Travelfish #380: Meet Couchfish + take a virtual holiday!

Everywhere is on the way to somewhere Hi everyone, Before anything else, a big thank you to those who made donations to the organisations I mentioned last week. I’m sorry quite a few of them were tricky to donate to if you were outside of Indonesia, but thanks for making the effort. Also thanks for the kind wishes re Ms Travelfish, she is back on deck and suffice to say neither of us would recommend catching Covid19! If you’re still looking to make a donation, a Travelfish reader pointed me to the Mandalay Community Center Corona emergency fund. They’re raising money for families in a riverside slum in Mandalay Burma. [You can find out more about the fund here](. [Popular with swingers. Photo: Sally Arnold] Popular with swingers. Photo: Sally Arnold In other news, I have a bit of announcement to make. If you’re anything like me, you’re mostly likely stuck at home with any travel fading well and truly over the horizon. Don’t fret, [CouchFish is here!]( Couchfish is a new paid newsletter I’m delighted to be launching today. It’s a short email, sent out Monday to Friday at 9am Bali time (GMT+8). Each bite-size issue (around 400 words) will include a description of a day's travel in the region, including plenty of links out to other material to read. Think of it as something to take your mind off the news cycle while you enjoy your morning coffee. For those who are not interested in a paid subscription, non-paying subscribers will receive a round-up of the week’s posts on the Friday. [You can read more about it (and please do subscribe!) here](. I hope it will keep those itching feet under control. Best of all, if you are a subscriber to the Travelfish website, please email me your member name and the email address you’d like to receive the newsletter at, and I’ll add you to the list for free. This is final call for submissions to the Travelfish 2020 Reader Survey! I’ll be closing it off tomorrow night and going through all the submissions. Thank you so much to everyone who made the effort—all 703 of you! If you haven’t yet done it, [you can find the survey here](. Till next week! Stuart Support Travelfish! If you'd like to chip in (if you haven’t already) for using the site, we'd love you to sign up for a year-long subscription for just A$35. [See more here](. Take a virtual holiday With all the talk about the devastation of Covid19, I came across a great story this morning. [The Happinezz Hills]( is a small resort on the [Karimunjawa Islands]( off the north coast of Java in Indonesia (the photos in today’s newsletter were taken on the island). It had to close its doors as the islands have been shut down for tourism—but they had a great idea—how about we offer a virtual holiday and help the local community while we are at it! Guests who wanted to be there but couldn’t, can now book a virtual holiday for just 10 euros. In return they receive videos about two weeks on the islands. 100% of the proceeds go to the staff. How great is that! So I dropped them a line and we chatted on Facebook Messenger this morning. With all the bad news floating around, I thought this was a great little story worth sharing. Me: Can you tell me a little about The Happinezz Hills? Joyce: We opened our hotel The Happinezz Hills in June 2019, so we are just a few months old. We have 16 rooms in four themes (sunset, ocean, beach and nature). We prefer to offer the jobs to locals from the island to help the local community. We also try to support the locals in other ways. For example offer them the opportunity to learn English. Me: Karimunjawa has been closed to tourism for a couple of weeks now. What is the feeling on the archipelago? How are people coping? What are some of the main challenges locals are facing and how are they addressing them? Joyce: The island was closed for only foreigners first. Indonesian tourists were still allowed to come but not long after, Indonesian tourist were also not allowed anymore. The fast boat schedule is now only twice a week instead of eight times, so the island still receives the necessary supplies from the mainland—but no tourists. Medical care on the island is minimum. Till now there is no Corona confirmed there, but it is also not possible to test for it. The local people who take the boat from [Jepara]( back home to Karimunjawa are tested before boarding to see if they have a fever. If they do have one they are not allowed to board the boat. Locals are no longer allowed to come to the hospital—if they feel sick they need to register online and then the doctor will visit them at their home. Most people are worried about their income. The two main activities in Karimunjawa are tourism and fishing. No accommodations has any guests anymore, and all the tour guides, taxi drivers and so on, are at home without any income. Also for the fishery industry, nobody (such as restaurants and tour guides) buys a lot of fish anymore, and export is not possible. The price of the fish at the moment is very low. This means in one family many members no longer have an income. Me: Are there organisations working in Karimunjawa to assist those in needs? What are they doing? Joyce: At the moment there are no organisations in Karimunjawa to help the local community. Some initiatives have come from locals (mostly for local businesses) for example to teach them about health care and hygiene. Me: How are your staff coping? Are most of them from Karimunjawa? Joyce: All of our staff are from Karimunjawa. They are all from Karimunjawa or born on the mainland but already live for a long time on the island with family members. They appreciate our idea to still try to help them. When we were busy in the last months they always helped us—so now we need to help them in this time. Me: What gave you the idea of doing the virtual vacation? Joyce: Actually my friend Josephine came with the idea. She visits Karimunjawa several times a year, though at the moment she is in The Netherlands. Together we worked out the concept with our staff as well. We didn’t have any material, but the staff were so enthusiastic that we made the first movies very quickly. The initial response from people was very enthusiastic. Many people are bored at home, and have had to cancel their holiday and they like this unique alternative, where they can also help the local community with a payment of just 10 euros. Me: If Travelfish readers wanted to help out, aside from booking a virtual vacation with The Happinezz Hills, what would you suggest they do? Joyce: The best way to help out is after the Corona crisis has calmed down, please come on holiday again! So, if you’d like to book your very own virtual holiday to the Karimunjawa Islands, here’s how to do it. First, [visit the hotel website]( and make a booking via the form, ticking the “Paypal” link. Once you have made the booking, you can [make the payment of ten euros via PayPal here](. Joyce advises it is important you still fill out the booking form so she can tie it to the PayPal payment and send you the videos. So there you go. With all the doom and gloom doing the rounds, here is one small property working to support the local community and give you a holiday you can enjoy from your couch as well. Win Win! Good travels Stuart Premium members only: Book a round the world with [roundtheworldflights.com]( (must travel from the UK via Asia, Australia, New Zealand AND the Americas) and get £30pp off your trip. Offer valid for departures to December 2021. Log in to the Member Centre on Travelfish now for your coupon code and [start designing your own round the world trip »]( Ten things worth reading Twitterati On Twitter and can’t get enough Covid19 coverage in Southeast Asia? The[Twitter list of journalists tweeting in English across the region is excellent](. List by Hanoi-based [Steve Jackson](. Could Vietnam win the battle to save the pangolin? “Others see pangolin as a culinary delicacy. China is not the only destination – in Vietnam and elsewhere too, [the pangolin is a sought after beast]( I could have slept in the quiet but had to leave If you’ve ever wandered through a mosque in Southeast Asia or elsewhere, [this lovely piece will ring true](. We’re not going back to normal [Don’t read this]( if you’re planning on being back on the road by June. Unless you’re thinking June 2021 or 2022. The rally of a community facing a coronavirus threat When your government lets you down, its time to do something yourself. A rare bright tale out of Covid19 afflicted Indonesia. As they say, [“we’re all in this together”](. In race for a sustainable alternative to plastic, Indonesia bets on seaweed “The disease was triggered by a rise in water temperature and changes in salinity and light conditions — [the hallmarks of a changing climate](. With their livelihoods devastated, most of the farmers sought out jobs in the tourism industry.” 40 of the best books about music ever written Just because you’re not travelling isn’t a reason not to [put up your feet with a good book—or forty](. As tourism plummets in Thailand, elephants are out of work, too He said the Maetaeng park, one of the country’s larger operations, was still open, but visitors were down by 90 percent, forcing the company to reduce employees’ hours. The park used to get as many as 1,000 visitors a day. [On Saturday, there were only four](. The Strange, Fragile Normalcy of Life in Singapore “Have Singaporeans become [a little too confident]( that they’re protected from the spread of the virus?” Thailand Faces Record Drought [The hits just keep coming](. Something to read A House in Bali “Published in 1947, A House in Bali by Colin McPhee [remains today a relevant and engaging book]( for readers looking to learn about the intricacies and history of Balinese culture generally, and music specifically.” Travel shot [Make some new friends. Photo: Sally Arnold] Make some new friends. Photo: Sally Arnold Till next time [Sam and Stuart.] That’s it from us for now. As usual, enjoy the site’s new additions and drop us a line if there’s something in particular you’d like us to cover in Southeast Asia. Travel light! Stuart, Sam & the Travelfish team [( You're receiving the Travelfish newsletter because you signed up at Travelfish.org. Not interested anymore? [Unsubscribe Instantly](. Make sure you're getting our emails! 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