Golden Earth

"Yes, Golden Earth happens to be one of my favourite travel books of all time. That it’s set in Burma is mere frosting on the cake. But what frosting: Burma in the pre-military days of early 1950s as seen through the eyes of the inimitable Norman Lewis. Lewis travels through a country threatened by anarchy as Communist factions, ethnic armies, paramilitary groups and government forces fight it out across the length and breadth of the land. But what a rich landscape unfolds along his path, with eccentrics and curiosities to greet him at every turn. In Rangoon he is approached by an ex-headmaster hoping to publish a 94,000 word treatise on ‘the three things for which Burma is famous…snake charming, the playing of rattan football, and the destruction of the invading forces sent by a Ming Emperor’. On a visit to the infamous Insein prison, the author is given a tour by a Chaucer-quoting director-general of prisons. Hitch-hiking from Mandalay to Muse in the Shan State, Lewis is picked up and taken to the police station, and there treated in a manner so courteous that he can’t tell whether he’s being subjected to arrest or state hospitality. At the airport, he joins passengers waiting for a plane four days overdue – until an official appears and goes round ‘whispering to the various groups, as if a great man had died, that the flight had been cancelled’. The account of a lorry ride to Lashio remains a small sparking gem for me, even after many readings. I’ve yet to see a better appreciation of the genius of Burmese drivers in handling ancient motor vehicles, for a start. Ah, for the days when it was possible to roam the Golden Earth with impunity, as Lewis did – with nothing worse to fear than dacoits, Communist insurgents, the occasional crackpot and stray dogs that bite you on the leg ‘without any particular animosity’."