Travellers' ChecksCoffee culture around the world: Lonely Planet takes an in-depth look at the cup of joe

Coffee, much like beer, is made well all over the world. From the back­streets of Barcelona and the cafes of Cairo to the convenience stores of Kagoshima, the weary traveller can usually find a decent cup.

Missed adventures – how backpacker favourite Herman Hesse never made it to India

Contrary to popular belief, German writer Hermann Hesse never visited India, the land that inspired one of the future Nobel laureate’s most famous works, Siddhartha (1922). He attempted to do so – and later claimed to have succeeded – but his three-month Asian cruise at the end of 1911 took him only from the Italian port of Genoa to what are now known as Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

Dysentery curtailed his voyage, and he slowly returned by his outward route, cancelling a planned visit to India, where his parents and grandparents had once been Christian missionaries. Hesse’s account of his only Asian travels, first published in Germany in 1913 as Aus Indien, is now available in English (for the first time, according to Shambhala Publications) as Singapore Dream and Other Adventures: Travel Writings from an Asian Journey.

Although he did venture out among the local population, Hesse’s travels were not of the ascetic kind that have long inspired masses of Siddhartha-quoting backpackers to go East in search of enlightenment on a dollar a day. He stayed in some of the best hotels, and delighted in being pulled in a rickshaw: “There’s nothing more lovely than going for a ride in Singapore when the weather is good,” he declared. “You call for a rickshaw, you take your seat inside, and from that point on, besides the usual view, you have the calming sight of the coolie who’s pulling you, his back bouncing up and down to the cadence of his swaying trot.”