Customer Reviews

Phaic Tan (Jetlag Travel Guide)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are planning a trip to Phaic Tan, you won't find a better reference guide than this one. While looking for ideas for travel for our 75th wedding anniversary, we stumbled on this book full of gems. What better get away than a visit to the Pha Phlung province?

Surprisingly comprehensive, we've shared the joys of Phaic Tan with many of our friends via this book.

The one minor quibble I have with this book is that I would have liked to see more coverage of the northern neighbor, Phic Shun. Tour books of these countries are like the countries themselves, hard to find.

Check out the publisher's website for more details...

Fans of the previous fake country guide 'Molvania' (ISBN 1585676195) will enjoy this new 'phaic' guide to a sun-drenched nation nestling somewhere in Asia. This knockout new edition is produced by the same Australian folk who discovered Molvania. I loved the first book mainly because it looked so convincing but wait till you see 'Phaic Tan', this is satire of the first order.

For a start it is printed on glossy paper and in color throughout with excellent photo selection, maps and graphics, the design is first class, too. The first chapter, Getting Started, in eighty-eight pages gives you a complete run-down on Phaic Tan including a page schedule of what you'll see on PT/TV, one of the country's three TV stations, a spread of food photos 'A Taste of Phaic Tan', has a reference to snake wine which is often served with its own tourniquet. The countries four main regions get a chapter each and there is an index in the back.

Like real guide books I don't think it's necessary to read this one cover to cover but rather to dip into the pages now and again, after all not much is going to happen in Phaic Tan over the next few years so this guide book will always be up to date.

Oh yes, do try and avoid the south of Pattaponga, the city map on page 154 clearly shows a gas refinery next to the Syon Yup fireworks factory and remember there is only one hospital, world-class apparently!

The top five exports from this Southeast Asian nation are MSG, beaded car seat covers, spring roll wrappers, crab sticks and dengue fever. The region has two seasons - a wet one and a rainy one. The native populace considers it unlucky for pregnant women to go into labor in certain months, so they often attempt to delay delivery for up to four weeks. Welcome to Phaic Tān (pronounced "fake tan"), a small country that may remind you of all the worst stereotypes associated with Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia, all rolled into one.

For those like me who enjoyed the first Jetlag travel guide, "Molvanīa", published two years ago, you will get more of the same sardonic humor in the pages of this faux-guidebook. By this time, the novelty is a bit worn, and the droll, patronizing tone that the editors captured so well in the first book seems to be not as present here. The smug attitude is what makes the first "Lonely Planet" send-up so comically rich, even more than the ridiculous locations and customs described. The absurd, straight-faced observations in this book appear to be of a more generic funny variety, for example, at the luxurious Keow Bhan Hotel in Pattaponga, the editors write, "On Saturday and Sunday nights a local Dixieland jazz band plays so if you enjoy good music, consider booking a table mid-week." In fact, much of the humorous jabs here could be directed at any third world country.

The photos, which look like they are authentically taken in that part of the world, are also not as amusing as one would hope even with the joke-oriented captions. Still, there are some gems such as the section on Phaic Tānese cinema where movie posters for the country's leading movie star, kick boxing champion Trong Tchen, are presented - titles like "Instep of Fear", "Death Wish for Two", "I Greet You with Lead" and "Hamlet". Or the putting range shown in the illustration of the Royal Palace compound. Or the comic painting of the ruling royal couple. It may be that tourism in Southeast Asia is not as ripe for satire as Eastern Europe or simply that the editors have lost some of their original creative energy. Regardless, it's amusing enough for those inclined toward a mock-travel guide that mines Lonely Planet, Rough Guide and any number of travel publishers for laughs.

Having spent a lot of time travelling in Eastern Europe, South East Asia, and several newly liberalized, ex-communist countries, I greatly enjoyed "Molvania" and was looking forward to something similar with Phaic Tan. Molvania was hilarous because, though greatly exaggerated, everything (almost everything) had a grain of truth. Unfortunately the same can not be said of Phaic Tan. Whereas Molvania was witty and clever, Phaic Tan is, with few exceptions, just silly. Most of the entries are absurdities that could be made up about any place in the world. Most people who have been to the parts of the world referred to -- Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos -- will have true stories to report that are far more funny than the entries in this book.

Loved this book so much, laughed til i cried. I sent a copy to my brother who was studying away from his family and missing them terribly. He said a few pages of this book each day kept him sane and made him laugh. He rationed it out over months. It could be cos both of us have visited Thailand that this book rings out so beautifully. But even if you just dream about such a place, you will find it in the pages of this book.

This is a light, fun, read as you can book that will make you laugh and lift your spirits during a lunch break!

This and the other two books in the series are three of the funniest books I have read. During the summer, I read the THREE of them - cover to cover - as I didn't want to miss any of the humor.

The authors have painstakingly put together all sections of the book. Read the small print. Read the maps. Read the footnotes. All of them are hilariously funny.

I strongly recommend ALL THREE books in the series.

I didn't like this one quite as much as Molvania, but it's still good humor. It may just be that some of the quirks discussed in this book are not as familiar to me as the post-Communist land of Molvania...

"For too long now Phaic Tan has been closed off from the outside world, a country visited each year by just a handful of hardy travelers, aid agency workers and hostage negotiators. But now, thanks to this fully up-dated Jetlag guide, everything you need to know about planning a trip to Phaic Tan, birthplace of the trouser press and irritable bowel syndrome, is here."

This is the introduction to a country formed by mixing equal parts of Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, China, India, Indonesia and Cambodia, stirring for a few minutes and served over ice.

I was excited to see and read the sequel to Molvania. Molvania I read overnight; I could not put down the book. It was almost impossible to take a break from the poignant descriptions of Eastern Europe. Having finished the book, I chuckled for days just by thinking about it. And for Christmas, I gave all my friends a copy. As all sequels, this book falls short from the first version. If Molvania is "Police Academy I" then Phaic Tan is "Police Academy II". (OK, I just carbon-dated myself.) I read it over a few days, this was a book I could easily put down. Certainly, the jokes are there, the non sequiturs are abound, but few are as entertaining, poignant, bizarre, and funny as in Molvania. While Molvania came through as a much more homogeneous Eastern European backwater with all its pollution, rudeness and post-socialist agony, Phaic Tan is more a mosaic of the beaches of Vietnam, trekking in Thailand, discovering remote islands in Indonesia, getting lost in China, shopping in India, and being ripped off a few times anywhere in the world. This does not mean that the book is not funny or entertaining or that it is not worth reading; simply Phaic Tan is not as hilarious as Molvania.

Phaic Tan continues making fun of travel books of the Lonely Planet ilk, the obsessive middle-aged backpackers, and the all-too-snobbish middle school teachers. It is a good read; no doubt, you will enjoy it.