Joe Cummings wrote one of Lonely Planet's first guidebooks. He has contributed to many of the company's Southeast Asia titles and today is primarily responsible for Thailand and Laos. The 9th edition of Joe's Thailand guide will be released in July 2001, while his latest new Lonely Planet title, THE SHAPE OF PERFECTION: BUDDHIST STUPAS OF ASIA, will be published in hard cover in September 2001.

But who is the man in front of the backpack? Over the last few months www.khaosanroad.com visitors sent us questions they wanted us to put to Joe. Some questions were pretty hard hitting, some downright rude - we put them to him nonetheless. The result was some pretty surprising answers and some pretty amazing reading.

Here it is then:

Part one of the Joe Cummings interview:

Q: Could you give us a potted history of Lonely Planet?

A: You can get this at www.lonelyplanet.com.

Q: What new writing projects are you involved in? What's coming up?

A: I recently finished the updating for LP Thailand's 9th edition (due out July 2001) and Bangkok city guide's 5th edition (fall 2001). I'm almost finished with a new hardcover book entitled The Shape of Perfection: Buddhist Stupas in Asia. Centred around New York photographer Bill Wassman's 30-year collection of stupa images, the book is an encapsulation of the stupa tradition from as many angles as possible, including aesthetic, historical and philosophical. It was a real challenge to research, and has taken me almost two years to write. It covers stupas from Afghanistan to Japan and everyplace in between. Wassman's photos of Himalayan stupas are particularly amazing. It's supposed to be released in fall 2001. We have so much material left over we're already contemplating a Stupas II. For LP I also wrote World Food: Thailand, a guide to the full enjoyment of Thai cuisine. It was published last year and is doing well. I hope to do more theme-centred titles like this and the stupa book, as it makes a nice change from straight travel guides.

Q: The traveller is dead: True or False?

A: False. She's just getting warmed up.

Q: What do you think about modern-day `travellers' ­ do you like them? Do modern-day `travellers' differ from the original `travellers?' If so, in what way?

A: Who were the original travellers? People like you and me, probably, just living in a different era with a different toolkit. Their aims are much the same; some are looking for love and wisdom, others a cheap place to kick back. There's the semi-desperate journey away from the self, or towards the self, and there's the search for the perfect frisbee partner. As JRR Tolkien once wrote, "Not all who wander are lost."

Q: Many people say that most travellers simply do the Lonely Planet guide rather than travel per se. Is this true? If so, how do you feel about it?

A: From my experience, people don't just follow the guides, but rely most heavily on word of mouth and periodical literature such as newspapers, magazines and websites. The proof that the majority of LP readers are not following my guide so closely can be seen in the large numbers of people visiting Ko Phi Phi, guidebook in hand (even though I have written very negatively about Ko Phi Phi) and the low numbers found in northeast Thailand (visited by only 2% of tourists, yet a region I have been urging readers to visit for 20 years). People make up their minds where they're going to go -- following media impressions or word of mouth -- and then they consult the guide. Or at least that's how it seems to me.

Q: When did you first come to Thailand?

A: I decided to come to Thailand after reading Towards the Truth, by Ajahn Buddhadasa, and arrived in early 1977, as a Peace Corps volunteer. My assignment was to teach English at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology in Bang Mot, a couple of hours southwest of Bangkok.

Q: How did you first get into travel writing? When did you start and what did you first write about?

A: My first professional break came when I started writing the "Asia in Print" column for The Asia Record in 1979-82 while I was a student at UC-Berkeley. At UC I wrote a paper on tourism in SE Asia, as seen through the eyes of communist insurgencies in Thailand and Malaysia. During that period I read every book published in English on SE Asia, including travel lit and guidebooks. My first travel feature, on Ko Samui, was published in1982 in the San Francisco Examiner, and my first guidebook (Lonely Planet Thailand) was published that same year. It was an exciting moment for me because this was the first Thailand guide written in English and devoted entirely to Thailand since the1928 "Guide to Bangkok, with Notes on Siam" guide by Erik Seidenfaden. There were a couple of French and German guides available in translation, but they were very much geared towards hiring your own car and driver and staying in first-class hotels all along the way - culturally insulated travel.

Q: You choose to live in Thailand. Why is that? Do you feel at home here?

A: I feel very much at home in Thailand. For me it has just the right combination of convenience and inefficiency, plus I just generally appreciate the Thai approach to life. I haven't found anywhere else like it. Obviously this is also where most of my work is.

Q: Do you think Thais have changed as their country has changed? If so, in what way?

A: It depends on your frame of reference. If you're talking about the last century or so, then no, I don't think the Thai character has changed much. Different modes of behaviour have come and gone during those 100 years, which might lead some people to conclude the national character has changed. But if you look at what westerners were writing about Thais back in the 17th and 18th centuries, for example, it's obvious their describing the 'Thai character' as we know it (or think we know it!) today. Of course cultural change is happening, slowly and almost imperceptibly. Cultures that don't change, die -- and Thai culture is very alive and dynamic. No one wants to live in a museum.

Q: When did you first stay on Khao San Road? What was Khao San like then?

A: This gives me a chance to set the record straight on the history of Khao San Road, at least as I know it! I first cruised down the street in 1977 on my way to buy Nitaya's famous curry paste on Thanon Chakraphong. It looked like every other street in that neighbourhood then, a series of single-story, tiled-roof buildings, most with wood walls, some concrete or brick-and-stucco, each housing a separate little business. It really looked like any other street in old Bangkok. Most of the architecture was 50-100 years old, though a few buildings may have been up to 150 years old.