Packing for a long journey?

Posted by helga - 02/07/09 at 09:07:08 am

Hiking the Andes or island hopping in the Indies? No matter where you are or how great your fellow travelers are, the time will come when all you crave is to curl up in silence and relax with a good book in hand.
Books are hardly the first object you’d think of when trying to pack as little as possible. But when traveling for weeks and months at time, a good book can be worth its weight in gold.
Books are expensive and even more so where English books are especially imported to accommodate the rich tourists. If buying a new book each time you’ve finished the last one isn’t in your budget, you’ll be delighted to hear that a lively and unofficial trading market exists between book hungry travelers around the world. All you have to do is to bring up the subject of what you’ve just read and you´ll be amazed to discover just how quickly your old book becomes a new one.

Montréal: city of random where anything is possible

Posted by katrin - 25/06/09 at 02:06:48 pm

I`m living in Montréal for a little over a month, nestled downtown where the latin quarter and gay quarter meet, not too far from Chinatown or the old harbour, and every day something interesting is bound to happen. Montréal is a city where french, festivals, sex stores and dragqueens reign, and has been affectionately nicknamed the cultural capital of Canada. During just this month in Montréal, there has been the Fashion & Design festival (think outdoor runway show with a free concert by K-os), L`off Festival of Jazz, the world acclaimed International Jazz Festival of Montréal,  a White Night Festival (a night time, outdoor street-art festival), the World Beer festival, and the infamous Fringe Festival where people from the “fringe” of society from all different parts of the world come to perform an art, theatre or music shows that differ slightly from the norm. I went to one such show last night, entitled Perverts!, and it mostly consisted of completely nude performers jiggling around on stage and acting out various forms of sexual affection that would push the comfort limits of any spectator. There wasn`t much dialogue, dance, or decipherable message, but the shock factor alone entertains.

Montréal is also a place there it doesnt matter if your male, female, transitioning from one to the other or both, and homosexuals, bisexuals and heterosexuals can all thrive since anything goes.In alot of newspaper classifieds, the “Escort Services” section is bigger than the employment, housing and cars-for-sale sections combined. Sex shops, strip joints, peep shows, and “bath houses” are everywhere along my section of St. Catherine, the main street through the gayvillage. Sunday night I went to a bar entitled Mado`s where dragqueens and hopeful transvestites put on an amazing lip sync/dance performance, and if I wasn`t enjoying myself enough watching dressed-to-kill males more beautiful than myself prance around on stage, I was even more pleasantly surprised when the last performer came out and performed Bjork`s “It`s Oh So Quiet.” Iceland represent! The nightlife in general is always entertaining, since I went to the most impressive gay bar I`ve been to yet called “Sky” which consists of 5 different dance floors with their own separate dj`s and bars, complete with a rooftop terrace, a swimming pool and a jacuzzi hottub that stays open til the wee hours of the morning.

During the day there is also a busstling underground world, where the subway system and an entire shopping mall of 200+ stores lay underground downtown Montréal. The architecture of Montréal is a melange of old French and English colonial buildings, with more modern glass and concrete sky scrapers around, dwarfing them. There are alot of old, beautiful cathedrals also scattered throughout, and when I spotted one such church tower in typical gothic style, I walked in through the massive wodden doors only to realize I`d walked into a university building that was built on the site of this church, but kept the tower as its entrance.  Very confusing.

Its noticable how many students this town caters to, with 4 major universities speckled throughout the centre of the city and an extremely friendly student nightlife. From all the parts of Canada I`ve visited, Montréal has by far the cheapest and most accessible alocohol, with every cornerstore selling cheap beer and wine and the province regulated liquor store still boasting comparatively low taxes, great selection and long opening hours. There are a bunch of restaurants which allow you to bring your own wine without paying a corking fee, and last Monday I polished off a bottle of pinot grigio with a kilo of steamed mussels at a white-table cloth restaurant for less than $20 with tax and tip. And when I want to eat a budget meal, poutine is easily and cheaply available 24 hrs of the day within a few blocks from wherever you end up after a night of drinking with the drunk munchies.

Montréal is of course the birthplace of Cirque du Soleil, which is in my opinion the most random but amazing spectacle I`ve ever seen. Even though I`ve been to it in Vancouver and Vegas, seeing it here at their home stage seemed like a necessary thing to do, so me and my best friend Clio went on Tuesday night, their 25th anniversary show. Then, by random chance, a guy asked us for directions to the show tent on our way there, quickly follwed by “I have 2 free tickets, are you two going?” We said yes, but that we would take them anyway and called 2 of my roomates who got to come for free. On Sunday afternoon, we went to the base of Mount Royal (a huge park in the middle of town) where hundreds of people come together to play percussion instruments, practice tight-rope walking, or reenact medieval battle grounds complete with middle age wardrobe and plastic weapons.Other random occurences include  a man riding a bicycle with a cat standing on his head, another guy riding past with an iguana on his shoulder, a polic horse trying (and almost succeeding) to eat my Guyanese-gold bangle off my arm, and the current top male model in the world staying at my place for almost a week since he just happens to be my roommates best friend. Very, very radnom.

Strange food around the world

Posted by freyja - 25/06/09 at 07:06:42 am

One of the best parts of travelling is the local food! Thanks to globalization, it’s rather easy to find find cuisine from around the world in most larger cities, but when travelling you’ll also come across some rather weird food that you’d not even find in the most metropolitan city… such as jellyfish, spiders and deep fried monkey toes.

One of Malaysia’s biggest delicacies is durian. It’s a fruit as big as a football, covered with tough spiky skin. The pulp is pale yellow, with shape and consistency of raw brains. Smell has been compared to rotting flesh, old gym socks, or sewage. Many believe it aphrodisiac and hold durian-eating parties. Most hotels, and so on, forbid it on the premises. In Malaysia, a friend of mine witnessed someone on a bus grab another person’s durian and throw it out the window, after another passenger threw up. After eating durians, your “durian breath” will linger for up to 6 hours. Durian breath is so bad that it’s ranked higher than garlic in terms of unpleasantness.

Pork Brains on top of scrambled eggs are quite common (but very seldom spoke of) in the south of the USA. For some reason pork brains are canned in milk gravy and sold in many grocery stores around the south. Unlike many “specialty foods”, you are more likely to find pork brains in a small-town grocery store. It can usually be found in the same vicinity of potted meat product or other canned meat/meat parts. According to my friend, it looked like fried cat food and tasted even worse. I guess it’s an “acquired” taste. One serving has 1170% daily value of cholesterol, so it is a sure fire way to an instant heart attack.

Since Dohop is an Iceland based company, this entry cannot be written without mentioning traditional Icelandic food, fermented shark, pickled sheep testicles and a jellied sheep’s head. While the fermented shark is not considered particularly nice tasting but more of a challenge for our foreign guests, the testicles and the head are actually quite nice if you can get past the fact that you’re eating… a head and testicles!

Bugs are eaten all over the world… mostly in South-East Asia but also in Mexico, Africa and even Australasia. They are an excellent source of protein and tasty recipes can be found on the internet, such as this Banana Worm Bread:

1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
2 bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts
2 eggs
1/4 cup dry-roasted army worms

Mix together all ingredients. Bake in greased loaf pan at 175°C for about 1 hour.

There were a few delicacies that were too inappropriate to be included on this blog. If you’re brave enough, I dare you to google weird food!

Do something weird when you travel

Posted by harpa - 23/06/09 at 08:06:14 am

I have never been accused of being ordinary. I think about things that others don’t and while I travel to the main tourist attractions I try to find something weird to do as well. I decided to surf the Internet and see what kind of weird things you can do to spice up your vacation. Here is just a small part of what I found.

Instead of visiting Stonehenge in England how about experiencing the American version such as car-henge in Alliance, Nebraska made entirely out of cars, fridge-henge in Santa Fe, New Mexico a wonderful refrigerator display or foam-henge in Natural Bridge, Virginia.

If you’re tired of the same activities like looking at churches and cathedrals that all look alike, check out the cathedral in Zipaquira, 50 km north of Bogota that is made entirely of salt. I even found an alternative theme park, Love Land in Jeju, South Korea, the only sexual theme park where sexually oriented art and eroticism meet. Instead of going swimming in the sea or a pool how about swimming in a volcano full of mud in Columbia. You can even fire a rocket-launcher at a cow in Phnom Penh, Cambodia although I would never recommend it.

I am not a big sports fan but here are some sports I could cheer for. Check out Finland and cheer at the Wife-Carrying World Championship in Sonkajärvi July 3-4 2009. You can also catch the Mobile-phone throwing World Championship in Punkaharju August 22 2009 or the Sauna World Championship in Heinola August 7-8 2009.

When we travel we tend to eat what is familiar to us but I say lets eat the weirdest food we can find. In Asia you can eat Tarantulas at the Cambodian market town of Skuon, you can live on the edge and try the Fugu (Japanese puffer fish) a toxic fish that needs to be carefully prepared to remove potentially deadly internal organs as it has sent diners to the morgue.

The list is endless and although the main tourist attractions are a must see; don’t forget that there are often fun, weird alternatives that in the end become the most memorable.

Pottering around Britain

Posted by hildur - 22/06/09 at 10:06:18 am

Heaven knows why time seems to travel faster during the summer months than during dead of winter, even though the days are much shorter then. And though it feels like summer only just started, June will be over before we know it. July 15th is just around the corner, and you all know what that means; The premiere of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, of course.

Harry´s sixth year at Hogwarts is coming to a theater near you, and they promise that it will be the best Potter film to date.

Any traveler worth his salt should be intimately acquainted with the Harry Potter series. They are so riveting that they are hard to put down, long enough to be the perfect read for that horrible 14 hour flight, and so thrilling as to make you forget about your rock hard seat and cramped leg space. There are also seven of them, so they should last you the better part of your globe trekking.

But there is another way to enjoy the magical world of wizards while travelling. Various British travel agents now offer theme trips following Harry Potter’s trail. Most of the tours on offer obviously centre around the film locations, as towns and places in the novels tend to be fictional rather then real.

You can visit places made familiar from scenes of the movies, such as the train station for the village of Goathland in the Yorkshire Moors (featuring as Hogsmeade train station in the films), Australia House (Gringotts) and University of Oxford for a glimpse of Hogwarts´ library and famously enchanted dining hall. They even offer overnight tours where you can visit the real Number Four Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey.

We recommend you find your flight at Dohop and Potter around Britain this summer!

The rules of Packing

Posted by juliana - 21/06/09 at 03:06:03 pm

Obviously, all of us Dohop-bloggers share a certain passion for travelling.  But it does not mean we do not frown upon certain aspects of the process; I am referring to the act of packing.  I am a master of late-packing!  I have found myself packing at 2am knowing that I have to be up 3 hours later to make a long flight.  Being tired on a flight is pretty bad.  It’s not only exhausting to sit through a flight for several hours, but also having to get to the accommodation site.  It also happens to spoil the first day if time of arrival is during mid-day.  So how to avoid such inconvenience?

First of all, WRITE A LIST!  A general rule is to bring one pair of jeans, tracksuit pants, shorts, one nice dress and one casual (for females mostly), and the same applies to skirts.  In terms of shoes, never bring more than one nice pair that matches pretty much any outfit, flip-flops/thongs or sandals, sneakers and a pair of boots if you´re a girl (again a pair that matches most outfits).  Of course, this list must be adjusted to the destination.  Obviously bring more of the clothing appropriate for the local climate.  In terms of t-shirts and tops I fail miserably every time and bring too many. Under normal circumstances you should never need more than 10 at the most.  In fact if going to Bangkok, bring less and buy more there.  Same goes for the Greek Isles, I have always bought the best bikinis while there.

If you happen to be departing from Paris do yourself a favour, go to Rue de Rivoli, right across the Pont de Neuf.  There are some great shops there, not only bikini but also shoes, etc.  But if your currency is down the drain then maybe give it a miss – I am foreseeing some rough times in that department.

If you want to avoid the sleepless night factor, start packing at least a day earlier and pack every item you want to bring.  Then start making piles and categorize them into a No-No, Maybe, and Yes-Yes.  Work your way through the pile until you are left with all you need.  Do not bring any extra items.  I know it´s tempting to bring all your favourites but lets face it, it´s far too painful to carry all these favourites!  So be smart about it and bring necessitites only.

I certainly plan to TRY and follow my own advice.  Whether I´ll actually succeed I don´t know.  For the 10 day trip I am on at the moment, I brought my medium-sized suitcase and guess what, it´s full of mostly my things.  Only a couple of items belong to my husband.  What was my excuse this time? Well, I´m travelling domestically and I am not flying to a single location, so I can get away with it.  If you find yourself driving to your destination, then maybe allow yourself to bring more…otherwise, categorize and eliminate until you can remove no more.

Good Luck!

Enjoying every bit of Azerbaijan

Posted by thora - 19/06/09 at 09:06:31 pm

It is my twelfth day here in Azerbaijan and so far I have not had enough spare time to sit down and write a proper text about how it is here – which shows how well the people here have welcomed me.

I arrived here in Baku early in the morning of the 8th of June (no Moscow as I hoped for). Hikmat from the IFMSA (The International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations) picked me up at the airport and brought me here to the International Youth House of Baku. I went directly to sleep and didn´t wake up until I heard a few voices discussing who “the sleeping girl” was… and when I opened my eyes there were three smiling girls standing around my bed, it felt like summercamp :) Those girls were my roomates for a few days here. The youth house was full of people, mostly from Eastern Europe, because a seminar was being held here about human rights so for the first few days I shared a room with four other girls and there were around 40-50 people living in the house! No room for boredom there…

On my first day here my friend Kama (aka princess of Baku) showed me around the city and when I just got back the guys at the youth house asked me if I wanted to go out for a drink with them. Although I was supposed to be at the hospital early the morning after I decided to go – lucky for me they just meant out for tea. Laughed so much about it in my mind ’cause I’d prepared myself for a hangover and everything :) We took the metro to the center, where I discovered an interesting fact… You know how when you´re on the metro and some weirdo walks in – guy with a comb in ten different colors or whatever – how everybody looks at him and then look the other way pretending not to be looking at him at all but keep on secretly glancing at him…well here I am that weirdo!

A weekend in Copenhagen, Denmark

Posted by sirry - 19/06/09 at 11:06:04 am

This is just an idea so please bear in mind that there are about a million other things one could do in Copenhagen. For me these things would be at the top of my list. After living in this multi cultural, vibrant city for over a year I have loads of favourite places, people and foods. Whether you‘re looking for a shopping spree during the day and cocktails at night or a more cultural experience filled with history and museums, CPH is the perfect place.

Copenhagen International Airport, Kastrup, is small and easy to navigate. From right outside the terminals you can take busses to pretty much anywhere in the city. Although an even easier way to get to the city centre is the Metro. It only takes 15 minutes from the airport (Lufthavnen on the map) to Nørreport, the city‘s busiest location. From Nørreport you can take the bus, metro or train to anywhere in Denmark. Even the øresundstog, the train to Sweden, runs through Nørreport.

The city centre isn‘t very big so finding a hotel in walking distance shouldn‘t be a problem at all. Although one should be aware that the area west of Hovedbanegården (The Main Train Station) is the dodgy end of town. So if you choose to stay there always take a taxi home, don‘t walk.

Hovedbanegården is a very lively place and definitely worth walking through. There’s a big TV studio on the second floor in the east end where the morning- and evening show is taped. Wave and you just might be seen on national television in Denmark.

Tivoli is one of the top attractions in Denmark. Whether you’re looking for the thrill of the many different rides offered or just want to breathe in the amazing atmosphere, Tivoli is a magical place. If you have young kids go during the day, if it’s a romantic trip go at night.

Frederiksberg Have is my all time favourite place in Copenhagen. For walking, running, chilling, reading, sleeping, sunbathing or sharing a cold beer with friends. During the summertime just being there is like a vitamin shot for the soul.

Right next to Frederiksberg Have is the Zoo. I’ve been to many zoos but there’s something about the Copenhagen Zoo (Zoologisk Have), it’s just more peaceful. From the Zoo it’s fun to walk down Vesterbrogade all the way down to Rådhuspladsen, the city square. From there you could w

alk down Strøget, the longest shopping street in Europe, all the way down to Kongens Nytorv, The Kings New Square. Must see stops along the way are Magasin, Café Norden and Illum. No need to shop, just do a quick walkthrough. Taking the Metro from Magasin to Christianshavn is almost like time travelling; from Gucci dresses and Marc

Jacobs shoes to the free state of Christiania on Christianshavn, where marijuana is as normal as a cup of coffee. Now as long as you’re on Christianshavn, find Luna’s. The cosiest little café/restaurant, with great Cesar Salad and the best hot chocolate you’ll ever try.

Long blogs are a killer so I’ll stop here… this is more than enough to do over a weekend in Copenhagen. But I’m nowhere near done telling you about this city so keep checking in.

Until then, enjoy your coffee…

Go local and dance with the world as it really is

Posted by freyja - 17/06/09 at 12:06:49 pm

Do you hate the idea of being at the mercy of a tour guide who can barely make time for the 20 tourists on his bus?

Have you ever wished you could interact with the locals and immerse yourself in the culture of the country you’ve traveled to?

Then weekeego may be your answer. Instead of offering a tour in which the agenda is tight and defined, you will be introduced to all activities you can do upon arrival and then you decide what you want your journey will look like with the help of local partners. You also get to participate in your vacation rather than being a passive spectator. You could relocate turtle eggs in Ghana, or build water wells in South Africa or even hunt with indigenous tribes in the Amazon. The idea is to give you a deeper experience of the community by involving you in activities that are unique to the location you have chosen and weekeego rates their partner network on three scales: the beauty of the location, insight into the local culture, and involvement in the local community. Prices per person range from €75 for a week-long trek with Egyptian Bedouins in the Sinai peninsula to €1636 for six days learning to cook Italian cuisine in Tuscany.

Since we at Dohop really enjoy budget travelling in the times of financial crisis, we want to point out to you the chance to go to Ghana or Thailand for free with weekeego! The catch is that you have to convince two or three of your friends to join you on your venture, and then you get your own spot for free. And your friends only pay €77-85 for themselves per week… it doesn’t get much better!

Dohoppers pushing up

Posted by David Gunnarsson - 16/06/09 at 08:06:14 am

Last week the Dohop team decided to start doing pushups – aiming for 100 per person per day. The way it goes is that every hour, on the hour, we do pushups – as many as the time of day, that is 9 pushups at 9 am, 13 at 1 pm, etc. Doing this from 9 am to 4 pm inclusively equals 100 pushups per person per day, and right now there are thirteen of us here at Dohop.

We started doing this for no particular reason other than that this is a fairly easy way to keep the blood flowing and the mind sharp during the day. We have also set the short-term goal of cranking out 10.000 pushups by the end of July June [over a thousand already today] and the longer term goal of doing 100.000 by the end of this year. Obviously fairly loosely defined goals but goals nonetheless.

If any of our friends would like to join us in this effort of pushing the ground lower – please do, and let us know!

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