Descending the Dragon

Enjoy a conversation with National Geographic author Jon Bowermaster as he talks about his journey down the coast of Vietnam in his new book Descending the Dragon. . Canadian anthropologist and host of the National Geographic and History Television series Light at The Edge of the World, Wade Davis will also join Traveln On to talk about his recent travels to Peru, Borneo, Tibet and northern Kenya. Finally, Traveln On will highlight the Shams Ensemble, one of the first groups to pursue musical independence and freedom of womens voices in Iran, and their current US tour.

Episode Segments:

Traveln Talk Ian and Tonya discuss their trip to Lake Louise, and John Blashford Snells upcoming expedition to Bolivia and his work with the Just a Drop Foundation.
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Author & Adventurer Jon Bowermaster Jon Bowermaster shares the story of his trip down the coast of Vietnam via Kayak, which is also the subject of his book Descending the Dragon. He also tells Ian and Tonya about his involvement with the Oceans 8 Project.
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Anthropologist Wade Davis The world-famous anthropologist joins Traveln On to discuss the concept of the ethnosphere, the disappearing languages and cultures of the world, tying dreams to reality, and more!
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The Shams Ensemble The Shams Ensemble is a blend of traditional Persian mystic sufi and Kurdic music, brought together to keep music alive during the Islamic Revolution. Learn more about their history, their mission and their future from the Shams Ensembles US liaison Teresa Williamson.
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Guest(s) Appearing on this Episode

Jon Bowermaster Over the past 20 years I've written about adventure, the environment and the remote corners of the world for a variety of national and international magazines, ranging from National Geographic and National Geographic Adventure to the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly and more. A six-time grantee of the National Geographic Expeditions Council, those adventures have led my teams and me to each continent. My various adventures have included riding a cargo boat through the South Pacific, two-man sledding to the heart of Antarctica, sea kayaking along its coastline and first descents of rivers in Chile and China. Along the way I've written ten books and produced a dozen documentary films. In the past decade I've done fewer trips that could be defined as adventure-for-adventure's sake and focused on bringing back stories about the health of the world's seas and the lives of the 3 billion people who live and depend on the world's coastlines. My OCEANS 8 project - ten years spent sea kayaking around the world, one continent at a time - has given me a unique look, from sea level, at both. When not on the road, or sea, I live in Stone Ridge, New York. Click here to visit his website

Wade Davis An ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker, he holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. Mostly through the Harvard Botanical Museum, he spent more than three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among 15 indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6,000 botanical collections. His work later took him to Haiti to investigate folk preparations implicated in the creation of zombies, an assignment that led to his writing Passage of Darkness (1988) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1986), an international best seller that appeared in ten languages and was later released by Universal as a motion picture. His other books include Penan: Voice for the Borneo Rain Forest (1990), Shadows in the Sun (1993), Nomads of the Dawn (1995), The Clouded Leopard (1998), Rainforest (1998), Light at the Edge of the World (2001), The Lost Amazon (2004), Grand Canyon (2008), Book of Peoples of the World (ed. 2008), and One River (1996), which was nominated for the 1997 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction. Fire on the Mountain, a history of the early British efforts on Everest, will be published in 2009. Sheets of Distant Rain will follow. Davis is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2002 Lowell Thomas Medal (The Explorers Club) and the 2002 Lannan Foundation prize for literary nonfiction. In 2004 he was made an honorary member of the Explorers Club, one of just 20 in the hundred-year history of the club. Click here for his full bio