Travel book review: Some kind of wonderful

Travel books serve three main purposes to my way of thinking. On the one hand they can serve to highlight places you really must go to before you die (or before you're too old to cope with the rigours of the journey).

On the other they allow you to visit places you know you'll never get to, through the eyes of others.

And, either way, they remind us what a fascinating and diverse planet we live on.

The problem is, the more books I read, the more places I want to go ... and unfortunately there just isn't enough time to see them all.

But, on the positive side, there are plenty of books around to fill in the gaps.

1001 Natural Wonders To See Before You Die
By Michael Bright
Quintet ($49.99)

Hmph. Great idea, though basically a rip-off of the hugely successful 1000 Places To See Before You Die, but disappointingly executed.

Natural wonders are places you want to see, in photographs, rather than read about in words which inevitably fall short of the glorious reality (and in this case some of the descriptions are pretty pedestrian).

Unfortunately the small format - 21cm by 16cm - isn't big enough to do justice to the stunning sights portrayed. And about half of the natural wonders covered are not illustrated at all.

Furthermore, you tend to judge a book like this by the places you know, and as far as New Zealand is concerned it falls woefully short.

There are only 12 of our natural wonders which make the grade compared with 106 in Australia and 59 in the British Isles. Yeah right.

And it's not just New Zealand that has been glossed over. Samoa gets a mention but Fiji, the Cook Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu are ignored. Very strange.

The New Zealand dozen consists of Fiordland, the Southern Alps and Marlborough Sounds - that's most of the South Island covered in just three wonders - Sutherland Falls (which, by the way, is in Fiordland), West Coast Glaciers (part of the Southern Alps), Oparara Arch near Karamea, Mt Taranaki, Tongariro National Park, Rotorua Thermal Region, Cape Kidnappers, Poor Knights Islands and White Island.

None of our rivers, lakes or beaches make the grade, apparently, and nor do the Waitemata or Wellington Harbours (though Sydney Harbour does).

There's no interest, evidently, in Cape Reinga where two mighty oceans meet, the golden spaces of Ninety Mile Beach, Whangaroa Harbour with its sheer stone walls and rocky domes, Bay of Islands with its hundreds of islands, Tane Mahuta and the mighty kauri (though Australia's less impressive Karri Forest does) ... well, you get the picture.

I asked an Australian colleague for his view - just in case I was getting a bit parochial - and he expressed amazement at some of the Australian selections. "Some of the waterfalls there simply don't rate compared to dozens I've seen in New Zealand."

I imagine the reason for the bizarre selection policy is that many of the writers are British or Australian and they know their own back yard a lot better than ours.

But, whatever the cause, if the book is so lacking in this part of the world then it's hard to have much faith in its coverage of the rest.

All of that said, there are some fascinating places listed, and it is a delight to flick through ... it's just that you can't help wondering how many more wonderful wonders have been left out.

Sailing With Mohammed: A True Yachting Adventure In Asia And The Middle East
By Tony Farrington
New Holland ($29.99)

It sounds like a dream come true. Former journalist Tony Farrington sells his public relations consultancy and with his family sails off in the 15m ketch Antares II to see the world.

Based in an idyllic yacht harbour on the tiny Thai island of Rebak, close to Langkawi, they explore the delights of Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, India and the Maldives.

Then in the wake of September 11 they cross the Arabian Sea and sail up the Red Sea to Suez and Port Said (the rest, I guess, is another book).

Along the way they experience fascinating people, beautiful places, warm hospitality, corrupt officials, pirates, storms and mechanical failures.

The writing is a little patchy - I thought the best was left to last with the wonderful stories of sailing to Oman, Yemen, Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt at the height of the War on Terror - but it is still a good read.

If you've ever had visions of selling up and heading out past the heads seeking exotic lands then this is the book for you.

Honeymoon With My Brother
By Franz Wisner
Bantam ($37.95)

When Franz Wisner's girlfriend of 10 years dumped him a couple of days before they were due to marry his life was shattered. But his family and friends convinced him to have the wedding party anyway.

After that it seemed only natural to take the pre-paid honeymoon trip as well with his younger - and slightly estranged - brother Kurt as travelling companion.

That initial foray went so well that the two sold their homes, quit their jobs and set out to travel the world. Four years and 60 countries later they're still going.

This is an interesting book, with the ripping yarns about adventures in Zanzibar and Brazil, Syria and Cambodia, nicely leavened with the reviving - though not always smooth - relationship between the two brothers.

And, hey, it's the ideal choice if you get jilted at the altar and can't imagine what to do next.

Extremes Along The Silk Road: Adventures Off The World's Oldest Superhighway
By Nick Middleton
John Murray ($44.99)

The words "Silk Road" emblazoned on the cover of this book are a little misleading.

Nick Middleton isn't taking a stroll down the web of routes followed by silk traders between China, the Middle East and Europe - that would be too dull for him - but rather visiting inhospitable lands that the traders tried to avoid.

Middleton, a geographer at Oxford University, is described on the cover as "geography's answer to Indiana Jones" and that seems pretty accurate.

This is a man who seeks out the difficult and the inaccessible and then brings them to us by our firesides in convenient book form.

This time he visits the world's tallest sand dunes in the Gobi Desert, fights off altitude sickness to make a pilgrimage circuit of holy Mt Kailas in Tibet (but fails to have his sins washed away) and checks out the Soviet Union's germ warfare research island in the shrinking Aral Sea.

These are real adventures, involving serious risk and genuine hardship, but they bring with them significant rewards in the remarkable sights and extraordinary people that are to be found in such inhospitable places.

I'm sure it's the sort of travel book that Indy would enjoy. I certainly did.