Book description
On 20th May the Indian summer monsoon will begin to envelop the country
in two great wet arms, one coming from the east, the other from the
west. They are united over central India around 10th July, a date that
can be calculated within seven or eight days.
Alexander Frater aims to follow the monsoon, staying sometimes behind
it, sometimes in front of it, and everywhere watching the impact of this
extraordinary phenomenon. During the anxious period of waiting, the
weather forecaster is king, consulted by pie-crested cockatoos, and a
joyful period ensues: there is a period of promiscuity, and scandals
proliferate.
Frater's journey takes him to Bangkok and the cowboy town on the
Thai-Malaysian border to Rangoon and Akyab in Burma (where the front
funnels up between the mountains and the sea). His fascinating narrative
reveals the exotic, often startling, discoveries of an ambitious and
irresistibly romantic adventurer. Alexander Frater has contributed to
various UK publications and, as chief travel correspondent of the
Observer, he won an unprecedented number of British Press Travel Awards
as well as a Travelex Travel Writer's Award. Two of his books, Beyond
the Blue Horizon
and Chasing the Monsoon
, have been made into major BBC television films. His most recent book
is Tales from the Torrid Zone
. He lives in London.
