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A carregar... The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekongpor Edward Gargan
A carregar...
Adira ao LibraryThing para descobrir se irá gostar deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. A friend recommended this book as he knew I had travelled to about three-quarters of the destinations travelled by the author. Perhaps that is why I was less excited than I thought I would be when I finished it. Some of the sites along the Mekong I had travelled twenty-odd years ago, others as recently as last month (Luang Prabang), so there was a mix of both romantic nostalgia and small irritations. This is perhaps unfair to the author as The River's Tale is a personal travel diary and therefore does belong to a specific time--late 1990's/early 2000's (I confess I don't remember the actual year) and place. But readers should be aware that Asia has probably changed more in the past 10 years than any other time during its history, so many of the descriptions of both the terrain and the people and their dreams/concerns has changed, some radically. I am specifically thinking here of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam which have all exploded with tourism and its accoutrements. If you're into slow living, this book is for you. It is ver unexpectedly one of my all time travel favorites, following Gargan from the sources of the Mekong to it's delta in Vietnam a year later. The pulse of the river is also the pulse of the book, and I highly recommend it if you don't demand too much action, but can live with excelletn descriptive writing. sem críticas | adicionar uma crítica
The River’s Taleis a deeply informed personal chronicle of a remarkable journey down the Mekong River as it runs through China, Tibet, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. In it Edward A. Gargan tells a stirring tale of adventure that reveals the Mekong’s many worlds. Beginning in 1998, Gargan was at last able to pursue his long-held dream of traveling the three thousand miles of the river and lingering where he wished. He was, in a sense, coming to terms with places and peoples with which he had already linked his life. His youthful opposition to the Vietnam War had been the first manifestation of his passionate interest in Asia, where he subsequently spent much of his career as aNew York Timescorrespondent. His travels show us a kind of modernity settling uneasily on regions still mired in backwardness and poverty, and shadows that linger so many years after the end of the Vietnam War. We visit Internet cafés in dirt-streeted towns near thatched-hut villages without electricity. The magnificent Angkor Wat, a hub of tourism, is surrounded by the ruins engendered by Pol Pot’s genocidal reign. We see plodding mule trains caravanning sacks of opium through Burma on their way to China to be processed and distributed to the West. Tibetan horsemen adorned in silver and amber jewelry herd yaks across endless grasslands as their ancestors did, though their culture is under siege by the Chinese. Vietnamese salesmen scooter around Saigon hawking American soaps, passing by outcast children fathered by American soldiers and left behind. Buddhism flowers in a Laos ravaged by communism. Sex tourism thrives in prosperous Thailand, a trade chiefly involving teenagers, who pay a deadly price. And throughout, there is the Mekong—shaping landscapes, linking cultures, sustaining populations, showcasing spectacular beauty. Edward Gargan is an acutely observant, sympathetic guide to a fascinating world, and he has written a powerful and lyrical book. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)915History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography of and travel in AsiaClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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Very disappointing! ( )