This was a good read: a little easier than Absurdistan, and a little more kind of normal. You get the feeling that this is a job for him, and it's not that odd a job to go off and learn about funny little places across the world. He writes well and it's an interesting read about places that I've, by and large, only read about. Less of a "story", and more of a collection of short essays, but none the worse for that.