Common Sense and Whiskey

Recommended Reading: Where the West Ends

Fun new book from Michael J. Totten. Fun, that is, if your idea of thrills is a drive from Turkey into Iraq for lunch.

Where the West Ends expands on Mr. Totten's Dispatches blog for World Affairs Journal. There are sections roughly grouped as the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Black Sea.

Many authors seem to believe they won't be taken seriously unless their work is laden with ponderous history. When well written, like in some of my suggestions below, that's  worthwhile. When it's not, it's the reason tons of books are returned to the shelf half-finished.

In Where the West Ends, Mr. Totten mostly allows a cursory sketch of the past to suffice. I suspect that satisfies armchair travelers. Then he gets on with the travel writing I like best, what it feels like to get up from that chair and actually go to a place, and what it's like, personally, to be there.

Should Mr. Totten's book pique your interest, here are some suggestions for deeper reading:

- Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War by Thomas de Waal
- Azerbaijan Diary by Thomas Goltz
- Georgia Diary by Thomas Goltz
- Towers of Stone: The Battle of Wills in Chechnya by Wojciech Jagielski
- Bread and Ashes: A Walk Through the Mountains of Georgia by Tony Anderson
- Rebel Land: Unravelling the Riddle of History in a Turkish Town by Christopher de Bellaigue
- In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran by Christopher de Bellaigue
- Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic Anglo-American Coup by Christopher de Bellaigue
- Black Sea by Neil Ascherson
- The Black Sea: A History by Charles King

Along the Georgia Military Highway, Republic of Georgia

And here, in five installments, are excerpts from Common Sense and Whiskey, the book,  about our trip through the southern Caucasus:

1: Getting to Armenia
2: Yerevan to Tbilisi
3: Tbilisi and the Georgian Military Highway
4: The High Caucasus & the Russian Border
5: Baku

Order the entire book for $9.99 at Amazon.com, at BN.com, or the Kindle version (just $4.99).

See many more photos of the South Caucasus in the Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan Galleries at EarthPhotos.com.

 

Balkan Update

Laurence Mitchell has been in the Balkans researching an update to his Bradt Guide to Serbia. See his writing and photography on his blog East of Elveden. Outstanding.

New Books on Geography, Well Reviewed

Adam Gopnik has a terrific piece in The New Yorker reviewing recent books Why Geography Matters: More than Ever by Harm J de Blij and The Revenge of Geography by Robert D. Kaplan.

As a schoolboy, I avoided reading an assigned book by de Blij. As a somewhat older geography fan leavened by having actually seen some of the planet's geography, I bought Why Geography Matters. Now I'll read Kaplan's book, albeit with more wariness after his detour into NeoCon-hood than with the rapt admiration I paid his thoroughly inspiring Balkan Ghosts.

Adam Gopnik gets the thrilling expanse of geography just right, evoking Atilla the Hun, Ghengis Khan and historians to imaginative effect, and all with a sense of humor:

"Southern peoples are sweaty and stolid, mountain dwellers are springy and defiant ... Russians always want a warm weather port and will always have a huddled, suspicious culture whether Tsarist, Soviet, or Putinish."

Read Gopnik. It's twenty minutes well worth your time.

Two New Things to Read

One's on the web, the other's a book.

Enjoy Where is Cuba Going? by John Jeremiah Sullivan, in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. It's long and meandering, in a good way. Sullivan is as flummoxed by the Florida Cuban community and the embargo as everybody else is, except the Florida Cuban community and anybody who has to navigate through them toward election.

Just one thing - he writes:

"Barack Obama was going to open things up, and he did tinker with the rules regarding travel, but now they say that when you try to follow these rules, you get caught up in all kinds of forms and tape."

Since his wife is Cuban, he can enter Havana under rules that are different from the ones we used on our visit a few months back, so he wouldn't have any experience with the new rules. For the record, there is a little more paperwork than, say, flying to Paris, akin to the kinds of things you have to file to visit, say, Belarus.But it's no big deal.

And staring down the epic Cuban Embargo had us anxious and alert re-entering Miami, but immigration couldn't have been more bored to see us. We might as well have brought along those Cuban cigars I left behind.

•••••

I've also just been reading, and recommend Chasing the Devil: A Journey Through Sub-Saharan Africa in the Footsteps of Graham Greene by Tim Butcher. Tim Butcher is a former British newspaper reporter and war correspondent now living in South Africa, who has that knack for travel in places you probably don't want to visit.

His previous book, Blood River: The Terrifying Journey Through The World's Most Dangerous Country, in which he retraced Henry Morton Stanley's 1870 trek, was harrowing. In the new book Butcher sets out to cross Sierra Leone and Liberia. There's a particularly frightening section, and touching tribute, to two friends killed while reporting in Sierra Leone in 2000.

It's good stuff. Both Butcher books are worth a read.

More Good Reads, Relevant Links

Lawrence Sheets covered the demise of the former Soviet Union for NPR. He writes his memoir in a brisk, non-academic style that's just right for the interested lay person. It's a quick read; Took me only a weekend and Monday. He includes what must be all his greatest hits, his quick trip to Afghanistan, a trip to Sakhalin Island in the Russian far east, visiting the Chernobyl exclusion zone, but I'm particularly drawn to his Caucasus reporting.

He makes my modest story on the southern Caucasus, recounted in CS&W, appear callow, and I appreciate him for it. It's exciting to get background on some of the places we visited a few years after he did, in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia (even a tiny place we visited, Dzoroget in Armenia, athough he visited under entirely different circumstances). His coverage of Abkhazia's succession from Georgia is admittedly maybe not general interest, but I loved it.

He reported that little war along with his friend and fellow reporter Thomas Goltz, who has written his own books, and if you read their accounts alongside each other, you get a real, exciting sense of what went on at that fraying edge of the Soviet empire.

The books:

Eight Pieces of Empire by Lawrence Scott Sheets
Georgia Diary by Thomas Goltz

Similarly, you can read Sheets on Armenia alongside Christopher de Bellaigue's Rebel Land, (earlier post) which is set just across Armenia's western border in Turkey, for a richer understanding of the Armenian genocide question, and Sheets on Armenia alongside Thomas de Waal's richly reported Black Garden (that's what "Karabakh" means), which is set just across Armenia's eastern border in Azerbaijan for a better understanding of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Go ahead and polish off your expertise about the southern Caucasus with:

- Bread and Ashes by Tony Anderson. Travels in Georgia.

Also in the region, see
- Towers of Stone by Wojciech Jagielski, reporter for the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza,
- The Man who Tried to Save the World by Scott Anderson, about aid worker Fred Cuny in the north Caucasus, 
- Chienne de Guerre by Anna Nivat, incredibly brave war reporting from Chechnya,
- Beslan: The Tragedy of School Number 1 by Timothy Phillips on the nightmare in North Ossetia,
- Thomas Goltz's other books Azerbaijan Diary and Chechnya Diary,
- Thomas de Waal's other book The Caucasus: An Introduction,
- and Christopher de Bellaigue's In the Rose Garden of  the Martyrs , a memoir of Iran. de Bellaigue writes beautifully, and after all, Iran borders Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh.

Finally, to stay up to date, there's the International Crisis Group's North and South Caucasus reporting. (Lawrence Sheets is ICG Project Director for the South Caucasus these days) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Caucasus section. 

 

Common Sense and Whiskey, the Book - Malawi, Chapter Fourteen

Here is Chapter Fourteen of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book, including a journey on the famous MV Ilala across Lake Malawi. We're publishing each chapter here on the blog (Track down previous chapters here). You can order the entire book for just $9.99 at Amazon.com, at BN.com, or direct from EarthPhotos Publishing. Here's the Kindle version (just $4.99). Click these photos to make them bigger. More photos and additional commentary are available at A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion. And here's the Malawi Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

14 LAKE MALAWI

“On your right is area 50. This here is area 28, light industrial area. Across the road there is fertilizer factory and tobacco factory. That is heavy industrial area.”

The national police headquarters came into view on the right.

“That is area 40.”

Just across the street, “Area 43,” Everlasting explained, “Is low industrial. It used to be only area ten, and area ten is still there, but it is full, so they have made area 43.”

“We also have names but our names are too long, so we just say, say, area 12.”

Malawi’s Ministries stood on the left.

“So, is that area 1?”

Logical, I thought.

“No, that is area 20.”

This went on all through Lilongwe.

“Ah, that is area 47. Up there, that’s area 49. National Bank. Bank of the Nation.” The tallest building in Malawi is the central bank.

“This is the Jehovah’s Witness headquarters in Malawi.”

•••••

When we met, our driver told us, “I am Everlasting.” We sort of looked away, and then we realized that was his name.

Everlasting was a slow, deliberate speaker, easy enough to understand once you got acclimated. His “S’s” kind of trailed off.

Azawad Doesn't Sound as Fun as Timbuktu

Whether you're one of Robert D. Kaplan's critics or admirers, his piece yesterday was a useful primer on the lay of the land, and the feel of things in the Sahara.

Those of us who are reluctant to vacation in a place they might be killed are crossing Timbuktu off our lists, at least for now. As a substitute, I recommend Angry Wind, by Jeffrey Tayler. It's on my list of ten great adventure travel books.

Common Sense and Whiskey, the Book - Borneo, Chapter Thirteen

Here is Chapter Thirteen of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book. We're publishing each chapter here on the blog (Track down previous chapters here). You can order the entire book for just $9.99 at Amazon.com, at BN.com, or direct from EarthPhotos Publishing. Here's the Kindle version (just $4.99). Click these photos to make them bigger. More photos and additional commentary are available at A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion. And here's the Malaysia Gallery (including Borneo) at EarthPhotos.com.

13 BORNEO

A fine young man with a Yesus Kristus medallion bouncing around beneath his mirror drove us the seven or so kilometers into Mt. Kinabalu park, through the sleeping village of Kundasang. Farmers congregated at a warren of tin-roofed stalls along the main road. It looked like a good day for green tomatoes, potatoes, and cabbage.

They hauled us all in bas minis from the ranger station to the trailhead. From there, a six-kilometer trail led up to our destination, the Laban Ratah guest house, at 11,000 feet. At 13,432 feet, Mt. Kinabalu’s summit, in Malaysian Borneo, is the highest point in Southeast Asia.

The first kilometer (the trail was marked at each 1/2 kilometer) popped by in 23 minutes. We were flyin’, and all that stuff about how hard this would be was just talk. The first kilometer, we only stopped long enough to shed our wraps.

Just at first the trail led downhill, charming, to a cool, wet place called Carson’s Falls. On the way down the mountain, conversely, having to climb at the end was just one last kick in the butt on the way out the door.

Still before 8:00 a.m. no sunlight had fought its way to the forest floor. The air was downright chilly once our shirts turned sweaty. And they did — at the first K marker they weren’t soaked through, but a breeze blew down the rise and chilled our damp skin.

We were cocky, jaunty, making tracks, and unappreciative of the flora, except the little violet flower of the Kinabalu Balsam, which was shaped more like it had a beard than lower petals.

The massif stood silent and still, the only sounds birds or a rustling squirrel. There are no monkeys on Mt. Kinabalu. They live nearer the sea, to the east.

 

 The Summit of Mt. Kinabalu, 13,435 feet.

Good Reads

Christopher de Bellaigue is a pleasure. I've really enjoyed his Rebel Land, which details his search for truth on the Turkey/Armenia question. Okay, that may not be mass appeal stuff, but I'm personally interested, and he has an entirely engaging style.

After he lived in Turkey, de Bellaigue lived in Tehran, and another of his books, In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs, is on the next-to-read list. Got to get on with it, though, because his next book comes in May. It's about the coup against Mossadegh.

But both those books have stiff competition.

Two books arrived at the farm this week: The Unconquered by Scott Wallace and Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. The Unconquered is subtitled In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes, and it's one of these stories of adventure and peril in the jungle. Katherine Boo's book is subtitled Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. There are lengthy online excerpts for both.

Have a look: Here's Scott Wallace, and here's Katherine Boo.

The Things You Miss When You're Away

Catching up on a few things, since we've been away:

- It seems that the archepelagic nation of Kiribati has bought 25 square kilometres on Viti Levu, the main Fijian island, in case, well, Kiribati disappears. Climate change insurance.

- Nice piece from photographer Tim McKulka on the two Sudans. He spent five years traveling and taking pictures there. That's dedication.

- The closest land is Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, 1,090 miles (1,750 km) away. It's the most remote island in the world.

- This looks pretty terrible, even outdoing Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World (which, by the way, is free on Kindle).

- Looks like the northern - and southern - lights were active while we were away from the internet in Cuba. It's hard to believe this photo is real.

Unsettling Weekend Reading

We've all done trips that were ... less fabulous ... than others. (Funny: Search "worst travel" on Amazon and the Lonely Planet guide to Ukraine comes in at number twelve.) Let's just say these are trips that involve more trials than, oh, losing your luggage. I can nominate my friend who had to have an emergency appendectomy in the Soviet Union in the mid-80's, for example. No, no, he didn't speak Russian.

Farther along on the scale, maybe, here's the Amazon description of the book The Worst Journey in the World: "hoping that the study of penguin eggs would provide an evolutionary link between birds and reptiles - a group of explorers left Cardiff by boat on an expedition to Antarctica. Not all of them would return. Written by one of its survivors, (this book) tells the moving and dramatic story of the disastrous expedition."

But the really worst worst trip might have been this one. Enjoy reading about it in front of your cozy, warm fireplace this weekend.

•••••

And then there's Cruise Passengers Overboard. Somebody out there has it in for mega-ships even more than me. They describe their site as "a comprehensive list of known cases of persons falling or jumping overboard since 1995. " This thing must take a lot of work. It's up to date as recently as seven days ago.

 

Adventure Travel Book Recommendation

Not a review, because I've just begun this book, but here's a recommendation. Looks like this bookmay be fun. In preparation for a trip up above the Arctic Circle later this month, we're doing our diligence. There's not a great body of work on Lapland to be found. (The polar regions are better covered. Sara Wheeler has two books, Terra Incognito about the Antarctic and her newer, The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle, which came out earlier this year to middling reviews.) There's also a chapter on Greenland in my book.

The Northern Lights is a nearly ten year old book (I'm reading the Kindle version). The author, Lucy Jago, opens with an 1899 scientific expedition into the Arctic Circle led by a Norwegian scientist named Kristian Olaf Birkeland. It's written in that breathless, play-by-play, you-were-there style, and it's really convincing. Can't say more at this point, until I've read a bit further, but right off the bat it conveys two key salient points about our upcoming adventure. Lapland in winter is dark. And cold. Here's how cold, at the moment.

Get Yer Free Books

Here's some fun: I'm giving away eight copies of my book Common Sense and Whiskey on Goodreads, between now and next weekend. U.S. residents can sign up here to win a copy.

Then, after the winners have had a chance to read the book, I'll be hosting a discussion about adventure travel in general and the book specifically, also on Goodreads, between 10 & 20 December. Drop by here and sign up to join in the discussion, then suggest some cool topics for discussion.

You'll need to sign up for a Goodreads account if you don't have one, but it's quick, free and easy - just an email address and a password - and it's really a neat web community for readers. And speaking of readers, I've just gotten my shiny new Kindle Fire from the UPS man. First impression is favorable. I'll read a book or two and tell you more.

And, of course, you don't HAVE to wait to see if you win a copy of the book. The Kindle version is here and the plain old hardback is here.

Cartophilia

We're cartophiles here. Browse some previously recommended websites, including especially the Strange Maps and Worldmapper websites, and a charming little book called The Atlas of Remote Islands.

Here's a nice new find: the book Maphead is great. Get yourself a copy. From the Kindle version, here's part of a chart called "separated at birth." Good stuff.

Common Sense and Whiskey is Now on Kindle

Great news: Common Sense and Whiskey, the book, is now available from the Kindle store. Get yours right here.

Or, get the book version.

And coming next week, we'll publish Chapter Nine from the book here on the blog. It's our exploration of Sri Lanka, in which Nandinga smokes cigarettes like the French do in old movies, between forefinger and thumb, and I ask Tyrone:

"When does the monsoon come?"

"End of April, sir."

"Is it ever late?"

"It is always late, sir."

Ten Top Adventure Travel Books

See what you think of my list of ten top adventure travel books on Amazon.

Travel Adventure Book, Chapter 4: Bhutan, on Common Sense and Whiskey This Weekend

Holiday treat: We'll publish Common Sense and Whiskey Chapter Four: Bhutan, over the coming U.S. Independence Day weekend. In the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon we tour a nearly infinite number of monasteries, drive (very slowly) across the country and have to wait at the Pele Pass for the road to be dynamited, seen here:

We'll be publishing each chapter of Common Sense and Whiskey over the course of the summer (Track down previous chapters here). The accompanying photos, and additional commentary are available at A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion.

Common Sense and Whiskey on the Radio

Here's excerpts from today's radio interview about Common Sense and Whiskey, the book, on WUTC Chattanooga. Many thanks to the interviewer, Michael Edward Miller. Click to play the mp3.

Common Sense And Whiskey Radio Interview     

 

Virtual Book Tour

  Thanks to WUTC, the NPR affiliate in Chattanooga, for today's   interview about Common Sense and Whiskey, the book. Good folks over there. I'll have excerpts here soon.

CS&W on Flickr

There's a new Flickr set to compliment A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion. The photos on Flickr are the ones in Common Sense and Whiskey, the book, although the photos in the book are in black and white. A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion has a bunch of extra photos.