Tahir Shah Quotes

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.

~ Tahir Shah

On a harsh expedition, there's no space for anyone who does not intend to finish.

~ Tahir Shah

It was an awkward moment. We were burning down our host's house, a situation which any guest seeks to avoid.

~ Tahir Shah

In moments of great uncertainty on my travels, I have always felt that something is protecting me, that I will come to no harm.

~ Tahir Shah

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.

~ Tahir Shah

A little imagination goes a long way in Fes.

~ Tahir Shah

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.

~ Tahir Shah

There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.

~ Tahir Shah

As anyone who's ever taken an Ethiopian bus knows, there is an unwritten rule that the windows must remain firmly closed.

~ Tahir Shah

I had learned years ago never to give original documents to anyone if I could help it.

~ Tahir Shah

One senses that, in these conditions, no amount of wet-wiping could bring true hygiene.

~ Tahir Shah

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

~ Tahir Shah

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

~ 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.

~ Tahir Shah

The mere mention of the Farakka Express, which jerks its way eastward each day from Delhi to Calcutta, is enough to throw even a seasoned traveller into fits of apoplexy. At a desert encampment on Namibia's Skeleton Coast, a hard-bitten adventurer had downed a peg of local fire-water then told me the tale. Farakka was a ghost train, he said, haunted by ghouls, Thuggees, and thieves. Only a passenger with a death wish would go anywhere near it.

~ Tahir Shah

Back at the Chateau Windsor there was a rat-like scratching at the door of my room. Vinod, the youngest servant, came in with a soda water. He placed it next to the bag of toffees. Then he watched me read. I was used to being observed reading. Sometimes the room would fill like a railway station at rush hour and I would be expected to cure widespread boredom.

~ Tahir Shah

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.

~ Tahir Shah

Inscribed on it was a verse from the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, the eleventh-century Persian mystic. Reading the words aloud I prepared for a most amazing journey:The sages who have compassed sea and land,Their secret to search out and understand,My mind misgives me if they ever solveThe scheme on which the universe is planned.

~ Tahir Shah

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.

~ Tahir Shah

The ancient paused for a moment, as if his strength were failing. Yet I sensed that there was more to tell. Looking deep into my eyes, he whispered: 'The Gond kingdoms have fallen, their people live dispersed in poverty: the teak trees and the jungles have been cleared... but the importance of the Gonds must not be forgotten!

~ Tahir Shah

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.

~ Tahir Shah

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

~ Tahir Shah

The ability to tell a good route from a terrible one is a valuable skill when leading an expedition. Unfortunately for us all, it was a skill I did not possess.

~ Tahir Shah

As the head of an expedition, you can't pussyfoot around being polite to everyone. You have to show your teeth once in a while; a little growling goes a long way.

~ Tahir Shah

Searching for a lost city is a particularly European obsession.

~ Tahir Shah

Through a strange kind of geographic arrogance, Europeans like to think that the world was a silent, dark, unknown place until they trooped out and discovered it.

~ Tahir Shah

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.

~ Tahir Shah

Exploration is a dirty game.

~ Tahir Shah

The situation was different in the jungle. Every inch of ground had to be earned, and was done so through much exertion with the blade.

~ Tahir Shah

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 can't resist.

~ Tahir Shah

Only a man who has his health, a full stomach and wears clean clothes would ever entertain the notion of tracking down the greatest lost city on Earth.

~ Tahir Shah

In some warped way, having an embalmed body with us made perfect sense.

~ Tahir Shah

Previous experience had taught me that any expedition marches on its stomach.

~ Tahir Shah

The porters could always be coaxed to continue a little further through driving rain by the mere suggestion of a Pot Noodle at the end.

~ Tahir Shah

Ours was not going to be a clone of the usual expeditions, oozing with sleekness. It was clear from the start that oddity was our advantage.

~ Tahir Shah

My journey to the land of the Shuar tribe had taught me the importance of practical gifts.

~ Tahir Shah

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.

~ Tahir Shah

Back at the guest house I tried to acclimatise. A travel-worn adventurer had once told me that leaning with one's head dangling over the end of a bed was the best way to achieve this. It was while I was in this position, the blood rushing to my temples, that the door swung open.

~ Tahir Shah

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.

~ Tahir Shah

My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind.

~ Tahir Shah