Fed-up fliers ready for rights

Claustrophobia was not a condition Bill Johnson understood.

That changed on August 8 when he and his new bride, while returning from their honeymoon, found themselves among the 47 airplane passengers left trapped overnight on a tarmac in Rochester, Minnesota.

As the hours -- going on six of them -- passed, he said the air in the ExpressJet for Continental Airlines cabin grew rank. The two babies on board cried. The toilet filled and stopped flushing. No food was served and the puddle-jumper seats made sleep, for him, impossible. All the while, the airport was visible from the plane.

"I wanted to freak out and kick the windows out," said Johnson, 35, of Minneapolis, Minnesota. "I was just trying to keep my cool." Watch how pilot tried to set passengers free »

The much-publicized story of Flight 2816, diverted to Rochester because of bad weather while en route to Minneapolis from Houston, Texas, has brought to the forefront a growing demand to institute passenger rights.

Advocacy groups are fielding calls, gathering momentum and preparing for a September 22 hearing in Washington. One organization recently bought cable television ad time hoping to reach President Obama on his vacation and earn his support, just as a bill to protect fliers from such incidents heads to the Senate floor.

Since the Rochester incident, there have been other tarmac strandings. Passengers on a Sun Country Airlines flight were trapped for about six hours on August 21 while at JFK International Airport in New York. That prompted the airline's CEO to announce last week a four-hour maximum deadline for tarmac sittings, Minnesota's Star Tribune reported.

The first "massive tarmac stranding" to spark outcries and stir up calls for legislation came in January 1999, said Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition. That was when about 3,500 passengers were trapped during a snowstorm for up to 13 hours on Michigan's Detroit Metro Airport tarmacs, he said.

The 2007 Valentine's Day crisis involving JetBlue flights, which included strandings of up to 10 hours at JFK International, in Mitchell's opinion eventually cost the then-CEO his job.

A couple of months before that mess, Kate Hanni was one of the passengers caught up in a December 2006 storm fallout in Texas that left her and her family on an Austin, Texas, tarmac for more than nine hours.

"People miss funerals, weddings, cruise ships, business meetings -- it has an impact on their lives," said Hanni, whose outrage about that air travel experience pushed her create FlyersRights.org.

"And it's not just a customer service issue," she continued, mentioning overflowing toilets and people with diabetes or other medical conditions. "It's about safety, dignity and well-being."

In late July, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee passed the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act, which includes the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights, first written in 2007 by Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-California, and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. The FAA reauthorization bill will next move to the Senate for consideration.

The part penned by Boxer and Snowe requires airlines, among other things, to offer passengers an option to deplane if the aircraft sits on the ground for three hours -- with a couple exceptions -- and to provide them with food, water, working restrooms, ventilation and comfortable temperatures during such delays. It also asks airports and airlines to set up contingency plans for delays and encourages the U.S. Department of Transportation to fine offenders and set up a hot line for passenger complaints.

Each day, the FlyersRights.org hot line is flooded with calls, Hanni said. In July, the Napa, California, resident said the line averaged 400 calls a day. The callers aren't just frustrated passengers, they're also crew members who don't want to be named but want someone to make noise for them.

Calling attention to the frustrations of flying is what Hanni, 49, is all about. If someone phones while trapped on a tarmac, she'll start ringing the airline and airport managers, demanding help. If the response she gets is insufficient, she threatens and is poised to call media. Since the Rochester incident earlier this month, she said she's been interviewed more than 50 times.

In June, 278 airplanes sat on tarmacs for more than three hours, according to a consumer report released by the DOT. The department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that 42 of the June flights sat on tarmacs for four hours or more.

"One [lengthy tarmac delay] is too many for us, but here are the facts," said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association of America, which represents the nation's top airlines. Since reporting tarmac delays became required in autumn 2008, he said the numbers have been low. In May there were eight delays of four hours or more, he said, and a DOT report confirmed this.

As for June? "Forty-two flights out of 558,000 is a small number, relatively speaking," Castelveter said. "That's no reason to put in place legislation that will cause more delays, more cancellations and more inconveniences."

As Castelveter warns of possible consequences if the legislation passes -- including cancellations if pilots exceed their strictly regulated hours and cannot be replaced, hotel rooms that will be on passengers' dime if the delay is weather-related -- Hanni continues her fight.

Worried that the Boxer-Snowe bill of rights might get lost in the political shuffle if the FAA Reauthorization Act doesn't pass or gets put off, Hanni flew to Martha's Vineyard recently on a mission to reach President Obama during his vacation there.

She bought air time on local cable for 30-second ads in which she encouraged him to sign into law the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights, a measure he co-sponsored when he was an Illinois senator.

"Imagine what it's like: no food, no water, toilets overflowing," she said into the camera. "Please, sir, urge Congress to pass it. ... Enough is enough."

Not enough is what Continental Airlines has offered Bill Johnson of Minneapolis and his wife. Their tickets for the flight that left them stranded in Rochester were automatically refunded, he said. But he's not interested in the "compensation package" that came for their troubles -- two $200 vouchers and two American Express gift cards for $50.

By using those vouchers and gift cards, he said the fine print says he'll waive his rights to pursue this issue further. And after what he experienced, that's not an option.

"How people let us sit like that, it's not acceptable," he said. "I'm not touching that package. They need to do more."

www.cnn.com

Afghanistan's Bamiyan province struggles to build tourism

Thursday is "Chinese night" at the Hotel Silk Road in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province.

Hungry guests sip cans of Coke and nonalcoholic beer and pick at a buffet that includes General Tsao's chicken, egg drop soup and slices of sweet green melon grown in nearby fields.

When a vegetarian diner arrives, the hotel's Japanese owner, Hiromi Yasui, runs back to the kitchen to whip up a dish of spinach, garlic and steamed rice.

"This is the most clean kitchen in Bamiyan," she boasts in heavily accented English, as she directs her staff of Afghan assistants in fluent Dari. Yasui proudly points to an electric dishwasher, perhaps the only one of its kind in this battle-scarred Afghan province.

The Hotel Silk Road has been open for less than two years. The green concrete walls of this compound jar somewhat with the brown, mud brick architecture of Bamiyan Valley. But the hotel is probably the largest foreign private investment in Bamiyan's fledgling tourism industry since the overthrow of the Taliban eight years ago. See photos of the Bamiyan Province »

Aid workers say tourism is one of the greatest economic hopes for reviving this isolated, yet visually -- and archaeologically -- stunning part of Afghanistan, a region that has seen little infrastructure development over the last eight years, even though Bamiyan is one of the safest parts of the country. Tour the Bamiyan Valley's caves »

"The natural resources and cultural resources here are probably the single best place for economic development to happen, around revitalizing the tourism industry here," says Bob Thelen, the representative for the Aga Khan Development Network in Bamiyan. The nonprofit organization has been working with the government of New Zealand to distribute $1.2 million over a three-year period to develop eco-tourism as an industry in Bamiyan.

Bamiyan first attracted widespread international attention in 2001, when Taliban militants spent weeks blowing up two giant statues of Buddha. For more than 1,500 years, these colossal figures -- one was 53 meters (174 feet) high, the other 35 meters (115 feet) -- stood like sentries overlooking this alpine valley. Today, the massive caves where the Buddhas once stood are huge, empty pockets carved into cliffs that dominate the countryside.

Despite the loss of these archaeological treasures, the cave network of monasteries that honeycomb the cliffs, as well as Bamiyan's breathtaking mountains and alpine lakes, continue to attract a trickle of both Afghan and foreign tourists.

Hotel Silk Road owner Yasui spotted Bamiyan's potential when she first traveled here as a photojournalist in 1996.

"Before the war, this was a touristic place," she says. "More than 7,000 cars a day visited here."

In the '60s and '70s, Afghanistan was a Central Asian stop on the Hippie Trail, a destination favored by hash-smoking Western visitors driving Volkswagen vans.

But the Soviet invasion of 1979 plunged the country into a decades-long spiral of conflict. Bamiyan became the site of horrific massacres during the civil war of the 1990s and the subsequent rise of the Taliban.

The Taliban's overthrow in 2001 seemed to open the door to new opportunity.

In 2002, with the help of her Afghan husband and a Japanese investor who fronted hundreds of thousands of dollars, Yasui purchased a plot of land next to a bend in the river that runs through the valley. The couple then spent the next five years building their hotel.

"I like Afghanistan, I like Bamiyan," Yasui explains. "[But in the past,] I didn't want to stay more than three days, because there was no shower, no place to sleep."

Yasui's hotel opened in 2007. Rooms cost $100 a night, pricing them far out of the range of most Afghans. Guests must remove their shoes at the entrance and wear slippers, in accordance with Yasui's strict standards of hygiene.

"The furniture has all been imported from Pakistan," Yasui said. "I bought the water glasses from the PX [American military supermarket] in Kabul."

Yasui is not the only hotelier in Bamiyan.

In 2003, an Afghan businessman named Raziq got a jump-start on the local tourism industry, when he and several partners rented a house on a plateau offering a spectacular view of the Buddha cliffs. The building had been housing American special forces soldiers. Raziq and his partners rechristened it the Roof of Bamiyan Hotel.

Raziq, an ethnic Hazara who learned American-accented English catering to foreigners on Kabul's touristic Chicken Street, says he got his inspiration to open a hotel after he saw female Western backpackers paying to sleep on the floor of a grimy tea shop in Bamiyan's dusty bazaar.

Over the last year, the Afghan government declared Bamiyan's Band-i-Amir lake, which sits 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) above sea level, the country's first national park. The New Zealand-funded eco-tourism project, in conjunction with the Aga Khan Foundation, also recently trained 22 young male and female Afghans to be professional tour guides.

The three-month course included "the relevant topics for this area, geology, archaeology, history, hospitality, English, communication skills," said Thelen, of the Aga Khan Development Network.

One of these guides is former Roof of Bamiyan employee Jawad Wafa.

Though only 23 years old, this ambitious young Afghan plans to launch a tourism and logistics company, complete with a fleet of rental vehicles and guides.

"The first thing we need to have more tourists in Bamiyan, we need security and peace. The second one is roads," Wafa says.

Eight years after the overthrow of the Taliban, the entire province of Bamiyan has barely 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) of paved roads. Travel here from Kabul requires at least seven hours driving on a bone-jarring dirt track.

But even this isolated oasis is feeling the threat of the mounting violence spreading across the country.

"Every time there is a bomb in Kabul, visitors cancel reservations," says Raziq, operator of the Roof of Bamiyan Hotel.

And in recent months, troops from New Zealand have documented a spike in insurgent attacks, mostly along Bamiyan's border with Baghlan province, a region where Taliban insurgents have grown increasingly active.

"As much as on the one hand you can promote Bamiyan and other pockets throughout Afghanistan as secure and peaceful, there's always the very real threat of violence," Thelen said.

Tour operators saw a dramatic drop in foreign visitors this summer, due to the uncertainty and violence surrounding the August 20 presidential elections.

In fact, the handful of people seen touring the remains of the Buddha statues last week were mostly American aid workers. They were sent by their organizations from less secure parts of Afghanistan, to take temporary shelter within the mountain walls of Bamiyan Valley.

www.cnn.com

Five Reasons to Visit Hobart

Visitors from more populous countries might consider Hobart, Australia — population just over 200,000 — little more than a village. But big isn't everything. The capital of the island state of Tasmania was established in 1803. What was hell for English convicts in the early 19th century is these days a heavenly place to be — a compact, charming city with a beautiful harborfront, colonial architecture, a growing café society, fine restaurants and art galleries. The impressive backdrop of Mount Wellington heralds the fact that the city is also the gateway to Tasmania's stunning wilderness. Here are five things to put on your Hobart itinerary.

Peppermint Bay
This is a maritime city so best get out on the water and take the half-day Peppermint Bay Cruise, tel: (61-3) 6231 5113, which departs from the Hobart Cruise Centre at Sullivan's Cove. Heading out into the estuary of the Derwent River can be hair-raising when the Southern Ocean is choppy, but it's bearable on a large, luxury, high-speed catamaran. Soon you enter the tranquil waters of the d'Entrecasteaux Channel — named by early French explorers, who had friendly contact with local Aborigines before the British arrived and devastated the indigenous culture. While you lap up the historical commentary, you'll spot seals, dolphins and white-breasted sea eagles. Local produce is served bento-box-style onboard, or you can toddle ashore, past lobster fishermen unloading their catch, to dine at Peppermint Bay, adjacent the quaint hamlet of Woodbridge. Local treats include Bruny Island oysters, ocean trout, Tasmanian truffles, organic ice cream and fine Tasmanian wine.

Salamanca Market
Held every Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Hobart's historic Salamanca Place, the Salamanca Market, www.salamanca.com.au, is one of the city's most established tourist attractions. Just five minutes' walk from the city center, it's a surprisingly orderly affair set between a line of graceful plane trees and the mellow sandstone façades of historic warehouses. You'll be entertained by all manner of buskers while you browse stalls selling local arts and crafts (hand-worked glass and Tasmanian timber feature strongly). Afterward, wander up the Kelly Steps, built in 1839 to connect Salamanca Place with nearby Battery Point, one of the city's oldest neighborhoods.

Henry Jones Art Hotel
Wandering the hallways at the Henry Jones Art Hotel, tel: (61-3) 6210 7700, you could be forgiven for thinking you had stumbled into an art gallery by mistake. That's the idea, actually. This boutique property, which opened in 2004, aims to promote Tasmanian art, culture and history, and has on staff an art curator and a history-liaison officer to brief guests. There are more than 350 works of art throughout the hotel, all for sale. This place is actually a combination of eight buildings, dating back to 1803, and is named after Henry Jones (1862-1926), who once owned the IXL jam factory on the harborfront. Visit the retro-chic IXL Long Bar and sign up for the Friday-evening art tour if you're not staying in-house.

Fish Frenzy
The small flotilla of trawlers docked in the harbor by the Elizabeth Street Pier's Fish Frenzy restaurant, tel: (61-3) 6231 2134, bodes well for the freshness of the food. "Arguably the best fish and chips in Australia," according to the Sydney Morning Herald, and we agree. It's a bustling eatery where the fishy fare is served in cones of butcher's paper. A real treat is blue eye, or trevalla — a deep-sea fish that is very much a local delicacy.

Antarctica
In winter, the icy blast of wind coming off the Southern Ocean reminds you that southward, the next stop is Antarctica. Indeed, when not exploring, Australia's Antarctic flagship — an impressive research-and-resupply vessel named Aurora Australis — is usually docked here. To familiarize yourself with Australia's (and Hobart's) involvement with the icy continent, visit the riveting "Islands to Ice" exhibit at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, tel: (61-3) 6211 4177. Don some funky glasses, watch a spectacular 3-D film that lets you wander across the ice, bracing against the katabatic winds while imagining how awful it must have been for the likes of Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton and Australian Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson. A friendly warning if you suffer from motion sickness: steer clear of the looped video shot from the bow of a ship plowing south through mountainous seas, or you could find yourself making haste for the exit.

http://www.time.com/time/travel/article/0,31542,1917610,00.html?cnn=yes

Get locals' lei of the land in Oahu, Hawaii

With Hawaii's impossibly perfect temperatures and enviable scenery, it's easy to forget that there's life off the beach.

But with Hawaii celebrating its 50th anniversary as a state, it's definitely time to look past Oahu's Waikiki Beach and experience the most populous island's abundance of local flavor.

Hang like a local

The best place to start is downtown Honolulu, where about 80 percent of the state's population resides.

As a result, Honolulu is home to an incredible array of nationalities, creating an environment where there's always something different to taste, try and see.

The arts district, between Honolulu's business district and historic Chinatown, "houses art galleries and 20 or 30 bars, three of which were added in the last year," said resident Tim Bostock.

"[The district] can be casual, or it can be wild with street parties. We're really turning a corner that there's always going to be something going on downtown."

One such party that has earned a huge following is First Friday, a homegrown street festival that occurs -- you guessed it -- on the first Friday of each month. From 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., you can cruise through a number of art galleries for refreshments, art and live entertainment free. After 9 p.m., the district gets a little livelier, thanks to a growing number of bars and clubs.

"There's been an explosion -- there are three or four venues with something going on every night," Bostock said. "There are bars with a visual angle like Thirtyninehotel, and the Soho Mixed Media Bar that just opened and proved to be a force; the crowd going into that place is huge."

At Thirtyninehotel, a unique space where you can stumble upon either an art exhibition or a party, you'll also find what can be a bar's best asset: an outdoor area where partygoers can escape to enjoy a breeze. Soho Mixed Media Bar had its grand opening in early June, but is already keeping a full calendar, from '70s, '80s and '90s-themed "Acid Wash" Wednesdays to hosted Friday night events. LIFE.com: Celebrating Hawaii's five-O

Grub like a local

If you're looking for a tamer evening in downtown Honolulu, all is not lost, said Ed Korybski, executive director of the Honolulu Arts and Culture District. There are plenty of midpriced restaurants in the area such as Indigo and Epic, Korybski said, both of which serve Asian fusion cuisine.

But for Asian food so authentic you've probably never heard of it, head into Honolulu's Chinatown.

"In some ways, it's the Ellis Island of Hawaii," Korybski said. "We have a lot of Vietnamese, Filipinos and Samoans. When you're here, you smell smells you've never smelled before and see food you've never seen before; things that you wouldn't see on the mainland."

During the day, Chinatown is filled with food stalls, some of which can cause the average visitor to be a little wary. "Be prepared to try stuff," Bostock recommends. "The booth food will be completely strange to you, but try 'em, they're good."

If you're in the mood for authentic Asian but don't want to eat on the run, Korybski recommends Café Joy in Chinatown, a "really local place that has character and serves traditional Thai and Laotian food," Korybski said. "In the back it has seating in the traditional Chinese courtyard, but you would never know driving past it."

If you head over to Kapahulu, a neighborhood just inland of Waikiki, you can discover a wealth of local culinary treasures, said Oahu tourism spokesperson Rebecca Pang. Ono Hawaiian Foods is one small restaurant that always seems to have a line out the door.

As any Hawaii resident will tell you, if you want to truly eat like a local, you'd better add a plate lunch to the day's menu. It's an only-in-Hawaii concoction that usually features a side of macaroni salad, some form of protein, plenty of rice and a healthy dose of gravy. Pull up a chair at the Rainbow Drive-in or Kanak Attack in Kapahulu to get a forkful.

Road trip like a local

The last must-do before leaving Oahu, Bostock said, is a trip to the North Shore.

"Haleiwa is a wonderful surf town with good boutiques and good restaurants," he said. "It's going to change one of these days; it's been the same way for 30 years, so you should see it before it changes."

While you're up there, make sure to snag Hawaii's popular warm weather treat of shave ice, slivers of ice with a consistency similar to a snow cone covered with sweet, colorful syrups.

It can be found at Matsumoto's, a decades-old Haleiwa staple that can rake out 1,000 shave ices on a sunny day. You can take your pick of tropical flavors, including lychee, guava and passion fruit. Or try this local combination: rainbow-flavored shave ice -- that's strawberry, pineapple, and lemon -- along with a scoop of ice cream and red Azuki beans, which are grown throughout East Asia.

For more great food with a side of history, make the trek over to Waipahu. This small neighborhood west of Honolulu still carries the remnants of plantation life, but offers a bit of modern relaxation in the form of one of the most challenging golf courses on the island, Coral Creek Golf Course.

After you've cruised the fairways, head to Tanioka's Seafood and Catering, which earned the honor of "best poke," a raw seafood dish that's usually made with fresh fish, seaweed and kukui nut relish, in 2008 from the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper.

But on your next trip, don't just stop at Oahu on your hunt for unique Hawaii finds. Check out http://www.gohawaii.com/ to get ideas on finding local haunts and hot spots.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/getaways/08/21/hawaii.state.travel/index.html

To market, to market in Provence

Market days are an especially big deal throughout France. No single event better symbolizes the French preoccupation with fresh products and their strong ties to the farmer than the weekly market. And in no other region is it more celebrated than in Provence. You can find an endless array of products at Provencal markets, from clothing to crafts, art to antiques, pates to picnic fare (produce, meats, cheeses, crusty golden baguettes and pastries). The best of all market worlds may rest in the picturesque town of Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, where, on Sunday mornings, a brilliant food marche tangles with an active flea market and a good selection of antiques. I like to sip a coffee at a sidewalk table at Cafe de France and enjoy the carnival-like scene. Arles stands out among Provencal market towns. Here the ring road erupts twice a week into an open-air market of fish, flowers, ready-for-ratatouille baskets of produce -- everything but car traffic. Join in. Try the olives, sniff the lavender and sample the wine. The beauty of Arles' market is its international flavor, reflecting how Provence remains a crossroads of Mediterranean cultures. In addition to local items, you may find spices from Morocco and Tunisia, paella and saffron from Spain and fresh pasta from Italy. Markets typically begin at about eight in the morning and end by one in the afternoon. Set-up commences in the pre-dawn hours -- a good reason not to stay in a main-square hotel the night before market day. Bigger towns may have two weekly markets, one a bit larger than the other, with more nonperishable goods. The biggest market days are usually on weekends, so that everyone can partake. Perishable items are sold directly from the producers -- no middlemen, no Visa cards -- just really delicious, fresh produce. Samples are usually free, including small cups of locally produced wines or ciders. You'll find different items throughout the season. In April and May, shop for asparagus (green, purple or the prized white -- after being cooked, these are hand-dipped in vinegar or homemade mayonnaise). In late spring, find strawberries, cherries and stone fruits. From July through September, eggplant, tomatoes, zucchinis and peppers come straight from the open fields. In the fall, stands sell game birds, other beasts of the hunt and a glorious array of wild mushrooms. After November and throughout the winter, look for little (or big, depending on your wallet size) black truffles. At the root of every good market experience is a sturdy shopping basket or bag. Most baskets are inexpensive, make for fun and colorful souvenirs and come in handy for odd-shaped or breakable carry-ons for the plane trip home. With basket in hand, shop for your heaviest items first. You don't want to put a kilo of fresh apples on top of your bread. Most vendors typically follow a weekly circuit of markets they feel works best for them, showing up in the same spot every week, year in and year out -- though sometimes, you'll meet the occasional widow selling a dozen eggs, two rabbits and a wad of herbs tied with string. At a favorite market, my family has done business with the same olive merchant and "cookie man" for 18 years. Merchants take pride in their wares. Generally the rule is "don't touch" -- instead, point and let them serve you. Many vendors speak enough English to assist you in your selection. Your total price will be hand-tallied on small scraps of paper and given to you. If you're struggling to find the correct change, just hold out your hand and they will take only what is needed. Vendors are normally honest -- still, you're wise to double-check the amount you just paid for that olive tree. It's bad form to be in a hurry -- allow the crowd to set your pace. For locals, market day is as important socially as it is commercially -- a weekly chance to resume friendships and get the current gossip. Neighbors can catch up on Henri's barn renovation, see photos of Jacqueline's new grandchild and relax over coffee. Dogs are tethered to cafe tables while friends exchange kisses. Listen carefully and you might hear the Provencal language being spoken between some vendors and buyers. Observe the interaction between them, and notice the joy they find in chatting each other up. Provencal life is rooted in its countryside, small towns and lively markets. To enjoy any small French town at its vibrant best, it's worth being there on its market day.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/getaways/08/20/provence.market/index.html