Denis D. Gray looks at the rise of travel to “places once isolated by conflicts, hostile regimes and ‘off-road’ geography to which only the more intrepid travelers had earlier ventured.”

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The once-isolated country has welcomed tourists, satellite television and Matt Lauer in its efforts to engage the world. Now, as Arthur Lubow writes in the latest Smithsonian, the country has begun efforts to preserve its culture by displaying it outside its borders. Two major exhibitions are set for the United States this spring and summer, displays of Buddhist art in New York and San Francisco, and “demonstrations of traditional Bhutanese dancing, weaving, metalworking, woodcarving and herbal medicine” at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C. Lubow traveled to Bhutan to see how these efforts, as well as larger issues of globalization, are changing the country. 

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Full title: “Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu”

Author: Laurence Bergreen, who also wrote “Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe” and biographies of Al Capone and Irving Berlin.

Released: Oct. 23, 2007

Travel genre: Historical footstep following

Territory covered: The Silk Road from, uh, Venice to Xanadu

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After approximately two decades under the bizarre and repressive rule of the late Saparmurat Niyazov—among other things, he famously had a golden statue of himself built that followed the sun—Turkmenistan announced this week that it wants to become a player in global tourism. President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said his government will spend $1 billion on a Caspian Sea resort “with dozens of hotels, spas, seaside restaurants and glimmering spaceship-like skyscrapers,” according to the BBC’s Natalia Antelava.

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The world’s urban population is surging, according to a United Nations Population Fund report released yesterday. By next year, an estimated 3.3 billion people will live in cities. By 2030, the number will rise to 5 billion. George Martin, the report’s author, calls the growth “unstoppable.” According to a New York Times story, the report predicts that the surge in population will likely occur less in mega-cities like Lagos, Nigeria than in “places like Gabarone, Botswana, whose population is projected to rise to 500,000 in 2020 from 18,000 in 1971.” Overall, Asia and Africa will see most of the growth. The “accumulated urban growth of these two regions during the whole span of history will be duplicated in a single generation,” according to the report.

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Yes, in its infinite wisdom, Kim Jong-Il’s regime has generously decided to allow U.S. citizens to visit the Orwellian nation this year—during two stadium festivals, one taking place this spring and the other in the fall. According to Elisabeth Eaves’s story in Forbes, the president of Asia Pacific Travel, based in Illinois, “received an e-mail from the North Korean tourism authority saying it was appointing his company the sole travel agent it would deal with for the U.S. market.” Nice work if you can get it. I exchanged e-mails with Eaves today. She wasn’t too surprised that North Korea has opened, if only briefly, to Americans. The country needs the money, she wrote, and “it’s the foreigners who can afford the priciest festival seating.” (Festival seats go for up to $300.) But what about the ethics of visiting North Korea?

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The arrest of John Mark Karr in Bangkok for allegedly murdering JonBenet Ramsey almost 10 years ago has put Thailand’s reputation for sex tourism and as a haven for western drifters, or farang kee-nok, in the spotlight of American media. In an opinion piece in today’s New York Times, John Burdett, author of the crime novel Bangkok Tattoo, weighs in on why Thailand has, in the words of one Bangkok teacher he spoke to, become the place where farang go after they kill or rape somebody in their own country.

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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 eleven 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.

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To reflect pre-colonial times in India, Calcutta has become Kolkata, Madras is now Chennai and Bombay has become Mumbai. More and more Western newspapers are using the new official names in datelines—the Los Angeles Times made the change Monday. In an eloquent piece in today’s Times, David Lamb wonders what’s lost when such iconic names are tossed into the “historical scrap pile.”

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Oh, those toys do get around. While Barbie’s man Ken was off backpacking through Tibet, Hello Kitty was flying around Asia. Taiwanese airline Eva Airways recently painted an Airbus A330-200 with images of Hello Kitty and dressed up its flight attendants in Hello Kitty-themed outfits. It turns out the ever-popular cartoon cat sure can sell airline tickets. Since Hello Kitty made the scene, bookings are up 13 percent, the New York Times reports. 

The Asian Lunar New Year begins today. If you’re a dog like me, it’s time to celebrate.

The answer is surprising. Germany is number one, and changes are coming to the number two and three slots. According to an interesting Reuters report on CNN, “Last year, Germans alone accounted for over 86.6 million trips abroad, with Britons in second place (65.3 million) and Americans trailing in third (58.3 million).”

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