"The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it" - Rudyard Kipling
Travel dispatches from a shrinking planet

Travel dispatches from a shrinking planet

RECENT DISPATCHES
8.6.08

Like Writing on Water

In western Uganda, Christopher Vourlias met Colin, a farmer and poet who questioned the purpose of life while happily revealing the meaning of nohandika ha maiise.

7.15.08

My Senegalese Cousin, the Rice-Loving Pig

When the woman selling peanuts at a Samba Dia market learned the Senegalese name adopted by Katie Krueger, negotiations took an insulting turn

TRAVEL BLOG
SPEAKER'S CORNER
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A Tourist With a Shovel and a Hoe

When she arrived in Kenya to volunteer with the Maasai, Daniela Petrova looked down her nose at tourists there to have a good time. But was her own motivation much different?

ASK ROLF
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How Should I Spend My Time in Spain?

Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

Q&A
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Paul Theroux: Invisible Man on a Ghost Train

Jim Benning asks the author of “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” about his new book, aging and the challenge of disappearing in the age of the BlackBerry

HOW TO
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Eat Ceviche in Lima

Grab a Cusqueña and get comfortable. As Nicholas Gill explains, a trip to a Peruvian cevichería can be an all-day immersion in good conversation and raw seafood.

BOOKS
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Unsentimental Journeys: Wrestling With Paul Theroux

Bronwen Dickey considers “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: 28,000 Miles in Search of the Great Railway Bazaar”

AUDIO SLIDESHOW
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My Travels, My Feet

After taking one too many headless torso shots of herself, solo traveler Sophia Dembling started snapping photos of her feet around the world, from the Grand Canyon to Red Square


THE LIST
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Seven Reasons to Have a Foreign Fling

Sure, having an overseas romance is fun. But Terry Ward points out seven other benefits to cross-border love, mon petit chou.

ITEM
8.30.07

Manu Chao: Catching Up With the ‘Travelling Man’

imageAlthough its Sept. 4 release date narrowly misses an opportunity to be played on thousands of North American stereos over the approaching holiday weekend, Manu Chao‘s forthcoming album, La Radiolina, already has the attention of music journalists in the U.S. and Europe. Writing in The New Yorker, in a story headlined Travelling Man, Sasha Frere-Jones describes the fourth release by the Latin artist as his “most direct yet, presenting him as a sincere man motivated equally by affection and quiet fury,” emphasizing the populist nature of Chao’s polyglot pop. We’ve already given away our feelings about Chao: We recently named him one of our Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet.

Frere-Jones hints at how Chao’s appealing blend of energy and social commentary, in addition to his versatility—on the new album he sings in five languages—have allowed his songs to cross borders and reach an international audience. Of Chao, Frere-Jones writes, “Few pop performers take the idea of being a global musician so literally.”

He begins the story with this great anecdote:

Toward the end of a live show, weary musicians often appeal to the audience with a stock phrase intended to invigorate the proceedings: “How is everyone feeling tonight?” “I can’t hear you!” “Cleveland, make some noise!” Manu Chao, a wiry forty-six-year-old of Spanish extraction who grew up in Paris, used a different tactic when he played the first of two sold-out shows in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in June. He shouted out the names of countries, and people cheered, often in reverse proportion to the nation’s population: “Uruguay!” Some whoops. “Costa Rica!” Roars. “Macedonia!” Total mayhem.

Chao also made his first U.S. television appearance earlier this month, sitting for an interview and performing on the Henry Rollins Show.

Related on World Hum:
* Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet
* Rockers for Immigrant Hotel Workers’ Rights


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