For my father there was no sharper way to understand a country than by listening to its stories. Tahir Shah More Quotes by Tahir Shah More Quotes From 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 loneliness real home Calcutta's the only city I know where you are actively encouraged to stop strangers at random for a quick chat. Tahir Shah where-you-are stranger cities With an enthusiastic team you can achieve almost anything. Tahir Shah team-building achievement teamwork A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you. Tahir Shah tested merit journey Respect was one thing. Survival was another. It was important that I kept my priorities in the right order. Tahir Shah priorities survival order Money spent on good-quality gear is always money well spent Tahir Shah gears quality travel 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 alcohol keys hot My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind. Tahir Shah heritage stories father 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 preparation journey believe The very fact that a Frenchman was prepared, after two minutes of conversation, to be so friendly towards anyone, especially one who had come from England, made me restless. Tahir Shah friendly two travel Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives. Tahir Shah contemplation luxury alternatives Most journeys have a clear beginning, but on some the ending is less well-defined. The question is, at what point do you bite your lip and head for home? Tahir Shah journey home travel Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi. Tahir Shah varanasi primaries enlightenment 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 reading doors water For me, nature is something you watch on the Discovery Channel, or on the evening news -- as you learn how much more of it's been savaged to make way for the Blackberry realm that is my home Tahir Shah home discovery watches I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas. Tahir Shah upper-hand gains hands The forest did not tolerate frailty of body or mind. Show your weakness, and it would consume you without hesitation. Tahir Shah weakness body mind The desert was bad, but nothing could compare with the horrors of a tropical rain forest. Tahir Shah desert rain forests My father used to tell me that stories offer the listener a chance to escape but, more importantly, he said, they provide people with a chance to maximize their minds. Suspend ordinary constraints, allow the imagination to be freed, and we are charged with the capability of heighetned thought. Tahir Shah eye dream father Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood. With such a book the impact isn't necessarily obvious at first...but the more you read it and re-read it, and live with it, and travel with it, the more it speaks to you, and the more you realize that you cannot live without that book. It's then that the wisdom hidden inside, the seed, is passed on. Tahir Shah impact book blood
