Rosario is a village in the Cavite province of the Philippines. It is a fishing village, which both catches and processes fish. In the past it had the reputation of being a rough area, with a lot of local gang activity. As you can see in the walk, although there is no overt hostility, there are a fair number if hard looking characters keeping a close eye on the camera man.
The village is very basic looking, with shacks mixed in with simple concrete block buildings. The beach, with the small fishing boats pulled up onto it, is very scenic.
The Shilin Night Market is one of the night markets in Taipei, Taiwan. A night market in an area where streets have been closed off and it is full of food stalls, merchant stands, activities for children and young couples. They are very social places where friends and families can gather to talk, eat, browse, and get some night air.
The markets are very pleasant. I've been to several, including the one pictured above, and always enjoyed myself at them. Then again, aside from my home, Taiwan is probably my favorite spot on the Earth. Many fond memories of the place. Hopefully the CCP will be thwarted from screwing it up like they do everywhere they get their hands on.
This is a walk in Bandung, a provincial capital on the island of Java in Indonesia. The walk is though the downtown commercial area which is clean and well maintained. I think it is a bit of a local tourist destination. At one point you see a lot of people in costumes, mostly ghosts. I'm not sure what that was all about.
This is an afternoon walk in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan. Thimphu is in a river valley, but it is high in the mountains (7,000 - 8,500 feet) making it one of the highest capitals in the world. The mountains in the background combined with the skyscape are quite striking.
The city itself is very clean and well maintained. The architecture and decorative flourishes are very attractive. For the most part the people do not dress in western style clothes, instead the women wear an ankle length dress called a kira, and the men a gho which is a sort of robe that reaches to just above the knees.
The city is comparatively very quiet, with little traffic or crowd noise, which gives it a very tranquil feeling.
This is a video of a walk through downtown La Paz, Bolivia. It starts out on a touristy looking street with shops selling colorful local fabrics, guitars, crafts, and the like. There are also a lot of shops dedicated to hiking. I suppose one of the draws of Bolivia is hiking in the mountains. As my regular readers will guess, my passion for conveyor belt sidewalks will preclude me from taking part in that activity until they install some conveyor belt nature trails.
He moves through the streets and eventually ends up in a public square. He filmed it during the Christmas season, and so there a lot of elaborate Christmas displays in the square. It is a lively looking place, with some nice old buildings mixed in.
This is walk through downtown Singapore including its Chinatown district. He wanders through a lot of narrow side streets. A nice, well kept looking area. The murals are impressive.
Santa Tecla is a provincial capital in El Salvadore. This is a dusk walk through its downtown area. The neighborhood is full of shops, restaurants, stalls and bars. It is a lively looking place.
Occasionally he places music in the soundtrack. I'm not sure if this is to prevent a copyright strike from music playing in the bars, or to drown out an inappropriate conversation, or just eccentricity by the YouTuber. Regardless, the music is nice, so it isn't too annoying.
This is a bit of a different 'walking in cities' video. An Australian expat, at least I'm guessing his accent is Australian, is driving through the interior of Laos to his home with his wife and adopted daughter. He seems quite affable and at ease as a resident of Laos. I have no idea what he does to make a living.
The video starts with them on the road, passing villages and encountering a lot of trucks. Eventually they stop in the small city of Phou Khoun where they intend to spend the night. He shows us their room in the guest house, and later they go out to eat in a local restaurant and to visit old friends where he hears some sad news.
Because of the Great Firewall China controls what is posted on Western platforms. China carefully curates it image, preferring to portray themselves as sparkling and modern. Hence the endless shots of high-speed rail, robot delivery vehicles, brand new buildings and so forth.
Logic tells you there is something Potemkin-villagey about all that. Aside from that, a lot of Chinese street videos are nothing more than collections of pretty Chinese girls aimed at Western simps, so finding a good walking in cities video was a bit of a challenge.
The above is a walk through what appears to be middle class neighborhood in Wuhan, China (insert your own covid joke here). I think it is morning, the shop keepers are setting up their stalls and storefronts. He wanders through several streets and alleys. One thing that is striking, a lot of the vehicles and almost all of the scooters are electric, so the traffic sound is much quieter.
As an aside, the video was posted about a month ago. Since then, the upper Yangtze River basin has had a lot of rain and experienced heavy flooding. The Wuhan riverside area was flooded, and some of the interior streets as well.
This is a different walking in cities post in that this is a walk through an abandoned city. Instead of a mass of locals, we are in a mass of tourists. Petra is in southern Jordan and much of it was carved out of the cliffsides of the canyons that surrounded it. It utilized an elaborate system of cisterns to store water which made it a sort of artificial oasis. It was in the vicinity of trade routes, so for a time it was a relatively affluent city, although at its height it only had a population of around 20,000 people.
The above video gives you an idea of the canyons it sits in, below is a longer video showing more of the city and its surrounding area.
David sits astride the Pan-American highway in western Panama. It is primarily an agricultural hub, but other investment monies are strengthening its economy. As you can see from the walk, it looks like a well-tended and solidly middle-class city. I imagine that there is a fair number of expat retirees who have moved there.
A woman, who had married a person from another village and who's much older now, returned for a funeral. This is how her relatives gather to say goodbye to her when she leaves again. It is an elaborate ceremony, featuring prayers, singing a hymn, speechifying and drinking a fair amount of kava and grog. Large parts of it are in English.
This is from the YouTube channel of Uraia Tabua, He has a lot of other videos documenting everyday life in Fiji.
This video is a walk through a market in eastern Nepal. It is a weekend rather than a daily market, so I suspect it is much more of a social event than regular daily shopping. It certainly is crowded, and the crowd is cheerful and energetic.
Terraced farming lends itself to some amazing photos. They're usually taken from a distance so you can see the full hillsides covered with terraces. This video is a walk through some Indonesian paddies. It gives a good look at them up close and gives an idea of the engineering and labor needed to build them, much less raise the crops.
This is walk through Kandy, a city in Sri Lanka. It starts out in a street which is lined with vendors, and eventually moves through some markets. It's a noisy place, with loud conversations, hawkers, and honking cars all conspiring to deafen you. He ends by walking through a more upscale looking shopping district.
It is a lively looking city. Although some of the buildings look like worn-out concrete, and that may just be a necessity of constructing for typhoons, others have nice coats of paint. There is also a lot of green spaces and parks. One of my favorites: at the 17:33 mark there is a nice mural on a wall of elephant-mounted warriors stompling on European troops.
These are scenes from Gyimes, a small rural village in Transylvania. What I know about Transylvania comes from old Bela Lagosi Dracula movies. In the video I didn't notice any fellows eating flies or turning into bats, but perhaps that just wasn't filmed.
The village is in a valley in the Carpathians. Some of my ancestors came from around that area, so maybe a distant cousin or two was in the video. It is a pleasant looking place, although rather too rustic looking for my taste.
Previously we've strolled around Nuuk, Greenland. Today we head to the opposite side of the Americas to tour Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego. It claims to be the southernmost city on Earth. It was originally founded by British missionaries in the 19th century and later absorbed by Argentina. In the early 20th century it mainly served as a penal colony. Today it is a tourist destination, and its port handles a number of cruise ships.
The walk, which takes place in light snow flurries (which, as Florida boy, give me the heebie-jeebies), starts on a commercial street, wends down to the water's edge, and then back up into the town. It is a pleasant looking little city.
This is a walk in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. He claims it is on a nice sunny day, but all the snow and what-not lying about makes it look like a frigid hellhole to me. The walk starts on a boardwalk on the seashore. The houses lining it look nice.
Eventually he enters the city and the first thing I notice is a group of picnic tables outside of what I assume is a restaurant. There is a group of diners, in parkas, sitting at them and presumably enjoying their lunches. I think to myself, "wait -- these lunatics are trying to eat outside in the midst of a polar vortex???"
As we walk further into the city, we come across a public beach. To my amazement there is a group of people, again in parkas, frolicking about on the water's edge. I begin to entertain the possibility that prolonged exposure to cold causes brain damage. I am thankful that I escaped to Florida before I lost too many IQ points.
He then climbs a hill above a scenic church which gives him a good view of the city. A walk into the city's business district shows it to be a very pleasant, modern and well maintained. It looks, aside from the freezing cold, to be a nice place.
Today we take a stroll in the village of Nungwi on the northern tip of Zanzibar. We start in what I think is a residential area with shops mixed in. Nungwi, because of its beach, is a tourist destination. As we walk towards the beach the local shops give way to more touristy stores which sell African themed art, clothes, jewelry and the like. There are also a lot of Europeans about. Eventually we make it to the beach where the bars and restaurants are much more upscale.
I've edited this post to add the below promotional video of Hotel Riu Jamba in Nungwi. You might want to turn the sound down so you don't get deafened by the happy musical soundtrack. As you can see, the resort area looks entirely different than the village. Two worlds colliding.
In this Walking in Cities video we tour a nice-looking neighborhood in Tokyo. Most of the walk is through side streets, where only pedestrians, scooters and bicycles are about. There are a lot of store front businesses lining the streets. It looks like a pleasant neighborhood.
