Desert Place by Robyn Davidson (1997, 288 pages, author of Tracks -Open Road Publishing)

 

Last year I read and posted on Robyn Davidson's international best seller about her trek across the Australian outback.  I greatly enjoyed this book, as did everyone else, for its vivid account of life in the Outback and the amazing very individualized people who make it there home.  She made the trek with camels and I learned a lot about camels from her book.  

Desert Places is fascinating travel book set in India that will take you way out of your cultural comfort zone.  In 1992 Davidson got an assignment from The National Geographic to do an article on the nomadic Rabari people of the Punjab and Harayan regions of North West 

India.  Upon arrival in India, Davidson contacted a friend from a wealthy once royal Indian family to seek advice on the trip.  The Rabari culture and migration depends to a great extent on their camels.  Much of their income comes from selling camel milk.  Davidson wanted to accompany them on the migration with only her photographer.  Her friend would not permit this, insisting she be accompanied by a small entourage to protect and serve her and the photographer.  

There were two big interconnected issues the prince had with her proposed trip.  A woman traveling 

 alone without male protection would be a cultural anomaly to the Rabari so she had to have bodyguards.   Of course the issue in the back of our and her minds was will she be safe from the protectors.  Also, and this is really central, to me at least, to the themes of the book, a Western cacausian person is for better or worse perceived as wealthy and needs servants.  If she has no servants ths would reflect badly on her, on the magazine, and even her friend the prince.  She would not so much be seen  as not rich but as unfairly not providing employment to a crew of helpers.  It was a lot of fun following her struggles to accept an entourage while sticking to her wish to travel with the Rubarji as if she were as close to one of them as possible. 

There were many potential cultural conflicts.  Rabari, devout Hindus, culture dictates women dress very modestly.  A woman who violates this by something as simple as wearing knee length shorts could be seen as soliciting male attention in a scandalous fashion.  Of course the Rabari are part of the modern world but they seek to keep their tribal ways intact and to prevent cultural pollution of the young.  

As the journey begins Davidson does her best to live life just as the Rubari do.  She eats to her very unappealing food and drinks unclean water.  Davidson is tough but she endures very real hardships, terrible loneliness, sleeps among thousands of sheep, learns more about camels, and ponders some of her own received truths.  She comes to know and have great respect for Rubari women.  We see the Rubari also learning about and becoming accepting of a woman from a culture very alien to theirs.

Davidson does not sugar coat her observations.  She shows us up close the desperate poverty of rural  India, the pervasive poverty and the sense of the end of a very old way of life.  

There is an India beyond the call centers, the super universities and the high rises.  Davidson lets us see the beauty and horror of India. 

Desert Places is a perfect "arm chair travel" book and much more.  For one thing, you will come away with a whole new respect for camels.  Anyone interested in Asian tribal cultures needs to read this book.

From the web page of Open Road Publishers

Robyn Davidson

Robyn Davidson was born on a cattle property in Queensland, Australia. She went to Sydney in the late sixties, then spent time studying in Brisbane before moving to Alice Springs, where the events of this book begin. Since then, she has traveled extensively, living in London, New York, and India. In the early 1990s, she migrated with and wrote about nomads in northwestern India. She is now based in Melbourne, but spends several months a year in the Indian Himalayas.

If you are looking for very high quality E Books at fair prices, you should check out the diverse well selected catalogue of Open Road Publishers

http://www.openroadmedia.com/

Tracks-A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback by Robin Davidson 1995

Tracks is a cult classic, recently republished, about a woman's solo walk across 1700 miles of the Australian outback.  I learned a great deal about camels, Alice Springs Australia, the mentality of Australian men, Aborigines, and Robyn Davidson from this book.  It is a book about life on the frontier, self reliance, being a woman in an ultra-macho culture, about tourism in the outback and the savage mistreatment of native peoples of the outback.  One of the most interesting and to me edifying aspects of the book was in Davidson's accounts of the treatment of Aborigines   and her encounters with them.  She struggled hard to see the other in people very different from her.  One side of prejudice is ignorant hatred that sees the Aborigines as near sub-human completely without redeeming qualities existing only to be exploited and treated as vermin.   On the other side there are the well meaning who try to help them and to see into their culture.  The first mistake is to seem them as "all alike" when they are from many tribal groups, sometimes opposed to each other.  Many tribes have been forced onto lands with groups to which they have long histories of conflict.  

Camels were first introduced into the Australian outback early in the 19th century.  Many escaped captivity and they thrived and greatly multiplied in the outback, an ideal setting for them.  I admit I never until I read tracks saw Camels as having much personality but Davidson taught me a lot about camels. They are hard to manage, very bonded to their herd, and each has their own personality.  

As Tracks unfolds we see a spiritual journey unfold as Davidson tries to learn the skills needed to trek the outback with Camels.  Her preparations take up the first third of the book and were fascinating.  We meet a lot of interesting people in Alice Springs (Alice Springs is a very touristy town where people go to experience the outback.  

All in all a fascinating journey and an excellent book.  There is a new postscript in the  Bloomsbury edition.  I highly recommend this book.  

Author Data

Robyn Davidson is an award-winning writer who has travelled and published widely. Her books include Tracks, Desert Places,Quarterly Essay 24: No Fixed Address - Nomads and the Future of the Planet and, as editor, The Picador Book of Journeys andThe Best Australian Essays 2009. Her essays have appeared in Granta,, the Monthly, the Bulletin and Griffith Review, amongst others.   I hope to read more of her work.