If you cannot travel, read - but if you can do both...

“Each book was a world unto itself, and in it I took refuge.”

― Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading

Reading is a wonderful way of escaping to new places. Therefore, if you cannot travel, reading is the next best thing. But to be able to both, now that is my kind of utopia.

The colour of the water at sunset in Kep, Cambodia

In the first country we visited on our round-the-world trip, we were sitting in a little backpacker hostel reception on Cat Ba Island in Vietnam waiting for a bus to Sapa. To pass the time I picked up a dog-eared copy of a Vietnam travel guide and scanned through the content. I came across a book that it recommended called “Catfish and Mandala” written by Andrew X. Pham where he gives his account of going back to Vietnam to cycle across the country many years after leaving as a child refugee.

Getting hold of this book seemed like a great idea. Not only would I be travelling through the country for myself, but I could broaden my experience by also seeing it through someone else’s eyes. So that is how I started selecting a book for each country that was either about or based in the nation we were visiting on our travels.

A few weeks later, waiting in a bus station in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on the verge of a really 'ugly' cry I read the final pages of “In the Shadow of the Banyan” by Vaddey Ratner. Having days before visited the the Killing Fields and seen the horrific evidence of Pol Pot’s genocide, I finished this very touching novel. It was a wonderful story of survival and this book certainly also left its mark.

After that, I needed something lighter but also wanted to get a better understanding of Buddhism as we were surrounded by it in Siem Reap, Cambodia. An amusing tale written from the perspective of a very self-centered feline, “The Dalai Lama’s Cat” by David Michie was my next choice.

We would be heading to India soon, and my husband was reading “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts – a book that had inspired me to include India on our itinerary. I needed something based in India and after a google search settled on “The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy. I don’t normally read books like this and prefer easier reads with a quick pace. This book was a real struggle for me, and on several occasions, I wanted to give up. But I have never ever read such beautifully crafted words. In the end, the toil was well worth it.

I have read other novels in between, some more entertaining than others. For Spain, I selected “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon set in Barcelona after the civil war.  In southern Italy, one of our gracious hosts lent me a copy of “Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria” by Marc Rotella. The author has a wonderful way of describing the tastes and hospitality you are bound to experience in this area, and our visit was richer for it.

A non-fiction book that both my husband and I read in between our other books, was “A History of the World” by Andrew Marr. This is a fascinating yet easy to follow book, and wherever you are travelling, you are bound to come across an interesting fact about those that have been here before you. You can image what it was like to go to Rome after reading so much about the great empire prior to our arrival.

By selecting books relevant to our travels, I had read authors and genres I might not normally have selected. I knew our travelling would open my mind, but I am delighted by the multiplier effect these extraordinary books have had on it.