There is nothing like a train journey for reflection.

Real terror is a crippling experience. You sweat so much that your skin goes all wrinkly like when you’ve been in the bath all afternoon. And then the scent of your sweat changes. It smells...

In some peculiar way, indeed, the rules were now beginning to seem quite logical. It was then I knew that I had been in India long enough.

My journey to the land of the Shuar tribe had taught me the importance of practical gifts.

Because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we all have become lazy. Lazy people are like cancer. They spread. Before you know it,...

Experience has taught me the power of trophies. You may have every knick-knack and useless contraption ever devised, but while they weigh you down, a simple trophy can go a long, long way.

Foras Road has a sordid reputation (…) Old crones sat in doorways, while their daughters were pushed out to earn money. It is intriguing that a society which is very covert with sexuality should be...

A man who embarks on a journey must know when to end it.

The pursuit of illusion is not about studying for prizes, or for study’s sake. There’s no right or wrong, no pass or fail.

Stories are not like the real world; they aren’t held back by what we know is false or true. What’s important is how a story makes you feel inside.

Previous experience had taught me that any expedition marches on its stomach.

Searching for a lost city is a particularly European obsession.

At the last moment, the fish and I exchange a troubled glance. The murrel seems to be demanding an explanation. Alas, I am in no position to start justifying the unusual treatment. What comes next...

When I am about to embark on a difficult journey, I comfort myself by reading the accounts of the great nineteenth-century travellers, men like Stanley, Burton, Speke, Burckhardt and Barth.

I believe that Marrakech ought to be earned as a destination. The journey is the preparation for the experience. Reaching it too fast derides it, makes it a little less easy to understand.

The ability to tell a good route from a terrible one is a valuable skill when leading an expedition. Unfortunately for us all, it was a skill I did not possess.

The taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways.

Money spent on good-quality gear is always money well spent.

Back at the Chateau Windsor there was a rat-like scratching at the door of my room. Vinod, the youngest servant, came in with a soda water. He placed it next to the bag of toffees....

Most journeys have a clear beginning, but on some the ending is less well-defined. The question is, at what point do you bite your lip and head for home?

My father looked on in disbelief, overwhelmed that his son had been taught to eat glass and relish it.

My father used to tell me that stories offer the listener a chance to escape but, more importantly, he said, they provide people with a chance to maximize their minds. Suspend ordinary constraints, allow the...

The porters could always be coaxed to continue a little further through driving rain by the mere suggestion of a Pot Noodle at the end.

As the head of an expedition, you can’t pussyfoot around being polite to everyone. You have to show your teeth once in a while; a little growling goes a long way.

Prideep pointed to the flames of paraffin lamps as they came alive in the distance and cackled in awe at the experience. (…) I was to discover that making tasty soup with one carrot, ten...

For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.

There’s nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.

Ours was not going to be a clone of the usual expeditions, oozing with sleekness. It was clear from the start that oddity was our advantage.

I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas.

Osman and Prideep had been in my employment for some weeks. Every Friday I would take the to lunch. It was the high point of their calender. During the meal I would harangue them as...

Inscribed on it was a verse from the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, the eleventh-century Persian mystic. Reading the words aloud I prepared for a most amazing journey:The sages who have compassed sea and land,Their secret...

The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together.

The forest did not tolerate frailty of body or mind. Show your weakness, and it would consume you without hesitation.

Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood. With such a book...

If hot food is they key to maintaining an expedition’s stamina, then low grade gut-rot alcohol is the key to sustaining its sense of pleasure.

The quest for a lost city erodes your body, damaging you beyond all reason. But it is your mind that bears the heaviest toll. Listen to the doubters, the worriers and the weak, and the...

In India everything has a use and a value.

For me, nature is something you watch on the Discovery Channel, or on the evening news — as you learn how much more of it’s been savaged to make way for the Blackberry realm that...

As anyone who’s ever taken an Ethiopian bus knows, there is an unwritten rule that the windows must remain firmly closed.

Back at the guest house I tried to acclimatise. A travel-worn adventurer had once told me that leaning with one’s head dangling over the end of a bed was the best way to achieve this....

The only thing they valued higher than ammunition were Man United footballs.

[T]hrough bitter experience I have learned that it is best to promise little and then to reward hard work with generosity.

The ancient paused for a moment, as if his strength were failing. Yet I sensed that there was more to tell. Looking deep into my eyes, he whispered: ‘The Gond kingdoms have fallen, their people...

Previous journeys had taught me the danger of taking too much stuff.

In any case, a little danger is a small price to pay for ridding a place of tourists.

There comes a stage at which a man would rather die cleanly by a bullet than by the unknown terror of the phantom in the forest.

Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things.

Exploration is a dirty game.

Bombay is a city where gossip is treated as a commodity.

There is nothing quite as unpleasant as wearing a pair of briefs which have been trailed through a Calcutta courtyard. Nothing, that is, except having one’s elbows and knees lacerated by unseen slivers of glass...