Travel Blog
George Saunders on Nepal’s “Buddha Boy”
by Michael Yessis | 05.29.06 | 11:38 AM ET
When the editors at GQ asked In Persuasion Nation writer George Saunders to travel to Nepal to write about Ram Bahadur Bomjon—before he abandoned his spot a couple months ago, the 15-year-old “Buddha Boy” was making headlines around the world for meditating under a tree and not eating, drinking or moving for months—Saunders said no. But he couldn’t get the kid off his mind. The account of the trip Saunders eventually took appears in the June issue of GQ. Though Saunders’ story is more about the writer, really, than the Buddha Boy, it does provide an interesting look at what may or may not be an elaborate hoax as well as a Nepal in turmoil.
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Yahoo! BuzzWorld Borders Redefined
by Michael Yessis | 05.29.06 | 9:22 AM ET
What defines a country’s border these days? Is it a physical place, or does it extend into the “virtual and electronic space”? Moisés Naím argues that it’s all three places and more in an intriguing essay in the Outlook section of Sunday’s Washington Post. “[W]hile geography still matters,” Naím writes, “today’s borders are being redefined and redrawn in unexpected ways. They are fluid, constantly remade by technology, new laws and institutions, and the realities of international commerce—illicit as well as legitimate.”
No. 4: “The Soccer War” by Ryszard Kapuściński
by Frank Bures | 05.28.06 | 8:34 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1978
Territory covered: Africa, Central America, Cyprus and Israel
No. 5: “No Mercy: A Journey to the Heart of the Congo” by Redmond O’Hanlon
by Michael Shapiro | 05.27.06 | 7:41 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1997
Territory covered: Central Africa
No. 6: ‘North of South’ by Shiva Naipaul
by Frank Bures | 05.26.06 | 9:18 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1978
Territory covered: Kenya and Tanzania
Gilligan’s Island, Puerto Rico
by Ben Keene | 05.26.06 | 12:03 PM ET
No. 7: “Golden Earth” by Norman Lewis
by Frank Bures | 05.25.06 | 7:53 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1952
Territory covered: Burma/Myanmar
In 1951, not long after Southeast Asia had been a bloody battleground in World War II, a quiet, unobtrusive man set off from Wales for Burma, where he would spend three months traveling for one of the classics of travel writing, Golden Earth. It was not the only classic he would write: For more than 60 years, Lewis traveled the world and wrote some 30 travelogues and novels. During his travels Lewis had his skull fractured, watched men brain each other with femurs and, at 80, tried to get into Irian Jaya to interview some tribe members who had apparently barbecued and eaten 13 missionaries. According to another (possibly apocryphal) story, Lewis was sent by Ian Fleming to check in on Ed Scott, the model for James Bond. While the two were talking, unbeknown to them Graham Greene was watching, and used the scene for “Our Man in Havana.” But Lewis was our man in many, many places: India, Guatemala, Vietnam, Sicily, Spain, the Middle East and, of course, Burma, which he wrote, “spread as a dark stain into the midnight sea.” Lewis spent three months there and the going was rough: His train from Rangoon to Mandalay was delayed when explosions damaged the rail in front and behind him. But compared to the road he traveled, Lewis’s prose is smooth. It is also full of the humor and the humanity of the people he met along the way. As Pico Iyer says, “Out of marvels he makes melodies.” “Golden Earth” shows both Burma and Lewis at their most marvelous.
No. 8: “Video Night in Kathmandu” by Pico Iyer
by Rolf Potts | 05.24.06 | 11:04 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1988
Territory covered: East and South Asia
A collection of 11 essays chronicling the cultural fusion of East and West in the 1980s, Iyer’s literary debut is an answer to all those critics who claim that great travel writing died once the terra incognita was mapped. As this Asia-themed collection shows, the final frontier of adventure isn’t located on some distant mountain or impenetrable jungle, but in the intimate (and often comical) cross-cultural fascinations and discoveries that arise from an ever-shrinking world.
Amid his sharp reportage and analysis, Video Night in Kathmandu‘s greatest strength is Iyer’s refusal to draw prim moral conclusions as Western popular culture bumps up against the traditions of the East. Instead, he casts things in terms of a tenuous romance.
“When Westerner meets Easterner,” Iyer writes, “each finds himself often drawn to the other, yet mystified; each projects his romantic hopes on the stranger, as well as his designs; and each pursues both his illusions and his vested interests with a curious mix of innocence and calculation that shifts with every step.” Moreover, the author’s eye for ironic juxtapositions—Rambo-inspired musicals in India, baseball fever in Japan, Mowhawk haircuts in Bali—proves so keen that he practically inaugurates the now-common “cultural-contradiction” travel-story template. Even if the specific cross-cultural obsessions of “Video Night” (Michael Jackson, Rambo) seem a bit dated, the ensuing rise of globalization and reach of the Internet have only underscored how relevant Iyer’s observations were.
An “American Idol” View of History
by Jim Benning | 05.24.06 | 10:58 AM ET
World Hum contributor Sarah Schmelling offers a glimpse into just that with “Ryan Seacrest Breaks Bad News” on McSweeney’s today. Who knew that Simon didn’t care for the way Napoleon marched into Leipzig?
Kristof Picks Missouri Grad Student For Traveling Companion
by Michael Yessis | 05.24.06 | 10:58 AM ET
New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof announced the winner of his travel contest yesterday, selecting University of Missouri journalism grad student Casey Parks. “We’ll most likely start in Equatorial Guinea, bounce over to Cameroon and travel through a jungle with Pygmy villages to end up in the Central African Republic—one of the most neglected countries in the world,” Kristof writes (the story is available to TimesSelect subscribers only). “We’ll visit schools, clinics and aid programs, probably traveling in September for 10 days.” Kristof, as we previously mentioned, conducted the contest to help draw more attention—and perhaps aid—to some heartbreaking region of the world and give a young writer a break.
No. 9: “The Innocents Abroad” by Mark Twain
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.06 | 9:32 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1869
Territory covered: Europe and the Holy Land
Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad marks a turning point for both the author and American travel writing. In 1867, Twain boarded the ship the Quaker City for a five-month Journey through Europe and the Holy Land, and he convinced the Daily Alta California, a San Francisco newspaper, to pay him $1,250 to file letters from abroad for publication. He sent 51, and those, along with a few others written for newspapers in New York, comprise “Innocents Abroad.” The dispatches, followed by lectures he delivered based on his travels, helped establish Twain’s voice as an American original. During Twain’s lifetime, “Innocents” was his most popular book, and today it remains perhaps the most celebrated travel book by an American writer. Some critics credit its longevity to its fresh approach: It was written from a different angle than most travel books of its time. As Twain writes in the preface:
World Cup Fans: Do You Know What Your Country Smells Like?
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.06 | 1:09 PM ET
Coca-Cola? Ripe mangoes? A piña colada? An After Eight mint? Chanel No 5? According to the Telegraph, retired perfume maker Ernst-Adolf Hinrichs of Holzminden, Germany, has identified the scents of the countries competing in next month’s World Cup tournament. Kate Connolly writes that Holzminden is “home to one of the world’s leading industrial producers of smells,” and that Hinrichs has created the scents for “smelling posts” around the city. Visitors are instructed to, of course, “follow their noses.” So which of the scents listed above belong to which country?
Brits to French: You’re Unfriendly, Ungenerous and Boring
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.06 | 7:12 AM ET
So say 6,000 voters surveyed by the travel site Where Are You Now, according to an AFP report. Germans finished second in all of the same categories. Respondents in the survey ranked countries in various categories, including most cultured and most unstylish. The “winners” respectively: Italy and the United States.
No. 10: “In A Sunburned Country” by Bill Bryson
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.06 | 1:38 AM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 2000
Territory covered: Australia
Bill Bryson, like many of the best travel writers, fuels his books with a keen eye for detail and an historian’s ability to research. In In a Sunburned Country, for instance, he cites a whopping 66 books in his bibliography. But what sets Bryson apart is his ability to process everything he’s learned and experienced with the voice of a seasoned comedian. “Sunburned” is laugh-out-loud funny. “This is a country that…is so vast and empty that a band of amateur enthusiasts could conceivably set off the world’s first non-governmental atomic bomb on its mainland and almost four years would pass before anyone noticed,” he writes. “Clearly this is a place worth getting to know.” Bryson travels from Sydney to Perth and throughout the continent’s Martian-like desert middle, and his affection for Australia’s people and its varied landscapes is obvious. In fact, it’s infectious. If an armchair trip through Australia in the company of Bryson doesn’t make you want to go there, it’s doubtful any book will.
No. 11: “The Snow Leopard” by Peter Matthiessen
by Rolf Potts | 05.21.06 | 10:00 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1978
Territory covered: the Himalayan Dolpo region of Nepal
Matthiessen’s Zen-flavored masterpiece is as much a classic of nature and spiritual literature as it is of travel writing. Documenting a 1973 journey into the remote Dolpo region of Nepal, Matthiessen officially sets out to help zoologist George Schaller study Himalayan blue sheep. As he takes the reader deep into the mountains, however, we realize that Matthiessen is using this scientific journey as a metaphor to reflect on much broader matters of life, death and existence itself. The famous irony of The Snow Leopard is that Matthiessen never spots the elusive creature during his adventure.
Thus, robbed of the climactic moment, the author leads us into the simple essence of his journey: “the common miracles—the murmur of my friends at evening, the clayfires of smudgy juniper, the coarse, dull food, the hardship and simplicity, the contentment of doing one thing at a time: when I take my blue tin cup into my hand, that is all I do.” In this way, the spiritual lessons of this book aren’t relegated to romantic abstractions or heady epiphanies, but to a gentle reminder that life consists of what each moment brings us; that it’s futile to obsess on the workings of the past and future if you’re missing out on experience of the present moment.
