I gotta drag out some bits of an old post I did because the book I posted about – Phaic Tan is now out in the US. Before, I think it was only available in the UK and Australia. I’d gotten my hands on a copy of one of the earlier books called Molvania, the first in the mock-guide book series by a company called jetlag travel. I posted about it a while ago, expressing my enthusiastic regard for the idea.
Well, Phaic Tan ups the ante with a hilarious take on the whole exotic island motif. The country of Phaic Tan is said to be “an overwhelming explosion of sights, sounds, tastes, smells and strange colonic movements,” where “traffic police wear face masks but surgeons rarely do”.
Very clever, and that’s just the start.
There are also photos and clever little hotel recommendations, etc. For food, authors make up dishes in the “cuisine section”, and mention one particular dish called Nergak, which the book says “is a spicy fish sauce widely added to food throughout Phaic Tan. It is made at a massive processing plant in Pattaponga, one of the biggest factories in Asia, said to be the only man-made structure that can be smelt from the moon.”
This is one of those concepts I really wish I’d thought of.