A novel approach to travel

For people who like murder mysteries in exotic locales, here is a fun list.

• “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” by Alexander McCall Smith is one of a series of six books set in BOTSWANA. The land and culture are also like characters in this delightful collection of detection pursuits and everyday African life.

• The “Mrs. Pollifax” series by Dorothy Gilman takes readers on adventures all over the globe. I particularly enjoyed the ones in Asia, including “Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha” (I subsequently got lost in the narrow alleyways wending my way through the back areas in HONG KONG) and “Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle.” At the night market in Chiang Mai, THAILAND, because of Ms. Gilman’s precise descriptions, I was able to pinpoint the very block where the fictional murder in this book took place.

Mrs. Pollifax is a middle-aged, freelance agent employed occasionally by the CIA to solve cases in some fabulous places, such as in “Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish.”

• The British detective author Patricia Moyes has novels set in Europe. Start with “Death on the Agenda,” set in Geneva, SWITZERLAND, and move on to other great ones, including “Night Ferry to Death” (NETHERLANDS-ENGLAND) and “Dead Men Don’t Ski” (ITALIAN ALPS). A trip to HOLLAND by ship in July ‘05 was planned because of these books.

• Don’t forget Agatha Christie’s gems, “A CARIBBEAN Mystery” and “A Holiday for Murder” (ENGLAND). I booked our family on a short jaunt in ENGLAND from London to Southampton due to “Murder on The Orient Express.” How serendipitous that our cabin, “Zena,” was where the movie was actually filmed.

• I went to GREECE because of two intriguing novels set there: Mary Stewart’s classic “The Moon-Spinners” and Phyllis Whitney’s “Seven Tears For Apollo.”

• Another excellent book is “Death of a Red Heroine” by Xiaolong Qui, which takes place in Shanghai, CHINA. The settings are familiar places such as the Bund, the French district, Yu Gardens, etc. What is particularly interesting is how Communism affects everyday life, including housing, arts, lifestyles and jobs.

• I read “Murder on The QE2” by “Jessica Fletcher” (a fictitious character herself) while sailing on that ship. My son and I went on a scavenger hunt to find the locales from the novel.

NANCI LUCERO
Santa Fe, NM

Movies, “Masterpiece Theater” on BBC and books have influenced our travel destinations over the years. Sometimes the movie or television program came first; other times the book came first.

Reading Agatha Christie’s “Death on the Nile” as a teenager planted the seed for a future (1980) trip to EGYPT. We stayed with the mystery theme and read “Sphinx” by Robin Cook on the airplane to Egypt.

Our fascination with Africa continued with “Out of Africa” by Isak Dinesen, “Flame Trees of Thika” by Elspeth Huxley and “West With Night” by Beryl Markham; we journeyed to KENYA in 1981. Dian Fossey’s “Gorillas in the Mist” led to a 1990 visit to RWANDA (just before the war broke out in September).

An early reading of “The Good Earth” by Pearl Buck and the work of author Bette Bao Lord sent us to CHINA in 1983.

Colleen McCullough’s “The Thorn Birds” interested us enough to spend six weeks in AUSTRALIA in 1985.

We like our travel reading material to be related to our destination. “In the Time of the Butterflies” by Julia Alvarez was a recent read for some R&R in the DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.

ITN isn’t a novel, but the latest issue is always in the carry-on.

JOANNE & ROBERT
KOWALCZYK, Dartmouth, MA

I was very young when I first read James Hilton’s “Lost Horizon” (set in the fictional country of Shangri-la, somewhere around TIBET and NEPAL) and then saw the film with Ronald Coleman. I was romanticized and fascinated.

Several years later I read about BHUTAN in National Geographic. This was it! This was the land of “Lost Horizon”: Shangri-la! No matter it wasn’t Tibet; in my mind, Bhutan was the most intriguing place in the world. I had to go there.

It took me till I was 60 years old in 1992 to achieve my dream trip to Bhutan. The most marvelous thing about the trip was that I was not disappointed in any way. Glorious Bhutan lived up to all my dreams. It was my Shangri-la. Best of all, I didn’t look any older when I left.

BARBARA MALLEY
New York, NY

Travel always starts with a book, for me. I am a reader. I also have a little list: countries I need to visit. From Andre Malraux’s “La Condition Humaine,” which I read in college (1961) and where I first heard of Angkor Wat, CAMBODIA, to the “Journals of Lewis and Clark” by John Bakeless, which I read in 1965 when I was a young mother of two babies and dreaming of walking across the Western lands as Sacagawea (also a young mother), it goes on and on.

So here’s how it goes now. In fall 1980 I read Robert Massie’s “Peter the Great.” An intriguing, larger-than-life personality who visited the West, Peter transformed RUSSIA. I said to myself, “Must visit.” But the Cold War raged. Historical emphasis had to wait until 1988 when Gorbachev’s Glasnost made a journey for an American more comfortable.

I joined a University of Michigan Alumni Association cruise, “Pathways of Peter the Great,” for two weeks. It took us from Moscow to Leningrad to a cruise on the Neva River. I was not disappointed. I saw Peter’s legacy everywhere: buildings, canals, towns and cities. Fantastic!

In 2003 I got my wish, finally, to walk in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark. I had read “Undaunted Courage” by Stephen Ambrose in 1996 (and got out the “Journals” to reread). I joined the Smithsonian Journeys (Washington, D.C.; 877/338-8687 or visit www.smithsonianjourneys.org) tour “Lewis and Clark Along the Missouri.” When the trip ended, I flew back to Kansas City, where “the Corp” passed in 1804. There I stood, at the water’s edge where they stood, thrilled! So much was still there.

In 2004, at L-O-N-G last, I finally got to Cambodia, to Angkor Wat and to beautiful Banteay Srei, where Andre Malraux and his wife, Clara, “lifted” some stones (read “The Human Condition”). The jungle is still there as are the sacred temples, the sacred sites and a “French feeling.” What a way to celebrate my birthday! I saluted Malraux with French champagne.

And now I am rereading David McCullough’s “The Path Between the Seas” to ready myself for a trip through the PANAMA Canal in 2005. It never stops. . . I can’t wait!

NANCY K. WEBSTER
Naples, FL

When I was a schoolgirl I read a book by Arthur Conan Doyle called “Lost World.” It fascinated me very much, so when I had a chance in 1985 to travel to VENEZUELA, I decided to go to places he wrote about. This narrative is about my journey to that “Lost World.”

Accompanied by two young men, I drove to where a dirt road ended in southeast Venezuela’s La Gran Sabana. From there it was a 4-day trek up to the base of the Tepuis mountains. On reaching the sheer cliffs of the Roraima tepui (mesa), we stopped until we were able to find a climbing trail, one nearly totally hidden by jungle overgrowth. The next day we began working our way up the brown muddy trail and onto the mountain by hanging onto roots, using ropes and pushing ourselves very carefully upward.

Mt. Roraima is an awe-inspiring, huge, tabletop mountain mostly shrouded in fog and having a summit at about 9,000 feet. The temperature on the mountain in daytime is mild (approximately 65ºF), but at night it reaches the freezing point. Many times during our climb I thought we had arrived at the summit of Roraima only to see through the fog more upwardly extending rock faces.

When we finally reached the summit, we settled into a tiny dry space in a cave to spend the night. The next morning we began an extensive period of exploring the area, sometimes during pouring rain, discovering a fantastic barren black wilderness of worn rocks, bleak and remote, some looking like creatures in horror films. A cold wind tore across the mountain, screaming and howling. We kept a lookout for animals, although we had heard that none living on top of the mountain was bigger than a particular black frog.

Our descent three days later also was made in a downpour. It was scary because of the trail’s slipperiness and the unavailability of vegetation to grasp so as to prevent us from sliding. Our fear was of falling over the edges of cliffs up to 1,000 feet high.

When we finally reached the bottom, where the warm jungle closed in on us again, it seemed like our experience on the mountain had been but a dream.

SABINE JOYCE
Davidsonville, MD

I always knew I wanted to visit PERU and see Machu Picchu. However, when I read the exciting mystery book “The Moche Warrior” by Lyn Hamilton I discovered northern Peru.

Northern Peru rarely appears on any group destinations, but, thanks to Hamilton’s wonderful descriptions, my husband and I visited the lands of the Lord of Sipan and saw Tucume (a pre-Inca ruin) and Chan Chan (an enormous ancient adobe village by the sea) in November of 2000. In addition, we traveled across the desert and visited the business city of Chiclayo and the beautiful colonial city of Trujillo, a gem of a destination.

All of our plans were made by the excellent group at Amazon Adventures (Austin, TX; 800/232-5658 or www.amazonadventures.com). We had private drivers and guides and excellent hotels for a 3-week trip to Cusco, Machu Picchu, northern Peru and Ecuador plus an 8-day Galápagos cruise, all for less than any tour group I could find. All drivers and guides were excellent.

There are more wonderful books by Lyn Hamilton, each taking place in an exotic location. I have just finished “The Maltese Goddess” and am daydreaming of a trip to MALTA.

ROBIN WICKER
Richmond, Texas

More books upcoming. — Editor