By Jim Benning
The Washington Post
Travelers’ Tales Best Travel Writing 2007

It’s Friday night in a small Tijuana arena, the kind of rickety Mexican structure that can make you misty for American building-and-safety codes, and in the ring before me, masked wrestlers are smacking and flipping and generally abusing one another for my viewing pleasure.

Whap! The great Hijo del Santo goes down. That’s gotta hurt.

The crowd breaks into a sympathetic chant: “San-to! San-to!” I take a gulp of ice-cold Tecate, lean back in my wobbly folding chair (not unlike the ones occasionally slammed onto these wrestlers’ substantial heads) and smile.

While many of my fellow Americans are watching Jack Black play an aspiring Mexican wrestler in “Nacho Libre,” I’ve come south on this balmy summer evening for the real deal: authentic lucha libre — roughly translated, “freestyle wrestling” — the kind practiced by beefy men with such names as El Dyablo who sport menacing masks and, it should also be noted, demonstrate no fear of wearing tights.

It’s an easy trip. My wife, Leslie, and I drive 20 minutes from our home in San Diego until we spot a freeway sign that never fails to stoke my wanderlust: “Last USA Exit.” Veering off, we park in a lot abutting the Mexican border and walk through a creaking turnstile into the other world that is Tijuana.

I know, I know, Tijuana has a bad reputation. The worst. Poverty. Drugs. Crime. Violence. You name it. It’s all true. Just days before my visit, in fact, the heads — and only the heads — of three local police officers turned up in the Tijuana River. It’s enough to make even the most intrepid traveler think twice.

But there’s more to Tijuana than bad news. As I’ve discovered since moving to San Diego two years ago, the city offers plenty beyond the one street that most visitors see, Avenida Revolucion, with its bars, strip clubs and curio shops hawking knockoff “Finding Nemo” beach towels. The scene there, replete with drunken Americans posing for photos atop dejected donkeys painted to look like zebras, calls to mind the famous line attributed to former Mexican president Porfirio Díaz: “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.”

Tonight, we take a cab 10 minutes to Palenque arena at the city’s Hippodrome, where the wrestling extravaganza is scheduled to begin at 8:30.

Out front, in a sprawling dirt lot, a vendor sells corn on the cob from a steaming pot. A man stands before hundreds of colorful wrestling masks for sale, calling out, “Máscaras, máscaras.” We buy our tickets at a small window — $18 for two bleacher seats, with tonight’s proceeds going to charity — and head inside, savoring the scent of grilling, bacon-wrapped hot dogs. The dimly lit building, with its metal roof and sides, feels more like a tin barn than an arena. We climb a dozen steps and plop down on a long, narrow metal bench.

Radio placards line the ring; beer and brandy ads are plastered across the arena’s walls. The wrestlers are nowhere to be seen, but the party is well underway. Around us, early arrivals are devouring mango slices doused with chili sauce. A boy in a gold wrestling mask nibbles awkwardly on cotton candy through a small mouth slit.

I don’t see many fellow gringos. The crowd appears to be made up of hundreds of locals — husbands and wives, groups of teenagers, fathers carrying masked toddlers. Down below, in a scene that would give an American property manager liability nightmares, two dozen kids have broken away from their parents and commandeered the wrestling ring, flopping on top of one another, swan-diving off the corner ropes, shouting and giggling. I love it.

Around 9 p.m., a bell rings, the kids take their seats and a man in a dark suit announces the first match. Four masked wrestlers (two tag teams) take the ring. As the crowd roars, the men take turns beating, bouncing and flipping one another. One guy pulls a classic Three Stooges stunt and shoots two outstretched fingers at his opponent’s eyeballs. It’s a bold move. The crowd approves.

The men are facing off in a tradition that dates back to the 1930s in Mexico. Like World Wrestling Entertainment in the States, the emphasis is not on serious fighting but on fun, family entertainment, and nothing less than the triumph of good over evil.

Tonight’s bill features four half-hour matchups, each comprising three rounds. After the second fight, those of us in the bleachers are invited down by the ringmaster to fill the more expensive empty seats below. Hundreds of us file down.

By 11 or so, as the final match draws near, I find myself chatting in Spanish with José, a soft-spoken man sitting nearby with his two boys.

Jose tells me that when he was a kid growing up in Mexico City, he attended wrestling matches with his father. Now, living in Tijuana, he often brings his sons.

“It’s part of our culture,” he says. “And we’re aficionados.” Observing the spectators during the evening, I notice that boisterous fathers tend to have loud, screaming sons and daughters. But the opposite is also true. Jos? is quiet throughout the matches, and so are his boys.

Twelve-year-old Iván and 10-year-old Adrián watch intently, even respectfully, rarely making a sound. Iván clutches photos of his favorite wrestlers, including El Hijo del Santo.

“El Hijo del Santo is a great wrestler,” José explains. “He has charisma.” The charisma is evident as soon as El Hijo del Santo takes the ring. The son of the great wrestler Santo, who decades ago also made wildly popular Mexican movies, El Hijo del Santo enters the arena wearing a shiny silver mask, silver briefs over white tights and a long silver cape. His bare, waxed chest shines wth nearly mirrorlike reflective qualities.

This final matchup features some of Mexico’s great wrestlers — including El Hijo del Santo, Blue Demon Jr. and Rey Misterio. Tension mounts. “We have some stars here tonight!” the announcer hollers in Spanish.

As the fight gets underway, Rey Misterio bounces off the ropes and slaps Blue Demon’s chest. Board-pounding flips ensue. Angel Blanco pins El Hijo del Solitario. The crowd cheers.

Several minutes into Round 2, the action really heats up. Angel Blanco lunges out of the ring and into the crowd, chasing El Hijo del Santo and sending spectators scattering. A cry goes up. Angel Blanco orders several women from their seats, then slams Santo into the chairs and splatters him onto the floor.

A low-level “Oooooohhhh” rumbles through the arena. Leslie win- ces and chuckles.

I glance over to see José’s son, Adrián, rise to his feet and quietly assess the situation. The referee, it seems, is not pleased. He stops the fight and threatens to end it entirely before the final round.

“There are women and children here,” an official admonishes the wrestlers. Several wrestlers take the microphone and apologize, requesting that the match be allowed to continue for the sake of the blameless fans.

It’s a gallant move, and the audience fills with hope.

“O-tra! O-tra!” we chant. Another round! Another round!

The official, in his benevolence, gives the men the okay, and moments later, to our collective relief, Angel Blanco is pummeling El Hijo del Santo, slapping his head with a ferocity that is rare these days. Then Santo makes a stunning comeback, knocking down Angel Blanco. After several minutes of bodies smacking and limbs whirling, El Hijo del Santo, Rey Misterio and Rayo de Jalisco raise their arms in victory. We all cheer.

Leslie and I walk out into the Tijuana night, and we are pleased. In this teeming border city with such a bad reputation, the forces of good can still triumph over the forces of evil. And a masked man can be tough even when he is wearing tights.

Photo by Jim Benning

I’ve always considered my hotel rooms to be refuges — places where, no matter how foreign the culture around me, I could retreat and unwind, free from the challenges and confusion of the outside world. That was particularly true in China. I’d arrived with only a few words of Chinese at my disposal: “hello,” “thank you” and, as a result of an ill-fated attempt at a community college Mandarin course, “I like to eat rice.” While I had little trouble procuring a bland, starchy lunch, other tasks, such as asking for directions or buying a train ticket, often devolved into exhausting games of charades. The language barrier felt as insurmountable as the Great Wall, and at the end of each day, my well of patience having run dry, I would escape into the safe confines of my hotel room.

That’s exactly where my wife, Leslie, and I wound up after exploring the northern city of Xian late one afternoon. So when the telephone suddenly rang, intruding upon our sanctum, I was in no hurry to answer it. None of our friends knew where we were. Not a soul at the hotel’s front desk spoke English. And I had no interest in proclaiming, yet again, my great love of rice.

I considered ignoring the phone, but when the caller didn’t relent after nearly half a dozen rings, I flopped down on the bed and picked up.

“Ni hao,” I said.

A woman at the other end uttered something in Chinese, her voice rising in a way that suggested a question.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Mandarin,” I replied in English, assuming that would put a quick end to it.

As I was about to hang up, she said something else, this time exhaling between words, as though she were pedaling an exercise bike.

“What’s that?”

She offered a few more words in a warm, soft voice, and then breathed into the phone, this time in a way that evoked not a sweaty gymnasium but a romantic, candlelit bedroom. I had no idea what she was saying, but I liked the way she was saying it.

Leslie, standing across the room, shot me a quizzical look. I pulled the receiver away from my lips and whispered, “I think it’s a prostitute, but I’m not sure. She doesn’t speak any English.”

Leslie shook her head, then wished me a good time and disappeared into the shower.

I’d remembered reading something about Chinese prostitutes occasionally calling hotel rooms to seduce potential clients, but I’d never received such a call myself.

On the streets around our hotel, amid the noodle joints and mom-and-pop markets, we’d seen a number of curious shops with barber poles, hazy pink lights and young women inside. Was this woman calling from one of them? Was she hoping to lure me in?

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I just don’t understand what you’re saying.”

She said something back, her breathy voice rising and falling seductively.

I cursed the Great Wall of language barriers. What to do?

I summoned my most charming, debonair voice and said, “Wo xihuan chi fan.” I like to eat rice.

My phone friend giggled with delight and cooed, as though I’d just whispered a sweet nothing in her ear.

I felt as though I’d unlocked the door to some alternate Forbidden City where gibberish was an aphrodisiac and young women had nothing better to do than to giggle and coo and flirt on the phone with strange men. I liked it.

I picked up my Mandarin phrasebook and rifled through it, searching for another bon mot.

“Wo yao zu yiliang zixingche,”I said. I want to hire a bicycle.

My friend laughed. Then she whispered something else, her soft voice revealing, I was almost sure, a deep and heretofore unspoken yearning.

A picture was forming in my mind of a young woman who looked not unlike Lucy Liu, flaked out on a sofa in one of those pink-lit rooms, twirling a finger in her long hair, smiling coquettishly. When she replied this time, I could swear she was telling me, “I know a great place where we could share a bowl of rice.” Or maybe she was just saying, “My prices start at a very reasonable three hundred yuan.” Whatever. The important thing was that she seemed to be into me.

I scoured the transportation section of my phrase book for another enchanting line.

“Moban qiche jidian kai,” I said. When is the last bus?

My friend giggled. I laughed.

Just about then, Leslie stepped out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her, patting her damp hair. She looked puzzled.

“You’re still on the phone?” she said.

I smiled and shrugged.

Leslie furrowed her brow and then cracked a smile. She couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or amused. I wasn’t sure myself whether to feel guilty or stupid.

It was, in an odd, small way, not so different from the confusion I’ve often felt traveling in a country where the culture and language are not my own. I arrive eager to make sense of everything. But the more time passes, the more I’m reminded that this is not so easily accomplished, and that the world is an impossibly complicated place. And then, as hard as it is, I try to make peace with my confusion, and even, on rare occasions, embrace it.

I decided it was time to get off the phone. I searched my phrase book for a few parting words. Then, in my best Mandarin accent, I said, “Is there a lifeguard on duty?”

My friend giggled. We giggled together. Then I gently hung up the phone.

One doesn’t see many cacti in France, let alone cowboy hats. Which is why, as I strolled down rue Pizay, a narrow, well-lit street in central Lyon, I stopped dead in my tracks. There, painted on a large restaurant window, a prickly cactus stood tall, a ten-gallon hat dangling over one of its arms.

“El Sombrero,” the sign announced. “Tex-Mex.”

I was stunned. Since leaving Los Angeles nearly two weeks earlier, my wife Leslie and I hadn’t come across a single restaurant offering Mexican or Tex-Mex food, and we weren’t expecting to find one. We’d been making our way from the Alps through Provence and up toward Burgundy, confining our diets to all delicacies French: cheesy tartiflette in Chamonix, soupe au pistou in Avignon. Awaiting us in Beaune were coq au vin and the delicate red wines of the Cote d’Or.

On this, our second night in the city, we had planned on another tasty Lyonnaise meal. But as soon as I saw the sign for El Sombrero, I knew exactly where we would be dining. Nevertheless, we stood in front of the restaurant for several minutes, discussing the matter.

“It will be awful,” I said.

“It will be awful,” said Leslie.

“We could try that little bouchon near the hotel,” I said. “It’s probably very good.”

“We absolutely could,” said Leslie.

Then in we walked, powerless.

We’d both grown up in Los Angeles, subsisting almost entirely on Mexican food. Now living in San Diego, we made frequent pilgrimages across the border in search of rich Oaxacan mole, mayo-drizzled fish tacos and savory carnitas.

I was an addict, and my addiction never served me well in other countries. Within 10 days of leaving home, I inevitably began suffering withdrawals, hungering for a taco, burrito or a steaming tamal. By the time we got to Lyon, I was vulnerable.

Inside, El Sombrero was hopping. Festive Cuban tunes played. Dozens of locals were digging into big plates of fajitas and tostadas. Wide-brimmed sombreros were stacked on the bar, near a red, white and green Mexican flag.

A mustachioed maitre d’ greeted us with a hearty “Bonsoir.” He wore a plaid shirt and a small straw cowboy hat that sat awkwardly atop his head, only seeming to emphasize just how far El Sombrero was from the nearest real cactus.

We ordered margaritas — “Le plus populaire des cocktails mexicains,” according to the menu — and studied our options. There were enchiladas, quesadillas, tacos, tostadas. Leslie settled on “scampis a la diabla,” which featured a tiny chili pepper next to its description, promising kick. I ordered “shrimps fajitas,” which was to include “tortillas de blé, gaucamole, riz, fromage et purée de haricots.”

We sipped our drinks and waited, less than optimistic about the food. If the French had a reputation for culinary snobbery, Leslie and I were their mulit-culti American counterparts: two Southern Californians come to the continent, ready to see what French chefs could do with tortillas and a few pinto beans.

I hadn’t had much luck in other countries. While passable pizza, hamburgers and chow mein could be found almost anywhere, tacos were almost always hard to find. When I had stumbled upon anything vaguely Mexican, it hadn’t been appetizing.

There was my lunch at Carol’s by the River, a restaurant offering Mexican food in Chengdu, China, a city better known for its panda breeding center. After months on the road, I was speechless when I discovered that the owner, a local who called herself Carol, had once lived in Texas and learned Mexican cooking there. I convinced myself there was cause for hope, especially because Chengdu is located in the heart of Sichuan province, known for its spicy cuisine. I was far too optimistic. Among other faults, the tortillas tasted suspiciously of rice flour. I thanked Carol and insisted the meal was delicious, but I didn’t return.

Then there was my visit to a Taco Bell in Singapore. To be sure, Taco Bell doesn’t represent the pinnacle of Mexican cooking. But when I spotted its familiar sign after weeks of fried rice and curry puffs, I wanted to kiss its floor. Moments after I ordered, the smiling, perfectly coiffed employees produced what appeared to be a textbook-quality Taco Bell burrito, its shiny flour tortilla folded neatly at one end. But when I bit in, it tasted just like curry. I doused it in packets of hot sauce, to no avail.

Sadly, my only positive encounter with something resembling Mexican food overseas had involved a bag of Doritos and a can of bean dip, which my parents mailed to me in Germany when I phoned home after months away, unable to look at another bratwurst. I took the bounty down to a park along the Rhine, slowly peeled back the metal lid and savored the chips and dip for what seemed like hours.

Those memories dogged me as we waited for our El Sombrero food. Before our plates could arrive, the maitre d’ introduced himself and said he was as one of the owners. He asked where we were from.

“Southern California,” I said.

“Oh yes?”

His eyes brightened. He had visited California and Mexico before launching the restaurant.

“We ate very good Mexican food,” he said.

I told him we were impressed with the breadth of the menu.

“I even saw mole on there,” I said.

“Ah yes,” he said with a gleam in his eye, “zee mole, it is very good. For the French, Mexico is a country of music and color. The food has to be done well. I think you will enjoy it very much.”

He scurried off, and moments later, my shrimp arrived, sizzling on a platter, along with a basket of flour tortillas, cheese, guacamole, rice and beans.

Leslie’s shrimp appeared, too, in a gravy-like brown sauce.

She looked at her shrimp, then back at me, an eyebrow raised skeptically.

“Bon appetit,” I said, trying to hold onto a shred of hope.

I scooped shrimp, rice, beans and guacamole onto a tortilla and rolled it up like a taco. I had to admit, it didn’t look half bad.

I bit in, waiting — hoping — for that savory fajita flavor to hit my taste buds.

But it wasn’t to be.

It’s not that the fajita was bad. It just didn’t have any kick, any pizzaz, any oomph.

It tasted vaguely boiled.

“So?” Leslie said. “How is it?”

I shrugged. “It’s okay. How’s yours?”

Leslie sighed.

“There’s something not quite right about it. It doesn’t taste bad, but…”

“It tastes like curry, right?”

“Exactly.”

Leaving El Sombrero, we walked beneath a sign featuring a cartoon crow in a black mariachi suit, sporting spurs and a pistol. “Gracias por su visita,” it said.

Merci, I thought. Thanks for trying.

Perhaps by the time I reached Lyon, I should have learned my lesson.

But the truth is, I probably never will. Wherever I go, my addiction will follow. Inevitably, in one place or another, I’ll find someone waiting to serve me rice-flour tortillas, curry burritos or bland, boiled fajitas.

And I won’t have any choice but to eat them.

Thumbnail photo by pamelaadam via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

I was exploring the Malaysian port city of Melaka a couple of years ago with the help of a Lonely Planet guidebook when I spotted the Loony Planet café.It was a modest restaurant on a busy street, and its sign featured the same globe-shaped logo and bubbly lower-case letters as my guidebook cover. The café was clearly the work of local entrepreneurs hoping to capitalize on, and have a little fun with, the popular guidebook brand. I was amused.

I never would have expected to see a Malaysian cafe named after a guidebook publisher based thousands of miles away whose mission was to recommend hotels and restaurants in far-flung places just like this. It was, I thought, a bizarre travel-publishing spin on life imitating art. Loony planet, indeed.

I found myself recalling the café recently because the year drawing to a close marks the 30th anniversary of Lonely Planet, the Australia-based publisher whose densely packed guidebooks have accompanied millions of travelers to the far corners of the earth, dispensing advice, offering historical perspective and even providing basic literary companionship in moments of need.

Before arriving in Malaysia, I had understood that Lonely Planet was making a unique impact on world travel. But the Loony Planet café helped put that impact in perspective.

I can’t imagine a café named after another guidebook company. Few other guidebook publishers–few other publishers, period–have inspired the loyal following and sense of community that Lonely Planet has cultivated in so many parts of the world in its three decades. Countless die-hard travelers swear by the company’s guidance. Over the years, in fact, Lonely Planet has sold more than 50 million books.

Many of those same travelers frequent LonelyPlanet.com, the publisher’s encyclopedic Web site, which features the most vibrant travel-related bulletin board on the Internet. Visitors post more than 35,000 messages a month in The Thorn Tree, debating politics and culture and seeking travel companions with messages like this one, which appeared recently:

“Anyone planning some serious trekking in Kyrchistan, Mongolia, Northern Pakistan???? Period: June-August 2004.”

The note specified a couple of high peaks and an urge to keep costs down. It concluded with, “Drop me a line if seriously interested.” On LonelyPlanet.com, that request just might get some serious responses.

These travelers are drawn to Lonely Planet for the same reason I was when I packed my first Lonely Planet guidebook to Europe a decade ago. Beyond the books’ well-researched information, travelers are seduced by the simple but powerful message that inspired the first guide and continues to inspire many recent titles, too.

That message is this: The world is a big, fascinating place, and if you’re so inclined, you can see it on your own. What’s more, you don’t have to spend a fortune to do it. Often, if you travel on local buses and trains, stay in pensions and eat in mom-and-pop restaurants, you will learn more about the world and its people than if you traveled on tourist coaches, stayed in familiar Western chains and ate in hotel restaurants. And if, before you go, you read a bit about the country, its history and people, you will probably come to respect and appreciate the unique qualities they bring to the world. You just might return home a changed person.

It’s a message that has launched a million journeys.

I don’t mean to suggest that Lonely Planet invented thoughtful budget travel. In recent decades, many other guidebooks have promoted the joys of frugal journeys. Arthur Frommer’s “Europe on $5 a Day,” published in 1957, became a classic. But Lonely Planet combined that sensible approach with a wildly adventurous spirit and an appreciation for foreign cultures in a way that was, and still is, perfectly suited to the times.

In the early 1970s, a generation of Westerners was awakening to a world beyond its borders. Young men and women had seen the Beatles go to India and hang with the Maharishi. They read ‘50s Beat novels celebrating Zen-loving, train-hopping dharma bums. On television every night, they watched the war unfold in Vietnam, feeling a range of emotions, but also developing simple curiosity about parts of the globe that suddenly didn’t seem so far away.

Other forces were at work, too: In 1969, the first jumbo jet took flight, connecting more travelers to more distant lands than ever before.

The planet, in a way, was shrinking.

Enter Tony and Maureen Wheeler. Like many other adventurous young souls at the time, the British couple set out on the so-called Hippie Trail across Asia, “driving, bussing, hitching, sailing and railing their way from England to Australia,” according to the story of Lonely Planet, re-told in every book. After the trip, the couple sat down at a kitchen table and wrote and stapled together their first guidebook, “Across Asia on the Cheap.” It was, according to the company, the first modern guide to Asia published in any language.

With that, the Lonely Planet empire was born. Its earliest titles featured off-the-beaten-track destinations that would come to define the company and seal its reputation among seasoned travelers. “Across Asia on the Cheap” begat “Southeast Asia on a Shoestring,” which begat “Trekking in the Himalayas.” In the ensuing decades, the company became the first to publish guides to a number of distant places, including Peru, Bolivia, East Timor and Antarctica.

More than 600 titles are now in print. Travelers can find a Lonely Planet guide to every country recognized by the United Nations except one: the tiny island nation of Comoros off Madagascar. The islands, as it happens, are often referred to as the “Forgotten Islands.” But Lonely Planet is on the case: The country will be covered in a guide to Madagascar due out in June.

Other guidebook publishers have had an impact on independent travel, of course. Rough Guides and Moon Handbooks have both covered far-flung countries, and often very well. But no other company catering to independent travelers has rivaled Lonely Planet in its widespread following, adventurous approach and global reach.

Even Rick Steves, who has inspired many Americans to travel abroad with his popular guidebooks and his public television series, is unequivocal in his appreciation.

“I’m a big fan,” he told me recently. “Whenever I go outside Europe, I use a Lonely Planet book. I like their commitment to get-your-fingers-dirty travel in local cultures.”

Lonely Planet’s success has not come without a fair amount of criticism, however.

In some places, including much of Asia, the guidebooks are so popular that readers following their advice can find themselves crossing paths with the same Lonely Planet-carrying travelers drawn to the same hotels again and again. In China, a country so huge I imagined one could never meet the same traveler twice, I ran into one couple, their well-worn Lonely Planet guidebook in hand, four times in four distant cities. In Malaysia, I became so tired of seeing the same travelers I stepped off a train in a town I’d never heard of to spend the night, simply because the place didn’t appear in my Lonely Planet book.

As the narrator of Alex Garland’s novel “The Beach” rants, “Set up in Bali, Koh Phangan, Koh Tao, Boracay, and the hordes are bound to follow. There’s no way you can keep it out of Lonely Planet, and once that happens it’s countdown to doomsday.”

Others have complained that too many independent travelers, including more than a few Lonely Planet adherents, are stingy to a fault. They spend thousands of dollars to fly to ever more distant lands untouched by the West, only to alight among poverty-stricken peasants and haggle over the cost of a $4 room. These travelers, the complaint goes, spread Western culture without sharing their wealth among people who could benefit from it the most. They take too much and give too little and leave the places they visit only worse for the wear.

The criticism has some merit. One can undoubtedly find these travelers and backpacker ghettos all over the world, from Asia to Africa to South America. But Lonely Planet is not to blame; travelers themselves are to blame. They have choices. In any case, they are still the exception. They don’t truly characterize independent travel today.

At its best, independent travel changes the way we see the world. And it alters the way we see ourselves in the world. We come to see the globe as a fragile place, and its citizens as people not all that different from ourselves. Over time, we become better citizens, not just of our own countries, but of the world. First, however, we must take a leap of faith, pack our bags and go.

Lonely Planet’s guidebooks have encouraged millions of people to do just that, and to do so with care.

Amid the devastation of South Asia, where the earthquake and tsunamis have killed more than 150,000 people, a striking story is quietly emerging.

Western tourists — those ne’er-do-wells better known for lounging on the beach, sipping tropical drinks and haggling over the price of $4 hotel rooms in poverty-stricken towns — are doing some good.

Proclaimed Reuters: “Tsunami turns tourists into aid workers.”

Declared The Independent in Great Britain: “The tourists still come — only now they want to help.”

Instead of fleeing the devastated areas, some Western travelers are actually seeking them out, offering to lend a hand to overburdened relief agencies and local officials. The phenomenon is repeating itself, according to reports, in Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

As one aid worker in Sri Lanka told The Independent: “We have people coming in daily and telling us that for 24 hours or so they thought they would forget about [their] holiday. But then they realise that far from getting in the way they can actually be vitally important players in this fight to save and rebuild shattered lives.”

And so these tourists — men and women who haven’t lost loved ones and who may not have even been on the coast when the waves swept through — are trading flip-flops for sneakers and getting to work, collecting bodies, funneling aid money to the needy, picking through the rubble.

The news is heartwarming. The fact is, Western travelers to South and South East Asia, like travelers to other developing regions, often get a bad rap.

Critics accuse budget-minded backpackers of flitting through the poorest nations with a slash-and-burn mentality, cutting costs at every turn and putting frugality ahead of generosity, even as locals struggle to keep roofs over their heads.

We hear about the popularity of sex tourism in nations like Thailand and Cambodia, about children being recruited into the trade, about Westerners exploiting the needy.

Too many travelers, we are told, export their own culture when they go abroad, bringing Western demands with their dollars and Euros, encouraging old worlds to abandon traditions prematurely.

Those of us who travel often, of course, know that these criticisms, if sometimes valid, are far from the whole picture.

Long before the tsunamis struck, a subtle shift was occurring. More travelers than ever are seeking meaningful cultural exchange overseas. They are searching for ways to see the world, if only briefly, through others’ eyes, to understand foreign cultures in a way they hadn’t before.

They are signing on with organizations like Global Exchange and Cross-Cultural Solutions, which lead trips, often to little-visited places, that focus on education, understanding and, occasionally, volunteer work.

Those Westerners remaining in South Asia didn’t bargain for a disaster when they set off on their winter trips. But their willingness to help, instead of immediately returning home or setting off for more carefree climes, demonstrates a fact that too often gets overlooked: Travelers are capable of great good.

On CNN two weeks ago, Larry King asked a couple of Americans what they were still doing in Thailand, more than a week after the tsunamis struck. Why hadn’t they returned home from their disastrous winter vacation?

They stood against a backdrop of verdant Thai hills, blinking, as King’s query bounced via satellite across the globe. Then they explained, patiently, that the Thais had been kind and generous ever since the waves hit. The two wanted to help any way they could.

So, they said, they had been carrying bodies and coffins through the tropical heat. Friends back home had been wiring money to them to help, and they had been distributing it to those in need, operating their own mini-relief agency.

Rebecca Bedall told King, “I think our plan is to stay at least a week or two.”

The couple is far from alone.

At its worst, travel in the developing world only highlights the disparities between the haves and have-nots, fostering resentment toward Western tourists.

But more often than we hear about, travel forges connections between peoples across great economic and cultural divides. It brings us together. And even in the worst of times, it can reveal us at our best.

Photo of Sri Lanka Buddha by shashiBellamkonda via Flickr, (Creative Commons)

It was hot and humid when I set out for dinner in the small southern Thailand city of Hat Yai, and I felt the world expanding and shrinking around me, depending on which road I walked down. On one rutted old street, two men led a wrinkled gray elephant down the sidewalk, pausing in front of a shark-fin soup restaurant to read the menu. Around the corner, as though in a parallel universe, a well-lit 7-Eleven convenience store illuminated the road, and a couple of young women in blue jeans chatted behind street stalls, their tables lined with the latest in knock-off Oakley sunglasses and World Wrestling Federation T-shirts.

I had just stepped off the train from Malaysia and was hungry. I had been dreaming of my arrival in Thailand, and of eating the fragrant coconut-seasoned dishes I had enjoyed at Thai restaurants back home in Los Angeles. But here in southern Thailand, I wasn’t finding much. I’d passed Chinese restaurants and a few kitchens serving the same Malaysian-style curry I’d been eating for weeks. Then I spotted the Sizzler, with its familiar red and green sign: “Steaks, Seafood, Salad.”

I couldn¹t believe it. All sorts of Western chains had made inroads into Asian capitals like Bangkok and Katmandu, but I’d never seen a Sizzler abroad, and I certainly never expected to find one in a small city like Hat Yai. I wanted to head back toward the elephant.

When I began my five months of travel in Asia, I made an earnest pledge to try to avoid chain restaurants, which I saw as contributing to cultural homogenization. Instead, I told myself, I would dine only in local establishments, exasperating waiters as I butchered their native language, struggling valiantly to pronounce dishes like moo goo gai pan. As many travelers like to point out, the word “travel” is rooted in the French word “travail.” It’s work. You get out of it what you put into it, and it shouldn’t be too easy.

But after I’d walked several more blocks and still hadn’t found a restaurant serving anything new, the promise of crispy fresh vegetables from a salad bar, something I hadn’t come across in months on the road, sounded alluring. I headed for the Sizzler and put my cultural travels on hold. At least that’s what I assumed.

The Sizzler, it turned out, was packed with people. Well-dressed locals — men in slacks and button-down shirts, women in stylish skirts and blouses — sat on benches, waiting for tables. Soft-spoken Thai dinner conversations spilled out the front door, along with the buttery aroma of baked potatoes. I added my name to a waiting list. Those around me carefully studied menus on display, pointing to glossy photographs of chicken sandwiches and fries. They turned the menu pages slowly, as though leafing through an exotic wisdom text. Their eyes gleamed. I’d never seen such quiet anticipation at a Sizzler, a decidedly middle-of-the-road American chain. After a short wait, a slight young woman opened the front door and carefully enunciated my name: “Mr. Jim?”

Once inside, I was surprised to find myself surrounded by pastoral images of California, my home state. Colorful wall-sized murals depicted sight after familiar sight. In one, the Golden Gate Bridge spanned the blue waters of San Francisco Bay, giving way to Marin County’s rolling hills. In another, Santa Barbara’s whitewashed Spanish-style courthouse looked out over the city’s inviting red-tile roofs. Yet another wall featured the famous Hollywood sign beaming forth from the Santa Monica Mountains. The scenes brought back warm memories, but they also struck me in a way I wouldn’t have expected. How dry and desert-like California looked, how brown and dusty and sun-scorched, through the prism of the lush, green Southeast Asian countryside I’d been traveling in for weeks.

A visit to the Sizzler in Thailand was more complicated than I had imagined. I was seeing the familiar as deliciously exotic, and the exotic as oddly familiar. In a way, the Sizzler offered the perfect chance to see America, or at least one idealized version of America, through Thai eyes.

A waiter smiled and handed me an English-language menu, and I studied my options: steaks, fried shrimp, salads. One item in particular, the Malibu Chicken Supreme, caught my eye. The menu lovingly described the dish’s features, raving that it was a “favorite of the stars.” A favorite of the stars? The message to these Thai diners was clear: Thousands of miles away, in the shadow of the real Hollywood sign, Tom Cruise himself probably stopped by the local Sizzler for a bite of Malibu Chicken after a long day at the studio lot. Even more seductively, the description seemed to imply that anyone, anywhere in the world, even in a small town in southern Thailand, could enjoy the sweet taste of Hollywood stardom, or at least a glimmer of celebrity glamour, by ordering the Malibu Chicken.

As I devoured a plateful of salad (I passed on the celebrity chicken), I looked at the diners around me, sitting in booths, sipping Cokes and munching burgers, surrounded by California scenes. They were devouring a vision of the American dream. Did they know that their chances of spotting Tom Cruise at a Hollywood Sizzler were about the same as mine were of meeting the Buddha in a Bangkok nightclub? Did they care? I suspected not.

I could relate to them. Back home, I hadn’t eaten at a Sizzler in at least a decade. But I drove right by one each week to eat at my favorite Thai restaurant, a delicious hole-in-the-wall in the middle of a Thai immigrant neighborhood. How often I had sat inside, filling myself with panang curry and coconut soup, studying the black-and-white photographs of wild-looking Buddhist temples and Thai markets hung on the walls, nursing my dream of one day sampling my favorite dishes in their Thai homeland. Now, here I was, in just that place, surrounded by Thais eating my native food, surrounded by images of California, perhaps dreaming the same dream I had been, only in reverse.

What drives us to jet off to a foreign country where we know not a soul and can’t begin to speak the language? At least in my case, it can be something as simple as a photograph in a magazine, an exotic song whose lyrics I can’t begin to understand, or a savory dish served up at a local ethnic restaurant. These images and sounds and flavors, however innocuous they may at first appear, plant seeds in our imaginations. Sometimes, days or months or even years later, those seeds take root in our dreams. When they do, we find ourselves on wide-bodied jets, crossing oceans or continents, burning to explore the world on the other side.

But the best part of the adventure is that when we finally arrive in that other place, we rarely find just what we had expected. The world is far more complex, and people are far more complicated, than most of our imaginations can accommodate. Never would I have imagined, sitting back home in my favorite Thai cafe, that I’d spend my first night in Thailand searching in vain for panang curry but settling for a Sizzler. My dream never would have tolerated that. And I never would have guessed that I’d actually enjoy it.

After dinner, I walked back onto the steamy streets of Hat Yai, and I saw the traditional Thailand I had dreamed of back in Los Angeles. It was visible in the ancient buildings plastered with squiggly Thai writing, in a dark, musty shop selling bee products, and in that same wrinkled elephant still making its way silently down the road. Yet I also saw a distinctly more modern Thailand, one that I hadn’t fully envisioned at home. It was embodied on a nearby street corner, not far from the 7-Eleven. There, a band of young, long-haired Thai musicians plugged a guitar, bass and microphone into an amplifier. Counting off a few beats, they launched into the Eagles’ rock classic, Hotel California. It was an anthem from another place and another time, resurrected here for a new generation of dreamers nurturing their own visions of a faraway land.