Lands of Lost Borders -- Take 2

A very long time ago, I started reading Lands of Lost Borders.  I was partially finished with Truman but needed something I could read on the go.  I was looking for something to read in advance of my trip to Cambodia, to prepare me for the region (or at least as close as I could get to match my reading mood).  I downloaded this ebook from the library.  It seemed like a good pick because I was particularly missing bicycling at the time, and there didn't seem to be much competition for the one ebook license that the library had.

I didn't expect much from this book.  When it's a low bar, it's hard to disappoint.  I figured that this was going to be one of those "memoirs" written by a 23-year-old with no life experience to have memories of.  I was actually pleasantly surprised to learn that at least the author was well-educated and well-traveled.  Both lend some credibility to her writing.

Travel books can sometimes be difficult to read, which a "you really had to be there" sensibility.  This book does have some of that, but even when it does creep in, often I don't want to be in the places that the author and her friend found themselves.  Sometimes S and I recall our trip to Cambodia and some of the stranger things that happened -- such as being stopped at military checkpoints -- and wonder how things might have gone differently.  Many of the "you had to be there" passages feel like that, and I really would rather not know how they could have turned out differently.

(Minor spoilers.)  After this long bike ride the length of the Silk Road, I was expecting some sort of profound revelation.  My initially-low expectations must have been raised somewhat during the course of the reading, because I found myself disappointed that there were no revelations to be had.

One caution as regards the ebook version -- there is a map at the beginning of this book, and I love a good map or graphic.  But it is useless in the format I read it (on Overdrive), because I was unable to zoom in on it to make it into anything useful.