Gadlinks for Friday 8.21.09

by Brenda Yun on


Hallelujah! The sun came out today and I am now eager to get out into the hot sun and soak in some rays (the good kind — UV, stay away). And the surf here in Peru is on the rise! Things are looking up, and it appears the travel news is pouring in as well. Have a look at these cool reads.

‘Til Monday, have a great weekend!

More Gadlinks HERE.

Travel Read: The Weight of Silence, Invisible Children of India

by Sean McLachlan on

If you’ve been to India you’ve seen them–they beg at the train stations, or collect plastic from the side of the road, or sell candy and tissues on the buses. They’re India’s 25 million abandoned children, and the ones you see count themselves lucky. Millions more are worked to death in sweatshops or brothels, or simply left in the wilderness to die.

The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India, a new book by Dog’s Eye View Media, explores the struggles of India’s homeless or orphaned children. Author Shelley Seale’s discovery of this human tragedy led her life in a whole new direction, and it is this that gives the book its impetus. Not only do we learn about the struggles of India’s children, and the living saints who dedicate their lives to helping them, but we watch Seale’s personal transformation from a Yuppie into something much more real.

Besides her personal story, two things really set this book apart from the “see the horrible things happening in the Third World” genre. Firstly, it takes a mostly positive spin. While Seale doesn’t flinch from the uglier side of Indian life, she focuses on the children’s resilience and dreams. They don’t come off as poor victims waiting for rich peoples’ help. Her main point is that these kids aren’t in need of handouts, but the basic human right of a childhood.

The second strong point is that the book is well grounded in fact, skillfully interwoven with the narrative so that it never slows down the writing. We learn such nasty tidbits such as that rural doctors give their patients the wrong medicine 50% of the time, or that only one in three rural medical practitioners know how to make rehydration solutions to treat diarrhea, and horrible statistics about child prostitution. All of these are carefully annotated.

The Weight of Silence is part travelogue, part expose, and gripping reading. The fact that this book shows deep respect for India’s people while not ignoring their faults sets this book apart. Even people who have traveled extensively in India will learn a lot.

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Mexico and being “Mexican Enough”

by Brenda Yun on

As the scare over the swine flu escalates and the border regions grow increasingly violent, it’s about time we put some perspective on what exactly is going on in Mexico. Just two months ago, I contemplated whether or not Mexico was a dangerous travel destination, and the thread of comments to the article sparked even more interest for me to see and experience Mexico for myself.

I’m talking about the heart of Mexico, mind you, not the touristy coastal towns or culturally rich Oaxaca. I want to see the part that few talk about, the REAL Mexico, where the social and political struggles are transparent, and the people are living and breathing Mexico in all its raw glory.

That’s exactly why I picked up Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s recent travel memoir, Mexican Enough. Having seen Griest read from this book last year, read and reviewed her other books (Around the Bloc and 100 Places Every Woman Should Go), and spoken with Griest over the phone, I felt I could identify with Griest as a solo female traveler paving her own path in wide open world. If I can’t right now travel to Mexico myself, I wanted to read about it from someone I could trust.
Griest’s own journey to Mexico took place over the course of several trips to various parts of the country between 2004-2006. While she had been so daring to travel to such countries as Russia, China, and Cuba, Griest had an overriding fear of her half-motherland. As a bi-racial child growing up in Mexico, Griest felt she was never quite Mexican enough, and opted to avoid traveling to Mexico altogether until she realized she was running away from her own half-reflection.

Mexican Enough covers such potent topics as being bi-racial, social politics, gender roles, and immigration. Griest is able to confront her Mexican heritage and accept that she is, in fact, Mexican enough. She enters parts of Mexico during a Red Alert, witnesses the post-election riots, and investigates the disturbing violence against gay and women rights movements throughout the country.

I really enjoyed Griest’s ability to weave together these different threads into an interesting — at times humorous, at others heartbreaking — tale. There’s much to be learned from reading Griest’s memoir, but most of all, Mexico clearly remains a fascinating and culturally rich place that everyone should experience at least once in their lives.

A friend of mine is a traveling nurse and has been spending the past three years on the Arizona-Mexico border, witnessing the devastating drug-related violence there. When I asked him if I could go down with him some time to see it for myself, he responded, “I don’t care if you interested in the air rescue that saves lives, the drug cartels, or the human casualties at the border, but the pain and suffering that goes with it would probably be enough for a normal American to go crazy. It’s not worth going down there for the story. It’s only worth it if you’re willing to risk your life to see just how precious life is and how peaceful it could/should be but is not.”

Luckily, Griest’s latest memoir helped to satisfy my thirst for the real Mexico. I’ll wait for my chance to see Mexico one day when it’s just a little safer.

Travel Read: Road Trip USA

by Brenda Yun on

Avalon Travel writer Jamie Jensen traversed the nation several times, testing various two-lane highways in the process, to bring road trippers the best (really, it’s the BEST) road trip guidebook for the U.S. to date. Road Trip USA, released this month, features eleven unique cross-country road trips. I would not only recommend this guidebook, I would insist that you buy it if you’re embarking on a U.S. road trip of any sort — or if you’re one of those information junkies needing a good fill of fun facts and historical tidbits.

North to south, east to west, Jensen really covers it all, and he includes helpful information about nearly every interesting town along the way as well as detours or side trips that are worthy of some extra time. The great American byways have never sounded so enticing and intriguing. There is one mega-book that includes all 11 trips (retail $29.95) and two smaller books (each $9.95) for the countries two most charted journeys: the Pacific Coast and Route 66.
Here’s a brief overview of Jensen’s 11 road trips:

  1. Pacific Coast: Route 1, otherwise known as the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway), spans the whole western coastline from Washington’s Olympic National Park through California’s rugged Lost Coast to San Diego. Forks, Washington, of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” fame, sits firmly along the PCH, so you can search high and low for vampires (or loggers) if you so please.
  2. Border to Border: Start way up north in Canada’s Jasper National Park and make your way through Banff, Sun Valley, and the Extraterrestrial Highway down to the Arizona-Mexico border. Little known fact: Hemingway wrote part of his famous For Whom the Bell Tolls in the Sun Valley Lodge.
  3. The Road to Nowhere: Follow the US-83 straight through the middle of the country from North Dakota to Texas. It’s all about the open road on this journey. Don’t know where the Chalk Pyramids or Monument Rocks are? Well, go and find them for yourself. Drinking is legal on the beach of one of the destinations on this route, too.
  4. The Great River Road: Follow the mighty Mississippi River to the deep south, and learn about some of America’s most iconic figures (Mark Twain or Elvis ring a bell?) You can find the world’s largest six-pack too, and I’m not talking about a hot guy, I’m talking about beer — a lot of it.
  5. Appalachian Trail: I considered maybe for a brief minute of hiking the whole Appalachian Trail, and while that would be an amazing feat, I think I’ll stick to pavement. Those who’ve accomplished the AT by foot talk about how grateful they were when they found “trail magic,” so you shouldn’t be surprised to find your own form of “road magic” — maybe in the form of food (diners aplenty), but more likely in the visual form (mountains beyond mountains).
  6. Atlantic Coast: Start at the Statue of Liberty and head along the the coast through eerie Savannah to the lively Florida Keys. Make sure you walk Jersey’s piers and try a night or two in one of the state’s many “Doo Wop”motels.
  7. The Great Northern: Something awfully mystical awaits you up north in places like Maine’s Acadia National Park and Montana’s Glacier National Park. If those don’t strike your fancy, there’s always the stunning Great Lakes in summer.
  8. The Oregon Trail: Niagara Falls, Yellowstone, the quintessential American cities of Boston and Chicago, Mt. Rushmore, the Great Plains, the Finger Lakes, Cape Cod. Yes, please.
  9. Loneliest Road: America’s backbone runs across such famed stretches as the Santa Fe Trail, Million Dollar Highway, and Pony Express Trail. You’ll be charting your own map, but journeying through some of the countries most gorgeous landscapes all by your lonesome. Don’t forget to bring your camara and don’t be afraid to get lost in the beauty of it all.
  10. Southern Pacific: This is the American south in all its glory. Deserts, swamps, spicy Tex-Mex food, and good old southern hospitality, where everything is biggest, sweeter, and just plain hot. You might want to brush up on your line dancing and donn that hat and those boots for some wild nights on the town.
  11. Route 66: John Steinbeck called it the “Mother Road.” Songs immortalized it as a place where you can “get your kicks.” Diners, roadside attractions, and motels are all just part of what gives it its character. From giant statues and Cadillac farms to barns and billboards, this most famous Route must be traveled at some point in your life. Why not let it be now?

If you’re traveling anywhere in the U.S. by car, rest assured Jensen’s got your destination covered. In many senses, you can bypass expensive single-State guidebook purchases and just invest in in this one comprehensive national guidebook. Check it out, really.

Gadling’s hosting a Road Trip USA giveaway in the next few days, so stay tuned for that as well as a “Talking Travel” Q&A with the series’ intrepid writer, Jamie Jensen himself.

Talking travel with David Grann

by Brenda Yun on

David Grann, author of the now New York Times Bestselling book “The Lost City of Z” and contributor to various publications such as The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, and Boston Globe, was gracious enough to set aside some precious time to correspond with me via email to talk travel and his latest travel and writing endeavors. This correspondence took place a few weeks ago, but I’ve only just now had the opportunity to post this Q&A.

BY: Thanks for taking time away from your busy book tour to correspond with Gadling. Where are you now, and what are your travel plans (both book and non-book related) for the coming year?
DG: I’ve been working on an article for The New Yorker that has led me to Texas and Oklahoma, two places I’ve never spent much time. I don’t yet know where my next destination will be, as I tend go wherever each new story leads me.


BY: Can you briefly describe for our Gadling readers the kind of traveler you are? How often do you travel? Where is your dream destination? What is your preferred mode of travel?

DG: As I describe in “The Lost City of Z,” I’m not an explorer or an adventurer. I don’t climb mountains or like to camp. But while I’m working on stories, I tend to go places and do things I never would otherwise. I’ve chased giant squid in a violent storm off the coast of New Zealand, crawled through tunnels thousands of feet beneath the street of Manhattan, and searched for a lost city in the middle of the Amazon. I never think of any of these places as my dream destination, but perhaps that is partly why I’m so drawn to them: they transport me into an unfamiliar world.
BY: Based on all of the failed missions to the Amazon to uncover the truth behind the Lost City of Z, why did you feel so compelled to embark on an expedition of your own?
DG: When I first started researching what has been described as “the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century,” I never thought that I would venture into the jungle. My intention was simply to write about Fawcett and the countless numbers who had perished trying to find evidence of his missing party and the City of Z. But one day, in the house of a Fawcett descendent, I uncovered a hidden trove of Fawcett’s diaries and logbooks. These held new clues about his fate and the whereabouts of Z. It was only then that I decided to do something totally out of character and head into the jungle.

BY: How would you qualify “The Lost City of Z” as a traveler’s tale?

DG: The book is partly a travelogue about a little known part of the world; it is also a biography of a once legendary explorer who has since been largely forgotten, and a guide to some of the archeological research that is exploding our perceptions about what the Americas really looked like before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.

BY: What did you learn about yourself as a writer/traveler? Would you do anything differently if you had another opportunity to travel in a similar fashion?
DG: I learned a lot about the nature of obsession. I had read about biographers who had been driven slightly mad by their subjects, and that’s how I sometimes felt chasing the specter of Fawcett. And if I could go back in time, the one thing I know I would do differently is make sure that I never became separated from my guide and got lost in the wilderness.


BY: The opening of your book describes an experience you had in the jungle when you felt you were in over your head. You asked yourself, “What am I doing here?” This is something nearly every traveler thinks at least once in their lives. Despite the fears and anxieties one might feel abroad, do you feel traveling is an essential part of the human experience? How so?

DG: I think that the desire to venture to distant places, and to hear stories about such journeys, are deeply ingrained in us. There is a reason why quests are so central to ancient myths and fairy tales, and why people for centuries have made journeys even at the risk of their own lives.

BY: What do you hope readers and travelers will learn from reading “The Lost City of Z”?

DG: I hope that they will learn not only about Fawcett, who was one of most daring and eccentric explorers ever to set foot in the Americas, but also about the Amazon-a wilderness area virtually the size of the continental United States. Even today, the Brazilian government estimates that there are more than sixty Amazonian tribes that have never been contacted by outsiders. Sydney Possuelo, who was in charge of the Brazilian department set up to protect Indian tribes, has said of these groups, “No one knows for sure who they are, where they are, how many they are, and what languages they speak.” In recent years, archeologists, using satellite imagery and ground penetrating radars to pinpoint buried artifacts, have begun to make discoveries that are overturning virtually everything that was once believed about the Amazon and its early inhabitants.

BY: What will be your next project? Has this book made you more or less ambitious to explore other parts or histories in the world?

DG: I’m still not sure what will be my next book. As with “The City of Z,” I often don’t realize I’m fully in the grip of a story, until I’m doing something I never thought I would, like following in the footsteps of an explorer who disappeared in the jungle some eighty years earlier. Yet researching the book-including studying the Victorian era and staying with many of the same Amazonian tribes that Fawcett had on his fateful journey–has only deepened my curiosity about the world.

Mr. Grann’s latest news and events can be found HERE. You can read my review of “The Lost City of Z” HERE. I would like to thank Mr. Grann taking time from his busy book tour and writing schedule to correspond with me, and look forward to his next installment.