Tripwolf Blog

Last night was our first on the Tui Tai. It takes a while to get sea legs, and it has sure been a test, all of us are rolling around like I assume baby giraffes do, and the crew must love it.  I woke up at 4 am to see my deoderant and other toiletries comically sliding back and forth across the shelves in my cabin. Even as I type, they key board and my body are doing a sort of samba…

It’s amazing how fast humans can adjust – an hour on the boat yesterday and we were in full exploration mode. We snorkeled in Dolphin Bay while the sun was still out, the late in the afternoon we were already in a remote village testing the residents’ blood sugar levels…I’ll step back a bit.

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The satisfaction and silliness of leaving New England in November…in flip flops.

I’m of to Savusavu, Fiji – Tom Robbins says something like everything on an island needs to be said twice – to join the Tui Tai crew for the month of November.

I’ve been out here for 15 of the past 24 months, this time on a year stretch.  The more people I talk to, the more I feel less like an idiot for having brought things I wouldn’t need.  I’m not the only one who has mailed a big package of stuff home after a few weeks.

Here are a few things that I could not live without:

1) Retractable Cable Lock These run about $10 and can really save you in hostels that don’t have security lockers.  I just lock my pack to the bed.  Also really handy if you need to sleep on dodgy transport – I even locked mine to my belt buckle once because I was sketched out by my busmates.

2) Tupperware A small Tupperware container is one of the things in my pack that I’ve used the most.  Yes, it’s good for leftovers.  Better though, I’ve used it to keep electronics from getting wet in monsoons and usually for transporting potentially leaky items (The Great Olive Oil Spill of 2009 was such an occasion).

3) Seasoning (No Kidding) If you’re traveling in hostels that have kitchens, invest a few bucks in spices that you crave.   Most days I can’t be assed to cook but when I do, I have at least some herbs, curry powder and garlic salt.  From there, I can whip up about ten things for under three bucks.  Transfer anything to plastic baggies, so that the glass container doesn’t weigh you down.  Light and tasty.

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The honeymoon days in any new place are often an exciting blur. Sometimes, that sense of wonder gets marred by the shame of making a cultural faux pas. As Vincent Vega said in “Pulp Fiction,” “It’s the little differences.”  Just as with Irish-English, there are a few cultural twists here in Ireland that have embarrassed me in the company of my new peers. Fool me once, Ireland.

Paper or Plastic … or Nothing? 

In America, supermarkets give shoppers their choice of free paper or plastic grocery bags. Irish supermarkets are a bit more eco-conscious so to minimize waste, they give away … nothing. Until you catch on you’ll stand there, dumb as a stone, faced with the prospect of juggling loose cartons of orange juice and cereal boxes all the way home. Chains like TESCO sell reusable bags, which are grand. Unless you forget yours. 

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I love to do a bi-weekly wrap-up for you of Andrew’s posts on The Brooklyn Nomad because he’s on top of interesting travel trends.  Here are a few interesting posts from this week:

Who visits the US the most? Find out which countries come to the US for tourism, and why tourist numbers are declining.

Congrats!!!  Andrew is excited to announce he’s bringing another travel lover into the world – due in April! (thelittlenomad.com?)

Stephanie Yoder stepped in this week as a Guest Nomad – posting 5 cool day trips from London…Hey Steph, post ‘em on tripwolf!

Cheers!

tripwolf is constantly changing and improving to bring users the best travel site we can. Whether making it easier to search and find info about places, plan a trip, and even book it, here are a few new features you will definitely want to utilize:

- Book Flights; Along with searching for the best hotel deals, you can now find cheap flights on tripwolf through Kayak.com.

- Free SIM card; Our new partner ekit.com is offering the tripwolf community a free international SIM card to take on your travels!

- Plan trips; We have improved our new trip feature even more – now you can leave comments on other users’ trips, and see what other people think of yours

- Personal Travel Diaries; the map is back!

We heart travel, and we heart tripwolf – we’re always looking for comments and suggestions on how we can improve! Thanks! Be our fan on Facebook, or follow our travel tweets on twitter.

Adena/tripwolf

Who doesn’t love dumplings?  They’re kind of like sex – even a bad dumpling is better than no dumpling at all.  But I’m used to equating dumplings with Chinese potstickers and Japanese gyoza, or maybe Polish pierogi when I’m feeling like a non-meat filling.  But it turns out things are a little more complicated than that.  After a day at the NYC Dumpling Festival that featured such unlikely contenders as Indian idli and Italian gnocchi, I was left wondering: what the hell is a dumpling?  Had my assumptions been mistaken this entire time?  After a few Google searches and a skim of Brian Yarvin’s book “A World of Dumplings,” I found out that dumplings are present in practically every world cuisine except for countries of Africa.  It makes sense – who wouldn’t want to stuff a piece of dough with some meat and see what happens?  But as it turns out, there’s not much of a set standard for what qualifies as a dumpling, and the forms these “dumplings” take can surprise and even shock.

As far as I can tell, there are the following families of dumplings:

The “Yeah, I know that’s a dumpling” Dumpling:

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The entrance to Kathputli Colony, in Delhi’s West, is easy to miss. The narrow, dirt track which leads into the colony, turns off a busy road, packed with rickshaws honking noisily and speeding rickety buses.

On most days, a trickle of drummers and performers in Rajasthani garb with tinsel trimmings, amble to and from the colony, directing one to the entrance.

Today, an over-sized ginger-colored dog sits near the entry, barking manically and snapping at flies. A group of men with gold earrings, mullet haircuts and rough faces stand around smoking beedis, the Indian cigarette.

“What do you want?” asks the roughest in the group.

Not really sure that we have come to the right place we mutter that we want to visit the slum.

The man’s face erupts into a smile and he beckons for us to follow.

He takes us to his brother, Jagdish, a puppeteer who has just returned to his one bedroom house and eight children, after a stint performing in France.

Kathputli Colony is like most Delhi slums with its cramped quarters and depleted living conditions. But the theatrics of its inhabitants, young and old, colorful homes and props and puppets which seem to be as much a part of the house, as say, a cooking pot, hint at something more.

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We always have out-of-towners staying at our apt, and when they ask me the first thing they should do in NYC, I tell them to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and explore DUMBO afterward. But most out-of-towners have no idea what that means, so I usually end up drawing a little map with some highlights on it. It end up looking a lot like this one.

DUMBO is absolutely beautiful for just walking around, which is why I haven’t listed too many galleries or bars – meandering around, you’re inevitably going to find them all. You could also do this itinerary in reverse, starting out in DUMBO and then walking across the bridge at sunset for dinner in Chinatown. But to do DUMBO any justice, you really should go back for seconds and thirds.

See the featured trip and where to go!

The Museo de la Policia Federal has got to be one of the strangest places in the world. Often ignored by guidebooks and maps, its contents are a dream for anyone who is obsessed with CSI:Whatever. I spent a few hours here and can attest to the outright creepiness that the museum delivers.

The building that houses the museum looks like any other in downtown; half-hotel, half-office and all business – hardly the locale for a museum. I took the elevator up a few flights, not sure what I would see as the ding dinged. The woman in the ticket office was downright startled to see a patron. Entering the museum, I could see why. Nobody was there – not a soul. I’d spend the next two hours taking it all in and would not witness one other customer.

The first section of the museum was straight out of a B horror flick. The curator used mannequins to display uniforms that were worn through various eras of Argentine history. The effect was eerie. There were glassy-eyed mannequins at every turn, all seemingly about to come to life. The uniforms were interesting – but not interesting enough to keep my pansy ass from scadoodling through to the next section.

Around the corner was another treat, the long-since-dead bones of a police dog called “Chonino” . Proudly displayed, the sizeable skeleton was flanked with information about his active duty.

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