Full Circle: One Man's Journey by Air, Train, Boat and Occasionally Very Sore Feet Around the 20.000 Miles of the Pacific Rim

Full Circle is just as good, if not better then his othertravel/comedy books. It is simply magnificent.

Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) is more than funny: he's a perceptive and compassionate traveller! I loved his first two BBC travel series and their companion books, so when one day in Seattle, I read in the paper that the next evening he would begin a third, I made sure to tune in. I wasn't disappointed; from a remote Alaskan island so close to the International Dateline that Palin writes: "The Russian soldiers staring at me across the water have already had the day I'm having" to "the southernmost place of worship in the world, outside of Antarctica", this one is as good an armchair journey as any the BBC has produced. Something special: the photography is, as usual, superb, and there's an underwater sequence in the Philipines that has to be seen to be believed. So, either take a year off yourself (that's about what it took Palin), pack your own forty-eight (!) suitcases and spend your own mint to do this trip of a lifetime, or just do it with Mike Palin. After all, that's what books are for, isn't it?

Michael Palin does it again with Full Circle. Starting in Alaska Michael travels anti-clockwise around the rim of the Pacific Ocean visiting countries as diverse as Russia, Korea, Viet Nam, New Zealand, Colombia and the west coast of North American. He tells of his adventures getting to and exploring some fantastic natural wonders, visiting a Russian gulag with a former inmate, the relief of Japan, the Vietnamese reactions to a westerner, the biggness of Australia and the hardworking people of South America. The section on the United States is short and not always sweet. Palin is taken aback by the physical bigness of Americans, and rush, and loudness. By the time he reaches Canada and attends a "lumberjack" fair (no singing Mounties included!) he really "wants to go home". We also learn a bit about how the series and book were produced, his wife Helen and their children, and that being on a job for the BBC doesn't always mean smooth sailing! Michael's friend Basil Pao took the photographs - he also joined Michael on "Around the World in Eighty Days". I can highly recommend this book and not only to fans of Monty Python - it doesn't end how you might expect!

I've seen the 10-part Full Circle tv series, and I had a serious addiction from the start. When it ended, I went through a withdrawl period. I silently rocked myself in a chair in my room repeating "I must get the book,... must find book...must read book." I've got it now and I'm back on a Full Circle high. The book goes into details that they never had time for on the series. It tells you everything that you would have noticed had you been in Japan or Australia or Chile. Ahh... I can imagine myself right now on the streets of China getting a massage from a blind man.

If you love to read about exciting and exotic places, this is your book. If you like history, this is your book. If you like Michael Palin, this is your book. If you just like to read, THIS IS YOUR BOOK. I suggest you read the book first and THEN see the video series (although either stands perfectly well alone).