BootsnAll Travel Community

my son and i will be travelling thru thailand, bali, india and nepal this fall/winter, and was wondering what movies you'd recommend seeing before we go...thinking of city of joy and the killing fields. we already saw himalaya...
also, good novels accessible to a precocious pre teen. was thinking passage to india, i never read it and wonder how it reads to a modern twelve yr old.
any other novels that will get us in the asia mode?
bliss

I loved Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse when I was a kid.

The Life of Pi is also excellent.

I loved "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri - amazing short stories but I don't think it would appeal to a 12 year old.

"Life of Pi" was good too and might work for that age.

A couple of people here who like traveling, my boyfriend included, absolutely loved books by Karl May as children. From what I hear, he's a German author and wrote books about one character who traveled all over the place. I just checked on Amazon.com and some are available in English (the people I know read them in Slovenian or Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian) - so you might have to order them there. Saw a series about Native Americans and also one about Kurdistan...I don't know about the particular places you are going though.

Have a good trip. I think it's a great opportunity for your son to travel with you!

Not sure if you can find these here before you head to Asia but there are bunch of stories from India

1. Panchantantra Tales ( stories with morals..like folk tales)

1. Amar Chitra Kathas...these are like comics and tell you diff stories from India's history, mythology.

Also check out childrens version of Ramayana and Mahabharata..epic Indian classic. You can find a abridged version even in US libraries sometimes.

India has a large publishing industry in English. Check out publishers like Orient Longman who have plenty of childrens books.

Bombay, Delhi, Chennai and Calcutta all will have large book stories.

You will find books in Railway stations as well...check em out.