Walking the Spirit of Paris.

An interview with traveler Kim Jones from Silver Spring, MD.

Kevin and Brett at the Louvre.

Please tell us about your trip to Paris. How long was your stay? Was this your first visit to this travel location? Do you speak the local language?

In 2000 and again in 2007 I took a Family & Friends tour of Paris, France. The program was 9 days long and for some it was the first time visiting Paris. While only one person on each trip spoke French, we all got along fine in the city and on day excursions to the countryside with limited French or language guidebooks.

The group was traveling to explore Black Paris. We put together notebooks with facts about Black history around Paris, cafe/restaurant listings, we had a gospel brunch or moroccan dinners and met with local Black business people. We found little community based groups and also had a soiree with locals hosted by an African American woman living in Paris. We planned the basic part of the trip with a travel agent and then added our own itinerary. The 2000 program had 8 participants and the 2007 program had 14 participants.

Over all, how would you rate your experience in Paris? How would you describe the treatment you received as a Black American or as an American in general? Would you visit again? Would you recommend Paris as a travel destination to another Black traveler?

Paris is a must see location and a great time was had by all. We were well received and there were no conflicts, problems or difficulties due to the general diversity of Parisians. In my experience over the years, there are always isolated situations but they are minor and I've never felt they were directed globally at Blacks. As in much of Europe, conflict derives more from class than race but conflict can always arise from racial and ethnic differences.

What was your favorite "Must See" location or activity that you would definitely recommend to other Black travelers?

Everyone should try to book a walking or mini-bus tour with Walking the Spirit Tours. In both instances, I was able to contract with my friend Julia Browne who runs the company. The tours are scheduled as the Intellectuals or the Entertainers segment of Black Paris history. Getting a chance to walk and ride through the various districts, hear the extent of Black history in Paris, see the sites where such luminaries as Richard Wright, Josephine Baker and many others lived and worked was the highlight for everyone. (http://www.walkthespirit.moonfruit.com/)

What was the biggest cultural difference you experienced during your trip? Did you have any instances of "culture shock"?

The biggest cultural difference was watching the French eat mayonnaise on their french fries.

How would you describe the treatment/service you received in your hotel, area restaurants, and stores? Were there any places where you were treated especially well?Were there any areas, cities, neighborhoods in which you felt un-safe or threatened?

Treatment, service and safety were not problem areas. If any of us decided to venture out at night to small neighborhoods, rather than larger urban areas we went as a group. For some poorer districts on the outskirts of the city we also traveled during the day or in groups. We treated safety as we would in any major city worldwide.

What suggestions or advice about this country would you give to other Black travelers? What do you wish you had known about this country before your visit?

Get out to the neighborhoods, get off the beaten path, live like the locals and use an organization like Walking the Spirit to give you the history you need to explore further.

Exploring Victoria, BC.

I have enjoyed the privilege of multiple trips to Victoria, as I am a resident of the Seattle area. And, I would like to assure you that Victoria offers a charm and enigmatic splendor that is available nowhere else upon the North American continent.

Let us begin with the spectacular stage that is composed from Victoria’s Inner Harbor, which is centrally located in the downtown area. This shimmering body of liquid sapphire is teeming with life and activity. The harbor supports a broad variety of transport ferries, seaplanes, whale watching boats, privately owned yachts, kayaking enthusiasts, and water taxis. As these vessels actively navigate through this very busy inlet, we are entertained by a colorful assortment of street performers who are situated along the perimeters of the harbor itself. As we (my wife and two boys) strolled the area, the sound of public applause, associated with an endless succession of acts, resonates through the warm summer air. The endless drone of Scottish bagpipes joins the fray, and that helps me to achieve a “James Bond” moment without leaving North America.

There are three modes of travel that allow you to reach Victoria, which is situated on the southern tip of Vancouver Island: The seaplane, which requires the least amount of travel time, and provides the most dramatic views. A passport is necessary when selecting this option. The second option is the Victoria Clipper, which consists of a 3-hour boat ride from downtown Seattle directly to Victoria’s Inner Harbor. Passports are recommended, but a birth certificate will suffice for this mode of travel. The third option is the Washington State Ferry that launches from Anacortes for an incredible scenic cruise through the San Juan Islands to deliver you (and your car) to Sydney BC. This ferry route allows for the possibility of spotting one of the three resident orca whale pods that inhabit the San Juans. After arriving in Sydney, and clearing the Canadian customs station, it’s a short drive on Highway 17 to Victoria. (I should mention that the Coho Ferry also operates between Port Angeles WA and Victoria, but personally I don’t care for the haphazard way they tend to load the vehicles.)

As a black male, the Canadians greeted me, and my family, with a great deal of enthusiastic hospitality. I can recall a friendly encounter with a local, who expressed concern about our president’s foreign policy, specifically pertaining to the Iraq War. He desperately wanted to know how we (U.S. citizens) could support George Bush in a bid for a second term. I could only reply by stating that I didn’t vote for him. As I struggled with a wave of shame, during our lengthy conversation, he seemed to sympathize, and identify that my demographic, as a whole, is not responsible for the current circumstances in America. It was a very good discussion.

In closing, I must include that Victoria is not a good vacation destination to consider for children or for an extended stay. It doesn’t host a broad variety of appropriate activities for kids, and it functions best as an “add on” or supplemental destination when exploring Seattle or Vancouver.

Two to three days are enough to experience the following highlights: Butchart Gardens, the Fairmont Empress Hotel, Chinatown, and the Victoria Bug Zoo. I recommend avoiding the Royal BC Museum. Admission is rather steep, and the exhibits don’t really measure up with other museums in the states. Nonetheless, I am confident that most black travelers will find Victoria socially inviting and visually delightful.

Wanted: Tour Guide for Historical and Contemporary Black Paris.

A well-established black owned and run tour company is seeking a guide to conduct walking and bus tours that focus on historical and contemporary Black Paris. The series of tours was created in 1994 by a former student of the late Sorbonne Professor Michel Fabre, author of From Harlem To Paris: Black American Writers in France 1840-1960.

The tour guide is expected to have prior knowledge of some aspect of the historical and contemporary African-American, African, and/or Caribbean presence in Paris. More than just reciting facts, the guide will engage the minds and enthusiasm of tour participants with insightful analysis of the social and political climate that conditioned the experiences of Black writers, artists, intellectuals, musicians, and entertainers. Full training and materials will be provided.

The ideal guide has experience in public speaking or working directly with the public, communicates with warmth and in a professional manner, and possesses strong storytelling skills. As the tours can be scheduled at short notice, a certain availability is required, although we do try and book well in advance and we will work with your schedule. Most tours take place in the morning and can be scheduled any day of the week, summers and holidays included.

A student of Black Studies/African Diaspora in France or related studies will gain from this guiding/research position through the continual updating of their knowledge base as well as having the opportunity to discuss many aspects of the Black Paris experience with various audiences - from department chairs and subject experts to students, business people, general interest tourists, young people and children.

Interested candidates are invited to respond with a letter and resume to Julia Browne at : walkthespirit@netscape.net Please visit our tour website (http://www.walkingthespirit.com/) for further information on our company.
Thank you,

Julia BrowneFounder & CEO,Walking The Spirit Tours
Web: http://www.walkingthespirit.com/

Email: walkthespirit@netscape.net

Dispatch: On a traditional junk

Black Travels community member, Claire Garcia is currently traveling through China and Vietnam, and has been sending us dispatches along the way.

Our boat was a traditional 19th century junk, a replica of a pirate ship cleverly designed to look like a small commercial boat. I will send a photo in a separate e-mail. It had three feather-shaped sails and was made completely of wood~ even the sail mechanisms. There were 8 passengers (two couples of the Hong Kong variety of gilded youth, and a loud and enthusiastic Australian couple, in addition to Mateo and me), our guide and translator, and a crew of about half a dozen, in gold-braided brown uniforms and bare feet.

Ha Long Bay gets its name from a legend that a magic dragon spewed up a belly of jewels (the thousands of abrupt, weirdly shaped islands in the bay) to stop the ever-land-grabbing Chinese from making another assault on Vietnamese territory. As of a few years ago, it is now illegal to go on to most of these islands, as they are environmentally protected. But even in COnrad's time, landing on most of them would have been impossible, as they are sheer mountains and cliffs rising up directly from the sea. The sea itself is so placid that our guide says that it is referred to as "the world's largest swimming pool."

Here, from the opening of The Secret Sharer, are some of Conrad's words, which are more beautiful than my own. The young captain is leaning over his taffrail, waiting to embark on his first command:

"To the left a group of barren islets, suggesting ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, had its foundations set in a blue sea that itself looked solid, so still and stable did it lie below my feet; even the track of light from the westering, sun shone smoothly, without that animated glitter which tells of an imperceptible ripple."

"On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if abandoned for ever by some nomad tribe of fishermen now gone to the other end of the ocean; for there was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye could reach. And when I turned my head to take a parting glance at the tug which had just left us anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, with a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one leveled floor half brown, half blue under the enormous dome of the sky."

However, we at the dawn of the following century, on our replica tourist ship, put up for the night in a cove where a water village of houseboaters live as they have done for generations, fishing and not going to school. Their voices and music came to us across the dark water as we sat on the deck in the evening, and finally the captain moved our ship a little farther off, as there was a very agitated baby who was ruining the atmosphere for the westerners.

Most of our hours on the first day were spent eating wonderful fresh seafood dishes and swimming off of the side of the boat. The young men went off in sea kayaks (and of course, as young men do, went farther than they intended, so a search party was sent out just before dusk. As the sun slipped below the horizon and the beautiful golden 3/4 moon became more prominent, I tried to quell my anxiety about three young men with no map, no guide, in a sea of a thousand unlandable islands. I later told Mateo, who has also read the Secret Sharer, that I thought he, as the Sharer does at the end of the novel, had disappeared toward one of the many "towering black mass[es] like the very gateway of Erebus" -- and become "a free man, a proud swimmer striking out for a new destiny" in the South China Sea. But they did all return safe and sound. While Mateo and Hong Kong princes kayaked, I went with the guide for a closer look at the water villages.

The next day, we heaved ho (is that the past tense of this expression) and sailed to one of the many spectacular caves that have formed around the bay. And, after more hours of fresh fruit (I kept trying to identify breadfruit, which figures large in the nautical tales of the South Pacific that I read, but that I have never seen or tasted) and fresh fish and swimming, we returned to port, and the harrowing ride back to Ha Noi.

Dispatch: On the Way to Ha Long Bay

Black Travels community member, Claire Garcia is currently traveling through China and Vietnam, and has been sending us dispatches along the way.

My children have often told me that things that I see always remind me of books. Well, Ha Long Bay reminded me of my second-favorite novel in the world, Joseph Conrad's The Secret Sharer.

As I leaned on the rail of our classic junk (such a precise replica of the traditional boat that all the various mechanisms that would now be made out of iron or steel were wood), gazing out over the placid seascape of still water and jutting islands, lines of Conrad's kept coming back to me during our 2 days and a night at sea.

For Conrad, this northern part of the South China sea was part of the Gulf of Siam; to the French colonists and later the American military forces, it was the Gulf of Tonkin. Now, to the recently (in their long history) unified nation of Viet Nam, it is Ha Long "Descending Dragon") Bay.

To get to Ha Long, one must go 3 hours north of Ha Noi along a very exciting highway. I now know that my husband's opinion that three vehicles going in two directions can pass each other if no one loses their head is true~ and add a multitude of scooters and bicycles, water buffalo and chickens and goats and you can imagine that it was better not to look out of the front window of
the mini van.

There is an average of 3 motor scooters per household in Vietnam. Most people do not have cars. Among the more startling things I have seen on the backs of motor scooters:

• a brand new washing machine;
• a cow;
• four porcelain vases, each about 5 feet tall;

Of course, it is routine to see families, including infants, who would have taken up a whole minivan on one scooter, and mountains of various produce.

We also passed several Vietnamese houses, most of which were extremely narrow (one room wide), three or four stories high, with wide verandahs on each story, with elaborate pagoda style roofs. They are usually colored in "bright pastels"-- a term I would have considered an oxymoron before seeing the yellows, blues, pinks, and greens of the houses in the towns along the highway.

Dispatch: Ha Noi

Black Travels community member, Claire Garcia is currently traveling through China and Vietnam, and has been sending us dispatches along the way.

The hotel was in the Old City, but don't think that that moniker connotes some carefully tended quaintness and charm aimed at tourists. The Old City, like all the rest of Ha Noi that we have seen, feels like an old village~ uneven and cracked cobblestones, very narrow and tall buildings with shops and workshops (motor scooter repair, locksmiths, hodgepodges of plasticware, some stores selling "designer" clothing-- made in Vietnam-- such as the $3 Gucci swimtrunks we bought for Mateo), and the sidewalks teeming with life and work, most of it performed by people squatting.

There are many sidewalk restaurants~ squatting women cooking wonderful smelling food in woks over little fires, selling plates of food and beer to people who sit on little plastic chairs around 6 inches high. The women wash the dishes and chopsticks and glasses the customers use in plastic basins of soapy water sitting right there on the sidewalk. Needless to say, lovely as it
all looks and smells, I don't dare try to eat at these curbside restaurants.

Adding to the village atmosphere are the women, many of them in the iconic conical straw hats, who move through the crowds with the double basket carriers slung over their shoulders. They all seem very small, and many are very old, but they carry all sorts of things, including live animals, in the baskets. Other women carry huge piles of things on their heads, like African women. There's a constant tinge of motor scooter fuel in the air, mixed with the aroma of street cooking, cinnamon (sp), incense burning at sidewalk shrines. . . .

Locksmiths working out of little boxes on the sidewalk~ young men spraypainting motor scooter parts on the sidewalk~ old men crouched over beers on the little plastic seats~ the narrow shops opening straight on to the sidewalk (traditional Vietnamese architecture seems tall ~ 3-6 stories~ and one room wide)~ the absence of skyscrapers, the old and heavy-leafed trees, the broad avenues and former colonial buildings~ all contribute to the sense that this is a unique place~ not just another itiration of a major, post-modern city.

I didn't realize that Vietnam is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a national per capita income of $500 ($1000 in Ha Noi), but a long and rich history. Today Mateo and I spent the morning in the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, which had exhibits that traced Vietnamese creativity from 2500 BC, through various dynasties, through modernism, the revolution, and ethnic and contemporary art.

The galleries meander through a wonderful French colonial mansions. In the afternoon, we visited the Temple of Literature, the first university in Vietnam, founded in 1076. The campus is a series of embedded gardens, quiet pagodas, and flowering trees. Students still rub the heads of the turtles bearing the steles carved with the names of all the successful doctoral students (like a perpetual, and very public, registrars' office) for good luck on exams. The temple is still a functioning Confucian temple, with people lighting incense sticks and praying
among the tourists.

On our first day, we visited the Vietnam Military History Museum, which gave fascinating insight into Vietnam's war-torn history. It's clear that their struggle against the Americans was only one relatively brief chapter in struggles with China, France, and among themselves. The courtyard exhibited, disturbingly, wreckage of fighter planes which Vietnamese had shot down (several brought down by women), as well as a statement about the suffering-- through napalm, dioxin, and carpet-bombing- that Americans had inflicted on Vietnamese non-combattants.

But overall the tone of the museum was very welcoming, emphasizing that this military history was all part of Vietnam's struggle for liberation and self-determination, and that now they want to have positive, respectful relationships with "dear visitors" from all nations. Our visit earlier in the morning to the notorious "Ha Noi Hilton"-- the Hoa Lo Prison, which was actually built by the French to

deal with Vietnamese political prisoners from the start of the 20th century. Again, the curation was straightforward and respectful of both the suffering and causes of all those who had been imprisoned there, including John McCain.

We needed a break from cities, document anxieites, and the weight of history, so spent two days on a classic wooden junk in Ha Long Bay.

Dispatch: Shanghai

Black Travels community member, Claire Garcia is currently traveling through China and Vietnam, and has been sending us dispatches along the way.

Somehow, "Shanghai" seems to warrant an exclamation point. It is city life on a mega scale. The "American Century" is definitely over~ this is what the future looks like. This country is producing the only thing that keeps a drowsy American emperor awake: cheap goods.

I have never seen so many super-skyscrapers (even the apartment buildings). The streets are always teeming (Shanghai's population is 14 million) with humanity, buses, cars, bicycles. Never have I seen so many "gimungus" electronic billboards, or every single space devoted to advertising or selling. Never have I seen so many huge loads on bikes or motor scooters, or people splayed out in the street taking an afternoon nap. Every block has at least one major construction project on it. It is sweltering here. I'm not a big sweater, but I have ended every day drenched.

Of course, the first thing I did was stroll along the famous Bund, lined by European architectural imperialism: the street, the commercial center of old Shanghai (Customs house, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank - now the ubiquitous HSBC, etc)~ even a replica of Big Ben reminding the thousands in the street below 4 times an hour that the sun once never set on England. The HBSC has an astonishing domed mosaic in its lobby (it is still a working bank, amid all the glorious British neo-classical architecture) depicting the cities of its major branches: Calcutta, Hong King, New York, Paris, London, Shanghai, and one I'm forgetting. Unfortunately, photographs are not allowed.

Opposite the Bund is the very proletarian riverside promenade park, where once "Chinese and dogs were not allowed," though these two prohibitions appeared separately in the municipal code, not on a sign at the entrance, as legend has it. The Bund is just over the creek from our hotel, the funky historic Astor House which is trying to make the transition from a backpackers' hotel to 3-star tourist hotel, accompanied by often-comical ESL and bellboys in plaid a-line skirts which management apparently mistook for kilts.

Drenched, I found a secret little cafe tucked up in the rear of the second floor, guzzled one San Pelligrino in one gulp then tried to savor the second bottle while enjoying the coolness and the silence emanating from the courtyard below.

The next day, while waiting for my son Mateo to arrive, I headed over to the former French Concession to find the house, now museum, where the first Chinese Communist Party meeting was held. Of course, I first had to do the inaugural Garcia longer-than-it-looked-on-the=map-there-must-be-a-metro-around-the-next-corner death march for almost 90 minutes before finally jumping into a cab (cabs are cheap and plentiful).

At the site, I was the only foreigner in a sea of Chinese tourists, including masses of shrieking school kids wearing red neck kerchiefs. It was very interesting, and included a wax figure display of the 13 youths, including Mao, gathering excitedly around a table, setting out the vision and goals of the CPC. Fleeing the secret police who were trying to track them down, the revolutionaries held the final stage of their initial meeting on a junk in the river.

The museum also played homage to the "bourgeois revolutionaries," of the 19th and early 20th centuries who hadn't been able to succeed in over-throwing the imperialist oppressors because they didn't have the power of the proletariat behind them.

My next stop was a wonderful museum in a crown jewel urban renewal project, the Sichumen Open House. Many of you know of my interest in town houses. This museum reproduced a typical bourgeois town home, or sichumen, in 1920s Shanghai. It was an intriguing insight into how ordinary people lived and worked in pre-liberation Shanghai.

The top floor detailed the urban renewal process of the neighborhood~ saving the now decrepit architectural treasures of the sichumen while providing affordable housing and luxury housing and pedestrian-friendly commercial development in a neighborhood that had been going downhill for decades. The neighborhood is called "Xin Tiandi"-- heaven and earth. It's in the former French Concession, and where I would live if I ever end up in
Shanghai.

My son Teo arrived from Beijing on the bullet train on Saturday night. Yes, he speaks Chinese: enough not only to navigate this amazing, overwhelming, and often wild city but also to joke with people and give directions to (Chinese) people who ask him. He is very disciplined and focused about learning Chinese~ does set lessons everyday on his mp3 player, though he mentioned this afternoon that he is "behind."

He has been to Shanghai a couple of times before, and I'd be literally lost without him.

Asia Trip Report - Jonathan Martindale

Jonathan Martindale shares with us a few highlights from his last whirlwind business trip to Singapore, China, Malaysia, and Indonesia

Jonathan's Preface

Hi all

I have a couple quick trip reports I want to put out here. These trips were all business related so they may read a little different than some others. Also since I was on business I had limited time for tourist activities so I usually utilized a city tour that was offered by whatever tourist agency was in the lobby or could be organized for me by the concierge. I found them really good if you have a short amount of time in a city. They allow you to quickly hit all the major spots of a city in just an afternoon.

The downside is they always take you by several merchant shops to "witness" local craftsman. But in actuality you are just being fed to some shopkeepers to be fleeced on some overpriced goods so that your guide can get their kickback. Also a common odd experience was being in an office or meeting and have people light a cigarette.

I can't even remember a time when you could smoke inside.

Singapore

Very international city and centrally located to so many countries it is no wonder why it serves as an excellent port and business center. Other than that I didn't find much else to the city other than shopping. I quickly visited Sonesta Island which was overcrowded and not much more than a tourist trap. I stayed at the Singapore Marriott on Orchard which was one of the nicest hotels I have ever had the pleasure to stay in. The staff was extremely helpful and polite the food was outstanding though pricey.

Beijing, China

Level of pollution was disturbing. Most days you could hardly see the sun for all the smog. I feel for the marathoners come August. English was pretty well spoken probably thanks in part to the upcoming Olympics. To

ugh city to do some kinds of business I came to find. Normally you can pitch a client saying hey spend X amount of dollars with me and I'll help you save 5X dollars over time. But in a country where labor cost are so low the response is hey you would have to save me 20X before I'd really care as I can just double the workforce for pennies. I was taken to what I was told is THE place for Peking duck and quite frankly I was not very impressed. Now I'm far from being a health nut but that duck had to be the greasiest I've ever seen. And the worst part is you have to eat the skin dipped in sugar as part of the eating ritual. I could hear my arteries begging for mercy throughout the meal.

I've seen a lot of thins traveling that I've, either overbuilt up in my head and then found them to be a letdown or see something that is all the rage and just not be impressed but I was just taken aback by the Great Wall. It was outstanding to visit partly on its scale and how it must have been just a struggle for an invading army to attack as it was such a defensible position. It really is an engineering marvel. A word to the wise: if you are planning a trip to see the Great Wall spend a few weeks on the Stairmaster leading up to it. Your legs will tha

nk you for it.

I really enjoyed the Silk Market where your thirst for crappy counterfeit goods can be quenched. I had strict orders by some ladies in my life to bring back purses. I'm proud to say I know next to nothing about purse shopping but I did find that whatever price you are quoted counter with about 10% of that price and never settle above around 20% in the end. The quality was the same as the fakes you get in the states but the prices were substantially lower. I came to find that the purses I acquired would run about $60 - $100 in the states cost me about 5 to 10.

The Forbidden City was very nice. If you go bring the good walking shoes it seems to go on forever. I always think how big someone's ego must be to build things like this or similar structures like the Pyramids to themselves.

I stayed at the Courtyard Marriott New World Center in the Chongwen District. It like many other facilities is still in the renovation process for the Olympics. It was nicely located near a train line. My advice is if you can get to your destination via the train

take that route. The roads are so congested and the driving is beyond erratic that your best hope for sanity is to close your eyes in the car until you get where you are going. It easily the worst driving I've witnessed since Cairo. I flew in from Singapore via Singapore Air 747 in coach. I had not flown them before but they had a very good reputation which they lived up too. The new Beijing airport terminal is very nicely done but when returning to the airport make sure you know which terminal your flight is leaving from as the old terminal is a 15 minute bus ride away.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Petronas towers are very beautiful buildings especially at night. If you have the chance to go take note that to do the Skybridge visit you must get there early like no later than 0900 at the latest as tickets are free but limited to the first 1000 or so people. That said it is not that impressive as the bridge is midway up around the 43rd floor so the view is not that spectacular. I wish there was an observation deck at the top.

Oddest Incident: Standing at a street corner waiting to cross street a guy on a motorcycle pulled up to me and reached in his pocket. I thought he was going to rob me but instead handing me a card that said underage girls and then a phone number.

Had a cab driver try to run game on me by not turning on the meter for a quick trip then asking for 15 Malaysian ringgit for a ride that I know is normally 5. Now sure he was only trying to get 5 dollars out of me instead of the 2 I owed him but I just can't let anybody ride like that, in the end we settled on the equivalent of 3 dollars.

I thought the concierge was organizing my city tour that I pointed to in the brochure but when the guy arrived I realized he just called his homeboy to drive me around the city. Tour was still pretty good. I figured it was a normal tour guide working off the books.

I stayed at the Renaissance which of all the Renaissance I've stayed at over the years it had to be the least kept up. Now it wasn't bad mind you and the staff was excellent but they usually do way better.

Jakarta, Indonesia

Walking around this city in a business suit should be made criminal. It is just too darn close to the equator. My office had a great A/C unit but every local that came in complained I had it too cold. I guess they are acclimatized so it wasn't feeling like the 9th circle of Hades to them like it did to me. Perhaps it is liberal guilt but it is always off-putting to witness crushing poverty. I really didn't like when kids as young as 7 or 8 were working as street vendors and such. You want to feel like they should be somewhere being a kid. Crime and terrorism is a serious issue in the area. I've had easier times getting into embassies than I did the hotel with all its security. The food was quite excellent but I hate when the exchange rate is so large that a simple meal could be 200,000 of the local currency. My minor in math be darned I'm always afraid I'll wrongly convert in my head and put the decimal in the wrong spot as I witnessed when I thought I paid 6 bucks for some bad Chinese food only to later realize I paid 60. Big win of this trip was the 4 Seasons hotel was only 83 dollars a night! I didn't take the commuter train but I could see it constantly go by my office window and man it was a site. That train would be stuffed to the seams with people hanging on the outside and the side doors just wide open.

Report by Jonathan Martindale

Blogs by Black Travelers

Beauty in Baltimore compiled a fantastic list of blogs and websites that are maintained by black travelers who travel, study, and live abroad.

I have categorized and expanded them below (with new links)

Asia

• 11 down 9 to go
• A brother in Shanghai
• Adisao
• Adventures in Indonesia
• Daitime
• Delta Diva
• Ejovi
• Expat Jane
• Fabulous is a choice
• Japan Newbie
• Japan takes the Queen
• Joiasia
• Metropolitician
• Near and Far
• Rsims2
• Seoul on Ice
• Seoul to Soul
• Soto Ayam
• The Persimmon Chronicles

Europe

• Adventures in Wheelville
• Arin’s Odyssey
• Black girl in Paris
• Black girl in Prague
• Bisous from Paris
• Broad Abroad
• My So Called Life in France
• Nigerian Woman in Norway
• SF girl in Paris
• Shelby in Italia
• Something Inside
• Vakkervinne
• Zandile in London

Middle East

• Hochmah and Mausar
• Live from Israel

Carribean

• Rhemy

Latin and South America

• Black girls guide to Buenos Aires
• Megan Lyles (Travel Writer)
• The Travel Chronicles

World Travel

• Elaine Lee (Travel Writer)
• Lola Akinmade (Travel Writer)
• Terah Shelton (Travel Writer)
  
• My World Tour

Am I missing a great blog or website by a fellow black traveler? Please post a link under comments below or email augustgreen [AT] hotmail [dot] com and I will update this list.

Paris in the Springtime.

I don't plan on any traveling until later this summer, so for now I'll just leave you with a few photos from my last weekend trip to Paris.