The Onion: “Southwest Airlines Now Taking Passengers To Destinations By Shuttle Bus”

DALLAS—In what the company is calling a “bold new leap” in comfort, convenience and overall quality of travel, Southwest Airlines announced Monday that it would be replacing its entire fleet of passenger jets and planes with daily shuttle buses.

The shuttle buses, which will depart from airport runways to over 200 destinations nationwide, represent a major breakthrough in commercial aviation.

“The future is now,” announced Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, gesturing to a 30-foot bus painted in the company’s signature red, yellow, and blue. “With these amazing new buses, traveling from New York to Los Angeles takes as little as three days. That’s less than half the time it took passengers to get there on our old planes.”

Equipped with a 70-gallon tank and a four-stroke engine capable of speeds up to 60 miles per hour, the innovative buses will reportedly reduce travel time by 75 percent on average. In addition, cushioned plastic seats and easy-to-hold metal poles will present passengers with a level of comfort never before experienced on Southwest flights.

(Via World Hum.)

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My mom and step-dad arrived in Bangkok yesterday for a visit from the US. Here’s how their visit has shaped up, numbers-wise, so far:

Thai Foot Massages

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I have an article in the April issue of Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia magazine about a recent six-day trip I took through the northeast of Vietnam on a Soviet-era motorbike. The issue isn’t online, but if you’re in the region you can find the magazine on newsstands. If you’re in Bangkok, look for it in bookstores and at BTS stations. The article is called “Riding High” and it starts on page 91. Here’s more info about T+L Southeast Asia.

The image above is a pic of me and a friend I met during the trip.

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Our stretch of beach

Shell-eye view

Bottle

Vittles

Beach dog

A

Yours truly

You can see a few more images from the trip in this photoset.

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Some of India’s richest people are paying $150 a night to live like peasants at a “native village” in the southern state of Karnataka.

The village, Hessargatta - just outside India’s IT capital, Bangalore - is designed to encourage the preservation of some of India’s rural traditions.

It offers visitors the chance to qualify in tasks like milking cows and looking after the other animals, such as turkeys, ducks, chickens and dogs…

Related: Virtual Airplane Rides in Delhi.

(Via my new favorite blog.)

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Many months ago, Newley.com reader Paul D., who lives in California, asked me for advice on learning Thai. While I’m not an expert and certainly not an advanced speaker, here’s a slightly expanded version of what I told him based on my experience as an enthusiastic — but far from talented — student. I invite those of you out there who know more about this than I do to weigh in with a comment below.

1. Get some good books. For non-academic texts, I like the straightforward Teach Yourself Thai. Another book that I’ve found useful is Thai Without Tears, mostly because it lays out an intuitive phonetic system. Another option, if you’re looking for a slim volume, is the Lonely Planet Thai Phrasebook, though this is clearly written with the tourist in mind.

2. Take advantage of audio materials. I’ve really enjoyed listening to Pimsleur’s Thai language CDs. My feeling is that some of the phrasing used in the dialogues is a bit proper (and I prefer a more colloquial approach), but I like the emphasis on repetition, and the lessons are structured nicely, with basic elements repeated over and over again. You might even be able to find some Thai podcasts.

3. Naturally, you should arrange for a Thai tutor or enroll in a Thai class. I take one-on-one lessons and, though I should certainly study more, I’ve found this to be invaluable over the long term. Be sure to choose a teacher who’s had experience with foreign students.

4. Try to study at a little bit each day. An hour — or even 15 minutes — every day is more effective, I’ve found, than many hours once a week.

5. Learn the Thai alphabet. It’s not as hard as you’d think. Get some flash cards and some workbooks made for children.

6. Feel free to design your own curriculum. I found it helpful to make a list of the 50 or 100 words that were most important for me to learn for daily use. This would include frequent events like talking to taxi drivers, asking for directions on the street, ordering food in a restaurant, etc. But I’ve also focused on specific words based on my interests. For example, I play soccer and found it interesting to learn some of the vocabulary specific to the game.

7. It’s important to be patient and have a sense of humor. Situations where you’re uncomfortable — where you really need to say something the right way to be understood — are just as important in the learning process as time in the classroom. Talk to taxi drivers about their favorite foods. Ask your neighbors how to pronounce words you’re having trouble with. Ask your friendly local fruit vendor to tell you how to pronounce the name of that strange fruit he or she is selling.

Here’re some resources for further reading:

– LearningThai.com has some online lessons and other information.
– EnjoyThaiFood.com has a wealth of great food-centric info.
– The Thai language Wikipedia page makes for a good general overview.
– The Learn to Read Thai Web site offers info on the Thai alphabet.
– How and Why to Learn Thai contains an overview of Thai syntax, vocabulary, and other elements.
– I’ve heard great things about Stuart Jay Raj’s Cracking Thai Fundamentals course. He takes an interesting approach to demystifying the language for non-Thai speakers.

Thai flash card image via.

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Happy Thanksgiving, folks. To those of you in the US of A: Eat some turducken for your old uncle Newley in Siam. (To mis amigos y familia in South Carolina, Oregon, and all along the eastern seaboard: tuck into some deep fried turkey in my name. And to my aunt Cee Cee in Beaufort: my heart weeps for your pecan pie.)

Anywho, on to the main business at hand — and it is something special indeed: A and I just returned to Bangkok after a two-week sojourn in northeast India. We were in Kolkata (Calcutta) for five days, then in Darjeeling and Gangkok.

Below are my 10 favorite images from the trip. I can only hope that they come close to conveying the vibrancy of this region of the country.

You can find the full photo set here.

Kolkata nighttime taxi ride.

Man and rickshaw in Kolkata.

Kolkata street girls.

Traffic in Kolkata.

A guy with two monkeys in Kolkata.

Sunrise on Mt. Kanchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain.

Prayer flags in Gangtok.

Sunset in Gangtok.

Girl in Darjeeling.

Schoolboys in Darjeeling.

Again, here’s the full photo set.

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“The World’s Worst Airports,” from Foreign Policy, names “five airports around the world that make traveling hell.” They pick those in Dakar, Senegal; New Delhi, India; Mineralnye Vody, Russia; Baghdad; and Paris.

Last year A and I visited Indira Gandhi International Airport, in New Delhi. While the crowds massed outside can, indeed, seem chaotic, I must say the place didn’t seem quite this bad:

Visitors report aggressive panhandlers, filthy bathrooms where attendants charge for toilet paper, and used syringes on the terminal floor. The main terminal building was even closed to visitors for a few months in 1999 after a flight from Nepal was hijacked. Things have hopefully gotten a little safer since an Australian tourist was murdered by a taxi driver leaving IGIA in 2004, prompting the Indian government to form a special tourist police force. But there’s still a danger of things going slightly awry: In 2005, an act of sabotage in an ongoing feud between cable television providers led to a pornographic film appearing on the airport’s television monitors…

I do, however, remember that there were mosquitos inside the terminal. That wasn’t so great. And while our taxi driver certainly didn’t assault us, his ancient Ambassador taxi cab broke down less than five minutes after we left the airport. He fixed the engine with the assistance of nearby pedestrians. And what appeared to be a piece of string.

If you enjoy reading about bad airports, don’t miss this exceptional Economist article from December, 2006: “Kama Sutra and feral cats,” in which the author explains that “to understand contemporary Russia,” one must “consider its airports.”

(Foreign Policy link via World Hum.)

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Times Online:

An Indian entrepreneur has given a new twist to the concept of low-cost airlines. The passengers boarding his Airbus 300 in Delhi do not expect to go anywhere because it never takes off.

All they want is the chance to know what it is like to sit on a plane, listen to announcements and be waited on by stewardesses bustling up and down the aisle.

In a country where 99% of the population have never experienced air travel, the “virtual journeys” of Bahadur Chand Gupta, a retired Indian Airlines engineer, have proved a roaring success.

As on an ordinary aircraft, customers buckle themselves in and watch a safety demonstration. But when they look out of the windows, the landscape never changes. Even if “Captain” Gupta wanted to get off the ground, the plane would not go far: it only has one wing and a large part of the tail is missing.

None of that bothers Gupta as he sits at the controls in his cockpit. His regular announcements include, “We will soon be passing through a zone of turbulence” and “We are about to begin our descent into Delhi.”

(Emphasis mine.)

Airplane! Image via Wikipedia.

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I get a lot of questions about Skype — people ask me how it works and how I use it. So here’s a description of my setup. I’ve found Skype to be enormously helpful in communicating with friends, family, and colleagues all over the world. And I’m amazed that so many of my friends — otherwise intelligent, tech-savvy folks — aren’t taking advantage of the service.

First of all: What is Skype, anyway? The simple explanation: It’s an application that allows you to make calls over the Internet. Using Skype, you can call from your computer to other Skype users, or you can make calls to traditional land lines or cell phones. Using Skype is typically much cheaper than using land lines, and for international calls, the sound quality is often better.

Here’s how to get Skype up and running on your computer.

1. Download and install Skype for free from the Skype Web site. It works on both PCs and Macs.

2. Buy a headset. There’re a wide variety available in the Skype store, or on Amazon.com. You can also find headsets in the Apple Store. Note: if you’re on a Mac, make sure that the headset you buy is, indeed, Mac-compatible. While most laptops have built-in microphones and speakers, it’s best to use a headset — standard earphones plus a mic that you speak into — to achieve good call quality. That said, some newer laptops have built-in microphones that’re pretty good. But using a headset is best.

3. Tweak your audio settings. In the Skype application, go to:

Skype > Preferences > Audio

…and make sure that your headset is selected under both Input and Output. You may also have to do the same thing to your computer’s System Preferences > Sound settings. On a PC, I understand this can be done by going to:

Start > Control panel > Sounds and audio devices

4. Call other Skype users. There’s no charge for calling another Skype user — you both simply need to be online and have Skype running at the same time.

5. Buy SkypeOut credit. This allows you to call from your computer to land lines and mobile phone numbers. The rates vary, but it’s much, much cheaper than calling conventionally, even using domestic or international calling cards. Here’re the rates for all international destinations. I buy credit in US$25 chunks.

Once you’ve mastered these basics, you might want to attempt some advanced Skype maneuvers:

6. Buy a SkypeIn phone number. It’s US$38 per year, and comes with voice mail. I have one with a Washington, DC area code so that people can call me from the US. Callers pay whatever rate they’d normally be charged for dialing a 202 area code number. These calls are then routed automatically to my computer. I pay for these calls, but the rate is quite reasonable. If I’m online, I simply answer the call in Skype with my headset. If my computer is turned off, I…

7. Use the call forwarding feature to send calls automatically to my cell phone. This is easy to do — just enter your local cell phone number and the call will reach you. (This works for folks dialing your SkypeIn number as well as folks calling you directly on Skype.)

This is perhaps the coolest of Skype’s features: What this means is that if friends or family call my 202 area code number, I might answer the phone on my computer here in Bangkok. Or I might be away from my desk and answer the call on my cell phone. Or if I happen to be traveling in another country, I can pop a local SIM card into my cell phone and answer the call there. (Related blog post: “I live in Russia, my phone lives in New York.”)

8. Get a Web cam and add video-conferencing to your Skype calls. The new Mac laptops have built-in Web cams and work seamlessly with Skype.

A few caveats:
– Skype reception — and thus the quality of your calls — depends on your Internet connection. Using a LAN cable is usually better than WiFi; the more stable the connection, the better. Weaker connections mean that call quality is sometimes compromised, or calls may occasionally drop.
– Generally speaking, calls from Skype to land lines — or from land lines to Skype — sound better than calls to or from cell phones. That said, I’ve received calls from people on their mobile phones that are routed via Skype to my mobile phone and the quality is clear and there’s very little delay.

Here’re some resources for further reading:

– The Skype help page offers general instructions.
– The Skype Wikipedia page provides a good overview of the service

So there you go. Have fun. My Skype ID is newleypurnell. You can thank me next time we talk.

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