Year of the Roasted Ear

Rating:
Summary: Recommended
Review: I am not one to laugh out loud when reading, a fact mentioned by both my housemates when they separately caught me chuckling while reading The Year of the Roasted Ear. The book is above all funny, but is also perceptive (usually at the same time), especially about westerners travelling abroad. It provides several refreshing variations on the adventure travel themes.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable account of the author's travels
Review: In the depths of a miserable and rainy Greek winter, the author, her husband and daughter decide to just pack up and head off for more exotic climes to alleviate their misery. This is their intention anyway.

Shortly thereafter they arrive in the South-Eastern country of Thailand in an environment they were clearly unprepared for - it's coronary inducing capital - Bangkok. And when I say that, I mean it literally. Within days Carrere's husband has a mild heart attack and the author is plunged into the maddening world of Thai bureaucracy, trying to deal with hospital admission and visa extensions.

Her depictions of this time bring a smile to the face of anyone who has had to get anything done in Thailand and her prose sketches of Bangkok and it's people are very well done. When her husband has recuperated it's down to Hua Hin for a spot of R&R having to deal on the way with the ubiquitous Aussie backpackers, more Thai officialdom and fat, sweaty German sex tourists.

Then it's on to Penang in Malaysia in search of their original elusive dream of a tropical getaway. Whilst not laugh out loud funny, it is witty and thoughtful and well-observed. Perfect for the armchair traveller dreaming of doing similar and for anyone familiar with the region who wants a mental reminder.

Rating:
Summary: Travels, Trials and Tribulations in South East Asia
Review: Originally released as Year of the Roasted Ear, the edition I read was rereleased as Monkeys in the Rain. This is an off-beat, relaxed story about a family holidaying in South East Asia. Donna, a disillusioned unpatriotic American with her French husband Pierre, along with their 8 year old daughter are seeking a life away from stress and looking for life (somewhere) in Paradise. They settle on a Greek Island only to find life in winter is not what they remember of the Greek Islands. From one disaster to another, they announce enough is enough. They travel to Thailand and Malaysia to get away from the Greek winter and to also follow a lifelong dream and discover 'the real Asia'.

What follows is a witty and exotic account of her survival in an unfamiliar environment, with a sick husband and young daughter. Carrere humoursly expresses a neurotic fight between her protective maternal instincts and their struggle for survival within a different culture. I picked up this book and finished it in one day. I had a couple of laughs, and it was humourous enough to make me smile now and then. I found it easy light reading, almost a short story more than a novel. The plot was really set out like a diary of one disaster after another from monkeys, to chicken legs for dinner, to violent rain-forest outbursts, to tacky male tourists looking for 'love', and 'girls who need to eat' (young prostitutes). This book is a good light read, although its not long enough to entertain for more than a couple of days.