Sentimental Traveller

"A border-crossing, boundary-breaking story. Observant as Paul Theroux... as compassionate as Ryszard Kapuscinski... as politically astute as Anthony Bourdain... and QUIRKY as hell."

The book follows the author from the optimism of the Age of Aquarius through decades of poetic travel, childlike curiosity and disconcerted wonder, in the company of women met along the way. The narrative is woven from conversations and recurring relationships with streetwalkers, street hawkers, beggars and cripples, dreadlocked hashish-smoking holy-men, drug smugglers, rich tourists and travelling business folk. The author is impressed by the simple well-meaning dignity of folk he meets at all levels, and he becomes absorbed in the stories they tell that illuminate the decadent essence and paradox of the human condition under the yoke of prosperity and progress.

The author’s journey begins in 1975 on a hippie-trail honeymoon in Asia with his indomitable, young wife. On a near fatal expedition to see Mount Everest, their escape from the high Himalayas is delayed by a plane crash. In following years, the author is obsessed with discovering a “definition of travelling” to guide him recapturing those haunting memories in his treasured notebooks. From the 20th to the 21st century, through country after country the notebooks fill, and the World changes dramatically, and so too does the author. Finally, as an old man he salvages from his notebooks in gripping detail the full story of the perilous mountain trek long ago, and the singing voices that miraculously saved him from violent doom.