Pilgrimage: Tales from the Open Road

There is no frigate like this book to take the reader away to distant lands. Patrick Pfister stayed in many unusual places across the globe and has written these perceptive, moving and often funny pieces about his experiences. In Penang, in Athens, in rural Germany and in the Himalayas, these non-fiction narratives always involve people as well as landscape; giving the reader a strong sense of place and customs as well as striking insights into human behaviour. Pfister introduces us to a wide variety of interesting characters. We meet Colombian Carl, the drunken coke dealer who shoots a less-than-sober game of pool; Loksang, the Tibetan doctor, who used to go for rides on the Dalai Lama's back, and Vasilis, the harried cafe owner, who hires Pfister as a business consultant and then dresses him in an apron and sets him in front of a stack of dirty dishes. With a touch of New Age sensibility, Pilgrimage is a splendid voyage to some remote corners of the earth, a kind of spiritual journey which reminds us that all travel is a form of renewal and discovery.