Salon Wanderlust | Rickshaws I have loved

[Salon Wanderlust: Travel with a passion]

A L S O__T O D A Y

This week in Travel
Wanderlust presents a selective guide to the week's travel-related news.

T A B L E_T A L K
Learning Spanish in South America: Weigh in on the best places to study in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk

R E C E N T L Y
Chasing rickshaws
By Tony Wheeler
Images and impressions of people-powered transport in 12 Asian cities
(10/22/98)
How Europe changed my life
By Hank Hyena
A summer odyssey affects a young Republican in the most unexpected way
(10/21/98)
Rights of passion
By Leah Kohlenberg Contrary to popular lore, sometimes casual sex is just what a female traveler wants
(10/20/98)
Going native in Mongolia
By Julie Vallone
A horseback journey across the Mongolian steppes becomes an odyssey through time
(10/18/98)
Señor Gringo
By Maxine Schur
An innocent encounter turns crazy for two travelers and a heartbroken, gun-toting Mexican sheriff
(10/16/98)

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Wanderlust Passages archives

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RICKSHAWS I HAVE LOVED | PAGE 1, 2
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In your decades of Asian travel, you must have taken a lot of rickshaw rides. Is there one that stands out in your mind?
Ten years ago, when I was in Indonesia with my two kids, we'd been out to see a shadow-puppet play on the outskirts of Yogyakarta. By the time we were on our way back to the hotel, it was getting on toward midnight and the traffic was light, so we thought, "Let's take a rickshaw back." Now if we were Indonesians, it would have been two adults and two kids all crammed into one rickshaw. But we thought, "Oh, poor guys, we'll take two rickshaws." So we split up, two in each rickshaw. The two guys immediately got this idea to race back to our hotel. So they were charging all over, weaving in and out of each other, and getting up a serious sweat. I mean, it was hard work, but the kids thought it was fantastic and it was all really good fun. The Indonesian rickshaws are the last ones you want to race in. They're a sort of heavy, sedated rickshaw. There are other designs that are more race-worthy.
One of the things I like about "Chasing Rickshaws" is that it dovetails with the whole Asian theme of Lonely Planet's history -- how your first book was on Asia 25 years ago -- and then the fact that it's a people's transportation system: very traditional, rooted in the ground; it seems very Lonely Planet-ish to me.
Yeah. It would have been so easy to go and take a thousand photographs, and do a book on "Beautiful San Francisco," "Beautiful Thailand" or "Wonderful Anything Else," but I didn't want to do that. You can't get the photographs and then make an idea from them. You really have to have some sort of theme that chases all the way through and then get the photographs.
The Lonely Planet "empire" started out with the guidebooks and then went into other areas, including literary books and TV specials. Is there any other direction Lonely Planet is branching into?
Yes, we are now producing a series of in-flight videos, in conjunction with one airline, that they'll play just before you arrive in a city. We're doing this with one airline, but we own the videos, and our intention eventually is to offer them to other airlines as well. I mean, why should an airline want to make an arrivals video for every city they go to? So we'll do it for them. This seems especially good for smaller airlines.
What's the biggest challenge for Lonely Planet now?
I suppose the competition -- we've got to keep on top of that all the time. You've got to constantly be looking at what's good and what isn't, and how you can improve things all the time. I mean, technology is constantly hammering at your head.
How do you see the Web site dovetailing with the rest of what you do?
With a Web site, you can't have it not cover everything. You can't have, well, blanks on the map. When you click on the map, something has to come up. So we've ended up researching some things for the Web before we had them on paper yet. For example, on our site we had to cover all the islands in the Caribbean, even though we haven't quite got a book on every island in the Caribbean yet. One sort of drives the other.
And there's a lot of talk about electronic versions of books, and updating books electronically. We're producing on-the-Web updates now. If you bought the book six months ago, here's an update you can just download off the Web. But we don't want to compete with the bookstores. The books are still for sale there, and the update of them is available on the Web.
What other things are you doing with your content?
Much of what we've been doing in recent years involves the reuse of existing material. You do a San Francisco guide, and then San Francisco goes into a California guide, and then it goes into a U.S.A. guide, so you're using the same thing three times and sometimes even more. But I also think there's the increasing realization that so much stuff which you produce in one fashion, you could reuse in another. And if you're doing it in one language, why not do it in another language? We use it in English, and then we use it again in French. I mean, it's going to go the opposite way, the books that we're doing in French are going to come into English. There's lots of potential in all those things.
How much of the year are you on the road these days?
I travel about six months a year. Actually, I started writing a diary of how much I travel and what I do every day in June 1996. It was meticulously time-consuming; it took me about 20 minutes every day to write this damn thing up. It was a record of every day that year, of where I'd stayed, when I'd been at home and when I'd been in hotels and when I'd spent nights on planes. One of the things I learned is that I spent an amazing number of nights on planes -- 12 -- which is a fair percentage of the year. Once I'd done it for a year, I didn't keep the diary up anymore, but I did continue to note down where I stayed every night to see how many nights were at home, how many nights camping, how many nights on planes. I mean, the second year was also 12 or 13 nights in planes. It's like losing a night a month, basically.
Do you have any other personal dreams like "Chasing Rickshaws" that you want to work on?
Oh, I've got no shortage of projects. Earlier this year, I had a go at writing a book for our "Journeys" travel series, about a particularly memorable trip I once did. The editors sent it back to me saying it's not good enough yet. So I better work on that some more. It may never come out; maybe I'm just not cut out for that sort of writing. But I'm not going to publish it just because I wrote it; it's got to be good enough.
SALON | Oct. 23, 1998


	A L S O__T O D A Y This week in Travel Wanderlust presents a selective guide to the week's travel-related news. T A B L E_T A L K Learning Spanish in South America: Weigh in on the best places to study in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Chasing rickshaws By Tony Wheeler Images and impressions of people-powered transport in 12 Asian cities (10/22/98) How Europe changed my life By Hank Hyena A summer odyssey affects a young Republican in the most unexpected way (10/21/98) Rights of passion By Leah Kohlenberg Contrary to popular lore, sometimes casual sex is just what a female traveler wants (10/20/98) Going native in Mongolia By Julie Vallone A horseback journey across the Mongolian steppes becomes an odyssey through time (10/18/98) Señor Gringo By Maxine Schur An innocent encounter turns crazy for two travelers and a heartbroken, gun-toting Mexican sheriff (10/16/98) Browse the Wanderlust Passages archives S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.		RICKSHAWS I HAVE LOVED \| PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In your decades of Asian travel, you must have taken a lot of rickshaw rides. Is there one that stands out in your mind? Ten years ago, when I was in Indonesia with my two kids, we'd been out to see a shadow-puppet play on the outskirts of Yogyakarta. By the time we were on our way back to the hotel, it was getting on toward midnight and the traffic was light, so we thought, "Let's take a rickshaw back." Now if we were Indonesians, it would have been two adults and two kids all crammed into one rickshaw. But we thought, "Oh, poor guys, we'll take two rickshaws." So we split up, two in each rickshaw. The two guys immediately got this idea to race back to our hotel. So they were charging all over, weaving in and out of each other, and getting up a serious sweat. I mean, it was hard work, but the kids thought it was fantastic and it was all really good fun. The Indonesian rickshaws are the last ones you want to race in. They're a sort of heavy, sedated rickshaw. There are other designs that are more race-worthy. One of the things I like about "Chasing Rickshaws" is that it dovetails with the whole Asian theme of Lonely Planet's history -- how your first book was on Asia 25 years ago -- and then the fact that it's a people's transportation system: very traditional, rooted in the ground; it seems very Lonely Planet-ish to me. Yeah. It would have been so easy to go and take a thousand photographs, and do a book on "Beautiful San Francisco," "Beautiful Thailand" or "Wonderful Anything Else," but I didn't want to do that. You can't get the photographs and then make an idea from them. You really have to have some sort of theme that chases all the way through and then get the photographs. The Lonely Planet "empire" started out with the guidebooks and then went into other areas, including literary books and TV specials. Is there any other direction Lonely Planet is branching into? Yes, we are now producing a series of in-flight videos, in conjunction with one airline, that they'll play just before you arrive in a city. We're doing this with one airline, but we own the videos, and our intention eventually is to offer them to other airlines as well. I mean, why should an airline want to make an arrivals video for every city they go to? So we'll do it for them. This seems especially good for smaller airlines. What's the biggest challenge for Lonely Planet now? I suppose the competition -- we've got to keep on top of that all the time. You've got to constantly be looking at what's good and what isn't, and how you can improve things all the time. I mean, technology is constantly hammering at your head. How do you see the Web site dovetailing with the rest of what you do? With a Web site, you can't have it not cover everything. You can't have, well, blanks on the map. When you click on the map, something has to come up. So we've ended up researching some things for the Web before we had them on paper yet. For example, on our site we had to cover all the islands in the Caribbean, even though we haven't quite got a book on every island in the Caribbean yet. One sort of drives the other. And there's a lot of talk about electronic versions of books, and updating books electronically. We're producing on-the-Web updates now. If you bought the book six months ago, here's an update you can just download off the Web. But we don't want to compete with the bookstores. The books are still for sale there, and the update of them is available on the Web. What other things are you doing with your content? Much of what we've been doing in recent years involves the reuse of existing material. You do a San Francisco guide, and then San Francisco goes into a California guide, and then it goes into a U.S.A. guide, so you're using the same thing three times and sometimes even more. But I also think there's the increasing realization that so much stuff which you produce in one fashion, you could reuse in another. And if you're doing it in one language, why not do it in another language? We use it in English, and then we use it again in French. I mean, it's going to go the opposite way, the books that we're doing in French are going to come into English. There's lots of potential in all those things. How much of the year are you on the road these days? I travel about six months a year. Actually, I started writing a diary of how much I travel and what I do every day in June 1996. It was meticulously time-consuming; it took me about 20 minutes every day to write this damn thing up. It was a record of every day that year, of where I'd stayed, when I'd been at home and when I'd been in hotels and when I'd spent nights on planes. One of the things I learned is that I spent an amazing number of nights on planes -- 12 -- which is a fair percentage of the year. Once I'd done it for a year, I didn't keep the diary up anymore, but I did continue to note down where I stayed every night to see how many nights were at home, how many nights camping, how many nights on planes. I mean, the second year was also 12 or 13 nights in planes. It's like losing a night a month, basically. Do you have any other personal dreams like "Chasing Rickshaws" that you want to work on? Oh, I've got no shortage of projects. Earlier this year, I had a go at writing a book for our "Journeys" travel series, about a particularly memorable trip I once did. The editors sent it back to me saying it's not good enough yet. So I better work on that some more. It may never come out; maybe I'm just not cut out for that sort of writing. But I'm not going to publish it just because I wrote it; it's got to be good enough. SALON \| Oct. 23, 1998