Sukhothai - Religious Enlightenment

Back to School

Now I've thought long and hard about this and I am sorry to say, oh patient reader, that I really can't find a way around it. Therefore, it is with much trepidation that I begin this post with a brief history lesson. Now don't immediately skip the next couple of paragraphs, this stuff is important I assure you. I promise I won't put in too many dates and names so sit tight and it'll all be over before you know it.
So, before Thailand was Thailand it was known as Siam, until 1939 when it officially changed it's English name. Before that it was a collection of city states centering around a localised power and before that it was simply a collection of regional empires. Now the era we're interested in is the 13th century when the regional empires were declining and the city states were coming into full force.
After the Lanna kingdom centred around Chiang Mai (more on this later) the rising star of Thailand was Sukhothai. Encompassing most of northern Thailand, some of northern Laos and parts of southern Burma Sukhothai, meaning "Rising of Happiness" is considered to be the first true Thai kingdom and marked a new period of cultural awakening. Ayuthaya, just north of Bangkok, rose to power and absorbed the Sukhothai state. It acted as the capital when Siam first opened up to western trade, until it was flattened in a Burmese invasion.
Today Sukhothai and Ayuthaya are among the most popular tourist sites in Thailand. Both ruined cities boast beautiful temple complexes and a hushed and still atmosphere of awe reminiscent of the power of a bygone age.
On our slightly swift tour of northern Thailand however Theo and I ignored all this potent historic significance and did what any discerning traveller would do when facing a difficult choice. We googled it and went with the prettiest.

Rising of Happiness

It was a beautiful day when we set out for Sukhothai, only an hours bus ride from Phitsanulok. Equal parts sun and cloud the odd rainstorm broke the heat. The first thing that struck us on arrival was the quiet. For a major tourist attraction it was dead. We were dropped off by the eastern entrance of the old city wall that surrounds the ruined temples and the only people in sight were the owners of the numerous food stalls and a friendly man from the bike shop who immediately pounced on us brandishing a map.
He told us we needed to head north to get tickets from the information kiosk. He also recommended we rent two of his bicycles because it was quite far. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we thought, sure it is. We're too street smart and wise to fall for that scam. We headed north, down quiet grass-lined paths, through the section of the north wall, past a vast lake and a herd of cows. We were hot and cranky and sticky after a good fifteen minutes of walking when we conceeded that yes it was far, and perhaps bikes would have been a good idea.
Our minds were made up when we eventually found the information centre. We wandered past several empty rooms and a strange series of covered porches before we found a woman, sat with her feet up, and an enormous map. She told us, in broken English, that we couldn't buy tickets there, we would need to go to the west side of the wall.
So the cunning bicycle man won in the end. With a grin he welcomed us back and ushered us over to the desk where could sign our names and pay our baht. When we were done we were presented with our bikes. What could make a scenic bike ride around ruined ancient temples better than old-fashioned style his and hers bicycles? With Theo on blue and me elegantly mounted (after a minor shorts ripping incident) on pink we set off.

Wat Saphan Hin - Sukhothai

We meandered peacefully through long silent halls of pillars and half-ruined walls of stone. Faceless Buddhas raised their weather-beaten palms in salutation. Dilapidated wats sat in the centre of mirror like ponds and only a few people trundled here and there, their voices lost in the wide openness of it all.
Leaving the complex we cycles north on a somewhat circuitous route (Theo lost the map, he maintains I lost the map, don't listen to him it's all lies) and found the "Big Buddha". Caught in a rainstorm we grumbled that this Buddha better live up to his title or we would be extremely displeased. We were not disappointed. Boy was that Buddha big. Crammed in between rising stone walls he sits in the classic position, one hand resting in his lap, the other with long, elegant fingers draped over his knee to the floor.

Phra Achana, Wat Si Chum - Sukhothai

The size of some of the Buddhas we've seen is a testament to the force of the devotion prevalent in this country. It is unfathomable how they moved them let alone devised the making of them. We've seen vast gilt wats, quiet functional wats and ruined wats. All have been totally different; a different atmosphere and a different purpose. I've seen people make their daily offering to Buddha, a bus driver offered up prayers while he waited for his passengers, flowers and food and gifts of every kind adorn shrines in every possible location. One thing we've learnt since we've been here, this country is serious about its religion.

Phitsanulok - Just Passing Through

The Long and Winding Road

As my narrative reaches the first part of our overland journey let me tell you a little bit about Thai transport. For us wealthy westerners second class train journeys are very pleasant. The carriages have air-con, the seats are padded and fold back and have convenient tables and a smartly dressed lady marches up and down the aisle bringing you food and drink. The buses, for the most part, aren't much worse. The whole thing has air-con and often tinted windows and the seats lie back and have nifty cup holders.
Inner city travel is just as exclusive, plush air-conned taxis are available or of course the infamous tuk-tuk. These are three wheeled vehicles with a driver seat in the middle and the front and one or two two-seater benches in the back, complete with canopy and fairy lights.
For the local Thai, who could earn anything up from the minimum wage of six pounds (ish) a day, the aforementioned standard of travel is just too expensive. Third class trains look more like the local trains you see in cities at home, with long bench seats facing each other in fours. They are often padded, but some are just simple wood and you tend to get stuck to the padded ones anyway. There is no air-con so all the windows and the doors separating the carriages (the walkway is a narrow metal bridge with a rail) are thrown open. It's very pleasant to go rushing along with the scenery gliding past, but the noise of the train is deafening. There is no smart lady with drinks here but every few stops (and there are thousands!) a new lady gets on with a wide wicker hat and a huge banana leaf lined basket of goodies or an ice bucket of drinks. The buses are much the same, they fly past with every seat occupied and the windows and door wide open. Passengers loll about, bouncing up and down on the seats, buffeted by the breeze.
For longer distance road travel it is not uncommon to see a large pickup truck, with high metal bars all around the back, crammed full with fifteen or so windswept people standing in the back. Some of these with seats are used to take children home from school, with a runner at the back for the excess boys to stand on.
Within towns the locals use, as everyone who has even seen a picture of Thailand knows, the motorbike. But when they're not dicing with death in the frantic roads (old and young alike) they use sorng taa-ous. These are a distant cousin of the tuk-tuk, converted from small pickup trucks they still have the cab up front but have a covered, two benched passenger section in the back. They shoot around town picking up and dropping off as many people as they can in no logical order.

All Aboard

So, there we were at Hua Lumphong station, ready for our first ever Thai train journey. The station was a great place to people watch. All walks of life, westerners, monks, poor people, rich people, fruit sellers and officials, they all converged on the platforms, waiting for trains.
A monk came up and tried to sell me some Jason Statham DVDs, but the man behind me turned around and warned me off. "Monk no good," he said, "monk bad." There's another ex-fan, disappointed by Transporter 3.
The most incredible thing to watch was the workers at the station washing the trains. While they were still pulling in to the platforms they swarmed all over them like ants, changing destination placards, mopping the sides and jumping on and off to clean inside.
On board Theo was bitterly disappointed not to be travelling third class, that was, until they brought out the free food. The only real incident of note on our eight hour journey was my first encounter with a squat toilet. Outside the air-conned carriage it was needless to say a little fruity when I found it, a couple of hours in. The hole that leads on to the track is disconcerting to say the least. It was not altogether an enjoyable experience. My advice is, do it or don't. Man up and wade in or forget it. To go in half arsed (excuse the pun) especially on a moving train is a fatal error and a failure to adopt the correct full squatting position is disastrous. There that's all I'll say, lets move on.

Just Passing Through

We arrived in Phitsanulok, about 250 miles north of Bangkok, late which, as we would discover, is fairly standard. Phitsanulok is a fairly uninteresting town, destroyed by fire in the fifties and rebuilt with little flair its only draw was that it lay nicely in out path to the historic town of Sukhothai. More on that later.
In the late afternoon Phitsanulok, about 250 miles north of Bangkok, felt quiet and suburban. The streets are lined with school children playing games and adults of all ages jogging or working out on the road side gym equipment on "Healthy Street". We passed a circle of old men playing one of the most athletic games of haki-sack I have ever seen. The trees were alive in the dusk with the sound of flocks of birds.
Late in the evening Phitsanulok feels like an entirely different place. There were motorbikes absolutely everywhere, weaving in and out between the huge 4x4s that seem to be this country's car of choice. Everything seemed alight and buzzing and the pulsating heart of all this activity are the night bazaar and the market.
We of course made straight for the night market, which specialises in food. Walking up and down the rows of stalls we bought a little of everything that looked good. We had grilled corn on the cob, chicken skewers, strange crispy pancakes with something like melted marshmallow in the middle, soft pancakes containing Thai custard (like normal custard but bright green) and more Pad Thai. One stall laid out pic 'n' mix sushi while another sole deep fried insects.
The food almost improved on what we had in Bangkok, the same delicious flavours, but  more authentic, not jazzed up or cooled down for the tourists. That, and the peaceful functional temples that serve as the towns main tourist attractions are what make this town ever so slightly more than somewhere that was just on our way.

Bangkok - I'm a real backpacker!

No matter how my travel blog turned out I always promised myself one thing, that I would never write it retrospectively. I don't want to write my impressions of these countries tempered with hindsight, and so with the memories of our first week already fading and losing focus it's high time I started to document them.

First let me introduce you to my traveling companion, and to paint the scene of my writing for you. When I find a computer with a memory card slot I will add a picture of Theo with his first Asian breakfast, it's very happy to see him. Theo joins me on this trip not only as my personal bodyguard (because of his impressive physique) but also as my financial adviser, tour guide and blog editor. So any errors you spot here are entirely his fault.

Culture Shock

So far on our epic two and a half month trip we have made it as far as Northern Thailand, we sit in the bar of our hotel drinking beer Chang, wilting from the heat and being periodically attacked by the mosquitoes and a murderous wasp. That's the first thing that really hits you when you step out of the airport, not the murderous wasp, the heat. Of course you know it's going to be hot, people warn you about the culture shock, the heat and the noise, but nothing can really prepare you for being hit in the face by a solid wall of heat. Suddenly every movement, every decision takes twice as much effort as it did before.

In the taxi into Bangkok we sat in silence for the whole forty minute journey, staring blankly out the window.

Bangkok looks like it has suddenly boomed into the 21st century, but the area we stayed in, Banglamphu, hasn't quite perfected it yet. There are too many people in too little space and the result in chaos.

The air is thick with the smell of pollution and the other odors of the street, all made worse by the heat. Along with hot drains and hot bodies there are the sweet aromas of ripe fruit and cooking. There is always something being boiled or fried by one of the street vendors.

Khao San Road

Over crammed shops spill out on to the pavement. A street of religious shops is lined with huge golden Buddhas and the shops themselves are piled top to bottom with colourful trinkets and bells, as well as strange buckets of essentials that look like survival kits that are apparently gift sets for monks. One man's shop was filled with random machine parts, rags and grease. It was stacked so high that he sat outside on the pavement aimlessly tinkering with a motor part.

Our first room really put us in the heart of the action. A stone's throw from Khao San road and surrounded by bars we were at the centre of backpacker territory. Our window opened on to a communal balcony that looked right out on to the street, bustling with tuk-tuks and taxis, and our air-con free room came complete with Apocalypse Now style ceiling fan.

I say our window opened on to the balcony, fell on to the balcony would be more accurate. In fact it was only the slide across mosquito net protecting us from anyone who happened to stroll out on to the balcony. Late one night, while we were lying awake listening to the soothing off key wailing of the band in the club across the road, so loud that it made the door shake, two obscenely drunk Scotsmen crashed on to the balcony and proceeded to smoke and shout almost totally unintelligibly about girls.

Our first stop in Bangkok was to check out the legendary Khao San road, Mecca for backpackers everywhere. By day it doesn't look like much, a quiet 300 yards of bars, t-shirt stands and over keen taxi drivers, at night however the transformation is incredible. All the bars jump forwards out of the shop fronts and rows of plastic chairs and tables line the street. Music blares, every sign is lit up (and there are hundreds of them) and made-up girls wave cheap drinks boards in your face. All over the road people hawk their goods, food, fake designer handbags and musical instruments that sound like frogs. On top of this, men constantly offer you tuk-tuk rides to ping pong shows and make revoltingly ominous popping noises.

Fooooooood

One of the best things about Bangkok is the food. From the moment we got there we started pigging out on the street food and by the end of our three nights we knew the best stalls. We mostly ate Pad Thai, the country's national dish, which is a simple combination of noodles, beansprouts, spring onion and some delicious combination of spices. Keen to avoid food poisoning in our first week we opted for the egg option over chicken or prawn and being more manly than I am Theo would smother his in chili.

Our second dish of choice was of course banana pancakes, or rottis. These are made from balls of rubbery, play-dough like stuff that the stall owner works into a big circle with their hands before frying in butter. While cooking they chop the fresh banana into the middle and fold the edges of the rotti over into a square before flipping. Once cooked it is drowned in chocolate sauce and condensed milk. Lose weight in Asia my foot. We ate on the plastic chairs set out by the smiley ladies working on the mobile stalls. It was amazing watching them standing over the boiling hot stalls in thirty degree heat, wearing considerably more clothes than we were. They cooked with both hands while still chatting on the phone.

What Wat?

On our third day we finally got around to doing some proper sight-seeing and walked down to Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace. Phra Kaew is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Bangkok. It consists of a huge temple complex, home to the Emerald Buddha, and the former residence of the Thai monarch. The place was rammed with package tourists. We were done up in thick sarongs and shirts so as not to offend Buddists making pilgrimage to the temple and I almost died from the heat. The temple was just as over whelming as the heat. The buildings were packed in together and everything was gilded and coloured and sparkling. Every inch was gaudy and ostentatious and blinded you with its brilliance. We walked through, shoving our way through tour groups, stumbled past the Grand Palace and made our escape.

Our next stop, Wat Pho, is a smaller cousin of Phra Kaew, and it couldn't be more different. Plants and waterfalls are mixed in with the spires and endless Buddha-lined courtyards to create something far more akin with my idea of a holy place. It was quiet and sacred, until we were terrified out of our reverie by some squabbling cats. Having heard the story of the woman struck by rabies before we left we've been on red alert animal wise. What that means is that every time we see a cat or dog (which is often) Theo shouts "Rabies!" and we make hissing noises/flee. So you can imagine our response when we heard a horrific yowling and two skinny, mangy cats shot through a narrow doorway straight at us. Theo backed up against the wall and I was almost halfway up a pillar, both of us screaming "AARRRRR! RABIES!"

Once we had calmed down we went to see the main attraction of Wat Pho, the reclining Buddha. Now you can tell your brain that what you're about to see is a golden Buddha, 46m long and 15m high, but that still won't stop it making your face do goldfish impressions when you actually do.

Reclining as he enters Nirvana this Buddha barely fits in the temple, which surely must have been built around him. He is absolutely vast and just a little awe inspiring, even when you're stood next to his toes. The soles of his feet are inlaid with mother of pearl scenes of, you've guessed it, more Buddhas.

An enormous coconut

Bangkok is a strange and confusing place. Amidst the over whelming Wats and the bustling, hot, noisy street markets there is virtually no time to breathe, and yet somehow you wander from place to place at your ease, riding in tuk-tuks or sitting in the shade and drinking the cool innards of an enormous coconut.

The author - Khao San Road

In a way it is easy to be disgusted by the Bangkok the tourists have created; the western music and the cheap, strong alcohol, not to mention the very un-Thai tiny clothes on sale. There is so much going on here that is just openly illegal; people sell fake IDs and diplomas in the street while one bar has its staff wear t-shirts that say "we don't check ID cards". Everywhere the locals make their livings by supplying the demands of the debauched westerners and yet there is so much to enjoy here too. The people here are always chatting and laughing while they work. They're easy going and helpful and will always stop to wave at a child staring with wonder at their stall. It may be a little bit disheartening to see how some tourists behave but all in all Bangkok is the best place to start an adventure, to start feeling like a real backpacker. 

Administrative Information - All Change!

Just a quick note to my avid readers (I'm sure those that read my blog will know this anyway) This blog is about to become, for the next two and a half months, a travel blog documenting my journey around Northern Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. My summer travels will be undertaken with my esteemed sidekick Theo, about whom I'm sure you will learn much. Thanks for reading, and keeping checking for lengthy but sporadic updates.
Emma

Avengers Assemble

Four arrogant, beefed-up men, one curvaceous woman, and an individual with severe anger management issues for comedy value. How could Avengers Assemble be anything other than a success? If you saw, and enjoyed, any one of the previous Marvel films (see Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America or, dare I say it, The Incredible Hulk) chances are you were eagerly awaiting the arrival of this comic book blockbuster. With so much at stake it was almost a sure thing that the big cheeses at Marvel Studios were going to let us down somehow, but after churning out some of the best films of the past four years it would seem Marvel have done the impossible. They have successfully produced the coolest, biggest, teenage-boy-arousing comic book film I have ever seen.
With so many huge, hammer-wielding, shield-throwing, general ass-kicking stars Avengers is the kind of film that could almost get away with having only a vague semblance of a plot but the story line concocted here is actually quite engaging. When Thor’s wayward brother Loki returns to Earth to dominate all life war is imminent, and with completely unequal weaponry Earth doesn’t stand a chance. It’s in this vein of desperation that Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D approaches our six heroes and enlists them as his personal response team. One by one they come in, bringing tight outfits, baggage and enormous egos with them. After a swift capture of the renegade Loki the team quickly descends into chaos, dragging up each others’ weaknesses and errors as they all quickly lose patience.
This is a heavily character focused film, and it’s in getting these right that Marvel Studios have hit on such success. These superheroes are not perfect. It’s enjoyable to watch Steve Rogers’s struggle to come to terms with the modern world, Thor’s guilt for the errors he made with his brother, Tony Stark’s general playboy arrogance and Natasha Romanoff’s exhaustion as she engages in a final battle that is really beyond her capabilities. It is in these human elements that these characters become likeable, and it makes their final acts of valour all the more awesome. Another great perk of believable heroes is humour that actually works. These are not predictable one-liners shoe-horned in between explosions, they are moments of sarcasm and wit that are genuinely funny and I hate to admit, almost clever.
One key point that Joss Whedon has got completely, one hundred percent right in this film is the balance of screen time. Avengers is not Iron Man and friends or three big names plus two more human tag-alongs and a big green guy. Everyone has their own elements of back-story and their own time to shine. In screen time this really does feel like a team movie, not just a badly weighted spin-off of a previously successful film, without going too far the other way and becoming a revamped X-Men.
Of course, it is not totally perfect. The ending of the film is, as you would imagine, way too convenient to be even remotely believable, though why after watching a half hour battle with the Chitauri (think Orcs from space) I’m not sure why I’m worrying about believability. In some ways Avengers strays into the realms of the ridiculous, I mean don’t get me wrong, if ever a film required suspension of disbelief it’s this one, but I do require some level of logic in my comic book heroes. The absurd science talk forced in to explain away Loki’s use of the Tesseract can quickly get dull, and seems more of a desperate ploy to explain why we’ve been chasing a blue cube around for one-and-a-half films. Meanwhile, the moments of emotion injected into a genre all about heroes and villains feel fairly stilted.
With all the hype that five previous successful films have to offer Avengers Assemble has done well to deliver. Engaging and entertaining this hero film is a refreshingly good watch after a succession of high fliers that fell flat (see Spiderman). My one piece of advice would be to swat up on previous Marvel films before heading down to the cinema, Thor and Captain America are certainly important to the plot and the whole spectacle comes off a little better if you’re already familiar with the characters. All in all this film is an explosive hit with classic one liners, explosions and end of the world peril. Don’t expect to be intellectually challenged but you’d be hard pushed to find a more satisfying guilty pleasure.

Thoughts for the Week

I am approximately 5 feet and 6 inches tall and weigh just under 147 pounds, giving me a body mass index that is closer to the top end of average. I wear size 10 to 12 clothes, well below the British average, and have a moderately good diet. Save for a few years in my late teens I have always felt confident in my own body. This I have recently realised is a rare commodity. Most of the young women I know are dangerously preoccupied with their weight. What started out as teenage fussiness is gradually morphing into damaging patterns of self-loathing, manifesting itself in vanity, lack of confidence and habitual self-inflicted starvation.
Take one person I know, only seventeen years old she is petit and pretty. This weekend she watched a television programme about calories and decided that in order to lose weight she needs to burn off twice as much as she is eating (only 280 calories every day). To save on lost time she denied herself food for the whole weekend and on Tuesday she became delirious and blacked out before making it in to work.
This is not an isolated incident. Over half of the young women I know skip breakfast, under the false assumption that they will lose weight by starving themselves until lunchtime. That means that on any given day in my place of work half of the women present, which could be half the work force, are functioning completely without sustenance and energy from eight in the morning until one in the afternoon. If that’s true of most workplaces it’s a miracle anything gets done before twelve.
I’ve known young, active women make it through the day on caffeine and a single biscuit before heading to the gym for a two-hour work out. Others binge one day and make up for it by eating nothing the next, or starve themselves for a whole day in preparation for an evening date. How is it that intelligent, educated women can be so completely clueless when it comes to the needs and care of their own bodies? No one would ever attempt to deny themselves water for days on end so why do they insist on denying themselves food?
This destructive relationship with food seems to come from years of indoctrination from adverts, films and trashy magazines. If someone completed a survey I’m sure they’d find some sort of correlation between the number of women’s magazines bought and the number of breakfasts eaten each month. Why does the media think it has the right to tell us normal, shapely, healthy women that we are not beautiful, we are not desirable and we will not under any circumstances be involved in a loving relationship if we go up a dress size? It’s this constant comparison to other women that is the problem. Growing up with a size 8 sister never exactly boosted my body confidence and the older you get the more forcefully ideal feminine shapes are forced upon you.
The main issue I have with constant dieting is the effect it has on our relationships. Pretty much all social situations seem to involve food and if you’re desperately trying not to eat then surely that is going to have an effect on your relationships with family, friends and partners. I know that most of the time my boyfriend and I spend together is structured around meal times. We love food. We go out to dinner, we make pancakes for breakfast, my housemate and her boyfriend smoked out the house burning chocolate when making a dessert, but you should have heard them laughing about it. I suppose we are lucky in having had long-term relationships during our formative years. We had love and affection that made us self-confident and easy in our own bodies, making it much easier to ignore the boyish figures of the celebrities constantly thrust in our faces. But I truly believe that feeling comfortable in your own skin starts with how you view yourself, not now others do.
Most of all I’d like to tell all the women I know that they’re my friends because they’re funny, because they’re intelligent and because I value their conversation and their opinions. I have fun with them and that’s not because they’ve got long blond hair and a waist smaller than my thigh. These young women I know are also incredibly beautiful and I can’t understand why they are unable to see it.

Status Anxiety

Do you worry about how well you’re doing? says the back of Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety. Are you envious of your friends’ success? To me the blurb sounded like a self-help book. The sort of thing that is supposed to give you ten easy steps to perfect happiness and felicity, covering everything from flimsy mantras to difficult yoga positions, but that’s not what Status Anxiety is about. What this book offers is a different perspective on life and a sensible reasoned way of achieving it. It finds a different way of looking at your status in society.
Chapter by chapter what this book tells you is that high status and the paraphernalia of success are not only incapable of making you happy but are luxuries enjoyed only by the few. From birth we are spoon fed the ideals that one day we will have a successful job, an ideal partner and all the respect and deference that we deserve. However, not only is out career success empty, it is also perilous, as most of us live in a state of dependence on those who employ us, and they in turn rely on the demand of the market. Realistically there are few people for whom these high expectations ever come true and it is this, combined with a lack of genuine love and a deep-rooted loneliness, which makes us truly miserable.
One of the causes of anxiety, de Botton says, is our meritocratic society. Though commendable in its premise the meritocratic society, while allowing the able to succeed, brings with it the implication that those who do not succeed are inept. This assumption, and the subsequent disdain by the successful for the poor, leads many in difficult circumstances to believe themselves to be deserving of their low status. This revelation is a real wake up call for those who believe that our society promotes equality. In reality we are a far cry from living in a state where social mobility is possible.
With the problem established the second half of the book looks at the ways of combating status anxiety, covering everything from bohemia to Christianity, and it is this section of the book that really strikes at brilliance. De Botton’s analysis of art, politics and a disdainful bohemian lifestyle not only serves to ridicule the snobbery of the “successful” but also highlights that there is more to life than conforming to the commonly held ideas of status. Success is not necessarily synonymous with happiness and high status in society does not equate to morality and godliness.
Using insightful political and social examples from history across the world de Botton successfully offers a new view without padding out the information with empty phrases and vapid self-help ideas. More than this de Botton’s book is a truly refreshing look at the world of success. In a time when people are struggling to reach the goals they have set for themselves it’s time to take a step back and really re-evaluate what is truly important. De Botton totally undercuts our society’s preoccupation with wealth and possessions, revealing its transient characteristics. To read this book is not to be lost in hard psychological theory or political debate, it is to hear someone talking sense and to gain a new outlook on the goals we set for ourselves and the hand that life has dealt us.