No comments about Berlitz Delhi Pocket Guide (Berlitz Pocket Guide).

No comments about Rajasthan, 3rd (Footprint - Travel Guides).

2 comments about Passport India: Your Pocket Guide to Indian Business, Customs & Etiquette (Passport to the World) (Passport to the World).

1. Since India has a distinct culture from the US, I expected to receive some useful guidance from this book. It is very elementry - just remember to be polite and you will do better than you would by following this book's suggestions. Not worth the money or the weight in my luggage.



2. A word of caution: This book is not terribly useful for business travel in India. I spent 2 months in Delhi and didn't bother to check the publication date of this book. It is dated, to put it lightly.

   There are a few useful tips in this little book (mostly about business/social interaction). However, I found that the main cultural differences in business were clear after the first week of being there--no book could have prepared me. India is an incredibly vast and varied country; no one general guide can smooth the transition.

   If you're going to India to travel, the lonely planet or eyewitness guides will do you some good (really good if you're planning to visit out-of-the-way places). If you're going to India on business, then I'd suggest simply chatting with your Indian co-workers before or upon your arrival. Most likely they'll give you a better idea of what to expect; also, their advice will be tailored to your type of business and, more specifically, to the people with whom you'll be working.

   As with all people and places--we're unique. Allow your Indian experience to be unique too.

3 comments about Images of a Journey: India in Diaspora.

1. Steve Raymer's new book is just one more outstanding example of his ability to blend passion, clarity and a real gift for communication. As in his previous books (on Islam and another on Vietnam) his photographic skill prods the reader into asking questions that are well answered by both the photographs and accompanying text. (This was the hallmark of National Geographic Magazine in days gone by, and it is a real treat to see it captured again in his latest work.) Images of a Journey is extremely informative and helps us to better understand the impact of the Indian people and culture not only in the United States but throughout the world. Definitely a worthwhile and successful effort that simultaneously teaches and entertains!



2. Steve Raymer's photography career is legendary, and in this book he captures the Indian Diaspora as it's never been done before. There are some 25 million people of Indian origins living outside India, a country of 1.2 billion people. How do these expatriates live? Why do they retain their cultural heritage? Why do they many of them flourish outside their native milieu? The portraits tell it all. Buy this book also for Nayan Chanda's superb foreword. Through his text, and Raymer's pictures, you will understand the global face of India -- and Indians.



3. Great photographs and wonderful text. Steve Raymer has captured in images and words the hopes and challenges facing people leaving their homeland for a new life in often quite different countries. He embodies the best in journalism, the ability to cross disciplines and yet excell in both. This book should be required of all of us concerned with world change and how people meet this change.

2 comments about GEORGIA:: IN THE MOUNTAINS OF POETRY (Caucasus World. Peoples of the Caucasus).

1. I just returned from my first trip to the Republic of Georgia. I say "first" because my wife and I both fell in love with the place and we are already planning our return.
   
   I read Peter Nasmyth's book shortly before travelling to Georgia, and I found it an excellent preparation. Nasmyth's book is largely a report of his own travels in Georgia, first shortly before independence, then just after the brief civil war and also more recently. It doesn't give as much historical and descriptive material as a standard travel book would, and the photos (which Nasmyth took himself) are in black and white.
   
   What comes across most vividly, however, is the Georgian people, and this is as it should be, since, although Georgia has an abundance of natural and historical beauty, it is the people that one falls in love with.
   
   Lancelot Fletcher lrf@jag.ge
   
   PS. My wife and I returned and are now living in Georgia. Peter Nasmyth's book is still, in my opinion, the best introduction to Georgia, even though the country has changed tremendously since the book was published. Too bad it's so expensive.



2. This is not a travel book. This is, however, an excellent introduction to the country Georgia. As a grad student preparing to write on Georgia, this was a great starting place. You will get a real feel for the country and the recent issues of current events there.
   Mr. Nasmyth has been blessed with an extraordinary ability to filter through what he's seeing (even drunk!) and spot the trends in a foreign country.

No comments about Travellers Kerala & Southern India, 2nd (Travellers - Thomas Cook).

No comments about The Rivers of the Mandala: Journey to the Heart of Buddhism.

1 comments about The Gunpowder Gardens.

1. This book was also published in paperback in the United States under the title A Time for Tea: Travels Through China and India in Search of Tea (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). Informed and entertaining, the book is a combination travelogue-history; the author visits China, India, and a few other tea-related places (Boston, as in Tea Party), all the while telling us how tea is grown, processed, and drunk; how it was first discovered; and how it came to be exported to the West. I found it totally engrossing. Had it been written by an American, I would class it in the category of New-Yorker-style writing: intelligent, witty, light - yet informative. I suppose the book may now be out of print in the American version, but it's certainly worth tracking down. Highly recommended.

1 comments about The Sacred Life of Tibet.

1. This fresh look at the actual practice of Tibetan Buddhists is a nice change from the traditional overview dealing with philosophical intricacies. Dowman looks at the practice through and folk lore and traditions that make up the history of the people. Issues such as how Buddhists relate to their environment and how that has effect the unique form of Buddhism that arose from the Tibetan culture are dealt with in such a way to appeal to experts and students alike. The amount of material covered is amazing, as well as the depth.

1 comments about Hunting Pirate Heaven: In Search of the Lost Pirate Utopias of the Indian Ocean.

1. Unless you are a lot more adventurous than I am, the closest you will ever get to most of the places and people described in this book is reading the book. Mr. Kevin Rushby deserves great credit for taking on a very dangerous and unpleasant journey in search of what utopian life in the tropics really provides. His talent for taking situations seriously and letting his imagination run wild provides the book with a fiction-like quality that makes the writing more vivid and interesting than in most non-fiction books.

   What little we know about pirates mostly comes to us through fiction . . . often built on bits and pieces of what people have claimed to be true about pirates. Mr. Rushby did his homework before starting by locating the regions on the Indian Ocean on or adjacent to Mozambique where pirates were supposed to have been active. From these stories, he heard tales of "edens" where pirates went to rest up . . . or even retire. "What were these edens like?" he wondered.

   Starting from the area where the British East India Company launched its first voyages 400 years ago, he quickly moved to a freighter leaving South Africa so he could hedge-hop the coast of Mozambique. From there, his accommodations and creature comforts went mostly downhill. As he visited each area, he asked about pirates . . . but usually didn't learn very much until almost the end of the trip. But he did meet modern equivalents of people living in tropical "paradises" and he often reflects on what he finds. He often finds "trouble in paradise" as well as paradise.

   Along the way, he suddenly discovers that not everyone is as friendly as they might be. Nature can be dangerous, too!

   Be sure to stick with the book until the end. It just gets better and better.

   I did grade the book down one star though. Why? I found that this would have been a better book if it had focused simply on what life is like in that part of the world . . . and either mentioned the pirates in passing or skipped them. I found the pirates to be more of a distraction than an appeal in my reading.

   But if you are a great fan of books about pirates (no matter how remote the connection is), you will probably enjoy learning about the current reality and the ironies these facts reveal about the legends.