Destination: Middle East
Iraq Kurdistan to Tourists: Don’t Confuse Us with the Rest of Iraq
by Jim Benning | 10.23.06 | 3:55 PM ET
I’m accustomed to seeing TV commercials promoting vacations in places like New Zealand and Canada. So when I saw the commercial on CNN the other day touting travel to Kurdistan, I thought, of course, Kurdistan? Today, the AP explains the commercial’s origins. It turns out a California firm helped make the commercial for the Kurdistan Development Corp.
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Yahoo! BuzzStephen Colbert’s New York City Travel Tips for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
by Michael Yessis | 09.20.06 | 10:17 PM ET
The President of Iran was in New York City this week to address the United Nations. Ever the gracious host, Stephen Colbert had some recommendations on places to go. Among them: Scores and Katz’s Delicatessen. The video of the entire itinerary is at the Comedy Central Web site.
‘We Will Not Be Silent’ T-Shirt Causes Stir at JFK*
by Michael Yessis | 08.30.06 | 8:11 AM ET
Raed Jarrar says he was forced to remove a T-shirt with the words “We will not be silent” in both Arabic and English before boarding a Jet Blue flight from New York to California earlier this month. According to a BBC report, Jarrar was told “a number of passengers had complained about his T-shirt—apparently concerned at what the Arabic phrase meant—and asked him to remove it.” Jarrar first refused, then, according to his blog post about the incident, he wore a grey T-shirt with the words “New York” bought for him by a Jet Blue representative.
Travel During Wartime
by Frank Bures | 08.28.06 | 6:59 AM ET
War may not be so good for children and other living things, but it sure clears out the tourists. So writes Kevin Rushby in The Guardian. Rushby is the author of the fantastic travel book, Eating the Flowers of Paradise, about the khat road though Ethiopia and Yemen, which I read when I was reporting on the drug’s use in the U.S. “The unfortunate truth about fear, tension or fighting,” he wrote in last week’s Guardian, “is that there are benefits to be had in neighbouring areas. That may be as simple as having few fellow visitors at great sites like Iran’s old Persian capital of Persepolis, or Jordan’s rose-red Petra -both badly affected by current troubles.”
The Heartbreaking and Surreal Times of ‘Anthony Bourdain in Beirut’
by Michael Yessis | 08.22.06 | 8:18 AM ET
The Travel Channel aired Anthony Bourdain in Beirut last night, the story of what happened to the “No Reservations” host and his crew when they were stranded in Beirut, Lebanon last month during the early days of the war between Israel and Hezbollah. “It’s not a hard-news account of what happened to Lebanon or what happened to Beirut,” Bourdain says at the beginning of the show. “I think at best it’s a little bit of what Beirut was and could have been. What it felt like to be there when things went sideways. This is not the show we went to Lebanon to get.” Nevertheless, Bourdain returned with one of the more compelling travel shows—or any television show, for that matter—of the year.
Palm Islands, Dubai
by Ben Keene | 08.11.06 | 6:41 AM ET
BHL Goes to Israel
by Terry Ward | 08.09.06 | 5:22 PM ET
Anthony Bourdain’s Beirut Show to Air
by Jim Benning | 08.09.06 | 4:10 PM ET
We’ve written about Anthony Bourdain’s recent experience in Beirut— the globe-trotting chef was there taping an episode of his show No Reservations when fighting broke out. (He was safely evacuated.) At the time, he wasn’t sure whether the episode would ever air. Now comes word that it will indeed be broadcast on the Travel Channel Monday, Aug. 21 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Remarked the Travel Channel’s Pat Younge, “This special is not about a celebrity chef in peril, but an opportunity to show unique footage of the Beirut that existed before the hostilities broke out—an unfinished portrait of the Beirut that Anthony wanted to show the world.”
Time Out Beirut: “Beirut’s Favourite Entertainment and Listings Magazine is Now Suspended”
by Jim Benning | 08.07.06 | 1:40 AM ET
The publisher of Time Out Beirut writes on the magazine’s Web site: “They are killing our city, but will not kill our way of life. Over the last three months Time Out Beirut has provided the Lebanese and tourists with an nightlife and entertainment scene that rivals any western city. We will be back and we will carry on our mission for reporting the real side of Lebanon and Beirut. We are hoping for a fast recovery and rest assured we will come back, stronger and bolder than ever. It is in our Lebanese character to do so. July, our latest issue, is a testimony to life in Beirut just before this man-made catastrophe, please have a look and read our magazine to find out what the world missed—This issue has become a collectors item as a testament to what Beirut has become.” (Via the New York Times.)
Saudi Arabia Lifts Photo Ban for Tourists
by Michael Yessis | 08.04.06 | 3:44 PM ET
Rory Stewart’s “The Prince of the Marshes”: Excerpts on Slate
by Michael Yessis | 08.02.06 | 8:04 AM ET
All this week Slate is featuring excerpts from Rory Stewart’s new book The Prince of the Marshes, which focuses on his experiences as the Governor of Maysan province in southern Iraq. Stewart is also the author of the acclaimed The Places in Between, a chronicle of his walk across Afghanistan in 2002.
Bourdain in Salon: “Watching Beirut Die”
by Michael Yessis | 07.29.06 | 12:04 PM ET
On Wednesday, Anthony Bourdain fielded questions at the Washington Post about his recent experience in Lebanon—he was filming his Travel Channel show “No Reservations” when the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began. Friday, he wrote a terrific essay about it for Salon. “It’s not what I saw happen in Beirut that I feel like talking about, though that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it?” he writes. “It’s not about what happened to me that remains an unfinished show, a not fully fleshed out story, or even a particularly interesting one. It feels shameful even writing this. It’s the story I didn’t get to tell. The Beirut I saw for two short days. The possibilities. The hope. Now only a dream.” Bourdain’s story has stimulated a flood of letters from Salon readers.
Bourdain: “I’m Feeling a Little Pessimistic About the World These Days”
by Jim Benning | 07.26.06 | 12:40 PM ET
Globe-trotting, show-hosting chef Anthony Bourdain, back safely from Lebanon (where he was filming a Travel Channel show when the conflict began) fielded questions online this morning from Washington Post readers. Asked if a No Reservations episode was in the works based on the trip, he replied: “We’re trying to figure some way to show how beautiful and hopeful Beirut was before the bombing, how terrible a thing it is that happened, what we’ve lost, the pride and hopefulness and optimism that was smashed…It will not be a regular episode of No Reservations.”
Writers on Ruins: An ‘Anthology of Archaeological Travel Writing’
by Jim Benning | 07.25.06 | 5:31 PM ET
Most contemporary travel writing focuses on the here and now, with only brief glimpses back. But recently, Oxford University Press published a collection of travel stories about visits to ruins entitled From Stonehenge to Samarkand: An Anthropology of Archaeological Travel Writing. The book features old and relatively new stories by such writers as Tom Bissell (a World Hum contributor), Paul Theroux, Robert Byron and Mark Twain. The New York Times called it a “smart” collection, and the Washington Times declared it “an admirably well-produced survey of the personalities and accomplishments of those pioneering people eager to recapture past relics of human history.”
Anthony Bourdain Evacuated from Beirut
by Jim Benning | 07.20.06 | 5:11 PM ET
Whew. Reuters caught up with the host of the Travel Channel’s Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on a U.S. Navy ship, where he was reclining on an army cot among hundreds of other evacuees. As we noted earlier this week, the globe-trotting chef was in Beirut with a crew to shoot an episode of his show when the violence began. Bourdain left a very different city than the one he found when he arrived just days ago. “It was paradise, sort of the western dream of the way we’d all like the Middle East to be—enlightened, progressive, multi-cultural, and multi-religious,” he told Reuters. No longer. “I was in love for two days,” he said, “and had my heart broken on the third.” He added: “I feel this awful sense of regret that we were never able to show Beirut as it was. To see everyone’s hopes die and watch the country dismantled piece by piece was very painful. I’m very angry and very frustrated.”