To the Isles of Spice

One of Clune's earlier travel books, and very much in his style. The travels he documents here were carried out in 1939.

It is written in a conversational style, such that he occasionally breaks away from his narrative to make a side comment to the reader (which is a little odd at first), and is clearly set up to appeal to his Australian readership with plenty of colloquialisms, slang and phrases. This isn't a bad thing, but in many cases does date the book.

And to the content - which a wanders about a bit, and although signalled on the map page is somewhat jumpy. As an example, we set off together (I did mention is it conversational, so he is taking us on his journey) for Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), but find ourselves in the Northern Territory for a every careful history of exploration and discovery of this area of Australia for the first 6 chapters! That's right - not a chapter or even two, but 6. With only a brief mention in passing of our ‘Isles of Spice'. Having finally reached Indonesia, he then travels extensively and through anecdotes and pure description tells of all he does and sees. It is interesting, and he continues to make use of his ‘try anything once' policy, including having a go at opium!
Partway through his travels he is joined by his wife, who attempts to restrict his ‘try anything once' policy in Cambodia, where he was tempted to touch the King's Holy Sword of Cambodia which was rumoured would cause the death of any person of non-royal blood.

So overall, it was interesting to read about Indonesia under the control of the Dutch, but also the time where people considered that travel by plane was opening up the world for them - only to realise that Bali was still a 36 hour journey by plane from Sydney! To me that length of time for a short jaunt like that is unfathomable!

I also enjoyed of course, many of the places I had been which he also visited. Sites like Borobudur (near Yogyakarta in central Java), and Angkor Wat in Cambodia; and also the towns and cities, although my visit some sixty years later made most unrecognisable.

Overall an interesting snapshot of Colonial Indonesia, albeit very pro-Dutch (they appeared to fly him all over at no cost in KNILM (Royal Dutch Indies Airways) planes.

4 stars