Travelogue Books

Once in a while you read a book where you actually feel the author is having a personal conversation with you as he relives and tells you about his life experiences. You become so absorbed in the story he is telling you that you forget that the present world exists around you. That's the way I felt while reading Joseph Itiel's book about his gay sexual travel adventures and experiences. He reveals the many fascinating, exciting, and erotic sexual experiences he has had with men of different nationalities over the last four decades. He begins with his first sexual experiences in the1950's in NYC and Toronto, and his first foreign adventure to Rishikesh, India, where he became an apprenticed yogi. By taking up yoga he was able to cover up his homosexual activities while living in India. After all, this was the 1950's. This trip was not the wonderful experience he had hoped it would be. It did confirm and teach him, however, that his most satisfying sexual experiences would come from males who were ethnically and culturally different from him and he soon discovered he was also assured a more pleasurable sexual experience when he paid for it. Thus, his life-long positive relationships with male "hustlers", now known as "sex workers", would be established.

We're taken all over the world on his many sexual travel adventures, from Toronto to Mexico, to the Philippines, Japan, London, Hong Kong, Manila, and numerous other places. This book is a truly fascinating confession of his private life told in a beautiful, honest, and very personal way. I especially enjoyed his chapters titled "The Dancing Boy", "A Tiny Room at the Inn", and "Four Japanese Tales." The characters he meets, from callboys, to male geisha's and other sexual workers, are fascinating. His Manila diary entries were interesting, intriguing, humorous and sad at the same time, especially when he talks about the "psychic surgery" patients he met. They are interesting beyond belief.

Although all of these foreign sexual encounters are fascinating and very erotically described, there's even more to this wonderful book. In addition, it's a real learning adventure for any gay man who plans to be or is a world traveler. The knowledge and experiences Joseph presents to us are as relevant today as when he first traveled on his annual pilgrimages. Joseph has always had an insatiable curiosity and desire to learn new languages and study other countries customs. It's through his experiences that we get to share an intellectual and sexual history of one gay man's adventures as a world traveler.

I started reading this book early one evening and couldn't put it down till early the next day. We can certainly learn a lot from other's experiences and that is definitely true in this case. It will take you away, excite you, and open your eyes, all at the same time. I truly enjoyed and highly recommend this book. I look forward to this author's future endeavors. ...

I have traveled the world for several decades. I would recommend to every gay traveler that he read this book before going to virtually any Third World country.

Many gay readers do not like Joseph Itiel because of his "Virtual Boyfriend" and "Escort Tales" books. I personally have read and loved his guide to Costa Rica and this book. I have only started to read "Escort Tales" and have immediately come to dislike it.

Joseph Itiel is best as a non-fiction writer. While he seems to have some strange sexual preferences (like frottage) his adventures in other lands are mesmerizing and illuminating.

Homosexuals from the United States and Europe live in a world where sex is based on social courtship. Their reality is that it is demeaning and improper to "buy sex" although some might do so.

However, traveling with those perceptions can be both naive and dangerous. In very poor countries, sex of any kind is a means of survival, not just a game of social courtship and the pursuit of pleasure.

Joseph Itiel paints a daunting picture of how Mexicans inevitably come to ask for "a loan" for some pressing social situation from travelers who are sexual partners. It is a subtle form of prostitution even though they would be offended if you put it in those terms.

He describes the dangers involved in getting sexually involved with the poor denizens of other lands. Leave your passport in the Hotel. Carry your International Driver's License or a photocopy of your passport.

Each country is different. In the Phillippines, he finds himself fought over and passed around from one friend to another like a "prize". However, then he sees that he is simply exploiting the poverty of his sexual conquests.

Itiel does have some personality quirks. He came out later in life and discovered he actually preferred sexual liasons based on financial arrangements. That simply frames his stories.

Their real value lies in his practical advice for tourists who travel in societies where "their world" is replaced by an environment in which sex is more a means of survival than the quest for romance and pleasure.

I have found myself "a stranger" in such situations and learned many of the lessons Itiel shares in this book the hard way. Anyone planning a trip to a Third World country should read this book first.

They may decide to avoid sexual encounters. However, if they choose to pursue such encounters, they will be far better prepared to do so safely and sanely for having read this amazing and entertaining book.

I chose this book because the cover was as black and smooth as my mood, hoping it would be a diversion from the freakish post traumatic stress I was experiencing after a back country mishap. People who climb and push their physical limits with minimum risk in high risk situations are the luckiest people in the world in my mind. This most beautiful book brought me back to the life I love from a very scary place of fear where my internal self mimicked the grey cold climate, sinking darkness of winter in sedentary depression. It cracked me wide open and helped me think, live and breathe the essence of what adventure really is. I love to read it out loud. I love to give it as a gift. This beautifully written book, I will keep for the rest of my life. Roberts is brilliant and the book reminds us to seek and treasure our own brilliance.

They don't come any better than Dave Roberts. His writing is crisp, clean, a little sardonic at times, and hard-edged. Roberts originally made a name for himself as a top flight rock climber. As a writer, he is equally skilled. He knows what it's like to risk his life for something he wants, but has enough perspective on himself to question his motives. What I like most about Roberts however, is that he has never stopped growing. Read "Moments of Doubt" and you'll get an inside look at the all consuming nature of rock climbing. Read "Rambling Through the Winds," and you'll learn how the personality quirks of llamas can endanger your life on the trail. Almost anything is fair game for Robert's pen, including old explorers who faked their accomplishments (see the book, "Great Exploration Hoaxes). Escape Routes is an eclectic mix of vintage Roberts. You'll find hair raising rock climbing, descents into caves, a discourse on Outward Bound, and yes the cantankerous llamas. If you really love good adventure writing then this is a must.

This is a great book chalk full of great ideas for day trips around the bay area!

Exploring the Back Roads: 28 Day Trips in the Greater Bay Area appears in its third updated edition to provide California Bay Area residents with discriminating guides selected for their scenic, pastoral and historic qualities. From old levee roads in the Delta area to the ruins of Jack London's Wolf House, chapters survey roads less traveled, and does an outstanding job with its clear, easy line maps and step-by-step surveys of routes, alternatives, and local history. Mention of facilities or lack thereof also lend to making a back roads exploration day trip an informed, easy one.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Bleedin' shame nobody has bothered to review this book (as of my writing); it's one of the best books about Saudi Arabia (and Bedouin culture) I've ever read, though it is light reading.

Vintage marketed this book (now out of print, it seems) as "international travel," which seems to me a pretty dubious classification when you read what I say below, although since the guy spends most of his time wandering around a foreign country I guess I understand their reasons.

But it's really a kooky adventure story . . .

The plot is as follows: Walker (an on-again, off-again ESL teacher in Saudi Arabia during the boom years of the 70s and 80s), has heard many times from his students about the custom of "sexual hospitality" as practiced in some regions of Saudi Arabia, such as in the Asir (just north of Yemen).

The idea of such a custom is that travelers (even "kuffar," non-believers) who are visiting into certain villages are put up in a house for three days and nights, no questions asked. Perks supposedly include bed, breakfast, and THE SERVICES OF A FEMALE.

Anthropologists (and many Arabists) swear the custom was not a myth -- up until about the 1960s, when television helped to unify the country's mores, bringing them more in line with those of Riyadh.

Naturally such a free-love custom is directly contrary to Wahhabi Islam, of course.

Anyhow, Walker, the narrator, has been hearing about this custom for years. His students from the Asir (privately) swear to him it's not a myth, and students from other areas of the Kingdom angrily deny that such a custom ever (or could currently) exist.

Well, on his last tour in KSA, Walker resolves to make an odyssey from Jedda down to the Asir, ostensibly to visit a former student but really to see if he can work himself into a situation where he is a recipient of this fabled "sexual hospitality."

In other words, he spends the book basically trying to get a free ride on a Saudi chick.

Well, I won't tell you how it ends, but that plot line is what Walker uses to hang his observations about the Kingdom, about Arabs, Muslims, Saudis, and the rapid modernization of their world -- and what it is like for a Westerner to live and travel there.

Most of the books about Saudi Arabia are either about how the Kingdom supports terror, about the coming revolution, about the oil wealth, etc.

Not this one.

It's witty, amusing, and incredibly well-written. What Walker was doing spending his time as an ESL teacher is beyond me.

It's neither overly-sympathetic to the Saudis, nor uselessly over-critical.

In fine, a balanced, insightful, and deftly-written book.

Suddenly, what seemed a secretive, even a sinister, alien civilization became comprehensible and human." (p 174)

What a wonderful maxim Mr. Walker used, which aptly describes his entire book. As the only other reviewer, "Freston," of this gem of a book said: Most of the books about Saudi Arabia are either about how the Kingdom supports terror, about the coming revolution, about the oil wealth, etc."... in other words, so many books that theorize, and depict the "other" in negative terms, often by individuals who have never been to the Kingdom. Much that is written is also shear fantasy, masquerading as insight. But this book has the authentic ring from one who places his own culture's faults on an equal footing with those of others.

There is a tongue-in-cheek quest that ties together Mr. Walker's tale, his journey across the Kingdom from West to East in the early `80's: a search for the custom of Arabia which predates Islam, from what is considered the Jahaliya, "the time of darkness," when a widow was given to a male guest for three nights. Was there still a place so remote, so high and wild in the Asir, where this might still be possible? In this pursuit, as the guest of one of his ESL student's, to attend his wedding, he did things that probably only 10 other Western expats had ever done - such as ride in a crowded Toyota land cruiser, with the Sudanese and Egyptians, on a long journey from Jeddah high into the Asir.

With the exotic backdrop of his tour, and the cast of characters that he meets along the way, including old Saudi acquaintances, Walker makes numerous original philosophical observations on the respective cultures. He savagely and very wittedly skewers the foibles of Saudi society, which certainly would ban the book for sale in the Kingdom. But his strength is that he invariably compares their faults with the West's own, and sums up his agnostic position: "Don't get me wrong. I do not consider Islam any more a threat to mankind than Christianity or Judaism; in my view, no religion has the edge, in either absurdity or potential for mischief, over any other." (p 190) Another comparison is the relative merits of "repression," as espoused by Freud, and the sickness it brings on in society: "In Arabia the Repressed an unbalanced person is a sight so rare as to be shocking, whereas in permissive New York you are afraid to meet the eyes of half the people on the street for fear of encountering unrepressed madness." ( p 196)

In drawing his honest portrait, he aptly indicates the central reason why much of the West has a negative image of the country: "... just as it takes no Goebbels to appreciate the value of a propaganda so effective the before I ever laid eyes on an Arab, I despised them. It helps, when you take someone's land, to picture the owner as undeserving of it anyway." (p 135) (the American Indian would fully appreciate this sentiment)

As a weakness, I think of the authors of yore who visited Arabia, Walker placed too heavy a reliance on Charles M. Doughty, a crotchety traveler from whom Walker extracted the book's title. Walker repeatedly quotes him, yielding limited insights, burnished slightly only due to their age.

Towards the end of the book, his "quest" still unfulfilled, he is rather provocatively challenged by a woman who says: "You weren't looking in the right place." Likewise, if the slew of Saudi-bashing books has left you unfulfilled in your search for the real Kingdom, perhaps this is the right place to start. Surely a country that is spending three trillion dollars on the so-called war on terror can afford a few dollars to have this book re-issued, for the rich insights it renders of those who "live on the other side of the river," as well as ourselves.

A wonderful book to read before you go backpacking to grasp what might be expected on a long trip. It was packed with information about the interactions between people and nature. It was interesting to read while giving me insight on the trail. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys nature and backpacking!

I have not read a book that more accurately describes the long (medium)distance hiking experience better. In addition it is one of the best descriptions of the LT found. I finshed a section hike of the Long Trail last October and reading this book took me back to the joys and troubles, the shelters and summits. A great read

The book grabbed me within a heartbeat. It was well written with much visual effects and sensory overloads. One felt as though they were actually becoming a Shaman. It made perfect sense and when he was scared I was scared. When things came together for him, it did for me too. Highly recommended, although it's out of print. Try to obtain it anyway you can.

One of the most unbelievable books I've had the pleasure to read. I used to have a copy and think just about everyone should. Hell, I'm a jock and I loved it. Too bad its hard to find. Anyone that sees this, I am NOT OVER STATING MY OPINION.

Received my book "The French Broad", and I am really pleased with the book. If I find a book that has a hand written message to someone, I am delighted. Really pleased with the book, and the arrival was FAST. Be back to see you...

Wilma Dykeman spent six months in the early 1950's, driving with her husband through the mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee to research this book. She spoke with local farmers and loggers, visited libraries and newspaper offices, and read numerous accounts of the history of the French Broad River bioregion. The result is a very solid history of the region, spiced with plenty of local color. Although her prose is at times dry, and although her attempts to include quotations and jokes from local people sometimes come off as awkward, her fidelity to the people who are the subjects of her book is unwavering, and she makes numerous insights about the region's history and future which remain true today. The chapter, "Who Killed the French Broad?" is particularly prophetic; no doubt Ms. Dykeman must be happy in her Newport, Tennessee, home to see that the river runs cleaner than it did back in 1955, when the book was first published. A classy book by a classy woman.

'From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan' offers an intrigueing travelogue through nineteenth century India revealing a culture whose uncanny developments in the metaphysics of mind in the material world are today shedding light upon far reaching intuitions. The way Blavatsky reveals India without the fogs of mysticism but through an insightful first-person narritive makes this an exellent introduction and captivating look into the exotic world of Hindustan. It's truly adventuresome and fascinating. For anyone looking into the anthropology of ancient and modern India this book will prove insightful, or for those looking to escape into an exciting travelogue. Blavatsky and her traveling companions are both intellectual and charming. I've had this book for a number of years and I continuously comeback to it for its wonderful wealth of thought and adventure.

Read this more for its artistic value than its historical accuracy...it is a delight for any true follower of HPB's life and times and invaluable look at India from a traveler's point of view.

Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) is more than funny: he's a perceptive and compassionate traveller! I loved his first two BBC travel series and their companion books, so when one day in Seattle, I read in the paper that the next evening he would begin a third, I made sure to tune in. I wasn't disappointed; from a remote Alaskan island so close to the International Dateline that Palin writes: "The Russian soldiers staring at me across the water have already had the day I'm having" to "the southernmost place of worship in the world, outside of Antarctica", this one is as good an armchair journey as any the BBC has produced. Something special: the photography is, as usual, superb, and there's an underwater sequence in the Philipines that has to be seen to be believed. So, either take a year off yourself (that's about what it took Palin), pack your own forty-eight (!) suitcases and spend your own mint to do this trip of a lifetime, or just do it with Mike Palin. After all, that's what books are for, isn't it?

Michael Palin's "Full Circle" trip involved traveling all of the way around the Pacific Ocean. He (and his film crew) started at the Bering Strait in Alaska and then traveled down the Asian side of the Pacific, crossed over to Cape Horn, and traveled up through South and North America, returning to Alaska.

The trip covered 50,000 miles through 17 countries in ten months. Specifically, these countries were visited: USA (Alaska), Russia (Siberia), Japan, S. Korea (entry to N. Korea was denied), China, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, USA (California and Washington), Canada (British Columbia) and back to Alaska again.

This trip, like the other ones done by Michael Palin for the BBC, was filmed for viewing as a television mini-series. (This version is available on DVD, at least at Amazon UK.) Afterwards, Michael Palin and Basil Pao (the stills photographer in the filming crew) created this book as an alternative record of the trip.

The book is richly illustrated with Basil Pao's beautiful photographs. Michael Palin's text is wonderful because he has a way of finding interesting places and people and of describing them with warmth and humor.

The diversity of the many countries and places is amazing. Artic wilderness, tropics, deserts, cramped cities, huge rivers, high mountains, etc., etc. There are many high points along the way, the most exciting being when Michael Palin had to lasso a camel while standing in the back of a pickup truck that was going over bumps and around bends at break-neck speed!

At the same time, Michael Palin does not shy back from visiting and describing the thought-provoking places along his journey. The Russian Gulag in Siberia, Hiroshima and the remembrance of the atomic bomb, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea and the border between Mexico and the United States are all discussed with unusual insight.

This book easily deserves five stars. Except for the audio version, that is.

The nice thing about the audio version is that Michael Palin reads the book himself, and he does a great job as a reader. But the audio version does not include Basil Pao's beautiful photographs, of course, and worst of all, it's abridged. My dislike of abridged audio books results in me giving the audio book version only three stars.

Rennie Petersen

I enjoyed George's candid way of expressing his honest opinions, and his first-person scope of the places he covers. With all his traveling, he defenitely knows what and where he is talking about!

I found that my romantic life became splendorous, rhapsodic, and hot hot hot! Just follow the directions, take a few detours and make any destination your garden of babylon!