F E A T U R E S

Bad Trips
By Don George, Editor

Visit Friendly Uzbekistan!
Duck the gunfire, bribe the officials, drink the Cipro
By Doug Fine

Big Island Blacktop
Chasing the heart of Hawaii
By Shirley Streshinsky
- Books on Hawaii
- Getting there

D E P A R T M E N T S

Romancing the Road
First Tango in Paris:
A romantic tale
By Jenn Shreve
- Books on Paris
- Getting there

Passages:
"Questions of Heaven"
Buddhist with a backpack
By Gretel Ehrlich

Table Talk
- Knowing the Japanese

Salon Taste
Adventures in eating

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Your virtual travel agency

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E A R L I E R

Tuesday April 22

A night from hell in Los Angeles
By Don George, Editor
Giving good gnocchi
By Linda Watanabe
McFerrin
Meeting Moses on Mount Sinai
By Deb Fellner
Passages:
"The River at the Center of the World"
By Simon Winchester
Postmark: Lamu
By Don Meredith
Readers' Tips
and Tales

A full list of all
Wanderlust articles

The art of wanderlust has a certain Zen aspect.

BY DON GEORGE | if you're a real traveler, you know that things sometimes go wrong when you venture out into the wild, wide world.

It may be that you arrive exhausted at the hotel only to find that your reservation has mysteriously disappeared and the place is full.

It may be that while you were flying to Paris, your luggage was flying to Penang.

It may be that you triumphantly reach the mountaintop village only to discover that the prize museum is closed because the museum-keeper has gone to a wedding in the village down the road.

Or if you are Doug Fine, the author of this week's cover story on Uzbekistan, it may be that soldiers fire rifles into the sky outside your hotel window, officials require bribes at every turn, and intrepid germs ceaselessly assault your body.

I have not been to Uzbekistan, but in two decades of globe-wandering, I have encountered my share of craziness on the road.

There was the time I was observing a demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy in Athens. Moving with the crowd, I ran into an alleyway -- and smack into the muzzle of a riot control tank.

There was the time I was bedridden in middle-of-nowhere, India, for three days, too weak to get beyond the bathroom in my hotel room. Finally, my wife hauled me to the airport and fought through the crowds to get us onto a plane. For me, that memory crystallizes in a single moment: My wife had propped me against a pillar while she ran off to get our tickets. Standing there, I could feel my legs turning to noodles, and I slowly slid down the length of the pillar, unable to stop my descent, like a character in a cartoon.

There was the time in Zanzibar when the pilot of a little two-seat propeller plane tried to show me some of his aerial expertise -- and ended up landing in the Indian Ocean instead of on the runway.

And then there are all the more benign problems -- the missed planes and trains and buses, the strandings in off-the-map hamlets, the robberies foiled and not, the scary wrong turns and stray avalanches.

As Doug Fine knows -- and as I suspect you know, too -- they're all a part of the traveler's world, the traveling life.

They don't keep us from setting out again. In fact, in some obscure way, I think they actually inspire us -- because they are further proof of the world's inexhaustible ability to surprise and enlighten.

And so I am pleased to present Doug Fine's real-life account of his travels -- and travails -- in Uzbekistan as part of a larger truth I have come to cherish through the years: They are all part of the Zen of wanderlust -- unflinchingly facing, assimilating and transcending whatever life zings your way.

Celebrating the planet means embracing the heavenly and the harrowing: The important thing is to travel with open eyes -- and with a large heart and a large mind.

I hope you enjoy this and the other tales in Wanderlust this week. And if you're inspired to recall a richly bad trip of your own, tell me about it! I may want to include your own tale in a future chapter of our ongoing editorial adventure.
April 29, 1997

Share your tales of miserable escapades abroad in Table Talk.

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Don George is the Editor of Wanderlust. You can e-mail him at dgeorge@salonmagazine.com.

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Salon Wanderlust is published every Monday evening at 6 p.m. PDT in Salon. Send all reader mail to wanderlust@salonmagazine.com. To receive a colorful weekly update on what's happening in Wanderlust, sign up here. Published articles are housed in the Wanderlust archives.