Long Way Round

ComingAnarchy, inspired by Robert Kaplan, has always been a mix of geopolitics and travel. While Robert Kaplan writes extensively about world history and politics throughout his various books, he still manages to take you a long the way on all his journies without one getting lost in ancient history. Thus, ComingAnarchy aims to have a similar mix of the two, as the many travels of all three of us have deepened not only our understanding of geopolitics, but also our love of it. Thus, it is in this spirit that I’d like to share with our readers a dvd of interest.

For those of you who are American, you may have already seen or at least heard of the show “Long Way Round” with Ewan McGregor. It ran on Bravo sometime last year I think. He and his best friend, both long time motorcycle enthusiasts, decide to travel from London to New York overland through Europe, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia (Siberia) and on to Alaska, Canada and the 48 states, overall around 20,000 miles.

While the show has little emphasis on politics, the far flung places to which it takes you more than make up for that. No amount of diplomacy or political understanding could prepare one for eating horse penis or sheep’s head in Kazakhstan or goat, horse and sheep testicles in Mongolia. So far, the dvd remains unavailable in the United States, however, Amazon.co.uk carries it in region free format and thus any computer should have no trouble playing it. Shipping is also not too expensive. It’s two discs and around 6 episodes plus bonus footage. While this is actually far short of being able to show you most of the trip, you’ll still follow them across amazing expanses of the earth. Anyone who’s ever spent any amount of time on the road with only their backpack, won’t regret buying this.