Acquired via BookCrossing 22 May 2010 (book ring)

I enjoyed this, the third of Evans’ travel books I’ve read, in which she travels around China.  She’s made an attempt to learn some Chinese and tries it out on people, and as usual she gives us an engaging and human view of travel, including boredom, homesickness and the need to travel 15 hours to have a beer with someone who speaks English.  I like her descriptions of the people she meets and the situations she gets into (including a hilarious encounter with Michael Palin) but I do feel that her descriptions of the landscape fall a bit flat – it’s not her natural strength (details in the landscape, human encounters, are) and it dislocated the reading experience a bit.  But overall a good and well-written read and I’ll continue to look out for her future endeavours and books.