the Adventure Lifestyle magazine

Winslow Dulles is dead. At 10 AM on June 24, 2001, he jumped on his motorcycle to go to the market with his Thai fiancee on the back. Then, bam! He was hit by another motorcycle at an intersection and died on the spot. Wink was known to many as a travel guide writer and adventure travel columnist. But Wink was much more. He was what many people dream of becoming-an adventurer. Wink was my friend, my staunchest supporter and my coauthor (of Fielding Guide Books). He struck me as piercingly honest, true and eager-a hyperkinetic, five-foot-two dynamo of energy topped off with a blonde ponytail. Wink was an instant coconspirator in adventure. He was bigger than life, his vitality easily expanding past the small space he occupied (I always mar- veled at his size seven jungle boots next to my size 13S). When others listened to my plans and expressed disapproval or disbelief, Wink was the first to say, "Let's do it." And we did. We had insane and close-shave adventures from Tijuana to Thailand. Wink never hesitated, never doubted. When the call came, we went. I used to tell Wink: "Go where no other guidebooks have gone-and tell the truth." So he went, not just on a trip to write a book but to live a new life. He upped and moved to Asia, bought a bike, learned the lingo and rode every back road, dirt path and alley from the deltas of Vietnam to the jungle paths of the Golden Triangle. He spent more time than he should have in every dive and flop- house and went to places where people just stared and stared at the sunburnt "long nose" with the mud-spattered motorcycle. He used to call me and complain about the money, the illness, the fear, the weather, the cultural barriers and life on the road, but after he hung up I knew he would double his already Herculean efforts. His writing style was the equivalent of a Jackie Chan movie. Pow! Pow! Pow! Wapi Wink didn't pull any punches, refused to go PC, skewered, smacked and thumped every sacred cow in the backpack travel corral. It was this literary high-wire act that scared his subjects and impressed anyone who read his stuff. His advice was honest. true and cut to the bone. For the first time, the Lonely Planet Ant Trail was criticized as "The bus tour without a bus." He took it all on: corruption, sex tourism, flaky tour guides, AIDS babies, crooked cops, transves- tites, backpacker junkies-it was all part of the travel experience. Wink was proud to author a series of Fielding travel guides to Asia that showed both the unvarnished beauty and hidden horrors. He answered every query and every email, often becoming good friends with his readers. Wink's honesty earned him the hatred of the Vietnamese government who magically seized every book we shipped into their country; they even kicked in his door at night on a regular basis in an effort to intimidate him. The govern- ment of Cambodia threatened to physically beat him if he continued to point out the less touristic aspects of their country, and Myanmar still has him on their persona non grata list. CNN mocked him for wanting to be a correspondent, but he was the one that they turned to to explain the confused situation in Cambodia. He had countless rejection letters from editors, yet they used his books as reference. Travel magazines disdained his raw style, even newspaper travel sections took a long time to realize that Wink's sharp eye and unflinching standards were what new travelers wanted. It wasn't about visiting, it was about living. When we decided to climb the temples of Bagan, Myanmar, in the moonlight, Wink picked the time and the place and it was perfect. But Wink could never relax and come to terms with the total perfection of it all. That night he tried to be still, to soak up the moonlight reflecting off the hundreds of exotic temples silhouetted around us, the only people there, hidden in the thousands of years of history at the other end of the world. After an unusually long period of silence, he turned to me and said, "Robert, this is what it's all about, isn't it?" Wink started writing columns for the Toronto Sun, Action Asia and Trips. He led the first motorcycle tour through Vietnam. He began to develop a reputation as "the man" if you wanted to motorcycle in Southeast Asia. Then, with a new fiancee, Usa Chitrattha, and his career gaining momentum, bang, it ended. Wink lived. Wink died. But most importantly, Wink lived to the fullest. A little bit of his spirit lives inside everyone of us who seeks adventure. If you ever get a chance to use one of Wink's books to see the full moon rise over the temples of Bagan on a perfect night in Myanmar, smile and say to yourself, "Thanks Wink, it was worth it." • :i o :::> ~ Ii: ':i '" z w a. '" o '" w '" ,,; til z o ':i '" z z o w a. :::> ~ Ii: '" o '" c w '" '" z z :::> c ...J ...J ~ :I: a. ~ til iii -< \2 '" ~ ~

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