A cultural guide

BOOK Reviews

Destination: Asia by Carleton Cole

200 pp, 2008 Bangkok Books paperback

Available at Asia Books and

leading book stores, 375 baht

Expats, not to be confused with refugees who go elsewhere to get out of harm's way and mean to return when the danger has passed, or fugitives who escape the wheels of justice, leave their homelands because they feel that the grass is greener in another country they have in mind. Some then realise they made a mistake and come back. Others feel they were right to move.

In either case, a number pen books justifying themselves. Readers may accept their reasoning or may not. Thinking: Under the circumstances he or she laid out, I would have done the same. Or, he's too sensitive. I wouldn't have over-reacted like that. This reviewer can well see, after perusing "Destination: Asia," why there would be both reactions.

As the book is rather short at 200 pages, the author needn't have spent nearly a third of it on his jobs and moving about in the US the first quarter-century of his life. He attended a Christian Science college, his parents divorced, there were things about America he didn't like. Getting out obsessed him. A school trip to Asia fascinated him. Delicious food, exotic smells, kind people. This was where he wanted to be.

So it was that Carleton Cole arrived in Thailand in 1995, joined The Nation newspaper as a copywriter and after a while wrote travel pieces for them. Most are reprinted here. He ought to have focused on the articles and only mentioned his early life - he's 38 now - in passing. The States has many nice people. In time he would certainly have met a number.

The question has long been asked whether visitors to the Land of Smiles mostly come for its vibrant nightlife or its temples. To the author, the answer is a no-brainier. The temples, of course. He ignores the multitude of watering holes, as if they don't exist. "Destination: Asia" is about cultural destinations in this part of the world, emphasising those of Cambodia.

Temples and palaces (the older the better), music (tradition) and food (original) are his thing. All well and good. Barely discernible is Paul Theroux's facility with people and Bill Bryson's sense of humour. Cole isn't much for cities, unless they have temples. The real Thailand is in the countryside, where the pace isn't frenetic.

He describes his trips to India and Nepal, Tibet and Sikkim, China and South Korea, Brunei and Laos, with historical backgrounds. I wonder if he had the World Almanac at his elbow. Japan rates a haiku poem. He makes the right noises about the Dalai Lama. Won't the Burmese junta let him in?

Tourists really heading to the East for the culture can use "Destination: Asia" as their guide book. I can't think of another, much less a better one. He informs us that his Thai wife Mai, a devout Buddhist and a Stateside university graduate, assisted him. From the result, they make a good team. One thing, though - it's Thai-Chinese, not Chinese-Thai. Unlike in the US where it would be Chinese-American, not American-Chinese.