Goodreads Reviewers' Group discussion

Marco Polo Didn't Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer
by Rolf Potts

4 stars
Potts' travel tales entertain while questioning the whole enterprise of travel in the shrinking twenty-first century world. Each piece finishes with lengthy endnotes that pull back the curtain and give the reader access to the mechanics of writing, the context and "off cuts" of the piece, and the business of travel writing.
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City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple

My Rating :- ★★★★★

City of Djinns is a beautiful travelogue on the city of Delhi. Dalrymple loves Delhi and with a sheer curiosity he discovers the culture and history of this ancient city. Anyone who reads the book is bound to feel sympathy and love for the city. Also there are beautiful and nostalgic illustrations made by Mrs. Dalrymple, Olivia Fraser.

It is said that there were nine cities throughout the history of Delhi which have left their impression of culture and tradition in the heritage of the city. With the energy of a discoverer Dalrymple tries to trace all the nine cities of history within the Delhi of today. The great Hindu ruler Prithviraj Chauhan and his Lal Kot, the sultans and their Tughalakbad, the Great Mughals and their Red Fort, Delhi of East India Company, the Delhi made by Edwin Lutyens under British Raj and post-independence the bureaucratic Delhi is described. Even Dalrymple tried to trace the great capital of the Pandavas, the Indraprastha under the modern city. Some events particularly impressed the course of history of the city like the transfer of capital to Daulatabad by Muhammad bin Tughluq, the massacre by Nadir Shah, the massacre during the 1857 mutiny, the partition of 1947 and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Dalrymple narrates the story within a timeframe of one year and with the progress of the book he describes the notorious weather of Delhi too. He gives an account of its maddening heat, the much awaited and always belated rain, the bone chilling cold and the very short lived autumn.

While looking for bits of historically retained cultures in the old city havelies, Dalrymple finds the Mughal tradition of pigeon fighting, the pigeon fanciers or the kabooter baz, the last direct descendant of the Great Mughals, the Sufis and their legends about Djinns and the mystic sadhus of Nigambodh Ghat. It’s a story of rediscovering Delhi through the eyes of a person amazed by its myths and the impression it gives is that of an ancient and culturally one of the richest capital city which is also some time very mystic.

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In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson

My Rating:- ★★★★★

And then the fat man decided to tour the Down Under, Australia. Australia, where beaches are full of most venomous jellyfishes, rivers full of most venomous snakes and largest size of crocodiles attack small motor boats because the motor sounds like the mating call of female crocodiles. Where the Prime Minister disappears at the beach without anyone even noticing. A deserted continent inhabited at only some pocket of port cities and the residents refer the whole thing else only as The Outback. A desert where explorers have a history of drinking their own urine and terrorist groups may have tested nuclear bomb but no one knows exactly. And on the starting of his journey to such a country Bryson losses a whole day of his life too. Not a good start at all.

But then he finds the country interesting and the people really likeable. He tours the port cities by train and by car and some part of the highways are so straight for hundreds of miles that he thinks that the car could do without the steering. At areas where he expected to drink urine, he finds Coca-Cola booths. Complete unexpectedly he gets to watch kangaroos grazing at his hotel lawn and confronts rare animals at a city park. Though the street dogs gave him a life threatening chase at Sydney, he gets amazed by the city’s efficiency in hosting the Olympic of the millennium. He visits to Alice Spring, sees the Uluru and getting drunk at the local bar makes deal with a stranger to swap their homes. About the national sport of the country, he thinks after lunch break and tea break, there should be a nap break in Test Cricket too.

After visiting almost every area of the country, he gives this revealing description of the unique country in his usual hilarious tone. And in in his journey back home, he gets back the lost day of his life too. Not that bad at all!

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Back at that lake last Saturday... in 'The Accursed Mountains' by Robert Carver... reviewed.

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