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Rundown
for the Week of November 7, 2003
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to the Whole Show
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Music Destinations
Even if you're not a music buff and performances aren't a priority in your travels, there's little doubt that local music influences your impression of a place. Every place has its unique musical personality. This week, our contributors take us to Buenos Aires for some late-night tango and to Portugal, where the local women take great musical pride in doing the laundry. And, we learn about the thousands of musical festivals around the world where you can hear the best of what music has to offer.
 Web resources: Click here to discover other music festivals and destinations around the U.S.
Tango Tourism
reporter: Amy Radil
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in RealAudio
The cultural scene in Buenos Aires is showing vibrant signs of life and has become a hotbed of tango tourism, attracting visitors from all over the world. Many who take a trip to Buenos Aires want to see some authentic tango. Reporter Amy Radil takes this one step further by daring to kick up a tango herself.
Web resources
www.todotango.com: Web site devoted to tango singer Carlos Gardel
www.planet-tango.com: Lots of tango audio and lyrics in Spanish and English.
http://totango.net: An elaborate site, all in English, full of news, history and profiles.
Click here to search for other stories by Amy Radil
1,000 Places to See Music
Interview with author Patricia Schultz
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in RealAudio
Host Diana Nyad talks to Patricia Schultz, author of "1,000 Places to See Before You Die," about some of the important, "must-see" musical festivals in the U.S. and abroad. Patricia guides us through many of her favorites, including Charleston's Spoleto Festival of Arts, which brings a bit of Italy to a Colonial city, and to Carnivale in Brazil's Salvador de Bahia, a very hot alternative to the festivities in Rio.
Web resources
Patricia's "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" is available to Amazon.com. Your purchase helps support The Savvy Traveler.
photo: R. Arieta
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Fado Laundry
by Rolando Arrieta
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in RealAudio
For hundreds of years, a staple image of Porto, Portugal, has been its narrow streets decorated with draped colorful clothes dancing in the wind. Even today, Portuguese people are prideful of their laundry. For many, washing clothes is a free-spirited social occasion. Rolando Arrieta discovered a laundry scene where happiness and kinship blend well with fatigue and hard work.
Web resources
"Fado Laundry" originally aired on September 13, 2003.
Click here to search for other stories by Rolando Arrieta
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Web resources: Click here to discover other music festivals and destinations around the U.S.
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Amtrak Update
interview with Ross Capone
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in RealAudio
Amtrak's route system includes 22,000 miles of track and serves more than 500 communities. While more than 24 million travelers rode Amtrak last year, the highest number in its 32-year history, there's some troubling news, too: Funding for the system is once again turning into a battle. To get the latest on our nation's rail system host Diana Nyad talks with Ross Capon, the executive director of the National Association of Rail Passengers, about the biggest challenges facing Amtrak right now, the new national timetable, and other advice on how we can make the most of traveling by rail.
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Music with Bob Duskis
Eastern Europe, Milwaukee
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Bob Duskis, co-founder of Six Degrees Records in San Francisco, is our world music guide. This week, he joins us with modernized, electronic interpretations of Gypsy music and the jaw-droppingly original guitar work of guitarist/singer-songwriter Willy Porter.
Click here for more info. about the artists
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Web resources
"Electric Gypsyland" (various artists)
"High Wire Live" - Willie Porter
Available at the Public Music Radio Source. Your purchase helps support The Savvy Traveler.
Interested in other music you heard on the Savvy Traveler?
Click here music selected by Savvy producer Ben Adair.
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Sound Travels
"Novice Monks", Darjeeling, India
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This week, Sound Travels, where we listen to a simple sound and travel the world, takes us to Darjeeling, an old British "hill station" nestled in the Himalayas in northeast India. The city now is an interesting mix of Indian, Nepalese, Himalayan and British Colonial culture. Robert Millis stumbled onto a ceremony by accident of "novice monks," probably between 10 and 12 years old, performing a Tibetan Buddhist service in a small temple near the heart of Darjeeling, under the watchful eyes of elder monks.
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Web resource:
Click here for more "Sound Travels"
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Traveler's Aid
Travel Update with Joe Sharkey
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in RealAudio
You've probably noticed that food service has pretty much disappeared from coach class
over the last couple years -- although food on board the plane has not. Often, passengers are carrying little brown bags, pizza boxes and cartons of take-out food. Host Diana Nyad talks with Joe Sharkey, the business travel columnist for "The New York Times," about ways to get a quality meal on board. Apparently, there's a lot of experimenting going on with respect to meals now, but it's still mostly up to the passengers to fend for themselves on domestic flights.
Then, Diana and Joe discuss a study by an organization called "Alertness Solutions" that found most long business trips dramatically affect a person's alertness and efficiency -- by as much as 20 percent.
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Deal of the Week
Bangkok on a Budget
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in RealAudio
Our dealmeister Rudy Maxa says if you missed the three-day sale kicked off by British Airlines this week -- the one that offered $100-each-way fares to London -- perhaps, you may want to look eastward to Asia. Why? Cathay Pacific has a month-long sale that will fly you from LA or San Francisco to Bangkok for $599 per person, plus taxes of $63 to $95 additional.
Even with taxes, that less than $400 each way -- and you can't fly from the West Coast to some smaller cities in the U.S. for that price! But wait, it gets better: You can fly from New York for a base price of only $799 per ticket and even get off the plane for a stopover in Hong Kong, if you'd like, at no extra charge.
Also, Cathay has cut deals with Shangri-La and Regal Hotels International to offer hotel discounts in both cities as well.
SMALL PRINT? This deal is available until Nov. 28, or until sold out, and is good for travel from Feb. 1 through the end of March. And, you have to buy online.
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