Posted by Seth on July 29, 2007 under News | 
And NorthWest Airlines is learning that the hard way.
For the second consecutive month NW is cancelling hundreds of flights as month end approaches. Apparently they don’t have enough pilots to operate all the 757s and DC-9s that they have on the schedule each month – the bulk of their domestic aircraft. So as the pilots hit the maximum airtime allowed under their contract they have to stop working (or choose to, depending on which side of the argument you subscribe to) and then the flights are cancelled, leaving hundreds of travelers stranded across the country. Not such a big deal if airlines weren’t reporting record loads across the industry, but with all the carriers pretty well booked up things get pretty ugly for some who are getting stuck.
On the plus side, they’ve hired back a couple hundred pilots, and they cut a huge chunk of their schedule (4%) and they’re planning on putting bigger birds on many routes, hoping to avoid the problems in August. Of course, they may not have too many passengers left by then if it stays this ugly.
But if you are flying on NW you can get some great equipment on the MSP-SEA route, and rumor has it that they are going to bring some 747s into domestic service to help out until they get all the other pilots back on board. Just like the golden age of air travel, when every flight was a big bird.
Posted by Seth on July 28, 2007 under News |
Flight delays happen all the time. Sometimes there is a good reason and sometimes there isn’t. In this case, I think probably not. What I can’t figure out is why it took them 3 hours to offload six passengers.
Posted by Seth on July 23, 2007 under Trip Reports |
I run a photo blog of sorts, too, with pictures of some of my travel escapades, among other things. We had a great time in Ecuador, and I’ve got the pictures to prove it. Head on over to http://www.millerworks.net/picdb/ if you want to see the photos.
Posted by Seth on July 23, 2007 under Trip Reports |
I speak English pretty well. And after a few glasses of wine, I speak a pretty passable French. Pretty much every other language is a black hole for me. I’m not particularly good picking up new languages, and I don’t use them that often, so the idea of learning Italian for my once every 5 years trip to Italy or learning Thai for my three day visit in Bangkok was not particularly appealing. Yet I seem to manage pretty well in my travels. I’ve made it back to the airport or train station every time, and some of those times I probably couldn’t find my way around even in English.
The key to traveling without subtitles is to know going in to the situation that everything will not be perfect. Actually it will likely be far from perfect in some situations. But that’s just part of the adventure. Our recent trip to Ecuador highlighted this in a few ways.
Upon landing at Quito’s Sucre International Airport we were met by a driver with our name on a placard. This is the first major suggestion I have. Assuming that the price is reasonable, have the hotel you’re staying at arrange for the initial transportation. I know that I could have negotiated the cab line (and we did successfully later in the trip), but getting to the hotel to start off the trip takes that initial shock out of the arrival. Plus, even though most cabbies around the world are reasonable it does help protect you against the not so reasonable ones. Back to our driver – he spoke about 3 words of English. I speak about 50 words of Spanish, and I can’t conjugate verbs to save my life, but we managed to get by. We established that it was our first trip to Ecuador, that we were married, and that the waterfalls and flowers on the scenic ride were beautiful. Not too shabby.
The staff at our hotel spoke English, so that eased the trouble there, but the drive to the next location was basically a repeat of the first driver. This one spoke a few more words of English, plus he had some pictures on his cell phone, so we were able to talk about his kids and various other topics. Note: I recommend not having the driver playing with their cell phone and trying to show you pictures, but that was one that I had trouble relating to him due to my limited Spanish.
Our second stop in Ecuador was in Otavalo. While still a very tourist-focused section of the country, this is where my skills were truly tested, and we survived (relatively) intact. The Otavalo market is pretty famous, and though I am not a fan, we still had to experience it to figure that out. One of the common phrases in all the travel guides is something to the effect that the merchants expect to bargain with the customers. That is very, very difficult when not speaking the language. I know that one friend used a calculator to negotiate numbers back and forth in China, and that worked pretty well for him. The other option is to just not negotiate. With the prices that we were faced with the numbers were well within our budget range for souvenirs. We paid too much, but I’m OK with that. I consider it part of the cost of not speaking the language, and it was only a couple dollars.
In Quito we were faced with the taxi situation that I alluded to above. After arriving in the bus station coming in from Otavolo (which is a whole different story), we hopped in the cab at the front of the taxi line and I stated the name of our hotel (a pretty up-scale hotel in the old city). The driver just said no and looked at me quizzically. I tried the name of the road that the hotel is on and got the same response. At this point I reverted to Plan C: a local landmark that can’t be missed. Our hotel happened to be a block off the Plaza de la Independencia. Surely the driver had to know how to get us there, right? And he did. Conveniently the route from the bus station to the Plaza passed in front of our hotel, so we managed to get where we were going anyway.
As a last resort, point (at menus or translations in books, not at people), or just nod your head and smile. What’s the worst that could happen?
Posted by Seth on July 10, 2007 under Trip Reports |
(With apologies to Keith Olbermann . . .)
Travel and Leisure has released its best hotels in the world list. I’ve stayed in number three, and it deserves that ranking and then some. If they rated the hotels on a combination of luxury and history, The Oriental in Bangkok would never be less than number one.
It is the hotel where W. Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene and Noel Coward famously stayed, and their Author’s Wing still has suites named after them. I read Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham while I was there, in his honor.
We were met at the barge drop off by several people, all of whom insisted on getting our bags. They gave us a big upgrade—three levels, they said—and we jokingly wondered which of the authors’ suites we would be put in.
The room was quite large, with wood paneling, a balcony overlooking the river, a walk-in closet, an a huge patheroom with a very deep tub and separate shower stall. Right as we were about to leave for a clothes fitting, the floor butler came in and introduced herself. We weren’t sure what use we would have for a floor butler, but tipped her anyway and went on our way.
As part of Seth’s Amex package we were allowed a continental breakfast on the veranda and a free lunch as well. The breakfast consisted of coffee or tea, fruit juice, a fruit platter and a basket of bread with preserves—a pretty standard continental breakfast—but I’ve never been waited upon more thoroughly. Every time I drained my coffee cup a third of the way, a waiter was there to refill it, every time we ate a roll from the basket, it was replaced.
I’m sure all the hotels on the list are very good. We stuck our head into number ten when we were in Agra—it was luxurious and beautiful—but there’s something to be said for history. If you’re only going to stay at one of these hotels, once in your life, The Oriental might be the best choice of all.
Posted by Seth on July 9, 2007 under Trip Reports |
I love the subway here in NYC. I can easily get just about anywhere I want to go (I don’t go to the Upper East Side all that much anyways), and it is a pretty easy system to navigate – assuming you’ve been here a few years and become learned as to which lines go where, which are likely to be under construction, and which to avoid due to crowding and/or scheduling. The NYTimes travel section has a pretty entertaining article about this topic in this week’s edition.
The easy solution for folks who are unfamiliar:
Get a map from the booth, open it up and look lost. Someone will help you out – maybe me.
Posted by Seth on July 8, 2007 under News |
Boeing unveiled their newest airplane this evening, a fully assembled 787 “Dreamliner.” Rumor has it that the aircraft isn’t actually airworthy, as it is missing internal parts from some of the many subcontractors responsible for sourcing the parts for the plane. Nonetheless, the plane is pretty impressive, made primarily of carbon composites instead of metal and much lighter and more efficient than previous generations of planes. Delivery of the first production bird is due in Spring ’08 to ANA.
I can’t wait to add another aircraft type to my list!
Posted by Seth on July 4, 2007 under Hotel, News |
Hilton Hotels has agreed to be bought out by the Blackstone group in a $26Bn deal. Looks like I now have Diamond status in the Blackstone Hilton Honors program. Maybe they’ll merge some of their other high-end properties in to the HH program; that would be useful, as HHonors is currently pretty lacking in the high-end arena. Not a lot of world-wide coverage, but still a nice collection of additional options, should they choose to merge them in to the program.
Posted by Seth on July 4, 2007 under Trip Reports |
I was introduced to NYC pretty early in my life. My mom grew up in Jackson Heights, and her parents still lived there until I was 9, so I got to visit quite often. One of the more memorable parts of the NYC visits was the arrival at LaGuardia airport. It was one of the original airports to only allow ticketed passengers past security (I remember seeing my grandparents waiting at the top of the ramp), and there was a great big sign on the side of the runway: Welcome to New York, with a big red apple in the middle. Every time I land at LaGuardia and see that sign, I remember the visits as a kid.
A couple of weeks ago, returning from a day trip to Boston, our approach took us across Connecticut, Westchester, Long Island, the Bronx and then right across Manhattan and Central Park, aiming straight for Newark, before we made a hard left turn around Canal street and headed across to Brooklyn and Queens before circling and landing on runway 31 at LaGuardia (flight track here). That hard left over lower Manhattan left me with a great view out the window, that I’m happy to be able to share with all of you:
Posted by Seth on July 4, 2007 under Trip Reports |
The Saturday Market at Otavalo has a long and storied history. The locals began trading their wares hundreds of years ago, and their woven goods are actually rather well known by folks who are in to that sort of thing. Indeed, the market is so successful that it has actually expanded beyond just Saturdays, with Wednesday as a very popular day and market activities every day of the week. But it is the success of the market that has brought about its doom.
The market is bad. It exists not as a true trading post for the locals, but by selling random stuff to tourists passing through. The wares are not all junk – some of the stuff actually looks pretty good, and much of it appears to be made locally. But in an area known for its weavings and yarns, it is depressing to see stalls full of yarns that are “synthetico” rather than alpaca or any of the other animals that are raised locally. I’m sure that the bed spreads and tablecloths are nice enough, but I am not entirely sure that the stuff isn’t “hecho en China.” I’m pretty sure that the folks selling sunglasses and cell phone cases get their supplies from the same people that provide for the street vendors in New York City. Actually, the more I think about it, the more the whole scene felt like another NYC street fair: the same ten stalls, repeated ad infinitum until they get to whatever block traffic starts up on again.
We were actually sitting in a café, having a beer this afternoon when a young woman approached us asking for directions to the bus station. She had been in town for all of three hours, one of which she spent at the café, and already knew that the best thing to do was to get out of town on the next bus she could find. If we didn’t have plans to head out to see some of the surrounding countryside tomorrow, we’d probably be following her on the next bus we could get to.
There were three rows of stalls that appeared to be reasonably authentic. They were a few food vendors (chicken soups, fried fish and a whole roast pig being carved up and served), each with seats for about 5 people, a few fresh produce vendors, a few women selling breads and several meat suppliers, mostly chicken. Beyond these few stalls, the market was a waste of time. I’ve seen some great markets, including the China-Town market in Ho Chi Minh City, street markets in Bangkok and farmers’ markets in the south of France. And I can’t help but walk away from today’s visit with a strong sense of disappointment. If the vendors weren’t all dressed up in native garb, I wouldn’t have known where we were, because there was nothing distinctive about it. Chalk up another score for the tourists ruining the tourist attraction. And yes, I’m guilty here since I’m one of the tourists who showed up today to see it. In my defense, we ate at one of the stalls and purchased real alpaca yarn, and otherwise didn’t do business with any of the vendors, so we’re not entirely culpable.
Posted by Seth on July 4, 2007 under Trip Reports |
I’m not talking about how long it takes to get there and back. I talking about the absolute minimum amount of time one could possibly spend making the trip and still experience one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen – sunrise at the Taj Mahal.
India deserves much, much, much more time than 96 hours. I don’t think that a year would be enough time to actually experience the many different regions and cultures that India has to offer. But if, for some reason, you really, really, really, really don’t want to visit India, here’s a way to be there for the absolute shortest amount of time and still see the Taj.
Hours 0 – 24
The good news is that Continental Airlines and American Airlines both offer non-stop service to Delhi from Newark and Chicago, respectively. This saves a few hours in travel time and I found that it was easier to sleep on the longer flight, helping stave off the jet lag that is inherent in such a long trip. Both carriers drop you in Delhi very late in the evening – around 11pm. Get yourself to a hotel and sleep. But not for too long.
Hours 24-30
The best way to experience the trip from Delhi to Agra is by train. There is an early morning train that runs express (2-3 stops) and takes about 3 hours to complete the journey. Along the way you get to see the city wake up alongside the tracks and then farms lands and small towns dotting the countryside – little bits of rural Indian life. The First Class tickets (air-conditioned car and seats comparable to a domestic airline) were about $6, so it won’t break the bank to go this way. If you don’t want that bit of adventure, just hire a driver to take you down to Agra. Your hotel can arrange it, but you’ll really be missing out.
Hours 30 – 48
Congratulations! You’ve made it to Agra. Hopefully you went ahead and booked yourself a room at the Hotel Sheela. It is about 100 yards from the entrance to the Taj, and has a decent kitchen to keep you nourished, as well as a nice courtyard to relax in during the day. There are two properties with the same name in town, so make sure that you book the correct one. Again, for those less adventurous, there is also the Oberoi hotel – Agra. It is uber-luxurious and has prices to match, and it is only about half a mile from the Taj. Everything else is much further.
After you’ve dropped your bag off at the hotel, find a driver to take you around and show you everything else in Agra. There’s a mini-Taj, the Red Fort and a view of the Taj from across the river that’s pretty impressive. That should get you through the afternoon and give you enough to do until dinner rolls around. Have an early dinner and get to sleep. You’re going to need to be up early again tomorrow to see the Taj.
Hours 48-52
The Taj Majal opens at 6 am for folks who want to see sunrise. Dawn is shortly thereafter, so don’t be late. The scene is amazing. Calm, peaceful, beautiful. You can easily spend a few hours wandering the grounds and taking in the sights. There are several buildings on the grounds, in addition to the Taj Mahal though certainly none quite as grand. It’s the little things that make the building so amazing; things like the inlaid marble, incredibly symmetrical or the fact that it was one of the first buildings on the sub-continent to go for non-geometric patterns, making it all that much more difficult to accomplish. Or the way the letters of the inscription that surround the door get bigger the higher up the building they go, making them appear a consistent size from the ground.
Hours 52-64
Find your way back to Delhi. You can hire one of the local cars or take the train. Take in a sight or two downtown – there are many to see. And you’re probably better off doing that than sitting around at the airport. That being said, you’re going to want to get to the airport about 3 hours early, maybe more, because lines are something they do very well in India, and there are several of them. First is the security line, then check-in, then customs and immigration, and none of the lines are particularly organized or short. There may be another security check to get to the gate area, though at least then you’re only in line with the other 250 people on your flight instead of the entire airport.
Hours 64-80
It is a long flight home. Very, very, very, very long. Bring a few books or some Ambien, or you will be bored out of your mind, though at least you’ll have been to see the Taj Mahal.
A couple of other notes:
- You need a Visa to go to India. Same day service is available in NYC.
- The Taj is closed on Fridays, so plan accordingly.
- You really should actually go visit more of India than just the Taj. It is a beautiful and diverse country. Don’t skimp out and only go for 3.5 days.
