The Gentleman in the Parlour: A Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong - Itineraria Asiatica: Burma

Among the many memorable books on travels in Burma before the Second World War, Somerset Maugham's leisurely progress from London via Colombo, then up the Irrawaddy to Mandalay and onwards through the then peaceful Shan States to Thailand and Cambodia ranks among the most enjoyable. He was not only a sharp-eyed observer of human nature but writes about his encounters with a good deal of emphaty quite uncommon among travel writers of the 1920's