Category: Travels

That’s the title of a fun, new book.  Here is my personal selection of 10, in no particular order, and not counting the U.S.:

1. Glottertal to St. Maergen, through the Black Forest.  Maybe only two hours by car, but sheer magic.

2. The East Coast of Taiwan, Suao down to Hualien and then into Taroko, the marble gorge.  The best coastal route I know.

3. Mostar and Sarajevo, to remind us of the thinness of civilization.  They’re also beautiful cities with great food and moving graveyards.

4. Susten Pass, in Switzerland, the best route through the Alps.

5. The bus from Punta Arenas to Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile.  You see flamingos, rheas, and end up in a stunning national park.

6. The Panama Canal
— perhaps the most underrated sight; you feel like you are in the jungle,
you are in a jungle, then a large steamer comes by.  The tour of
Rotterdam Harbor is a close runner-up.

7. To and through the Tiong Bahru food stalls in Singapore.

8. Thingvellir, Iceland, home of the first Icelandic Parliament.  Such a long trip to see just four homes.

9. A walk through Ginza District in Tokyo, or perhaps Shinjuku subway station, with its dozens of maze-like paths to varioius streets.  Don’t even try the map, just be happy with wherever you end up.

10. Walking Paris end to end, pick just about any route.

I’ve never been to East Africa, and I’m not counting the Iron Market in Port-Au-Prince.

I arrived three hours early and went through six different and thorough searches at the airport; I do look like a drug dealer.  By my fourth day it had become clear how many wealthy Colombianas have had plastic sugery, of the disproportionate kind if you get my drift.  Colombia now has more people than Spain.  The American government freezes the funds of the families of Americans who have been kidnapped.  I found Bogotá safer than Madrid.

The Italian edition of Vanity Fair just listed Bogotá as one of the six up-and-coming tourist hotspots; Sibiu, Romania and the Kurile Islands (Russia) also made the list, enjoy.

Unlike Mexico City and Rio, most of the shops don’t have private security guards or much in the way of security systems.  Bars on home windows are unusual.  I haven’t heard many sirens.  Solo women walk around many parts of town.  Fear of civil war, kidnapping, and paramilitary guerrillas is no reason to postpone a trip.  From a tourist’s point of view, Bogota is more secure than most other Latin American cities.

There is less glamour here than I expected, and most of the city is solidly working class, lower middle class.  People are well dressed but in a relatively formal way; there is little sartorial individuality or flair.  Dark clothes, especially black, are the default style, but not in a Will Wilkinson cool hipster sort of way.  Rather the message is "it rains here a lot and it is cool and foggy and we have endured centuries of violence, so why wear floral pink?"  The bowler hat, however, is now passe. 

Bookstores and libraries are everywhere, and it is common to see people reading or carrying books.  The shops display their serious books, not the junk.  The museums are the best in South America, for both content and presentation.

Bicycling is a big deal, and the bus system is well-developed to an extreme.  The water is potable.  The green hills around the city are attractive, the colonial part of town has wonderful colors and houses, and the modern architecture is getting better.

Colombianos are remarkably gracious and friendly.  There is nothing like isolation to make people love foreigners.  Does having a bad international reputation make people nicer to compensate?

You have to utter "good day" to the guard each time you enter a new room in a museum.  People open doors for each other.  No one is loud.  It all feels vaguely right-wing.

The local soup mixes shredded chicken, avocado, potato, corn, capers, cream, and herbs for a tasty blend.  So far the food doesn’t thrill me; too many restaurants remain in the meat and potatoes stage; being in the Andes has never been good for any cuisine, except of course for their hearty soups.

The people look surprisingly homogeneous; I expected more Caribbean types and indigenous.  That said, the Turks run the textile trade and there are plenty of Chinese (so-called) restaurants.  Indian features are common, but blended into a broadly Spanish mix.  No one is very tall.

How can such a nice place be in the midst of a civil war and guerrilla uprising?  Why do leaders in the highest reaches of government secretly work with the paramilitaries?  Does every radio station in the country play Juanes, and how long will their Tower branches last?

Here is a good reading list on politics and institutions, but do any of these pieces explain what I am seeing?

A love affair between a Colombian and a Russian friend of my wife, long ago.  The Iron Curtain intervenes.  A name.  An old address.  A non-working phone number.  Can I find him?

Since I enjoy revisiting familiar places, it is not often I get to new countries, but if all goes well I will tomorrow…

Here is how to make your own map, including for the USA.  The insane are welcome to register their "counties visited."

Property rights are evolving, and rapidly:

Vigilante militias are alleged to have taken over Rio de Janeiro
slums, ruling as feudal lords and imposing taxes, as a result of the
collapse of legal policing in these areas.

The vigilante militias are made up of off-duty police officers
and former police officers.  They work to expel drug traffickers and
other criminals from favelas, known as Brazil‘s poorest and roughest neighborhoods, to set up protection rackets themselves.

According to Rio De Janeiro’s public security department, 92
favelas are now controlled by militias, up from 42 in April 2005.  They
take over a new neighborhood at an average of 12 days.

Sociologist Ignacio Cano, who works for the Rio de Janeiro
State University, said that the root of the phenomenon is a quest by
corrupt police officers for more money, against the backdrop of falling
drug profits and a drop in bribery.

These officers have decided to take direct control of the
areas and seek other ways to extract cash from Rio’s poorest, he said.

Militias then demand protection money from the neighborhood
they have captured: taxing residents five to seven U.S. dollars per
head for living in the area; demanding two dollars for each tank of
natural gas, the most common source of heat for cooking; and charging
local taxis for entering the area.

I read many articles on this topic but the most insightful is this Chinese source, consistent with what I heard from Brazilian friends. 

Two questions: first, which groups are the most efficient "bandit-controllers" of the favelas?  Should it be someone who will continue to live there, or someone who owns land there (informally perhaps), or someone altogether different?

Second, would drug legalization do much to limit crime in this setting?  If a group can create a territorial monopoly on selling drugs, and drugs cease to be very profitable, cannot that same territorial monopoly be transferred to other goods and services, as we seem to be observing?  In Rhode Island the vending machine business was long corrupt.  It may be claimed that the illegality of drugs makes them a special target, but keep in mind the laws are not and cannot be enforced inside the favelas.  It is the favela boss who issues the relevant dictates.

As for Rio, here is what went on earlier this week.  I am happy to report that all three of us are back home safe and sound.

One data point aside, the most obvious difference in Rio, from ten years ago, is how much safer it
seems.  Many parts of town that were previously filled with stalkers and
snatchers and kiddie gangs are now quite walkable and indeed pleasant. 
Small crimes have gone down in frequency, but crime occurs on a larger
scale.  The city has been parceled out, and if the police control a part
of town they are able to keep snatchings and the like to a minimum, unlike ten
years ago.  That said, the clashes at the fringes, between the police and
the favela kings, are, according to my Brazilian friends, more frequent and
more violent.  There is greater cartelization of territory, with
tighter control within each market, but more at stake on the borders.

As Americans (and Russians) we are not used to visiting large, insular
countries like our own, but Brazil is just that.  The diversity is remarkable, for one example Sao Paulo has about three
million ethnic Japanese.  But as in the United States, much of the
diversity is an illusion.  You can be from anywhere, and do anything you
want, but somehow you still only have the option of being Brazilian. 
Hardly anyone here speaks English, or indeed anything other than
Portuguese.  Many people claim to speak Spanish; that only means if you
speak to them in Spanish they are willing to answer you back in Portuguese,
with one or two Spanish words thrown in.  There are few concessions to
tourists, and even the most famous sites are visited mainly by Brazilians,
not foreigners.  It is one of the best experiences of intense cultural
immersion you can get.

Yes there are string bikinis but they are overrepresented on
postcards.  The ocean walk in Rio is full
of people who should not be wearing bikinis.  Brazilian women are among
the world’s most beautiful but in part because they do not insist of being
superthin.  They will overwhelm you with their sensual earthiness, and
their true appeal doesn’t rest much on their looks one way or the other.

I had to wait four hours for a connecting flight from Sao Paulo to Rio.  I saw hundreds of Brazilians waiting for different flights (have I mentioned that infrastructure is terrible?), but not once did I see anyone reading a book.

The food is better than I remember it, top sirloin being the best cut at a
churrascaria.  The cheeses, while not complex, are superb.  The cold antipasti are often the best part of the
meal.  Only Italy has better pasta, and even that is debatable.

I find it hard to finish Our Mutual Friend, perhaps because the plot
still doesn’t make sense to me, not even on second reading.  Still, I hold
an obvious fascination with serial stories which pretend to be about one thing
and are in fact deeply about something quite different; those who read MR most
closely already know this, even if they can’t always figure out the plot.

What does the peer pressure say?  Will it be a re-read of Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend (the key to deciphering Lost, I might add…seriously, and yes that latter link does mean Steven Johnson is now blogging), or Gone with the Wind? 

I like to wonder how many of the travelers in an airport are from the local area.  And what features of a city suggest a high proportion of locals in the airport?

For instance do small cities have high percentages of locals in their airports?  There are fewer locals to fill the place with, but not many New Yorkers fly to Greensboro, North Carolina.

At a given airport, it should matter whether the people of that area like to travel, whether no one else wants to visit that area, and whether that airport is a hub for switching flights.

It is easy to pick Chicago, Atlanta, and Denver as airports with many non-locals.  But which airports have high percentages of locals?  That means travel-hungry people from a boring, non-touristy, non-hub city.  Minneapolis anyone?

Panama has started a bidding war for retirees:

To attract more investment, the central American nation has eased
immigration laws and set up a discount bonanza for expatriate
pensioners that includes 20 percent off professional services such as
those provided by lawyers, architects and physical therapists; no
property tax for 20 years; no income tax on income earned outside
Panama; and a 50 percent discount on real estate closing costs.

And
that’s only the beginning. The list of discounts goes on and on,
including price breaks on telephone service, surgery and domestic
airfares and a one-time waiver of duties on imported household goods up
to $10,000.

All it takes to qualify is pension income of $500 or more per month — at any age and from any source.

Here is the story. 

I can think of four relevant models here.  1. The Panamanian government is simply stupid.  2. In Panama most prices are well above marginal cost, making this a good deal for the nation as a whole.  3. The Panamanian government has a preference for sources of wealth which will not get involved in politics.  4. The Panamanian government believes that the greater number of residents will result in a more efficient spreading of fixed costs.  I put my money on #2 and #3, and do visit Panama if you have never been; it is far more interesting than the now overtouristed Costa Rica.

I won’t dwell on the beauty of Stockholm, the quality of the seafood, or the intelligence and good judgment of the people.  Swedish women seem OK too, and Swedish Impressionist painting is underrated.  I even liked the place in December.  But what I enjoy most about Sweden is the sense of freedom.

Let’s be blunt: much of this freedom stems from government, and what you get is freedom from other people.  People are not less free of the tax man, but in Sweden you don’t need other people very much to insure your economic well-being.  You can do your own thing, without much fear (relatively speaking, of course) of personal oppression from others.  You really can choose which personal relationships you wish to have.  Autonomy reigns.  The Swedish family is, of course, fractured.  For all of its collectivist reputation, Sweden is the land of the true individualist, sometimes verging on atomism.  At will you can go off into the woods and eat your lingonberries, weather of course permitting.

I would not want to live there, if only because my restless self needs a large country and lots of space for travel in multiple directions.  Uppsala bored me in less than a day, Malmo was OK, but what next?  The yikes factor kicks in.  Latin America looks so far away.

Nor do I think that living in Sweden necessarily would be good for me.  But when I look at it, I like it.  I like seeing it.  I think it is an important social experiment.  And it is hard to argue that it has been bad for the Swedes.  I also think the whole arrangement, tax payments and all, is no less voluntary (and probably more voluntary) than what we do in the United States.  Some of that is the small country/homogeneity thing, some is simply that Swedes recognize their high quality way of life.

I’ve heard it said that "socialism is the religion of the Swedes."  This is not quite correct, though it hints at an important truth.  I think of "being Swedish" as the religion of the Swedes.  And the more cosmopolitan they behave, the more they are partaking in this religion; don’t be fooled!

This "being Swedish" business is a wonderful religion for Sweden.  It is not a good or possible religion for most of the rest of the world.  And it is not a religion to which I have been or could be invited. 

But Sweden (or should I say Stockholm?) remains one of the best places in the history of the world to date, and we are fooling ourselves if we don’t recognize that.

Lufthansa, HELP!

Poor Yana [Chernyak] is stuck in Nice, France without her luggage, which was "misplaced" somewhere in transit, apparently in Munich.  No one in Lufthansa, Europe will take calls or help her.  Lufthansa, USA passes the buck to the European offices.

The phone number given for Lufthansa, Nice — 0 826 103 334 — does not work from outside the country of France. 

Lufthansa, HELP, HELP, HELP!  Es gibt die deutsche Wertarbeit, nicht wahr?  Ist die Wirtschaftswunder schon so schnell vorbei?  Lufthansa, can you please help?  Does anyone from Lufthansa read this blog?

Zu Hilfe!  Arme Yana…

Here is his very useful account, including a good photo.  Excerpt:

Cowen made an interesting point about young people. He said America
empowers youth as influencers — college students sit around and listen
to music, start fads, build web sites, etc. They may not be "working"
per se, but they are contributing enormously to American popular
culture. Indeed, most of our popular culture is created by young
people, and this is the culture that is exported abroad. If a country
cares about the influence of its culture abroad, they should ask how
much power is given to youth. He noted that Latin America and Asia have
huge youth populations, making it prime for a lot of cultural influence
in this next generation.

Another question I discussed was why Switzerland has such an excellent culture of museums, opera, theatre, and architecture, but has done so poorly in exporting popular music and cinema.  The use of cities and cantons to fund the arts may be a central factor.  Intense Tiebout competition leads to quality local services but fewer national public goods (to the extent such cultural exports are public goods).

Ben is an MR reader who emailed me and tracked me down, here is his blog.