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Tattoo – Journeys on my Mind by Tina Marie L Lamb: book review




Tattoo – Journeys on my Mind (2013) is a collection of stories about the author’s travels – in her home country of America and abroad – presumably on her own, as companions are not mentioned. 

Lamb, from New England, begins her stories with a canoe trip in South Carolina, with accommodation in a tree house. Other trips around America include Vermont for a winter retreat; dog-sledding in Minnesota; Wisconsin; Alaska; camping in Utah; Colorado; caving in New York State; and New Mexico. 

Travelling abroad, Lamb writes about southern Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana); Egypt; northern India and Nepal; South America (Belize and Guatamala); Thailand; Japan; Vietnam; Kenya and Tanzania; southern India; France; China; Australia; and Eastern Europe (Austria, Russia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and the Czech Republic).

Of Australia, Lamb writes of her three weeks in the Outback, and her arrival during the annual migration of the Bogong Moth – but she didn’t know it was an annual migration, nor their name, which she called the ‘brown moth.’ I found this section to be ‘dumb’ writing. 

Few dates are mentioned, and months are never mentioned: she was in Thailand in 1996, and China in 2000. She visited Vietnam during the Year of the Horse, which could be in 1990, 2002, or 2014. If it was 2014, I was there in the same year.

As Lamb states, she is not looking to be particularly adventurous, nor ambitious in her travels: "How fortunate I am to live in a time and place where an ordinary person like me can act on her wanderlust! I'm not looking for someplace better. I'm just looking." 

The chapters are very short, and probably not in chronological order, because she is wearing an Australian hat in Japan before she writes about her journey to Australia. 

This is not an in-depth travelogue and I did not agree with her perceptions of many places. It is an eclectic mix of travel stories to places, near and far, that give readers a quick introductory glimpse of locations, people, sights, and perceptions. Having travelled extensively around the world, I preferred Lamb’s stories about the American states - her homeland - the most. 






MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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