Thailand Travel Novels For Women

Anna And the King of Siam by Margaret Landon

I like reading female travel writers. Sometimes their books are harder to find because traveling has never really been for the average woman. Most travel novels are written by men, and British men at that.

Females have totally different experiences than men while traveling. They have different needs, different hardships, and a different mindset than men. A woman’s take is usually a little more down to earth, and a little less prejudiced. They often have more interaction with the “locals” maybe as a result of talking to their servants, having to do the shopping or if they are a working woman, because of their job. I like hearing a woman’s point of view. And the fact of the matter is that if a woman was traveling around foreign countries a hundred, two hundred, even 50 years ago she was probably freaking awesome and tough as nails.

www.ladythetramp.com

(Anna Leonowens in Thailand)

Right now I am reading Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. Landon used Anna’s own journals on her experience to author this book about Anna’s time spent in Thailand.

The story is about Anna, a woman from Wales, who due to certain circumstances and events ends up teaching the royal child and harem of King Mongkut of Thailand. Through this she gets an inside peak into palace life, good or bad. As a student of cross-cultural studies it is interesting for me to read her story. She was a free thinking Western woman stepping into the lives of women who had never been outside of the palace walls, with their own customs and traditions totally obscure and often utterly horrible to Anna. It is a look into Thailand those the lens of her eyes, her views, and thoughts, her reactions to “their” actions.

(Old map of Bangkok)

Many people, especially after the popular Broadway show “The King and I”, believe that most of her story it terrible malarkey, completely falsified accounts in order to shock the readers and sell her books. To an extent this is true with any travel writer. Embellishment is a literary device to create an interesting story. No one wants to read about Anna just sitting around drinking tea and eating crumpets. But with Anna at least some of the story must be true.

No matter, I like this story, true or false. Next I am going to read her own journal entitled The English Governess and the Siamese Court, which I found online through the University of Penn's Online Books Page at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ (This is a great resource. Tons of free online books AND a special section on female writers featuring oodles of women travel writers.)