Noodle Trails by Eileen Kay                                                                                    A Book Review

I was fortunate enough to receive a copy of Noodle Trails from The Book Club on facebook in exchange for a fair and honest review – all opinions are my own and not sponsored.

Eileen sets off for her regular annual travels with Thailand firmly in her sights, only this year the circumstances feel different.  In the past she has visited foreign parts under her business guise of Eileen’s Imports indulging in her passion to work with small producers of Fair Trade goods.  These trips took her to Nepal, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Africa and always her favourite, Thailand.  However this trip came as a long term relationship was ended suddenly and out of the blue by her partner, and also as Eileen was having to accept that her once thriving business was no longer profitable.  The change in the economy meant that the goods that she imported from small groups of, often, women working on the poverty line, were no longer in demand from the struggling shops & traders of the UK.  But the trip has already been booked, and maybe it will provide a time of both grieving and healing for these two great losses in her life, before she can move on to a new life in Scotland.

As a blogger, I was keen to read this journal and experience blog posts brought together in a book.  The disclaimer at the beginning does state that whilst the book is based upon real events, many have been dramatized and some is fiction.  I have never been to Thailand, or in fact any of the countries that Eileen describes, but she transported me there with wonderful descriptions of the scenery, the people and the infrastructure.  But my favourite descriptions were of the food!  Every place that she stayed in was rated by the local food – not the food served up to the tourists, but that served in a local lady’s front room or café where the residents would eat.  The aromas and tastes conjured up by Eileen’s writing made me salivate for noodles and ginger and chilli!

I learnt so much about Fair Trade – and Eileen’s guilt at letting down her contacts in villages in the middle of nowhere when she was unable to place an order this year.  Small orders from western businesses could keep a whole village in work and food for months at a time.  But I also laughed out loud at the descriptions of the family from whom she rented her final bungalow – the mixture of Italians and Thais was lovely, and I really hope that these lovely people were real and not fictional!  I enjoyed this so much that I have found Eileen’s blog and her facebook page (www.facebook.com/Noodle-Trails-Eileen-Kay) and continue to follow her as she writes another book, learns Thai and I believe continues to wander Thailand.

I rate this book 4 stars.