Travel lends itself to humour. This book is humourous. That's a great plus in these times. The hero is a British teenager, cocky, and ignorant about the world. He has a year to spend 'discovering himself' before entering university, and nowhere to go. So he falls into a trap, and goes with the suggestion of his friend's girlfriend that he should accompany her on a three-month India trip. What happens during these months, starting from a crappy guest house in Delhi, to a "smoking joint" in the North (Manali), to many other places (Kovalam, Goa, Bangalore) is the rest of the story.His interest is strictly physical, and hers, apparently over-the-board, spiritual. He half-succeeds, and then she ditches him for a spiritually advanced duo, just back from a lepers' colony and headed to a yoga ashram. The arguments between these two are quite entertaining.
Some of the observations about India (like their set of three questions to him, always ending with "Are you married?") are quite funny. Even funnier is when an English journalist he meets on a train rips him apart for his empty-headedness. The takes on the yoga guru finding the "centre" of his disciples are quite believable, given recent scams in this territory.
There is an Indian from England trying to escape his own arranged marriage and have fun while he can, and a kind Dutchman who helps him recover from the Bangalore belly after eating a burger there.
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