NOT ONLY... beer in Berlin, absinthe in Prague, baths in Budapest, Dracula in Transylvania, trenches in Gallipoli, a plethora of Greco-Roman ruins, fairy chimneys in Capadocia, lost cities, souks and castles in Syria, angry Kurds, absent Armenians, Mounts Nemrut and Ararat, depressed in Iran, harassed in the Stans, filthy Chinese food and filthier loos, the Wall and the Warriors... BUT ALSO... a lost car in Calcutta, road rage in India, charred corpses in Nepal, Everest in Tibet, the Potala Palace, chanting monks, appalling roads, disgusting food, unspeakable bogs, magical Mount Kailash, mayhem in the Stans, Stalingrad, Crimea, the Light Brigade, Auschwitz and in Bruges... "Every traveller should make it his life's work to leave Swindon... few go to such extremes..." Dom Joly. "Lies, it's all lies..." Chairman Mao. The author is an Old Etonian, Cambridge graduate, retired investment banker and completely unrepentant.

Oswald Harcourt-Davis joined the Corps of Royal Engineers in 1916 to become a despatch rider. He was allocated a Triumph motorcycle at Abbeville France on 18th July 1916 and was attached to the ANZACs for the duration of the war which saw him motorcycling around the Somme and Ypres Salient areas. He won his military medal at Messines.