On a Shoestring to Coorg

This is a diary style book, with diversions into the local history, the local culture and some of the many people that the author a her five year old daughter come into contact with on their four month travels in Coorg, in 1973/74.Never a fan of big cities, Murphy heads out of Bombay relatively quickly, and spends only a few days in Goa before finding a place they like, and base themselves in Coorg (now renamed Kodagu), a district in Karnataka. From there they take shorter excursions, returning to stay a couple of months and for a short while become a part of the village community.I really enjoy Murphy's writing. For me, she gets the balance right. She writes about the things I find interesting, and she gets the mix right - explains in detail some things and skims over others, and for me at least it all works. I also find her pretty amusing, which I know not all people do.Like others I felt some apprehension about the fact her five year old daughter Rachel joined her in her travels (this is the first book which Rachel features, although I have read a later book - [b:Where the Indus Is Young: Walking to Baltistan 1950456 Where the Indus is Young Dervla Murphy https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360091313l/1950456.SY75.jpg 1953330] which also features Rachel). Initially, for the author, Rachel accompanying her means she is not on her bicycle, and cannot undertake the hiking or climbing to the same extent, and so is on trains and buses more than your usual Dervla Murphy book, but really for a five year old, Rachel is pretty easy work. She is ridiculously independent and seems to have common sense beyond her years - well she is portrayed that way in the book... Really her presence adds to the book, and doesn't diminish the story at all.I found it pretty amusing the way the author was quite happy for Rachel to make her own experiences, despite the risks. It is fair to say this lack of parental guidance in 1974, was still pretty unusual, but I can't see the same level of trust (trust in good luck maybe?) now.Having literally just arrived at their first hotel in Bombay:... I saw her disappearing up the street with two new-found Indian friends. It seems she has gone to lunch with someone; I felt too exhausted to find out exactly with whom, or where. P5.And another example (of several) at a wildlife sanctuary in ThekkadyAfter lunch I left Rachel playing in the jungle near the hotel - where there were two tame elephants and lots of non-shy langurs to entertain her - while I walked halfway back to Kumili in search... P157.And another quote I stumbled on while looking for child abandonment examples:At a little distance from the Co-operative building, on the edge of the forest, stands our ‘local', a ramshakle cottage from which Subaya every morning procures my breakfast litre of palm-tody for 50 paise. (Where else nowadays could one buy a litre of beer for 2 1/2 pence?) ... If one neglects to drink it within a few hours it is said to do terrible things to the innards, so at last I have an excuse for drinking beer with my breakfast. The Coorgs think it so health-giving that even elderly female pillars of respectability habitually have a glass (but not, admittedly, a litre) before breakfast. P187, (her brackets).Excellent stuff.