Growing up, I loved to read about Victorian explorers. I loved to hear about the cartographers and botanists and naturalists who set off across deserts and jungles and mountains guided by a spirit of adventure and more curiosity than was often good for them.
As the world has developed and become better connected, its mysteries have dwindled. Modern-day explorers are lamentably scarce on the ground but not – I was delighted to discover when I picked up Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris – extinct.
Growing up in a small rural community in southern Ontario, Harris loved tales of Marco Polo and dreamed of becoming an explorer in her own right. But she dreamed of reaching into the heavens – her destination was Mars. She excelled at school, studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and was working on her Ph.D. at MIT when she finally realised that space wasn’t what she was really looking for. She wanted more earthly adventures so, combining her fascination with wildness conservation with her childhood love of Marco Polo, Harris set out with a childhood friend to cycle along the Silk Road, from Turkey to India via Central Asia, Tibet, and Nepal. It was a thrilling but also terrifying leap:
Beyond avenging my childhood ideals of explorers, and figuring out how to be one myself, I wanted to bike the Silk Road as a practical extension of my thesis at Oxford: to study how borders make and break what is wild in the world, from mountain ranges to people’s minds, and how science, or more specifically wilderness conservation, might bridge those divides. So there I was, rich in unemployable university degrees, poor in cash, with few possession to my name besides a tent, a bicycle, and some books. I felt great about my life decisions, until I felt terrified.
The book chronicles their journey across Asia, as well as dipping into Harris’ earlier years as a way of explaining how she came to go on this crazy, marvellous adventure. She is clearly an overachiever – her academic CV makes me feel like the laziest person on the planet – but her achievements are all a result of her genuine and intense enthusiasm for learning. Like all the very best and most fascinating people, she is fascinated by the world. It’s impossible not to find that kind of enthusiasm engaging.
Not only is she a talented scientist and a capable outdoorswoman, she is also a beautiful writer. I picked the book up because I was fascinated by the journey but found myself utterly absorbed by Harris’ writing. She writes clearly, warmly and beautifully – the way I wish I could write, in fact:
…exploration, more than anything, is like falling in love: the experience feels singular, unprecedented, and revolutionary, despite the fact that others have been there before. No one call fall in love for you, just as no one can bike the Silk Road or walk on the moon for you. The most powerful experiences aren’t amenable to maps.
This passage about Ani, once part of Armenia but now in Turkey, was one of my favourites:
As the sun blinked cold and low over the mountains, the “city of 1001 churches” caught light the way I wished history would: the crumble and decay illuminated, some foundations still solid, graffiti aged gracefully to art.
And what of her other destinations? The beauty of travelling by bicycle is the time it allows for observation and interaction. Without the purple prose or excessive introspection common to lesser travel writers, Harris chronicles their encounters with local residents, wildlife, and – always key when cycling – topography. Most hair-raising are the two instances when Harris and her travel companion snuck across the Chinese border into Tibet. I certainly wouldn’t recommend trying that! (And especially not right now, with China looking for any excuse to arrest Canadians in retribution for the arrest of Meng Wanzhou earlier this month.)
It is a fascinating and beautifully-told tale of a great adventure and, most importantly, it cannot help but make you feel excited by all the mysteries and secrets the world still has to offer. We are all explorers in one way or another and Harris reminds us of how thrilling – and terrifying – that is. Read it and be inspired. Or, to experience the same journey in a different medium, check out the trip highlights video.
This post contains affiliate links from Book Depository, an online book retailer with free international shipping. If you buy via these links it means I receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you).
This book reminded me of reading Edith Durham’s “High Albania” about ten years ago. Durham was Edwardian — certainly not modern — but i can’t resist mentioning and recommending it,
Sounds very intriguing. Thanks for the suggestion!
I adore bicycle travel/explore books. Had not heard of this. Going to order it. Anne Mustoe was a great author of this genre too. British. I read all of her books.
I’ll add her to my list! Thanks for the recommendation.
I found this fascinating. I am not a physical person at all so am full of admiration for this adventure.
Yes, armchair travels (or adventures) can be a nice alternative to the real thing!