("Sunday Islands: New Zealand, Tahiti, Australia," by Harold Truman; 
ISBN 0-9670176-2-9; Pales Bone Publishing, San Diego, Calif.; 2001; 
$19.50 hardcover; 236 pages)

There are tourists and travelers. Both visit other lands, but tourists 
make no attempt to learn about the people and the culture, viewing 
everything from their own perspective. Travelers try to learn as 
much as possible about the places they visit and appreciate the 
cultural differences.

In "Sunday Islands," Harold Truman again shows he is a traveler.

In his first book, "A Country, Not a War: Vietnam Impressions," 
which was released two years ago by Pale Bone Publishing, Truman 
recounted his journey through contemporary Vietnam. While he didn’t 
intend for it to be THE book about Vietnam, it did relate the 
impressions of one American about a small country that has become 
a significant part of our collective psyche and helps readers to 
shed some of our long-held misperception about that land and its 
gentle people.

In "Sunday Islands: New Zealand, Tahiti, Australia," Truman provides 
his impressions of Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti, impressions of 
the South Pacific in visits from 1994 to 2000.

The book is more than just a travel journal. Truman did exhaustive 
research on the "Sunday Islands." His accounts of their histories 
as well as the impressions of other writers, such as Mark Twain, 
Zane Grey and Paul Theroux provide additional commentary, and often 
conflicting points of view from the author’s perceptions.

Truman is not the stereotypical "ugly American" on his journeys. 
He never loses the awareness that he is a guest in other peoples’ 
homelands and demonstrates respect for their customs, even if those 
customs are totally foreign to Americans. He also shows his sense 
of humor in recounting his own foibles, such as his first turn behind 
the steering wheel when he drove a Ford Taurus "onto what seemed like 
the wrong side of a busy downtown street."

"The Auckland bloke, who elected to tailgate me at this point, will 
recount tales of near catastrophe to his grandchildren," Truman writes. 
"In this Land of Extreme Sports, driving a car on the left side of the 
road was the most extreme sport in which I participated."

Then, there was his first attempt to use an outrigger canoe and learns 
it’s not as simple as it appears.

Even when playing the tourist, Truman remains the traveler. While most 
tourists going out on a fishing excursion would concentrate on landing 
a big one, Truman takes time to get to know the boat’s captain, learning 
more about the country and its people in just a few hours of conversation 
than anyone could learn from reading thousands of travel brochures.

Throughout his journey, Truman remains a keen observer of people and places. 

A trip to Inferno Crater inspired him to write: "Hot fumaroles. A running 
stream with smoky mist rising above it. Gargantuan ferns, everywhere the 
scent of the earth’s essence."

Thanks to Truman’s narrative, which flows like poetry, and his descriptions 
of the peoples and places, we are more than readers of his travel journal, 
we are his friends accompanying him on his journey.

"Sunday Islands: New Zealand, Tahiti, Australia" is available through 
Amazon.com. 

written by FSBVG member Don Cooper.