Sandwiches Should NEVER Taste Like Cow Crap

by Dave Lowe

Sandwiches Should Never Taste Like Cow Crap is a collection of accidental lessons from travel writer Dave Lowe. From his madcap overland journeys though Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, the horn of Africa, Nepal, India and the Maldives, Dave has Don't ever wear black in India - If the gods are watching, smile back - Yak fur comes up easier than it goes down - If a rat runs over your foot, you'll grow rich. After run-ins with evil customs agents, Tatami Dragon Ladies, randy camels, Khmer Rouge soldiers, and more, could his size 13 shoes be spreading mayhem and chaos with every step? Only the Travel Gods know for sure. After reading his book, you won't be eating a sandwich without carefully scrutinizing the contents first.

412 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2008

About the author

Dave Lowe is an atmospheric chemist and a lead author of the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on climate change. In the early 1970s he set up a monitoring station at Baring Head to provide the world’s first evidence of rising atmospheric CO2 in the southern hemisphere mid-latitudes. He has worked in laboratories in the US, Germany and New Zealand, where he developed equipment and methods to determine the sources of methane in the atmosphere. In New Zealand with NIWA, Dave developed an analytical laboratory and helped establish TROPAC, a world-leading atmospheric chemistry group based in Wellington. He has taught atmospheric chemistry at Victoria University of Wellington, where he is an adjunct professor, and between 2012–18 he acted as the government’s German–New Zealand science coordinator. Today, Dave runs an independent business focused on science education and sustainability. He is one of the last surviving attendees of the world’s first atmospheric CO2 conference, in 1975.

Reviews

[Tim Basuino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good at times, annoying at others. Lots of good information about travelling to the four regions, and in fact the chapter on Nepal/India/Maldives is quite engaging.

On the other hand, the author often comes off a bit too ironic for his own good. While I get that he's being humorous, one could take his portrayal of area laymen to be more than a bit callous.

[Christopher Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like travelling but, like me, don't really have the time or money to drop everything and head off, this is a pretty good book to take you off to somewhere exotic. It suffers in places from the kind of mistakes that an editor - or better proofreader - would have picked up on, and Lowe is prone to recapitulation (just like most American TV shows), but if you can look past these minor defects, you'll find some extremely memorable tales inside.