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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Look before you buy, 27 Nov 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Bradt are publishers of high quality travel guides, particularly to places which are more off the well-worn tourist trail. I have a number and the standard is high.
This book is a collection of photographs of some of the most weird and, possibly, wonderful things you may come across whilst travelling the planet. We start off in style with, on pages 10/11, a gentleman in Thailand with over 12 very large needles piercing his mouth. Over the page, and another Thai, this time with a rifle but through his cheeks (face-cheeks, not butt- cheeks...). On the next page, well, there's another Thai, going one further with half a dozen swords and knives sticking through his mouth. But don't worry, it's not all facial piercings. We have a Moroccan butcher with a camel's head for sale on his stall; deep fried tarantulas and cockroaches in Vietnam; scorpions and crickets freshly served in China. - I am not trying to be critical here; we all have our local diets (and certainly the Chinese population in Thailand love their fresh fried insects - I have seen this with my own eyes), and in part it's down to simply what is readily available, and what is the tradition. No doubt billions think we Brits odd, or worse, for eating cows, and lambs (some of us anyway). But, oh, I had to draw the line at the photo of seahorses pierced onto noodle sticks.
It's not all dietary weirdness. There is the smallest fire engine in the world (in Hong Kong); strange leaning buildings in Dusseldorf; old aircraft in New Zealand used as roadside cafes. And the cutest photo of all has to be the two penguins and the camera on page 90.
The photos are all of excellent standard, as is the quality of printing.
But would you buy this book? Would you want to return to it?
Try to get a look at it somewhere before you decide.
For me, one look through was enough.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great collection of the weirder things from a wonderful world, 23 Nov 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
A full colour coffee table style book, this is certain to grab the attention of any who open it.
Featuring odd images of people, animals, signs and food from around the world, there are some truly intriguing pictures in here. The section on the Thai Vegetarian festival is exceptionally gripping as it features people who have pierced their cheeks with various objects from chairs, to swords to guns.
Overall, this is a great book to leaf through in wonder, and although mainly pictorial, there is also some introduction and explanation to each section.
It will appeal not just to travellers, but anyone with any interest in the outside world. Who wouldn't find a platter of deep fried tarantulas or scorpion-on-a-stick at least a little intriguing?
Gives you a nice sense of how differently different people do things around the globe.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
From the hilarious to the astounding, via the gross, 23 Nov 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Hilary Bradt has been publishing excellent travel guides for years; this must have come out of the photos Bradt Publishing could not use in their main travel guides, as they were too offputting (people with chairlegs through their cheeks), too yucky (much of the 'food and shopping' section) or just too weird - which is a lot of the rest! 140 pages of travel photos, ordered by category: People are strange/A taste for the unusual/Surreal wheels/Eccentric animals/Crazed creations and to top it all off: 'Indescribably strange'.
Some of it will be familiar to seasoned travellers - I myself have eaten mopane worms in Malawi - and of course the 'funny signboards' in far-away places are familiar through the Sunday press (like Hair & Nail deli Salad...)but much of it is new to me. Endless ingenuity in creepiness, amazing food offers and the strangest transport forms might convince you not to travel, ever; but will surely give you a lot of fun anyway. And it's all real! These are, after all, sent in by travellers giving feedback to existing Bradt publications, and that often means seriously out-of-the-way places. The text is kept to a minimum - the images speak for themselves, and often pretty loudly at that.
Beautifully produced, sharp colour photographs; I reckon there are more than 300 images in this book. It would make a good present, especially with the big discount provided!
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