Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2016, 248 pages

Ritu Menon does not like to travel alone for pleasure, as she announces in the first line of this book. She likes to explore places with her friends.

Loitering with Intent is an account of these trips, most for pleasure but a few for work: she is a publisher and attends literary festivals.

Her travels take her to Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Italy, France, and the UK, some of which faced political change during her travels. 

She attends PalFest in 2010, the Palestinian Festival of Literature, set up by the Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif to “expose international writers to the situation in Palestine, and to give Palestinians an opportunity to listen to them”. Because movement for Palestinians between cities is difficult, the festival travels from city to city.

She visits Syria before the war, a radically different place from what we see on the news now. She finds communities living together peacefully: Shia, Sunni, Syrian Christians, Greek Orthodox, and Kurds—at least that’s how it seems. She remarks, “Who knows what prejudices surface when tensions arise”.

She visits Egypt in 2011, after the Tahrir Square demonstrations but before Abdul Fattah al-Sisi’s coup. She finds a country in turmoil: the military had shot peaceful demonstrators and people feared they were setting the scene for a postponement of upcoming elections. She visits the sights but also talks to protestors who want the dissolution of the powerful Supreme Council of Armed Forces.

In Myanmar, she is enchanted by an ungilded and unadorned statue of Buddha in one of the many abandoned temples in Old Bagan. Menon finds it easy to imagine herself in the 12th or 13th century when most of the temples were built. “As far as the eye can see, up to the horizon, in practically every part of Old Bagan…they rise up in veneration and…a majesty all their own, whether or not any images remain in their sanctum sanctorum.” Yet in Yangon, old buildings were being torn down to make place for the new. 

In Turkey, Menon is fascinated by the underground cities of Cappadocia, 20 meters deep in which you can live for two months if you are supplied with air, water, food, and light.

Unfortunately, a few of the chapters feel a bit superficial. I felt at times that she was regaling dinner guests with travel stories. This is a shame because when she hits her stride, her observations—especially about the people of a country—are interesting. And she writes about the food she eats, something I always welcome! There are some good tips about where to eat and places to visit. But what I really enjoyed were the snapshots of countries at a particular time in their history.

This review first appeared on Women on the Road.