Tag Archives: Travelogue

In My Hands Today…

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The Living Road – Ajit Harisinghani

A solo motorcycle ride across India, and into Bhutan, becomes much more than just a test of physical endurance when 57-year-old, Pune-based, speech therapist Ajit Harisinghani decides to go in the pursuit of that most elusive of all human desires – Happiness.

With the idea of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness on his mind, he traverses a potpourri of terrain; riding through landscapes that change daily. From arid land to verdant fields, from jungles with glimpses of elephants and tigers to tea gardens…

Along the way, he meets a yogi and his singing goat, explores ancient caves, is frightened in a wild life sanctuary, sees a schizophrenic bicycle and helps a police inspector overcome his stammering problem. A variety of experiences later, he is finally in Thimpu where a Buddhist monk reveals the road-map to being happy.

In My Hands Today…

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Why the Dutch are Different: A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands – Ben Coates

The first book to offer an in depth look at hidden Holland and the fascinating people that live there, Why the Dutch are Different is an entertaining book about a country unlike any other.

The Netherlands are a tiny nation that punch above their weight on the world stage, where prostitutes are entitled to sick pay and prisons are closing due to lack of demand.

After a chance encounter, Ben Coates left behind life in London to move to the Netherlands, where he learned the language, worked for Dutch company and married a Dutch wife. He takes readers into the heart of his adopted country, going beyond the usual tourist attractions and cliches to explore what it is that makes the Dutch the Dutch, Holland not the Netherlands and the colour orange so important. A travelogue, a history and a personal account of a changing country – Ben Coates tells the tale of an Englishman who went Dutch and liked it.

In My Hands Today…

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Eastern Horizons – Levison Wood

Levison Wood was only 22 when he decided to hitch-hike from England to India through Russia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but he wasn’t the conventional follower of the hippy trail. A fascination with the deeds of the early explorers, a history degree in the bag, an army career already planned and a shoestring budget of £750 – including for the flight home – he was determined to find out more about the countries of the Caucasus and beyond – and meet the people who lived and worked there.

Eastern Horizons is a true traveller’s tale in the tradition of the best of the genre, populated by a cast of eccentric characters; from mujahideen fighters to the Russian mafia. Along the way he meets some people who showed great hospitality, while others would rather have murdered him…

In My Hands Today…

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Truck de India!: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Hindustan – Rajat Ubhaykar

“The share auto I squeeze into next seems unusually vulnerable after a night in the truck – too compact, too low down. Perhaps, these are the usual side effects of prolonged riding with the king of the road, I think to myself. But it is only when I fill in ‘truck’ as my mode of transportation in the hotel ledger at Udaipur does the utter ludicrousness of my endeavour truly hit home”

Think truck drivers, and movie scenes of them drunkenly crushing inconvenient people to their gravelly deaths come to mind. But what are their lives on the road actually like?

In Truck De India!, journalist Rajat Ubhaykar embarks on a 10,000 km-long, 100% unplanned trip, hitchhiking with truckers all across India. On the way, he makes unexpected friendships; listens to highway ghost stories; discovers the near-fatal consequences of overloading trucks; documents the fascinating tradition of truck art in Punjab; travels alongside nomadic shepherds in Kashmir; encounters endemic corruption repeatedly; survives NH39, the insurgent-ridden highway through Nagaland and Manipur; and is unfailingly greeted by the unconditional kindness of perfect strangers.

Imbued with humour, empathy, and a keen sense of history, Truck De India! is a travelogue like no other you’ve read. It is the story of India, and Indians, on the road.

In My Hands Today…

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The Same River Twice: A Memoir of Dirtbag Backpackers, Bomb Shelters, and Bad Travel – Pam Mandel

Given the choice, Pam Mandel would say no and stay home. It was getting her nowhere, so she decided to say yes. Yes to hard work and hitch-hiking, to mean boyfriends and dirty travel, to unfolding the map and walking to its edges. Yes to unknown countries, night shifts, language lessons, bad decisions, to anything to make her feel real, visible, alive.

A product of beige California suburbs, Mandel was overlooked and unexceptional. When her father ships her off on a youth group tour of Israel, he inadvertently catapults his seventeen-year-old daughter into a world of angry European backpackers, seize-the-day Israelis, and the fall out of cold war-era politics. Border violence hadn’t been on the birthright tour agenda. But then neither had domestic violence, going broke, getting wasted, getting sick, or getting lost.

With no guidance and no particular plan, utterly unprepared for what lies ahead, Mandel says yes to everything and everyone, embarking on an adventure across three continents and thousands of miles, from a cold water London flat to rural Pakistan, from the Nile River Delta to the snowy peaks of Ladakh and finally, back home to California, determined to shape a life that is truly hers.

An extraordinary memoir of going away and growing up, The Same River Twice follows Mandel’s tangled journey and shows how travel teaches and changes us, even while it helps us become exactly who we have been all along.