Tso and La - A Journey in Ladakh by Vikramjit Ram

Tso and La is a meandering travelogue on Ladakh, written by Vikramjit Ram. A writer stuck in writer’s block (he confesses so, in the beginning) he is looking for a change of scenery when his friend invites him for a month long road trip from Bangalore to Ladakh. Very interesting premise.

He talks of the 4x4 wheel drive (the vehicle Pajero is fancifully named as P Singh) with his friend, the place and the people, his experience as a novice carpet buyer, the sheer expanse of the place and how it egged him to chuck his ailing manuscript and start this travelogue instead.

He takes great care in explaining the beauty surrounding the place, the architecture of the dzongs (a little too accurately; I had to use a dictionary to understand what he said)

The one thing that strikes you in this travelogue is its exquisite language, but this very positive point tends to tire you after a while, to the point of a being a burden in enjoying the travelogue. I love to read a beautifully written book, but travelogues (according to me) should not be way too complex, where I sit with a dictionary to find what exactly he is saying.

Overall, if one is willing to spend time not just on the book but also with a dictionary, then it’s definitely a good read. I would give it 3.0/5.0

McCarthy’s Bar - Pete McCarthy

I have developed a taste for the travelogues and McCarthy’s Bar by Pete McCarthy certainly ranks high among the travel writing books that I have read so far. Irish, quirky, funny and touching in the way many situations were described, this book was a difficult beginning. The reasons are many – It jumps right into the travel documentation, the cultural references are not easy to understand for a non-British, non-European reader, and I feel I had not prepared myself to put in an effort to understand and absorb it. After a few pages it was a merry ride across the Irish coast along with the author.

The book is about the author (half-British and half-Irish) tracing the Irish coast looking for the stone ruins of the past (his favourite hobby) and stopping at any pub that is named after his own. He finds the country rising up to meet the demands of tourism and the resulting consequences of that haphazard growth is not too much to his liking. In addition to the native Irish who are wonderful if not slightly eccentric, he also meets others – many British, Germans and other Europeans – who have traded their city lives to be at the country side, to live at their own pace. The commentary on the social changes (more accepting of the outsiders), cultural transformations (exchanging Irish architecture of stone and wood for UPVC, pyrex glass windows), and on food is delightful and sharp. There are references to religion and its heavy impact on Irish life, also a hilarious account of a religious trip that the author took on a whim. It is an extremely well-written book.

I would highly recommend it for its humour, pithy observations about people, and a country at large.