Inside Scoop at the Ubud Writers Festival

By Jen Leo | Permalink | No Comments | October 14th, 2004 | Trackback

Nick O'Neill of BootsnAll’s BaliBlog reports from the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival.

Lonely Planet’s Tony Wheeler was there for the program called, “The Long Road Home”.

Here’s a bit from Nick’s post:

“At 9am I sat in the front row of an audience of about 50 and listened to Tony Wheeler, the founder of Lonely Planet and Bill Dalton the founder of Moon telling how they met and founded their respective companies. The chair was Ryan ver Berkmoes editor of the new LP guide to Bali.

Both guys were engaging and cut loose with personal opinions. Tony told us that they first met Bill in 1971 sitting in the curb in Kings Cross Sydney selling copies of his ‘Indonesia notes’ which he had photocopied. That was the start of Moon books.

Tony told us that he and his wife Maureen wrote the first copy of ‘Asia on the Cheap’ (which turned into SE Asia on a Shoestring) in the back room (room #2) of the Palace Hotel which was some pokey budget place in Singapore. It took them 3 monthes to write. After they finished Tony recommended the local printer to Bill and said “If you want a cheap quiet place to write the book go to room #2 at the back of the Palace Hotel.” This was where Bill wrote his ‘Indonesia Guide’. I think Tony regards Bill as ‘the expert’ on Indonesia and Bill certainly is a character to go with it. I love it.”

Nick is doing good work over there and I can’t believe I haven’t visited him yet. But I follow along on his BaliBlog News and treasure his Photo of the Day.

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