Reviews

Across Asia on the Cheap by Tony Wheeler, Lonely Planet

emeraldgarnet's review

3.0

Enjoyed this from a historical perspective. It was interesting to see how some aspects of travel, for instance people's wanderlust, have not changed much over the decades while in other areas the world is a very different place. I am thinking here particularly in terms of what countries are 'safe' to visit. Back in the early 1970s, Vietnam was off limits while visiting Afghanistan was not uncommon among the young travel set. These days, the situation has flipped with plenty of people going to Vietnam but hardly anyone visiting Afghanistan.

The book shows its datedness/weirdness particularly when it recommends the best places to get recreational drugs and also seemingly implying that young women can be escorts to fund their travel?!?

lily628's review

4.0

I've traveled much of this route in the last 10 years - fun to see how it’s changed

pennyriley's review

4.0

The book that launched Lonely Planet, first self-published as a bunch of stapled pages. Written in 1973 this predates my travelling days by ten years, but many of the places Tony and Maureen Wheeler passed through are places I lived in and came to know well in the following decade. It really brought back what travelling used to be like before the days of the the internet. Being without outside communication for weeks, picking up mail at American Express offices (I never got to pick mine up at an embassy), arriving in a city with no accommodation arranged. Black market currency exchange - still used in some places but more rarely. My best experience of that was Burma, arriving with whisky and cigarettes that financed my whole trip - sold before I was even through the airport doors. Sentences such as, "But exorbitantly expensive, - like $US1.50 per night for two people. Talking about accommodation in Isfahan. The cheapest I ever managed was $3.00 in, I think, Jaipur. Even nearly half a century later many things were instantly recognisable - some aspects of India never change - while others are gone (the Buddhas of Bamiyan, too much of Syria) or forbidden or too dangerous to contemplate (travel through Afghanistan). The book is littered with errors - typos mainly I suspect - but whether that was from the original or preparing it for Kindle I have no idea. As a bonus this was free on Kindle. Worth the read if you have been a long-term traveller, but maybe not if you are too young to recognise this kind of travelling as other, better memoirs and travel books have been written.