Geeky Traveller

Blogger Sarah Marchildon is doing something I've always wanted to do: teach English in a small Japanese town. She's an entertaining write–here's a snippet about her profound fear of volleyball:

I was told to stand in the middle of the court where I prayed for the ball to not to come my way. Every time it did, my heart sank. Instinctively, I ducked whenever it came near me. Or I stood frozen in one spot hoping that someone else would go for it.

This went on for about five minutes until one of the guys started yelling at me in Japanese. I assumed he was trying to tell me hit the ball if it came my way. And so I did. But every time my burning forearms made contact with the ball, it went wildly out of bounds or hit the net.

I always think that the women of my generation are at a disadvantage when it comes to adult, recreational team sports. Many of them spent their youth practicing individual sports, and didn't get the essential training in "what to do when a ball flies at your face".

I know, lots of women played team sports growing up. I'm just saying that lots didn't, too.

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I don't want to sound like a snob, but I'm accustomed to travel literature. That is, really entertaining, well-written travel books like Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux or even Bill Bryson. I probably only read one or two such books a year, and I'm picky.

So, it was with some trepidation that I accepted a request to review What Color is Your Jockstrap, the fourth in a series of travel stories. From the publisher:

You cackled at Sand in My Bra, sent Whose Panties Are These? to friends, thumbed past the bikini beauty on The Thong Also Rises to see what other Ms-Adventures were possible.

What Color is Your Jockstrap is a bathroom reader in three senses of that phrase. First, the stories are short, lightweight and occasionally amusing. Second, the book all too often features tales of nausea and diarrhoea in foreign lands. Lastly, some of the stories are just crap. For example, Donna Dimenna has an unfunny account of sitting beside an overweight man on a long flight. Riveting stuff, eh?

In other cases, the writing simply isn't up to snuff. Here's an excerpt from Elliot Hester's "Love and the Bad Empanada":

Ronnie was a nice enough guy, but his breath smelled like shit. I'm not exaggerating. He'd walk up to you and say, "Hello," or, "How's it going?" and you'd turn away wondering if he'd licked a turd before putting on his uniform and driving to the airport. Pity the patient who made the mistake of asking Ronnie for assistance.

I don't know about you, but 'licked a turd' is not exactly a metaphor that sings to me. That term 'turd' recurs in the worrying title of another story, "The Most Tenacious Turd in Nairobi".

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I regularly have desert island fantasies. Some of them don't even feature Rachel McAdams.

What I mean is that I enjoy films and literature about surviving in remote places (see, for example, Survivorman). Via Boing Boing, I read Mark's brief review of An Island to Oneself, an account of spending six years on a desert island:

Neale eked subsistence out of a garden and by fishing, and carefully used his supplies of spices and tea (he used the leaves over and over again). He had zero contact with the outside world, and since Suwarrow wasn't in a shipping lane, visitors were very rare.

You can buy the book from Amazon or read it online for free.

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Someone recently emailed me to ask about some tips about travelling to South Africa, which I did in 2004. Here are some pre-Flickr photos. These were kind of off-the-cuff, but I guess they highlight what I took away from that trip:

1. This blog post expresses my frustration around not understanding how safe I was. I wasn't worried that I was not safe, but rather that I was worried that I was worrying too much, if that makes any sense.
2. Definitely go to Kruger National Park. That's one part of the country where the aforementioned issue isn't a problem. Assuming you understand the threat signifiers of an African elephant. But seriously, it's an extraordinary place.
3. Equally extraordinary are private game reserves. The one we went to was mind-buggeringly expensive, and we could only afford it because my stepmother secured the major discount for being a South African. I'm sure there's a sliding scale of these reserves, but it's a different experience than the public game park. If you're going all this way, it's worth going to one.
4. If you're planning on taking a lot of photos of animals, bring the biggest, best zoom lens you can afford and are willing to carry.
   

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And I don't mean what period before your flight date (you could use Farecast for that), but rather what time of the week? SeekingAlpha has the answer:

What's the absolute best time to purchase a ticket directly from the airlines? Turns out it's Wednesday from midnight to 1a.m. in the time zone of the airline's "home base." (For instance, Delta is headquartered in Atlanta and United currently calls Chicago home.)

Hmm…I wonder if this model only applies to American airlines, or also works internationally? 

airfare travel tickets flights

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