I have a ton of blogs in my feed reader (around 110), so only a third are actually travel related. One such unrelated blog is the famous Boing Boing. A few days ago they reported that the academy award-winning documentary A Story of Healing has been released under a creative commons license. I had never heard of it before then. If the story hadn’t featured a woman in a non quai thao (traditional hat), I would have probably skipped it.
In 1997, a Dewey-Obenchain film crew accompanied an Interplast volunteer surgical team to An Giang province in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. The filmmakers donated their services to document the team’s experiences and produce “A Story of Healing,” which earned the 1997 Academy Award for best documentary, short subject. The 28-minute film is followed by a short epilogue (after the credits) which follows-up on two patients 16 months after their surgeries.
And with that I bring you A Story of Healing.
Filed under Timen Talks, Asia, Vietnam.
Before Ian asked me to be a judge in his 5 Hilarious Travel Photos contest, I was planning on entering myself. But now I’m a judge, so I obviously can’t win. But when I take a look at the current entries, I realize that I could have never won in the first place! The other entries are hilarious!
All that said, I’m just going to post my pictures anyway. Here you go, my five funny travel pictures.
Imagine: you just arrived in Asia for the first time in your life, and you decide to go to Chinatown (of all places) and see what’s there. I don’t think I saw a “normal” food or beverage there! Endless where the stalls selling pig noses, dog tails, and furry fruits. Whole stalls devoted to selling dried squid! Like we’re going to eat that! Yeah, right! Six weeks later I had tried worse things (rice wine where monkey testicles were marinating in, for instance). Click here to keep reading…
Filed under Timen Talks.
There are three things that are running that I’d like to give you an update on: the Trusted Travel Blogs Network, an in my All Stars site redesign, and my recent aside on my plans for Vietnam. I’ll deal with them in that order.
Things with the Trusted Travel Blogs Network are going pretty well. I’ve gotten fantastic feedback and have made some decisions. First of all, it will definitely be called the Trusted Travel Blogs Network. I first wanted to have something a little more creative and fun, but a good name didn’t come to mind and this one’s descriptive, which is good. I went ahead and bought the domain name, and have set it up (though as of this writing there is not even a simple index page online).
Because of the fact that it’s already done and dealt with, I’m not really interested in feedback on the name because that would me think twice about it. However, two things I would love to have feedback on are the logo and what you think the ‘rules’ of membership should be.
First, here’s the proposed logo. As you might notice, it’s a compilation of a T, T, and a B. It’s also a little network-looking, don’t you think? Anyway, positive feedback on this is always nice to hear, but if you have anything contructive to say, I’m all ears.
In addition to this, I’ve made a PDF which will, when finished, detail what the network is, why it is, and list the ‘rules’ of membership. Please take a look at it. See the white area? That’s the area that still needs to be filled with the things that make being a member a good thing (i.e. ensuring high standards). The two criteria on the left have to be explained and detailed there. If you have any suggestions, this is your chance to contribute to what will eventually be written there!
Please let me know what you think by either leaving a response or using the contact form.
Now two quick updates with regard to this site and my recently announced plans to go back to Vietnam. Click here to keep reading…
Filed under Timen Talks, Trusted Network Updates.
Initially I started this blog because I thought I had recognized an unfilled niche. I had done a little Googling and came to the certain conclusion that there were, in fact, no quality travel blogs on the Internet besides the occasional “look at be in front of the Eiffel Tower” kind of blogs. I had been a blog reader for well over five years and wanted to, finally, start my own. I was set on filling the niche that I had, almost heroically, discovered.
Two months later, I must admit I made a mistake. Don’t worry, the mistake wasn’t to start a blog. The mistake was that there are, in fact, a huge number of quality travel blogs on the Internet. For some reason or other, this escaped Google on the first time around. The reason why it was all fine and I am beginning to really like this place has to do with the fact that the response from readers has been great. I never realized how nice it could be to write something and have people react. Pleople I don’t even know. Wow!
So there’s this chain-post going around where people list five reasons why they blog. When I do a quick search for “5 reasons” in my feed reader, I see that the following have written such a post: Daniel at thelostglobe.com, Dave from GoBackpacking, Stacy at Rambling Traveler, and Chris at nomad4ever. Now it’s my turn to chime-in. Click here to keep reading…
Filed under Timen Talks.
