Travel China and Beyond

Visit to the Gold Ecologica Park and JiuFen area - Taiwan

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to visit an interesting outdoor museum in Taiwan.  Friend of mine and his family invited me to join them in a visit to JinGuaShi and JiuFen.  JinGuaShi is an area where in the early 1920s -1940s-1950s there was an operation focused on mining gold and copper.   JinGuaShi was a booming town at the time and also a town where today one can see remnants of Japanese style wooden houses (special type of construction) and check out old mining tunnels.   I will write more about this in a later post, but at this time wanted to at least post some photos… Enjoy.

Updates on my photo albums page….

It has been awhile since I updated the photo album page on the blog, so earlier today I decided that I need to scrub my Google database and update the photo storage there and subsequently update the albums here... So now that this is done you can enjoy images from Beijing, Shanghai (not the usual stuff but some interesting shots from Pudong), and Taipei (including a beautiful park there)…

More troubles in Air Travel - First Cancelled Flights, then Missing Baggage Handlers

Well, if you are looking for worry and trouble free flights these days, think twice.  On a recent flight from China (Shenzhen - Shanghai - Chicago) to Austin, Texas, I got to experience the challenges of air travel disconnects and issues.  As you are most likely aware American Airlines had to cancel a whole bunch of flights in the US as they were serviced by the fleet’s grounded MD-80 aircraft.

As a result of those flight cancellations on my recent flight to the US, I looked into requesting a switch to a United flight from Chicago O’Hare to Austin airport.  My initial reaction was “Score — I was able to get on the flight”, and be able to avoid staying the night in a hotel in Chicago.  That was the 30 seconds of elation.  Then the reality of the current flight conditions settled in.  The United flight was initially delayed by 2 hours.  Then, by the time we actually boarded the plane (after having to wait for a flight crew to arrive from another city) it was already 3, or 3+ hours delay.    Well, you may say, “Whats the big deal — only 3 hours delay…”  —- But that was not all.  Once we boarded the plane the additional wait started.  Come to find out (based on the plane captain’s update to us the passengers) — the baggage handlers had decided to go home.  So after midnight the Chicago O’Hare airport was being served by a tiny crew of baggage handlers — statements were made to the effect of “Only 2 baggage handlers are servicing all the gates in this part of the airport.  No, we do not know when they will get to our plane….”

The net effect was that we had to sit for a whole lot of time on the tarmac in the plane while someone had to load our bags in the plane.  We (the passengers) could have done that.  I am sure most of us wanted to get it done so we can get back home…..

Well, long story short, eventually the baggage handlers showed up, and eventually we were airborne.  But the sour taste in my mouth remains — what a crazy setup — You have a whole bunch of aircraft / flights canceled, you have a whole lot of  tired and frustrated passengers, and NO ONE from the airport management makes an effort to ensure that at least the ground crews are operational….. Go figure….!

That was a very frustrating experience.   So where was that bill of passenger rights

I wonder….

Happy Travels!

Visit to Etara - an Ethnographic Museum in the open - a working museum of arts and crafts from 18th-19th century Bulgaria

I am finally getting to the point of putting together a posting about one of the interesting architectural, cultural, and historic sites in Bulgaria — the open air museum ETARA. My family and I visited the location during our trip to Bulgaria earlier in August of 2007. The museum is located about 8 km (about 5miles) south of the town of Gabrovo. The location is essential in the northern slopes of the Balkan range near by the Shipka mountain pass.

The village demonstrates traditional Bulgarian artisan crafts and the tools and workshops used in the last couple of centuries in the Gabrovo region of the country. Some of the workshops’ tools are powered by water - essentially the old artisans diverted water from the near by rivers and powered tools like

• sharpening stones
• mill stones
• old style washing machines (for carpets, blankets, etc)
• wood working milling machines
• even a machine for weaving

The museum also demonstrates several styles of Bulgarian architecture as well as unique stone plate covered roofs. Also you can observe a roof implemented from half tree trunks interlocked by carving the middle of the trunks

Here are some images from the museum — you can see the houses and workshops / village streets, as well as the famous Clock Tower of the village (most bigger Bulgarian villages and towns of the 18th, 19th century had those clock towers in the village center/square):

At Old Village Etara in Bulgaria

While at the museum you can also purchase some actual crafts done by the local artisans — things like jewelry (my mother in law purchased a nice silver ring), rugs (kilim style), wood carvings, paintings, and of course some local delicacies.

Near by the entrance of the museum you can stop for lunch in the local hotel restaurant.  The food is very good - featuring traditional Bulgarian dishes and of course excellent beer.

Traveling from Shenzhen to Taipei — avoid travel via Macao

If you need to travel from Shenzhen to Taipei, you may want to avoid air travel via Macao.  During a recent trip I discovered the inconveniences of traveling via Macao (on Macao Airlines).  First of all, when you leave Shenzhen you are departing on an international flight.  So once you pass the passport control you are in this small departure hall which has no services to speak of.  Just a small restaurant with limited selection for food and a vending machine.  Second of all, you wait for one hour to get on a plane for a flight that takes about 15-20 minutes….and then you need to change planes for the flight from Macao to Taipei.  A major hassle…..!

So, what can you do instead?  Easy — just take a ferry from Shenzhen to Hong Kong International airport.  The ferry leaves from Shekou, the ticket price is about 240RMB and the ferry takes about 30 minutes to reach the airport, then a 10 minute bus ride to the airport terminal / gate.

Our visit to Veliko Tqrnovo (Велико Търново)

Well, following our stay at the Black Sea coast (we liked the Kempinski hotel no joking….it is a nice place), we decided to take the Northern Bulgaria route to get back to Kazanlak (on the South side of the Balkan range). That meant we were going to travel from Zlatni Piasqci –> Varna –> Shumen –> Veliko Tqrnovo –> to Gabrovo –> cross the Balkan range via the Shipka mountain pass, and arrive in Kazanlak. On this trip our main objective was to stop in the town of Veliko Tqrnovo.
Why stop there — well take a look at these photos and you will see the reason — it is a beautiful and historic place:

The town which used to be the capital of the 2nd Bulgarian Kingdom is located on several large hills on both sides of the river Iantra (река Янтра). The 2nd Bulgarian Kingdom lasted between 1185 and the end of the 14th century at which time the Ottoman Empire conquered Bulgaria. One of the key places to visit while in Veliko Tqrnovo is the restored fortress on the Tzarevetz hill.

(me at the gate of the Tzarevetz fortress)
Some directions of getting to Tzarevetz — we approached Veliko Tqrnovo from Shumen. As you enter in the city look for signs (in brown color — denoting a national park) for Tzarevetz. There will be plenty of those. Eventually you will pass through the new town and enter the older part of Veliko Tqrnovo. This is the more interesting part anyway, but the streets are quite narrow, so if you are driving pay attention to oncoming traffic. In some cases you will have to move to the side (behind parked on the street cars) and wait for the oncoming traffic to pass. Sounds tedious, but this is part of the fun

Once you get to the parking lot right in-front of the Tzarevetz fortress entrance you could visit a small restaurant located right in-front of you if your right hand shoulder is pointing at the entrance of the fortress. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant, but you won’t miss it — the parking lot is tiny. The fee for parking by the way should be in the range of 2 leva for 3 hours.

The fortress museum is open daily till 7pm. It is an interesting place to visit and also a place where you could do some serious hiking up and down the trail along the fortress walls or climbing the hill to the church on top of if. Here are some more photos from the town:

View towards the old town from Tzarevetz;

Varna, Golden Sands, Kranevo area of the Black Sea Coast - useful information

If you are planning a trip to the North part of the Black Sea coast chances are you will be visiting the Golden Sands area. My family and I just spent several days in the area and wanted to give you some input on:

* Ways to get to the area (via Car)

* Places to Eat (and which to avoid)

* Hotel info

We embarked on our journey to Varna and Golden Sands from the area of the Valley of Roses (the city of Kazanlak). We started driving towards Burgas - our plan was to travel via Nessebar (we had planned to meet someone briefly in Nessebar). Along the road, once you approach the town of Karnobat you will get on a nice new divided highway. As you travel along you need to pay attention for the signs for Varna, Sunny Beach. That exit will be about 20 miles after you get on the . We missed the exit and had to turn around and travel about 15 miles before we can find an exit to turn back towards Burgas.

Once you exit you will travel for about 3 miles on a small road, and eventually you will see signs for Sunny Beach. This is a small road as well (in not very good repair) but it will save you tons of time (if you end up going to Burgas and then heading North to Ravda and Sunny beach it won’t be the end of the world but you will have a lot more traffic congestion)

After Nessebar and Sunny Beach the highway starts going through the Balkans — you need to cross the mountains on your way to Varna and Golden Sands. You should plan on one and a half hours at least from Sunny beach to Varna.

We had reserved room in the Kempinski hotel in the Golden Sands resourt. Here is a map to its location

The hotel is one of the three Kempinski locations in Bulgaria. Last year we stayed in the Kempinski in Bansko (here is a link to my blog entry from last year). We were very happy with the hotel last year so, why not , we decided to be guests of the chain again…..

The hotel is very nice, the grounds are beautiful, just one word of caution, the included breakfast (included in the room rate) is not that great. Turns out all rooms have the breakfast included. As a result it is relatively generic one — eggs, hams, cheese, bread, vegetables, juice….but not the best quality. It is filling just not that exciting. The breakfast at the Bansko hotel was much better.

Some photos from the Kempinski   
With regard to place to eat (outside of the hotel) you may want to avoid the promenade just between the Kempinski and the beach. There are plenty of restaurants there but they are just overpriced and not that good. Yes, they are convenient (if you need to have a quick bite at lunch while near the beach), but in the evening you may want to head to Varna or to near by Kranevo (north of Golden Sands).

Here is a good restaurant — Restaurant Milev. To find it just head along the road towards Kranevo, Albena, Balchik. It will be on your right hand side in a restored old house a few hundred yards after you enter Kranevo.

Here are some pictures from it:        

All in all we had a pretty good time in the area.  Spend three days at the beach, managed to see some of the surrounding area, had good food…  Following the stay at the Golden Sands we decided to return to Kazanlak via the Northern route — Varna to Shumen to Veliko Tqrnovo (the capital of the second Bulgarian kingdom), to Gabrovo and across the Shipka mountain pass to Kazanlak.   More on that and of course great pictures from Veliko Tqrnovo in the next posting.  Stay tuned…

More on the Rental Car Options in Bulgaria

Recently I was browsing through some of the travel Forums on-line and came across some strange information about car renting in Bulgaria.  Per the writings there “most of the car rental companies in Bulgaria used old cars and were fronts for foreign rental companies who did not want to reduce their rates….”… Yes, there are local companies that contract with Hertz or Alamo for example but Alamo in the US is clueless about their availability of cars in Bulgaria — I speak from experience. Two years ago I tried to rent from Alamo (I have tons of business with Alamo) and they promised me (reserved ) a car for me and gave me the contact info for their office in Bulgaria, then when my wife called the local office they had no record of any reservation etc.

I would recommend the car rental company. They even waited for us at the Airport when our flight from the States via London, was delayed by 10 hours! We arrived 1am in the morning…!!!

Rental Car Experience in Bulgaria

Last week we completed our trip in Bulgaria.  I will be posting material from that trip gradually, but in the mean time I wanted to post on our experience with car rental companies in Bulgaria.  This was our second time with renting a vehicle from Global Rent A Car — and the experience has been very positive.

If you are arriving by plane at the Sofia airport, Global Rent a Car will even wait for you at the airport.  This time around we had trouble with our connective flights in London (ended up flying from London to Sofia via Munich) and as a result we were delayed by over 12 hours — we landed in Sofia around 23:15.  A guy from the rental company was waiting for us though.

If you plan to rent a car, one option is to initially put the car on your credit card (for ease of handling the initial procedure) then upon completion of your rental you can pay by cash and get a 10% discount.

We rented a SUV vehicle and ended up paying 726 euro for a 13 day rental period. (That was after the discount for paying in cash)

Real Estate and Bulgaria — Going Up, Going Up…..

Over the last several years Bulgaria has become a magnet for many real estate buyers, retirees, real estate investors and speculators.  In 2006 my family and I visited Bulgaria and were surprised to find real estate agencies targeting specifically UK citizens for example — in the town of Bansko (Southwestern Bulgaria) there were a number of developers and agents promoting villas, apartments, etc. to buyers from the UK (and other Western European countries).  This year, the situation is continuing to progress.  Investors from the former Soviet Union republics, as well as Western Europe are driving prices up.
Some statistics (from mediapool.bg — published in the Bulgarian newspaper IMOTI):
Just in the last 3 months (April, May, June 2007) prices for apartments in Varna (on the Black Sea) have risen 3.9%
In Burgas (another big city on the Black Sea coast) — the increase is 4.1%
In Sofia — the increase is 3.8%
Average prices for apartments are:
Sofia   — US$1152 / square meter
Varna   — US$1196 / square meter
Plovdiv — US$771  / square meter
(These prices were calculated based on exchange rate of US$1 = 1.43 Bulgarian Leva)

Here I have listed the prices for the major cities in Bulgaria, but even the small and unknown cities like Haskovo, Stara Zagora, Gabrovo, Smolian, Silistra are exhibiting strong price increases — in the range of 6% - 8%.  Of course those increases are from a much smaller base, but they show the impact of increasing demand and focus from multiple sources of investors.

If you just consider the new construction and list / advertised prices, the prices are even higher.  I came across many offerings in the range of 580 Euro to over 1000 Euro per square meter (For reference 1 euro is 1.95 leva), so higher than the averages given by the statistics above.  A studio apartment in the Vitosha suburb of Sofia with area of 46 square meters has a starting price of 33600 euro!  That would be 730 euro per square meter ==> or about US$1000 per square meter ===> or US$100 per square foot!  How about that…?!?!