Either way, his brilliant Caucaus Diary is worth reading, not only for its sprightly and detailed reporting, but also for his masterful sense of the atmospherics of the place.  We both appreciate what I call the "travel to alarming and crappy places just before and/or just after violence erupts" genre of writing.

And when we get the chance, we like to go to those places and write about it ourselves.

Actually, there's lots of good stuff at John's site.  I'm awfully jealous of his dashing life -- living in Prague, jetting to Armenia, filing from Tblisi.  He's the one who's straight out of Ambler.