· May, 2006

Stories about Travel from May, 2006

Muscovites in Kyiv: Pizza Delivery Fiasco

On weekends, Kyiv teems with tourists from Moscow. Train tickets for overnight Friday and Sunday rides between the two capitals have to be ordered well in advance. The number of Muscovites settling in Kyiv permanently to do business is growing, too. To make the new migrants’ lives easier, a special...

Cambodia: Phnom Penh Alleyways

  23 May 2006

Mythicaldude wanders into the alleyways of Phnom Penh, the Cambodian Capital city. “These long and sometimes winding alleys host entire communities that are normally invisible from the main streets and from traffic. You gotta go there to see what's up.”

Montserrat volcano watch and West Indies cricket

  22 May 2006

A woman looks at the rear window of her car, broken by a flying rock from the nearby Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat, on Saturday. Photo from the Trinidad Express website Nearly eleven years ago, Montserrat’s long-dormant Soufriere Hills Volcano began erupting for the first time in the island's recorded history....

Images from South Asia

  22 May 2006

For my first post on Global Voices I decided to look beyond words and instead look at the subcontinent through the lens of another. Photoblogs in South Asia are abuzz with the chatter of cameras and flickering of the flash; the result is an amazing array of images from Kerala...

Cambodia: Phnom Penh

  22 May 2006

Stan at Khmer440 looks at the layout and architecture of Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital city. “In addition to good design enhancing its livability, P P has other plusses in that regard. The first is that it’s a low-rise city. Far superior on the psyche; it is human scale. You...

Image from Ukraine: “Waterbottle Football”

By Dan McMinn of Orange Ukraine These resourceful football fans in Ukraine's Carpathian Mountains are using a 2-liter bottle as a ball. Dan's report on his trip to the Carpathians is here, more photos are here. Dan's other Ukrainian travel reports – including the one from Chernobyl – are here.

Russia: Blogger Dies on Mount Elbrus

Aleksandr Antonov (aka LJ user caesar_rb) 1979-2006 Aleksandr Antonov's last LJ post was a very happy one: he was going on a two-week vacation to conquer Mount Elbrus. Here's what he wrote on April 30 (RUS), as LJ user caesar_rb: I'm going to Elbrus! So, my dear comrades, I'm leaving...

St. Lucia, Grenada: Kweyol lesson and photos

  19 May 2006

Georgia Popplewell at Caribbean Free Radio is travelling in the Eastern Caribbean this week; she's struck by “conservative” St. Lucians’ frankness about condoms, and gets an impromptu Kweyol lesson from two women in Castries. She also posts some photos taken in St. Lucia yesterday, and some from Grenada the day...

Pakistan: Potohar Plateau

  18 May 2006

A fascinating look at Potohar Plateau which yields an archaeologicaly rich past at Light Within -“Bounded on the east by the River Jhelum, on the west by the Indus, on the north by the Kala Chitta Range and the Margalla Hills, and on the south by the Salt Range, Potohar...

Malaysia: Visiting Bidor

  18 May 2006

Frus and Fuss visits Bidor, a small town in Perak state. The blogger posts pictures of the town and remembers childhood days “And I love the way time seems to have stood still in Bidor compared to major cities like KL. The sundry shops remind me so much of how...

Poland: Different Kind of Diaspora

Aaron Fowles of p3 writes about young Polish friends who are planning to go to England to earn some money: “England is a shangri-la for many Polish people. It's the local version of the American dream: Work hard, earn money, be happy. Learn English for free.” Becca of Boo shares...

Caribbean: The meaning of “excellent service”

  17 May 2006

Jamaican Francis Wade at Chronicles from a Caribbean Cubicle thinks about customer service in the Caribbean. “There is not a single island I have visited in which there is a local company giving excellent service to local people.” He tries to understand why, and congratulates the Sandals resort chain for...

Philippines: Not Backpacker Friendly

  15 May 2006

Blogger, backpacker and heritage activist Ivan is frustrated by the fact that Philippines is not able to attract as many tourists as other South East Asian countries. He offers some reasons on his blog. “Since we target mainstream tourism too much, we fail to realize that the bigger market is...

Russia: Tamara Ivanovna From Apt. 14

Brigid of Laughter in the Dark posts a wonderful vignette about Tamara Ivanovna, an elderly Russian woman she met at a cafe in Krasnodar: “‘Tell me,’ she inquired, ‘how much did you just pay for that teensy little salad?’ ‘100 rubles.’ ‘And your coffee?’ ‘Eighty.’ ‘My, my, my! I can...

Russia: Public Transportation and the Roma

Brigid of Laughter in the Dark describes a ride in a Krasnodar tram – “a fast-moving game of Twister inside a sardine can”- and an encounter with two Roma women and their children: “Half-way home, I suddenly hear a young woman whispering in my ear, ‘Young lady, be careful! You...