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Let’s face it. Unless your home is strewn with authentic keepsakes from when you navigated the Amazon on a homemade raft or that time you revived a caribou that had collapsed next to your Mongolian yert (I’m talking to you, J. Peterman…), photographs are probably your most reliable means of reliving your travels. Most of us who travel the world snapping two-dimensional remembrances are not trained professionals, and even with the incredible pace by which camera technology is advancing these days, our best documentary efforts sometimes fail to capture the elusive quality that made something worth photographing in the first place.

With that in mind, here are a few ideas to help you make the most out of your picture-taking short of shelling out for that $5,000 Nikon.

The Novoflex Photo Survival Kit is an alternative to lugging around a bulky and heavy tripod. Basically it’s a system that allows you to connect your digital camera to four different mounts: a mini-tripod, a suction cup (for small cameras and phones), a ground spike, and a clamp that can attach to bike handlebars, among other surfaces. The entire kit weighs only 1.3 pounds (0.6 kg) and is small enough (1.4″ deep, 10.4″ long x 7.5″ wide) to fit snugly into your daypack. It retails for $210.

The XShot is a handheld extension than you can attach to your digital camera to take self-portraits or panoramic shots at greater than arm’s length. If a fear of social contact prevents you from asking strangers to take your picture — or if the video-camera-thief scene from European Vacation has scarred you for life — the Xshot is the perfect accessory for you. It telescopes out to 37″ long but retracts to just 9″, so it easily stows away in your pack’s pockets. It retails directly from the product homepage for $29.95, or you can save a few dollars at amazon.com.

The Aquapac is a waterproof camera case with a clear, LENZFLEX window through which your camera can take underwater pictures. The one shown at left is for smaller point-and-shoot cameras (and retails for $40, though you can find cheaper prices at amazon.com), but there are several different sizes to choose from depending on your needs. All the Aquapacs are guaranteed submersible up to 15 feet and also promise to keep out dust and sand, taking the worry out of beach photography.

Next up is Joby’s Gorillapod, a lightweight (1.6 ounces) tripod with flexible legs that adjusts to uneven surfaces and wraps around poles, tree branches, etc., to stabilize your camera where a standard tripod would be useless. The original model, which retails for $24.95, is perfect for smaller point-and-shoot cameras, but it’ll only support about 11 ounces (300 grams). Joby makes sturdier models that support up to 3000 grams and cost more accordingly.

I don’t think this one’s actually been marketed yet, but if it the Flee Digital Camera ever becomes available, I’d love to snatch one up. It’s basically an aerodynamic throw-toy with a camera built into it, so you can give it a toss and it’ll take pictures from perspectives you wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise. The concept camera is bluetooth-enabled, so it can snap photos in mid-flight and send them to your mobile phone. The real question about the Flee is not how well the in-flight shots turn out, but whether it can even make a second flight after crashing down the first time. The fact that there are no actual Flee-taken photos up on the website suggests that the prototype may not even be a functional one, but what a cool idea nonetheless!

And on a final note, I just downloaded and started using Google’s newish, free photo-sharing service, Picasa. Picasa enables you to create a web album of travel photos (or whatever) that you can upload straight from your computer. It’s faster than uploading pictures individually to photobucket or flickr, and it keeps your photos organized as you have them on your hard drive. Once they’re uploaded you can brush them up and create slideshows and movies, although I haven’t got there yet.

Thanks for reading!

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I admit I’m something of a music snob. American pop music (most of it, anyway) has long struck me as gimmicky, predictable, and empty of genuine feeling. Whatever version of pop it is — straight-up ballad, hip hop, R&B, emo/rock, or country — it generally leaves me cold and critical. In the past my musical taste prejudices have put strains on relationships with some of the people I’m closest to. It’s not my most endearing quality. So to anyone I may have offended or grated upon in the past, I extend my sincerest apologies. Until I got to Vietnam, I didn’t realize how good pop music is in the States.

Vietnamese pop basically consists of the following: a backing track of canned drums and synthesized accompaniment; a they’ll-have-to-pry-this-karaoke-mic-from-my-hands singer, dripping with bathos, who churns again and again through the chorus’s five-note melody and lyrical refrain (which I cannot understand, but probably means something like, “I’m trying to drill this into your head, though you might prefer an actual dri-i-ill”); a break for an incongruous and off-key ‘80s hair-metal guitar solo; and finally the coda, which typically signals that the end of the song is near, but in Vietnam it means that the chorus will be repeated and repeated until the singer collapses under the weight of his or her own melodrama. There follows a quiet interlude when the fallen singer is dragged away from the microphone, whence a new one shuffles into place and begins the same song from the top.

I wouldn’t be so tough on Vietnam’s pop if its traditional music weren’t so rich and texturally interesting, with unique, native instruments and beguiling vocal techniques. Unfortunately (for anyone stuck in the back of a Vietnamese taxi during a traffic jam), there is an un-bridged chasm between the complexity and creativity of Vietnam’s traditional music and the enervating drone of its pappy pop. But let’s focus on the positive and take a look at some examples of traditional music…

Here’s a sampling of some music you’ll hear on a visit to the Temple of Literature in Hanoi, kicked off by a quicksilvery dàn bâu line:

Next, here’s a musical performance from the Thang Long Water Puppet Theater in Hanoi. The music begins at 0:33. Sorry for the poor quality of the video; I have to practice shaking the camera violently in case I ever get the chance to film Bigfoot.

And a bit more from the water puppet show, with beautiful vocals (and puppets!):

Finally, here’s a bit of video from a traditional dance show we caught in Mai Chau, Vietnam. The bamboo poles — more than merely crushing the bare feet of any misguided tourist who later dared to attempt this dance, cough, cough — provide percussion behind the accordion and mandolin.

Thanks for reading (and watching and listening)!

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