Fred's Diary 1981: Travels in Asia: Part 1: Hong Kong and Thailand

by Robert Fear

Fascinating time capsule from the 80’s

Have you ever wanted to read someone else’s diary?
Would you like to experience travelling in Asia without leaving home?
Then this book is for you. Fred’s Diary 1981 is a fascinating insight into a young man’s travels around Asia in the early 1980’s. This is a unique opportunity to start delving into Fred's daily diary, which details the 158 days he spent travelling around Asia.
In this first part of the book you can follow Fred during his travels to Hong Kong and Thailand. He goes from working as a film extra for Chinese TV to spending time in a Thai jail.
This special edition is being published in parallel with the release of the first part of the audiobook on ACX.
The entire Fred’s Diary 1981: Travels in Asia is already available on Amazon if you want to read about Fred’s entire trip, which also includes his adventures in India and Nepal.

Genres: Memoir

145 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 3, 2018

About the author

Born in Leicester in 1955, Robert's family moved to Surrey when he was 11. He was educated at Reigate Grammar School. After this he worked in a bank in the city for several years before getting the travel bug. Fred, a nickname he got at school, stuck throughout his travels and has remained with him to this day. His travels took him to Ibiza for the summer of 1977, hitch-hiking around Europe in 1978 and the USA and Canada in 1979. During this time he also settled and worked in Germany. Fred's Diary 1981 was written during the 158 days he spent travelling around Asia.

These days Robert is happily settled in Eastbourne, East Sussex where he lives with his wife and three cats. He works as a software consultant and has been able to combine work with some travel during the past fifteen years, having visited countries as far apart as Australia, Singapore, Ghana and Suriname.

Additional background information can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/fredsdiary1981

Reviews

[Julie Haigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm very interested in travel memoirs, and particularly those written in diary format. I like the authenticity, written just as it was, not just parts of it remembered. This is a shorter audio book than some so it's perfect when you have a few hours spare-without needing a few days to complete it.

The audio book covers the time the author spent in Hong Kong and Thailand. It was originally released as two separate books; '£99 to Hong Kong' and 'Time in Thailand'. I have read both of these quite a while ago, and, at the time, I felt they could have been combined to make one book-I commented this on my review and now Robert Fear has done this.

I had a quick listen to some of this audio book when I was reading another book; to try it out. Rather than wait to start it when I had finished my reading book, I was enjoying it so I continued listening to this book as well: for example, in times when I had a shorter time spare. Robert Fear's audio book comprises short chapters which are day by day entries in a diary he kept of his travels in Asia in his youth. It's so easy to pick up and put down without needing to remember bits of a plot-as you do for eg. a crime thriller.

I liked the narrator's voice from the start. Sometimes it takes a while to get into a voice-eg if it's not what you were expecting. I found this one easy to listen to, the accent is easy on the ear, with a nice soft tone to it.

My only niggle was that the narrator sometimes paused in strange places where the flow of the sentence should be maintained until the next comma or full stop.