The first of many travel books by this Irish writer recounts her solo bicycle journey across Europe and Asia to India.
Birthday gifts of an atlas and bike at age 10 fire Murphy’s imagination. Two decades later, she set off from Dunkirk to Delhi: “The preparations had been simple; one of the advantages of cycling is that it automatically prevents a journey from becoming an Expedition.” She is undeterred by record cold in Europe, which is glossed over in a few pages. The book focuses on her time in Asia. This is budget travel; she spent 75 pounds for a trip of 3,000 miles and six months (less than $2,000 in today’s terms).
He also recounts flying through a cyclone in the southern Andes, nights alone in the Sahara because of weather or mechanical problems, and in his longest chapter, a disastrous flight from Paris to Saigon in 1935. In preparing for that trip, he packs maps and a bag containing a razor and a spare shirt, noting, “He who would travel happily must travel light.”
This philosopher/poet/romantic offers lyrical descriptions of flying at night and understanding the desert: “One of the miracles of the airplane is that it plunges a man directly into the heart of mystery.” His adventures as a pilot are vivid reminders of a time when flying was novel and dangerous.
