Status Updates From Mijn leven

"People sometimes ask me which books I would take with me if I were going to a desert island...my selection would have to include the Bible...Don Quixote... Ovid's Metamorphosis..for the simple reason that it contains one of the most beautiful love stories ever written... I would also pack my copy of Kim"

in libiri veritas?

Dharamsala:"The monks surrounded me & shouted to the monastery,' Norbu, your father has come!' A man about 20 years old came out, with a dirty apron covering his robes. He had a somewhat lighter skin than most Tibetans, & it was true that the stubble on his shaven head had a reddish sheen. Rinpoche, who was normally rather reserved, told me it was no use denying he was my son, & the thing that really proved it, he...

Anadaman Islands "I also estimated I had about 50 leech bites; Jean Pierre then counted them & came up with 108. I wondered why on earth I had ever felt obliged to do Saddle Peak in the first place. It was the lowest peak I had ever climbed in my life, & it had turned out to be the most difficult. I had never suffered like that before, but it was entirely my own fault. Poor preparation can turn the easiest looking...

"From time to time, a bird eating spider would fall from the roof & land by us with an audible thump. Although I had been reliably informed by the Butantan institute that their bite was painful but not usually fatal, this information did little to ensure a peaceful night's rest."

In Brazil "The cicadas were making a deafening racket, and as the sun went down the frog chorus began. The next morning, we were woken by the screech of the macaws. All in all, it is quite a concert"

visit to New Guinea, I was shown the "New Zealand expedition report, which talked about the problems they had had with provisions & explained how they had only managed to stay alive by eating roots & leaves. That was not something that worried me unduly"

climbing Ruwenzori Ugangda/Congo border
"The lobelias were up to eight metres in height & looked like gigantic mulleins. Even without binoculars, one could watch the collared sunbirds hovering like hummingbirds as they used their long beaks to extract nectar from the blue blossoms of the lobelias. The landscape looked like a Hieronymus Bosch painting"

"The towns people were a mixed bunch of Indios & a few whites who looked like outlaws, fortune hunters & drop outs from the foreign legion. I thought it prudent to refrain from asking why they had come to live here" (Tipuani valley, mining region in Bolivia)

"As is the custom for robbers, they wore double sheepskin coats, to protect them against knife thrusts, & long swords stuck in their belts, while affecting an air of lamb like innocence."

"In the morning a man asked us if it was our yak down there beyond the village. And there he was: our yak, standing stoically on the river bank festooned with icicles. He seemed just as pleased as we were about the reunion; so much so that he let us saddle him up without any of his customary stubbornness"