Fakirs, Feluccas and Femmes Fatales: Tales from an incidental traveller

This is a unique collection of brief encounters and adventures from working in seventy countries - a kaleidoscope of landscapes, sounds, smells, politics, humour dialogue and, above all, people. E T Laing recounts episodes that include a Chinese Red Guard reminiscing about the day her parents were hauled in front of her to be sentenced; unreconstructed Russian apparatchiks; and sailors on a Turkmenistan ferry knocking back vodka.

A warts-and-all account of the author's travels, with disast...