I was no longer troubled when he pulled out a machete in a crowded bar, tried to pick up schoolgirls, or threatened to scalp us, then rip off our heads and scoop out our brains.

Usually, there is nothing more pleasing that returning to a place where you have endured hardship.

Normally I would have been the first to go in search of cannibal monks, particularly as I had heard of a similar tradition at a nunnery in the Philippines. It’s the sort of quest I...

In Morocco,” said Osman, “word spreads like a fire tearing through the depths of Hell.

A cross between a foreign legion boot-camp and a secret-society initiation ritual, the ordeals were grounded in pain. One thing was obvious: the agenda, which was dedicated to grave discomfort, had been drawn up by...

A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation

Stories are a communal currency of humanity.

The backstreet cafe in Casablanca was for me a place of mystery, a place with a soul, a place with danger. There was a sense that the safety nets had been cut away, that each...

Believe, and what was impossible becomes possible what at first was hidden becomes visible.

Real travel is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you’re home. It’s about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pining to be somewhere else. Those are the...

Spend sixteen weeks in the jungle and you being to question your own sanity, especially when you are the one goading everyone else ahead.

Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship.

In the world of the Machiguenga, sadness could be equated with anger, and anger was a perilous emotion, by which a foreigner could lose his life.

The idea of my heart dancing with delight was far too good to pass up.

There are two ways to find a lost city. The first is to rely on luck alone, the second is to control all the information.

These days no one challenges us,’ he said. ‘And because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we have all become lazy.

Close your senses and the imagination comes alive. It’s inside us al, dulled by endless television reruns and by a society that reins in fantasy as something not to be trusted, something to be purged....

Calcutta’s the only city I know where you are actively encouraged to stop strangers at random for a quick chat.

My father never told us how the stories worked. He didn’t reveal the layers, the nuggets of information, the fragments of truth and fantasy. He didn’t need to — because, given the right conditions, the...

An intelligent enemy,’ he would say, stroking his beard as if it were a bristly pet, ‘rather than a foolish friend.’ Or, ‘He learnt the language of pigeons, and forgot his own.’ Or, the favourite...

We had the kind of conversations that only great friends can ever share. They were touched with magic.

I struggled to think pure thoughts, as Hector sucked out my psyche with his eyes.

There’s nothing quite like a good quest for getting your blood pumping.

None of them seemed to mind sliding around in the faeces and choking in the smoke. They were determined not to miss the opportunity of watching a foreigner make a fool of himself.