Tahir Shah
Where does one go in a tremendous city like Calcutta to find insider information? I recalled India's golden rule: do the opposite of what would be normal anywhere else.Collection: Travel
One senses that, in these conditions, no amount of wet-wiping could bring true hygiene.Collection: Travel
I was becoming addicted to Bombay. There was squalor and poverty, but I had begun to realise my good fortune and would never again forget it.Collection: Travel
In moments of great uncertainty on my travels, I have always felt that something is protecting me, that i will come to no harm.Collection: Moments
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.Collection: Travel
Close your senses and the imagination comes alive. It's inside us all, dulled by endless television reruns and by a society that reins in fantasy as something not to be trusted, something to be purged. But it's in there, deep inside, a spark waiting to set a touch-paper alight.Collection: Imagination
Lured by the wilderness, and by the chance of spotting rare desert elephants, a few intrepid tourists make their way to the Skeleton Coast each year. It's just about as remote as any tourist destination on earth, but one that pays fabulous dividends.Collection: Skeletons
Settling into a new country is like getting used to a new pair of shoes. At first they pinch a little, but you like the way they look, so you carry on. The longer you have them, the more comfortable they become. Until one day without realizing it you reach a glorious plateau. Wearing those shoes is like wearing no shoes at all. The more scuffed they get, the more you love them and the more you can't imagine life without them.Collection: Country
Buy a house in a foreign country and, it seems, that anything which can go wrong usually does.Collection: Country
On a hard jungle journey nothing is so important as having a team you can trust.Collection: Team
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.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Hard Work
Previous journeys had taught me the danger of taking too much stuff.Collection: Journey
It is almost impossible to overemphasize the importance with which ancestry is held in the Middle East and North Africa.Collection: Ancestry
For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.Collection: Travel
Through bitter experience I have learned that it is best to promise little and then to reward hard work with generosity.Collection: Hard Work
The inertia of a jungle village is a dangerous thing. Before you know it your whole life has slipped by and you are still waiting there.Collection: Waiting
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 and discarded razor blades.Collection: Glasses
The model of publishing is changing and its happening right now, but most publishers are so frightened, they just dont know how to embrace it.Collection: Embrace
Usually, there is nothing more pleasing that returning to a place where you have endured hardship.Collection: Travel
In Morocco, before you even get to the matter of the sale, you have to coax the owner to sell.Collection: Matter
On a harsh expedition, there's no space for anyone who does not intend to finish.Collection: Travel
Visit Cape Town and history is never far from your grasp. It lingers in the air, a scent on the breezy, an explanation of circumstance that shaped the Rainbow People. Stroll around the old downtown and it's impossible not to be affected by the trials and tribulations of the struggle. But, in many ways, it is the sense of triumph in the face of such adversity that makes the experience all the more poignant.Collection: Struggle