Where the Pavement Ends: One Woman's Bicycle Trip through Mongolia, China, & Vietnam

Living in Seattle and failing to make her mark as an actress, Erika Warmbrunn decides to chuck it all and go traveling. Her resulting novel, Where the Pavement Ends, is an absorbing account of her ambitious eight-month solo bicycle trip through the countries of Mongolia, China, and Vietnam. While Warmbrunn's accounts of the travails of traveling in far-off lands doesn't necessarily break new ground, she writes with humor and candor. If you have even a twinge of wanderlust, you'll appreciate this book. Her adventure begins in Mongolia, where she cycles past curious onlookers in dusty towns with names like Khatgal and Moron. Abandoning her set-in-stone itinerary, she spends a memorable month in the village of Ashaant teaching English to schoolchildren and living in a traditional ger (tent). In China she braves the cold and nerve-racking interrogation but is awed by the Great Wall and intrigued by fellow backpackers' tales, told over noodles and beer. By the time she reaches Vietnam, with the frenetic Saigon and its ever-present reminders of the war, she is psychically and emotionally spent. Four thousand miles is a long way to go--even when it's a journey in search of self. --Jill Fergus