Het is rustig bij de piramides in Egypte

De paar toeristen die gisteren hun kans schoon zagen om mooie foto's van de piramides te maken zonder de gebruikelijke duizenden andere toeristen, waren toch enigszins teleurgesteld. Ze stonden voor een gesloten hek. Twee verlaten toeristen uit Maleisië konden alleen van afstand de felbegeerde foto's maken van de sfinx en de piramides van Gizeh buiten het centrum van Caïro. "Veel tours konden ons niet meenemen en er rijden geen treinen", zei Daniel Tham uit Maleisië.

Uitgestorven
De stoffige straatjes rondom het wereldwonder, die normaal gesproken wemelen van kamelen, zonverbande toeristen en souvenirverkopers, waren uitgestorven. Lokale verkopers klaagden over het uitblijven van bezoekers. Volgens sommigen zorgt president Hosni Moebarak juist voor stabiliteit en veiligheid, waardoor jaarlijks miljoenen toeristen naar Egypte kunnen komen. Een souvenirverkoper hield de moed erin: "Als de rust straks is weergekeerd, komt alles wel weer goed.''

De vraag is alleen.. wanneer is 'straks'???

Jetair: "Vakanties worden niet duurder bij ons"

Vakanties worden de komende dagen of weken, ook in de krokusvakantie, niet duurder door de toestand in Egypte. Het tegendeel is waar. Dit zegt Jetair in een mededeling.

Naar aanleiding van de onrustige situatie in Egypte zet Jetair extra vluchten in naar andere vakantiebestemmingen, vooral naar de Canarische eilanden. De touroperator heeft er alle belang bij deze extra vluchten zo goed mogelijk te vullen. "Zoiets is niet mogelijk, als men nu de prijzen zou verhogen", aldus woordvoerder Hans Vanhaelemeesch. Reizen voor de komende zomer worden volgens Jetair evenmin duurder. "Bepaalde prijzen stijgen of dalen altijd: dat is een klassiek gegeven. Momenteel zijn er geen uitzonderlijke schommelingen."

De Belgische Vereniging voor Touroperators waarschuwde vandaag in Het Laatste Nieuws dat de prijzen van vliegtickets en hotels voor landen als Marokko, de Canarische Eilanden en Turkije de komende weken kunnen stijgen omdat de vraag, als gevolg van de onrust in Egypte, stilaan groter wordt dan het aanbod op deze zonnige bestemmingen. De prijzen van pakketreizen zijn echter in brochures vastgelegd voor het hele seizoen "en worden zelden verhoogd", aldus Claude Pérignon van de vereniging.

53e Vakantiesalon opent zijn deuren op Brussels Expo

In Brussels Expo is vandaag het 53e Vakantiesalon van start gegaan. Vakantiegangers kunnen tot en met maandag 7 februari terecht in vier expohallen van de Heizel. Servië en de Donauregio zijn de eregasten van editie 2011.

"Het vakantiesalon telt dit jaar 786 exposanten", zei Brussels schepen voor Toerisme Philippe Close (PS) tijdens de voorstelling. De toeristische toppers Spanje en Frankrijk blijven de hofleveranciers.
Nieuw dit jaar is de opbouw rond zes thematische dorpen. Het Vakantiesalon startte vorige editie met het "Caribean Village". Door het succes hebben ook andere regio's dit jaar de krachten gebundeld. Zo zijn er nu een Asian, Nordic en African Village en twee thematische dorpen: Cruise en Adventure Village. Daarnaast is er ook een "Dichtbij Zone" met de Beneluxlanden, en een zone rond het thema "gezond en veilig op reis". In het Holiday Forum en Holiday Café kunnen bezoekers dan weer allerlei reistips uitwisselen.

Communautaire relletjes
Schepen Close roemde de gestage groei van het Vakantiesalon. Zo steeg het aantal exposanten met 26 pct sinds 2005. Het bezoekersaantal ging er 42 pct op vooruit sinds 2004.
Brussels staatssecretaris Christos Doulkeridis (Ecolo), binnen de Franse Gemeenschapscommissie bevoegd voor toerisme, kwam tenslotte nog eens ludiek terug op de communautaire relletjes rond foutieve landkaarten: zo hekelde hij in augustus vorig jaar een kaart op de website van Toerisme Vlaanderen waarop Brussel deel zou uitmaken van een onafhankelijk Vlaanderen. Donderdag overhandigde hij een ingekaderde foto van de Aarde vanuit de ruimte waarop symbolisch Belgische bestemmingen staan aangegeven.

Helaas heb ik examens tot 7 februari.. dus een bezoekje zal er jammer genoeg niet in zitten.

Bron: http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/1901/reisnieuws/article/detail/1217298/2011/02/03/53e-Vakantiesalon-opent-zijn-deuren-op-Brussels-Expo.dhtml

The cave dwellers of the 21st century in China

The last decade the high-tech building industry increased in China in places like Beijing and Shangai. But just a few hundred miles away in de Shanxi province, over three million people still live in caves. People have been living in caves in Shanxi for around 5000 years. It is believed that at a certain moment a quarter of the population lived underground. These days around one-twelfth of Shanxi-ers live in caves.

Current cave-dwelling numbers may sound high, but in fact these communities are far from thriving. Most caves lie abandoned or are used to house the livestock of local farmers, a school and so on.

An example of a cave village is Lijiashan. You can find there whole communities of cave dwellers. This is a 550 year old cave village. In this village you can find hundreds of caves that scale nine different levels of a hillside. These terraced levels are linked by stone stairways that date back to the Ming Dynasty. Most homes still have paper windows rather than glass panes. There isn’t running water and a sewage system. Locals have to take their water of the nearby Yellow river. The owners of the caves sleep on large stone beds, known as ‘kang’. In the summer are they very cool. Underneath there are cavities so that fires can be lit inside them during the winter.

Most of the people who live in caves are old people. As soon as the children grow up they leave. Lack of home comforts is a reason for kids to leave cave houses. But also remoteness. Lijiashan is an eight-hour, triple-bus journey from Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi. The main reason why young people abandoned the cave villages is that living in caves is not very cool. Some families whom kinds left the house convert their home into a guesthouse with cave bedrooms where Chinese art students stay when they come to paint the unusual village landscape.

Cave homes are very kind to the environment. They are surrounded by thick earthen layers. That’s the reason why cave houses are very well insulated. They are protected against freezing winters and very hot summers. To built a cave house you need less building materials than a real house. And another positive thing is that a cave afford better protection from natural disasters such as earthquakes.

Glamping: Camping for glamorous people

When most people think of camping they get an unglamorous image of a tent that leaks, mud, and a spot or two of rain. It doesn't have to be this way. There's a new form of glamorous camping taking Britain by storm which is known as Glamping. Glamping is the combination of glamour and camping. Glamping is spending time in the great outdoors, enjoying a crispy campfire in the night under the stars, then waking up to a breathtaking sunrise in the middle of the nature. These are sleeping outdoors with as many luxury as possible without roughing it. That means access to running water, toilets, bathroom, king-side beds, massages, electricity, hot tubs and so on. Glamping is sleeping in tents, cabins or yurts but they offer the luxury from a five-star hotel.

You can divide glamping in three groups.

The first group is ‘Glamping for beginners’. The most basic glamping level is heavy on comfort and light on actual camping. This option is for those who want to get away from it all and stay in the heart of the campgrounds. A first example is the Furnace Creek Resort situated in the Death Valley from California. This resort offers two options: the basic hotel ‘ranch’ and the more upscale ‘inn’. Both situated at walking distance to hiking trails and the campgrounds. A second example is Big Pine Retreat in the Hocking Hills in Ohio (Columbus). At this place there are four wood cabins. A night in this cabin costs $165 to $225 for a one- to three- bedroom cabin with full kitchen, hot water, beds and a hot tub.

The second group is ‘Moderate glamping’. The first example here is Yosemite’s Curry Village in northern California. Here you sleep in tents with basic cots inside and bear cans for all you food outside. Bathrooms and showers are communal. A second example are the canvas tents at Chestnut Grove in North Carolina. These tents are provided with wood floors, hand-crafted furniture and many more at a nightly rate of $50 per person. You can find there a hot tub, hiking tours and enjoy a massage, but there are also vineyard tours and there is the possibility to do on rafting, fishing and canoeing. Another option is staying in a yurt. This is a tent covered with filt that was used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia. There are yurts all around America.

And the last group is ‘High-end glamping’. An example is the Clayoquot Wilderness Resort. They offer 11 tents with rugs, propane wood stoves, antique furniture, hot water and modern composting toilets. For true luxury, you have to go to Blackfoot Valley in eastern Montana. The Paws Up Resort has luxurious tents, with king-size beds, master bedrooms and electricity. Prices start at $820 per couple per night, meals included.

As you can see there a lot of possibilities to do on glamping. It’s up to you to make a choice and have the greatest time of your life.

Hong Kong: The birthplace of modern dragons

Modern dragonboat racing is practiced in more than 60 countries. But it is best experienced in Hong Kong where you can still feel the passion that once drove this city to share its culture with the world.

Dragonboats are long slim boats with a dragon’s head protruding from the bow and a dragon’s tail affixed to the stern. They are powered by 2 rows of paddlers, with a helmsman in the back and a drummer in the front or middle. Traditionally they are made of wood, but the fibre-glass vessels are becoming common. They exist in 3 sizes.

Traditionally, dragonboating is a male activity. Women were forbidden to touch a dragon, especially when they were pregnant or menstruating, because a dragon is the symbol of male vigour. But now also women can do this sport.

Dragonboat racing started more than 2000 years ago in China as a ceremony for worshipping gods of the sea. It is associated with the Tuen Ng Festival which is celebrated in late spring. Dragonboating was meant to dispel the ‘fog and filthy air’ and to keep the gods happy. But that’s the researcher’s version. When you ask any Chinese about the origin of the dragonboat they will mention Qu Yuan. This was a loyal statesman who drowned himself in the river. People were worried that fish would consume their here so they unleashed their boats and threw rice dumplings into the water to distract them. Since then races have been held every year to honour the day of Qu’s passing.

In 1976 it all changed. Hong Kong held the world’s first international dragonboat races. In the first year boaters from Japan competed with nine local fishermen’s teams. In the next 2 years representatives from Malaysia and Singapore joined the event. Soon competitions were being organized in these countries and in Australia and Canada. In 1980, three dragonboats from Hong Kong made their debut on the River Thames. Today dragonboat is a very popular sport in Hong Kong. The city has the greatest number of teams (400). They are all non-pais and voluntary.

The most spectacular events during the racing season in Hong Kong are the Fishermen’s races. Especially the Tin Hau regatta is very popular.

In the Big House… Just visiting

Prisons have always been fascinating. They’ve been the subject of songs, films and TV series.

The Eastern State Penitentiary was built in 1829 and closed in 1971. It’s a massive, crumbling building with ivy-covered walls. This was for nearly a century and a half the place nobody wanted to go, an now, people are paying to get in. From the mid-1980s many tourists passed through the forbidding gates of Eastern State. With audio tour guides at their ears, they go through cellblocks; gaze at the mess halls, hospital and prison chapel; climb into a guard tower; and pace in the exercise yard. Eastern State is just one of three dozen prisons and jails drawing millions of visitors each year around the country. Prisons proudly display cells once inhabited by famous criminals. Some show gallows or an electric chair. In one of the blocks, the original cells are display. Each with a heavy oak door and a small round window in the ceiling. Eastern State also followed an 1820s reformist theory about correction. Which said that solitude was the path to rehabilitation. All prisoners were kept in solitary to reflect on their crimes. To maintain the quiet, guards even put socks over their shoes to muffle their footsteps. But some commentators thought that the lack of human contact would drive prisoners insane. Eastern State was very influential, and 300 prisons were built on its model.

There is even a proposal to open a museum at Sing Sing in Ossining (New York). But it hasn’t been opened so far because of the cost and the doubts in some quarters about the wisdom of opening it.

In some prisons, people are actually paying to stay over. Like for example in Boston. The 1851 Charles Street Prison on Beacon Hill has changed into a hotel called ‘The Liberty’. You can find in this hotel vestiges of jail cells in the lobby and bars on several of the windows. Also in Amsterdam, Istanbul and Oxford prisons changed into hotels.

In 1971 the National Park Service opened the Alcatraz prison that is situated on an island in San Francisco Bay. This prison was built in only 5 years, on the assumption that interest would stop. It became one of the biggest tourist attractions in Northern California and it even offers even touristic tours. This prison has been recently renovated and expanded and welcome over one million visitors a year.

Soon states and cities with their former prisons began to wonder if they could turn these buildings into moneymakers. And at the same time preservationist became advocates for saving prisons from being destroyed. A new trend was born and prisons are open to the curious, but you have to buy a ticket if you want to enter.