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In her second outstanding travel narrative, Hitchcock confronts the realities of a desert environment in Rajasthan, poverty among nomads, and her own motivations for grueling sojourns. As she experiences the roughness, instability, and danger of life among pastoralists, Hitchcock reads Proust and comes to grips with her own 41-year-old selfhood. She examines with honesty the experience of being the object of curiosity by mobs of children and lewdness of men (her guide-bodyguards were so disgusted that they'd yell out, "What if somebody gawked at your sister like this, you half-minds"). Most interesting to me (a former traveler and ESL teacher) is her description of how the language barrier was an obstacle in her dealings with locals. To my mind, few travel writers are as ruthlessly honest with themselves and readers about language inability. A tough Australian, Hitchcock never approaches the belllyachin' tone of road-weary Yanks or Poms.