Century Travellers S.
8 total works
From Bombay to the hippy beaches of Goa and on to the tropical trip of India, travelling by boat and bus, staying in fisherman's huts and no-star hotels, Dervla Murphy and her five-year-old daughter explored the south. En route they fell in love with the tiny mountain paradise of Coorg, whose landscapes and people form the focus of a wonderfully evocative travel diary. This is an account of their journey. The author also wrote "In Cameroon with Egbert", "The Waiting Land" and "Muddling through in Madagascar".
This is an account of a trip which the author took with her daughter and their horse named Egbert to the remote West African country of Cameroon, little known apart from being the shelter of six million refugees from Chad. The book recounts their travels though grassland, dense jungle and the high mountain country. It relates how they found themselves by accident among the nightmare horrors and wreckage of the poisoned volcanic Nyos, where they were arrested. One of their anxieties was the mysterious disappearance of their beloved Egbert, but as ever the Murphys made friends among the people whose paths they crossed and found much human kindness in unlikely places.
The author describes her journey with her six-year-old daughter, on foot, to Baltistan, a desolate but beautiful region of Kashmir. Their travels took them into the Karakorum mountains in the heart of the western Himalayas and along the perilous Indus Gorge. Accompanied only by a polo pony and surviving chiefly on the local diet of dried apricots, they endured conditions that tested their limits of ingenuity, fortitude and courage, and, remarkably, managed to retain their good humour. Dervla Murphy's other travel books include "Muddling Through In Madagascar" and "Cameroon With Egbert".
The author describes her journey through the Andes with her nine-year-old daughter and a mule called Juana. Together they clambered the length of Peru, from Cajamarca on the border with Ecuador, to Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital, over 1300 miles to the south. With only the most basic necessities to sustain them, their journey was marked by extreme discomfort, occasional danger and even the temporary loss of Juana over a precipice. Yet throughout it all, mother and daughter retained an unflagging sympathy for the perilous beauty and impoverished people of the Andes. Dervla Murphy's other travel books include "Muddling Through In Madagascar" and "Cameroon With Egbert".
Unable to get into Tibet, Dervla Murphy finds herself instead in Nepal, helping out in a Tibetan refugee camp in Pokhara. She is absorbed into a life where poverty and illness are the companions to a culture and a beautiful landscape. Nevertheless, despite the problems and discomforts (rats in the bed being only one), Dervla Murphy managed to meditate with the Dalai Lama, to conduct dangerous and memorable treks into the highlands and, in defence of the bureaucrats, to bring home Tashi (her Tibetan dog). This is the account of her journey. The author also wrote "Cameroon with Egbert", "Muddling Through in Madagascar" and "On a Shoestring to Coorg".
The author went against official advice to make a hazardous journey through Ethiopia in the company of an amiable pack-mule, Jock. During the gruelling trek through remote and hostile regions she was robbed three times, yet the Ethiopian highlanders were usually hospitable and her dependence on them, and increasing familiarity with their way of life, broke down the barriers between them. On reaching Addis Ababa she concluded that this growth of affection for another race "is the real achievement of such a journey", and the book provides an insight into a unique people. Dervla Murphy's other travel books include "Muddling Through In Madagascar" and "Cameroon With Egbert".
In 1983 Dervla Murphy and her 14-year-old daughter landed at Antananarivo, Madagascar's island, and there began another of their journeys. Travelling over the Ankaratra Mountains of Imerina, and by bush-taxi and truck through the Spiny desert, they finished their journey with a final trek through the rain forest of the Betsimisaraka tribe to an unwelcome surprise on the east coast, once the world headquarters of English pirates. This is an account of this journey. The author has also written "The Waiting Land", "On A Shoestring to Coorg" and "Cameroon with Egbert".
During the particularly harsh winter of 1963, Dervla Murphy rode her bicycle across Europe, Persia, Afghanistan, the Himalayas, Pakistan and India. This account of her extraordinary solo journey tells of her resourcefulness in the face of personal dangers and unexpected encounters. Dervla Murphy has also written "In Ethiopia with a Mule", "Muddling through in Madagascar", "Eight Feet in the Andes", "On a Shoestring to Coorg", "The Waiting Land" and "Where the Indus is Young".