LONELY Planet, purveyor of some of the most well-thumbed bibles for aspiring globetrotters, has produced a book that will strike a chord with adventurers prone to getting themselves into unexpected scrapes. Next to the guidebooks, this is arguably the second-most useful companion to pack for those long journeys - if only to give hope to those situations that seem all but hopeless. Many people can relate in tortuous detail their collisions with fate - not all can make them entertaining and informative. Predictably, some of the 20 stories whose locations stretch from the Canadian Arctic to the Cook Islands and are crammed into 250 pages, convey the sheer panic of their authors' plight while a few - like tedious jokes - get lost in the telling. Others play on the fear of being in a life-threatening situation, though they never are. All have happy endings - presumably, if only because any other outcome would have resulted in no story being told - and many contain useful nuggets on things to pack (such as chilli sauce to liven up Mongolia's stultifyingly boring staple food - mutton). Interestingly, few tales revolve around upset stomachs, and with English the lingua franca, misunderstandings due to language difficulties are all but unheard of. Daniel Robinson's Expulsion From Hanoi is a sharp reminder that although Vietnam has opened up its economy, it remains at heart very much, in his words, a 'totalitarian police state'. Randall Peffer's little jaunt to Puerto Rico, where he learned that the 180-km/h Hurricane Georges was about to sweep across the Caribbean island, is amusing, written from the viewpoint of someone in denial that such an event can dare to happen when you go on holiday. One group is stranded in the Australian outback - 120 kilometres from the nearest settlement - after the steering wheel of their four-wheel drive breaks loose and they crash. After only a few hours they start to panic, with just three meals to share between them and a meagre water supply. Discussing whether they can bring themselves to drink their urine, they are rescued after only two days - and the reader almost feels cheated. Perhaps the tale feared by most travellers is the one related by Tim Nollen on the mainland. Travelling by boat from Guangzhou he reaches Wuzhou en route to Yangshuo, that is travellers' haven where traveller staples such as banana pancakes and muesli are served amid a glorious karst landscape. It all seems to be going so smoothly. Sharing the bus with chickens for passengers, and despite breaking down four or five times, he arrives at his destination after two gruelling days of solid travelling. Unpacking at his hotel, his stomach lurches as he realises that his dilemma is the one perhaps most feared by those on the road: he has left his money, passport, onward plane ticket and camera on the bus. As luck would have it, he has one of those hotel owners who quickly springs to the rescue. Using his mobile phone, the hotel owner rustles up a four-wheel drive and the pair give chase to the bus, which is heading to Guilin. Forty-five minutes later, they arrive at Guilin bus station to find it deserted. After gaining their bearings they spot the lights of a bus - the one Nollen travelled on. Inside is the bus driver, who reaches behind his seat and pulls out Nollen's money belt - with everything intact. 'You very lucky. You very, very lucky,' the bus driver tells Nollen. One other story is notable, not so much for any particular disaster as for travellers who yearn for virgin territory far from the Lonely Planet crowd. Paul Greenway, researching for the new guide to Mongolia, was travelling in the far west of the country in a converted East German ambulance and had reached Altai. Asking his landlady whether many foreigners stayed at her hotel, she replied: 'We had one once. He didn't stay long.' Lonely planet? Not quite, and certainly not for much longer. But for would-be ground-breaking pioneers, perhaps it is the best they can hope for. Lonely Planet Unpacked by Tony Wheeler and others Lonely Planet Publications $118