The desert was bad, but nothing could compare with the horrors of a tropical rain forest.

With an enthusiastic team you can achieve almost anything.

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.

Previous journeys had taught me the danger of taking too much stuff.

These days no one challenges us,' he said. 'And because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we have all become lazy.

The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together.

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.