Author: Alexander Frater
Publishers: Picador
Pages: 378
By ‘Torrid Zone’, Frater refers to the tropics. Alexander Frater, born in the French Polynesian island of Vanuatu, revisits the island to see many changes in the place where he grew up as a kid. The land where his father’s home stood was replaced by a plush resort occupied by rich Australians, but the mission hospital built by his father remained. People of Vanuatu lived better, had started living in a more modern way of life, converted to Christianity and yet, there were many things in their society that intrigued Frater. The story that starts as a mere visit to the place where he spent his childhood grows into gigantic travelogue of entire tropics, covering Polynesia, Asia, Africa and South America. He visits many islands, lagoons and atolls, and even volcanoes in the tiny islands of Polynesia. He extends this story to more amazing journeys, like cruising down the Irrawadi River in Burma for several days by a mass transit boat, or taking a luxury liner and sailing up the Amazon – some privileges entitled to a person who is travel writer by profession! There are much more, like taking a small plane to some unknown war torn region in Africa or visiting many islands north of Australia. He occasionally blends his story with history, inserting names Captain Cook who discovered Polynesia on his search fo Australia, or adds some learnings about how a perennial rivers get formed. The variety of information and stories in the book are vast and sometimes feels like a jumble. For aspiring travel writers, the book is even a realization that all is not as easy and thrilling as it looks. But Frater’s stories are as exciting as it could get, and is a must read.
The cover of the book probably features the backwaters of Kerala, but don’t assume any related stories in the book. India hardly figures anywhere in the book but Frater has written a separate book entirely on India – Chasing the monsoons.
Below is a copy of India Travel Blog Newsletter that was mailed out on May 02.
The India Travel Blog newsletter dispatch is sporadic and infrequent, but I try to send it out once a month. Last newsletter was circulated in March. To get this occasional newsletter, which announces important happenings in India Travel Blog and also summarizes the recent content, subscribe to it by keying in your email id on the box at the top-right corner
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Hello,
Thank you for subscribing to India Travel Blog Newsletter. Feel free to forward this to anyone who would be interested.
The desktop wallpaper calendar for May 2007 is now online and can be downloaded here
It has been two months since the last newsletter was mailed, and plenty of content has been added on India Travel Blog since then.
1. The North East Diary is ongoing since last 2 months and is continuing in good pace. There are many posts that cover about travelling infrastructure in north east, conservation and environment in the region, and about Guwahati. Topic currently being written is about birding in Eaglenest National Park. Read the last post on it – Journal Entry on Eaglenest National Park. See links to previous posts on North East on the sidebar.
2. Added trip report of some old and recent journeys in Karnataka’s western ghats. a) Swimming in Kempu Hole and b) Climbing Thadiyandamol
3. Two book reviews have been added. a)Elephas Maximus by Stephen Alter and b) Chasing the monsoons by Alexander Frater
In the coming days, I have much to write about North East, including Tawang, Kaziranga, Nameri, Shillong and Cherrapunjee. I am planning a 2 week long trip to Himachal in about 4 weeks time, and hopefully all about Himachal will be the next thing on India Travel Blog after the North East Diaries.
Happy travelling and happy reading!
– from India Travel Blog
Desktop wallpaper Calendar for the month of May 07 is ready. This is an image of strands of a waterfall with the major flow of the fall seen in the blurry background. I am in double mind about whether the image is suitable for being a desktop calendar though. A browser resized version looked ugly and pixellated on my computer, so I advice seeing the full sized image. Click on the picture to get the image in 1024×768
About the Image
This image was made at a place called Muthyala Maduvu, or Muthyala Madu near Bangalore, occasionally also called as ‘Pearl Valley’. It is a small fall with not much water going down, but when you look up from the bottom of the fall, the drops of water look as though it is pearls falling down(and hence the name). I was with my friend, photographing the fall and was unhappy about the result and told my friend – “The fall is like a poetry, but the images are like snapshots.” This was the picture I made immediately after I said this to him.