Off The Rails.
by: Tim Cope and Chris Hatherly

If you call long distance motorcycle travel as an Adventure , what would you call a similar distance
(10,000 Kilometers) bicycle tour.

"Adventure" is too small a word to describe Cycling 10,000km from Moscow to Beijing. Yes I have not added Zeros wrongly , they cycled TEN THOUSAND Kilometers through some of the harshest terrain and weather.
The Cyclists both have done a fair bit of adventure in the past, so they did have some good experience before starting off on such a journey. Tim has cycled around Australia and Chris was a member of a wilderness guide course.

The book is an excellent read and a real Mega adventure. The Guys cycle through Russia, Siberia, Mongolia and then on to China. Their experiences in such an epic journey are stuff of legend.

The book is very well written , at least reading it you can feel the pain and the difficulty of such a long journey. You can see the snow bogging down the wheels and the cold freezing off the toes. You can see the colorful personalities of the people they meet on the way. The pleasure of interactions with helpful and kind strangers and the pains of being arrested in China and being robbed in Russia. The best part here is their experiences with the Russian Babushkas, the motherly women in Rural Russia who take care of and feed the boys for days together when they are struck with frost bite.

Also the host of people they meet along the way , Mongolian horsemen, Chinese students, Russian drunkards , the Land Mafia, and a whole lot of policemen. All these profiles come alive with character as you read this book.

I think the judge of if a book is good enough is to see whether it rouses your emotions , do you feel being a part of whatever it is that you are reading. This is easier, if say you are Nancy Friday writing about men's sexual fantasies, but writing about such a hard grueling adventure and keeping it interesting is tough. And Tim and Chris do very well in this.

They both have fairly different personalities and this is evident in their writing styles, the chapters are alternatively written by Tim and Chris, each with his own ideas and reasons for being on the road. Though at times they don't get along too well on the road, I think it can be expected for they have been together for almost 2 years on the road, with only each other for company. They have petty fights and arguments over small things but the good thing is that they are honest about their experiences on the road. There is no effort to sugar coat their experiences in order to be seen as Politically correct (or in this case make a god impression)

The book overall is very very readable and I recommend it heartily to everyone interested in adventure travel. They also have a TV documentary Off the Rails.

In general a very good adventure travel book, though the book didn't motivate me to pick up my push bike and start pedaling around Australia it did kindle the desire to travel far off , visit strange places, meet different people.

So, as they say in the biker's world, See you on the road some day.

Two for the Road
by Shirley Hardy-Rix and Brian Rix

56671 Kilometers, 27 countries, one dream is the enticing tag line of the book. I practically kissed the book when I found it just as I was browsing through the travel section Melbourne city library. I was so happy to have found the book that I read the complete book some 325 pages of it and their travelogue on the website in the next 24 hours flat. So that does say something about the book, doesn't it ?

This couple has done the sort of a ride every biker worth his name dreams of but never comes around to actually doing. Shirley and Brian are a police couple from Melbourne, with Brian being a Policeman and Shirley a crime reporter / writer. They shipped their bike to England and rode it back all the way overland from London to Singapore from where they flew to Darwin and rode further on to Melbourne.

On the way passing through 28 countries and sending 350 days on the road. They have a good website which typically covers all the sections in the book in a little less detail. So its worthwhile having a look here before you decide to buy the book.

The interesting thing for me is that, this couple too was motivated by another US couple passing through Australia on their RTW on a motorbike: Chris and Erin. When Chris and Erin stayed in Melbourne with them. Chris and Erin must have motivated hundreds of people in their journey spanning 4 years , I know at least of one another friend of mine, Srinidhi, who was inspired by Chris and Erin when they stayed with him, and who is doing his own RTW now.


This motorcycle travel bug is like an Epidemic, and spreads like wildfire when like minded people meet. I had felt so enthused when I hosted a Motorcycle traveler - Linda Bick at my residence in Pune. Good to see that Brian was motivated by Chris and Erin and set off. I really appreciate their guts to have left everything behind and take the step ahead to leave for an RTW, to follow his dream. I know most bikers dream of following in their footsteps someday.

The book as such is alternatively written by Shirley(writing a Major Chunk, the Impressions of the places , the people and stuff) and Brian ( writing the Bike part, its repairs, problems , navigation , procedures, etc). I found the writing pretty easy going good to read but at places very touristy.

They did have their fair share of interactions with locals, but the couple (being reasonably well to do, I assume) stayed most of the time in Hotels, resorts , etc . This luxury might have somewhat limited their exposure to the locals, but still the book is filled with experiences of hospitality received from strangers and some funny anecdotes and the like. The detailed description of the Race day at Isle of Man is too good, you can also have a look at their website to get an idea of what I am talking about.

The practical advice in this book would be really helpful for someone planning a similar trip, for example they describe in detail their battle with Singaporean bureaucracy and have One line of Strong advice for any one planning to ride on to Singapore " Don't do it " the paperwork and the troubles to take the bike in Singapore is simply not worth it, one would be better off shipping out from Malaysia.

Today I got a reply for My email to the Authors sent from their regular email address, the other email address that I sent my mail to is fairly inactive (I guess since they did the trip a couple of years ago). And yeah I forgot the mention , Hardy Rix, owns a classic Standard Enfield Bullet in Melbourne.

Considering the authors are based in Melbourne, I hope to meet them for coffee some day, will update my post after that experience.

For Love and a Beetle - A tale of two journeys.
by Hodge, Ivan and McGovern, Petronella


Hundreds of people have done the overland journey from UK to India via the Europe> east Europe> Turkey > Iran > PAK > Ind > SE Asia > Singapore> Australia.

So what makes this journey special? Well many things,

1) Firstly this is the second time for the couple they did the same journey in the same Beetle in 1961, when it was newly bought in the UK and sold to his mother in Newzeland,
and again in 1996 when they shipped their old Beetle back to UK and repeated the journey from UK to India Overland.
2) They are both in their Sixties and so to speak on their Second Honeymoon.
3) They are doing a journey which is perhaps a legendary distance for a vehicle 35 years old.

The book is interspersed alternatively with their recordings of the 1961 trip and with their current travel experience. We get to see the how the same places have changed in the past 35 years , they have attempted to travel along the exact route that they traveled on 35 years ago.

My Favourite in this book is a page with 2 Photos which shows Ivan Hodge in Turkey with a watch tower and his beetle in the back ground one taken in 1961 and the other in 1996.
The caption below the first photo reads:

The Beetle My sweater , and a camel tower, Iran 1961
The second photo reads
Same Beetle, Same sweater , and a the same camel tower, Iran 1996.

The only difference in the photos is that Ivan and the tower show some effects of Old age , the tower being a bit weathered and Ivan with his old age paunch.

If nothing else this book should surely be read to see the spirit of adventure in a 60 year old couple having the guts to travel around the world.

A Tankful of Time
by Michael P Fong

This books takes you on a journey from the concrete jungles of Singapore to the deserts of the Sahara by road and on a 1989 BMW 900 GS motorbike. Travel with the author on a road tour across the 3 continents , the book does not bother us with menial details like the formalities of border clearances and their difficulties, trials tribulations etc, difficulties with the bike , the journey , husband wife quarrels etc.

Instead This is more of touchy feely book with lovely profiles of places visited and people they met on the way. He makes an RTW(Round the world ) motorbike trip look very easy, reading this book you end up feeling just like as if the author was on a short ride on a long weekend.

The Author, Michael Fong comes across as the friendly guy next door , a very down to earth practical person. The book is very Motivating especially when he describes how he was initiated into motorcycling , when his school principal had arranged for another legendary motorcycle traveller passing through Singapore to address the students. If the purpose of him writing this book was to motivate others I am sure he has more than achieved the same.

You can follow the writer and his pics and travelogue here.

Doing It Down Under

by Richters, Julia; Rissel, Chris

The book begins with an introduction of the author Julia Ritchers who has worked for 20 years in the field of Sex research and the education. Perhaps her biggest shot to fame was the Condom project :-) which included a World first - a Study to measure men's erect penises to check appropriate condom sizes.

The Book in general is a result of a extensive telephonic interviews involving more than 111,290 phone calls to 19,307 Australians between 16 and 60, who agreed to reveal intimate details of their sex lives.

Read a detailed review of the book here or some additional details here.


The book is food for those who are curious about figures and statistics, when I mentioned to a friend on the phone that I am now reading this book, immediately came questions on statistics which I actually couldn't bother to remember. All this in spite of the fact that the information he had asked was just a few chapters behind, and I had just read it all.

If you ask me today I cannot remember a single number in all those hordes of statistics mentioned, except for the fact that the current generations are loosing their virginity at an earlier age and they know more about sex and condoms than what their parents did at their age. And if you think of it , I shouldn't have had to read a book to know this, its anyway obvious when you look outside.

Overall I reckon the book is worth a single glance or may be as a reference guide if Sexual practices of Australians is your thesis topic in graduation. Apart from that book has a kind of a research report flavour which it is actually. I must appreciate the very asexual and stoic manner in which such a raunchy topic is discussed in the book.

Retire Young, Retire Rich

Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter

I have been a fan of Robert Kiyosaki for a while now and so even before writing this review, I know which way this is headed.

Firstly I took a long time to read this book , this is nto a book which you can just speed read and leave it at that, the main purpose in reading this is to get something of value. Something that you can take home and apply to your life.

Even of I don't get rich or retire young :-) reading this book did give me a different perspective to things. Time and again he speaks about leverage. in fact if you see the Table of contents HERE. You can see that 11 of the 21 chapters have titles beginning with "LEVERAGE" .

This book basically shuttles between his varied experiences over the past 20 years investing in real estate and changes that he had to do in himself and his thinking (or as per the book "Context") to get ahead in life.

I found the first half of the book very interesting, where he exhorts a possibility thinking, so that we do not limit ourselves by our context. I particularly like his way of putting things and dividing people into 4 classes depending on the stream of their income or cashflow> I.e the Cashflow quadrant > which defines whether you are an

1) Salaried employee 2) Self employed

3) Investor 4) Business man

Robert goes on explaining on why it is better to earn income from the latter 2 classes than the former, and why we must try to move to the latter two. Logically speaking he is not too off the mark but only if we had the GUTS.

In general I found this book pretty useful, and infact very motivating, especially some of the examples of real estate investing are really interesting. The latter part of the book was pretty DRAB, where he goes on to explain about the futures and options industry. Also he blatantly advertises his other books time and again in his writings.

If you want to read a Scathing review of Robert Kiyosaki and his books have a look here. I do not agree with whatever he has written but it just gives you a counterview.

Hannah's Gift
Lessons from a life fully lived

Maria Housden

People who know me would not believe if I say I ended up crying while I read this book. But believe it or not, this is the truth. I haven't read such a emotionally captivating and moving book in a long while and I doubt if anything I have ever read or will ever read, will ever come close to this. This is a true story written by a mother of four, of how she faced the tragedy of seeing her daughter die and feeling helpless to do anything about it.

How can you not love the little three year old girl with the red leather shoes, Who thinks when she goes to heaven , she will become a butterfly.

What do you say to a child, who tells you she is not going to have birthdays after 4 ? What do you say as mother, when a child knows she is going to die and asks you , "Mommy, do children die?"

What would you feel for a mother, who has had her 3rd miscarriage in the morning and later in the day her three year old daughter is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of kidney cancer? How would a mother feel when she sees her daughter's body go limp and pale with every passing day ? When the inevitability of death wins over all the love and prayers in this world?

Death, something we all know awaits us sooner or later but we don't want to think or talk about it, as if by not talking we are pushing it further away. If ever there was a book which could cut through the layers we build up over the years and touch us where it feels this is it.

The books presents a vivid story of a little playful girl and her mother and how they face cancer. How the daughter courageously accepts the reality and makes the most out of the time left and the mother and family weep and suffer through.

Though the mother later comes to terms with her daughter's death and moves on in life with a deep scar in her heart and an even stronger belief in god. For an atheist like me, this just gives another reason to question God's logic, if at all there is any in this? God, I have another Axe to grind.

Why men can only do one thing at a time and women never stop talking.

Allan + Barbara Pease

Well to be put frankly, the book is nothing more than a collection of cliches and some men versus women forward emails that are doing the rounds
for example
1) the mail with differences about how men and women use the shower
2) or the jpeg about the sizes of various parts of Women's brain(biggest being love / commitment) versus Man's brain(biggest being S#*)
3) or difference between the telephone call durations between the sexes.

In fact you can flip open any page at random and you are sure to find some quote cartoon or the whole page that you have already read in an Email forward. I don't understand the point in putting that into a book. I guess there are enough dumb people out there to buy these. If you see the author's home page
you can see around six books on similar flimsy lines. I hope at least the content is different / better in those.
The book has a typical humor/comic feel to it and viewed in that context only it is readable. I mean what else can you expect from a collection of funny quotations and quotes. I would not buy this book and would not recommend anyone to buy it either. Luckily the book is only pocket sized and has around 100 pages with loads of graphics so takes only maybe two hours to read.

Maybe I was wrong in expecting Allan and Barbara Please to read as well as a John Gray book(of the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus fame). I wonder whether this book deserves a mention here , since the title of the page is memoirs of books well written, and the well written adjective cannot be applied to this book even by a stretch. Just putting it here so that others don't get fooled into buying this :-)