The last ray of sun disappears behind the reddish mountains, and I trade the pavement for the sand, a common exchange on a . After hours spent roaming along the King���s Highway���a vital biblical trade route connecting Egypt to Mesopotamia on Jordan���s western shore���I have reached an extraterrestrial terrain: Wadi Rum, also known as the Valley of the Moon. This Mars-like desert in the south of Jordan captured my imagination when I first set foot here seven years ago. I���ve been coming back ever since, not only for its vast landscapes but also for the people who have inhabited this desert for centuries.

Other travelers sometimes get puzzled when they hear that instead of exploring a new destination, I choose to return to Jordan, a small Middle Eastern country about the size of Maine. I haven���t done the exact count, but by now I must have traveled to Jordan close to 20 times, with my latest visit ending in February of this year. Sorry, rest of the world, after so much time there, my passion only grows deeper. Here���s why.

Wadi Rum

Giant granite and sandstone mountains in whimsical shapes rise to the left and right as I approach the gentle slope of a mountainside that, over the years of coming here, I���ve learned to instantly recognize. Ahmad Mara���yeh is standing at the entrance to his traditional Bedouin camp. I���d spent numerous days here climbing the nearby rocks to catch sunsets and hearing Mara���yeh speak about Bedouin traditions like astronavigation or camel husbandry. I rush toward him, feeling like I���ve returned home after a long absence. The silence of the desert envelops me. I don���t have to turn off my iPhone to preserve this silence; there���s no reception out here.

���Ahlan wa Sahlain. Welcome,��� says Mara���yeh. Together with his family, Mara���yeh runs , a leading camp in the desert that���s pushing the boundaries of sustainable adventure tourism forward for the entire Bedouin community, a group of known for their fierce hospitality and strong connection to the land. At Rum Planet Camp, plastics are banned. In place of fuel-guzzling generators, the camp is powered by solar energy, abundant in the desert. Instead of air conditioning, insulated cabins covered with traditional woven goat-hair fabric trap warmth in winter and stay cool in summer. ���It���s our duty to protect this desert,��� says Mara���yeh, ���and to ensure that its beauty will last.���

Wadi Rum is my favorite place in Jordan, but I love to trek across the rest of this diverse land. Inside its relatively compact area, Jordan holds plenty of jewels: the Mediterranean forests of northern Ajloun; the saline shores of the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth; the steep canyons of , an expanse of rugged landscapes alongside the Great Rift Valley that holds three different microclimates within it; the basalt-black eastern deserts; and the pastoral central Jordan. This natural bounty is connected by the 400-mile , a series of long-distance hikes that link the Roman settlement of Umm Qais in the north to the Red Sea diving hub of Aqaba in the south.

The Jordan Trail

Wherever I go in Jordan, I feel at peace and welcomed. This strong tradition of hospitality and warm embrace of guests perhaps explains why nearly every traveler I���ve come across in Jordan over the years has been a return visitor.

Hiking the northern section of the Jordan Trail, I hopscotch between ancient cities and wild open spaces. Near As-Salt, an important regional trade hub in the 19th century that has a central market still thriving today, I leave the town���s historic limestone homes behind and head into the countryside that in spring is abloom with fire-red poppies, delicate flowering almond trees, and black iris, the country���s national flower. I step on the same paths that merchants from Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon walked when they arrived in As-Salt to purchase famous local exports: livestock, grains, and dyes from native plants like maroon-rich summaq or deep-blue neileh.

On the southern part of the Jordan Trail, I cling to the side of a cliff on the short but rigorous Nawatef Trail. This circular trail inside Dana Nature Reserve winds through multicolored rock formations���some look like mushroom tops and others like giant chimneys���and settlements of Nabataeans. It was this mysterious civilization of traders and builders from the 1st century BCE who built Petra, their rock-carved pink capital and now a , for us to marvel upon.

���Jordan Trail is important because it shows the diversity of our landscapes and allows people to discover local communities and visit their homestays,��� says Eisa Dwaikat, an expert Jordanian guide with more than 20 years of hiking experience who started working on what eventually became the Jordan Trail system in 2010. ���When I���m out on the trail, I love the serenity of it and the continued change of scenery,��� he adds.

Back in Wadi Rum, Mara���yeh echoes this sentiment. ���It���s in our blood to be connected with the desert. Even though we live in the village, we have to be outside in the desert from time to time,��� he says as we gather around a nightly fire. The red giant Betelgeuse, one of Orion���s brightest stars, shines above us, reigning in the sky at this time of year. The desert quiets. Our conversation fades.

The People, Past and Present泭

This silence of the desert is contagious. Remarkably, it is devoid of noise, not sound. Falling asleep here is akin to putting noise-canceling headphones on life���s many distractions and stresses. I have yet to experience greater joy than waking up to a chirping of finches or an occasional camel bellow. ���We want our guests to experience Wadi Rum the way we have for centuries,��� says Mara���yeh. For him, that means wild camping in the desert, rock climbing on the craggy cliffs that at times resemble the hump of a camel, trekking with camels at sunrise the way the Bedouins have always done it, or sharing a meal of mansaf, a heaping plate of rice and meat cooked with dried fermented yogurt called jameed.

On the early morning , an eight-mile trail that connects Petra���s smaller outpost to the main city complex through a backcountry path, Bedouin shepherds, goats, and sheep are my only companions. I choose this route to Petra for its monumental landscapes and the chance to avoid the crowded main entrance. I walk past , a nearly 10,000-year-old housing structure considered to be one of humanity���s first settled villages. I pass a few Bedouin tents, small dots of black and white against the landscape of crimson and green. I descend into the sharp gorges of Wadi Araba, the mighty extension of the Great Rift Valley where copper, iron, and manganese deposits iridesce under the midday sun. High on oxygen and fresh sage tea, I enter one of Petra���s most legendary sites, the imposing carved high into the sheer canyon walls. I���ve walked through millennia of human history���all before lunch.

This is what keeps bringing me back here year after year. Whether I���m rappelling into the , stargazing in Wadi Rum, or spending the day with the shepherds of , in Jordan I only need to step outside to feel connected to this land, its people, and its ancient memories.

is an opportunity to experience a wide range of outdoor activities. In a matter of days, travelers can go rock climbing in Ajloun forests or Wadi Rum mountain ranges, hiking while visiting homestays throughout the , sandboarding, riding ATVs, free camping, and desert trekking in Wadi Rum, canyoning in gorges like Wadi Mujib or Wadi Musa, cycling the , scuba diving, parasailing and windsurfing in Aqaba, and much more. is an opportunity to experience renowned Jordanian hospitality by visiting numerous community tourism projects along the Jordan Trail.

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窪蹋勛圖厙 travel is a way to experience a new place on a deeper level, going beyond the usual tourist sights to the local culture and nature through memorable, exciting activities. No destination is more equipped to offer a diverse adventure travel experience than Japan. With four distinct seasons and diverse natural landscapes that lend themselves to a broad range of outdoor sports, each region of Japan offers something unique to adventure seekers. We chatted with the experts at the Japan National Tourism Organization to learn how Japan checks all the boxes when it comes to an adventure travel destination.泭

窪蹋勛圖厙: Where are the best places to experience ?

Japan National Tourism Organization: The , which encompasses Japan���s northernmost main island, is known for its rugged volcanic mountains and geothermal activity. Biratori, a town in this region, is one of the ancestral homes of the Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaido. The town is still inhabited by many Ainu people today. The Ainu people have always respected nature, animals, plants, and the tools they make with their own hands, considering everything around them to be kamui (gods). In the 19th century, English explorer Isabella L. Bird visited this region, a trip that inspired her travelogue Unbeaten Tracks. Following in Bird���s footsteps, visitors can experience the lifestyle, culture, and spirituality of the Ainu people as they explore Biratori and the surrounding area.

In the southern part of Japan, is one of 34 national parks in the country and is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. The island receives the most rainfall of any region in Japan, and its abundant water supply nurtures forests of Yakushima cedar trees���some more than 1,000 years old���and beautiful evergreen forests. Visitors can enjoy a variety of activities on this mysterious island, including mountaineering, nature walks, and kayaking. These activities allow visitors to convene with nature and experience the blessings of water and the life it brings.

What outdoor adventures can visitors experience in Japan?

Japan spans three climate zones, from subarctic Hokkaido to subtropical . This diversity in climates allows visitors to experience multiple seasons in one visit. For example, in April, visitors can enjoy in the fine powder snow in Hokkaido. Then, in Okinawa, the southernmost island, the warm tropical climate lends itself to .

Japan���s four distinct seasons make it a wonderful destination year-round. Visitors can enjoy a variety of outdoor activities, such as hiking and cycling, throughout the year. In , spend time among the cherry blossoms, or enjoy autumn leaves in the . Both of these stunning seasonal changes are symbolic landscapes of Japan.

What makes adventure destinations in Japan unique compared to those in the United States?

Japan is a unique destination for adventure travel because each region you visit throughout the country has its own . For example, , which used to be an important pass connecting Kyoto and Edo (ancient Tokyo), is still preserved in its original form, and visitors can enjoy trekking while feeling the natural surroundings. , located just beyond the pass, was once a prosperous post town and has been registered as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings, where houses from the past remain standing. Travelers can feel like they���re stepping back in time to explore Japan���s history while enjoying the country���s natural beauty.

How can visitors experience Japan���s culture outside of major cities?

Cuisine is another important element in Japanese culture. Not only can you taste dishes made from local ingredients throughout Japan, but you can also have a variety of . At , located in the middle of the 637-mile Michinoku Coastal Trail in the Tohoku region, visitors can experience salt-making, once an important tradition along the Sanriku coastline. At Fujii Wasabi-en in Shizuoka, visitors can experience harvesting wasabi that���s cultivated using spring water from Mount Amagi. Curious about how sake is made? Head to in Shikoku, where visitors can observe the sake-making process using locally grown rice, yeast, and underflow water from the Niyodo River, known as the purest river in the country���and, of course, enjoy sake tasting.

Is it easy to reach Japan���s adventure destinations?

is very advanced, making it relatively easy to access more remote adventure destinations. For example, a traveler arriving in Tokyo to Hokkaido in just 90 minutes or to Okinawa in three hours. are also a very convenient mode of transportation. A 90-minute train ride transports you to Sendai, the gateway to the Tohoku region, with easy access to the Michinoku Coastal Trail, and Nagano, one of Japan’s most mountainous areas and a reminder of the Edo period. Finally, expressways and are well-developed for local and regional transport.

JNTO is involved in a broad range of activities, both domestically and worldwide, to encourage international tourists from all over the world to visit Japan and to showcase Japan���s vast nature, rich culture, and the ways in which adventure travel can promote Japan���s wild natural beauty and unique local cultures. For further information, please visit the .

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doesn���t remember the name of the documentary he saw in late 2019 about Uttarayan, an annual kite festival in western India. But he vividly recalls being awed by the YouTube video playing on his laptop screen. ���The shape of the kites, the lines of thread, all these beautiful things flying in the sky���it really intrigued me,��� says Coedel, who lives in Paris. Three weeks later, in January of 2020, the photographer flew to the state of Gujarat and then traveled around the region to witness the celebration himself. During the weeklong Uttarayan, people parade brightly colored kites through the streets of Ahmedabad and Vadodara and Mumbai from dawn to dusk, reveling in the end of winter and anticipating the spring harvest season. As Coedel snapped pictures and spoke with locals, he was moved by the sight of Hindus and Muslims of all ages eating and playing together. ���At the beginning, I just wanted to make images that were compositionally appealing, because I didn���t know much about the culture before I arrived,��� he says. ���It evolved into not only creating images that capture the abstract shapes of the kites, but also documenting this magical time that people were enjoying.��� The trip took place just months before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and he hopes to return this winter to photograph the festival again. ���When I look at these pictures, I can���t help thinking that some of these children���s lives must have completely changed,��� Coedel says.

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If you love travel and you love giving back, you���ll really love combining the two. That���s why we started a program doing just that. Since 2019, we���ve been bringing泭Backpacker and 窪蹋勛圖厙 readers to Nepal to volunteer on projects supporting health and education, and then we go on a trek when the work is done. As Nepal continues to recover from the devastating earthquakes in 2015 and the recent pandemic stresses, we���re supporting infrastructure efforts with a 泭that���s half volunteer effort, half trekking, and all fun.

What���s that mean? The first week is devoted to a service project. In fall 2024, we���ll be helping a Nepal-based nonprofit build new classrooms at a school in the village of Kakani, in the hills outside of Kathmandu. No skills are required���just a willingness to roll up your sleeves and work���and we���re making a $500 donation to the project on behalf of every participant.

The second week we���ll embark on a nine-day trek in the Nar Phu valley, a remote region between Annapurna and the Tibetan border. There, we���ll stay in villages that were settled centuries ago by Tibetan communities, visit Buddhist monasteries, and have the opportunity to cross a 17,400-foot pass. We partner with泭泭and use Nepali guides and porters, and while Himalayan hiking is always challenging, anyone in good shape can do this trek.

It���s the ultimate win-win adventure. In fall 2024, our trip is scheduled October 12-31, and space is limited.泭

How can you tell if this trip is for you? Easy, just see if these apply.

You want to make a tangible contribution.

In Nepal,泭GDP per capita was $1,336 in 2022, according to the World Bank. That makes it among the poorest countries in the world (for comparison, Haiti���s per capita GDP was $1,748 in 2022.) With limited resources, Nepal often lacks critical infrastructure that we take for granted. In Kakani, that means hundreds of families have to travel to Kathmandu for medical services, a problem that was exacerbated by the pandemic. Last year we finished work on a new health clinic, and it���s now serving the local community. This year we���re returning to Kakani to work on a school-expansion project. There���s not enough space in the current building to accommodate the growing student population, and there���s no instruction at all for 11th and 12th graders because of lack of classrooms.

While in Kakani, you���ll meet the kids and families who will benefit from the school project and work alongside members of the community. You���ll make a real contribution to construction (get ready to roll up those sleeves), and know that every ounce of sweat and dollar donated is going directly to a project that locals have said is their highest priority.

You want to experience the world���s greatest mountains.

Nothing against the Rockies or Alps, but the Himalayas start where those mountains end. On the Nar Phu trek, we���ll stay in villages above 13,000 feet, in the shadow of 20,000-foot peaks. On an optional day hike to Himlung Himal base camp, at 16,000 feet, we���ll walk above a massive glacier. But it���s not just the scale that makes the Himalayas so unique. It���s also the people, who have mastered the art of living in some of the world���s harshest conditions.

You want to experience teahouse trekking.

We won���t be sleeping on the ground or cooking dehydrated meals on this trek. Nepal���s famously hospitable teahouse culture is something every hiker should experience. The Nar Phu Valley, which was off-limits to trekkers for decades, is relatively undeveloped, so lodging is basic compared to popular routes like Everest Base Camp and Annapurna. But you still get cozy rooms, homemade curries and momos, and hot tea morning, noon, and night.

泭You want to challenge yourself.

For most North American hikers, climbing a fourteener is about as high they���ll ever get without boarding a plane. On this route, legs and lungs willing, we���ll go more than 3,000 vertical feet higher. The 17,400-foot pass comes near the end of the trek, allowing plenty of time to acclimatize, but it���s still a challenging day that takes most hikers 12 hours (there���s an optional lower route if needed). The reward? Atop the pass, you���ll come face-to-east-face with the Annapurna Range.

If泭this sounds like you, join us October 12-31 for the trip of a lifetime.

Special泭thanks to , which equipped our team with water filters.泭Traveling in a developing country requires constant care when it comes to drinking water. Both in town and on the trail, water could be contaminated with any number of泭pathogens (such as viruses, bacteria, and protozoan cysts). The泭泭eliminates those contaminants and filters pesticides, chemicals, heavy metals, and microplastics as well. Equipping our team with Grayl purifiers made it easy to treat water in every situation.泭泭泭泭

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The months apart were not kind.

When we finally track down our motorcycle on the outskirts of Erbil, the capital of Iraq���s semiautonomous Kurdish region, the engine is dead and all three tires are flat. The sidecar has become a trash can, strewed with empty beer bottles, newspapers, and a splash of motor oil. ���Sorry, old girl,��� sighs Carmen Gentile, my traveling companion and the bike���s owner. He slumps in the saddle for a while, head bowed, a little heartbroken. ���I���m sad, dude,��� he says. ���This bike deserves so much better.���

In the summer of 2017, while reporting on a campaign by Iraqi forces to purge the Islamic State from the city of Mosul, Carmen had found the bike���a Russian-made Ural���buried under the rubble of a mortar strike, its gas tank crushed, its fenders shot through with bullet holes. An incurable moto enthusiast, he launched a salvage mission that involved jury-rigging parts and schmoozing his way through countless checkpoints on the 50-mile drive east to Erbil. The bike was then left with a friend of a friend, who apparently didn���t share Carmen���s affections.

Nearly a year later, with the jihadists on the run, we���re back to explore Iraqi Kurdistan���s potential as the Middle East���s next great adventure destination. Our plan is to dust off the Ural and ride with photographer Balazs Gardi, who���ll rent a car, traveling from the sunbaked plains up to the mountains that flare along the Iranian border���an alpine wilderness that���s home to virgin peaks, raging whitewater, and the region���s first national park. It���s not far from where a group of American hikers were taken prisoner nine years ago by Iranian border guards, an incident that muted the media hype that Kurdistan was the next big thing. But I���m in contact with a guide who knows the terrain well, and several high-octane travel dispatches I���ve seen online (���Taking on Kurdistan���s Wildest Mountain River,��� ���Iraqi Kurdistan: Intrepid Skiers Break New Ground���) suggest that a serious outdoor scene is emerging in the high country. We want to check it out.

The Ural won���t get us there, obviously, so we head to a bustling moto market in a different part of town. Rows of cheap Iranian 125cc four-speeds fail to rouse our spirits, but we have no choice. We settle on a pair of Honda knockoffs, slap on some stickers of Che Guevara for good luck, and ride down to the old city center to buy last-minute provisions.

I���ve been here before. On my first visit to Kurdistan, in 2007, the Iraq War was raging full tilt. It was the deadliest year yet for U.S. troops. Sections of Baghdad and the southern cities were no-go zones, terrorized by suicide car bombs and sectarian death squads. In contrast, Erbil, a city of around one million, was a bastion of calm guarded by the fearsome Peshmerga (���those who face death���), the Kurds��� national fighting force.

Having a U.S. passport in Kurdistan was a bonus. Soon after the end of the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. enforced a no-fly zone over the region that helped stop Saddam Hussein���s brutal counteroffensive against the Kurdish rebellion, and Kurds have never forgotten that. I was invited to a wedding, ate free meals, and celebrated the Muslim New Year with friends and fireworks beneath the towering walls of the ancient citadel of Erbil, one of the oldest continuously occupied settlements in the world. It���s hard to believe that two wars have happened since my last visit.

Carmen and I park next to a glitzy new plaza that fronts the citadel and hike up to the viewing platform. The skyline bristles with shopping malls, cranes, and half-built condominium complexes thrown up by developers from Turkey and Dubai. Swarms of package tourists from Baghdad shamelessly snap selfies around us, but I don���t see any Westerners.

Kurdish authorities have tried hard to promote Kurdistan as ���the other Iraq,��� but to most foreigners it���s still a land synonymous with the bloodshed and beheadings that have stigmatized the rest of the country. In September 2017, flush from victory in their three-year battle against Islamic State militants, Kurdish leaders made matters worse by holding an independence referendum, in defiance of Iraq���s central government. It backfired catastrophically. Iraqi forces retaliated by seizing swaths of oil-rich Kurdish lands and banning international flights to the region���s airports. We arrived just weeks after the embargo was lifted.

Following a stroll through another market for supplies, we return to our bikes. This time mine won���t fire up. I stomp the kick-starter again and again, issuing a flurry of f-bombs and drawing a small crowd.

���Engine too much gas,��� a mustached man says when I stop to catch my breath.

I grunt out a yes. Inevitably, he asks me where I���m from.

���Ah, Amreekah friend,��� he says when I tell him. ���Rambo number one! Bush good also.���

Another man squats down to my right and starts stripping the plastic off my ignition cable with his teeth. He pulls out a knife to finish the job, twists the bare copper threads into a braid, and taps the spark plug. On his cue, I give the bike a sharp kick, and it starts with a whimper, then revs to life. The group erupts into trilling, high-pitched ululations that send us off.

Kurdish hospitality is as robust as ever, but the early signals are clear. Nothing will come easy on this trip.

In the morning, we ride northeast up Hamilton Road, an old British-built highway that snakes some 110 miles from Erbil to the Iranian frontier. Near the city limits, a series of Peshmerga checkpoints give way to rolling hills dotted with farmhouses and stone fortresses dating back to the tenth century. Balazs is following us in a chase car, but it���s not long before we���re chasing him.

Just as the landscape opens up, my bike starts to flag. I pin the throttle, to no effect. A cling-clang of loose metal rattles around in my engine. ���Man, this is not good!��� I shout to Carmen, who���s having gear problems of his own. The predicament is made worse by Kurdish motorists who seem hell-bent on running us off the road. We sputter on, past a billboard honoring the ���immaculate precious bodies��� of all the Peshmerga martyrs who���ve fought and died to defend this terrain.

Kurdish history is a catalog of tragedy. Blessed with natural beauty and cursed by location, the ancestral heartland straddles a tangle of ethnic, religious, and geopolitical fault lines where conflict has ebbed and flowed for centuries. During the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, when Allied powers divvied up the region, plans to create an independent Kurdish state never came to fruition. Today some 30 million stateless Kurds are spread across four countries���Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. In Iraq, decades of ruthless government persecution have hardened the Kurds��� drive to carve out a homeland of their own.

Two hours, many stops, and maybe 35 miles up the road, we pause to rest at the edge of a sprawling farm valley outside the town of Shaqlawa. A pair of aging freedom fighters in traditional Kurdish costume���baggy pantaloons, vest, cummerbund, head wrap���are thumbing prayer beads in the dusky light. They say as-salaamu alaikum (peace be upon you) and touch their hearts. I introduce myself and say what a beautiful place it is.

���You should have been here in ���74,��� says Qasim Abdullah, the taller one, warming up to tell a story. ���Saddam���s fighters were up there and we were over there, firing artillery back and forth.��� He points across the valley to where he was. ���At night we sometimes had to cross minefields between us. Too many men died here.���

In the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam tried to Arabize Iraq���s estimated six million Kurds. More than 4,000 Kurdish villages were razed and entire communities forcibly relocated. When Iraqi Kurdish fighters sided with Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1980 to 1988, Saddam launched a scorched-earth campaign of bombing and chemical attacks that claimed at least 50,000 lives. Ahmad Mustafa, the shorter, stouter man, says that 20 of his neighbors were rounded up and executed. An additional 120 were taken from the next village. ���No one knows what happened to them,��� he says.

Like most able-bodied Kurdish men, Qasim and Ahmad fought with the guerrillas for several years. But with families to look after, they eventually fled to Iran, part of the more than one million Kurds who left the country in waves that lasted into the early 1990s. A 1991 uprising ultimately evicted Iraqi forces from the north and led to de facto self-rule, thanks largely to the U.S.-enforced no-fly zone that targeted Iraqi jets flying over Kurdish airspace, but not before a bloody crackdown by Saddam. Rival Kurdish factions then turned against each other in a civil war that ended in 1998, splitting the government in two. The groups did not merge again until after Saddam���s ouster and the drafting of the 2005 constitution.

As Iraq plunged into chaos, Kurdistan became the paradigm of peace and prosperity that American leaders had envisioned for the entire country. Qasim and Ahmad came home to try and realize the dream of a free and independent state. But that dream is fading. Clashes with the Iraqi army following the hasty independence referendum saw the vaunted Peshmerga concede to Iraq a reported 40 percent of the disputed territory they had controlled since the 2014 fight against the Islamic State. This area includes the city of Kirkuk, whose oil fields drive the Kurdish economy and would be the lifeblood of a state. Turkey is launching cross-簫border attacks against Kurdish rebels and talking about a ground invasion, while Iran is targeting Iranian Kurdish opposition bases inside Kurdistan. ���We���ve never been comfortable in our lives,��� says Qasim. ���This peace won���t last.���

Back on the highway, the knocking in my engine seems to be amplified by the darkness, and the bike stalls out on a steep, potholed descent. My rear wheel slides, and I almost crash before skidding to a stop. Balazs is somewhere up ahead in the car, so I wait for Carmen. A half hour passes before I walk back down the road and find him talking with a Peshmerga officer at a checkpoint. Turns out his front tire went flat and I���d left him behind. ���Nearly lost it,��� he says. ���What happened to you?��� He bursts into lunatic laughter when I tell him I���ve stalled.

The motorcycle trip is becoming a fiasco. Waiting for a flatbed trailer to haul our broken bikes back to Erbil, Carmen decides to fold and go home to Croatia early. He has just published a war memoir about getting shot in the face with a rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan, and he needs to prepare for a book tour in the U.S. Balazs and I will head deeper into the backcountry in pursuit of wild mountains and rivers. But first we need to find our guide.

���Man, we're gonna do some crazy shit together,��� Nabil Musa told me the first time we connected on the phone. Nabil was recommended by an American friend who used to live in Kurdistan, with the caveat that he���s an environmentalist, not a backcountry guide. I took his gonzo talk as just that: talk.

As Iraq���s lone representative for Waterkeeper Alliance, a global advocacy group based in New York City, Nabil is tasked with protecting waterways that flow through Kurdistan. This involves a mix of protest stunts and derring-do: multi-day swims across freshwater lakes that are being poisoned by industrial pollution, kayak trips to highlight the threat of multiplying Turkish dams, and so forth. More recently, an antidumping campaign had him doing headstands by the oil pools outside Sulaymaniyah, his birthplace and Kurdistan���s second-largest city. Balazs and I detour to meet him there.

Nabil is 41 but appears a decade older, with the road-worn look of a chain-smoker who���s spent his life on the move. Wearing sandals, shorts, and a tank top that reveals a strong build, he cooks us dinner at his apartment and riffs rapid-fire about his plans to raft and trek in the mountains around Choman, a gateway town near the Iran-Iraq border. He���s been stuck in Sulaymaniyah for more than a month, and his restlessness verges on manic. ���I just need to get out,��� he says in a faint British accent picked up abroad. ���I go mad if I don���t get outside enough.���

In the morning, we load his pickup from a garage full of kayaking and rafting gear, and soon we���re back on the road, climbing past sawtooth ridges and burned limestone canyons, with ���Guantanamera��� blasting out of his speakers. In a cloud of smoke, Nabil recalls how, back in the mid-1990s, during the civil war, the two main Kurdish political factions���the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by Masoud Barzani, and Jalal Talabani���s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)���exchanged mortar and artillery fire on the strategic heights above us. Thousands died in the fighting, and Kurdish hopes for self-determination nearly perished with them.

Like most Kurds of his generation, Nabil has seen violence. As a teenager during the 1991 uprising against Saddam, he witnessed the death of his two best friends during a battle for the Iraqi Intelligence Service���s Sulaymaniyah headquarters, a former torture chamber that���s now a bullet-pocked museum. In 1996, during the civil war, he fled overland to Turkey, then to Europe. He spent several years busking on the streets and joined a traveling theater group in the UK before returning home permanently in 2011 to take the Waterkeeper job.

In the time Nabil had been away, a population boom and rapid development had taken a toll. Trash and toxic runoff choked the river he grew up fishing. Nabil had dreamed of this river while in exile, and he was angry that no one seemed to care. ���Everyone here is obsessed with security and making money,��� he says. ���The environment didn���t have many defenders.��� A friend told him about the Waterkeeper gig, and he decided to become ���a voice for the rivers.��� He has tattoos of the organization���s logo, a sturgeon mosaic, on his calf and shoulder.

About 20 miles past the resort town of Rawanduz, Nabil pulls over near a bridge spanning the Azadi River, one of Kurdistan���s fastest. Or so he says, and I���m taking his word for it. My online searches yield no details on the waterway, and there are no legitimate outfitters in the area for us to consult. Nabil figures that the stretch of rapids we���re sizing up are Class IV-plus, though he admits he can���t be sure. To his knowledge, no one has ever run them. He wants to be the first.

A stocky fire-brigade rescue swimmer named Khalil Mahmoud walks over and asks what we���re up to. When we tell him, he says, ���You are not right in the head. It���s full of trash, and there are hidden currents���this is a death river.��� Every year, 15 to 20 people drown, he says, adding, ���Four days ago I pulled out another man.��� A government placard behind him states the obvious: SWIMMING HERE IS DANGEROUS.

Nabil starts pacing back and forth, taking long pulls on his cigarette. ���Fuck it,��� he finally says. ���Let���s do this.���

I like Nabil's can-do attitude, but our combined experience running hardcore rapids is limited. On the drive up, he told us about the last time he paddled a portion of the Azadi, in 2014, as part of an anti-dam campaign. One of the men in his group had his hand cut open by underwater debris. My whitewater experience includes a few Class IV rafting trips in the Himalayas, all with internationally recognized outfitters.

���You���re free to do whatever you want���I just have to warn you,��� Khalil says. But he���s also a little excited by the turn of events and offers to stand at the water���s edge to save us if we flip. He points to the opposite bank, where a nasty concrete shelf juts out beyond the crux of the whitewater, bristling with shafts of rebar. ���If you make it through, you must avoid that!��� he says.

Balazs hangs back with Khalil to photograph our passage through the crux. Nabil and I drive a few miles upriver, inflate a big raft, and don helmets and vests. ���Just follow my lead,��� he says, ���and when I say paddle, give it everything you got.��� We push off, me in the front, him driving at the rear, easy drifting. The cliff to our left soars more than 300 feet and, at intervals, hangs over the river like a roof, lined with tumbledown vines that glisten from the last rainfall. On a day like today, it���s hard to believe that there���s no one else out here.

Suddenly, Nabil shouts ���Hard right!��� We���re too late. An eddy catches the edge of the boat and we whipsaw around, bouncing backward off the rocks. I turn to look at Nabil, alarmed.

���OK, that was my bad,��� he says. ���I fucked that one up.���

We shake it off and keep drifting. The next rapids are slippery smooth. Rounding a wide bend, the flow starts to surge, the roar of the water becomes more deafening. I thought I had a good read on the rapid from above, but at this level, the line through the boulders is invisible.���Which way?��� I shout back. ���Which way? Nabil?���

The current has a grip on us, and all I hear is ���捩硃餃餃梭梗!��� In an instant, we smash straight into a rock and spin sideways into an adjoining chute of whitewater that almost throws me from the raft.

As we slide deeper into the churn, I see Khalil, poised in a wrestler���s crouch, ready to jump in to save us. Balazs is right behind him, tracking us with his lens. At that moment we���re swept left and shot into the bank of broken concrete. The side of the raft shrieks against the metal spikes. Somehow it doesn���t burst. We spend the last leg of the trip gliding in silence, soaked and shaken.

���If this raft were Chinese, we���d be dead,��� Nabil says as we step onto the riverbank. My jaws are clenched.

With no footpath to speak of, Khalil and another man help us scrape the raft up the canyon face. Down the road, a flatbed truck is backing up to the river���s edge to dump a load of rubble. ���Look at this bastard,��� says Nabil. He jogs over and turns on his camera to shame the driver. The driver stares back at him, confused. Tons of rocks go crashing down the bank, adding new complications to the rapid we just passed through.

Night is falling泭when we pull into Choman. Erbil, around 100 miles west of here, seems a world away. The main street is empty and quiet, except for the patter of yellow and green political banners that flap in a crisp breeze. Up ahead, Mount Halgurd���at 11,831 feet, the highest peak situated entirely inside Iraq���is socked in by clouds.

During the drive, I asked Nabil if it would be possible for us to climb Halgurd. Ever the optimist, he said we���d have to speak to his friend Bakhtyar Bahjat, acting director of Halgurd-Sakran, the first national park in Iraqi Kurdistan. I���d been told that the roughly 460-square-mile park���set high in the border triangle of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey���contains unclimbed peaks and dense forests prowled by bears, wolves, and Persian leopards. It���s also home to armed guerrillas whose presence both protects an extraordinary natural bounty and keeps part of the park off-limits.

The next morning, Bakhtyar meets us at the visitor center. He���s a hale man with a buzz cut and the earnest gusto of a schoolteacher (his day job). His crisp suit and upbeat attitude are at odds with the dereliction around us. The park���s carved entrance sign has been pulled from the ground and leans sideways against a wall. The courtyard fountain is dry, and the faux-log-cabin-style offices���crammed with topographical maps, pastoral nature paintings, and creepy taxidermy���are covered by a sheet of dust, remnants of a grand dream now forsaken. ���Unfortunately, we are facing some challenges at the moment,��� Bakhtyar says.

Background information on the park is scarce, but some articles about it say that the vision for a national park came to Choman���s former mayor Abdulwahid Gwani after a 2010 trip to Austria. Gwani mobilized a team of international experts to draw up boundaries and a multiyear growth plan to transform one of the most land-mine-

ridden areas in the world into a nature reserve. Backed by a million-dollar grant from the Kurdish government, he expanded the park to include Mount Halgurd and other peaks, brought in teams of designers, and hired dozens of rangers, mostly Peshmerga veterans, to crack down on illicit hunting and tree felling. With time, Bakhtyar says, many locals began to ���see tourism as a future.���

And then came the Islamic State.

In June 2014, the jihadists stormed across the Nineveh Plains and eventually made it to within 20 miles of Erbil. Every one of the park���s rangers dashed to the front lines. Islamic State bombs and booby traps stymied their counteroffensive, and demining teams working around the park were called in to help. Globally, oil prices crashed, slashing the salaries of park employees. Bakhtyar went back to working full-time as a teacher. His codirector left for a job in Erbil. Poaching resumed, and locals hacked trees to replace winter fuel they could no longer afford. Worse, in mid-2015, a three-decade-old conflict reignited between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers��� Party (PKK), leftist militants whose territory overlaps with the park, bringing regular air strikes and artillery barrages that reportedly have killed civilians. A final blow came last year when Gwani died.

���Right now, Halgurd-Sakran is just a name on paper,��� says Bakhtyar.

With park visits down about 80 percent in 2018 compared with the year before, Bakhtyar is in an accommodating mood. No matter that we want to climb Iraq���s tallest mountain on a day���s notice and don���t have any gear. We stop by the local mountaineering club and enter a dank basement, where Bakhtyar starts digging through milk crates. In short order, I���m equipped with a yard sale���s worth of secondhand climbing gear from Eastern Europe: a neon snowsuit, trekking poles, gloves, and bent crampons. Balazs, who stands a brooding six foot five, is issued black pleather gaiters that rise to his knees and might have seen previous action in an S&M club.

Up on the mountain the next day, a drift of leaden clouds obscure the summit, dimming our chances of reaching it. But I���m more concerned about what���s underfoot. Mount Halgurd���s flanks are littered with land mines and unexploded munitions from conflicts that date back four decades. Kurdish fighters based in these mountains have alternately faced off against Iranian attackers, Iraqi jets armed with Saddam Hussein���s chemical weapons, Turkish commandos, and each other during civil war.

Scanning the wind-raked slope we���re crossing, I see bits of shrapnel, mortar shells blasted into rusty flower shapes, Soviet anti簫personnel mines, and the melted husks of American-made ���toe poppers.���

���Don���t worry, I���ve been up here too many times,��� Bakhtyar says, reading our minds. He assures us that the route we���re on has been cleared by experts, though we don���t see any sign of a trail and demining efforts around here seem to be scattershot at best.

Earlier that morning, on the drive up the Iraqi-army-built supply road, we passed a government warning sign about land mines that had been bulldozed by locals. Bakhtyar explained that land appropriation is on the rise, but there���s nothing he can do since the park has no rangers left to enforce the rules. Farther along, red metal posts topped with white skull-and-bones symbols line the road. These indicate mines still to be removed. But it appears that rockslides have shifted the positions of some of the posts.

Less than 30 minutes into our trek, we see other posts higher up the slope, which we���re traversing single file. Several feet to my right, I spot a beige plastic disc in the gravel.

���Is that what I think it is?���

Bakhtyar is in front listening to music on his phone. He turns and squints at the mine, a bit confused.

���Hmm��� Someone must have thrown it,��� he says.

���So this is not a minefield, but there are mines everywhere,��� Balazs deadpans.

Bakhtyar is already walking again, lost in thought or pretending not to hear us. Nabil looks unsure.

Balazs and I exchange a glance. Both of us spent many years covering the war in Afghanistan, often hitched to U.S. combat units in the badlands of Helmand province, a Taliban hellscape. Firefights in 100-degree heat were bad, but nothing was worse than the improvised explosive devices that routinely took lives and limbs. After starting a family, Balazs had sworn off war zones. I���d done the same, but it took a couple of years before I could stroll through a park without reflexively appraising the ground.

Now I���m trying to walk in Bakhtyar���s footsteps, to minimize contact with uncertain terrain. My legs feel sluggish, the trekking poles an added liability.

I tell myself that I���m being melodramatic. But a familiar low-grade dread is setting in. As we pick our way through the final stretch of rocky dirt, heading for the snow line, Kurdistan is starting to feel a lot like Iraq.

It's well past noon when we reach the shoulder; clouds sheath the entire peak, which is under a fresh layer of snow. We pull out our crampons and lace up. Bakhtyar reckons that it will take at least another four hours to reach the summit, maybe more. Given our late start, we were kidding ourselves that we could reach the top and get down in a day.

I hand out energy bars, and Nabil shares a story about the last time he tried to climb Halgurd. A macho American guy in his group insisted that he knew a better route up the south side. Soon the climbers found themselves wandering lost through waist-deep snow, with mine posts sticking up now and then. After telling us this, Nabil says his foot hurts, so he���s going to head back to the truck, taking a roundabout route to avoid encounters with unexploded ordnance. ���You guys enjoy,��� he says.

Balazs and I follow Bakhtyar up a steep bowl toward the base of the rock face. The going is slow. For the next hour we crunch and stumble, the warped crampons sliding off my feet. We eventually stop at the edge of a couloir scattered with ice fragments. The passage is technical; thick snowfall dims visibility. Go any farther and we���re pushing our luck for no good reason. It���s time to turn back.

���We have a saying,��� says Bakhtyar, trying to lighten the mood. ���Touching the top is not like touching the stone of Kaaba,��� a reference to a sacred shrine in Mecca. I catch my breath. Balazs tightens his gaiters while Bakhtyar takes selfies. Then we turn and start down.

The going is smooth until the ice runs out and we���re on rock and scree. Bakhtyar decides we���ll follow a different route down, one that leads us through an alley of loose, rain-slicked rock. Clumsy steps send a jackrabbit scrambling up the opposite side of the ravine, giving me a jolt. To keep my mind occupied, I take a cue from Bakhtyar and look for wild mushrooms, which are plentiful this time of year.

And then I spot another mine. I warn Balazs to give it a wide berth. We shuffle down the scree with active feet, nervous and hyperalert, studying the ground obsessively. Bakhtyar is way ahead of us, singing along to folk songs about PKK martyrs. He has supreme confidence in his memory���or a cool fatalism I don���t share.

Nabil is sucking on a cigarette when we reach the truck. Butts dot the ground. Apparently he strayed from the ���safe route��� he intended to follow, an error he realized only when he looked up and saw skull-and-bones markers staring back at him. ���Man, I nearly shit myself,��� he says. He swipes his phone to show us the highlights, including an unexploded 82-millimeter mortar round.

The sun dips behind us on our drive back to Choman, casting shadows on Mount Sakran, across the valley. Beyond it lies the Iranian frontier, where in 2009 three young American hikers were arrested by border guards and imprisoned���one for 14 months, the others for more than two years. This foreboding stretch of land is seeded with land mines and the bones of countless Iranian troops who parachuted into paradise during the war. To this day, snipers stationed at the high army posts take potshots at Kurdish shepherds who wander too close. At night their floodlights glare down like menacing eyes.

Near the bottom of the mountain, we pass a scruffy Western backpacker on foot. Nabil throws the truck in reverse and we greet him. He says his name is Kaspars, that he���s from Latvia, and that he plans to climb Halgurd at dawn. ���Some locals are going to meet me at the top,��� he says. ���They told me it���s easy. Just follow the path.���

���Who told you that?��� Bakhtyar says, scowling.

The kid can���t remember their names but assures us: ���They are nice guys.���

���You know, there are mine fields up there,��� I say. ���No joke���we just walked out of one.��� Everyone chimes in, and the Latvian seems to reconsider. We wish him luck. For the rest of the drive, Bakhtyar grumbles about who Kaspars might have talked to, the dangerous ignorance of some people in Choman, and the general lack of order since the park project fell apart.

By definition, war is the enemy of development and tourism. Sometimes, though, it���s nature���s friend. According to Bakhtyar, the only part of Halgurd-Sakran National Park where poachers and tree cutters don���t operate with impunity is the roughly 20 percent under the control of the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. ���They are hardcore fighters, but they also care a lot about nature,��� he says. ���It���s at the heart of their philosophy.���

I want to meet these conservationist rebels. Their stronghold is just a short drive from Choman, one valley over, in the Qan簫dil Mountains. Trouble is, since fighting resumed with Turkey three years ago, air strikes and shelling attacks there have escalated. And with the presidential elections coming up in Turkey, the military has been ratcheting up bombardments to please its Islamist nationalist base.

My first e-mail query to the PKK came back negative. Near the end of our stay in Choman, I follow up. We don���t need a formal reception, I write���we just want to make a quick stop at a martyrs��� museum and cemetery that Nabil visited several years earlier, to take pictures and learn more about how the PKK is protecting its homeland from pollution, poaching, and overdevelopment. This time the guerrillas��� contact, nom de guerre Zagros, agrees.

���You can visit the Museum,��� he writes. ���You can also visit the site of the Zargali massacre. As I told you, the guerrillas cannot accompany you. Better not to stay in the area for too long. Because both of the sites have been bombarded before.���

Twenty minutes south of Choman, we reach the turn to the Qandil Mountains. The sign at the junction gives no indication of where we are, as though the valley road does not exist. Nabil gets out at the KDP checkpoint to register our names with local authorities, who tell us we���re on our own. We wrap around a ridge and a lush green vista unfurls in front of us. A couple of miles on, two PKK guerrillas emerge from the trees in traditional Kurdish shawls, Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders, their vests sagging with the weight of hand grenades. They wave us on.

We���re waiting by a destroyed hillside portrait of Abdullah Ocalan, the group���s founder, when Zagros pulls up and extends a hand. ���You are most welcome in Qandil,��� he says. I thank him and ask about the drones from Turkey. ���They are not here at the moment, but when they see guerrilla clothes, armed men, they call in jets, which arrive in less than 15 minutes. The past few months have been especially bad���they hit this road three days ago.��� Zagros suggests we head toward the museum. ���Also bombed,��� he adds with an apologetic smile.

I���m eager to move. Balazs and I join Zag簫ros in his truck, and it dawns on me that we���re going to be driving 30 miles on a road that is regularly targeted by air strikes. With Nabil trailing us, we���re in what amounts to a convoy. In his blunt, Hungarian manner, Balazs voices what I���m thinking: ���There are no other cars on the road.��� Farther along, the charred wreckage of a family vehicle destroyed by a Turkish strike offers a visual we would rather not see.

Zagros drives with the beatific expression of a man who has surrendered to his fate. Handsome, with a strong, dimpled chin and a brushy black mustache, he says he used to be a high school teacher in western Iran, living a comfortable middle-class life. But he was haunted by the persecution of his people. When Ocalan was captured during a joint U.S.-Turkish operation in Kenya in 1999 and placed in solitary confinement in Turkey, Zagros came to view him as something like a Kurdish Nelson Mandela.

���Through him, I felt the isolation of the Kurds, that the Kurds have no friends in the world,��� he says. He left Iran for the mountains, later joined by five students���two of whom have since been killed. ���My concern is not for myself but for my people,��� Zagros says. ���PKK is not only a party, it���s a new way of life, a new world vision.���

He ticks off the movement���s basic goals: the right to self-determination, the liberation of women, and the protection of the environment. He says that respect for the land and ethnic diversity were destroyed by modern nation-states like Turkey, the militants��� archnemesis, which has tried to erase the identity of its 15 million Kurds, in part by repressing the Kurdish language. ���If real democracy is achieved in these countries, the Kurdish question will be resolved,��� he says. ���Until then we will fight, as long as it takes.���

Women make up more than 45 percent of the PKK���s ranks, from foot soldiers to commanders. Cruising along, we pass giant billboards that show photographs of female guerrillas who were killed in battle against the Islamic State, draped in ammo belts and thick hair braids. Some are buried in the martyrs��� cemetery, where the rows of gravestones are lined with roses and grouped according to the battles they were in: Sinjar, Al Hasakah, Kobani. The museum that stood here at the time of Nabil���s last visit is now just a hole in the ground. An unexploded bomb rests in the adjacent crater.

Near the end of the valley, Zagros stops at a Kurdish nomad camp. We spread out on a tattered kilim in the shade of a tree, and a woman with facial tattoos brings us a pot of hot tea and sugar cubes. Her sons are out grazing their flocks on meadows that run up the valley���s ridges. Moving with the seasons, living off the land, they are the embodiment of an ideal Zagros is ready to die for. For now the air trills with birdsong, rent by the barks of fighting mastiffs. The mountains brim with life.

They also take it.

The explosion echoes across the valley late in the afternoon, when demining teams around Choman are no longer working. Bakhtyar, Nabil, Balazs, and I are on a ridge outside of town, photographing the mountains, and it���s close enough to startle us. Bakhtyar texts around and learns that a local man named Haidar Shwan accidentally set off a mine near the Grmandil Mountains, one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Iran-Iraq War. He was blown to pieces.

Under a full moon, we drive up to a cemetery overlooking town. A single streetlamp lights a backhoe digging Haidar���s grave, a reminder that nighttime burials are not uncommon. I meet the victim���s brother, who shows me a picture of Haidar: soldier, father of four, and the sixth member of his family killed by a land mine. He suspects Haidar was taking the mine apart for the gunpowder, which sells for $45 a pound on the black market. ���It was one of his hobbies,��� the brother says.

Packs of men file in from the darkness and gather around the grave, murmuring, until the crowd numbers more than 400. A few shed tears, but most remain stoic, partaking in a ritual of shared grief that has affected families in Choman as far back as they can remember. They���ve all been here before, and they will be here again.

The casket is lowered and spades are handed out. Young men take turns furiously shoveling dirt into the hole, as though Haidar���s safe passage to heaven depended on their speed. Five hours after he was killed, he���s underground. The imam offers a prayer, and everyone goes home.

Our last day in the mountains is May Day, and for Kurds that means picnics. Nabil, Balazs, and I take the valley road out of Choman toward the Iranian border, until the pavement ends. We park by a stream too fast to ford, and a group of friends from Erbil wave us over to their fire for chicken skewers and fermented goat���s milk. We eat our fill and talk about why the U.S., staunch ally of the Kurds since the Saddam era, didn���t back last year���s ill-fated independence bid, considering all the social and economic progress and stability that Iraqi Kurdistan has achieved compared with the rest of Iraq. I don���t have a good answer.

As we get up to leave, one man warns half-jokingly: ���Don���t walk too close to Iran.��� We hike across a moraine and crest a small ridge to find a potbellied man in pantaloons bent over, staring at the ground, an AK-47 strapped to his back. Kayvan Ezzat, a 37-year-old policeman, is mushroom hunting and invites us to tag along. ���I���m fat, but I can climb the mountains all day,��� he says with a toothy grin. ���Walking out here will make all your troubles go away.��� Though with wild animals around and hostile Iranian soldiers within firing range, he always brings the gun. ���It���s like having 50 men with you,��� he explains.

I ask how he knows where to step. ���I know because I���ve been walking in these hills since I was a boy,��� he says. ���Here is OK, but there and there,��� he adds, tracing lines with his hand that I can���t begin to see, ���are not OK.���

The mind starts to play its games. My time in Kurdistan has shown me that even confident, in-the-know locals have their blind spots, and missteps can be fatal. I���ve also come to understand that the Kurds��� nature-loving ways are inseparable from the threats that seed and surround their homeland. Living at danger���s edge has a way of magnifying the essential. And in the moment, these haunted mountains sharpen my senses, quicken my pulse, and whisper vast possibilities to be explored. The old expression ���Kurds have no friends but the mountains��� has a new layer of meaning.

I take in the breeze and exhale. I���ll just follow the policeman���s tracks. And try to think of mushrooms.

Jason Motlagh () wrote about the Afghan sport of buzkashi in November 2017.

The post My Crazy Kurdistan Road Trip appeared first on 窪蹋勛圖厙 Online.

Located in southeast China, the region of Yangshuo泭is esteemed for its mountainous landscape and ample recreational opportunities. Filmmaker documents this place in his video泭Wonders of Yangshuo.

The post ���Y硃紳眶莽堯喝棗��� appeared first on 窪蹋勛圖厙 Online.

On a warm summer day in the Democratic People���s Republic of Korea, the totalitarian dictatorship better known as North Korea, turquoise water rolls lazily toward a pristine beach, where surfers are suiting up. A mix of locals and foreigners, they splash into the empty sets and laugh as they carve waves that may never have been surfed before.

They���re here with , a New Jersey���based company with more than 15 years of experience running trips to the DPRK. For the past three years, the company has been taking foreigners beneath North Korea���s iron curtain to explore the country���s untouched coastline and share the stoke with locals. But while the company���s guests have traveled from around the world for this one-of-a-kind surf trip, there are no Americans among them. After the of University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier, who was imprisoned for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster while on a tour, travel to the hermit kingdom stopped last September. That could change, however, thanks to an from President Trump during his historic summit in Singapore earlier this summer with DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, suggesting that North Korea���s beaches could be ripe for condos full of tourists.

Even with presidential approval, visiting this potential surfer���s paradise in search of unsurfed waves comes with a caveat. Beyond the risk of , a vacation there could mean funding the government���s prison camps and nuclear weapons research. Or it could sow seeds of dissent among North Koreans while bringing much-needed economic development. It all depends on who you ask.

Tourism in North Korea is a state-run enterprise, meaning the government has complete control over the money it brings in. According to one , that was as much as $43.6 million in 2014 alone. This stream of foreign cash is something the country is actively cultivating as it deals with economic sanctions. It���s been reported that state officials want to attract 2 million tourists by 2020, and Kim Jong Un has the country scrambling to build a special $7.8 billion around the coastal city of Wonsan. Where those tourist dollars will go is unknown, but odds are they won���t make their way to the average North Korean, who, with an estimated annual income of just $1,300, makes less in a year than the cost of with Uri. (Uri Tours did not respond to our requests for comment.)

���Technically speaking, the government provides free health care, but they have no medicine,��� says Jean Lee, a former Associated Press bureau chief in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and the current director of the Center for Korean History and Public Policy at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. ���They provide free housing, but these houses have no electricity. The money is not going back to the people.���

Despite its infamy, North Korea is hardly the world���s only controversial destination. Communist-run Cuba reportedly after it couldn���t keep up with the increased demand caused by the record number of tourists who visited the Caribbean nation after civilian travel was restored with the United States in 2015. Myanmar, accused by the UN of , has also seen a flood of tourists following its transition from military junta to tenuous democracy. FIFA caught flak for choosing Russia to host this year���s World Cup, and Qatar has allegedly used slave labor to prepare for the organization���s next tournament.

Like it or not, the second a tourist enters a country, they become a statistic, and, some critics say, by choosing to spend their dollars there, they are giving tacit approval of how that country conducts itself���whether it���s stifling free speech or creating wildlife sanctuaries.

Many tour companies, however, argue that statistics don���t tell the full story. Uri���s website describes its DPRK surf tours as diplomatic missions that provide North Koreans a rare opportunity to connect with people from the outside world while giving foreigners a peek inside one of the world���s most mysterious countries.

Some argue that this kind of cultural exchange can have broad geopolitical impact. At least that���s the idea behind Hawaii-based , a nonprofit that seeks to introduce surfing to some of the ���darkest places on the planet,��� according to founder Tom Bauer. In 2014, the organization jumped at a chance to expand into North Korea after a body boarder who was in the reclusive nation for work alerted them to its surf potential. ���Surfing can bring peace between America and North Korea,��� Bauer says. When he visited the country, Bauer found the locals he interacted with out on the water were happy to talk and often brought up ostensibly taboo topics. ���They���re just as curious about us as we are about them.���

What Bauer experienced, however, was likely carefully curated, at least in part. No independent travel is permitted in North Korea. Anyone looking to visit must go through an approved tour, and visitors are under the constant eye of minders. While they can interact with North Koreans, they can do so only with a guide present. The government-approved itineraries are crafted to leave visitors with positive impressions, legitimizing the regime in the eyes of the world.

���It���s as though you���re taken to Times Square or Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, shown a three-block radius, and told, ���This is America,������ says Lee, who has visited the DPRK as a journalist, tourist, and academic. ���It���s not wrong, but it���s not the whole picture.���

Still, like foreign films, music, and literature, travel can be another way to break the government-imposed information barrier. Simon Hudson, a professor of tourism at the University of South Carolina, visited Myanmar in 2006 and later wrote an ethics paper about travel in the authoritarian country. He believes interactions with tourists may have played a role in opening Myanmar to the outside world by motivating its citizens to pressure the military junta for a better quality of life.

While the two countries are ripe for comparison, experts say the DPRK is unlikely to follow Myanmar���s lead. North Korea is far more isolated and exerts more control over its people than Myanmar, even when that country was at its worst under the military junta. Thanks to the DPRK���s determination to limit foreign investment to special economic zones, where foreign influence can be more easily contained, the massive change seen in Myanmar could be unlikely in North Korea.

Sokeel Park, head of the Seoul office for refugee-support organization , doubts tourism���s ability to catalyze泭reform. While he notes that tourism can help pull back the veil of oppressive regimes, Park doesn���t think it will cause widespread change, in part because tourists interact with only a tiny percentage of the population.

Still, Park sees the value in tourism to North Korea, adding that increasingly more defectors are leaving, not because of a lack of food, but a lack of freedom. ���North Korean people inside the country are isolated from the rest of humanity and the rest of the world by their own government,��� he says. ���I don���t think it���s in our or their best interest to further that isolation.���

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Indonesia is a travel video from filmmaker 泭about泭his five泭week trip through the film���s namesake country.
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Arz e Pakistan, from , is a stunning glimpse into the country���s scenery.

The post This Is Pakistan appeared first on 窪蹋勛圖厙 Online.