An Exhilirating Journey to Exotic Places
355796
Dreaming of Oranges will take you on a journey to places you would never dream of going.  The author weaves an exotic tale of two young women who travel to the Middle East in the 60s.  The dialogue and evocative descriptions will seduce you into becoming the third member on this colorful journey. Inhale mysterious aromas, experience the desert sand whipping your skin, and get looped while smoking a little dope. I recommend this book to all adventurers, and anticipate it will become a movie.  What a visual feast it would make.
1767214
This book describes an unusual outer journey to satisfy a yearning of the inner search. Very few modern travelers to China have sought the path less traveled, as so beautifully stated by Robert Frost.
Veena had an instinctive understanding that something of importance was waiting for her to be discovered at Song Mountain, and against all odds she managed to travel to the sacred mountain range in Henan Province several times in the last few years, made numerous friends who helped in her quest and ultimately discovered what her inner voice had been whispering all along.
Her description of life in rural China without understanding one word of the language to begin with, is colorful and very interesting. Above all the kindness and care many local people she met lavished on her  several became close friends  is touching; the monks and heads of monasteries who answered her many questions, passerbys and shop keepers and taxi drivers  each one of them were essential companions on her journey.
A bonus of course are the photos that can be seen on Veenas website, http://3books.co.uk/a-mountain-in-china/
A very remarkable travel book that is immensely inspiring in its many depths.
1672053
Traveling has always fascinated me. Ever since I was a little child growing up in rural Guatemala, exploring has been my dream. I always dreamed of doing what P.J. Parmar is doing: traveling around the world with not much more than the clothes he has on. Going from one exciting and unpredictable place to another yet more exciting and unpredictable.
Parmar amazes me with the simplicity and acuracy of his narration. His appreciation and respect for other cultures and civilizations is evident in every page. You will definitely get more out of reading this book than you will from your glossy travel agency guides and magazines.
I enthusiastically recommend this book to all travelers around the world, especially to those interested in more than the spas and beach resorts of a country.
Reading this book makes me want to go back to the times when I could afford being adventurous. Maybe that time is not gone yet, maybe it never will.
4615128
One of the best travel books I have read ever. I really liked how the author has put together such a great list of untapped locations and add from his personal experience. There were many locations in this list which I had never heard of before. Surely I'm convinced to explore some of these great destinations.
60804
What a ride. Want to take a wild trip read this book.
2645876
From someone who has had some travel experience in the Third World, I can say that this book kept me interested from page 1.  I was sorry to have gotten to the end of the book.  The writing was so descriptive that I felt I was along for the "adventure" with the author.  Hope to one day get to some of these less traditional destinations. I would recommend this book to the experienced traveler, those planning or thinking about going to the Third World, and those just interested in learning about places many of us have possibly never even heard of. I also must say, the pictures were simply fascinating!!
1339300
Taking a short vacation trip to an exotic country far away will never really give you the true understanding or real appreciation for
a different culture and place.  It will take months if not years of being there to really scratch past the surface. This book will take you on an exciting ride of what it is like to experience a personal journey into a foreign world and not just for a few weeks or months but from the experiences of a trip that got extended unplanned into many years.  If you like to travel, experience real adventure and learn about other cultures then this is the book for you.  If you have never been to Peru this book will inspire you to want to go to continue the journey for yourself.
2920840
Not your typical travel book. A very interesting piece about traveling through countries one typically does not travel through or hear about. The author is a journalist and went off the beaten path to relate tales of the Mid-East and Eastern European countries. Not only did he write of his adventures, but threw in a lot of geopolitical and historical antidotes as well. Very interesting.
1179763
This book is many things. It's an adventure story. It's a geography lesson. It's a study in anthropology. It's an exposition on the mindset of an explorer.

Mostly, it's a well-written tale of an American woman, Kira Salak, and her quest to continue living an extraordinary life. "If a journey doesn't have something to teach you about yourself, then what kind of journey is it?" she writes. This book takes us along for the ride. The tone is conversational, very readable, honest, and refreshing.

The Cruelest Journey is aptly named. Indeed, Salak recounts a grueling journey inside an inflatable red kyak, 600 miles along the Niger River in the West African country, Mali. She encounters both friendly and hostile villagers, calm and stormy weather, hunger, injury, sickness, potentially dangerous hippos, and incredible uncertainty. Using the Scottish explorer, Mungo Park, as a mentor of sorts, she attempts to reenact his adventure some 200 years earlier. She finds that not a lot has changed from what she read in his memoirs, which she holds close throughout the trip and quotes often.

Before I picked up this book, I didn't know where to point on a map to tell anyone the location of Timbuktu. It's a mysterious place, often used to describe the outskirts of the world. Salak's journey doesn't dispel this myth.

I found this story fascinating and highly recommend it.

Michele Cozzens, Author of A Line Between Friends and The Things I Wish I'd Said.
4905181
The true excitement of New Mexico is not the cities and hotels, which can be found elsewhere, but the unique way in which humanity, now and throughout a colorful history, has lived in and died in and related to the  strikingly beautiful geography of New Mexico.  Drive past the new suburbs  of Albuquerque and you are suddenly confronted by the overwhelming presence  of nature. This is both wonderful and scary (to a city slicker). If God  were anywhere, he'd be here, and you'd probably feel like striking up a  conversation.  Robert Eaton has lived in the Southwest for many years,  and has worked in such strikingly amazing places as Chaco Canyon. His book  is an entertaining series of his personal experiences, each in a unique  setting in the far reaches of New Mexico. Each experience is also an  encounter with one or more colorful characters, including many native  Americans, religious seekers, and loner forest rangers, not to mention  rattlers, coyotes, and eagles. But place never leaves center stage for  long. In fact, it is the interaction of people and place that Mr. Eaton  captures with great precision and poetry.  This book does not recommend  hotels, restaurants, or other trappings of the comfortable life. Other  books can do that. Instead, Robert Eaton shares his discoveries, collected  over many years, so that we may gain a better sense of what makes New  Mexico truly unique, not what makes it more of the same.  If you have  been to the places Eaton characterizes, as I have to some, you get to  experience them again in a well-written account, even with a new richness.  The adventurers among you will feel the rising urge to go and see these  places first hand. (That is certainly the effect Mr. Eaton's book has had  on me.) Those who prefer to experience these places in your mind's eye from  the comfort and security of your plush reading chair will find that this  book goes well with a glowing fire, warm dog, and perhaps a glass of  Merlot.
250440
I'm seldom impressed by other people's travel experiences, secretly considering my own to be far superior. This is not the case with The First Ride. This is great reporting on a remarkable journey. In addition to the details and mechanics of the trip, he also relates his emotions and interactions (both good and bad) with his companions. I also found myself pondering some of the larger questions he raises in the course of his adventures, leaving the reader to make their own judgements.

Traveling with others, while it can make a trip even more special, can also become awful. Mr. Rosenberg addresses this brilliantly in the book. Here's an introductory quote: "The road changes people, not all, and not at once, but it still affects them much like water affects stones with its gentle, ceaseless pressure."

I also loved the descriptions that gave me such clear visuals: "His potbelly was arrested by a trouser belt locked by a golden buckle, both belt and belly engaged in a war of freedom and restraint, with freedom looking to win sooner rather than later."

Then there's how he relates some of the sheer joy one finds in travel. That joy at new experiences that fires me to keep doing it. Here's an example: "Sometimes, all of the first impressions from visiting a new country can be reduced to one very small thing- a lime sliced in half. I kept staring at it, enjoying the bright orange color of its flesh..."

Mr. Rosenberg allows the reader such access to his thoughts and impressions, it's like having a friend telling you about their epic  adventure after they've returned home- except way better!
4862332
Miranda Emmerson and her partner Chris take a 9 month break away from Wales, rent out their house and set off for China and South East Asia.

It is always a tricky to get a good balance in a personal reflective journey-cum-travelogue but Miranda has achieved a good balance in sharing her own emotional journey through relationship difficulties, and contemplations about future motherhood. This book has soul and LOTS of food. It is a very readable and for the most part a thoroughly engrossing book about their experiences in South East Asia in the Year of the Rat, 2008. It is definitely a travelogue I would read before embarking on a visit to the region.

First stop is Beijing, where they take an apartment at Guon Mei Di Yi Cheng (translated as Number One Best Champion City) and get a feel of this buzzing metropolis, the modern skyline, the smog and the hutongs. Having ignored her first piece of advice, that if you are a vegetarian, well, don't go to China  she is permanently trying to sidestep the cow innards, the tripe, the liver eel hot soup and other meaty delicacies. At the end of each chapter she features a couple of recipes from the region which seem pretty do-able in a Western kitchen.

From there it is over to Vietnam and the frenetic roads of Hanoi, then up to Ha Long Bay and down to Hue and HMC and a dawning realisation that the food is full of the freshest ingredients and in many ways very different to the cuisine of China, with a whiff of French flair. Exploits up the Mekong River take the couple to Cambodia, and on to Siem Riep for Angkor Wat, where they relish the dawn over the ruins (and Miranda loses her hat to a monkey). Malaysia has a stunning history due to its location and she explains the cultural influences from all around the world, which is fascinating. Buzzing Bangkok is the final destination before they head home via Colombo  and even there, having lugged their Korean Tennis Game to many of the beaches they have visited a(nd been thwarted at every turn) they still don't get to play it, as alas it is already in transit in their checked baggage.

It is hard to describe the charm and personal insight that the author offers as she observes and ingests (both metaphorically and physically) all that she experiences. For her travelling was indeed, what she called, an exploration of love. There are a choice amount of snippets about the history, whether that fact that China produces more beer than anywhere else or that Vietnam is home to 54 ethnic groups. I am now dying to visit Yangshuo (where she tasted perfection in the dishes she ate) and Guilan where the karst mountains are a fabulous feature, to Suzhou, the Venice of the Orient. Taste the wonderful dishes that she describes with relish, peppered with star anise, lemongrass, coriander (you will end up smelling the gorgeous aromas and salivating)

You see, by reading this book you will undoubtedly gain some inspiration for your own itinerary, and that essentially is part of the TripFiction remit  finding wonderful books that will offer just an extra edge for itinerary planning or enable you to revisit places you have been.
787308
This personal journey in three parts is the work of a thoughtful, adventurous soul. We know the author as an actress who is able to expose the deep interior life of her characters (from Eleanor Roosevelt to Calamity Jane and others) through her professional work. In this book, we discover more of the interior life of Jane Alexander, the woman, the individual, captivated by the natural world, in love with birds, supportive of people who share her passion for the Earth and all its life-forms. We also learn that she is a world traveler, an adventurer, a friend of field scientists, and an environmentalist.

She begins with a thoughtful Author's Note that immediately tells the reader that this is a confident writer and advocate for animals who intends unapologetically to adopt the unusual practice of capitalizing the names of all animal species throughout the book. It is an important and telling choice. In the Prologue, she foreshadows Part I when she writes of meeting then-thirty-year-old Alan Rabinowitz, who was working on Jaguar preservation in Belize. She continues her portrait of Rabinowitz and his grueling endeavors in Part I as she travels through Mexico, Belize, Thailand, Idaho, Nepal, Myanmar, India, and Brazil. Each chapter provides a portrait of the area and an account of the challenges of preserving endangered wildlife therein. She reveals in Part 2 more of her own childhood and life, with chapters on Birds, Peru, Papua New Guinea, Hawaii, Galapagos, Newfoundland, Amazonia, East Africa, and Madagascar. In Part 3, she organizes her observations around a smattering of other subjects: Desert, Killers, Bhutan, Bahamas, Ecuador, and Ocean.

Although few have both the adventurous spirit and the resources to travel and learn first-hand in the way that Alexander has, there is no overlay of privilege about the author or the book. The writing is refreshing and accessible. The adventures are remote and intriguing. But, despite the authors admonition that you cannot be a conservationist and a pessimist. It is an oxymoron. The endeavor of conserving anything is one of optimism and hope, there is a strong thread of sadness that runs through the volume. Indeed, how could there not be given the tremendous devastation humans wreak upon our planet and its creatures? The stories told contain many extinctions and habitat losses and too few successes. The book is eye-opening in its revelations of destruction in almost any direction you turn. Nevertheless, it is good to learn that Alexander holds on to her optimism. An Appendix of organizations involved with the protection and conservation of wild things and wild places follows the main text. I will send checks to a few of them and work on my own optimism. I do recommend the book.
1269148
Travel books have always tickled my fancy.  I have always had a strong desire to travel, but in the past I was without the means to do so and I always reveled in the stories of others.  I lived vicariously through the writings of authors like Bill Bryson.  Having taken my first extended trip overseas this past summer to India, I have now finally experienced some of what the road has to offer; however, after returning I am left with a persistent and nagging travel itch that will not subside.  This book allows me to satisfy that urge.

I couldn't put it down on my first read, and having just finished I am already going back for another round.  Highly recommended!
315437
I am a great fan of the Travelers' Tales series, which has added immeasurably to the pleasure of my travel, and to the recollection of those travels.  But this is my first review of one of their books; reviewing collections of short pieces is tough, because you must limit yourself to overall impressions, there isn't space to describe every piece.

So here's the bottom line:  This is still the best of the many Travelers' Tales books I've read, and I have read quite a few others, including a few of their "best of" compilations.

Some of the reason for this excellence seems to be that Thailand itself inspires great writing by westerners.  In any general collection of travelers' tales, SE Asia is often the setting of many of the finer pieces.  Thailand being the most visited of the SE Asian nations, it has produced an extraordinary outpouring of excellent literature.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious on reflection:  it is well visited, yet it remains utterly exotic to western eyes, the people are warm, the cultures are fascinating, and the food, the landscape, the cities, the wildlife, the spiritual traditions -- all provide so much to write about.

This book is beautifully transporting.  Many of the excellent pieces bring back to the reader the experience of a visit:  the sensory overload, the favorite activities, the languid sway of palm trees on Thailand's beaches, the smell of basil brewing in coconut milk, the insane chaos of Bangkok's congested streets.

The first piece in the collection is an excellent overview:  It covers the sensuous (note, that's "sensuous," not "sexual") stimulations of Bangkok:  the humid heat that seems to tightly grip you by the arm, the honking of cars, the gazillion spices all clamoring for attention within a Thai broth, the shimmering golden roofs of the Grand Palace.

Other pieces deal straightforwardly and honestly with the hedonistic temptations that westerners find there (I remain innocent of these, yet I found these pieces fascinating reading).  A very insightful piece entitled "Fooling yourself for fun" meditates on the peculiar Thai way of enticing the temptable without the land sacrificing its own soul and self-respect.

I also loved the pieces that reminded me of things I had done there. "In the Andaman Sea" recollects a kayak trip that I took with Sea Canoe, a company that (at least when I was there) was just as marvelous as described in this book.  Another piece describes the joy of receiving a traditional Thai massage, lying on the floor of an open-air pavillion, at Wat Po, Bangkok's traditional school for such instruction.

Also wonderful are the pieces that remind the visitor of the warm hospitality and accepting philosophy of the people you meet there, the "mai pen rai" ("never mind") that you often hear, reassuring that everything is all right.

If you love Thailand, or if you think you would, this book is recommended without reservation.
1520127
This memoir reflects a lifestyle many of us will never experience.  To travel across countries and even continents takes an incredible amount of faith in the unknown - as well as an inordinate supply of true grit.  I was mesmerized by the author's descriptions of far-flung places quite frankly I don't have the balls to visit.  But the book is much more than a travelogue, it's a testament to human kindness and friendship. Anyone with wanderlust considering a long journey must read and re-read this book!  This book is going to stay with me for a very long time.
886320
This vivid novel takes the reader on an extraordinary trip. I loved the descriptions of the West's vastness and desolation that also form its characters. Del Gunn's growth from boy to manhood is beautifully rendered in the context of our times. Never strident, the voice illuminates the impact of our political follies on ordinary people, illegal immigrants as well as citizens.  As a European, I'm always amazed by how easily Americans move through and about their vast continent, taking risks while seeking improvement.