{"id":3029,"date":"2007-09-30T17:48:35","date_gmt":"2007-09-30T17:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=3029"},"modified":"2007-09-30T17:48:35","modified_gmt":"2007-09-30T17:48:35","slug":"lonely_planet_r","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=3029","title":{"rendered":"Lonely Planet Releases Afghanistan Travel Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2007\/09\/30\/TR1MSDBJP.DTL\">John Flinn<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>See where the retreating British Army was massacred! Marvel at Osama bin Laden&#8217;s old Tora Bora bunker! Gaze upon the crater where the giant Buddha statues of Bamiyan stood before the Taliban blew them up!<br \/>\nOr maybe not. Tourism in Afghanistan, it&#8217;s safe to say, is a tough sell these days. Nobody is touting it as &#8220;the new Croatia.&#8221; Kabul and Kandahar never figure in the hunt for &#8220;the next Prague.&#8221; And don&#8217;t look for the war-ravaged country in the next installment of &#8220;Where in the World Is Matt Lauer?&#8221;<br \/>\nAll of which makes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&#038;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FLonely-Planet-Afghanistan-Travel-Guides%2Fdp%2F1740596420%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1191193266%26sr%3D1-1&#038;tag=sistevietn-20&#038;linkCode=ur2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=932\">Lonely Planet&#8217;s new Afghanistan guidebook<\/a> the most eyebrow-raising title of the year.<br \/>\nThe 244-page guide contains all the usual write-ups of mosques, mountains and museums, plus colorful maps and 17 pages of enticing photographs. But turn to the &#8220;Dangers &#038; Annoyances&#8221; section, and instead of the usual cautions about bedbugs and pickpockets you find a warning about &#8220;the danger of an insurgency in the south, plus warlordism and terrorist violence in some other parts of the country.&#8221;<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&#038;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FLonely-Planet-Afghanistan-Travel-Guides%2Fdp%2F1740596420%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1191193266%26sr%3D1-1&#038;tag=sistevietn-20&#038;linkCode=ur2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325\">Lonely Planet&#8217;s new Afghanistan guidebook<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2007\/09\/30\/TR1MSDBJP.DTL\">John Flinn<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>See where the retreating British Army was massacred! Marvel at Osama bin Laden&#8217;s old Tora Bora bunker! Gaze upon the crater where the giant Buddha statues of Bamiyan stood before the Taliban blew them up!<br \/>\nOr maybe not. Tourism in Afghanistan, it&#8217;s safe to say, is a tough sell these days. Nobody is touting it as &#8220;the new Croatia.&#8221; Kabul and Kandahar never figure in the hunt for &#8220;the next Prague.&#8221; And don&#8217;t look for the war-ravaged country in the next installment of &#8220;Where in the World Is Matt Lauer?&#8221;<br \/>\nAll of which makes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&#038;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FLonely-Planet-Afghanistan-Travel-Guides%2Fdp%2F1740596420%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1191193266%26sr%3D1-1&#038;tag=sistevietn-20&#038;linkCode=ur2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=932\">Lonely Planet&#8217;s new Afghanistan guidebook<\/a> the most eyebrow-raising title of the year.<br \/>\nThe 244-page guide contains all the usual write-ups of mosques, mountains and museums, plus colorful maps and 17 pages of enticing photographs. But turn to the &#8220;Dangers &#038; Annoyances&#8221; section, and instead of the usual cautions about bedbugs and pickpockets you find a warning about &#8220;the danger of an insurgency in the south, plus warlordism and terrorist violence in some other parts of the country.&#8221;<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&#038;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FLonely-Planet-Afghanistan-Travel-Guides%2Fdp%2F1740596420%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1191193266%26sr%3D1-1&#038;tag=sistevietn-20&#038;linkCode=ur2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325\">Lonely Planet&#8217;s new Afghanistan guidebook<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}