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I am reading a lot of travel stories, and until now Bill Bryson was my favored travel writer. Funny and witty. However, last year, I discovered books by Lawrence Winkler, and found out that there is even better travel literature around:
Dr. Lawrence Winkler to be precise, as he is a Clinical Assistant Professor in a British Columbia, Canada, hospital. Now I am already slipping into his bio… so let’s finish:
Recreational interests include viticulture (making wine from his own Burgundian varietals), travel to offbeat destinations, wild mushroom foraging, gardening, music, Japanese Art, efforts at local environment protection and he joyously cultivates a small acreage on Vancouver Island together with his wife Robin.
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So, how does a medical prof come to write books about travel adventures?
As a young Canadian physician in residence, he decided to discover the world before settling down – and took a couple of years off from the rat race. He hitchhiked to the States, then South America and Africa, described in his first book Orion’s Cartwheel.
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After a short, yet adventures stint in an Israel Kibbuz, he continued through Western Europe and Skandinavia and further to the Middle East, described in Between the Cartwheels.
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An old Boeing 707 brought him to the Indian Sub Continent, where he used trains for further adventurous travels, accompanied by great young pals, one of them becoming later his wife. Read more in Hind Cartwheels.
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The Final Cartwheel by Lawrence Winkler.
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The latest book in the Orion’s Cartwheels series is “The Final Cartwheel“, published last month as an e-book on Amazon, like the other volumes. It lively describes Lawrence Winkler’s trips into Burma, when it was still Burma, to Macau and into China and other parts of Asia, as well as the UDSSR, now split into Russia and other countries.
Beside the humorous tone in Lawrence Winkler’s books, one learns a lot about other parts of the world, most of us wouldn’t travel so easily or eagerly. He vividly describes the world as it was thirty years ago and makes the reader yearning to follow his route – even as an armchair traveler.
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Snippets from his books:
“Tip the world on one side & everything loose will land in Los Angeles.”
“Tel Aviv: We honed the fine art of stuffing a Falafel, so that a dollar could last all day.”
“Most intense joys of travel are likely to be experienced in the least obvious places & often at the most inopportune times.”
“If you want to sell your whisky to buy hashish, I may be of service, he offered…”
“Humphrey Bogart said: You are not a star until they can spell your name in Karachi. I spelled my name out for Stefan.”
“The ratio of corruption to competence was encouraging. The smiling faces of the inept immigration officials cleared the middle path for me out of the terminal.”
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The Final Cartwheel is the story of a young doctor’s return home, after a five-year hitchhiking odyssey around the world. Through East Asia, Indonesia, and around the Antipodes, the circle becomes unbroken. 359 pages, Kindle e-book
Amazon.com/dp/B00BEIXB1M
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To use a cliche: The Cartwheel series is a MUST READ!
To find out more, see Dr. Winkler’s Amazon page, go to http://about.me/lawrencewinkler or visit his website: www.lawrencewinkler.com
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Hyper Smash
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