The Best Travelers' Tales 2004 - Introduction

by Simon Winchester

It is a truth universally acknowledged (at least, it is in this trade) that the word travel comes from travail—work—and that travail stems in turn from the more ancient word tripalium—an instrument of Roman torture—and that this etymology all came about because it was long believed that to travel was to endure much, to work and to suffer. The notion that to wander meant also (if only upon reflection) to enjoy, to learn and to become spiritually uplifted, is really quite newfangled: only since the eighteenth century, and the invention of the Grand Tour, did those adventuring into the great outside seek pleasure and wonderment. And yet—to judge from much of modern travel literature—even that enlightened attitude was itself only a short-lived phenomenon: recent evidence suggests a much darker side to the very idea of venturing into the Beyond.

For it seems to me that in recent years a large proportion of those who have chiseled their reputations as travel writers wrote just as their counterparts of three centuries ago wrote—as though their trade was of necessity rooted in the reportage of endurance. It seemed that a substantial school of travel writers was in fact a rather miserable crew, that a kind of melancholia had settled on their writing, and that their attitude of stark misanthropy and endless accounts of their personal trials reflected a kind of bleakness about everywhere and everything. All of a sudden it seemed that the world, as seen by many of those whose profession took them to record its more distant corners, was singularly lacking in wonderment, and that it presented a joyless canvas on which were painted portraits of geographical and metaphysical unloveliness.

To me, this was all very sad, and puzzling. For all of my life, enthusiasm and fascination have dominated, and the wonders of the world have entirely enraptured me. The man who first suggested that I write—he is now a woman; but that’s quite another story—insisted repeatedly that the world was so brim-full of delights that it would and should be impossible for any aspirant belle-lettrist to ignore them all. To be sure, a life of foreign corresponding that has taken me to wars and famine and violent disasters and sufferings of one kind and another has left me a realist; but even if I suppress a panglossian romanticism to counter all of that, I still find myself more pleased to read about the pleasures of the planet than about its pains, and I still prefer the literature of redemption and reassurance than that contrived from the angst of those who, by and large during the last two or three decades, seem to have made their livings writing about the outside world.

I never really figured out just what lay behind it all, what produced this trend—and for a while I confess it so disturbed me that I decided to turn my back on the craft, and I spent some time writing about history rather more than I did about geography, and I found in doing so a kinder, gentler universe through which I might pleasantly trawl.

The essays that follow, however, have served at last—and to my great relief—to change my mind again. Here in these pages is wonder and delight writ large—and a series of affirmations of a magnificent world, written through prisms of experience that, page after page, reflect most nobly on humankind and the planet in which humanity exists. Some of the uplifting treasures are born of terrible pain—Alison Wright’s extraordinary account of her survival after her traffic accident in Laos being a prime example. Richard Sterling’s account of his journey on the rustbound relic of the Irrawaddy Steam Navigation reminds us poignantly of the hidden marvels of Burma. I adored Brad Newsham’s brief tale of the ministering angel of the eustachian universe, Mr.Mohammed Ali of New Delhi.

And I loved—well, just about everything that follows. This book will grace my bedside for years to come (alongside, if you want to know, Eleanor Wachtel’s Original Minds and Lord Wavell’s incomparable anthology, Other Men’s Flowers). For this volume now formally joins the pantheon: one of a series of good books by good people, valid and valuable for far longer than its authors and editors ever imagined. It is, specifically, an ideal antidote to the gloom with which other writers, and the daily and nightly news, have in recent years tried hard to persuade us the world is truly invested. Those other writers are in my view quite wrong in their take on the planet: this book is a vivid and delightful testament to just why the world is in essence a wondrously pleasing place, how its people are an inseparable part of its countless pleasures, and how travel is not so much hard work as wondrous fun—so long, of course dear Alison, as your bus stays upright, and on the road.


Simon Winchester studied geology at Oxford and has written for Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian, and National Geographic. He is the author of many bestsellers, including The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary, Krakatoa, The Map that Changed the World, The Professor and the Madman, and The Fracture Zone. He lives in Massachusetts and in the Western Isles of Scotland.


Publisher’s Preface

Not long ago, I went to a concert in my hometown which featured The Cool Crooners of Bulawayo, a singing group from Zimbabwe. Two songs into the performance I had a huge grin on my face that didn’t leave until I fell asleep that night. These four men, ranging in age from thirties to seventies, not only utterly charmed me with their voices, dancing, and spirit, they reminded me of everything I love about travel. They reminded me of a fantastic trip to Zimbabwe long before that country fell prey to the dark side of a dictator; they brought me back to the friendship of my companions on that trip; they reminded me of encounters with the mighty Zambezi River, and baboons and crocodiles and hippos and people with improbable names such as Reward and Memory and The Bloke with the Handcuffs. They gave me a taste of fear and illness and unreasonable soaring happiness, and the memory of my first-born daughter’s gift of a plastic bracelet to ward off dangers. They reminded me of dancing in a Harare disco to a thumping South African tune called “I Love You Africa,” which I did at that moment, fiercely, and still do.

The Crooners also reminded me that as much as we share a deep common humanity, some things we don’t, won’t, and can’t share—and this is a wonderful and beautiful thing. I will never, ever, be as cool as those guys from Bulawayo, but that is O.K., because they welcomed me to the well that is theirs, and I drank from it.

I first came to Africa through reading (and but for one of those quirks of family fortune, might have been born in Uganda). As a boy I read books of exploration and the fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and after I finally had the chance to go to Africa, I wanted to go again every year for the rest of my life. Of course, things didn’t work out that way and I’ve only managed a few trips—but reading has brought me back many, many times and will eventually propel me back physically to that place of unimaginable light and darkness.

For ten years now, at Travelers’ Tales, we’ve published books that I hope give readers the kind of inspiration those early books gave me, and that the Cool Crooners gave me anew—stories that ignite the urge for discovery, not just of places never visited, but of inner landscapes that are foreign, sometimes frightening, and of the many ways to enlightenment, love, and the fulfillment of purpose in life. That, at least, has been the hidden and not so hidden purpose in our books, whether it was our first, Travelers’ Tales Thailand, or The Road Within, or Food, or A Woman’s World, or Kite Strings of the Southern Cross, or The Way of the Wanderer, or The Royal Road to Romance. I like to think that even our books of humor and misadventure, such as Sand in My Bra and Hyenas Laughed at Me, will entice readers to explore, take chances, and in the process be changed.

For to grow as human beings, we must take risks and accept new challenges. Risk implies motion, and travel is the most obvious and direct way for us to engage in such motion. (While we’re waiting, saving up time or money or courage for a trip, reading about the journeys of others is not only The Next Best Thing, it is one of the best ways to prepare for a trip.) Of course, risk is a relative and widely misconstrued concept. We all “know,” for instance, that the odds of dying in a car crash close to home are greater than those of flying. We all know the chance of expiring from heart failure or cancer are greater than those of dying from rebel gunshots or the bite of a fer-de-lance. And yet many of us take awful and commonplace risks with health and safety close to home, eschewing the risks of foreign travel and denying ourselves the rewards.

This book celebrates not just ten years of publishing stories about those risks and rewards, but ten years of deeply satisfying reading, research, and fellowship. We thought nothing would be more fitting for an anniversary landmark than to collect some of our favorites from the ocean of travel sagas we’ve enjoyed, and in so doing, launch an annual “Best Travelers’ Tales” series. The stories we’ve chosen here represent a small but important part of what’s on the menu for those who venture out into the unknown. The little issues of travel and life are here, and the big ones too, the hassles, hilarities, and highs. These are ordinary travelers rendering their experiences in a unique way. They are not reporters with expense accounts or explorers with sponsors—they are you and I from many walks of life.

I hope that after reading these stories you ardently wish to find yourself once again—or for the first time—a stranger in a strange land, agog with wonder, laughing helplessly, gibbering with frustration, deeply moved, hopelessly in love, or weeping at your foolishness in not hurling yourself sooner into the bigger world and into the future that beckons.

James O’Reilly
Palo Alto, California

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