John M. Edwards sings the Buddha electric, embarking on a quest in the Laotian capital for the world’s most unique body posture. People thought I was a lunatic for coming all the way to Laos, a landlocked nation without any beaches, for a “vacation”? Even I thought I was out of my mind. After a couple of days lying on the wavy grass in the hazy egg-yolk-shaped sun of Vientiane, a Southeast Asian Wild West boomtown, though, I was bronzed … [Read more...]
About John Edwards
John M. Edwards is an award-winning photojournalist who has visited more countries than he has written about. He has written for CNN Traveler, Missouri Review, Endless Vacation, Entertainment Weekly, International Living, Adventure Journey, Xtreme Travel Stories, Salon.com, Grand Tour, Islands, Coffee Journal, Mabuhay, Danse Macabre, Verge, Glimpse, Hack Writers, BootsnAll, The Expeditioner, ForeWord, Borderlines, Go Nomad, North Dakota Quarterly, Michigan Quarterly Review, and North American Review. He recently won 4 NATJA Awars (a record for one person in one year) He is now editor-in-chief of the upcoming annual Rotten Vacations. He turned down a job as lead bassist for STP (The Stone Temple Pilots) way back when before they were big. Plus, he helped write "PLUSH," voted The Best Song of the 20th Century by Rolling Stone Magazine.
A Sanka in St. Petersburg
The "Manhattan Candidate" John M. edwards has an Eye-Opening experience in Cold War Russia's St. Petersburg: Attempted Brainwashing Anyone?! The Neva is clad in granite Bridges stand poised over her waters --Alexander Pushkin INTERESTED in finding the St. Petersburg salon where the protagonist of Doestoevsky’s Notes from the Underground is snubbed and ridiculed by his friends, I set off for that fair city sometime in the springtime, I … [Read more...]
The Halong Bay Monster
Like Scotland's Loch Ness Monster, Vietnam has its very own sea serpent legend-one which resembles a prehistoric escapee from "Here There Be Dragons" on the edges of Age of Exploration mappa mundi. Trapped in lovely Ha Long Bay ("Where the Dragon Descends into the Sea"), "The Tarasque" is not only a version of Nessie but purportedly just as camera-shy. Featured in the 1997 James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Knows," Ha Long Bay is now a UNESCO … [Read more...]
A Bicycle Built for Two
While I was house-sitting a 15th-century farmhouse in historical Gascony, with a backyard view of the snow-capped Pyrennees, I decided one bracing morning over a cafe du lait to hire a bike and make a pilgrimage to one of France's oddest pilgrimage sites: "NOTRE DAME DES CYCLISTES." Looking decidedly uncool in my fuzzy Patagonia jacket, Tintin T-shirt, Gap shorts, white athletic socks, and Rockport walking shoes, I pedaled like a madman, … [Read more...]
The Wizard of Christchurch
EVERYONE knows J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed entirely on location downunder by Kiwi director Peter Jackson. But did you know that a real sorcerer, a magi of magic realism straight out of the Oscar-winning series, only rather recently left New Zealand after the nasty Christchurch Earthquake of 2011. Born Ian Brackenbury Channell in London (4 December 1932), "The Wizard of Christchurch" is an inspired soap-box … [Read more...]
Curse of the Sea Gypsy
Looking for Love on Lovina, Bali Well, er, the problem was, I thought I saw a real live mermaid. Get that? Loping on Bali's Lovina beach one day, I came across a troglodytic Indonesian man crouching over a campfire, cooking a stunted animal on a skewer. Was he eating a cat?! "Very nice bitch," the local sarong hawker spat in the sand. Lo and behold! I saw a bikinied blond, like the statuesque prow of a Viking vessel, … [Read more...]
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