Before giving a presentation at Horizons Unlimited CanWest a few years ago on the subject of motorcycling and anxiety, I asked author Sam Manicom how he has dealt with anxiety when on the road. He replied that much of the anxiety of the two-wheeled road trip is in the anticipation and not in the doing. When you’re on it, you’re in it. You find ways to cope and much of the value of travel derives from finding out what you’re made of.
Like Into Africa, Sam Manicom’s previous book, Under Asian Skies is a treatise about the nature of travel: rolling with the punches, travelling on a strict budget, jumping hurdles (such as the soul-crushing bureaucracy he finds while trying to extract his motorcycle from an Indian port), making friends and dealing with conflict.
The gift within Sam Manicom’s writing is the lack of gloss. He writes of the hardships encountered and makes them into part of the journey. If it were easy to travel by motorcycle, would it be worth doing? This book is for anyone who longs to travel, but doesn’t want the clinical, pre-planned, solved-by-a-fixer tales presented in large, well-funded travel books. Sam Manicom is an independent author, and beyond the help he finds along the way with fellow travellers, whether on two wheels or driving a massive, modified bus, the reader can tell that this is real, and he doesn’t hold back.
Author: Sam Manicom
Book: Under Asian Skies: Three Years, Three Continents, Two Wheels
Publisher: Sam Manicom
Year of Publication: 2007
