hotels articles

It may be known locally as Makunufushi, but this little island in the South Male Atoll looks set to become known internationally as Coco Island, the Indian Ocean’s most exclusive resort. While 2003 may see Thomson promising to make the Maldives more affordable by offering charter-flight access, this is not something that is going to affect Coco Island. Already dubbed the new Parrot Cay (the one island resort in the Caribbean favoured by the film and fashion set), the retreat on this private island features 36 exquisitely dressed rooms (think southern Indian fabrics and colonial furnishings) including contemporary timber “water villas” sculpted like traditional Maldivian boats, overlooking the water. And if you can bear to leave your room, the island comes complete with its own holistic spa offering a range of treatments from daily meditation and yoga courses, to Asian massage and healing therapies. If sea-salt wraps and algae scrubs, all administered in simple wooden beach huts, don’t appeal then try the full programme of hiking, scuba and sailing activities. At least then you’ll have an excuse to head for the restaurant, presided over by Australian chef Stana Johnson serving celestial seafood focused Indian and Sri Lankan dishes.

Child prostitution is a cottage industry in Southeast Asia. Gi as boys — some as young as 8 — are being abducted by brothel agents and, in some cases, sold by parents into sexual slavery.

Anastasia Santos last saw her daughter Veronica a year ago, before her child was traded to a brothel for $500 by a woman who lured the girl to the city with a vague promise of work. Veronica can’t leave the brothel in Manila until she earns the $500 the owner paid the brothel agent. That day may never come. She services an average of 10 men a day at $4 per customer, but $3 of the $4 are deducted for room, food and cosmetics; she also must pay the brothel owner for clothes. Today, she is in debt beyond the original $500 to a pimp and has been infected with HIV. Veronica’s life has ended, and she is not yet 12 years old.

Veronica is just one of more than a million young victims lured, sold or forced into prostitution worldwide every year, according to a recent Norwegian government report to the U.N. Working Group on Slavery. “Selling a 14-year-old girl has become so commonplace, it is banal,” laments Wassyla Tamzali, director of UNESCO’s women’s rights department. In Bogota, Colombia, the number of prostitutes under 13 has quintupled since 1987. Brazil now has more than 250,000 child prostitutes; Moscow, more than 1,000.

In Asia, child chattel has reached epidemic proportions. In Thailand, a country of 56 million people, relief agencies estimate that there are now 2 million prostitutes — up to 800,000 of them children under 16. Studies suggest there are at least 300,000 child prostitutes in India. In the Philippines, the Institute for the Protection of Children reports that 9 percent of prostitutes were less than 10 years old when they were sold to a pimp. And researchers in Sri Lanka believe that the island has at least 10,000 boy prostitutes, each receiving as little as $1 per day for fulfilling the whims of pedophiles, many of them Westerners directed by gray market guidebooks and pedophile newsletters such as Spartacus International Gay Guide, published in Germany in several languages.

Even as AIDS sweeps through Asia, a recent survey suggests that 420,000 Thai men visit a prostitute every day. Taiwanese men still arrive by the bus-load at the Mona Lisa massage parlor on Bangkok’s Petchaburi Road, and charter sex tours from Germany, Japan and Korea continue to bring lustful tourists to Thailand and the Philippines by the planeload. Customers, fearful of AIDS, are turning to younger and younger prostitutes, and virgins are increasingly in demand. As a result, the prostitution of children in Asian countries has skyrocketed in recent years. “A whole generation of young girls (and boys) is being turned into commerce by Westerners lured by governments hungry for tourist dollars,” claims Ron O’Grady, international coordinator for End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism, or ECPAT, and author of the book The Child and the Tourist: The Story Behind the Escalation of Child Prostitution in Asia.

Affluence born of Southeast Asia’s economic boom is fueling the prepubescent sex trade on a scale never seen before. “Every-day you see buses full of men from Singapore coming into our southern cities,” says Thai child-rights worker Sanphasit Koompraphant. “There is no tourist business there, no industry Only lumber plantations and sex services.”

Ever since the 1960s, when American soldiers in Vietnam took their leave on Asia’s beaches, visitors have flocked to Manila, Bangkok and Pattani, Thailand, for sex. It is unclear exactly how many come looking for love. More than 70 percent of the 5 million tourists who visit Thailand each year are male, and 20 percent are day-trippers from nearby Malaysia and Singapore. More than 85 percent of Pattani’s visitors are single men who have heard that this erstwhile small fishing village on the Gulf of Siam is a beachside brothel full of lithe, olive-skinned girls with sloe eyes and bewitching demeanors. “We estimate three-quarters of the 200, German visitors each year are men, and three-quarters will have come for sex,” says Koompraphant.

Package holidays to the red-light districts of Southeast Asia, first offered in the early 1980s, are now an established part of the child-sex business. Most originate in Germany and Japan (the Japan Travel Agency is held by many to have been the first), where local operators promote heavily. In the Philippines, five-star hotels such as the Ramada in central Manila block off whole floors for the exclusive use of Japanese sex tourists. More than 20 prostitution hotels in Manila cater exclusively to Japanese tourists.

Americans, true to their individualistic spirit, travel alone to have sex. “Promoting sex tours in the United States is risky business,” says 56-year-old Gunter Frenz, owner of Miami-based G&F Tours, which operates a 12-day “Love Tour of Bangkok.” “Sure, we sell sex,” says Frenz, “but we have to refrain from mentioning it in our brochure. If we sold sex directly, we’d be selling prostitution, and that’s illegal in Thailand as well as America.” Frenz’s potential customers receive copies of articles written for men’s magazines by past customers, replete with photos of sex action and a brochure showing Frenz in a bar with a seminaked young girl perched on his lap, clutching her teddy bear.

SRINAGAR, India — The lines to take cable-car rides to a Himalayan snow field are long. Every viewpoint on the forested mountain roads is full of camera-clicking picnickers. And resorts, hotels and houseboats are overbooked with visitors.

The tourists have come back to Kashmir.

For the first time since an Islamic insurgency erupted here in 1989, thousands of Indian tourists — encouraged by recent peace overtures between India and Pakistan — are leaving the sweltering summer plains to enjoy vacations in this picture-perfect place. Nearly 100,000 tourists, including 3,000 foreigners, have visited Kashmir since January — compared to just over 10,000 during the same period last year, Shazia Khan of the Jammu-Kashmir State Tourism Corp. told The Associated Press.

“Our expectations are high this year. We hope that many more will continue to arrive,” Khan said as she prepared to receive a new batch of tourists disembarking from air-conditioned coaches at the Tourist Reception Center in Srinagar, the state’s summer capital.

Set in the Himalayas at 5,600 feet above sea level, Kashmir is a green, saucer-shaped valley full of fruit orchards and surrounded by snowy mountain ranges. About 100 lakes dot its highlands and plains. Glacier-fed streams flow through the forests, hillsides and over grasslands covered with wildflowers. The tourist season lasts until late October.

“I can’t describe what it feels like to lie down on the houseboat deck and count the stars on a clear night,” said Pawan Kumar, a computer professional from the steaming southern Indian city of Secunderabad, enjoying Kashmir’s coolness.

A short distance away, on the promenade along Srinagar’s famous Dal Lake, Akhtar Hussain, a 30-year-old boatman, invited strolling tourists for a ride in his brightly colored gondola, called a “shikara.”

“I painted my boat and got new upholstery for the seats. I was a boy when so many tourists used to come here,” said Hussain. He describes the new arrivals as “God’s mercy.”

Kashmir was once one of Asia’s most popular tourist destinations, particularly with trekkers and honeymooners, drawing 800,000 tourists every year — about 40 percent of them foreigners. Tourism accounted for nearly 20 percent of the economy of the Indian-controlled state. Then in 1989, the explosions and gun battles began. The crowds trickled to less than 25,000 per year, after repeated travel warnings by Western governments, fears of war and extensive media coverage of the separatist violence.

Kashmir, at India’s northern tip, is divided, with Pakistan controlling one-third of the Himalayan region. Both countries claim all of it and have fought two wars over it since 1947. Relations between the two countries are improving, and most countries, such as the United States, have withdrawn their warnings against travel to India. But they continue to advise against visits to Jammu-Kashmir, although Latin American and Southeast Asian nations never issued such advisories, and their tourists outnumber Westerners.

Mohammed Ashraf, director general of tourism in Jammu-Kashmir, the state’s official name, said he is fighting to bridge what he calls a “communication gap” with the international media, to counter the negative image of the Kashmir Valley portrayed to potential tourists.

“Our efforts are bearing fruit. . . . We are getting back on the rails,” said Ashraf.

Yet a first-time visitor being driven through Srinagar to his idyllic houseboat can’t help but notice the soldiers patrolling with loaded rifles, some in trucks with their guns pointed at cars on the road. Sandbagged bunkers dot the roads around the mirror-like lake.

“It’s a war zone,” said shocked New Delhi resident Vijay Long, on his first visit to Kashmir in mid-June.

Although he reveled in the cool, clean air, the peaceful shikara rides on Dal Lake and the chance to stand on a snow-covered hill, it was the guns and soldiers he told his friends about back in New Delhi.

He also described the extensive searches required to board the flight out of Kashmir and the attempt by a policeman at the airport to confiscate his bird-watching binoculars under the guise of security precautions. “He said he couldn’t see through them so he would have to keep them,” Long said, relating an experience other travelers have also encountered.

Travelers to and from Kashmir cannot take any batteries, soap or liquids in their carry-on bags and are frequently separated from their valuables — such as cameras and other equipment — during the security checking process.

Some tourists also complain that Kashmir’s travel industry has become greedy, and hoteliers and boatmen fleece customers due to the long years of uncertainty.

“We feel bad about it and assure tourists that it is an anomaly. But we also realize that the long strife has made us anxious. . . . What if tourists don’t return?” said Hussain, the boatman. “Fourteen years of idleness can make some people unscrupulous. But we still try to maintain our credo of goodwill and honesty.”

THE Moors called it al Gharb - the Western lands - and it was one of their favourite places for more than 500 years.

These days the thousands of northern Europeans who have settled here feel much the same way about the Algarve, Portugal’s sunny southern coast.

You can’t go wrong if you follow their ex-pat lifestyle…a leisurely coffee in a cafe, followed by a spot of shopping or perhaps a round of golf. And dining out isn’t a problem with a three-course meal costing pounds 8 and a bottle of wine around pounds 2.

The Algarve is the kind of laid-back place where you can take it easy. There are no hidden hassles for the unwary traveller. Just relax on the beach, take advantage of what is arguably the best seafood in Europe and enjoy the good-natured hospitality of your Portuguese hosts.

Thousands of football fans will be heading to the Algarve next summer for the European Championships. Many key matches will be played in Faro’s impressive stadium, the new home ground of Farense.

But why wait until summer? The Algarve has one of the best climates in Europe. By February the almond blossom is flowering, the days are lengthening and prices are cheap. If you strike it lucky it will be warm enough for sunbathing, but at the very least you should be able to enjoy lunch outdoors.

Early winter or spring are good times to explore the countryside. Visitors who do will discover hills, woods, castles and villages where life has not changed that much since the Moors left.

BEST RESORTS

TAVIRA to the east is a charming little town on the river Gilao. It is very relaxed, and fast becoming a trendy place for a quiet holiday.

There’s no beach in town - instead, take a ferry to one of the sandy offshore islands, or stay in Santa Luzia (the octopus capital of the Algarve) or Cabanas just along the coast.

Explore the Serra de Alcaria do Cume just inland - hill country where rock roses, lavender and other wild flowers run rampant.

Albufeira, the Algarve’s largest and busiest resort, is right in the centre of the province. Everything is within day-trip range, from the wild western coastline to the Spanish border in the east at the Guadiana river.

Nightlife is lively with plenty of buzzing clubs and bars. The resort is the base for Zebra Safaris - four wheel drive tours into the interior over terrain most cars can’t handle.

Lagos in the west is a stylish resort that attracts young surfers from all over Europe in summer and has oodles of history any time of the year.

It was from here that Henry the Navigator sent his fleets to explore the globe in the 15th Century. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to cross the equator, navigate around Africa and reach India by sea.

They “discovered” South America, landed in Australia 200 years before Captain Cook and were the first to trade with China and Japan.

BEST EATS

DO as the Portuguese do and eat grilled sardines at the cluster of little restaurants by the bridge in Portimao.

TRY some of the local specialities: caldeirada (a hearty fish and potato stew); cataplana (named for the copper wok-like cooking pot, it’s a delicious stew of fish, clams and chorizo sausage) and chicken piri piri (grilled chicken marinated in a spicy chilli-based sauce).

HAVE lunch by the harbour at Olhao - the seafood from here is transported all over Portugal.

LEAVE some space for sweets and pastries. You’ll find them at a cafe or pastelaria (cake shop) rather than a restaurant. Some that you may like to try include morgado de figo (fig cake), doces de amendoa (marzipan fancies), bolos de mel (honey cakes), tarte de natas (rich cream sponge) and pasteis de nata (custard tarts).

IF you’re not a fish fan, the local lamb and pork is better than beef. Try some presunto (air dried ham) from Monchique - the pigs graze on acorns in the oak woods.

HEAD off to the local market rather than a supermarket if you are self-catering. The fruit and veg are all fantastic.

BACK TO NATURE

MOST people’s first view of the Algarve is the panorama of salt flats, barrier islands, lagoons and marshes as their plane approaches Faro Airport. This huge nature reserve is one of the most important wetland areas in Europe and home to many rare birds.

Head for the Ria Formosa information centre between Faro and Tavira and you can go on walks past Roman remains. There are also well-stocked marine aquariums and a water dog breeding centre. These gorgeous rough-coated dogs are one of the oldest breeds in the world and were bred by fishermen. They have webbed feet and used to drive fish into the nets or pass messages between boats before the days of mobiles, as well as guarding the catch.

There’s another nature reserve in the far west, and here Horizonte, a tour company based in Salema, west of Lagos, run four- wheel drive tours. The west coast beaches are magnificent and much favoured by surfers riding the Atlantic rollers. Three of the best are Praia do Martinhal near Sagres, Praia do Amado, Carrapateira, and Praia de Monte Clerigo.

Peace and cricket, that’s what’s done it.” Niaz Maharoot manages Helga’s Folly, in Kandy, a hotel whose eccentricities speak volumes for the confidence growing within Sri Lanka’s tourist industry. Let’s hope he is proved right in his prediction that this year will be one of the best seasons ever for Sri Lanka’s hoteliers.

Early in November, I found them poised to receive not only devotees of the imminent test cricket series against England, but an army of visitors. “Bookings for 2004 are up 30 to 40 per cent over last year’s” reckoned Sarath Wickremasinghe, the manager of the chic Saman Villas at Bentota - a figure echoed by the Taj Group.

Nearly two years after the signing of a formal ceasefire between the government and the separatist Tamil Tigers, international tourism seems at last to be prepared to overlook Sri Lanka’s political troubles and allow the country to step into the upmarket gap left by the Bali bombing. Two big highways are under construction; Sri Lankan Airlines is opening several new internal flights and international hotel groups are making heavy investments. Angsana Resorts and Spas, a sister brand to Banyan Tree, has taken over the delightful Deer Park near Polonnaruwa. Tea country guest houses and historic seaside villas are being expensively converted.

On 5 November, the day I left the island, all certainties wobbled once again. In her Prime Minister’s absence abroad, President Kumaratunga, widely believed to feel that too many concessions were being made to the Tigers, suspended parliament, dismissed three members of the cabinet and declared a state of emergency. But this was lifted two days later and, two months on, the blip appears to have had little effect on the projected boom in tourism.

Which is all to the good: Sri Lanka packs in a bigger share of sheer gorgeousness - more dazzling archaeological sites, more lavish scenery and ravishing beaches, more elephants, more leopards, more almost everything - than any small island (it’s about the size of Ireland) has a right to claim.

More interesting hotels, too. The recent building spree has resulted in high levels of comfort and considerable contemporary style. Overlooking the sea at Bentota, Saman Villas has the champagne- on-arrival, the open- air bathrooms and the frangipani-on-the-pillow considered de rigueur in contemporary Serendipityland. “Too much effing good taste,” grumped one of my travelling companions, a celebrated photographer, confronted with the lazily revolving fans, the old Dutch furniture interspersed with witty contemporary takes, the designer fabrics and bathroom fixtures which grace the Sun House and the 18th-century Dutch House. I could see what he meant but, hey, I’m not proud: lead me to it.

It’s inland Sri Lanka, however, that has my heart. “India designed by the Swiss” observed the photographer. Here is the same green profligacy that you find in Kerala, only more so. Cathedral-sized bubbles of rock swell up from a lavishly clothed landscape, its trees noisy with birds; its waterways stalked by pelicans and herons. Butterflies flop like silk hankies through air scented with incense, wet tea, gardenias and ripe- to-bursting fruit.

What’s missing is the hassle. Compared with India, Sri Lankan roads are miracles of sobriety, their most dashing drivers pilot motorised rickshaws sporting rackety names: Strange Boys, Innocent Bird or All That Glitters. Beggars are fewer and eventually leave you alone; the same, glory be, goes for the salesmen.

“Give me your hand, Madam,” said an idler at Sigiriya: “You are a heavy person”. I’m a what? The tone was of spurious concern, the message ill calculated to appeal to one who reaches neurotically for the Weight Watchers cookbook the minute the scales creep over 8 stone. Only my heart felt heavy; it was already doing the lumbering somersaults which only the vertiginous endure.

For, ahead loomed a cheesewire-sliced precipice, 590ft (180m) high and studded with metal ladderways, some of them connected by superannuated London Underground spiral stairs. Citadel of a 5th century playboy king, whose good-time girls still frisk across the rock face, as fresh as the day they were painted, Sigiriya occupies star position in the cluster of World Heritage sites at the centre of the island.

At Polonnaruwa, a group of schoolgirls, looking good as gold in their white dresses, drifted barefoot through the ruined temples and pavilions of the old capital. Their teacher, the Rev Beragama Anananata Thero, a Buddhist monk, asked me to take a class photograph. “If people want to know about Enlightenment”, said my guide, Gamini Mendis, “this is where I bring them.” We contemplated three colossal stone statues of the Buddha, their serenity enhanced by the rippled effect of layered granite and not at all disturbed by the crowds of irreverent monkeys.

The same sense of tranquillity reigns at the cave temples of Dambulla, where the roofs billow softly as canvas, decorated with a thousand Buddahs, looking down from the biggest rock painting in the world. “These people are lazy” said Gamini, severely, when I asked him to translate some of the prayers written on the rags hanging from the nearby bodhi tree: “They think a tree can remove their troubles without any effort of their own”.

We found a high seroprevalence of HIV among young women in a commercial logging area in Cameroon. The vulnerability of these young women could be related to commercial logging and the social and economic networks it induces. The environmental changes related to this industry in Equatorial Africa may facilitate HIV dissemination.

More than 20 years after the beginning of the HIV epidemic, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) stated that the epidemic was now taking hold in many African countries (1). An estimated 25.0-28.2 million persons are already infected in sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 70% of all infections worldwide, and Africans represent 10% of the world population. AIDS is now the leading cause of death in Africa (2.2-2.4 million deaths in 2003) (2). UNAIDS particularly underlined the rapidly rising prevalence in Cameroon, a central African country (4.7% in 1996, 11.8% in 2001) (1,3). As in many countries, these data come from sentinel surveillance of women attending urban and semi-urban antenatal clinics.

Data from rural areas are scarce, and the dynamics of HIV infection are poorly documented. Travel has been linked to an increased risk among rural populations (4). The recent environmental changes related to commercial logging in Equatorial Africa could potentially facilitate HIV dissemination. Commercial logging has led to road construction in remote forested areas, human migration (especially of single men), and develop social and economic networks (including commercial sex work) that support this industry (5). In Cameroon, commercial logging has been growing for at least 4 decades. We have previously shown that these environmental changes might represent a risk to human health through exposure to simian immunodeficiency viruses (6). We investigated the seroprevalence of HIV, the nature of circulating HIV genetic variants, and factors associated with HIV infection in a logging area of southern Cameroon.

The Study

A cross-sectional, community-based survey was performed in September 2001 in a remote village where a sawmill and logging camp have been located since 1973 (Nkonzuh, East Province) and also in two neighboring villages (Mboumo and Kompia, 10 km and 30 km from the logging camp, respectively). The three villages are 250 km east of Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon (Figure). The total population of the three villages has increased since commercial logging began and was estimated at 1,000 inhabitants at the time of the survey (excluding the logging camp). Approximately 200 workers are employed in this industry; approximately half originate from the region. Some workers live in the traditional neighborhoods of Nkonzuh, and a small number live in Mboumo and Kompia; most live in the logging camp. The survey in Nkonzuh was carried out in the traditional neighborhoods but not in the logging camp itself. All inhabitants >15 years of age were asked to participate in the survey during door-to-door visits. After participants gave informed consent, they were interviewed by using a verbal standard questionnaire in French or a local language. The data gathered included the village name, time spent in the village, house number, date of birth or age, sex, ethnic group, marital status, level of education, occupation, and history of blood transfusion, injection, surgery, circumcision or excision, tattoo, and sexually transmitted infections (STI).

Serologic screening for HIV infection was based on an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (Murex HIV-1.2.O, Abbott, Rungis, France). All positive samples were confirmed and typed (HIV-1 or -2) by using a line immunoassay (INNO-LIA HIV-1+2, Innogenetics, Ghent, Belgium). All positive samples were further typed (HIV-1 group M, N, O or HIV-2) with an in-house ELISA based on V3 loop peptides. HIV-1-positive samples were genetically characterized in the gag and env genes by sequencing and phylogenetic analysis, as described (7). Syphilis was diagnosed by using the rapid plasma reagin (RPR) (Becton Dickinson, Mountain View, CA) and Treponema pallidum hemagglutination (TPHA) (Sanofi Pasteur, Chaska, MN) tests.

The [chi square] and Fisher exact tests were used to compare the distribution of categorical variables between men and women. For continuous variables, comparisons were based on the nonparametric Mann-Whitney two-sample test. Multivariate random-effects logistic regressions, including sex-specific analyses, were used to identify factors associated with HIV infection (8). Independent variables associated with HIV infection, identified by using a conservative threshold of p < 0.25 in univariate analysis, were retained for multivariate analysis. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals (CI) of proportions were estimated by using the binomial exact method.

Four hundred eighty-four persons were enrolled (Table 1). Most (77.8%) were Badjoe, a local ethnic group, and 6.4% were Pygmies; 25 other ethnic groups were also represented. The HIV serologic results were available for 476 persons. Seven persons refused venipuncture after interview, and one sample could not be analyzed. These eight persons did not differ from the other persons in term of sex (50.0% women vs. 47.1% women) but were slightly younger (median, 26.8 years vs. 34.9 years). Five (1.1%) of the 476 HIV serologic results were indeterminate, and these persons were excluded from the analysis of risk factors. The overall HIV seroprevalence was 7.4% (CI 5.2%-10.1%). Women had a far higher HIV seroprevalence than men (overall 11.1% vs. 3.1%) (Table 2), which ranged from 4.9% in women at least 50 years of age to 22.5% in the 25- to 34-year age group. In men, the HIV seroprevalence ranged from 1.4% in the 15- to 24-year age group to 6.0% in the 25- to 34-year age group. The HIV seroprevalence was higher for both sexes, although not significantly, in the village in which the logging camp is located than in the two surrounding villages

With an ambivalence tracing back to Conrad, modern European writers portrayed Africa in extremes of innocence and violence, depravity and delight. Paralleling empire’s project of mining the continent for buried treasure, novelists explored a moral and psychological geology, digging deep into the self to discover what lay beneath. Uncivilized Africa served as a blankness or void: the veld, the bush; the screen upon which Europe threw the pattern of its inner fantasies, both noble and corrupt. For a Cecil Rhodes, of course, the lure of Africa was obvious. But what about the fringe figures of empire, the explorers, the bureaucrats and missionaries? Mixed themes of paradise and exile mirror in a “mysterious” continent the mystery of its conquerors.

The Dust Diaries is Owen Sheers’s investigation of the life of his great-great-uncle, Arthur Sheerly Cripps. An Oxford graduate, poet, and Anglican priest, Cripps left England in 1901 for Rhodesia, where he lived for half a century as an impoverished and notably eccentric missionary, in the process authoring a 1927 treatise, An Africa for Africans, that raised an angry voice on behalf of the colonized. Owen Sheers, poet and Oxonian himself, had heard about his ancestor in family conversations over the years; curiosity and a vague intuition of affinity spurred him to find out more. Armed with boxes of correspondence and manuscripts, Sheers set out to shed light on his forebear and the mystery of why he abandoned Europe for a life in the veld.

I must admit to being skeptical about “on the trail of” books; too many seem like excuses for the writer’s excellent adventure. But Sheers has redeemed the genre brilliantly, with a thoughtful, lovely, and innovative work. The Dust Diaries comprises three narrative strands: Sheers’s evocation of August 1, 1952, and a small hut where the blind, octogenarian missionary is living out his last hours; his own travel report from current-day Zimbabwe, where he tracks down the dwindling circle of elderly people who knew his great-great-uncle; and the largest strand, a piecemeal novel taking up Cripps’s decades in Africa. “This story is written as a fiction,” Sheers explains, “the fiction I formed in my mind so as to better understand Arthur’s life.”

It’s a challenging life to take on. The Arthur Cripps of The Dust Diaries is many things to many people: “a troublemaker, a liberal, and a negrophile” to officers of the British South Africa Company, whose policies he opposes; “simple, direct and just a little ridiculous” to a litterateur district commissioner who envisions him the subject of a novel; unsettlingly attractive to a bored frontier wife whose dinner table he enlivens; a wielder of magical powers to the Mashona peasants he lives among, who know him as Kambandakoto, or “He-Who-Goes-About-As-A-Poor-Man.” As for Sheers, he develops his own thesis about the man. Struck by a life “almost penitential in nature, as if governed by a duty of atonement,” he suspects some buried wound. A handful of obscure references in poems and other documents hint at romantic tragedy: a woman left behind in Britain, possibly a child fathered out of wedlock. There’s a love story there, Sheers decides. He writes it into his book. Doing so lies somewhere between discovery, fabrication, and interpretation–Sheers burrowing through a life of driven service to a core of sorrow, attempting to locate in Cripps a specific, personal love as profound as the man’s selfless idealistic love of Africans.

The language of The Dust Diaries bears a poet’s stamp of beauty. “He lay there for a moment, listening to the night outside: the turning of the sea’s pages, the hush and fizz of the waves on the shore, the sudden screeching and confusion of two cats fighting, then silence.” But Sheers proves a skillful novelist as well, deftly portraying vivid secondary characters, such as the pugnacious Bishop William Gaul, who removes his cleric’s collar before delivering a pugilistic rebuke to a drunkenly abusive Irish railway worker. Historical figures wander in for sparkling cameos, like the notoriously brutal hunter and soldier Richard Meinertzhagen, about whom Cripps wrote a nightmarish poem.

Indeed, The Dust Diaries could have been written simply as a historical novel, and a good one. But Sheers has larger ambitions, and they involve frequently interrupting his story to show us how he put it together. Thus we read an engrossingly detailed scene, set in the 1930s, between Cripps and his longtime personal secretary, Leonard Mamvura–then turn the page to find Sheers in Africa, visiting the real-life Mamvura, who is providing information Sheers will later use to write the fictional scene we have already read. It’s startling to shift time frames and genres like this, to be repeatedly reminded that the engrossing reality we’ve been enjoying is a fictional construct. The Dust Diaries gives us both a moving human story and the author’s commentary on the problematic nature of composing that story.

Africa is not only earth’s largest continent, but probably the most diversified. Narrow that down to just South Africa and you still have what is often referred to as “a world within a country.” Actually, it only includes 3.8 percent of the continent. While seeking photographic locations on one visit, I narrowed that down to just the eastern portion of South Africa–the Indian Ocean side.

Kruger National Park alone covers over 7500 square miles and it is but one of a multitude of parks and reserves. This bit of reminiscing is not about the well-known game areas. It doesn’t begin to cover the potential subjects in even a single park or reserve. What does seem worth sharing are excerpts from three hours of sitting in a hide observing the parade of creatures that visited the water hole below.

Hluhluwo and Umfolozi Reserves date to 1895. Although they have been combined, a fork in the road requires decision making upon approach. Seeking out a single hide in Mkuzi one sunny morning turned out to be an unforgettable experience that combined this photographer’s love of both photo travel and nature. In South Africa game areas, “hide” is the name given to unique structures designed to allow observations without disruption of the local residents’ natural behavior. Americans usually refer to similar conveniences as blinds.

Parking areas are located several hundred yards from the water holes. Paths to viewing structures have high fences on both sides that shield visitors from surrounding wildlife. Signs request silence so human noises will not disturb the normal behavior of fauna. At the end of the path a few stairs lead to a completely roofed platform with protective siding. Only a narrow strip is open for viewing the water hole environment. Fortunately, the open viewing strip does enable most camera lenses to have a clear view of the action below. South Africans discourage light-colored clothing for observers, as well as the protrusion of anything through the narrow opening other than binoculars or cameras. You are apt to be hushed if you were unfortunate enough to have worn garments made from fabrics that rustle with movement.

Two camera bodies and lenses that covered a range from 28 to 300 seemed quite adequate for the occasion. Of course, a large supply of film was a major necessity. During my short period of shooting from the hide, I found myself debating just which way to point the camera. Worthy subjects in every direction were often visible simultaneously. Two matched camera bodies were very helpful. One was operated on a tripod while the other was ready to move rapidly for hand holding while trying to capture unexpected happenings. An image stabilizer can come in handy for that purpose.

The variety of animals that approached for their morning drinking session was amazing. They came solo, in pairs, trios or groups and I was tempted to snap faster than my motor drives would permit. Whether wading into the water or daintily reaching from the muddy edges, it all appeared to be a pleasurable part of their routine. Of course, drinking was not their only mission. Some lingered to socialize, to wallow in the mud to suckle their young or spar with competitors.

Occasionally a severely injured animal ventured in. One wildebeest had apparently become entangled in a fence. When unable to free himself he had apparently managed to escape by breaking the wires. The poor critter had a wire noose cutting deeply into his forehead with strands of wire dangling from the open wounds.

South Africa is the only natural habitat for nyalas. They are beautiful, nonaggressive creatures. The male’s dark gray coat is trimmed with a tuft of white hair along the top and a few matching strips at the sides. Brown legs and white facial markings are characteristic of that antelope species. Females are a warm, tan shade and feature multiple stripes. Their stripes are more plentiful than those the males sport and, for some unknown reason, always appear in odd numbers.

It was fascinating to watch two handsome bucks attempting to declare dominance. Instead of bumping antlered heads or engaging in any behavior that may result in marring their beauty, they had a strutting contest. When one conceded his loss and departed the scene, the winner proudly continued to strut to the water hole. Unless traveling with a mate, they appear to be solo creatures.

Apparently nyala are plagued by parasites that inhabit their antlers, for we were able to witness a cleansing operation. Without sailing his showy coat, one buck buried his antlers in mud and appeared to scrub them quite thoroughly. A huge wildebeest invaded an area near some zebras and actually rolled in the mud. Warthogs often display that behavior, but witnessing a wildebeest wallowing on his back with four legs waving in the air seemed very unusual.

Baboon troupes were also a special treat. Youngsters were old enough to ride on their mother’s backs as the adults grouped together and enjoyed a leisurely visit to the water. Grevy’s zebras were targeted toward their drinking area and did not loiter for long when their mission had been accomplished. Visiting wildebeests must have finished grazing before they arrived at the water holes. They loitered around for quite awhile and then settled down to rest in the shade of nearby trees. Birds also joined in the grand pageant. Colorful louries flitted about tree branches while turtles and lizards made their presence known by basking in sunlit areas.

His handsomely brooding face may have taken center stage when he first emerged as the mysterious Jordan Catalano, the grungy object of Claire Danes’s wish-fulfillment fantasies, on the mid-1990s cult TV show My So-Called Life, but the years–at least onscreen–have not been kind to Jared Leto. He was pummeled by Edward Norton’s anticonsumerist everyman in David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999); Christian Bale, as Medecade mass murderer Patrick Bateman, hacked him up with an axe in Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000); a nasty abscess borne from an out-of-control heroin addiction caused him to lose an arm in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000); and he was charred in a backdraft fire in 2002’s Panic Room, again under Fincher’s direction.

But while calamities tend to befall Leto in his movie life, the trajectory of roles he has taken are all part of the larger puzzle that is the actor himself. Born on a commune, he grew up bouncing around with his photographer mother from Alaska to Florida to Louisiana and Wyoming, followed by stints in Haiti and Brazil, before landing in New York as a teenager.

In Alexander, Oliver Stone’s controversial new epic about famed conqueror Alexander the Great, Leto plays Hephaistion, Alexander’s close friend and lover, joining a cast of Hollywood heavyweights that includes Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Val Kilmer, and Colin Farrell in the title role. Fincher caught up with the 30-year-old actor in South Africa, where he was completing work on Andrew Niccol’s upcoming gun-running thriller, Lord of War, and preparing to hit the road with his rock band, 30 Seconds to Mars.

DAVID FINCHER: So, dude, tell me about your pursuit of rock stardom. It just wasn’t debauched enough, so now you’re back to acting?

JARED LETO: Why? Are you disappointed that I’m making movies again?

DF: No, I’m just curious.

JL: Well, I took a lot of time off–I think I made three movies in five years–so now I’m just going through a phase where I’m working more. But I’m still doing the music thing. I just finished about 80 percent of our second record [the follow-up to the group’s 2002 self-titled debut]. It comes out in March on Virgin Records.

DF: Are you going to get the support this time–

JL: That we so badly deserve? With the first record, we had a record company that was falling apart, and as everybody knows, the industry is kind of in its version of the Great Depression right now. We were casualties of all that. But, you know, we did sell more than 100,000 records and toured everywhere, playing more than 350 shows, and we had an incredible time doing it. So, in those terms, it was all a success. What are you up to, by the way?

DF: I’m in the first trimester of my gestation on the next film. I’ve been trying to put together this Benjamin Button movie. [bird calls in background] What is that?

JL: Those are some really weird African birds.

DF: C’mon, Jared, are you allowed to keep sheep in your house?

JL: Well, it’s a secret, so don’t tell anybody. [laughs] Those fucking birds wake me up every morning. So, you’re going to make a movie called Benjamin Button? With a title like that, I can’t tell if it’s about a stuffed animal or a pedophile.

DF: Well, it’s both. [laughs] No, it’s based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story [”The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”], and we’ve been working on it for about five months, trying to get the budget down to something that two studios can swallow.

JL: I can’t believe that I actually made another movie after Panic Room before you did.

DF: And you made a record, and went on tour, and had a life. But I also went to a premiere and did a DVD commentary, if that counts.

JL: I didn’t even get to the premiere of Panic Room. I’m such an asshole.

DF: Well, that’s part of your mystique.

JL: It’s not even mystique! I was probably in Grand Rapids, Michigan, playing with the band at a bowling alley. You know, that’s my exciting life.

DF: So, tell me about Alexander. I have friends who worked on the movie who are extremely high on it, and they’re not drug-addled and deluded. How did you get roped into this thing?

JL: Well, I met with Oliver Stone, and then had a reading, which was … uh … interesting.

DF: Oh, do tell.

JL: At one point during the audition, the casting director, Billy Hopkins, had his head in my lap. I was whispering sweet nothings to him, so it was kind of ridiculous in a way. It also sort of felt like we had a moment together–and we’ve been dating ever since. [laughs] But it was good because I got the part. The script was unbelievable. Oliver, man–the guy is an incredible writer. There’s no doubt about that. He was one of my favorite directors growing up, and I would have died to do anything with him. Going in and meeting with Oliver, talking about this project, I felt like I did when I met you, when you were casting that little role that I did in Fight Club.

DF: But you didn’t have to travel around the world for that.

JL: I just had to show up with white eyebrows and say about three lines in the whole movie.

With its charming concentric canals, crowded bike lanes, and abundance of tulips, AMSTERDAM is understandably considered “quaint.” However, the Netherlands’ capital city is increasingly considered a modern architect’s utopia. Check out the Eastern Docklands for an eye-popping tour of some of Europe’s most avant-garde design, including innovative buildings, bridges, and outdoor art.

GREEK MUSEUM ACTION

Most visitors fly into and immediately out of ATHENS on their way to some sunny isle after their requisite tour of the Acropolis. Next visit, consider a one- or two-night stay: Greece’s bustling capital offers much of interest to visitors, including two intriguing and underappreciated museums: the Jewish Museum of Greece (JewishMuseum.gr) and the elegant Museum of Cycladic Art (Cycladic.gr).

Known primarily as a business destination, MOSCOW (below) offers accommodation options geared principally toward the homme d’affaires. Here are two exceptions to the rule, where you’ll find pampered service and cutting-edge design: The Ararat Park Hyatt Moscow (Moscow.Park.Hyatt. com) provides luxurious public spaces and guest rooms buffed out with the latest technology. Meanwhile, Moscow’s modern, sleek, and minimal Golden Apple (EpoqueHotels.com) is a lovely boutique hotel.

This fall, forget your Prada slippers and instead pack your best hiking shoes for PARIS. Yes, the City of Light, with its high culture, swank hotels, exquisite dining, and fancy clubs, also offers invigorating hiking opportunities. One randonnee leads you 10 miles from the Bois du Boulogne to the Bois de Vincennes, passing along delightful and hidden parks, gardens, and cobblestone streets. Your first stop: Paris’s Office du Tourisme (127 Avenue des Champs-Elysees) for a rundown of urban “trails.”

PIZZA BE GONE

Unlike other European capitals, ROME has only recently begun to recognize the varied cuisines of its immigrant groups. After you have your fill of traditional Italian ristoranti and trattorie, head on over to Esquilino, one of the seven hills of Rome, where you’ll find a wide variety of Asian, African, and Indian eateries. Rome boasts a particularly strong