What lands are these?

An interesting book in four parts by Dorothy Hammond Innes - wife of the famous author. Referred to by his given name Ralph throughout, he plays only a minor role as companion for the most part. Published in 1981, the travels within take place in the decades prior, but it is not always very obvious exactly when.

Kenya is the setting for the first and longest part, where the Hammond Innes's are hosted by George and Joy Adamson, Richard Leakey, Mary Leakey. They go on safari, through a series of camps and experience plenty of wildlife. Through the above people they are hosted well, taken to interesting places and introduced to interesting people.

While they make an effort to travel ‘down' and see local sites, booking into low end hotels and avoiding (for the most part) the ‘international hotels', the fame of Ralph sets them apart from more low at the heel travellers, although hiring a car and driving themselves in most of the places they visit certainly offers them some anonymity.

Papua New Guinea is the location of the second part of the book. They visit soon after the Australian administration has begun the handover to independence, and so Australian / British men in high ranking positions are now assistants to their former native assistants! Again the Hammond Innes's benefit from the assistance, accompanied to the highlands. Here again, the author makes a solid attempt to introduce some history and cultural descriptions into her travels.

Pakistan is the unlikely third section of the book, where they travel the Great Trunk Road, Karachi and Peshawar among other places. As well as attending a wedding and the Lahore Zoo, they continually crossed paths with ‘the Colonel, the Customs Officer and the Agronomist' who were clearly intelligence agents keeping track of their movements.

However it was the fourth section of the book which changed my view of this book the most. The section on their home in Wales was the part I was least interested in reading when I picked up this book, yet it turned out to be the most interesting. having owned a fairly large forestry holding in a Welsh valley which contained three houses of varying disrepair (two ruins and a worn old house) the Hammond Innes's decided it might be nice to rebuild one and live there from time to time. Over a period of years they both refurbished the worn house and leased it out with the grazing paddocks; worked on a design to rebuild another of the houses; and engaged with the local tradesmen and townsfolk to become a small part of the community.

A different writing style - perhaps the author was more comfortable writing about her more personal experiences in Wales that the previous travel. The design and building of the house appealed to me as much as the descriptive writing of the setting, the local people who were all well described, their pets and their obvious willingness to be involved in the Welsh community were all an easy and informative read.

The section on their Welsh house pushed this from 3 stars to 4 stars for me.