Review | Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

#QOTD – Do you have any funny travel memories?

While I was in Oxford for my post graduation, one of my friends from India, had visited me, and I thought of showing him around. So one of the days we walked through the City Centre, slurped on these delicious chicken wings served by this street food vendor who used to sit by the Old Fire Station, and walked back through the 50 acres of South Park.

My friend was quiet for most of the walk. I took him to the park’s highest point, from where a stunning view of the City Centre with its historic spires and towers of Oxford University can be obtained. We reached there, looked at the view, and guess what he told me. Nope! He didn’t say this was nothing he had seen before. He asked me whether there was a bathroom nearby because he cannot stop the pressure with which nature has been calling. Can you imagine? I abused him first and then took him to my University which was just round the corner.

After all these years, I still abuse him and we laugh our hearts out with this memory.

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome is a hysterical travelogue about three hypochondriac gentlemen namely J., George, Harris and their dog named Montmorency going for a two-week boating holiday on the Thames river from Kingston upon Thames to Oxford and back to Kingston. The book is a plotless narrative on all the comic anecdotes they encounter while traveling, like bad weather, unreliability of barometers, learning to play the Scottish pipes, and so on. It is packed with witty British humour that made me laugh through the entire book.

Absolutely recommended for anyone who wants to escape to the British countryside and have a good laugh!