The Titanic Awards

Name Catherine Watson
Who? Former travel editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and winner of the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and the Society of American Travel Writers’ Photographer of the Year. Her writing has been anthologized in many books, including “Best American Travel Writing 2008.’’ Her solo collections are Roads Less Traveled — Dispatches from the Ends of the Earth and Home on the Road: Further Dispatches from the Ends of the Earth. More at catherinewatsontravel.com.
Age 65
Countries visited 112.  (Most recent is the Faroe Islands)

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Taxi Ride My all-day-long attempt to find the Tree of Life in the desert of southern Bahrain. The taxi driver, who’d been working on this 10-by-30-mile-wide island for 25 years, admitted he’d never been south of the Manama suburbs. By the time we’d found the damned tree, we’d been lost more times than I could count, and then arrested for trespassing.
2. Worst Toilet The dank, filthy, unlighted ruin of a public ladies’ room in central Bucharest, before Ceaucescu’s horrid government fell. No toilet paper, no soap, no “feminine hygiene products” in the whole country, no nothing.
3. Worst Meal The famous raw shrimp cocktail of Kathmandu. I ordered it to celebrate an overland trip into Tibet, got violent food poisoning, was sick for the next 3 weeks and lost 16 pounds. Only then did it occur to me how far Kathmandu was from any ocean shrimp might live in.
4. Worst Foreign Policy Idea The U.S. government’s ban on ordinary American travelers going to Cuba. It would be funny if it weren’t so stupid: Technically, we CAN go to Cuba, we just can’t spend any MONEY in Cuba.
5. Worst Airport Security Nepal’s domestic terminal. As elsewhere in South Asia, “Ladies’’ are searched separately, behind a curtain. The young female officer didn’t look up from filing her nails. “Do you have big knife?’’ she asked. No. “Do you have bomb?’’ No. “You may go.’’ Well, okay, then, if you say so…

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Famous Travelers airport, Bahrain, Bucharest, Cuba, Kathmandu, Nepal, security, taxi, worst meal, worst toilet

Name Jeff Greenwald
Who? Contributor to such publications as National Geographic Adventure, Outside, Salon.com, The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. Jeff is also a performer, whose solo stage show, “Strange Travel Suggestions,” has been running since 2003. Two of his five books include Shopping for Buddhas and The Size of the World. Jeff also serves as Executive Director of Ethical Traveler, a worldwide alliance of politically engaged travelers. More at jeffgreenwald.com and ethicaltraveler.org
Age: 55
Countries visited:  68, because I’m counting Tasmania as a country all its own. And Tibet, of course.

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Place to be Salman Rushdie I love the billboard over one of Tehran’s big intersections: “On the Day the US Praises Us We Should Mourn.” (Does loving the billboard count as praise?)
2. Worst Place to be Caught without a Seat Protector The toilet on the China Railways train from Golmud to Xining looked like a holding pen for baboons with spastic sphincters.
3. Worst Place to Fall Asleep in a Car One crosses Sri Lanka on twisting two-lane highways with buses passing on blind turns at 120 kph. I’m not 100% sure that I’m not actually dead.
4. Worst Country on the Planet Mauritania is the world’s largest cat litter box. And some people still own slaves. Chengueti, shmengueti; give it a miss.
5. Worst Place to Blow Your Nose and Look at the Handkerchief Afterward Kathmandu, Nepal, has long been one of my favorite places on Earth. I’m still giddily happy there, but you can hardly tell through the particle filter mask.

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Famous Travelers Buddhas, china, eithical, golmud, Kathmandu, mauritania, Nepal, sri lanka, tehran, tibet, toilet, traveler, xining