News from the North

The BYT warrants a description of its own. 20 tons, 1500L of fuel, 500L of water in jerry cans, two winches, tools and sand mats, wood compartment, three axles (two drive), four spare tires. PK, Shirray, and Mick drive up in the cab: we sit in the back. Communication via buzzer and intercom. Seating's divided into three pairs of bus seats at the front and two long benches at the back, two steps between levels. Two big bins at the back hold safes and sleeping gear. Storage space behind webbing at the top, under the seats, and under front floorboards. Food & dry goods stored below rear floorboards. There's enough space to stand comfortably at the back. Batteries (seperate from starter) power tape deck and lights for hours. Fridge runs only when engine does. Couple of other nooks and crannies for common storage. Garbage bin doubles as card table. Dramatis Personae * PK, New Zealand * Shirray, Australia * Mick, Australia * Heidi, England * Tony, England ...

In the truck, rain pelting on plastic around me, a long lazy day (except for cooking duty) ahead. Just what's needed after a fairly frenetic few days. Nice green campsite, lights, hot water, tous les conforts de home. Narrative: Another day of waiting in Rabat: roved the medina, read a paper, drank coffee, returned to the Bukimans, no BYT. Walked/taxiid/walked to hypermarket to get 'em a case of beer as a peace offering, toured the jewelry shops of Sale medina and ate w/ Tony + Heidi, returned & drank & chatted & crashed in Phil's tent. Next day - 24th - went for a walk up the beach & breakwater with Heidi, returned to find, drum roll, the big yellow truck. Lunch & rejoicing. Changed money in town and returned to the now-familiar Camping de la Plage. Clare of the Bukimans shaved a couple of heads and we said our goodbyes. Filled in some visa forms and played some guitar. Day trip to Casablanca was next, a needed break from Rabat. Casa is big, ugly, noisy...

Marooned, but the natives are friendly. Truck Africa remains strictly hypothetical, but we've been adopted by the good people of Bukima Africa, another trans-African group. Hopefully tonight/tomorrow. Chronological report: moonlit hustle thru Brixton to a Tube train's thankfully-reopened doors. 7AM passport chaos. Met Heidi, gave her her passport, recognized by Tony on embarkation. Touchdown on Gibraltar, and the Rock rearing up into most of the sky from the doorway of the plane. Hike way across airport runway - red lights that are never run - to tiny downtown. Shopping and money-changing and roving up Main repeatedly. The more we wait, the more the truck doesn't appear. Sleep deprivation and heat lead to a miasmic ferry journey to Tangier. The Pillars of Hercules on either side. Woke and climbed decks - wind of the Atlantic in my hair, broken chains of light along both sides, ship surging through the dark water. A bolt of red wrapping paper, caught and tossed into the sky ...

21 Tips For An Asian Invasion A tourist goes to a place and then returns home; but a traveller is at home wherever he may find himself. Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky Introduction In winter 1997 I spent a few months touring through Japan, Hong Kong, China and Indonesia. Below you will find my lessons and impressions. Japan Japan, land of contradictions. A place where Zen buddhists ride bullet trains. A nature-worshipping culture with one of the worst environmental records on the planet. A country where the denizens of the Tokyo-Yokohoma sprawl, a gargantuan Blade-Runner-meets-Disneyland urban jumble with more inhabitants than all of Canada, are glued to their TV sets each spring to track the flowering of cherry blossoms across the country. A land where pachinko parlors take in more money each year than the worldwide grosses of all the Hollywood movie studios combined. The safest place in the world for female travellers, where salarymen openly read sickeningly violent comic-boo...

I blog about developing-world technology at The Walrus , Canada's answer to The New Yorker , and science fiction at tor.com , the world's preeminent site for "science fiction, fantasy and related subjects." An index of my work at both: World Fast Forward at The Walrus : Inaugural introduction . Colombia's Mobile Revolution - Banking with your phone is a bigger deal than you might think. Better Dying Through Chemistry - How to ruin entire nations and destroy untold millions of lives. The Donkey And The Ninja - No donkeys were harmed in the making of this post. But I cannot say the same about ninjas. A Man, A Plan, A Canal - How to run and ruin megaprojects. There's Gold In Them There Trees - How do you patent indigenous knowledge? Big Brother Is Watching Them. OK? - In which I reflect on having been mugged at gunpoint. One Laptop Per Child: What Went Wrong - Its fundamental problems are twofold: 1. It was a bad idea to begin with. 2. The XO laptop is a ...

Atom and RSS feeds are available. I write about lots of things - you'll find a rant about what's wrong with Africa , an essay on computer security , a contemplation of the joys of being punched in the face and an idiosyncratic guide to Los Angeles - but for the most part, this is a travel blog. I've spent a good chunk of the last decade wandering around the planet, and this is where I write about what I've seen. In 1997 I mounted an Asian Invasion : both style and content of my writeup are dated, but the pictures are pretty. Then, in 1998, I spent six months travelling across Africa: I never wrote this up properly (unless you count my first published novel ) but I did keep a travel journal and took photographs . In autumn 2000 I returned to Asia, visited Delhi, Veranasi, and the Taj Mahal , trekked around Nepal's Annapurna Circuit , rafted the mighty Sun Kosi river, and explored the not-so-Black-Hole of Calcutta , and then took up scuba diving in Thailand . In...