Northstar

4 | www.travelweekly-asia.com I've not been to Nepal, but it's one of those aspirational destinations. Just the other day I received an invitation to Lumbini to visit the site where a peace sanctuary, The Mahasiddha Sanctuary for Universal Peace, would be built by His Eminence Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche. I was not able to make the trip on the first week of May as I had to attend the Arabia Travel Market and I was thoroughly disappointed. But the host was very kind and extended the invitation to a later date. Even now after the devastation of the quake on April 25 I would still go to see how the people of Nepal are picking up the pieces. The quake was of 7.8 magnitude and there were aftershocks. The casualty rate stands at more than 6,600 and as I write the figure is climbing. Eight million affected across Nepal and one million children in need of aid. The news reports of how rescuers cheer when someone is pulled out of the rubble alive but silence meets those did not make it. China, India, France, Italy, Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia, Taiwan, Pakistan, the UAE, Israel, Switzerland, Norway, Singapore and South Korea were among the nations sending aid and search and rescue crews as well as the EU and WHO. Tourism is one of the country's pillars but that has been threatened after the earthquake. The earthquake set off deadly avalanches on Mount Everest. Tourism is said to comprise 4% of Nepal's GDP and the earthquake could cost Nepal $5 billion. Even as I write this, organisations the world over are banding together to collect funds to help rebuild the country. Nepal is going to need all the help it can get. Tourism will take some time to recover as in the short- term tourists are being re-directed from their plans to visit Nepal to elsewhere. But even then, we in the travel industry need to get behind Nepal. Its iconic buildings may have crumbled in the earthquake but the people remain and they are the ones worth visiting and seeing. I am glad H.E. Rinpoche is going to build his peace sanctuary, as it lies in its design stage and will be built after the quake. That is something new for Lumbini and something new for Nepal. Buildings can be rebuilt and Nepal's human spirit must be sustained over this time. Let's do what we can. VOICES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3. the 'authentic Perth experience' by seeing 'where the locals go'. To think that way (as many of us often do when abroad) would be to box and label us as tourists. From that sense, I feel we are partly responsible for letting ourselves feel like outsiders in a foreign city on an insatiable quest for the best experience. On this tour, I found myself imagining what it would be like for me to live here. I fell in love with Perth because I could feel comfortable here, not because I was a fan of the sightseeing and attractions. I could actually and When the Indonesian government carted off two convicted Australian drug runners, along with six others, to an island off Java to face execution, by firing squad, , there was a predictable outpouring of anguish in Australia. Quite a lot of the anger came from those who suggested that Australians should abandon their favourite overseas holiday playground in favour of Phuket or Pattaya to teach Indonesia a lesson. Some hope. The number of Australians visiting Bali in February and March was up 16.7% from the same period in 2014, with more arriving than any other nationality. But as the clamour for clemency for the drug runners raged on, another threat to Indonesia's tourist numbers from Australia emerged: a ban on beer being sold at every corner mini-store or warung. Ross Taylor, who is president of the Indonesia Institute in Australia, told media that it was unfortunate the fate of Bali Nine drug smugglers was probably third on the list of concerns about Indonesia among fellow nationals. Taylor says legislation proposed by two Islamic parties banning consumption of all beverages containing more than one per cent alcohol was considered more of a worry, and could become law as early as the end of this year if backed by President Joko Widodo. Beer, it seems, is more of a concern that bullets. The Jakarta government has already passed a law restricting retail beer sales to larger supermarkets and hypermarkets - although Bali has lobbied successfully to be exempt from the regulations to protect its tourism industry. Also of concern, Taylor said, is a review of foreign property ownership. The state will either resume that property or offer the nominee the option of just keeping it for themselves, with no legal comeback from the foreign owner. Taylor told the West Australian newspaper that Indonesia is a country that stole his heart, "so I'm not anti-Indonesia". But he says the Jokowi government is showing "all the signs of being naive, dysfunctional and lost at the moment". "Just drifting off into thought bubbles," was Taylor's take on Jakarta. genuinely relate to the place. The nature of the tour reflects a movement away from the act of sightseeing for the sake of it and draws attention to a place for the character and spirit it has, in and of itself… or to use the industrial term, as a 'lifestyle destination'. When in Paris, sitting at a bistro with a red and white chequered tablecloth, sipping a glass of wine while watching the world go by is too much of a cliché to ever happen organically. It is something we want to and can do easily, but when trying it on holiday, it feels forced and sometimes, a little unnatural… like Ian Jarrett is a widely travelled and expe- rienced writer specialising in hospitality and aviation. His work has appeared in a variety of consumer and travel trade titles, and online newswires. Recent travels have taken him to Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Seoul, Kazakhstan, United Kingdom and Bali, although he is just as happy walking with his dog on a local beach. BY THE WAY BEER, BULLETS AND BALI BY THE WAY TIME FOR NEPAL Natalie Chen lives and breathes travel and journalism. She's been a travel journalist since she graduated from the National University of Singapore. In between stints, she nurtured young talent in journalism as a lecturer at Temasek Polytechnic. As editor of Travel Weekly Asia, she plans to infuse travel journalism with new thinking gained from her time spent with young minds. OPINION when your parents demand that you hug your older brother for the first time. You both have a mutual understanding that you care for each other, but that's not to say you're comfortable being forced to so openly express it. We are in an endless battle of trying to capture the coolness of what everyone who lives in the city perceives as a regular part of daily life. We want to feel like we belong there, to truly feel like a local – a notion we always seem to be preoccupied with. While I cannot confidently say that I remember all the tidbits of information about each heritage building, what I personally got out of it surpassed any sightseeing or 'hop- on hop-off' open-top bus tour that I have ever been on in my (admittedly, short) lifetime! Two Feet & A Heartbeat shifted the angle from 'what a visitor should see when in the city' to getting the gist of what the city is really all about as a place to actually live and be in, in the here and now. I am far from fully understanding everything this part of the world has to offer, but from the glimpse that I've gotten, it definitely looks promising and is the exact reason I plan to come back.

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