I always enjoy a Lawrence Osborne book, somewhat similar to an A.A. Gill book, this time he wrote about travel, tourism, and being a tourist. Are tourists and tourism destroying mystery and paradises around the world, are we becoming so homogeneous that everything needs to be perfectly packaged, a Disney experience if you will. Sadly, probably so, but you can learn and certainly laugh your way through the authors experiences. The book is from 2006, and I would love for him to write a part 2 with a different final destination. ( )

This is one of the more satisfying books I have read this year. The author begins with a quick spin through the history of western tourism - proving along the way that he is a traveller, and not a tourist. Subsequent chapters are about his generally amusingly described exploits on his way to the main event, an escorted trip through the remote and often unexplored Irian Jaya. Don't rush to sign up for an adventure in that part of the world - the Indonesians don't encourage visitors and many of the locals have never before seen a person with a white skin.

The contrast between this second part of the book and the civilised first which include an expedition to a Bangkok sex change clinic and thalassery provide food for thought. ( )

Ah, at last! I’m finished with reading children’s books and I’m back to reading whatever I wish. So for my first trip back into reading what I want I picked this book from my enormous TBR. Osborne is fed up with what he terms Whatever travel, travel that takes you to places that are as indistinguishable as bottled water. He decides to try Papua New Guinea. It’s an excellent choice for someone jaded to travel. If you are seeking being shot at with arrows, swimming with crocodiles, visiting with indigenous people wearing nothing but a shell, then this book might be a good destination for you. ( )

I liked the topic of the book and I was completely fascinated by the hotel development in Dubai (The World: a huge development selling beachfront hotel properties in the shape of all the countries of the world), the medical tourism in Bangkok (plastic surgery and sex changes), and the pseudo-anthropological visit to a native Papuan tribe. I think the author excelled in commenting on contemporary culture and was hilarous at times describing people and their odd habits. I wasn’t as keen on the “first contact” as tourism part. I guess, since I don’t have the desire to meet people who have never seen a white Anglo-I just cannot connect with the story.

Also, at times I couldn’t follow the author’s prose rhythm. it threw me off and I had to reread several sentences. It wasn’t exactly bad grammar, just a strange flow in the writing.

I share the author’s fear of flying and liked this quote: “It is in airports, in any case, that I always make a final reckoning with the life I have lived up till then as well as the unknown place that I am about to enter. If, like me, you think you are going to die every time you fly, you do this—it is like saying the Last Rites to yourself.” ( )