The Sydney Morning Herald calls "Destination Saigon" one of the most outstanding travelogues of the year

Thanks to the wonderful Belinda Jackson for singling out Destination Saigon as one of 2010's best travelogues in last weekend's SMH Traveller. She has certainly put me in some elevated company! Here's what she has to say:

"Destination Saigon, Walter Mason (Allen & Unwin, $24.99)

Love with a Vietnamese man eventually led to a love of Vietnam - but this is no rosy affair. Inspired by several prolonged stays, including stints in rural monasteries and language studies in Ho Chi Minh City, Cabramatta local Mason is a large Caucasian man and therefore a source of wonder and affectionate groping among the dense crowds of smaller-statured Vietnamese. Perched on the back of a motorbike behind a tiny monk friend, he's also a rich source for Vietnamese humour ("Check out skinny Minnie on the back of that bike!") or the ministrations of cafe owners, who bring out extra-strong chairs when he darkens their doorsteps."

FYI, the other titles she likes are:

Is That Thing Diesel?, Paul Carter (Allen & Unwin, $24.99)

A Food Lover's Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Dee Nolan (Penguin Lantern, $100)

A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road, Christopher Aslan Alexander (Icon Books, Allen & Unwin, $22.99)

Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World, Seth Stevenson (HarperCollins, $35)

Three in a Bed in the Med, Ann Rickard (Radge Publishing, $24.95)

A Moveable Feast, editor Don George (Lonely Planet, $29.99)

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, William Dalrymple (Allen & Unwin, $35)

Letters from the Caribbean, Andrea & Ian Treleaven (New Holland, $29.95)

From Here to There: A Father and Son Roadtrip Adventure from Melbourne to London, Jon Faine & Jack Faine (ABC Books, $39.99)

That should provide you with something of a reading list for the holidays, and good to see that the most-represented publisher is my very own, Allen & Unwin.

NZ Herald review of Destination Saigon

Travel book: Destination Saigon

By Chris Eagles
12:00 PM Tuesday Apr 27, 2010

Being a large man taking up a space usually occupied by three Vietnamese, writer Walter Mason was obviously an easily noticed foreign visitor in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon).
Indeed the cheerful insults he often got about his size add to the charm of his account of three months travelling through Vietnam. He falls through plastic chairs, breaks floor tiles and gets run down by an elderly female cyclist, all occasions which give much merriment to the locals.

Thanks to a partner who is Vietnamese, Mason is a fluent speaker of the language, able to attend a university in Ho Chi Minh city, which he describes as "a kind of oriental LA without the celebrity".

Fluent he might be in the words, but not in the ways of the 10-year-old boy in the Hanoi Ambassador Pagoda who cons him out of a set of amber prayer beads and then has the cheek to ask for money. There are many such delightful moments as Mason wanders the countryside discovering a people who live by their wits, kindness and beliefs.

Destination Saigon, by Walter Mason, Allen and Unwin, $29.99 [NZ$]

By Chris Eagles