With the heat index in Hanoi camped out at 107°F (42°C) this afternoon, I find myself daydreaming about becoming a Bennett-cicle in some distant snowscape. Hence, a two-parter about Lapland adventure travel. For the first part, let’s take a look one of northern Scandinavia’s main attractions, the Northern Lights…
For a detailed explanation of the phenomenon of the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, check out this page. [Basically particles shot out by the sun are captured by the earth's magnetic field and urged toward the poles, where they collide and react with gas molecules in the atmosphere; these reactions give off energy in the form of light of varying colors. So around both poles, the sky periodically plays the stage to dazzling aerial light displays. In other words, sometimes the atmosphere seems to be filling with beautiful, glowing goo.]
The Northern Lights are better known than their southern counterparts simply because it’s easier to access a vantage point near the north pole (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Canada, Alaska, etc.) than to get to Antarctica. And getting you within view of them is the focus of today’s post.
You can fly round-trip from London (Stansted Airport) to Tampere, Finland for only £40 ($80) on Ryanair. Daily trains head into Lapland from Tampere.
Your chances of seeing the Northern Lights are highest during the winter months, especially between November and February, when daylight occupies just 4 to 6 hours of the day in northern Scandinavia. And the farther you remove yourself from the fluorescence of civilization, the easier it will be to see them. There is a lot of debate about the ‘best’ place to see the Lights, but truly the best place to see the lights is where the skies are the clearest. Here are a couple of options:
1. Kautokeino, Norway — The driest and coldest place in Norway, Kautokeino an ideal place from which to gaze. It is also the cultural center of the indigenous Sami people (whose descendents include Joni Mitchell and Renée Zellweger, incidentally). The tiny town — whose population numbers a meager 3,000 — is hardly a tourist mecca, but you can arrange to spend the night in a lavvu, a traditional Sami dwelling similar to a Native-American tepee. Maybe that only sounds appealing in a sweltering Hanoi summer.
2. Kakslauttanen, Finland — The Hotel & Igloo Village Kakslauttanen offers a bit more in the way of creature comforts. Accommodation options include log cabins, glass igloos, and proper snow igloos. For the view alone, I think I’d have to go with a glass igloo. Besides taking in the Northern Lights on a clear night, you can check out the ice art gallery, go ice swimming, or give ice carving a shot. I’m sensing a theme, and it is numbness. I couldn’t find rates on the hotel website, but according to this company’s site, it looks like you can book two persons’ transportation from London and accommodation for three nights (one each in glass igloo, snow igloo, and cabin) for £2,354 (or $3,711). Hey, they’ve got to pay for those imported zebra comforters somehow…
Diving Blue Hole isn’t recommended for novices, but even the snorkeling around its shallow rim is said to be fantastic, with vibrant coral reef and a large variety of sea life at home in the crystal-clear water. For those with scuba experience to match their curiosity, the actual dive into Blue Hole is unlike any other. Surging down into dimmer and dimmer waters to a depth of 130-ish feet, you are surrounded by huge reef and hammerhead sharks navigating an array of immense, submerged stalactites. For all kinds of information about Blue Hole, including the story of its formation, click 
A Caye Caulker-based outfit called Raggamuffin runs a 
Planing, training, and busing my way south from Shanghai a couple weeks ago, I stopped for a rainy day in Yangshuo, a quaint backpackers’ town in Guangxi province. Looking back I easily could have spent two or three days exploring the area around Yangshuo, which abounds in stunning karst topography, caves, and two picturesque rivers that cradle the town.
light drizzle, and I stopped periodically to admire the landscape and watch as tourists on bamboo rafts were paddled lazily down the river. Sadly, despite draping myself ridiculously in tattered, lavender plastic to take pictures in the rain, most of my photos from the afternoon suffer from water droplets on the lens.
I hadn’t bought a map of the area, thinking that if I stayed within sight of the river, there was no way I could get lost. But many of the trails along the river were only a foot wide, and in the rain they became bogs too slippery to navigate. So I improvised a bit. In doing so, of course, I did get lost, but I’m awfully glad I did. With the rain getting heavier, my meanderings led me through a floating village, where canals crossed rectangular rice paddies and connected a handful of tiny shacks on stilts. A lady in an army-green jacket and conical hat led a water buffalo torso-deep through a canal to drink. At the moment, though, most of the villagers were huddled on a covered porch looking out at me, no doubt wondering why this rain-doused and mud-besmirched Caucasian was pushing his bike across their rock path, smiling dumbly toward them.
I packed up, checked out, and sprinted from my hotel, a blurry lavender streak on an otherwise empty street, to the Yuan Ming café for a cup of Yunnan coffee and a breakfast sandwich (both were delicious!). By the time I finished my meal the rain had eased up enough for a walk around town. I stopped into the market, where farmers and fisherman filled rows of stalls with gorgeous fruits and vegetables, live chickens pacing in cages, hanging slabs of newly butchered beef, pork, and goat meat, and buckets of swimming river fish, eels, snails, frogs, and turtles three-to-a-sack.
I.
— It might be a tad bulky to stash in your pack (11″x6″x4″, including handles and knobs), but this is one gadget you’d want to have in your arsenal in an emergency. Like an electronic Leatherman, the FR1000 is a two-way and AM/FM radio, clock, flashlight, siren, beacon light, and cell phone charger. If the batteries die you can recharge them with the manual crank on the side. I, for one, like the old-fashioned/modern compromise of being able to charge my cell phone by hand. It retails for $150.
II. 
III. 
then fill with water. The conical shape focuses sunlight into its center, heating the water and whatever you’ve chosen to cook in it up to 90°C (194°F). It requires no fuel other than sunlight, so there is virtually no environmental impact. However, you do need direct sunlight for it to work optimally; at night and on cloudy days, may I suggest canned Vienna sausages?
IV. 
— Unless you’re already sporting a state-supplied ankle monitor, you might want to look into buying this gadget before your next outdoor adventure. Little bigger than a computer mouse, Spot is a GPS-enabled device (not a GPS navigation system) that can trigger text messages to be sent to your friends and family with your exact location coordinates, so that they may track your progress as you travel. In case of emergency, Spot also has a 9-1-1 mode that will send a distress signal to an international monitoring station every five minutes until the emergency is resolved. The downside: Spot doesn’t yet work in parts of South America, most of Africa, and southern Asia. While it will knock your balance down a bit with a retail price of $169.99, think of all the money you’ll be saving on postcards.
V. 
— These have become standard issue for military personnel around the world, and campers swear by them. Slowly sliding the flat, magnesium striker down the FireSteel key creates a 3,000°C spark that will ignite dry kindling (like companion-product Mayadust, $4.50 a tin) in a flash! The bright spark can also be used as an emergency signal. The lifetime of the Army model ($16) is 12,000 strikes, with which you can start more fires than your average dragon.
VI. 
— This one’s such a cheapie (anywhere from $1.50 to $13, depending where you look) that I couldn’t resist throwing it in the list. Mylar is said to reflect up to 90% of your body heat back to you and it’s waterproof, so in case of emergency you can slide into one of these bags and pass the night without freezing. Or you can line your sleeping bag with one to effectively lower its temperature rating. Their weight is negligible and they fold up small enough to fit in your pocket, so tossing one in your pack is a no-brainer.
VII. I’d like to add a low-tech but highly useful item I brought with me on my current trip: 
. An extremely durable yet easy-to-tear tape, it’s come in handy on several occasions in the past week alone. I’ve used it to secure lids and store food, to patch tears in ziplock bags (which are infinitely useful themselves — here are some 
VIII. Finally, it’s not a survival gadget but a 
, by Steven Callahan. Think Alive, but on a life raft and without the cannibalism. According to the mental floss reviewer, after the author’s sailboat sank, stranding him alone in the raft, he devised ways “to collect fresh water, spear and otherwise trap fish, gather barnacles, plot his position using a sextant made from pencils, and much more…” in order to survive. I figure if I read this book and watch all seven seasons of MacGyver, I’ll be ready for anything.
The western steps afford visitors the very best of Huang Shan’s scenery. At times they cling to the rock face, hiding a sheer drop of hundreds of feet to boulders below, and offer panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and valley. They trace their way through caves and narrows, in places so tight I had to remove my pack and slide through sideways. They perilously twist up to windy peaks and down the other side, the way made a bit easier (and less dizzying) by hand-holds notched into the rock and taut ropes to grip.
One particular highlight is Yingkesong (Guest Greeting Pine), an 800-year old tree leaning out from the rocks, its crown resembling a man whose arms are outstretched, welcoming. It is such an esteemed symbol in China that it has 
On a side note, atop each of Huang Shan’s peaks you’ll find dozens of padlocks hung from the chains that surround the lookout (pictured at left). They’re called “lovers’ locks”; smitten couples ascend the peaks and leave a lock behind, representing the permanence of their love. I thought it a rather unique and charming tradition.
The second thing that struck me was the vastness of the effort required ro lay miles and miles of stone path up, down, and all over these mountains. In spite of having a few cable car systems in place to ferry lazy tourists to and from the summit, almost all of the food, supplies, and building materials required to accommodate the thousands of daily visitors to Huang Shan are lugged up the stairs by porters shouldering massive panniered baskets. And just as all that stuff goes up with porters, so does all the waste come back down. According to Polly Evans in her travel book, Fried Eggs with Chopsticks, each load these tiny heroes carry up and down the mountain (and they can usually only take one per day) earns them RMB 40, about US $6.
hill, a bit frazzled from the taxi confusion but deeply satisfied that I didn’t have to return to the Tangkou hotel and meekly ask for a room after all.
Here’s where the space-travel trade stands today: an outfit called 
OK, so leaving the realm of earth’s gravity might be a bit pricey for you and me, but you can trick yourself into believing you’re hurtling through space, albeit for only 30 seconds at a time, for a more down-to-earth $3,950. 
I arrived in Shanghai six days ago, and armed with a Lonely Planet guide/phrasebook, I set out to see and do as much as possible in a week-long stay. I spent the first full day in Shanghai plotting an itinerary, walking the Huangpu River (pictured above) and Renmin Square, and figuring out the combination of buses, trains, planes, and taxis that would get me where I wanted to go. The next morning I boarded a bus for Huangshan (the Yellow Mountain — more on that later) five-and-a-half-hours west of Shanghai, and thought things were going along splendidly.