Written by and Photos by Sam Manicom. Posted in Media
The Moment Collectors Asia: Sam Manicom and Friends
This is the second book in The Moment Collectors series and, like the first, it has an all-star cast of motorcycle adventurers contributing their favorite tales, only this time from Asia. An excellent curation of 20 stories from 20 authors that happen to be as diverse as the continent itself. There are only good and great stories here. You’ll have trouble putting this book down.
The Moment Collectors Asia: Sam Manicom and Friends starts with two fantastic tales, one from India with a couple traveling on two bikes, and the second with a solo rider tackling a wilderness route in Mongolia. The third chapter ups the ante with a tale of five riders who are the first foreign motorcyclists in decades to pilot their motorcycles across Burma (Myanmar). By the fourth chapter I was hoping Manicom hadn’t peaked and front-loaded the book with the best stories first. I needn’t have worried because the excitement and intrigue continued, including an epic cross-continent journey, a woman riding solo across Iran, and an astounding, sub-zero, winter solo ride to north-eastern Siberia. By chapter eight, when a novice rider describes the trials and triumphs along the “Road of Bones,” I’d come to trust the trend would continue to deliver all the way to the end, with each chapter having its own unique flavor.
The anchor leg in this relay is run by Sam Manicom and Birgit Schuenemann on two scooters through Vietnam. Sam is an experienced traveler and a heralded author, and as expected his storytelling is excellent. However, not all the writers are experienced at adventure riding, or writing. Additionally, some of the contributors have English as their second or third language, yet they all deliver vivid and detailed descriptions of their trips. That’s what makes this collection so great.
If variety is the spice of life, you will find this book very tasty as each chapter is so different from the next. Reading 20 stories from 20 different adventurers, riding 20 different motorcycles, on 20 different trips multiplies the spice index exponentially.
As Mark Twain wrote: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.” In visiting and writing about the people and places that the daily news ignores, or often maligns, these travelers accomplish exactly what Twain predicted. Their stories promote decency, kindness and tolerance. They show us that the world is a better place than what’s typically reflected in the news or social media, and aside from being one of the main reasons we travel, it’s also what we need to know more about.
Also inspiring are the stories about making friends. Another common thread is how our overlanders are helped by strangers when help is needed most, sometimes being invited into the homes of complete strangers, with nothing expected in return. I believe that if everyone read this book, civilization would be in a much better place. And that, in my opinion, is one of reasons these stories are so important, as well as what defines being an adventure motorcyclist.
Then there’s the motorcycles. Sam’s compendium does not disappoint as there’s a cornucopia of motorcycles within its pages. There are the expected protagonists such as the BMW GS adventure bikes, the hardcore dual-sports like the Suzuki DRZ and Honda XR, and a surprise appearance of the Moto Guzzi Le Mans. For me, riding a Royal Enfield or a Baja 220 Pulsar in India or a Nouvos scooter in Vietnam enhances the local flavor of an adventure. This perspective also supports the much-repeated mantra that any motorcycle can be an adventure motorcycle.
In conclusion, this is a great book that’s highly entertaining. Some stories had me laughing, some had me in awe, but all were inspiring. It had more variety than I expected, and it whet my appetite for more adventures from these writers. I hope that you will love it, too.
Publisher: Adventure Motorcycle Travel Books
Sam-Manicom.com
ISBN: 978-1-7398888-1-7
Paperback: $25 | Kindle: $2.99
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