ABCDE Travel sunday, june 20, 2010
IMPULSIVE TRAVELER
Taking it slow The more earthbound attractions of Rocket City. F5
NavigatorWhat’s really behind ‘tragedy tourism’? F2 Going Our Way A trip that encompasses literature and history. F3
Deals Hot bargains on land, sea and air. F3 CHAT We answer reader questions 2 p.m. Monday at
washingtonpost.com/travel.
A CLICK AWAY
Perfect shot Our annual photo contest is on. See
washingtonpost.com /travel.
Down in the Treme We’re all goin’ crazy
TOP PHOTO: KEREN SU/CHINA SPAN VIA ALAMY BOTTOM PHOTO: PETER MANDEL
Before and after: Tea is picked at a plantation in Hangzhou and poured at the nearby Mrs. Pang’s Tea House.
Hangzhou: It begins with a tea
In China’s ancient capital, Longjing is green gold
by Peter Mandel Special to The Washington Post There is a button you must push to en-
ter China. The guard at Hangzhou pass- port control is pointing. I am in a fog from jet lag after flights from Boston, Vancouver, and Hong Kong, but I must press. “You are very happy with this desk?” he asks. “Not too long checking?” Uh, just about right, I say. He points to a tiny customer-service circle with a smile. I choose it over not- so-happy buttons, over one that frowns. And once my selection is made, the guard smiles, too. He beams. He is blush- ing beneath his cap as he motions me through. Here in the city of Hangzhou, in Zhe- jiang province, I will be seeing lakes and bamboo forests. I’ll climb to a temple that I hope will house monks. About 120 miles from Shanghai, the city is famous for its tea gardens and is counted as one of the seven ancient capitals of China. Kevin, the tour guide who picks me up, is anxious to explain. “You see this highway, the modern buildings?” he asks. We roar past glassy structures with Disney-castle tops. If elves had headquarters they might look like this. “No one work there,” says Kevin, one of
many locals who seem to have Western names. “Notice. Each one have a garden for family growing. These are not for fac- tory. They homes.” I soon find out that Hangzhou is jump- ing and wiggling with new wealth. Full of former tea farmers used to green space, the area is sprouting apartments built for Beverly Hillbillies, with bok choy fields right in back. On an introductory tour, Kevin pilots me around in a car with other tourists. Along a busy boulevard, we pass a flick- ering sign: “CITY,” it blinks. “CITY . . . OF CARTOON.” When I ask about it, Kevin shrugs. “New,” he says. He doesn’t know
hangzhou continued on F2
While jammin’ and havin’ fun O
The heart of New Orleans beats in this neighborhood where jazz was born
by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan Special to The Washington Post
n a Friday night in May, the bar at Snug Harbor, a jazz club along New Orleans’s sto- ried Frenchmen Street, is packed, filled with the warm thrum of chatter. You sip your
post-dinner coffee to summon that second wind for the night as jazz beats, firm and soulful, seep through a doorway at the far end of the room. Onstage is the Chris Thomas King Trio, whose leader was fa- mously featured in the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Just beyond the door, people are crowded around little tables, shoulders swaying, feet tapping. What’s in the air is contagious. As the
coffee kicks in, you hear your own feet start to tap. “You want to see New Orleans, just come to Frenchmen Street and walk up and down, listen to the music,” says Lolis Eric Elie, a former Times-Picayune colum- nist and a filmmaker who made the docu- mentary “Faubourg Treme.” He now writes for “Treme,” the HBO series, named for the historic neighborhood where jazz was
born, about the lives of musicians and music lovers in post-Katrina New Or- leans. “This is where you want to be.” Visitors have always come to New Or- leans for the Creole food; the festive hur- ricane drinks, hand-held in strolls along Bourbon Street; and, of course, the jazz. In “Treme,” however, the iconic in New Orleans is seen through a much more inti- mate prism. Interspersed among the fic- tional bars and restaurants that “The Wire” creator David Simon and his team of writers have dreamed up are the real clubs and eateries that locals have sworn by for years. And threaded through the downtrodden cityscape in the series (whose season finale airs tonight at 10) is music. “In New Orleans, culture bubbles up from the street,” says Elie, quoting jazz pi- anist Ellis Marsalis. “And the heart of the cultural community is rooted in jazz.” We’ve started our evening at Snug Har-
PHOTOS BY PATRICK SEMANSKY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Top: Chris Curtis, right, of New York, dances to the music of Kermit Ruffins, left, and the Barbecue Swingers, performing in Vaughan’s Lounge in New Orleans. Above: Vaughan’s is a bright beacon as darkness falls on the city’s mostly residential Bywater neighborhood.
bor, which pops up in Episode 6 of “Treme” (pronounced Tre-MAY), the crowded bar front and center as Marsal- is’s catchy “Twelve’s It” skitters across the background. (Marsalis plays at the club on Friday nights.) It’s not where the eve- ning ends, however. Outside, Frenchmen Street is bursting with pedestrians. We pile into a cab and make our way to Bywa- ter, a neighborhood on relatively higher ground by the Mississippi River, known
treme continued on F4 F
Just me and my baby
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