Art and Culture of the Jordaan
Once a working class area, Amsterdam’s Jordaan has become greatly sought after. The converted warehouses are especially popular, and the Jordaan is now inhabited by a colorful mixture of students, well-to-do businessmen and creative professionals. The Jordaan oozes atmosphere with its narrow streets, picturesque canals, old monuments, many courtyards, markets and art studios.
Private Art Tours with Drs. Kees Kaldenbach
I am an academic tour guide, providing guided tailor-made Private Art Tours. I travel with my clients either by car or by public transport. With this message I would like to inform you about my travel and guide options in The Netherlands, also available in the upcoming Rembrandt year 2006.
I prefer to guide small and select groups to museum visits and to walks in historic Dutch towns.
Numerous TV and other media networks – among which BBC2 – have sought my expert assistance and TV appearance. Having an academic background, my presentation is very communicative and therefore open for a wide audience.
For the Dutch National Tourist Board I often take foreign journalists on walking tours of Amsterdam – to tell them about historic Amsterdam but also about present-day Amsterdam.
Contact:
Private Art Tours
Drs. Kees Kaldenbach
Haarlemmermeerstraat 83 hs
1058 JS Amsterdam
tel NL+20 – 669 8119
cell NL+6 – 2868 9775
https://www.xs4all.nl/~kalden/verm/Vermeer_lecturesENG.html
https://www.xs4all.nl/~kalden/verm/VanGogh_lecturesENG.html
https://www.xs4all.nl/~kalden/verm/rembr_lecturesENG.html
Unlike Europe, the US & elsewhere, mobile phone use in Australia tends to be expensive. Telstra, Optus and Vodaphone are the big three operators for mobile telephony in Australia. Telstra, the once dominant monopoly in the country still offers uncompetitive rates and restrictions. Optus is little better, helping to keep high charges for everyone. Vodaphone is trying to lower the bar, offering better prices and more independence, but doesn’t have as wide a coverage as the other two. Virgin is another recent entry to the market in Australia.
When you buy a new phone and opt for any of the companies except Vodaphone, you’ll be committing yourself to using their service as they don’t let you switch sim cards without an extra fee (around A$80). If you already have a GSM phone, you can purchase a sim card from any of the companies for use in your phone. They usually come with $A25-$30 phone credit since they cost the same to buy.
In my experience mobile phone charges run about $1 per minute, and some even charge you extra for retrieving your voice messages. Text messages run around 25 cents unless you purchase a plan that gives you a better deal. So that $30 of credit can easily be used up with just a few calls.
If you’re going to be in Australia for awhile, it may be worth it to signup for a long-term contract, as the rates will be far cheaper than the prepaid plans. You can also get a better deal if you include your home phone and internet access on the same account.
Be aware that rural areas are not always covered by the major companies. Vodaphone in particular seems to concentrate on the major cities and towns, with poor service elsewhere. Hopefully this problem will be eliminated once the companies learn how to play together and share their lines without charging exorbitant rates.
Both GSM and CDMA mobile standards are in use in Australia. Supposedly the CDMA offers better rural coverage, but CDMA phones don’t use sim chips which means they won’t work in Europe and other areas.
We encourage you to not use Telstra as it costs the most, unless it is the only carrier available for your area.
For the traveler in Australia there is Internet access available in most towns, with the remote regions of the outback having less coverage. In backpacker friendly places you’ll find excellent access near or inside hostels, caravan parks & hotels. In the peak season these places are often packed, sometimes with people queueing up to get online.
The access is usually good to excellent, although in peak periods the Internet does slow down considerably. If you have to wait more than a minute for pages to load, you might want to try again during a less crowded time.
On Decemeber 26, 2004 a large Tsunami hit the coasts of Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India. The southwest coast of Thailand was hit hard. Hundreds of people lost their lives, with damage to business along the shore in the billions of dollars. The affected areas include the popular tourist destinations of Phuket, Krabi, outlying islands like Koh Phi Phi and Phang Nga, the province north of Phuket.
Once upon a time, Koh Samui was known only to adventurous backpackers who would spend days taking long bus rides and a long ferry ride to arrive on this tropical island paradise. They would shack up in a primitive bungalow on the beach for weeks at a time, blissed out on the sun, sea, sand and tranquility of this remote island.
The road system in Australia is very good, but as you leave the cities and head into the outback, road quality can vary greatly. Many rural roads are just dirt tracks and many washout during the wet season. Other roads turn into one lane for long distances requiring you to take your left wheels off the road to pass an oncoming vehicle.
Always carry along lots of water, sunscreen, hat, a good local map and a mobile phone if you’re driving out into the bush. Make sure you have a good spare tire, as some cheap Aussie tires don’t last long, especially on the hot roads at high speeds. It’s possible to breakdown hundreds of kilometers from the nearest town.
The Thai government recently launched the third phase in its unrelenting war on drugs, this time focusing efforts on the Thai borders and small time dealers at bars in Bangkok. The last two phases in this war on drugs saw thousands of Thais lose their lives in what the government called gang wars, but the truth is not clear and justice is nowhere to be found.
The wars and their associated crackdown have had a chilling effect on the Thai subcultures that surround drugs, including marijuana. Once upon a time the Thai people were afraid of nothing, and extremely tolerant. After all, tolerance is a pillar of Buddhism. But I witnessed how paranoid the Thai people have become concerning drugs, some not even wanting to talk about them anymore.
During my last visit, twenty-odd years ago, I was able to purchase green cannabis cookies from a huge glass mason jar on the counter of my bungalow’s restaurant. Those days are gone, and you can no longer purchase or consume marijuana easily in Thailand. Other drugs like opium, heroin and the newer trendy drugs of speed, crack and ecstasy are all pretty much equally illegal and visitors caught with any illegal drugs will be treated harshly by the authorities.
The Thai government’s anti-drug program fund snitches, which means people who turn in drug dealers get financial incentives, as well as police officers who make busts. It seems a drug bust in Thailand will cost you several hundred to thousands of dollars to deal with, and that is only for small amounts. If you’re unlucky or stupid in dealing with the authorities you could spend a lot of time in a Thai prison. Not a pleasant vacation at all.
That said, drugs are still available, but harder to find. Obviously bars are a place where dealing still goes on, although the current operation in Bangkok will probably make dealers everywhere more wary. The best advice I could get on scoring a bit of Thai weed was to chat up a bar girl. They always know how to please!
Still it is unwise to flaunt any drug use. Smoking a joint in public is no longer a good idea. The legendary Thai Stick is nowhere to be found in Thailand anymore. In fact much of the compressed green/brownish weed sold in Thailand is probably imported from Cambodia now. It’s nice and spacey, but a far cry from the lovingly grown and carefully manicured sweet mind-blowing Thai weed of the ’70s. Ah the good ol’ daze!
Need I say that to import or export any drug to or from Thailand is utterly insane. With the stringent security at airports your next destination would likely be a miserable jail cell. Ask Schappel Corby (the Aussie girl who just got sentenced to 18 years for importing marijuana into Bali).
World weary travelers are always happy to disembark in Thailand where relief from travel stress, aching muscles or a bad back is just a massage away. The Thai people mastered the art of massage centuries ago, and are more than happy to share their knowledge of the human body with visitors.
Thai massage is based upon the principle of Chi, which is the flow of energy through the body. Tension blocks the Chi, resulting in an imbalance of energy, and dis-ease. By focusing their massage on pressure points, they can release the blocks and allow the Chi to flow easily again, thus restoring your body’s health and putting a smile back on your face.
Traditional Thai massage flexes your limbs while applying pressure to specific points. This increases the blood flow to the area and stretches your muscles. Some of the positions may cause discomfort at first if you’re not in good shape or have a physical problem which should be mentioned at the start of the massage so they can be more careful where necessary.
A meal in Thailand is a wonderful experience that awakens the senses and surprises the palate. Thai cuisine evokes the heat and exotic spices of Asia fused in colorful displays of culinary talent. Red hot curries drown in rich creamy coconut milk. Shrimp and squid swim alongside tasty vegetables in mouthwatering pots of broth brimming with the tropical flavors of lemongrass, ginger and lime leaf.
Kebabs of chicken or meat long marinated waiting to be dipped into the sweet heat of piquant peanut sauce. Fresh fish, prawns, lobsters, clams, mussels and more are temptingly displayed outside open restaurants awaiting your selection and preparation instructions.