Word: balies
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...tourists they try to avoid. The overcrowding and bottlenecks are at their worst in Asia, the destination of choice since Wheeler and his wife Maureen released the first Lonely Planet book, Across Asia on the Cheap, in 1973. A well-worn trail links beaches in Goa (India), Boracay (Philippines), Bali (Indonesia) and southern Thailand and the peaks of Yangshuo (China) and Kathmandu (Nepal). In such numbers, backpackers can't help but trample culture and nature, whatever their environmental beliefs. "They tend to be like sheep, all going to the same places," admits Tony Wheeler. "That is a negative...
Nearly 30 years on, Wheeler concedes that backpackers have helped ruin parts of Asia. "The place I always look at is Kuta beach on Bali," says the 54-year-old Australian. "It was really quite a wonderful place, and I go back now and think, 'What a hellhole.'" His books bear some responsibility, he admits. "We are an influence, there's no question of that, and maybe there wouldn't have been so many backpackers without us." But as visitor numbers climb each year, no one has any plans to stem the flood. Wheeler offers no grand solutions, sticking...
...extra recent thrill?rebels who kidnap foreigners for ransom. A local writer once said Bangladesh was a place where no one should ever have lived. He was only half joking. This is not a destination for relaxation, pampering or guided tours of picture-perfect settings. Leave that for Bali or the Bahamas. The country used to sell itself with the rather telling slogan: "Come to Bangladesh before the tourists." This is a land to make you think. Until it hurts...
...many conversations about Asia,” says Elizabeth Young, a friend who was writing a dissertation on economic development in Bali. “He was keenly concerned with how to be democratic, how to be modern, without being Western...
...sniff demonstration. When I select the cotton candy icon, a short blast from the iSmell scent synthesizer - which connects to a computer or game console - takes me back to the county fair. Some fragrances are better than others: ocean breeze tends more toward air freshener than the beaches of Bali...