Dear NY Times, I Hate You

[G. Keenan]

For this article.

Luang Prabang was one of my favorite places in SE Asia, perhaps the favorite, and this article misses everything that was wonderful about it. This article is a piece of bourgeois crap written for rich New Yorkers to tell them where to shop. [expletive] you, NY Times travel writer.

The people this article was written for were jokes. I know all the places this article refers to. On a street lined with restaurants it recommends exclusively the most expensive. Likewise the most expensive hotels. Essentially, every place you could stay where you might as well not be in Laos. I saw all the people of NY Times travel section ilk sitting bored and listless looking, like their reason for coming to Luang Prabang was some last desperate attempt to save their dying marriages, only to be disappointed when the four star villas they booked on the edge of town gave them no sense of adventure.

The article actually recommends flying to Luang Prabang. What a joke.

[ghostrunner]

This is good stuff. Can you give me the inside info on Branson?

[G. Keenan]

Seriously, this article disgusts me. Have you ever been to a place that you really loved and later read some hack's account of it?

Nothing about this article remotely resembles travel. It's a freaking shopping trip. It suggests staying in a place that costs, minimum, $274/night!!!! That is so absurdly expensive for Laos it's revolting. It would be like visiting Chicago and booking a room that costs $2000/night.

[ghostrunner]

Sorry.

I suppose when you're writing in a city where you pay $2000 a month rent for a walk-in closet, it may not sound so bizarre.

But yes, I see what you mean.

[G. Keenan]

Sorry.

I suppose when you're writing in a city where you pay $2000 a month rent for a walk-in closet, it may not sound so bizarre.

But yes, I see what you mean.

True, but you would only have to be in a place like Luang Prabang for a day before you realized how absurd it is to follow this writer's recommendations, and this writer had three days. Not to mention the irony involved when you consider the author's jaded tone in the beginning of the article about the "circuit" in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam only to then lay out the most boring 36 hours you could possibly spend in Luang Prabang.

She's selling some kind of re-branded colonial fantasy of lotus pooled villas and local products ripe for the taking.

[Popeye_Card]

^ Travel snob. ^

[maddash]

You'll appreciate this article, GK - http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/tr ... eland.html

This line about Ireland sums up a lot of countries people travel to with "expectations" already in mind

Ireland can be that place you missed as you traveled around Ireland, looking for Ireland.

[G. Keenan]

^ Travel snob. ^

Absolutely. And I'm 100% right. Travel is not about fancy hotels, expensive restaurants, and pricey textiles.

You know how I got to Luang Prabang? I sat on a boat for two days as it chugged its way down the Mekong, barely faster than the current, passing little more than water buffalo, the occasional thatched village built on a muddy river bank, and jungled hills. It would stop to unload the occasional sack of rice or take on a screaming pig stuffed in a burlap bag. The river was the color of coffee and at dusk the hills turned purple and the sky darkening shades of red and orange. You could see fisherman tossing nets in miniscule silhouette against huge granite peaks overflowing with green.

And this article tells you to fly in from Bangkok.

[Leroy]

I had no idea the travel section could cause such vitriol.

[Popeye_Card]

^ Travel snob. ^

Absolutely. And I'm 100% right. Travel is not about fancy hotels, expensive restaurants, and pricey textiles.

You know how I got to Luang Prabang? I sat on a boat for two days as it chugged its way down the Mekong, barely faster than the current, passing little more than water buffalo, the occasional thatched village built on a muddy river bank, and jungled hills. It would stop to unload the occasional sack of rice or take on a screaming pig stuffed in a burlap bag. The river was the color of coffee and at dusk the hills turned purple and the sky darkening shades of red and orange. You could see fisherman tossing nets in miniscule silhouette against huge granite peaks overflowing with green.

And this article tells you to fly in from Bangkok.

Not all of us have vacation time to take off to Southeast Asia for 4 months.

You and Hemingway would get along great, BTW.

EDIT: In addition, if I took your advice and travelled to the midwest, I'd hop on a combine with a farmer and take in the yellow corn and blue skies. Then I'd sigh as I recalled the deer running across the edge of the field, and think of the musky scent of corn dust.

That's not travelling. That's take your vacationer to work day.