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Slogan on the streets of Tehran |
Sign on a building |
Keeping a watchful eye |
Former U.S. Embassy wall |
The Mullahs’ mission |
A clear message |
IRAN
Mullahs May Preach Hate But People Love
America
Story and Photos by Tim Boxer
O see how the ruling mullahs are
imposing their own brand of hatred upon an unwilling people
was frightening and disturbing. Everywhere I went in Tehran
I was accosted by signs, banners and pictures extolling the
aim to vanquish America.
I stood across the United
States Embassy. It was seized by the revolutionary fundamentalists
in 1979 and turned into a fortress of the extremist Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Washington labels a terrorist
organization. The block-long wall was covered with graffiti
spewing anti-American and anti-Israel slogans and murals.
Without warning, someone
grabbed my arm, pointed to my camera and barked orders in what
I guess was Farsi. I didn’t understand a word. I kept repeating
"What do you want?" while shuffling slowly away from his grip.
But he wouldn’t let go.
Am I being kidnapped?
Am I about to become an international incident—an embarrassment
to my family and country?
I had no intention of
being hauled through the embassy gate to be interrogated by
the Revolutionary Guards..
I moved and the mystery
man moved with me, holding my arm aggressively. I eased out
of his grasp and he disappeared as surreptitiously as he appeared.
I didn’t dare look back. I strolled slowly but steadfastly towards
my car down the street. My guide and driver were waiting for
me. I didn’t say a word. I don’t think they saw what happened.
I told my guide I was
interested in seeing a synagogue. The driver stopped at a busy
intersection and asked the traffic cop for directions. The smartly
dressed officer in his clean white uniform peered through the
window. I aimed my camera and asked okay, he smiled okay, I
snapped a shot, and he told us how to find a synagogue.
I was shooting pictures
on the main square in Tehran when two men in black jackets approached.
I felt a shiver down my back. I turned this way and that, trying
to spot my driver or guide.
"Are you Russian or American?"
"American," I said, with
a tremble.
They made a sudden move
… to shake my hand.
They offered big friendly
smiles. "We hate Russians! We love Americans!"
Other locals would tell
me proudly of family members who live in the United States.
One told me he goes to America once a year to visit his daughter
who works in Las Vegas. Another told me two friends, brothers,
have homes in New Jersey. In Esfahan I was stopped at night
by a young merchant outside his linen shop. "I haven’t seen
an American in six months," he lamented. "I wish more would
come."
The Iranian people I
encountered in Tehran, Shiraz, Esfahan and Kish Island live
in a bifurcated world. The mullahs dominate society, yet many
of the people reject the party line. The people I met repudiate
the hate spewed by the ayatollahs. This will become evident
as the Arab Spring gives way to the Persian Awakening.
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Tehran traffic police directs us to
the synagogue |
School children in Esfahan thrilled
to see an American |
Two citizens declare their love for
Americans |
Welcome at Esfahan airport with yummy
dates |
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Resources
Tony
Wheeler’s Bad Lands is an engrossing account
of one man’s journey through some of the rogue countries
currently on the front page, such as Iran, Cuba, Myanmar
(Burma), Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Albania
and Saudi Arabia. The book was written by the founder
of Lonely Planet. In Iran he had similar experiences
as I had: he found the people extremely friendly and
amiable (Tony’s an Australian). (Lonely
Planet, paperback, 327 pages,
$14.99
Amazon.com Price: $11.69) |
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LATVIA
Art Nouveau Colors Expanse of Old Riga
Story and Photos
by Tim Boxer
IGA, the capital of Latvia, is
celebrating its 810th anniversary. It was founded
in 1201 by a German bishop at the helm of a crusade that came
to vanquish the northern heathens. Through the centuries the
city became a thriving center of trade between east and west.
The country survived under various foreign rulers such as Germany,
Sweden, Imperial Russia, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, until
it gained independence in 1991.
I arrived in Riga on
a balmy day in May. My room at the luxury Hotel Gutenbergs was
in a part of the building that was a 17th century
warehouse. I stepped in and—wow!—almost collided with a thick
wooden beam that ran low across the room. I had to keep a light
on at night so I’d see where to duck on my way to the bathroom.
Other than that surprising bit of inconvenience, the room was
comfortable with all the luxury amenities you’d expect in a
top flight inn. Lesson learned: ask to see your room before
you sign in.
www.gutenbergs.eu
There are two ways to
absorb a panoramic view of the city. Ascend to the top of St.
Peter’s, a Gothic Lutheran church that’s 800 years old, and
let your spirit inhale the breathtaking landscape of this picturesque
city. Or enjoy outdoor dinner on the Gutenbergs summer rooftop
terrace and gaze in awe at the spires, skyscrapers and rooftops
spread out in every way, as the orange sun dips into the colorful
horizon.
As the hotel is smack
in the middle of Old Riga, facing the venerable Dome Church—
started in 1215, it took three centuries to build— I spent time
exploring the neighborhood, for there’s a lot to discover.
As we stepped along the
city’s narrow cobbled streets (warning: not suitable for heels!)
we found the Blackheads’ House. It was built in 1344 as a fraternity
house for unmarried German merchants belonging to the Blackheads
guild.
Strolling in Central
Riga we studied some of the architectural treasures in the Art
Nouveau district. There are 750 Art Nouveau buildings, more
than any city in the world. The style trended from 1898 to 1918.
One of the notable architects was Mikhail Eisenstein, father
of Sergei Eisenstein, the famous Soviet film director noted
for Battleship Potemkin (1925) and other classics.
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Façade by Mikhail Eisenstein of two women carrying crown
of leaves, 1904 |
Graduate School of Law donated by
George Soros in 1998 |
Central Market |
Delicacies at the Central Market |
Sunset from Gutenbergs rooftop restaurant |
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Resources
Estonia,
Latvia & Lithuania is full of maps, lots
of excellent suggestions what to see and do, and
helpful sidebars on almost every page that makes
this an excellent choice to take on any journey to the
Baltics. Short history of the three countries are
quite interesting for a knowledgeable perspective.
(Lonely Planet, paperback, 456 pages, $25.95) |
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Sheriff’s car, 1941 Pontiac |
Smart car, Wild West style |
Deadwood’s Main Street |
DEADWOOD
You Saw It On HBO Now See It In Person
Story and Photos
by Tim Boxer
HE legend of Wild Bill
Hickok lives on in Deadwood, in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
The famed lawman was murdered on August 2, 1876, at age 39,
as he played poker in Saloon No. 10. He always sat facing the
door, but this time he took the only unoccupied seat, with his
back to the door.
In walked a bloke who
silently pulled a gun and blasted our hero in the back of the
head. This ghastly scene is dramatized by actors every day in
the summer at the same Saloon No. 10, with its sawdust on the
floor and poker tables and slot machines all over the place.
David and I sat with 40 other tourists and watched the reenactment
of the killing. The original table and chair can be seen mounted
above the door as you leave.
The town was teeming
as visitors clustered around the amazing antique autos lining
Main Street, following an auto parade.
We admired a sheriff’s
car, a 1941Pontiac, and counted three bullet holes in the grill.
This was the Wild West indeed. HBO showed how wild the early
days of this gold mining town was in Deadwood (2004-06),
which Lonely Planet aptly describes as a "swearing series of
guts and gore."
We found Wild Bill Hickok’s
final resting place at Boot Hill in Mount Moriah Historic Cemetery.
His gravesite is surrounded by a wrought iron fence to deter
vandals. It’s situated below Mount Zion (Hebrew Hill), the Jewish
section. Calamity Jane is buried in a plot adjacent to Hickok.
An information sign at
Mt. Zion included this historic fact: Harris Franklin was born
Finkelstein in Prussia. His interests included mining, banking
and cattle ranching. His son Nathan served three times as Deadwood’s
second Jewish mayor. Harris died in 1923. His eulogy noted:
"He was never known to foreclose a mortgage."
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Resources
}Broken
Boot Gold Mine,
underground mine tour. (605) 578-9997.
}Adams
Museum & House,
town’s oldest museum in an elegant 1892 Victorian mansion,
featuring a Wild Bill collection.
www.adamsmuseumandhouse.org.
}USA’s
Best Trips is the guide you must have no
matter where you travel in the States. Of the 99 themes
itineraries, two focus on South Dakota. One trip covers
the Black Hills including Rapid City, Mount Rushmore,
Crazy Horse Memorial, Wind Cave National Park. Another
trip, the OffBeat Dakotas, takes you through Deadwood,
Sturgis with its Harley rally and race which attract
thousands of bikers and fans the second week of August,
the unique Wall Drug which is a staggering kitsch compound,
and the open-to-the-public Minuteman Missile site.
(Lonely Planet, softcover, 712 pages,
$24.99
Amazon.com Price: $16.49)
}Jewish
Pioneers of the Black Hills Gold Rush
is a fascinating
picture book of the early development of Deadwood. Ann
Haber Stanton, the author who stitched these vivid images
together, came to South Dakota as a young bride in 1959.
"Deadwood’s streets were steeped in history and legend;
it was impossible to tell where history left off and
legend began. Wild Bill Hickok’s name was everywhere;
he appeared to have been shot in just about every saloon
on Main St5reet, and there were quite a few." (Arcadia,
softcover, 128 pages,
$21.99
Amazon.com Price: $17.15) |
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CHINA
Business Travel Conference Expands With
Third Partner
RAVEL professionals, hoping
to do business in China, find it essential to participate in
China’s gargantuan Incentive Travel & Conventions, Meetings
(IT&CM) business and networking event. The next IT&CM conclave
will take place April 17-19 at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition
and Convention Center.
After six years, a third
partner, China International Travel Service (CITS), has joined
organizers TTG Asia Media and MP International to create stronger
synergy and enhance the quality and reputation of IT&CM China
next year.
"CITS is among the top
100 companies in China delivering one of the largest domestic
and outbound leisure, corporate and MICE (Meetings, Incentives,
Conventions, Exhibitions) tourism business in the country,"
said Darren Ng, managing director of TTG Asia Media, in a statement.
More information at
www.itcmchina.com.
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Sally and Ivor ready to depart |
The Truth About Last Minute
Cruises
By Sally Ogle Davis and Ivor Davis
HIS summer you’ve been
blasted by those countless emails offering "blowout" deals
on cabins—sorry, they call them staterooms now—with balconies
and all sorts of onboard credit. Cruises with hot and cold running
food and just about everything but belly dancers.
They scream "last minute
bargains" and a multitude of other come-hithers should you ever
have expressed an interest in getting a cruise deal online or
on the phone.
We happened to find ourselves
in Seattle and decided to book a cruise to Alaska. So we set
out to find the truth: Will the top cruise lines give
away cabins? Are these deals pure hype or can you really make
a killing should you decide to race to the gangplank just before
the ship pulls anchor?
Of course, you don’t
need a degree in travel to realize that the cruise lines prefer
to lock you into your cabin long before they set sail especially
since during the past economic hard times those cruise
lines have taken a bit of a bruising although smoother waters
lie ahead.
So we did the Internet
searches and spoke to friends who offered all sorts of guidelines
but discovered shopping that way put us in tricky waters.
Norwegian Pearl |
After bouncing from cruise
line to online bookers and beginning to feel a bit shell-shocked,
we finally settled for a travel agent. "Find us the best last
minute deal you can."
And she did. We booked
an interior passage Alaskan seven-day trip, a balcony stateroom
on deck 8, forward on Norwegian Cruise Line’s 2,700 passenger
Norwegian Pearl.
It cost us $1,324 per
person. The ship sailed to Juneau (Alaska’s capital),
Sagaway, Ketchikan, and Victoria, Canada, plus a magnificent
stop at Glacier Bay where you could almost reach out and touch
the ice as the captain circled the bay. The scenery is so magnificent
it was sometimes hard to realize this was the real thing and
we were not watching some wraparound Disney widescreen travelogue.
The Pearl offered freestyle
dining—eat whenever you fancy in two main dining rooms —as well
as seven additional restaurants you can dine for a cover charge
ranging from $10 to $25. There was also an almost nonstop buffet
in the Garden Cafe where stations served almost every variety
of food, from ethnic categories like Indian and Asian fusion,
to good old American standbys as well as mammoth breakfasts.
Along the way we spotted
whales and bears sunbathing. We skipped the organized
land tours —we'd done that before— but they are plentiful.
On our ship we could go rock climbing, bowling (not my cup of
tea), buy art, gamble or shop in the somewhat questionable tax
free stores and learn whether or not diamonds are a girl’s best
friend.
You can try acupuncture.
We noticed that besides the spa treatments there are all the
services of your neighborhood plastic surgeon or dermatologist—Botox,
Restalyn or Juvederm. No wonder people come off rested.
The Alaska stops are
fascinating. We loved the quaintness of Ketchikan and our Canadian
stop in Victoria—that wonderful little bit of England forty
years ago. Afternoon tea and cocktails at the famous Empress
Hotel left us wanting more.
Oh sure, the ships are
inclined to nickel and dime you to death with charges for Internet
usage, drinks, spa treatments, exorbitantly priced happy
photos, cappuccino or carrot juice, all with a 15 percent service
charge added, but it has the considerable benefit of removing
that "How much do we tip?" scramble at the end of the cruise.
The service was superlative from a staff that was heavily Philippine
but included people from Indonesia, Malaysia, India and the
Caribbean, as well as many European officers. And if only
the passengers were as neat and charming as the staff the whole
thing would have been perfect.
Cruise for astonishing views |
Passengers on the NCL
need have no fear of the much talked about flu-like diseases
that sometimes plague cruise ships. They've made disease prevention
into a game. There's a cute steward at the entrance and exit
of the dining rooms with a spray bottle to wash your hands:
"Happy, happy , washy washy" they chant. Silly but the NCL ships
have never had an outbreak.
We asked our travel planner
and veteran cruise guru, Martha Jaffe, whether all those people
who spend hours on the web trying to snare the bargain rates
are successful.
"Most cruisers book a
long way ahead of time, and you can save money doing that,"
she said. "Of course, early bookers snare the best cabins."
We will say that you
can drive yourself silly bouncing from one website to the next,
so probably the best way to go is still to find a travel agent
you trust and let the agent do the work.
While she agrees that
cutting it down to the wire can result in bargain travel,
she does warn, "Don’t be too clever. The cruise lines
want every cabin filled but if you cut it too fine you can find
yourself stuck on dry land."
Martha Jaffe, Travel
Planners International in Ventura, California, booked our cruise.
She can be reached at 805-642-6034, cell: 805-218-3324.
Rock climbing on board |
Tips From
The Experts Gilbert and Wanda
Au from Oahu in Hawaii know all about cruising. They’ve cruised
65 times with the NCL. We met them on the Norwegian Pearl at
a dinner with the Pearl’s knowledgeable Finnish-born hotel manager,
Kaj (pronounced Kai)Turunen who has been running five-star
hotels on sea and shore for 30 years. Here are the Au
cruise tips.
}Don’t
overpack. And we did find—though we somewhat regret it—that
cruising has become casual. No need for a new gown for every
night.
}Do
your homework when booking to learn which cabin offers the smoothest,
noise-free ride.
}Bring
liquid bandage instead of bandaids.
}Don’t
worry unnecessarily about overeating. Pace yourself and don’t
go overboard. Concentrate on small portions, with lots of fruit
and vegetables, and drink in moderation. We noticed that at
buffets guests go wild—and overload.
}Vegetarians
and children do particularly well at buffets. Children because
they can see exactly what they want and vegetarians because
Chinese, Thai and Indian food is readily available and has lots
of veggie dishes.
}Desserts
are a delight—but try not to overdose on sugar.
}Final
tip. Some of the most extraordinary deals can be had on repositioning
cruises where they are moving the ship from one base location
to another and make fewer land stops. (check out
www.Repositioningcruise.com.)
Only trouble is you might have to fly one way from California
to Miami, and then hunt for a modestly priced one-way ticket
from Barcelona home. And that could be pricey. Happy sailing.
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Resources
BEFORE you even dream of going
to Alaska, whether by cruise, flying or driving, be
sure to pick up a copy of
Lonely Planet Alaska
to guide you to all the exciting spots. Plus invaluable
tips: bring hat, fleece and rain gear against Alaska’s
climate; cellphone coverage is amazing everywhere; hiking
equipment such as a pack, boots, water bottle sop you
don’t pay exorbitant prices there; and casual clothes.
(Lonely Planet, softcover,
464 pages,
$21.99
Amazon.com Price: $14.95)
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