Ade's Reviews > Underwear or Socks? An Overland Odyssey

Obviously it's more of a personal memento than a comprehensive travelogue, but Alan makes a concerted effort to inject high level yet thoughtful overviews of the necessary background and research for each place visited. What really helps pull the narrative along is the nifty turn of phrase and frequent humorous interjections, some of which I will be stealing in due course. Almost worth it alone for the Chinese haircut experience and the firearms defendent sharing his room in the Aussie hostel, plus I learnt a lot about the toxic capacities of the box jellyfish and funnel web spider. It's true that the Middle Asian part of the journey seems to involve an inordinate amount of temples and abandoned fortresses; I know that Alan's own copy of the book also contains all the photos from the trip (at a correspondingly swingeing printing cost), which probably help to offset the apparent similarities on the page of each location. Also, I think he should have made an effort to tot up the amount of "beers" drunk per night and over the duration, so we can judge how accurate and sober his recollections are likely to be.

Still, good book, light read, great way to commemorate an epic trip. Makes me want to head out the door in search of the same experiences. (One of these sentences is a colossal lie; fortunately, it's the second one.)

(Note: the author is a personal friend of long standing.)