Travel writing is quite easy to classify. If it’s instructive and descriptive, then you have guidebooks and it can be easily argued that there’s no better-known series of established guidebooks than Lonely Planet, the world’s most successful travel guidebook publisher. If the book is descriptive and evocative, then you get the travel book, such as Colin Thubron’s To a Mountain in Tibet, which deals with the writer’s journey to Mount Kailas, one of Tibet’s sacred mountains.
If the writing is both evocative and enchanting, but also has a story too, then you’ve reached the realms of travel literature, and Pico Iyer’s recent The Man Within My Head or most of Paul Theroux’s non-fiction work make perfect examples. If it is instructive and there’s a narrator detailing personal views, then you’ve got the travel journal, of which numerous examples can be found online. People with a love for traveling have succeeded in financing their wanderlust by keeping an online travel journal, building along the way a large audience via their blogs and social media platforms.
However, it has to be noted that not all travel writing is a clear-cut affair and, these days, beginning writers tend to mix everything up in their presentation style. This kind of book usually starts as a mini-autobiography and, as the writer-traveler experiences new things, the text changes focus and it eventually reads as a mixture of guidebook, travel book and journal. It is obvious that what drives the authors to write such books is their love for travelling and a certain affinity with words. On most occasions, such works were at first merely intended to keep a personal record of the experiences the author has had in this or that location. But after a few pages had turned into a few thousand words and then reached the length of a full-fledged book, the writer-traveler then becomes an author.
A very good example of an instructive, descriptive, evocative autobiography with a personal story to tell is The Never Lonely Planet (Book Publishing Guild, 2012) by Dubai-based British travel writer Martin R. Oliver. Actually, even the title of the book, a play on words on the highly respected Lonely Planet brand, suggests the kind of reading experience Martin’s book would give to its readers: a personal cross-cultural journey around the world.
Born in the English city of Coventry, Martin entered the workforce just before his fifteenth birthday. Since Coventry was the “Detroit of England” and was at its zenith in the mid-sixties when the author started learning his trade from his seniors, there were very high chances that every lad born there would end up working in a car factory. But young Martin Oliver seemed to want nothing of that, so he immigrated to Brazil, where “beautiful women, exotic beaches, tropical weather and a carnival atmosphere” enticed his adventurous spirit.
The Never Lonely Planet dedicates one chapter to each city or country Martin has visited or has worked in. Therefore, we follow the ups-and-downs of his Brazilian life in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Aracaju, and Salvador where he started working in the oil industry, eventually becoming a skilled marine engineer. If one would have to guess the location where Martin solidified his life philosophy which he declared in the Foreword to his book – “every exit leads to an entry” – then Brazil would be a very good guess. Even the cover of the book, with the statue of Christ the Redeemer welcoming sea travelers on top of Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, is a good indicator of how much Brazil means to the author.
From meeting his future wife and mother of his children to learning a new trade that would make him a successful person, Brazil offered Martin the promise land he had hoped for when he had left England in the late ‘70s. However, like everyone who’s caught the travel bug, Martin started “touring” the Middle East where the need for skilled engineers in a booming oil industry secured the author lucrative contracts in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Now, based in Dubai, Martin has the financial security to keep on living his childhood dream, jumping from one plane to the other, visiting the world at large.
Half of The Never Lonely Planet is dedicated to the author’s travels in Asia, especially Southeast Asia, where, in the late ‘90s and the early years of the 21st century, nature was still largely unspoiled by tourist developments. His travels to Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam have left on him a profound love for that part of the world and a deep feeling of respect for its inhabitants.
Although at times the book reads similar to a social studies textbook, with far more details than necessary about the geography and the history of each locale Martin has visited, the bits and pieces of personal reflections definitely make the reading very worthwhile. The writer-traveler discovers and experiences new cultures like any “good traveler” who “has no fixed plans and does not care when he arrives.”
Touring Southeast Asia, the golden stupas and Buddhist statues of Burma impressed Martin the most, while his trip to Cambodia was a grim reminder of Pol Pot’s brutal regime in the Khmer Rouge during the mid-to-late 1970s. Thailand was mostly enjoyed through the Thai beaches, bars, good food, and golf and once he had crossed the Mekong River, Martin experienced the laid-back lifestyle of the local Laotian population. The journey to Vietnam involved dodging enormous rats and making sure no dog-as-food was served at his table, whilst a short business trip to China resulted in an unfortunate communication nightmare.
The various chapters making up The Never Lonely Planet were most likely written soon after Martin’s return from his travels, so the book doesn’t have a central theme for the readers to follow and, at several points, it even loses its rhythm with off topic details. It has been decades since some of the journal entries were written and, although things have changed in the meantime, Martin chose not to alter his text and update it to the current state of affairs. Instead, he added short, news-like pieces at the end of some chapters, further fragmenting the reading experience but bringing the book in line with the latest historical, political and economical developments of his former destinations.
Staying true to history, in The Never Lonely Planet, Martin R. Oliver doesn’t waste any chance at slamming down on America’s “habit” to police the world. From the ruthless bombings of Laos and Vietnam during the Vietnam War in the ‘60s to the USA’s intervention in Iraq during the 1990s and early 2000’s, Martin has very strong words for any outsider’s intervention that infringes on the human rights of the local population.
However, it is also important to note that his stance against the oppression of the weak is more than just words on paper. The author is going to donate all the proceeds from sales of his book to ECPAT (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking), an NGO headquartered in Thailand that works towards ending child prostitution, child pornography, and child trafficking for sexual purposes. So, by purchasing The Never Lonely Planet by Martin R. Oliver, not only will you enjoy the author’s autobiographical travel journal, but you will also make a personal contribution to the betterment of unfortunate children exploited for sexual reasons.
“Go check out the world.” Martin encourages his readers in the last paragraph of the book. “You may find that it really is the never lonely planet.”
The book is available as a paperback in Thailand at Kinokunia and AsiaBooks locations, by mail order via Amazon.co.uk, and through various third party booksellers on Amazon.com.
Photography by Regin Reyno
Initially published in Mango Metro (August 2013, Vol. 7, No.9)
Browse more photos from Martin R. Oliver’s travels:
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