Customer Reviews

Bad Lands (Lonely Planet) (Travel Literature)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Knowing Tony's adventurous spirit, I was so excited to get this book and read his take on these mysterious countries that people know so little about. The book, it turns out, is more or less a collection of Tony's musings, combined with historical antecdotes and the occassional use of the words "bad lands" or "danger". It struck me as a last minute, pull-something-together-so-we-can-make-money project that would not have been published if the author didn't own the company. Yes, Tony does some cool stuff and goes off the beaten trail, but then he bogs it all down in an overkill of historical research and tries to paint a slick coat of "Danger!" all over it. It just doesn't work it so many places, and makes for a cumbersome read. Lonely Planet remains my absolute favorite source for travel information, but this mode of expression doesn't seem to suit Tony as well as others.

"Libya is one of the most comprehensively trashed countries I've ever visited." - Author Tony Wheeler in BAD LANDS

Co-founder (with his wife, Maureen) of Lonely Planet Publications, Tony Wheeler here describes his travels through nine countries generally considered "bad lands" by Western societies because of their poor treatment of their own citizens, their involvement in terrorism, and the threat they pose to other countries. The nine are Afghanistan, Albania, Myanmar (Burma), Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. Except for areas in Iraq which Wheeler was careful to skirt, none of the nine are particularly dangerous for the individual visitor.

In the genre of travel essays, BAD LANDS is commendably out of the ordinary in that it includes a 16-page center section of color photographs. I guess if your book is being published your own publishing company, you can afford this extravagance.

While reading the first chapter on Afghanistan, I thought Wheeler's writing rather stiff and I was somewhat dreading the experience of the whole. But in following chapters, he loosens up considerably and becomes a congenial and wryly humorous guide. For instance, this paragraph about Cuba:

"Every other woman walking by was wearing the standard Cuban fashion statements: short, tight, low, high, stretched. Preferably in Lycra ... In Cuba no women can be too big, too wide, too round for Lycra. 'Thrusting femininity' was the two-word definition of the Cuban approach to fashion, according to one visiting travel writer ..."

Published in 2007, BAD LANDS provides a roomy front window for the reader to peer out into the contemporary society of each nation visited, as well as useful rear window overlooking their recent pasts.

I'd award five stars except for the last two chapters, "The Evil Meter" and "Other Bad Lands: The Extended List." In the former, Tony rates, on a scale of 1 to 10, each of the nine subject nations: 1-3 points for domestic oppression, 1-3 for support or participation in terrorism, 1-3 for international belligerency, and a bonus point for Personality Cult centered around the national leader. I didn't mind so much that Wheeler calibrated his meter with such countries as the United States, Australia, the UK, and France and found them registering on the scale, albeit at a low level. But, when he carried the concept over into the latter chapter and mentions such garden spots as Somalia, Congo/Zaire, Angola, Haiti, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Syria and (in his mind) the evil conjoined twins, Israel and Palestine, without making even the most rudimentary mention of an obvious twosome, resurgent Russia and China, then I began to doubt his objectivity. Perhaps he should just stay with travel writing and skip the editorializing.

Tony Wheeler writes about his trip to Afghanistan, Albania, Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia.

Apart from Saudi Arabia, the rest of the countries in the list have all been demonised by the Western media. Are they really that bad? This book does not pretend to have all the answers or even the last say. Wheeler's writing style is rather typical of the humourous, cynical, sarcastic and sometimes overly opinionated style that you may encounter in Lonely Planet guides.

There's quite a bit of on-the-road reports and even more "background info" which is obtained more from research than personal experience. Informative this book is, but it is certainly not a scholarly piece or anything close to investigative journalism. Wheeler was just a tourist (and he states that explicitly on the cover of the book). There were only a couple of times when the author encountered danger. You won't read about any prohibited entries into restricted areas, illegal investigations, shocking revelations and close brushes with the authorities. It's just the sort of travelogue that you and I might write if we ever dare to go to all these places. I have only been to Myanmar myself. Afghanistan and Iraq? No way. This is certainly not the sort of travelogue that anyone can write. For that and for readability, I give the author some credit even though there is nothing sensational about this book.

At the end of the book, is an Evil Meter. True to the judgemental Lonely Planet spirit, he author judges the evilness of each country by his own subjective and limited knowledge - which is probably an unintentional joke. It doesn't spoil the fun of reading the book, but the author doesn't win any credibility points either.

This book is a mix of tour guide and political commentary. Unfortunately, the author is much better at the former than the latter. While Israel was not considered a badland, chapters on every country have comments indicating that the author does not believe the "badland" is really as bad as Israel. Why not then include it as a badland from the start and present a more thorough analysis? About the United States, the author really seems to have a lack of understanding of American political thought. The complexity of US foreign policy (that I also frequently disagree with) is unfortunately turned into a simplistic sterotype. While the author is trying to be iconoclastic and present readers including Americans with a non-American perspective of the world, this should have been done in a deeper, more thoughtful and more systematic way. Parts of the book read like a superficial knee-jerk. While, comments about North Korea genuinely believing that it might be attacked are probably right, discussion about the US invading Afghanistan instead of Saudi Arabia after 9/11 mainly because Saudi Arabia has oil seem off the mark. Overall, the political commentary is superficial, naive, and sometimes illogical. The author should have collaborated with a historian or political scientist in writing the book.

On the other hand, the narrative is entertaining and the travel log discussion is interesting. I bought the book to learn things about the countries he visited and what life is like there for both locals and tourists. The book is not a complete failure from this perspective, but I expected better.

Find a book written by a political scientist or historian on these countries instead if you are looking for what I was looking for.

I agree completely with David from Laramie on this one. It's really hard to get grip for whom this book was really intended. The political points are largely poorly reasoned conventional wisdoms, unquestioned and presented in a very assumptive and slightly condescending style. Many of the pop postulates contained have already passed their sell by dates. The descriptive details of the environment and cities are flimsy, often making one dusty Bad Land seem as physically uninteresting as the next. Travel details and advice do not really exist at all. The book is of little use to an advanced traveler who might be considering similar forays and looking for guidance.

Bad Lands is a mostly string of personal anecdotes, which isn't a bad thing for this kind of book, however the author is so detatched from his audience that it is hard to appreciate many of those stories. The concept here is a great one, but I suspect the author sacrifices quality thought and writing for the sake of completing the list of countries covered. It completely puts me off of trying out another of his books.

What the previous reviewer does not like about Bad Lands is exactly what appeals to me. The book's chapters are divided into countries, places most people know very little about, especially from a tourist's point of view. The descriptions are a mix of historical editorialism (which I love) and tourist blog. Easy read and inspiring.

I had high hopes when I first opened the book. After all, with the exception of Burma, these are places I am not likely to want to visit anytime soon. The book tries to be a little of everything, a shallow "political" background plus some description of the local people and a few places to visit, none of which done too well. What a pity, a good idea gone bad.

This book is more serious than many of the typical cooler-than-thou Lonely Planet travel guides. Tony Wheeler, as a founder of the franchise, has the experience with dangerous (or at least maddeningly inconvenient) world travel to make this book quite readable initially. Countries that are demonized in the Western press should not be avoided just because they're part of a politician's axis of evil. As Lonely Planet fans will surely know, regular folks and unheralded scenic wonders can make travel to unpopular places surprisingly rewarding.

Here Wheeler delivers the goods on several such nations, finding some charm in forgotten Albania, friendly folks in not-so-evil Iran, and natural wonders in Myanmar/Burma. He also digs up some dirt on the hidden joys offered by the citizens and scenery of the isolated and xenophobic Cuba and North Korea. This makes for good armchair travel reading. The problem is that being an experienced world traveler and keen observer of unappreciated lands do not qualify Wheeler for political analysis, which he proceeds to do anyway for most of the nations covered herein.

While I tend to agree with Wheeler's political viewpoints at a high level, his pronouncements on the complexities of Western foreign policy (especially in chapters on Iraq and Saudi Arabia) are simplistic at best. Wheeler has an unfortunate Michael Moore-like habit of following up quick lists of political grievances with one-paragraph proposed solutions to huge geopolitical crises. Also, this book is nearly ruined by the second-to-last chapter in which Wheeler concocts an "Evil Meter" (TM) in which he assigns his own scoring system to the countries visited. This may have been a tongue-in-cheek exercise but it's unsuccessful as either irony or commentary. The good news is that Wheeler really brings out the rewards of visiting people and places that have been unfairly maligned and ignored because of their overlords. Wheeler should have just stuck to that aspect of travel writing. [~doomsdayer520~]

I must own to a slight feeling of trepidation in relation to this book. After all, Lonely Planet basically tends to have a left wing bent and while that is fine I do tire of it when it's wall-to-wall. But as the stories unfolded in this book I was pleasantly surprised. Not everything is blamed on the great satan. Not every concievable problem of the world is the fault of the dastardly 'west'. Nope, sometimes the stupidity and insanity of a people is.... their own fault! Once I realised I wasn't going to get a one sided diatribe I really settled in for a fun ride and devoured this book in the space of a weekend. And then a month later re-read it.

What you have here is Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler relating a journeys to some of the most broken nations on the planet. A whole lot of the usual suspects are lined up here - we have xenophobic and bankrupt Albania seeing enemies on every side when in fact hardly anybody would of noticed if it had sunk into the sea. We have Libya, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and North Korea amongst others. There is even a chapter at the end that includes a bunch of 'honourable mentions' of other nations that could of also slotted into the book. And another chapter towards the end is a funny and at the same time deadly serious 'evil-meter' to compare the relevant badguys against their own kind (sort of judging them against their peers, lol).

Tony Wheelers travels not only take him to these places but also he uses his history of travel to slot in anecdotes about prior trips he'd done to some of these places in far less hostile or puritanical times. He engages the local people and often finds them less loopy than their governments, particularly where there are educated middle classes in nations where hospitatility is a strong part of the culture such as Iran. Other times you can tell he comes away with the feeling that the populace have been so utterly brainwashed since birth that they probably are just as loopy if not more so than the leadership (North Korea take a bow).

In summation, go out and buy this book. It has laugh out loud moments, touching moments, aspects of history weaved in with anecdotes and personal observation and there is a real feeling that here is a guy who loves travel and wants to engage the people and places he visits while at the same time retaining a healthy dose of cynicism - this guy didn't have his rose-coloured glasses on when he sat down to write this book. As I say, buy this highly readable and light hearted account and then buy one for a fellow dromomaniac.

Tony Wheeler, the founder of Lonely Planet, set out to visit nine `bad lands' or countries that are essentially corrupt, where dictatorial rulers treat their own citizens badly, and that pose a threat to their neighbours. As Wheeler points out, it has nothing to do with geography or topography, but with how the people who run the country behave. So how did he choose the `bad lands' to visit? Well, he started with what George W. Bush described as the `axis of evil' (now here some alarm bells are starting to ring): Iran, Iraq and North Korea. He added others that are frequently considered `bad,' including Burma (Myanmar), Cuba and Libya, as well as Afghanistan due to its never-ending troubles. He also included Albania, which mended its ways already years ago, as well as Saudi Arabia, which definitely belongs on the list, although it seldom is included because of the kingdom's oil and seemingly friendly relations with the United States. The list is by no means exhaustive--and some of the countries shouldn't really even be on it--but the author apparently had his reasons to travel to these selected ones. As the reader finds out farther in the book, the traveller does take a more nuanced view and does not accept the mostly Western stereotypes of these countries as bad or evil.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. Tony Wheeler is an overall nice guy and his observations are mostly smart and well informed. However, the stories are too often just describing what he did during the days he spent visiting these nations. There are long descriptions of specific historic or cultural sites and museums, the dinners he had. He also compares what he sees today with his experiences visiting several of the same places on the hippie trail decades ago. Some of the observations are interesting, but others seem trivial. Also, the interestingness of the chapters varies considerably, with some being quite absorbing while others are rather tedious.

In all fairness, much of this is not the author's fault. After all, these are mostly rather closed societies and only accessible through organized tours--we know that's not Tony's preferred mode of travel, but what can he do? He talks to local people to the extent possible, but often it just isn't as tourists are not encouraged to communicate with the natives. Often the conversations are filtered through tour guides, interpreters and political guardians. Some of the countries, like Cuba, are rather open for visitors to explore on their own; others, like North Korea, certainly are not. Yet in other places, like in Iraq, the security situation limits where a traveller can safely wander.

Some of the best parts of the book are when Tony Wheeler ruminates about the historical and political events that have shaped these countries to become what they are. Here he is able to demonstrate his knowledge of history and understanding of the societies acquired over decades of travel and interest in international affairs. His casual way of relating the stories is appealing.

Towards the end, Tony Wheeler introduces his Evil Meter(tm) that he then applies to the countries that he has visited. The tool measures countries on three basic scales: how well they treat their own citizens, whether they promote terrorism, and whether they pose threats to their neighbours. He then doles out one extra point to countries with significant personality cults. Rated on this scale, North Korea emerges as the worst of the lot and Cuba scores hardly any points. The book was published in 2007 and does not therefore reflect some of the more recent events (for example the Iranian election debacle of June 2009 or the hero's welcome to Al-Meghrahi, the alleged Lockerbie bomber, to Libya). Whether these would change the results in any way is debatable. One could also criticize the Evil Meter for paying too much attention to terrorism and threats to neighbours (after all, these two are arguably related) and too little to, say, oppression of women. Despite its appalling performance on the latter front, Saudi Arabia emerges almost unscathed!

In the final chapter, Wheeler discusses other bad-lands candidates and, rightly, lists many a country that could be perhaps worse than those visited by him for this book. Somalia, Sudan, Zaire/Congo and Zimbabwe in Africa range from failed states to dictatorships where citizens' human rights are routinely violated. Others, such as Haiti, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, are pretty bad and Wheeler also lists Pakistan as a noteworthy contender for the status. He also speculates about what scores would the United States of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney acquire, but unfortunately doesn't provide a rating. Finally, and in my mind correctly, he concludes that there is "the combo that is arguably the baddest Bad Land of them all": Israel/Palestine.