Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic Google translation from a post originally written in French. My apologies for the weird sentences and the funny mistakes that could have been generated during the process. If you can read French, click on the French flag below to access the original text:
Français I have coveted it for several days, this book. His title, in large letters on a blue background, directly caught my eye: All Asia, country by country. Yesterday, on the return of a report, while I went back to the Travel Bookstorein Rennes, I cracked. And I did well.
I plunged in with delight. It is a large format book, but Lonely Planet had the good idea to do it in soft cover, for the French edition, which makes it easy to handle, leaf through.
The photos are so beautiful, we start by turning pages long, as soon as we have it in our hands. A superb invitation to travel by image! From Bhutan to South Korea, from India to Thailand, from Iran to Papua, from Nepal to Japan, it is Asia in the broadest sense that one explores.
Judicious choice was made to put men at the heart of the illustrations. There is often a look to hang yours, which makes the pages very lively. A kid suspended between blue sky and white sand on a rudimentary swing in the Philippines, saleswomen in front of their garlands of yellow flowers in Kathmandu, Chinese monks in scarlet dress frozen in full swing in front of a basketball hoop, peasant farmers transplanting rice in Laos , face ravished by the life of an old man in East Timor ...
The layout is simple, clear and neat. Thirty or so authors have contributed to the book. The texts go to the essential, give historical and social references, you learn a lot of stuff or refresh your memory, according to your knowledge of this or that country. The book is subtitled "Reasons to leave" ... as if I needed it!
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And then, there are maps (I love geography) and mythical roads (like in my article on the day before yesterday on the interactive world map WanderLust). And a series of thematic articles at the end of the book, fascinating. Small extract:
The word Asia has different meanings for everyone. [...] Some themes nevertheless unify Asia conceptually. We have highlighted several of them in the essays at the end of this book: the deep spirituality of a region, cradle of all the world's greatest religions; the importance of environments and their influence on lifestyles and traditions; the endless creativity of a pop culture that pleases the world on screens, on the air and in the street; and the tradition of adventurous journeys inspired by this continent long before Marco Polo, which the hippies and their backpacks have revived, and whose vogue is undeniable.
In short, there is something to read and travel and dream. The book, which has just been released, costs less than 30 €. I think you get what you pay for, as the other person would say. What to occupy nicely the long winter evenings, waiting for the next departure.
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