thelifeguardlibrarian:

An archive of women’s travel diaries at Duke (via The Book Bench)

Not in the mood to comment tonight, just reposting…

This is a good little piece that weights the pros and cons of being a girl or boy traveller.

Vanessa and I travelled around India as two American 21 year old girls. The biggest price-saving advantage we had was being low-risk couch surfers. Not everyone wants to invite two guys in their early twenties to crash in their living room, but two girls? Sure. And since couchsurfing is made up of testimonials, we could pretty well suss out who would be the best and safest host.

We also experienced the skin color factor - Vanessa looking Chinese and me looking Scandinavian or British. And we did get treated differently - everyone wanted to take my picture, but they were all interested in where Vanessa “came from.”

The NYT article linked to former Frugal Traveller writer Daisann McLane, who has this great essay on her page:

One thought I’d like to add to Seth’s musings on the different ways that men and women travel. As I mentioned in our interview, I think that every traveler brings a different set of characteristics to the table—gender is only one of them. There are others, from our size, our race, our different abilities, sexual orientation, talents and interests. (The dean of living travel writers, Jan (formerly James) Morris, traveled as both a man AND a woman.)

The trick that we travelers, whatever size shape and skin we’re in, must learn is to use all of our personal characteristics to help us get the best out of our travels.

How do we do this? Well, I call it the Jazz of Travel.

I was a musician long before I ever traveled anywhere. And when I think about it, the skills I learned in music improvising are not so different from the skill set I bring to my travels. A great trip is like a terrific jazz solo.

At any given moment when you are traveling, you can turn right or left. You can speak, or not speak, to that stranger. You can sit down at that little cafe, or ignore it and try the one around the block. You can hop the bus, or hire a taxi. Every decision you make changes your experience of a place. Every choice changes where your travel story will go. Every time you choose to do one thing, and not another, your subsequent choices change, too. You open doors, close others.

A great traveler is like a virtuoso jazz cat who understands how to play the rhythm of choice.

How does gender play into the Jazz of Travel? Well, your gender is part of your instrument. Coltrane played sax, Mingus played bass, I play middle aged, 5 foot 9 tall, blonde female who speaks Cantonese. When you travel, you have to work with what you’ve got. That’s my starting point. Then I balance and riff in each situation I encounter, within the framework of each different culture and place, trying to anticipate where the melody is going. (Looking out for my own safety, of course, is part of this).

This all happens in a split second. Thanks to my many years Frugaling I’ve had a lot of practice. (c.f. Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule). Life, like music, doesn’t stop while you are planning your solo. You have to take your leap of faith, and run with it.

And in the end, when I’m in the thick of my travels, that’s what I do. I take a deep breath, and dance (boldly, and in my own rhythm) down that unknown street.

Vanessa and I play music very differently (and I know cause we were in a band), and we choose to experience the world differently. Vanessa was brilliant at making friends, and I suppose I was helpful in organizing. We each benefited from the other’s strengths and had an awesome adventure.

life:

Indian army personnel use a bulldozer to help save a wild elephant cub that got trapped in a water reservoir tank on Tuesday. The rescue mission occurred some 15 miles from the city of Siliguri.

see more — Almost Extinct: Elephants in Danger

Best Indian postcard ever, from Pete to Vanessa.

Our postcard to Chris from India.

Ravindra Misal rejected tradition to become a self-made man. With his “personality contests” and idiomatic-English lessons, he’s trying to help others do the same.

The Women’s Gangs of India: Wear a pink sari and carry a big stick

The gulabis, whose members say they are a “gang for justice,” started in 2006 as a sisterhood of sorts that looked out for victims of domestic abuse, a problem the United Nations estimates affects two in three married Indian women. Named after their hot-pink sari uniforms, the gang paid visits to abusive husbands and demanded they stop the beatings. When obstinate men refused to listen, the gulabis would return with large bamboo sticks called laathis and “persuade” them to change their ways.

Do Bollywood Brothels Exist?: Why a series of Indian actresses have been arrested for prostitution

The ultimate Indian male fantasy involves horizontal gymnastics with an actress from Bollywood or the smaller regional film industries such as Tollywood, in the state of Andra Pradesh, or Kollywood, in the state of Tamil Nadu. The fact that Indian actresses also participate in Miss Universe pageants, strutting the stage in bikinis, only heightens their desirability. The recent arrest of two Indian actresses for prostitution, or what the Indian media calls the “flesh business,” however, raises the question of whether this fantasy may actually be within reach for men with enough money.

Op-Ed from the NYT regarding the flooding in Pakistan.

Driving back to my farm, which has (so far) been spared from the flood, an image of the cow’s ordeal kept coming to me: splashing through the flood for hours and hours, at dusk or in the blank overcast night, with nothing around it but a vast expanse of water stretching away, an image of perfect loneliness. It must have found high ground, waited there as the water rose, then set off again, driven by hunger. In the immensity of the unfolding tragedy, this littler one, this moment of its death, seemed comprehensible to me, significant.

It pains me to read about how aid for the region is falling through, failing. I heard one theory on NPR the other day, that earthquakes & tsunamis are instantaneous, one big swift blow or shock, and its easier to react to that. These floods have been drawn out, and somehow don’t seem as catastrophic.

I hope its because of that, and not because, say, the west is scared of/hates Muslims, or whatever…