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Lonely Planet co-founder Tony Wheeler has gone where few tourists would dare to tread, visiting the so-called bad countries such as North Korea.
Fancy a romantic weekend in Iran? How about a stopover in Iraq or a mini-break in Afghanistan? And who could turn down a sojourn in sunny Libya or the sights of North Korea by coach?
Not Lonely Planet co-founder Tony Wheeler. When George Bush announced his "Axis of Evil", Wheeler was intrigued enough to leave his Hawthorn home and visit these so-called bad countries.
The result is Tony Wheeler's Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil. Instead of visiting gorgeous beach resorts in Thailand, art galleries in Paris or castles in England, Wheeler decided to travel to the world's "pariah counties", nations on the edge that most tourists wouldn't dream of visiting.
The result is a travel book with a difference, an intriguing tour through Afghanistan, Albania, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. They're some of the most dangerous destinations on the planet, yet Wheeler still doesn't see himself as particularly adventurous.
"I don't go in for all the chest beating about going to dangerous places," he says.
"I see myself as quite cautious, though I admit, going to Afghanistan and Iraq particularly is not viewed by most as totally sane and sensible."
While Wheeler, 60, is not overtly political in the book, he is well informed on world politics and lets his opinions be known. Of Australia's wheat board scandal over bribery money paid to Iraq, he writes:
"It was a king-size bribe and the politicians have been dancing the 'didn't happen on my shift' tango overtime.
"It's also prompted a storm of cartoons and jokes in the Australian press and provided a neat explanation for why the Australian Government was so easily convinced about those fictitious weapons of mass destruction (WMDs): they thought they'd paid for them."
Wheeler even rates the countries in the book by badness (see map), using his "Evil Meter". He tests each country on how it treats its citizens, whether it's involved in terrorism and if it is a threat to other countries. Then he rates them from zero ("perfect treatment") to three ("evil personified") on each category, with one extra point "for a good personality cult", making a possible 10 total.
However, the bulk of the book is not about politics or the flawed regimes that run the Bad Lands but a true traveller's tale of discovery, surprise, terrible hotel rooms and surprisingly good meals.
The prize for worst hotel room must go to the North Korean town of Chilbo:
"Our hotel comes with a fairly standard feature outside Pyongyang -- no running water. The bathtub was full of cold water and a plastic bowl is provided to scoop it out. Mix a couple of scoops of cold with the hot water from the vacuum flask, provided Chinese-style for making tea, and you have the ingredients for a shower."
However, what it lacked in facilities, the hotel made up for in entertainment, including a group of "party animals" from northeast China and an hilarious game of musical chairs.
Of the nine Bad Lands, Iraq and Afghanistan were the only ones in which Wheeler was worried for his safety.
"Iraq definitely had a different feel about it to other places. Anyone who goes there needs to keep their wits about them," he says, even though he did not venture into the country's really dangerous places, instead sticking to the relatively safe Kurdistan region.
He was surprised to find the internet fully operational in Iraq.
"The world wide web has certainly made life easier for travellers. I'm amazed someone hasn't written a book about the way the internet has affected our lives. Every country now has internet cafes, even though they are sometimes hard to find."
Afghanistan was the most dangerous of the Bad Lands. Shooting broke out on the streets while Wheeler was there but, luckily, he happened to be ensconced in the British embassy at the time.
As the guns boomed, Wheeler and European Union representative Barbara Stapleton sat in the embassy garden, sipping cool drinks.
"We were trying to use our mobiles to find out what was happening but couldn't get through. So we started talking about all these concerts we'd gone to in the 1970s, still sitting in the garden. It was surreal," he says.
Wheeler says he had a great time in almost all the places he visited, often because he didn't expect to or came across a remarkable sight that's not documented in guide books or museums. One of the best Bad Lands was Iran.
"Everyone I know who has been to Iran recently remarks on the friendliness of the people. There's so much history and pride in their culture. The buses are comfortable, the taxis work, the food is good -- what's not to like? I don't think it's a dangerous place at all."
Apparently, the worst thing about Iran is the traffic, complete with "suicidal pedestrians".
In Tehran, there's more gridlock than Bangkok, Seoul, Manila, Cairo and Riyadh put together. Then there's the national car, the Paykan (or "Arrow"), really a sort of cousin of the Hillman Hunter, "a chunky, polluting, unsafe menace and completely gutless compared with modern vehicles".
A central theme of the book is that despite the sometimes appalling regimes in power in many of the Bad Lands, the people are usually kind, interesting and receptive to tourists.
Lonely Planet was harshly criticised for reviving its guide to Burma -- also known as Myanmar -- and Wheeler fully admits the country's government is not a good one.
"From being the rice basket of Asia, Burma had spiralled steadily downwards to its present position as the basket case of Asia," he writes.
Yet, the Burmese people are "calm and resilient" and those he met there are some of the most entertaining characters in the book. Topping the list are the Moustache Brothers -- yes, they both have big moustaches -- who are entertainers who use a blend of traditional dances, music, jokes and slapstick. It's not all been fun, however. One brother, U Lu Maw, and a cousin were imprisoned for lampooning the military government.
"We're no longer allowed to perform," U Lu Maw tells Wheeler. "So we just give 'demonstrations'."
The roadside markets in Burma are remarkable, Wheeler says.
"If the Burmese economy was on its last legs, the farmers still seemed to be doing their jobs. In comparison, the markets in Cuba were miserable affairs, and if we'd seen a market in North Korea, we probably wouldn't have believed it."
While North Korea was austere, overly regulated and dire in many ways, Wheeler would still like to return. Not so his least favourite Bad Land, which was, surprisingly, Cuba.
Despite Havana's romantic reputation and burgeoning position as a tourism hot spot, Wheeler did not warm to Cuba as a whole.
"I really didn't like the separation of people into those with hard currency (tourists and the Cuban elite) and those without (most of the locals).
"Spanish companies come in and build resorts for European package tourists and meanwhile the local people can't get access to any of it."
The result, he says, is an extraordinary two-tier system whereby even the beaches and the shops are segregated.
While the shops for those with hard currency are stocked like 7-Elevens with "soft drinks, confectionery, instant foods, tissues, shampoos, toothpaste and more", the shops for those with common Cuban pesos are almost empty.
"There were never more than a half-dozen different items spread thinly across the shelves. Some mysterious liquid in a plastic bottle, some strange substance wrapped in shiny paper, not much choice," he writes.
In addition, Cuba is missing a vital ingredient that most other countries have: street food.
"There are no food stalls, no street markets, no vending machines."
Although the US forbids its citizens from visiting Cuba as tourists and can and does fine them for spending greenbacks there, they do so all the time via Canada or Mexico and by requesting Cuban immigration not to stamp their passports. However, trips for government business, journalism or study are allowed. There are even planes directly from Miami in the US to Havana or Santiago de Cuba, Wheeler says.
Saudi Arabia has had a lot of bad press, so it seems there's not much right about it:
"This is a country that beheads, mutilates and flogs people; that keeps women locked away and disenfranchised in almost every way possible; that has zero democratic rights, zero religious freedom and strict state censorship and media control."
Nor is it popular with other Arab nations, Wheeler writes.
"Only the Kuwaitis challenge the Saudis for most unpopular Arabs. It's partly wealth: the Saudis have it, most of the Arab world doesn't, and many Egyptians, Palestinians, Syrians and other less-wealthy Arabs end up working in Saudi Arabia where they're often poorly paid and badly treated."
So Wheeler was surprised that he enjoyed his trip there.
"There's a lot I don't like abut the country, but everybody I met, Saudi or expat, was polite, helpful and often friendly, and it was an intriguing place to visit."
He points out, however, that being a man made it easy for him to travel in Saudi Arabia. His wife Maureen, also an intrepid traveller and co-founder with him of Lonely Planet, refused to accompany him there.
"Lonely Planet recently sent a woman there to write the next guide, which I thought was a great move. Frances Linzee-Gordon (who writes Lonely Planet's Ethiopia guide) did the whole country, which will be interesting. She had better access to people than I did because she could talk to the women there."
Few tourists visit Libya, though its leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, has tried to get a tourism industry going since the mid-1990s. But Wheeler believes it has great potential.
"Libya could be huge. Greek history, Roman history, the battlefields of World War II, the old camel caravan towns, the rock-art sites in the desert and the romance of the Sahara and its remote oases," he writes.
Albania, once home to "one of the world's weirdest governments" led by Enver Hoxha until 1991, has some bizarre sights. Dotted throughout the country are tiny bunkers that paranoid Hoxha had built in case of attack.
Now, the hardy structures cannot be used for much, except to shelter animals or for illicit trysts.
"Albanian virginity is lost in a Hoxha bunker as often as American virginity was once lost in the back seats of cars," Wheeler writes.
Albania's greatest claim to fame, however, is as the birthplace of Mother Teresa. The capital city of Tirana even calls its airport after her (Tirana International Airport Nene Tereza). Incidentally, the airport has a well constructed website (www.tirana-airport.com) that says the airport has 11 shops and is serviced by 14 airlines, including British Airways. A new $81 million terminal will open this year to process a million travellers annually.
Of course, there are not just nine Bad Lands in the world. There are many more, according to Wheeler, including Zimbabwe, Congo, Pakistan and Syria and he is considering writing a Bad Lands II.
And watch out, Australia. As Wheeler says, we don't get a zero rating on the Evil Meter. Nor, of course do many other Western countries, including the US and France.
Meanwhile, he and Maureen have trips to the US and Europe coming up. Then Maureen's going to Ireland, where she and a group of travel writer friends are renting a castle.
And despite a lifetime of travelling, it seems there are still some places left for Wheeler: while Maureen is in Ireland, he's off to Africa to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Tony Wheeler's Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil (Lonely Planet, $29.95)
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