Away from My Desk: A Round-the-World Detour from the Rat Race,the Tech Wreck,and the Traffic Jam of Life in America by Rif K. Haffar, Tracy Lynn Cigarski (Photographer)
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: September 2002
- Publisher: Ameera Publishing
- Format: Paperback, 336pp
- ISBN-13: 9780971545113
- ISBN: 0971545111
Synopsis
Traveling mainly by motorcycle, the author traverses 45 countries on six continents in this memoir, experiencing both fascinating and harrowing travails during a one-year journey. With a healthy mix of contemporary and historical perspectives, new insights are provided on typical tourist destinations like the Taj Mahal and the Trevi Fountain. Additionally, encounters with a law enforcement official in the Czech Republic and a panty-wielding pickpocket in Istanbul (among other things) supply plenty of humor along the way. These vivid and engaging accounts showcase the destinations not just as tourists see them, but as residents experience them as well, realistically portraying floods, earthquakes, and civil unrest.
Author Biography: Rif K. Haffar is a telecom executive who speaks four languages and has traveled to nearly 100 countries on six continents. He has twice circumnavigated the globe and crossed three continents entirely by motorcycle. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
Midwest Book Review
An especially recommended travelogue and rewarding reading for the armchair traveler, as well as anyone . . . leaving their humdrum life for an around-the-world adventure!
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Away from My Desk: A Round-the-World Detour from the Rat Race,the Tech Wreck,and the Traffic Jam ofby Anonymous
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January 09, 2003: AWAY FROM MY DESK is not just a travelogue. It is sensitive, insightful, informative, but best of all it provides loads of laughs. Haffar's humour makes his book a good read for everyone. It is touching as when he says after his first day in Bombay, "I'm reviewing all the things we have to be thankful for, but the list is long, and I fall asleep somewhere after 'only one thumb per hand.'" His sharp wit highlights his narrative as when in Lisbon: "If Barcelona had a kid brother who was shorter, uglier, less swift and somewhat inattentive to matters of personal hygiene, that brother would be Lisbon." Haffar presents the world from many points of vantage. Executive suites in first class hotels, dingy inns, camper-van campgrounds with outdoor sanitary amenities, flooded by rain, scorched by the sun and invaded by pests. I enjoyed the way the author compares between different countries and mores, so that the reader can relate to a place he has not been to. Most of the time it was like being there myself.
Away from My Desk: A Round-the-World Detour from the Rat Race,the Tech Wreck,and the Traffic Jam ofby Anonymous
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January 09, 2003: A very entertaining book that squeezes into 336 pages a huge swathe of the planet and its peoples. Because of the formidable itinerary, I sometimes felt that the author would have liked to but did not have the luxury of narrating in greater detail. Still, this only served to peak my interest in these places. The many black and white photos throughout the text are helpful. Haffar writes in an accessible style, often conversational, and that makes reading his book feel like having a conversation with a friend. I enjoyed it a lot and gave three copies as Christmas gifts to friends who are travel buffs.
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