There are precious few books on Bhutan, which adds to its allure in my eyes. I loved reading about the author’s
childhood in a village near India, where he didn’t see a car until he was eight.
Om Dhungel’s smarts took him further from home,
including to nearby Bangladesh. He rose to become a senior member of the government's telecoms service — when phones were so scarce that phone
numbers were only four digits long and even the king of Bhutan needed help
making a call sometimes!
But in the 1980s, Bhutan began an
ethnic-cleansing campaign against citizens of Nepali ancestry. Om fled to
Australia and contributed enormously to helping thousands
of other Bhutanese refugees. I love reading books about good people—and
Om is certainly one of them: a true gentleman and sensitive soul.
I lost my possessions, my salary, my status, my career, my country. And in that fall, I gained everything.
Bhutan is known as the land of Gross National Happiness, a Buddhist Shangri-La hidden in the Himalayas. But in the late 1980s, Bhutan waged a brutal ethnic-cleansing campaign against its citizens of Nepali ancestry. Forced to flee Bhutan, Om Dhungel spent six years as a refugee in Nepal before he arrived in Australia. Today Om is a respected community leader in western Sydney, consulted frequently by government and settlement organisations on refugee policy.
Written with Walkley Award-winning journalist James Button, Bhutan…
As someone who hasn't owned a bicycle since I
was 12 and never rode it further than the local shops, I am in awe of Rebecca
Lowe. Not only did she travel a vast distance, but she travelled through some
hairy spots on her own, carrying her "home as a tortoise hauls its shell."
I loved her description of why she loves to
travel. For me, too, it is all these things. "Ask any traveller, and their answer will most
likely be infuriatingly vague: both everything and nothing; to go mad and stay
sane. It's a black hole of obfuscation where some see eternity and others a
dead star. In this way, travellers are the ultimate paradox. They crave knowledge
and secrets, enlightenment and bewilderment." Lowe
is witty, and her descriptions of places are evocative and fascinating.
One woman, one bike and one richly entertaining, perception-altering journey of discovery.
In 2015, as the Syrian War raged and the refugee crisis reached its peak, Rebecca Lowe set off on her bicycle across the Middle East. Driven by a desire to learn more about this troubled region and its relationship with the West, Lowe's 11,000-kilometre journey took her through Europe to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, the Gulf and finally to Iran.
It was an odyssey through landscapes and history that captured her heart, but also a deeply challenging cycle across mountains, deserts and repressive police states that nearly…
On a whim, Mark Shand bought an elephant
called Tara and rode 600 miles across India. He describes parts of the country
in the east that tourists do not frequently visit, and the small team are
around him are colourful characters. He is a witty storyteller.
Shand falls in love with Tara and is effusive
in her praise throughout the book—occasionally, it feels a little over the top.
It did not surprise me to learn that he spent the rest of his life campaigning
to provide vital migratory corridors for elephants. In 2004 he established a
charity called The Elephant Family, which still exists today.
What did surprise me was discovering that this
wild and free author is the brother of Queen Camilla – he certainly does not
have the typical tastes of an aristocrat. Mark Shand died in a tragic accident at a
party in 2014.
With the help of a Maratha nobleman, Mark Shand buys an elephant named Tara and rides her over six hundred miles across India to the Sonepur Mela, the world's oldest elephant market. From Bhim, a drink-racked mahout, Shand learned to ride and care for her. From his friend Aditya Patankar he learned Indian ways. And with Tara, his new companion, he fell in love. "Travels on my Elephant" is the story of their epic journey across India, from packed highways to dusty back roads where communities were unchanged for millennia. It is also a memorable, touching account of Tara's transformation…
"Jessica Mudditt's love letter to backpacking has every classic backpacker experience. On the banana pancake trail there are fried tarantulas in Cambodia and bia hoi (fresh beer) in Vietnam, followed by linguistic confusion in China, the odd stomach upset, a touch of altitude sickness and if it gets cold – well, there’s always some hunk to share your sleeping bag with. In fact, as every backpacker is likely to confirm, the kindness of strangers is generally on call.” – Tony Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet
