Bali and Angkor

In the early 1930s, Geoffrey Gorer went on a three months’ pleasure trip to Sumatra, Java, Bali, Thailand and Cambodia. Although, as he modestly points out in the Foreword to Bali and Angkor, he “was obviously debarred from writing a serious book about these regions”, he was nevertheless able to produce a very superior book of travel which can be read with great enjoyment today—fifty years after publication. Recent travel writing about Southeast Asia may describe more adventurous journeys, contain more practical information and be more splendidly illustrated, but what Bali and Angkor lacks in these respects is more than made up for by Geoffrey Gorer’s very considerable powers of observation and his interest in trying to interpret the role that art and religion play in the life of the Balinese and the Khmers. His writing also has great style. If it is correct that genuine travel has become a lost art, one of the best ways to experience it vicariously would be to read Bali and Angkor.