A Boat in Our Baggage: Around the World With a Kayak

Rating:
Summary: What an adventure!
Review: I've never before read a 'travel' book and eventually picked this one up and couldn't put it down...even after I had finished reading it! Maria kept an honest and immaculate diary of their journey around the world in a collapsible, double kayak. Their courage is commendable as is their sense of adventure. Excellent recounting of a treasured journey.

Rating:
Summary: Very weak, not the kayak adventure that the title suggests.
Review: The title of this book would suggest that the reader is set to read about a kayaking adventure.

Indeed, I purchased this book to read about a kayaking adventure but unfortunately the actual kayaking is only mentioned a couple of times in the book but not in any detail.

The apparent subject matter of the text is the story of a couple of middle-class wannabe hippies, Maria Coffey and Dag Goering, travelling (or more truthfully, scrounging) around a few different parts of the world.

It is certainly not a self-sufficient adventure as the couple seem to spend almost every night either living aboard a luxury yacht, staying in accomodation provided by the locals and even staying in the lap of luxury with the Governor of Hong Kong.

The bulk of the book is taken up with the couples time in India but basically could be summerised into a brief paragraph reading, "we pulled into the village, we met the local Holy man, we smoked copious quantities of dope, the locals cooked us a meal and then we stayed in one of their houses" which is what is basically repeated over and over.

There is absolutley no sense of adventure anywhere in this book and unfortunately, Coffey's writing is extremely dull and tedious, not to mention very repetitive.

The only time that any human interest crops up is in the brief mention of the couples time in Ireland when they run across a few local "characters" but yet again they do not do any kayaking.

Mention must also be made of Coffey's boyfriend, Dag Goering, who is constantly credited with being a "photographer" but unfortunately the few low quality "snaps" that are featured in the book would certainly suggest otherwise.

If you are looking for a documented kayak adventure (or indeed any adventure) you should be looking elsewhere.

Give this one a miss!