Daren
Having read Chris Stowers' second travel autobiography Shoot, Ask...and Run recently, and finding that excellent, I looped back to read this one - the first!
Firstly - this one was a lot shorter, less than 200 pages, and was a far quicker read. It still contained a number of black and white photos, but some were of lesser quality, as Stower's was still a traveller taking photographs, as opposed to his second book when he was primarily a photographer travelling.
After a chapter called 'The Tipping Point' which explains when, in 1986, Stowers quits his motorcycle courier job in London and goes travelling, this book charts two sections of travel with chapters at an approximate ratio of 2 to 1. In the primary travel narrative, Stowers is in Indonesia in August 1988 where he meets up by chance with a group of Frenchmen (and a Swiss) who are negotiating to buy a traditional Bugis spice ship from a local captain with the plan to sail back to Europe - the first leg being as far as Singapore. After hanging about with them, and sailing as far as Tanah Jampea (an Indonesian island north of Sulawesi) with the boat's owner and crew, where the purchase is to be made, Stowers commits to joining the crew.
The sea voyage exposes their lack of experience, they have plenty of issues and hardships they need to overcome with repairs, their stores and the like, but this section of the book is quite enjoyable.
Intertwined with this is the second narrative, travel that occurred a little over a year before the commencement of the first narrative (say, early 1987) in Tibet. This narrative is linked to the first by the fact he runs in to Charly (another Frenchman) in Indonesia, with whom he travelled after Tibet, who triggered his thoughts back to the earlier time.
In Tibet, Stowers is with a German girl, Claudia and explains the time he spent in Lhasa. When they both need to move on from Tibet, she heads for Nepal, and he into China, and on this journey in China he pines for her to a point where she is mentioned over and over. It is on this leg of the journey he travels a while with Charly (as above). This second narrative is less strong than the first, and taken up with stowers continual thinking back to Claudia. It quietly peters out before the conclusion of the Bugis ship to Singapore.
So while for me, this didn't live up to the heights of the second book, it was a worthwhile read, and filled in some of the experience gaps for Stowers. I guess it also shows Stowers' development as an author. Stowers refers to the two books as volume 1 and volume 2 of The Diaries of a Western Nomad, so I look forward to the third volume in due course.
3.5 stars
Having read Chris Stowers' second travel autobiography Shoot, Ask...and Run recently, and finding that excellent, I looped back to read this one - the first!
Firstly - this one was a lot shorter, less than 200 pages, and was a far quicker read. It still contained a number of black and white photos, but some were of lesser quality, as Stower's was still a traveller taking photographs, as opposed to his second book when he was primarily a photographer travelling.
After a chapter called 'The Tipping Point' which explains when, in 1986, Stowers quits his motorcycle courier job in London and goes travelling, this book charts two sections of travel with chapters at an approximate ratio of 2 to 1. In the primary travel narrative, Stowers is in Indonesia in August 1988 where he meets up by chance with a group of Frenchmen (and a Swiss) who are negotiating to buy a traditional Bugis spice ship from a local captain with the plan to sail back to Europe - the first leg being as far as Singapore. After hanging about with them, and sailing as far as Tanah Jampea (an Indonesian island north of Sulawesi) with the boat's owner and crew, where the purchase is to be made, Stowers commits to joining the crew.
The sea voyage exposes their lack of experience, they have plenty of issues and hardships they need to overcome with repairs, their stores and the like, but this section of the book is quite enjoyable.
Intertwined with this is the second narrative, travel that occurred a little over a year before the commencement of the first narrative (say, early 1987) in Tibet. This narrative is linked to the first by the fact he runs in to Charly (another Frenchman) in Indonesia, with whom he travelled after Tibet, who triggered his thoughts back to the earlier time.
In Tibet, Stowers is with a German girl, Claudia and explains the time he spent in Lhasa. When they both need to move on from Tibet, she heads for Nepal, and he into China, and on this journey in China he pines for her to a point where she is mentioned over and over. It is on this leg of the journey he travels a while with Charly (as above). This second narrative is less strong than the first, and taken up with stowers continual thinking back to Claudia. It quietly peters out before the conclusion of the Bugis ship to Singapore.
So while for me, this didn't live up to the heights of the second book, it was a worthwhile read, and filled in some of the experience gaps for Stowers. I guess it also shows Stowers' development as an author. Stowers refers to the two books as volume 1 and volume 2 of The Diaries of a Western Nomad, so I look forward to the third volume in due course.
3.5 stars