ournalist Luke Williams travels to Asia to escape hard drugs, high rents and cold nights - he finds adventure, temples, and for the first time - people actually weirder than him: Westerners in Asia. Or are they? Extreme Asia is about Westerners who go to Asia for the things they can't find at home - riches, wives, ladyboys, cheap living and even cheaper drugs, cults, spices, mountains, tropical beaches, 'selfesteem' necklaces, and ascended masters. Luke fully immerses himself in these environments, going far beyond reportage, while aspects of his own history - his dreams, disappointments, urges, and his inherited struggle with mental illness - begin to catch up with him. In this searingly honest book, Luke invites you into his headspace as he travels all over Asia. He spends a month working as a prostitute in Pattaya, eats snake heart in Vietnam, and consults an American medium in Ubud, while tracing the history of Westerners - from the Greeks to Marco Polo and the colonialists - and their extreme experiences in the east. Ultimately, Luke is confronted by what is, and what was, and his own footprint upon it all. Biography: general. | Travel & holiday. | Australian