Sayyid Tahir al-Hashimi Quotes
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The desert was bad, but nothing could compare with the horrors of a tropical rain forest.
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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.
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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.
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In India an explanation is often more confusing than what prompted it.
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There can be few situations more fearful than breaking down in darkness on the highway leading to Casablanca. I have rarely felt quite so vulnerable or alone.
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Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.
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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.
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One senses that, in these conditions, no amount of wet-wiping could bring true hygiene.
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A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you.
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Believe, and what was impossible becomes possible what at first was hidden becomes visible.
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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.
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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 so straightforward about prostitution.
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The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together.
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For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.
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Calcutta's the only city I know where you are actively encouraged to stop strangers at random for a quick chat.
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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.
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There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.
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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.
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Spend sixteen weeks in the jungle and you being to question your own sanity, especially when you are the one goading everyone else ahead.
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With an enthusiastic team you can achieve almost anything.
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The Occident has never found it easy to grasp the strange netherworld of spirits that followers of Islam universally believe exist in a realm overlaid our own.
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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 moments of true value. You feel half proud of them and half ashamed and you hold them to your heart.
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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.
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For my father there was no sharper way to understand a country than by listening to its stories.