Marco Polo Didn't Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer

Marco Polo Didn't Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer

Rolf Potts

Language: English

Pages: 344

ISBN: 1932361618

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Marco Polo Didn’t Go There is a collection of rollicking travel tales from a young writer USA Today has called “Jack Kerouac for the Internet Age.” For the past ten years, Rolf Potts has taken his keen postmodern travel sensibility into the far fringes of five continents for such prestigious publications as National Geographic Traveler, Salon.com, and The New York Times Magazine. This book documents his boldest, funniest, and most revealing journeys—from getting stranded without water in the Libyan desert, to crashing the set of a Leonardo DiCaprio movie in Thailand, to learning the secrets of Tantric sex in a dubious Indian ashram.

Marco Polo Didn’t Go There is more than just an entertaining journey into fascinating corners of the world. The book is a unique window into travel writing, with each chapter containing a “commentary track”—endnotes that reveal the ragged edges behind the experience and creation of each tale. Offbeat and insightful, this book is an engrossing read for students of travel writing as well as armchair wanderers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

forever. In many ways, tourism is a perfect industry for Laos, a landlocked communist country that has only been open to foreigners since 1989. Unlike its crowded and industrious neighbors (Thailand is home to 54 million people; Vietnam's population is 75 million and growing), Laos has just 5 million citizens and very little commerce or infrastructure. Seventy percent of the land consists of mountains or high plateaus, and 25 percent of Laos is blanketed in primary forest-making it the most

predisposition for mental and emotional instability. As for the sacrifice, it's true that the headman never got around to purchasing a pig, but the fallout was probably more political than spiritual. After all, 500 baht was a lot of money in that part of Laos, and many villagers were no doubt chagrined that the headman hadn't thrown us a welcoming party (which, in a sleepy little village like that, might well have been the most memorable event of the year). When the phii lady lost her marbles,

think rich women are very warm!" At McDonald's, I ordered two Big Mac meals. Ahmad temporarily forgot his hustler persona as he devoured the food in silence and stared around at the spotless, mass-produced interior. "That was my best food ever;" he said, somewhat dispassionately, when he'd finished. "Now I will help you find a pretty girl." "I was thinking of something else, Ahmad. How would you like to go out for a smoke?" Ahmad's face lit up and he leaned in toward me. "You smoke hash?" he

muffin on the shores of the holy Ganges. Instead, her face reddens, and she snatches a tin of tea sugar. Curling her thin, lovely lips, she screams, "COCK-SUCKING FUCKING MONKEY!" The sugar-tin whangs off the roof and explodes into a grainy white cloud. The monkey blinks coquettishly at The Girl, and begins to nibble at the bran muffin. The Girl seizes a white plastic dining chair, and-in what you now recognize as a California accent-bellows: "COME HERE, YOU STUPID LITTLE FUCKER!" Before The

an ugly pair of plastic shoes to replace my missing flip-flops, the shopkeeper had told me how the only truly ugly thing in the world was sin. Recalling how I'd sampled the "aphrodisiac" drink at Marvelous Marva's earlier that day, I scanned my notebook for interesting details that might connect the two experiences. When I found Ronald's comment about lust, I realized I was on to something. Thinking back to my journeys around the island in the tourist-board minivan, I tried to sort out the

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