East of Croydon takes us out on location with a camera crew to make a travel inspired documentary for the BBC. Perkins starts off in Vietnam where rice is like βwhite goldβ and rice farming proves to be back breaking work.Β
East of Croydon: Let the games begin!
Perkins laps up the generous hospitality of Vietnamese families before crossing the border over to Cambodia, where she practically swims in sewage, and encounters cockroaches in her bra before visiting a cheeky Cambodian hermit with a liking for leopard print.
This is followed by pig kidney remains being flicked in her eye and other bits of the dead animal displayed on her shoulders as part of a local ritual.
In China she witnesses a βhuman zooβ and got the once over from a hilarious ninety something year old herbalist.

On a more serious note
Emotionally frozen in shock, Perkins listens to the cries of Indian women in Kolkataβs most poverty stricken areas. Women who sleep with their children tied to them at night, fearing another child death by molestation case.
Witnessing poverty so great, Perkins tells us she took off her own shoes and left them on the roadside for someone to take.
Perkins recalls the cold in the Himalayas that no amount of clothing could take away from her freezing bones.Β
Verdict
Inspiring stuff for budding travellers?
Maybe not, but East of Croydon is an account of a crew making an educational documentary for television.
The aim wasn’t simply to satisfy the readers’ wanderlust, but to give them some hard hitting snapshots of global reality.
Entertaining and insightful – yes, and Perkins’ humour and dry wit is consistent from beginning to end.
However, I thought there were too many snippets of script throughout the chapters, like parts from a play, interrupting the flow of the writing.
I didn’t like the personification of animals, namely the mice in the Indian Himalayan caves that she quoted using words live βbruvβ and βinitβ.
Ever so slightly, East of Croydon echoes the theme of Bruce Parryβs Amazon, but more comedically written and very much centred around Perkins as the central character and subject throughout the book.

Wally Fry
Thanks for the follow and be blessed
Cherryl
You’re welcome, and be blessed too ππ
travelrat
We loved Sue Perkins’ recent TV series ‘Sacred Places’ and I think that this might be worth a read … especially as we’re bound for Cambodia and Vietnam in November. Waterstones, here we come … if they haven’t got it in the Public Library!n
Cherryl
Sounds like November will be very exciting for you – I hope you enjoy travels ππ
millysblog674849595
Sorry- βreadβ π
Cherryl
Lol – I knew what you meant π
millysblog674849595
On my pile. Might make it the next trade now.
Cherryl
It seems to be quite a popular one – or it was when it was published. Enjoy!!