Internet Connection for First-time Travelers

August 20, 2010 at 1:01 pm | Posted in Asia, Business travel, China, Philippines, Vietnam | 4 Comments
Tags: travel, first-time travel, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, China, blogsherpa, blog carnival, firewall, internet access, lonely planet

The advent of technology has kept people on the go to be in touch with the rest of the world wherever they may be. It’s now an added bonus but it can also be a distraction to your journey. For first-time travelers wanting to be constantly connected, you will not only concern yourself with your itinerary and absorbing the newness of the place you visit but also how to get the excitement of your travel across the worldwide web.

Ever since I owned an Asus EeePC, there was no stopping me from getting on my mails and hitting the social network sites. Sure, it can be a bit of a hassle when you’re tired and all dusty, but it can also become a welcome respite to all the nitty-gritty details of travels. Besides, I can instantly upload my photos for my friends to see and update my blog every now and then.

Airports are the best place to find a wi-fi connection. I was sitting in the pre-departure area at the SFO airport waiting for my flight to LA. People were walking past me getting off the plane and going to their gates. A lady was bristly walking when she suddenly stopped to complement me of my cute laptop.

When I was in Ho Chi Minh City, we stayed in this backpackers’ inn which was surrounded by many hotels. There wasn’t a wi-fi connection in our inn so I tapped on the available wi-fi at the neighboring hotels. Consider it “stealing” but I think I’ve been getting used to it when I really have the itch to get connected.

Our hotel room in Saigon. Photo by Claire Algarme.

I had this experience while I was at the hotel lobby in Shanghai using one of their computers. Most of the sites were blocked, like Facebook and Twitter. They could at least have a “Welcome to the Great Firewall of China” landing page. I tried to get around it, relying on advises from guidebooks. They said if I can go through a proxy site, I can get to the pages I want to visit. I tried all the proxy sites I knew and were suggested in the guidebooks but to no avail. Resigned, I was content browsing through Yahoo and some Chinese sites that I could not even understand or read.

The hotel lobby in China. Photo by Claire Algarme.

Suddenly, my companion who was also working on the computer beside me asked me for help. He was chatting through the beta version of Yahoo Messenger using Yahoo Mail. “I was sending this message but my friend at the other end told me that all he received were Chinese characters. But my messages looked pretty normal to me.” It seems there was an automatic translation, which we couldn’t fathom or comprehend. We tried to check which button to click but everything was in Chinese as well. Resigned, we left it up to the other person to decipher what my friend has written.

But if I don’t get to access the web during my travels, I feel content anyway because then I have every reason to look forward to my office desk instead of sulking for having reached the end of my vacation. So, if I’m unreachable for a few days or weeks, be sure that I’ll make up for lost time from my internet absence when I get back home.

This article is a part of the Lonely Planet blogsherpa blog carnival on Internet Connections hosted by Jason of AlpacaSuitcase. Visit this site (the carnival will be up on August 25) for more articles belonging to this carnival.

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