Category: Travel

“Free” Music

Posted on by in Music, Travel

I wasn’t previously aware of this. Music is completely free in China. Not just “easy to pirate with no consequences due to a lack of intellectual property rights legislation” free. Completely legally free. On Google. There’s actually a little link between the ‘News’ and ‘Shopping’ sections labeled ‘Music’: Once you click it, you can search for any artist, song, or album, and then easily download a high quality mp3 file from the Google page right to your hard drive, with no restrictions: Apparently Google earns advertising revenue on this, and gives the major record labels a cut. They’ve agreed to it because something is better than nothing. Can I take this music home? I looked at the ads.

The Zeppelin Café

Posted on by in Bars, Travel

Over the past few weeks, I found what I would consider to be the perfect hang-out bar: The Zeppelin Café in Phnom Penh. I heard about it from my guide book, which says this: “Who says vinyl is dead? It lives on here in Phnom Penh, thanks to the owner of this old-skool rock bar, who mans the turntables every night. Fun.” It did sound fun. But I decided to do a little more research before heading over. Lonely Planet ranks it #115 of #117 things to do in Phnom Penh and #558 of #579 things in do in Cambodia. Ouch. Of all the potential things to do in the entire country of Cambodia, apparently only 21 of them are worse

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Why’s There Ice In My Beer?

Posted on by in Beer, Travel

I was surprised to find that in Cambodia, beer is often served in a glass of ice. This seems to be a bit ridiculous to me, as the cans and bottles are often cold to begin with — why dilute perfectly good beer? I’ve heard many explanations. Local Cambodian’s certainly like to drink, and one person told me that drinking beer with ice helps make sure you don’t get too drunk too fast (it’s not true). And then I read that establishments like to show off  the fact that they have a plentiful supply of fresh ice. Regardless, it’s a strange tradition. One I probably won’t be taking home. Also, as a follow-up to my previous post on Angkor Beer,

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Tuk Tuk Rides

Posted on by in Markets, Travel

I’ve always found bargaining to be interesting from both a behavioral economics and a cultural perspective. Chris Blattman had a great post on bargaining fractions a couple years back, specifically focusing on taxi fares. To summarize, in many countries there’s no taxi meter, and it’s appropriate (and often necessary) to negotiate a rate. Chris has found that the final negotiated price in a given country is usually a pretty consistent fraction of the driver’s initial offer price (assuming you’re a decent negotiator). But what’s interesting is that this fraction varies significantly between countries. Chris then talks about a few negotiation strategies that will help a traveler get down to a given country’s fraction without paying too much of a “foreigner

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