Friday, July 31, 2009

I am a Flashpacker

Me: "Can I take your iphone off the charger and use the outlet for my netbook?"
Friend: "Hold on, I'm syncing some new music I just bought. I want to take advantage of our guesthouse having wifi"

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to flashpacking. What exactly is flashpacking? It's a way of traveling for quarter-life crisis types and beyond. You've worked a few years. You've saved up some cash. Suddenly you have a chunk of free time to go see the world.

Many remember summers or semesters spent abroad as broke college students, backpacking around Europe and Southeast Asia. The crucial limitation on these travels was a dependence on parents or a finite savings account that forced one to carefully budget out dorm-style hostels, drink specials, and limited tour activities to the penny/ However, as a 29 year old who's just left the workforce, you've earned the luxury to stay in remotely liveable accomodations. You've not looking for a penthouse suite, but chances are, you'll spring for a private room at a hostel rather than the dorm style beds. You can now afford a variety of day tours and activities that are offered. You're old now; staying out til 4am and waking up at 8am for a day hike just doesnt seem to work anymore.

The other major change from the backpacking lifestyle is the introduction of somewhat comfortable travel. If it costs another $15 to upgrade from the 3rd class sleeper train to the 2nd class one, you'll take it. Southeast Asia has proven itself to be a flashpackers paradise with a bounty of low-cost airlines that allow for the ultimate flash-packer luxury: heavily discounted, last-minute airline tickets. While still slightly more expensive than an "18 hour bus ride + ferry", these airline companies have created an extremely comfortable way to quickly travel around. You also can avoid serious planning as you no longer have to follow a logical geographic plan, as you would traveling by bus or train.

The final, and most crucial characteristic of a flashpacker is an arsenal of technology. Hostels and guesthouses appear to be in tune to this trend, as majority of these places now have wifi in their lobbies and sometimes even rooms. On that budget flight, you'll find flashpackers listening to their ipods, viewing digital pictures, and uploading them to their netbooks. The travel journal / scrapbook that was so common as a collegiate backpacker is now replaced with the blog or the extra-long group email. When you meet other flashpackers, you instantly facebook friend them on your smartphone for which you've bought a local data SIM card.

The other crucial question for the flashpacker is that of luggage. We've all seen the oversized hiking backpacks, complete with Canadian flag patch and multitude of buckles and straps; the more buckles and straps one's bag has, the more intense a backpacker they are. I felt the standard large backpack was no longer my bag of choice. Instead.,I found a large suitcase type bag, with rolling wheels, but that has a strap compartment to convert itself into kind of a backpack. The flashpackers place in life is exactly that, not quite ready to travel the world with a Tumi suitcase, but no longer wanting to be associated at every juncture with the hippie backpacker. A friend asked a poignant question, "Is that a suitcase with straps, or a backpack with wheels?" That truly is the question.....

If you've recently found a good deal of free time and want to see the world, but aren't quite ready to sign up for a bus tour of 60 Japanese adults. If you've saved a little bit of money and are looking to travel cheaply, but don't want to be the "creepy, old dude" at the hostel. If you're somewhere between Under the Tuscan Sun and Eurotrip, fear not. Join the flashpacker movement.

My flashpacking tech list:

HP Netbook
Unlocked Blackberry with local SIM cards
iPod Nano (stolen, replaced with an "iPop" ripoff, bought in Bangkok)
Amazon Kindle
Casio Exilim digital camera

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

La Vita e Bella

I knew the day I accepted the offer from INSEAD for business school it would present some unusual "international" situations. Some friends joked that my likely occupation after graduating would be carrying briefcases full of cash across oil fields in Africa. I will admit though, I was a little surprised when I found myself studying Italian, in Singapore, on a streetful of brothels.

For a little background, INSEAD has a requirement of knowledge in three language, including English. After some last-minute debate, I decided to pursue Italian as my 2nd as the test was heavily grammar based (I had originally planned on using Bengali which I speak at home, but I'm fairly unfamiliar with the written language). After not paying attention to deadlines, I had to cut my Mandarin lessons a week short and headed to Singapore to take the Italian test. The plan was simple, I had 8 days to do nothing but try to relearn a language. I had started perusing a textbook while still in Beijing, and found a budget hotel in Singapore and actually made a plan, day by day, of what I'd need to cover.

Things got interesting when I arrived in Singapore. Now, I had been here before for work never really left the financial district area. I'm not really familiar with names of neighborhoods and found a great looking budget hotel on tripadvisor. It got great ratings, had wi-fi, air conditioning, a full-size bed, and was about $35 USD a night. It seemed perfect for the task at hand so I booked it.

The taxi driver looked at me a little oddly when I gave him the address and told him I'd be staying there a week but I didnt really think much of it. When I got to the hotel it definitely looked to be a shady area. In other areas I seriously might have rethought the reservation, but I figured that it's Singapore, if you can't chew gum I probably won't get shot.

There was a strong stench throughout the air that I couldn't place as I walked up to the check-in counter. In front of me was an old, kinda pasty white guy with a young Asian girl in a short skirt and heels asking about "transit rates" which apparently means by the hour. Things were getting sketchier. I held my belongings close and checked in, and headed up to the room, which turned out to be as nice as advertised. I was still weirded out by the entire situation but the room was perfect for the week so figured I'd stay here but take a walk around the neighborhood.

It turned out I was staying in a neighborhood called Geylang, which is apparently a famous Singapore red light district. It's a series of numbered blocks, with apparently each block being run by a different ethnic Asian gang and with a different ethnicity of women (according to wikipedia this would include one block of ladyboys). The area was definitely not full of Eliot Spitzer style establishments as it's pretty jarring to walk around. There's trash everywhere and that smell wafting through the air. It turned out the smell was a tropical fruit, Durian, that has an unbelievably strong odor and is really popular through Singapore and especially in Geylang....I guess a delicacy among Johns?

There was a subway station close by and I managed to make it out around 9am every morning to a nicer area with great coffeeshops for studying. Yes, there are guys standing outside at 9am trying to get you into their brothel. Even through the stench of durien and hookers, I was able to get in about 10 hours of review a day and eventually passed the test.

Welcome to INSEAD. Welcome to Singapore.

Some random thoughts:

- for practicing listening and speaking I found a really good language podcast on iTunes: LearnItalianPod.com. For all my love of technology, I've never really gotten into Podcasts but this series was amazing. I would like to thank Massimo and Jane for their help in the process.

- Not only do people here drive on the other side of the street, while riding escalators, the "standing/slow" line is on the opposite side from America. I wonder how that stuff gets communicated.

- I'm convinced you can tell the level of freedom of political expression in countries by how observant they are of Don't Walk signals. There can seriously not be a car in sight and people will wait for the Walk signal here. I dont want to get caned and don't really know the territory yet, so even with the agitated New Yorker in me, I wait out the signal.