Destination: Asia
Welcome to Bizarroland
by Frank Bures | 09.21.05 | 7:49 PM ET
Guy Delisle spent two months working in the strangest and most reclusive country in the world, North Korea. The result was his new graphic novel/travelogue, "Pyongyang," which Frank Bures finds insightful, funny and, at times, touching.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzInternational Travel Film Festival Opens Friday In Kerala
by Michael Yessis | 09.08.05 | 12:37 AM ET
The first International Travel Film Festival kicks off three days of travel movies September 9 at the Kalabhavan Cinema Theatre in Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala, India, and it looks like none of Rex Pickett’s road movie picks made the final cut.
Through Amsterdam with Seth Stevenson
by Michael Yessis | 08.29.05 | 7:26 AM ET
Slate ran another five-part Well-Traveled series last week, Should I Move to Amsterdam? by Seth Stevenson. It’s insightful and quite funny, a mix that also helped one of his previous efforts for Slate, Trying Really Hard to Like India, make the pages of the upcoming 2005 Best American Travel Writing anthology. It gets a big shout out from editor Jamaica Kincaid in her foreward: “It is essays like Stevenson’s that keep me reading through pile after pile of mediocre travel writing.” Stevenson’s Amsterdam stories are also available via podcast.
The Critics: “Sky Burial”
by Jim Benning | 08.22.05 | 11:41 PM ET
The Los Angeles Times reviewed what sounds like an unusual novel about Tibet: “Sky Burial” by Chinese journalist Xinran. The novel, writes Seth Faison, “offers a perspective Western readers rarely get: a Chinese person who sympathizes with Tibetans. It’s a compelling story about a woman from Suzhou who goes to Tibet to search for her lost husband. She encounters danger and hides with a nomadic family in the vast openness of the Tibetan plateau, only to drift for 30 years and become thoroughly immersed in Tibetan culture before she can complete her goal.”
Investigating International Sex Tourism*
by Michael Yessis | 08.01.05 | 1:45 PM ET
National Magazine Award-winner Sean Flynn begins a three-part investigative series on sex tourism in the August issue of GQ magazine. In part one, Flynn travels to the Philippines, where he talks to some of the young women—girls, really—involved in the sex trade, as well as the men who fly in from around the world to be with them.
Gadling’s Erik Olsen on Current TV
by Jim Benning | 08.01.05 | 12:31 PM ET
Sometimes the blogosphere and the non-blog world meet in ways worth pointing out. In this case, Erik Olsen of the Gadling travel blog notes that a video he shot at Varanasi, India, will air today on Al Gore’s highly publicized new cable network, Current TV. The video was a finalist in a network contest, and a recent Time magazine story about the network called Olsen’s piece “a gripping, sensitively shot video of Indian families cremating their loved ones on the Ganges.” To which Olsen responds, “That’s positive, right?” We’d say so, Erik. Congrats.
The Endless Road Trip
by Michael Yessis | 07.28.05 | 11:40 PM ET
It’s not easy being a member of the Samurai Bears. The Golden Baseball League team, which consists solely of Japanese players and has no home field, is in the midst of a 90-game, 96-day road trip around the American southwest. “I can’t believe we’re actually doing it,” pitcher Takaaki Igarashi said through an interpreter during a postgame interview with Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times. “It’s not that it’s really hard. I just get sick of eating hamburgers all the time.” Bolch caught up with the Bears during a recent stop in Southern California, and he chronicles a journey “fraught with comical misadventures and lost-in-translation moments.”
The Op-Ed Page is the New Travel Section
by Michael Yessis | 07.25.05 | 10:00 PM ET
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Sometimes the best newspaper travel stories don’t appear in the travel section. For the third day in a row, a great travel story has appeared in the op-ed pages of either the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times. On the heels of Bob Greene’s excellent Saturday piece in the New York Times, columnist David Brooks took a break from political mudslinging Sunday with a column about flying with children. It’s not a subject that immediately brings to mind Picasso, but Brooks makes the comparison with his trademark wit.
Interview with Emma Larkin
by Michael Yessis | 07.19.05 | 9:51 AM ET
Emma Larkin, author of “Finding George Orwell in Burma,” will appear on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered this afternoon. Audio for the radio program is scheduled to go online at 7:30 p.m. ET.
I’m Going to Teach English in Japan, but I’ve Never Been to Asia. Any Tips?
by Rolf Potts | 07.15.05 | 3:06 PM ET
Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel
Big Brother in Burma
by Frank Bures | 06.29.05 | 8:14 PM ET
Journalist Emma Larkin traveled around Burma to see where author George Orwell spent five years of his life. She discovered what just might be the most Orwellian country in the world. Frank Bures reviews Larkin's new book on the topic, "Finding George Orwell in Burma."
Burma’s Ongoing Cycle of Despair
by Jeff Greenwald | 06.29.05 | 6:50 PM ET
Photo by Rolf Potts Burma was once known as the "Golden Land" by Western adventurers. Not any longer. Under a tyrannical regime, the country's spiritual and de facto political leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, languishes in prison. For her 60th birthday, Jeff Greenwald has a gift idea.
I’m Saving Money for My First Long Trip. Where is a Good Place for First-Time Vagabonders to Go?
by Rolf Potts | 06.29.05 | 3:36 PM ET
Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel
Planet Theme Park: “Disneyland on the Ganges”
by Michael Yessis | 04.29.05 | 10:45 PM ET
Bye-bye Mickey, Minnie and Donald. Welcome Ram, Hanuman and Krishna! The latter trio will be the central attractions at Gangadham, the world’s first Hindu theme park. The BBC reports that the 25-acre theme park will open in 2007 on the banks of the Ganges, in the north Indian pilgrimage town of Haridwar. “If the project takes off, it will move on to an international level,” writes Kathleen McCaul. “The plan is to open parks in Trinidad, Bali, Fiji and Thailand - and perhaps even Orlando, Los Angeles and London.”
The Flight of the 800-Passenger Gorilla
by Jim Benning | 04.28.05 | 10:44 PM ET