handled by their own management company. This means that individuals can, based on availability, book any six night or longer segment. Prices start at around $1300-$1400 per night and go up rapidly.

On a per diem basis that can be double what you might pay for one of the top-rated five-star cruise ships. But when you compare the World with a junior suite in one of Europe’s top resorts, you start achieving some price parity. The World is, however, much the better deal because meals in one’s choice of restaurants are included, as are drinks, as are gratuities. And, by the way, the price of $1400 covers two people.

The very exclusivity of The World is one of its great attractions. But surely those who travel on ships to demonstrate the force of their own personality may be disappointed at the limited audience. . Fewer paying guests will sail aboard The World in a year then will sail with Silverseas in a week. The Seabourn Legend carries 212 passengers and is 10,000 gross tons. The World average 175 guests and is 43,000 gross tons. More than four times the space and fewer guests.

The marketing of this “cruise line” is aimed at true believers, a cadre of fewer then twenty travel firms that have the clientele to produce some significant booking numbers. But, in truth, The World is a sweet secret that the savvy consultant may want to unwrap in front of the jaded luxury client.

For many, true luxury is characterized by limited access.  The World provides that entry into the world of the rich and not very famous. No group of more then ten cabins is ever allowed onboard. On popular itineraries, where many owners are expected to show up, or members of their brood, available space may be non-existent. But for those consultants willing to learn the product, an exciting option to traditional cruising awaits.

And, interestingly enough, the folks who manage the rental marketing of the owners suites and apartments, pay commission and protect the original booking agency when future bookings are made, even if they are made directly with the line. That policy alone, it seems to me, ought to generate considerable buzz about the opportunity to become engaged in selling the most unique cruise product in the world.

(to be continued)

A LETTER FROM THE WORLD

(Part Two of a Two-Part Series)

Aboard The World (The luxury cruise ship with every apartment, studio, and suite privately owned)

I am sitting off in a corner of the World’s immense lobby. It is the size of a soccer pitch, open and elegant. A surfeit of space that seems to announce to first-time visitors, “Look, I’ve got more room here then you could possibly need.”

My wife is over in the Banyon Tree-operated Spa, a Thai experience in a suitably tranquil setting. I felt obligated to test the Thainess of the massage yesterday, and, yes, indeed, the therapist did jump up on the table to take a bit of a stroll on my back. How nice to realize she was not wearing heels.

The art gallery had some beautiful, modern pieces in keeping with the ship’s Stockholm meets SoHo design theme. The artist was onboard to discuss technique and, I suppose, to part with a work or two. But it is easier on The World because the purchased pieces only have to travel up a deck or two to find their cherished place in an owner’s living room.

The Theater shows first-run movies and is a wonderful spot for onboard lecturers.  My daughter was entertained by staff in a well equipped children’s center, a fact made remarkable only considering that she was one of two young children aboard.

I get up and walk to the hallway on my right and pass Fredy’s Deli, an international gourmet shop that carries about 500 “necessities”. On The World, that would, by definition, include some Beluga caviar, fois gras, and truffled this and that. The owners pay for their groceries. After all, most have fully-equipped designer kitchens in their cabin. But there is no charge for renters as long as the food is consumed at one of the tables overlooking the sea.

This morning, I had smoked salmon eggs Benedict at the Marina restaurant. I took out a small pad and begin scribbling notes about my observations during the past 24 hours.

The journalistic gods were smiling because I quickly realized that the tables to my left and right were occupied by owners. And they weren’t whispering.

I put my small pad away and began listening. This story was coming to me. I wasn’t going to have to go far to find it. No Pulitzer this week.

One of the owners was recounting his meeting with His Holiness, the Dali Lama, weeks earlier. There was also a rather fascinating discussion revolving around the wisdom of the purchase of a four and a half million dollar two-bedroom unit. Everyone at the table nodded in agreement as one gentleman said “I won’t make anything on this purchase. But imagine how much I would have lost had I put the money in the market.” One of the Owners wondered aloud if “I should go back to India again.”?  “If I don’t do that segment, I will probably have my sister go.”

The A-personality in the blue blazer and pressed khaki shorts explained to his tablemates that “I had three houses and I wasn’t using two of them. So I figured why not buy one really nice house that happens to float around the planet? I can get on and off when I want. Boy, it’s been a great lifestyle choice. And, quite frankly, if I lose 10-15% of my investment – so what? It’s still worth it and I would have lost more had I kept the houses.”

The most telling comment came from a youngish-looking fellow in a powder blue golf sweater. “I’ve bought into this for my kids and I’ve never had a minute of regret. What better gift could I leave them then The World.”? Everyone at the table nodded in agreement.

To my right, two women were planning their day. One asked her friend if she was planning on doing anything special during the ships three day stop in Veracruz?

“I’ve got all these books sitting in my living room”, her friend replied, “Can we play it sort of loose?”

That night, we pretty much had the ship to ourselves. One of the owners has a home near where the ship is docked for the Super Bowl. He sent a private bus to pick everyone up for a catered dinner at his home.

Of course, they did not need to provide a bus. One of the ship’s chefs can be booked to come to an owner’s suite to prepare a private dinner for friends.

Later in the morning, I visited a three-bedroom, three bath, 3100 square foot apartment that was showing signs that the recession is finding its way aboard. The $7.9 million asking price had just been lowered to $7.4, “It’s a really good deal” I was informed.

Given that there are so few guests aboard ship at any one time, not all of the restaurants are open each evening. Portraits is the full-blown French gourmet experience and they only turn the tables over once.

Renters can utilize the services of a world-class Concierge team that can secure impossible reservations ashore while also arranging truly customized ways to experience the ports along the way.

In the upcoming months, The World will do Mexico, followed by South America, then Central America, the West Coast of the United States, July in Alaska, and a  Bering Sea Expedition in August, followed by Russia. Then it’s off to the Orient, the Philippines, an Expedition to Papua New Guinea, followed by Australia in December.

But these itineraries are unique in that they include three days in Ho Chi Minh City, four in Tokyo, nine in Papua New Guinea, and five in Sydney. And that is what I find most attractive about the world. These are worldwide cruises for people with the time, inclination, and wallets to actually see some of the places they are visiting.

Is The World a cruise ship? I suppose it is, if you believe that a Mac and a PC are both of the same species. But I see it more as a private club that allows a fortunate few to bypass the membership and purchase requirements to experience the ultimate lifestyle at sea.

The World is a quiet place. There are few security concerns because no one seems to know she is in port. Celebrities have not been encouraged to purchase so as not to call attention to the ship or its owners.

She is out there, sailing effortlessly in and out of ports around the globe. No Hoopla, no lines, no noise. And, at their whim, just a few at a time, their 150 or so privileged guests disembark to truly experience a sense of place, returning each night to their “homes.”

Reprinted 11.18.08

A LETTER FROM SOUTHERN TUSCANY

            Captain Shumann was delighted. From my seat I could imagine a wide grin spread across his face as he announced we would be arriving in Dusseldorf four minutes early.

            I was flying to Italy on Lufthansa for two primary reasons. First, I prefer airlines that work. Secondly, I was no longer willing to play “will they or won’t they” with Alitalia. As a former resident of Italy, I had a long history of placing my faith in the notion that Alitalia crews might actually feel like flying come departure day, but I have since traded that out for my affections for airlines that are obsessed about being on-time.

            There was a time in my life, a short time, when I owned an Alpha Romeo. I was young and I got a kick out of the fact that they played Italian opera music in the shop whenever my car was being repaired. But as I grew older, there was a certain reassurance in knowing that the BMW would actually start in the morning.

            Dusseldorf is my new secret connection in Europe. It is not a pretty airport, and  it does attract a layer of industrial grit and more than its share of fog. But it looks like an airport, not a shopping mall with slots, and I take comfort seeing the equipment laying all over the tarmac as we taxi to the gate.

            I am in route to Perugia and Parma, to experience Umbria and, later, Emilio Romagna with seventeen friends, who once started out as clients. It is a trip I have planned for my personal enjoyment and, once again, I am surprised and delighted to have good company. I far prefer traveling with bright adults who genuinely seem to like one another, to industry fam trips populated by a generous sprinkling of toads, frogs, and phonies. I’ve been accompanied by clients on most of my travels over the past twenty years and I have never been disappointed in the company I’ve kept. When I stop enjoying the company of my clients and no longer feel that they enhance and help define the experiences we share together, it will be time to put away my carry-on.

            In truth, I am a born again Tuscan. Having spent six years living in a small village in the Chianti hills south of Florence, I quickly adapted to Tuscan ways. That means everything in Florence and Tuscany is the best – the wines, the countryside, and the general style of the people. In fact, every true Tuscan, secretly believes that the rest of Italy is insanely jealous of them and that Italy is, at its core, a land of peasants trying, never successfully, to imitate the manner and style of the citizens of Florence and the surrounding Tuscan countryside.

            “But Richard, you will not like the beef in Parma – they are only pig eaters”, said one friend from Florence.

            A work colleague from Italy cautioned me that I would be exploring “a land where they think red wine needs to be frizzante”, a reference to Lambrusco, the often-ridiculed sparking red wine.

            I cannot, however, do Umbria or Emilio Romanga without, first, starting out in Tuscany for sustenance and acclimation. This I achieve, by flying into Rome where I am to be whisked by private driver to the Foneteverde Spa where we will be staying for a few nights. There is no better way to introduce one’s body to Italy then experiencing the healing properties of its outdoor thermal pools  with their incredible undulating Renaissance landscapes as far as the eye can see.

            Walking out the door through customs at Rome’s Fiumicino I search for my driver. Suddenly, amid a sea of blank faces holding name signs and looking bored with the life of a transfer driver, I spot a lovely blonde woman in a red blazer. Yes, my driver is there. We pull out in the Mercedes and ride the left guard rail until we turn off the autostrada for more sanguine lanes as she lowers the speed to about 70.

            Soon, we are in the area of San Casciano dei Bagni, a charming village in a line of charming villages in Tuscany’s most southern region. It is a wonderful area for exploring and the best way to do it is by driving in a caravan of Red Ferrari’s with a lead guide car.

            After soaking in the thermal pools, eyes closed from time to time so that I could be amazed at the view each time they opened, it was time to share dinner with my friends. I had asked that our first dinner be a taste of Tuscany served family style. This is not the way restaurants in Italy generally serve, but the owners love to do it for Americans because it allows the tasting of a great many dishes.

            The highlight was the arrival of sizzling platters of Grade 5 Chianna Beef, the herd that makes a Tuscan salivate. Only the best restaurants actually identify the rating of the beef. The steak was served with white fava beans and spinach and several Chianti Classico’s of historic vintage. It was a meal, I thought, that Popeye might have enjoyed had his dining companion been Hannibal Lecter.

            The next day, we head off for Montepulciano. It is a light day. We have a wine tasting in the morning so as not to delay the first of several encounters with Vin Nobile di Montepulciano, a wine that has managed to enable this small town to achieve near-legendary status among connoisseurs around the world. If you ever see a good one on a wine list don’t bother reading the rest of the list.

            After our wine tasting, a “light” lunch of four courses lasting only two hours, was followed by an afternoon snack at the tiny Buca di Enea, a place filled with just enough small tables to hold us. There we sampled six types of Pecorino cheeses which were properly served with home-made jams made from local fruits, crostini with chicken liver paste, bruschette, and about half a dozen local wines of character. We then went for a short walk before leaving for dinner in a wonderful converted farmhouse.

            We had missed the Bravio delle Botti, the town’s biggest event held on the last Sunday in August. This is Montepulciano’s answer to Siena’s famed horse race, the Palio. But here, teams of two from each of the town’s historic quarters or “contrada” ,compete ferociously to roll an 80 kilo wine cask up the extremely steep main street until it reaches the churchyard of the Duomo in Piazza Grande.

            So steep is this street, that Americans need to make several rest stops just to complete the walk. The two “spingitori” push the heavy barrel, which can easily turn on its side and go rolling back into the cheering crowds They push and breathe with practiced skill. But they often fail, a failure that wlll be replayed many times in the conversations of elders in the town’s cafes and living rooms in the coming year.

            But like so much else in Italy, it is the tradition of the event that matters. The athletes stretch their limits for a prize of a painted cloth banner. But that banner is mentioned in the Book of the Mayor in 1373.

            It is the notion of the neighborhood, with its own flag and its own symbol, going back more than 500 years, that makes this athletic event significant. Italians in these small towns, hamlets, and villages enjoy a sense of place, continuity, and community that makes us want to identify with them. I was thinking about this back in the thermal pool as I looked at the stars and sipped my final Vin Nobile of the evening.

            Tomorrow we head out for Umbria, in search of the answer to my favorite travel question.

“Can anything be better than this?”

A LETTER FROM UMBRIA

            Umbria is always a surprise, It is one of those hidden destinations lost in the glow of its nearest neighbor, Tuscany.

            The university underground knows that Perugia, the capital of Umbria, is the best college town in Western Europe. There are two main universities, the ancient Universita degli Studi and the Foreigners University, which caters to students from around the world. But there are also numerous institutions of learning including the Fine Arts Academy and the Music Conservatory. It is a province, an artist’s haven, and the place where Vanucci taught Raphael how to paint.

            All this is an ancient hilltop setting overlooking gentle hills. The permanent population is 163,000.

            Earlier today, I visited nearby Todi, considered by Italians to be Italy’s most livable small city. That has to do with its favorable placement, its relatively stable and affluent economy, and the city’s escalators and funiculars. Todi is built like some Renaissance erector set, a series of sections, one higher then the next. The same is true in Perugia, but on a larger scale..

            The Italians have devised a series of fancy escalator stations, stylish elevators, and human lifting devices. They serve the purpose of lifting  locals from quarter to quarter without strain and without upsetting their baskets filled with caciotta, salted ricotta, Pecorino, and a hunks of Porchetta, a roast suckling pig stuffed with its own entrails and then flavored with herbs.

            Near Todi, I stop at the wine Museum in Torgiano to learn, that, once again, it all started with the Greeks. The father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding had it right. “We invented everything” he would instruct his children

            Back in Perugia I sit at one of the outdoor cafes perched exactly in the center of Corso Vannucci, the main walking street, located on one of the town’s upper levels, The Passeggiata, or the evening stroll, starts about five pm in Perugia, and it continues until about midnight. Or at least it slows down a bit at midnight.

            There is one job offer that might take me away from my present responsibilities. I would accept the position of Secretary of Passeggiata at the Cabinet level in Washington. We need Passeggiata in the United States. We need it badly.

Italians in their small hill towns and larger cities live in generally tight quarters. Not because they are poor, but, rather, because they live in ancient dwellings and they insist on living no more than a few steps away from a bar, an outdoor market, and a shoe emporium. So space is at a premium. Instead of meeting friends indoors, they leave their tiny apartments whenever they can to stroll the streets of their city.

This provides exercise, of course, costs nothing, and enables one to meet virtually the entire neighborhood.

I love watching the most mature of the citizenry getting their exercise, stopping to chat after kisses on both cheeks. Families walk hand-in-hand, window-shopping, licking at their gelato cones and seeming to be entirely at peace with the world.

But the Passeggiata in Perugia has something else that makes it unique and well worth a visit. It has the vitality of large numbers of students, playing guitars, arguing politics, working on homework even as they sit on ancient stone steps in the flickering glow of a nearby street lamp.

Passeggiata is the secret glue that holds Italy together. The bond is tighter in some towns then others. It reaches its zenith in Perugia. This not an evening walk. In fact one does not exactly walk. One glides, slowly, a kind of ritual dance with frequent pauses and interruptions. You can tell the tourists, those who are not a part of Passeggiata. They are still in their shorts, watching all these folks, representing three generations passing in review from wherever they are seated.

The locals look good during Passeggiata, not a difficult thing for these Italians. Style counts because one is likely to run into friends and associates. It doesn’t matter that they may have passed these same store windows the night before. They walk before dinner, especially after dinner, and sometimes dinner is taken in town in the middle of the ritual.

Imagine how much more we might get out of life if Americans poured out into the streets each evening to speak to their neighbors, to get a bit of exercise, and to take pride in the comfort of their town. Of course, one of the benefits of Passeggiata in the United States is that it might enable us to take back our streets. When the entire town is out walking, crime suddenly disappears. Too many potential witnesses.

Passeggiata is so ingrained an institution in Italy that locals might drive several hours in any direction for the opportunity to sample the evening stroll in a new environment. Invariably, this experience is said to be lacking in some area, no doubt because so much a part of the ritual involves pausing and chatting with one’s friends and neighbors. When that component is missing, the stroll becomes merely exercise and there is little reason to dress up for that.

            I am writing these notes as I sit in a small café behind Perugia’s main cathedral. It is a university quarter, and as my pizza topped with arugula, pecorino cheese, and prosciutto arrives at my wooden bench, I overlook an ancient square filled with students. It is just about midnight and, in the background, I hear Prince singing “Purple Rain”.

Reprinted from TRAVEL WEEKLY MAGAZINE

12.18.06 AND 1.27.07

THE MOST IMPORTANT TRIP OF MY LIFE

Part I of a Two-Part Series

The man’s name is Mr. Wu. I never had the pleasure of meeting him but I did pause to read his letter.

Mr. Wu thanked us for visiting his facility. He hoped we found our stay satisfactory. He explained that he took pride in his work and he asked us to contact him if there were any service problems of any kind. He listed two local mobile numbers. He wished us a wonderful stay in his country and, again, emphasized that we should call him if we need him.

This is only interesting because Mr. Wu is the men’s rest room attendant near Gate # 65 at Hong Kong’s new, amazing construction feat of an airport,  His letter and photo hang on the wall near the exit door.

Mr. Wu symbolizes the rebooting of China. There is a frenzy of excellence, or at least the attempt to achieve excellence, that seems to have permeated many layers of Chinese society. It will take a while for the Chinese to meld their technological aptitude with high degrees of personalized service, but it appears that they have started that journey.

My wife, Angela, and I are at Chep Lap Kok to board a Sichwuan Airlines flight to Chongquing, in the southwestern part of the country. Sitting on the new plane, with its attentive flight crew, I smiled as each flight attendant was personally introduced with a bow to the passengers. Take off and landing were within  thirty seconds of schedule.

            We are heading to the interior of China to meet and bring home our new, 13-month old baby girl, Briana. Authorities found her abandoned when she was three days old. But she was left in a place where she would surely be found.

We have her picture. We have maps but they are undecipherable. I want to bring you along with us as we experience twelve days in a place for which you can never, adequately prepare. Here are some notes from my journal:

Arrival Chongquing reinforces the rebooting effect, I have already noticed. Every airport we visit is modern and appears to be new. Uniforms are all pressed and staff, though not always smiling, are efficient. The ride from the airport to the city is a Chinese wake-up call.       The landscape was pleasant enough, with some greenery. But there was this haze, this smokey grey darkness that never disappeared. Chongquing has fewer that 1000 hours of sunlight per year, a sort of Chernobyl-lite layer of depression hangs over the place. Looking out my window I saw the skyline, a skyline that seemed to be the size of Manhattan. I was impressed, but then I turned and saw that there were three Manhattans out the other side. The Province of Chongquing and the city house 32 million – it is, by some measures, the most populated place on earth.

Despite this, there were relatively few cars in the downtown area. You could walk in the middle of the street running alongside the Harbor Plaza Hotel and think it was a pedestrian mall.

There was a Starbucks around the corner. All shiny and new with English language signs promoting seasonal tutti-frutti flavors like Gingerbread and Pumpkin Spice. But there were no patrons and when I went back there were no patrons. Who, I wondered, is going to pat $4.50 for a cup of coffee in Chongquing? This store, like so much of central and southern China, is ready and waiting to serve the middle class and the western tourists who surely will be arriving on the next Sichwuan flight. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in three years.

The people who weren’t in Starbucks were one block away north of the main thoroughfare. Here, stall after stall served portions of street food to hundreds of diners at a time. Some of the stalls had set up small folding tables, but, for the most part, diners stood and talked while they nimbly picked at whatever and rice with their chopsticks.

There was large department store blaring Chinese rock music from huge speakers near the entrance. You had to take an escalator up to reach the store. As I entered I realized that the entire store was devoted to cell phone sales. Kiosk after kiosk, display after display, it went on forever. And people were shopping.

It was at this point, after walking the city for hours, that I began to realize there were no Americans, no Europeans, not even Canadians. In fact, except for our foray to the American Consulate at Guangzhou, we never ran into a single westerner. Perhaps they were all at Pizza Hut but we never saw them. In fact, we really never met fluent English-speakers and yet, we got along just fine. All of the food was not wonderful, but the restaurant dinners were. Room service became a kind of game one played and we would guess at what would actually arrive.

But how strange, I thought, that I could wander the largest city on earth and find it totally devoid of American visitors.

If I had wandered down to the riverfront I would have found tourists. Chongquing is the beginning, or end, of cruises along the most picturesque portions of the Yangtze. But few Americans stay a few days, preferring to pre/post in Beijing or Xian.

On our second day in the city we took a short bus ride to the government adoption office to receive our daughter. At this point we had received a photo, a two-age medical report in Chinese, and a one paragraph summary of her life – to date. The office was in an old building next door to an outdoor noodle shop. We walked into a doorway where we found a security guard of the rental variety and a woman selling candy and lottery tickets, past peeling walls, to an elevator that led to the second floor office. When the elevator door opened, we were shocked to fix twenty-four infants, from four different orphanages, playing on the floor. The children of each orphanage were identified by the colors of their pajamas.

Then came the most extraordinary compression of tears, joy, governmental questions, and procedures. It made us dizzy. Then the people who had taken care of our daughter had questions for us and we had to wait for the translator to assist.

I will never forget these moments and I won’t bore you with further details, but there was one small memory of those two hours I want to share with you.

As we were leaving the building, the elderly security guard and the woman selling lottery tickets, wanted to hug our baby goodbye. They thanked us for coming to China. There were tears in their eyes.

But these people must have seen hundreds, perhaps thousands of infants pass them in the narrow hallway as new parents left the building. Yet, they cared enough to cry with joy with us. That image will never leave my mind.

The next day we found the secret door that opened off a corridor in the rear of our hotel lobby. It opened to a surrealistic shopping experience, six floors of beautiful shops, each floor arranged by category, with two floors on top for fine dining. I say surrealistic because so much of it was illusion.

I headed for the men’s section and saw the Armani sign in the distance. But when I got really close it turned out to say Anmani. Versichee also had a store.

Most of the stores had a single employee. There was a department store anchor. We did some shopping but could not detect a single store employee who knew even a smattering of English.

I loved Chongquing at dusk, when the sky darkened from heavy grey to fog-shrouded black. Flashes of neon punctuated the night soup, miles of neon  cast a glow on the walking streets that circled the Victory Monument, a well-lit clock tower that signifies the defeat of the Kuomintang forces in 1949. The area is packed with people and you get the sense, at dusk that they are there simply because they can. There are no large gatherings, just groups of friends. Dating couples are in short supply. Young children seem absent from this canvas. There are so few baby strollers that ours draws stares from virtually every passerby. More than a few of the older women lean down to rearrange our daughter’s blanket; several kiss her on her forehead. It gets darker, the neon flashes continue, the stream of people never slows, and I am coming to realize that the Chinese people may just be the warmest people I have ever encountered in my travels.

A LETTER FROM GUANGZHOU

Part Two of a Two-Part Series

Guangzhou is a great walking city and one takes a certain comfort in what one hopes will be the familiarity of Cantonese cuisine.

The city is home to the U.S. Consulate and when one adopts, there are certain formalities that culminate in a mass swearing in by a government official.

We had five days in Guangzhou for exploring until the swearing in and the issuance of our daughter’s Chinese passport.

Most adoptive couples stay at the White Swan Hotel, a non-descript white tower with a lobby that looks as though it was designed by the same team who designed your town’s largest Chinese restaurant. The décor is accentuated by a floating antiquities sale that fills the lobby area with beautiful screens and lacquered chests,

A number of local businesses have developed around the hotel, each of them catering to American and British visitors with time on their hands and the need for infant clothing.

By this time we had started a list of apparent Chinese “laws” one of which appears to outlaw the concept of “browsing”. Walk into any store and a salesperson will hover just off your right collarbone. They never try to hard sell but they are there to assist – should you need it.

My forays got me into some trouble almost immediately. I saw a kiosk selling Christmas decorations. Some were black and some were red. I picked out a lovely hanging box in black metal and was looking forward to hanging it on my tree when the salesperson threw out the word “funeral”. Wrong kiosk.

We were staying at the Holiday Inn, a new hotel, and surely one of the chain’s centerpiece properties. You enter the hotel through an arcade filled with small shops and food stands. Everywhere we looked in Guangzhou you saw people eating. Notice I did not say slurping, one of the stereotypes that just didn’t pan out. We saw relatively little slurping or spitting. But each of the food stalls seemed to be doing quite well and you could not walk through the crowds that gathered in front of the small gas stoves and woks without feeling that you had ingested at least half of what was being consumed.

The arcade entrance to the plush Holiday Inn was directly across from a stand that sold one item only – pig intestines on rice. It made you enter and depart the hotel in a hurry, actions that really must have reinforced the doorman’s opinion that Americans are crazy.

What I liked most about the Holiday Inn was the fact that room service really did not understand English. That made ordering fun and we came to accept the fact that we were going to be tasting things that one doesn’t find at the local take-out in Peoria.

We had upgraded our selves to a suite – we thought an extra $58 for a six-night stay was reasonable. It came with an entertainment center – of the human kind. Next to our hotel was a massive condo construction project. It was being built, as these things are, floor by floor and the construction was not only right outside our window but it was only two floors below our room.

Now if you know anyone in the building trades, you might suggest that they pay their union dues on time. In fact, they may want to pay a little extra. On the work site out our window, a beehive of activity that fascinated our daughter, a great deal was done by hand. During breaks, the workman, and women, simply lay down where they were. Fortunately they didn’t clang their steel all night long. The site closed at 4:00 Am., allowing us about two and a half hours before it all began again.

I loved walking the streets of Guangzhou. One right turn out the hotel door, just to the right was a narrow street that looked like it might have come from a period movie. Two blocks of shops selling fish, fish in tanks, fish in metal tubs, and goldfish of every hue. They were packaged in tiny plastic bags. Further down the street was a large family that sold nothing but scorpions – of the live variety. They were mixed up in large pots just prior to the sale. Used for a delectable local soup I am told. Next came the puppy venders. With the strictly enforced rules on one child per family, the Chinese have taken to buying exotic small dogs to carry in their shopping carts.

In the middle of the street, a woman taught her child how to do math on an old abacus, as they sat at a small wooden bench. Everyone walked around them.

People did not smile at us. But they smiled back if we made the first move and always they came up to see our baby. If her forehead was covered by her blanket, they would stoop down and fold the blanket back so they could see her features.. Her eyebrows arch upwards in the corners – a point of great discussion and joy to the Chinese.

Continuing down the street we came to a pedestrian overpass over a six-lane highway. On the other side we found older buildings, some clearly built in a British colonial style with shady streets. A Chinese actress was filming a commercial in the middle of one street. We discovered a Chinese School of massage and enjoyed a one and a half-hour massage for $10.00. The only disconcerting thing about the massage was that it was a semi-private room and an earnest young manager would keep walking in asking if “ok” “ok”. I was having a hard time pretending that I was in Bali.

Leaving my massage, I passed leafy parks where practitioners of Tai Chi went through their exercises.

But I haven’t told you where you end up if you leave the Holiday Inn and turn left instead of right. Continuing out of the arcade, past the pig intestine store, you come to a huge walking street that goes on for miles. Someone in Guangzhou has clearly paid the electric bill because neon signs and billboards blanket the night sky in ways that Vegas can only imagine. The streets are surprisingly clean. The young people are well dressed and animated. Music blares from the storefronts. Jewelry shops predominate. Side streets have the best food stalls. I try to talk with the owners of a tea shop and they show me the tines where they keep the really good stuff. A shop nearby sells medicinal herbs in liquid form. This means a few ounces from a large jar holding the entrails of a snake or worse. The liquid is thought to be healing but it all has to ferment for a while.

I take an escalator up to see what McDonald’s is up to. The frantic crew is practicing crowd control, leading customers to hidden, available seats as soon as they order.

Eight years ago, I was traveling in Hong Kong with a group that included an executive of McDonald’s. He invited me to dinner with the head of their operations in China. At that time, he pointed out, China had fifteen cities with a population of more than a million. “And we’re only in one. So, yes, the potential is really great.”

Walking the streets of Guangzhou with a Chinese baby offers a perspective few tourists would ever get. We were constantly approached by well wishers. As new parents of a Chinese girl, we felt that we were somehow invited to see and feel the soul of China. Every few minutes brought a new encounter despite the relative shyness of the population.

I thank each of the hundreds, perhaps, thousands, of Chinese who offered the thumbs up sign to us as we moved, with our pink baby stroller and its occupant, through the exciting, clean, frantic streets of their city.

Contributing Editor Richard Turen owns Churchill and Turen, a vacation-planning firm in Naperville, Illinois. He has been named to the Conde Nast list of The World’s Top Travel Specialists since the list began. Contact him atrturen@travelweekly.com

A LETTER FROM SHANGHAI

Shanghai, China

When Aldous Huxley said that “travel helps you discover that everyone is wrong about other countries”, he must have had Shanghai in mind.

This sprawling, trendy, waterfront, super-charged, gem of a city has an “electricity rating” of 98%, surpassed only by Hong Kong. The energy level in the streets sweeps you up. The changes taking place are almost impossible to comprehend.

Shanghai is where it’s happening. When the Shanghai Financial Center is completed in 2008, it will be the world’s tallest building. The Maglev is a reality so you can travel at speeds of 430 km on a train that levitates.

And, of course, the Olympics are coming to China.

I have been to a fair number of cities that were preparing for the Olympics. But no other city has a game plan that is so clear and so outrageous in its scope. Tens of thousands of people will be relocated. They will be given a choice of a 200,000 Yuan allowance or a new place in the suburbs. The new place will be twice the size but they will be at least a half hour out of the city. This is not a huge problem because transportation to and from the city will be subsidized.

Young people have been lining up at designated sites to donate strands of their hair to the Olympics. The purpose is to create a 2,008 meter long replica of the five circle Olympic logo out of resident’s locks.. They now have all the black hair they need. They are looking for a bit of brown for coloring.

When I was a child I was told to eat my peas because “children are starving in China.” Now, American kids might justifiably be told, “eat what is on your plate, or the Chinese will eat both their food and yours.”

With the advent of some private ownership, and the introduction of meaningful health and education reforms, China remains enigmatic to the western visitor. Shanghai and Hong Kong are very different places then Beijing or Guangzhou. The American visitor will want to poke beneath the surface of the typical historical orientation to try to figure out what is really going on in this place.

I tried to do this for a few days. And the best I could come up with is that Shanghai may just be the ultimate Socialist state gamble. Right now, it appears that they have large portions of the citizenry on their side. But they have had to adjust.

Yesterday, I spent several hours in the 5-story, modern Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center. Boring name, fascinating place. The highlight of this museum is on the third floor which houses a massive model of present-day Shanghai and the city as it will appear in the year 2020. Occupying the space of a basketball court, the entire city is modeled in exquisite detail. Residents can actually see what their neighborhood will look like thirteen years in the future.

Locals refer to the city as “the rainforest.” If you are walking underneath an off ice building the air conditioners will be dripping down on you. If you are passing an apartment building, you may feel the wet drops falling off the drying laundry.

Many of the residential buildings are so-called “one-soup” apartments. This means that the in-laws are so close in a nearby apartment that the same bowl of soup will still be hot when it is brought over.

In fact, the laundry was not fitting in with the city’s progressive, new image so the government forbids the hanging of laundry during daylight hours,

The Chinese population complained that their dishwashers do not work properly – they must hang their laundry in full view of the nice visitors strolling the Bund. The government considered the fact that Chinese dishwashers really are not worthy of the Maytag man. So a compromise was announced. It is now ok to hang laundry outside as long as they are not undergarments.

The streets are clogged with traffic. Buick and VW are the most popular brands, with factories in the suburbs. But there are 8.9 million bicycles and more than 90,000 taxis competing with the cars. It cost $5,000 to buy a license plate but that has not really cut down on traffic.

Visitors are interested in the “one child” policy. It is a complicated subject. Abortion is legal. Doctors are not permitted to give out gender information to perspective parents. Violating the one-child rule will often mean a fine equal to 15% of all of the mother’s money and property. Parents who have no siblings, can, under certain circumstances, have two children.

Nothing is easy here. Just to read a newspaper you would have to know 2,000 or so Chinese characters. To read serious literature you would need to know about 6,000 characters.

This is a country that does not allow its citizens to get CNN or BBC news. They certainly aren’t watching Fox. Teachers average $12,000 per year, a waitress or a construction worker will average about $4,000 but many get food and lodging.

The tests to get into University are difficult. There are four subjects – Chinese – English – Math and a 4th that varies based on specialization,

It is getting late and it should be dark. But the city fathers have mandated that every office tower in Shanghai keep its lights on until 10:30pm. The glow of millions of lights and the spotlights that illuminate the front of nearly every important building, serve to remind visitors that Shanghai is fully emerged from its historical closet. The great Chinese experiment will continue or fail here as the lights beckon the world to watch.

A LETTER FROM BEIJING

I have not arrived in Beijing on the wings of an angel. I flew United.

The service upstairs on the 747 was great, unless, of course, you’ve flown one of those Asian carriers that actually understands the concept of customer service.

Then there’s this thing I have about the age of the aircraft. I like to fly planes that are younger then the flight attendants.

I am ensconced at the Peninsula, an oasis of tranquility near the Wangfujing district. It is an exciting part of town and the visitor can wander down ancient alleyways called “hutongs” where local workers hover over stands dispensing fried donuts, sautéed chicken feet, and herbed teas the color of the Ganges.  Every block or two was a barber wielding a swinging set of scissors.

Walking these streets I experienced the latest tourist scam. Americans are approached by “university students” eager to practice English and to share what “life is really like here in Beijing”. The visitor enjoys the conversation until it is revealed that the university student is a starving artist with a run-down apartment that doubles as an art studio. The artist lairs are filled with the Chinese equivalent of Elvis-on-velvet art, the kind sold in the parking lots of gas stations just off the interstate in the States.

I did manage to meet a fair number of authentic students but only because I politely asked to see ID. After a while, I noticed that they all seemed to talk with the same phrases. Several told me that Beijing is “very good, I think, because things are getting harmonious and we have good order.” I saw a lot of “good order” when I looked up at the CCTV cameras and the soldiers patrolling.

Even the young people in western dress felt the need for structure. One engineering student from Beijing University told me that “we like making money, yes, but never without good order. We do not want to be exactly like you.”

So I went looking for good order in the area around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. As I walked along a path leading to the outer walls, I noticed a young woman on crutches who had talked back to a policeman. He seemed not to want to arrest her but as the path cleared to the wide boulevard just in front of the Square, three trucks pulled up. The woman was thrown to the ground and hurled into the back of one of the trucks, which quickly sped away..

The director of this was a soldier I called “hardcore’. I watched as he pulled people off of buses for searches by his associates. He also stopped walkers who looked, somehow, suspicious. It was the last day of the People’s Congress and security was high.

Finally, I tucked my notebook in my pocket and entered the Forbidden City’s South Gate.

Three hours later, I decided to walk back to my hotel. Just before turning onto Wangfujing, I bought an ice tea and sat on a park bench near the main bus stop. It was a sunny afternoon and a parade of bicycles, carts, and traffic streamed by. Perfect people watching. Suddenly I felt a presence, looked up, and saw “hardcore” approaching.

He came up to my bench, peered down at me, and asked “Where you from?”

“Not far from Wrigley Field”, I replied, “States.”

He stared at me. “You watch too much” he said as he threw me his best sneer and walked away. No doubt he would finish the sunny day by assuring that all was “in good order.”

WHAT FLYING STRESS?

Escaping from Siberia

On February 4th, a Monday, dense fog shrouded the Chicago area, making the city look something like Dresden after the bombing.

But I wasn’t worried. I was not scheduled to fly out until Wednesday. It was a trip that would take me to the least southern part of the south, the bottom of Florida.

It has been a rough winter. Thirty years earlier, I was brought to Chicago in a corporate move after years in Marin County, just over the Golden Gate Bridge. It took a while to get accustomed to the weather, but I’ve always loved winter and the people who live in America’s best functioning major city got to me quickly. I became a Chicagoan through and through.

Of course ,I live nowhere near the city. In fact, I live nowhere near my office, which is located in Chicago’s largest suburb. No, I drive almost an hour from remote Kendall County. It is an area of some growth but farmland still dominates the landscape. We live on a dead end road in the woods. So when I heard that heavy snow was forecast for my departure on Wednesday, I began to wonder if the limo that would take me to the airport would be able to make it down our road. Would the flights operate?

On Tuesday, the forecast worsened, something major was coming, and Chicago’s big shoulders might, like mighty Atlas, shrug under the onslaught of eight to twelve inches of snow.

I called my airline of choice at 4:00 pm. There was no way I was going to be able to get out on Wednesday, could I possibly fly on Thursday?

Now, at this point, you might imagine that my airline of choice would be Cathay Pacific, Singapore, or Emirates, airlines I have, in other forums, rated as the very best in the world. Add Virgin Atlantic and Qatar to that list. Or, since I am based in Chicago, is my “airline of choice” American or United? They are fine airlines.

But, no, my “airline of choice” is Southwest. And, once again, they demonstrated why.

A peppy reservation agent answered the phone on the second ring. She listened to what I wanted to do and responded:

“Oh Mr. Turen we don’t want you to risk driving to the airport in this weather. I will be happy to change your flight to Thursday or any other day that you wish, and Southwest will honor your fare.” I was confirmed immediately on the same flight a day later.

On Thursday, the limo arrived. A local farmer, Mr. Hill, had plowed our driveway. The roads near my house were bad but Chicago’s road crews love challenges and they work all night. The tollways were clear with very little traffic.

O’Hare had cancelled just over 1,000 flights on Wednesday and the news had carried scenes of thousands of stranded passengers sleeping on cots in the terminals. You may have seen the pictures. The TV weather people were actually fondling their dopplers.

So what would I find at Chicago’s smaller Midway Airport, the local home of Southwest?

I found no waiting at check-in. The Southwest curbside check-in guys walked out to the limo to get my bags. Southwest had pressed dozens of extra staff into service and cleared the backlog from the previous day. The runways had been cleared.

In the main terminal, huge pizzas was just coming out of the ovens, the lamb and feta sandwiches were warming, and a few TSA’s and Chicago’s finest were lined up for some Chicago-style dogs piled high with healthy, salad kind of stuff.

It was 10:30 in the morning,  the time when lunch in Chicago officially begins. Our Mayor decided some years ago that fliers out of Midway ought to be offered some of the best of the ethnic and “Chicago-style” foods for which the city is famous. So each and every one of my Southwest flights involves a wonderful picnic put together from the myriad of options in the terminal.

At the gate, the agent was extremely apologetic. Our departure was going to be delayed by about nine minutes.

We boarded our 737-700, still showing signs of newness, and were promptly instructed that the flight would be full so “I would like everyone to formally introduce themselves to the losers in the middle seat.” The lead flight attendant also mentioned that “if you really depend on my demonstration to operate your seat belt, please don’t try driving when we arrive in Ft. Myers.”

The pilot twice apologized for the nine-minute delay and promised that he would try to find some tailwinds to make up for the delay.

Hours after one of the worst snowstorms in recent years, our plane took off. No hassles – no problems and genuinely nice people every step of the way, all of whom actually seemed to enjoy working for their airline. My airline. .

Quite frankly,  I don’t see what the big deal is about flying these days.

Pilot Ron found the tailwind and we arrived at the gate two minutes ahead of schedule.

A KISS IS JUST A KISS

The French are struggling with the results of a new study that says that only 54% of American visitors are satisfied with the welcome they received in France.

This is a perception problem that should be easy to fix. Clearly, the French need something symbolic, like a lei greeting, to demonstrate how happy they are to welcome visitors to their  little corner of the world.

So I have recommended that the French Tourism authorities patent the “French Kiss” and make certain that all visiting Americans receive one at the airport or the cruise pier. This would make arriving passengers feel really special.

Every once in a while a French movie star could be driven out to the airport to kiss arriving tourists. Perhaps a “French Kiss” photo could be given to every arriving guest.

The Junior Minister for Tourism, who is a fully-grown adult, Luc Chatel, is very concerned about the fact that Spain and Italy are both scoring higher on hospitality surveys.

The image of grumpy taxi drivers and arrogant waiters is hurting France and the future impact of a drop in both European and American visitors is taken quite seriously these days.

More people visit France on vacation then any other nation on earth. And the World Tourism Association is predicting a tourism boom that will have worldwide repercussions. They are predicting, according to a recent release from Agence France Presse, that the number of travelers worldwide will actually double in the next twelve years. That there will be winners and losers in this epic struggle to win the hearts and minds of prospective tourists has not escaped the French. They are looking to begin improving even the little things like the way the immigration officer welcomes you at the airport, to the bathing habits of those who drive the nation’s taxis. This is a war and there are untold billions at stake.

One study has particularly rankled the French. A study of attitudes toward tourists by the Maison de la France showed that Italy was significantly “friendlier and warmer” then France. The French and the Italians are more then soccer rivals. Some old scores are just never going to be settled by the European Union. The French detest loosing anything to the Italians. The notion that Italian pasta actually passes for cuisine in some quarters, is insult enough.

Still another study, a report by the Committee for the Modernization of the French Hotel Trade, finds cause for concern in the deterioration of the nation’s more then 18,000 hotels with official ratings. The report identifies declining profits and poorly paid staff as major impediments to improvement.

In the cities of France, one gets the impression that there is one hotel consultant and he or she is  rather overworked. AFP reports that one in four hotels are said to be in a state of “disrepair” and about one in four guests complains about rude service. Of course the positive side of that is that if two couples are traveling together, only one member of the group will actually be insulted by front desk staff.

It is hard to change perceptions. I am thrilled to see that Bill O and Rush to the contrary, Americans are returning to France. I can still see the villages, smell the fields of lavender, and recall the simple pleasures of a proper cassoulet and a glass of silky smooth Burgundy.  It is one of my two or three favorite countries on earth, and I despair when I hear about “troubles” in the internal tourism plumbing of a land so-blessed.

I keep remembering that France is the most visited place on earth. The 78 million annual visitors are not idiots. They have come to France for a reason. For many reasons. The French do not naturally smile. They are a dour lot. But they have given the world the greatest of gifts. They know how to live and they understand that “living” means anticipating the smallest of pleasures on a daily basis. Somewhere in France, millions are looking forward to this evening’s dinner with a sense of adventure and detail that we can only envy from afar.

But you know what? I think the French Kiss thing is really all they need to do.

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