Paul Theroux - The Tao of Travel - Enlightenments from Lives on the Road

In the best travel books the word "alone" is implied on every exciting page, as subtle and ineradicable as a watermark. The conceit of this, the idea of being able to report it — for I had deliberately set out to write a book, hadn't I? — made up for the discomfort. Alone, alone: it was like proof of my success. I had had to travel very far to arrive at this solitary condition. — OPE

There was no concept of solitariness among the Pacific islanders I traveled among that did not also imply misery or mental decline. Reading as a recreation was not indulged in much on these islands either — for that same reason, because you did it alone. Illiteracy had nothing to do with it, and there were plenty of schools. They knew from experience that a person who cut himself off, who was frequently seen alone — reading books, away from the hut, walking on the beach, on his own — was sunk in musu, the condition of deep melancholy, and was either contemplating murder or suicide, probably both. — HIO

All travelers are like aging women, now homely beauties; the strange land flirts, then jilts and makes a fool of the stranger. There was no hell like a stranger's Sunday. — WE

Anonymity in Travel

On the days when I did not speak to anyone I felt I had lost thirty pounds, and if I did not talk for two days in a row I had the alarming impression that I was about to vanish. Silence made me

feel invisible. Yet to be anonymous and traveling in an interesting place is an intoxication. — KBS

Being invisible — the usual condition of the older traveler, is much more useful than being obvious. — GTES

The temporariness of travel often intensifies friendship and turns it into intimacy. But this is fatal for someone with a train to catch. I could handle strangers, but friends required attention and made me feel conspicuous. It was easier to travel in solitary anonymity, twirling my mustache, puffing my pipe, shipping out of town at dawn. — OPE

Travelers' Conceits

One traveler's conceit is that he is heading into the unknown. The best travel is a leap in the dark. If the destination were familiar and friendly what would be the point in going there? — DSS

Another traveler's conceit is that barbarism is something singular and foreign, to be encountered halfway round the world in some pinched and parochial backwater. The traveler journeys to this remote place and it seems to be so: he is offered a glimpse of the worst atrocities that can be served up by a sadistic government. And then, to his shame, he realizes that they are identical to ones advocated and diligently applied by his own government. As for the sanctimony of people who seem blind to the fact that mass murder is still an annual event, look at Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Tibet, Burma and elsewhere — the truer shout is not "Never again," but "Again and again." — GTES

Yet another traveler's conceit is that no one will see what he has seen; his trip displaces the landscape, and his version of events is all that matters. He is certainly kidding himself in this, but if he didn't kid himself a little he would never go anywhere. — KBS

Strangers in Travel

Travel means living among strangers, their characteristic stinks and sour perfumes, eating their food, listening to their dramas, enduring their opinions, often with no language in common, being always on the move toward an uncertain destination, creating an itinerary that is continually shifting, sleeping alone, improvising the trip. — GTES

Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don't know and trusting them with your life. — GTES

Cities and Travel

One of the pitfalls of long journeys is the tendency of the traveler to miniaturize a big city — not out of malice or frivolity, but for his or her own peace of mind. — RIR

My ideal of travel is just to show up and head for the bush, because most big cities are snake pits. In the bush there is always somewhere to pitch your tent. — FAF

Big cities seem to me like destinations, walled-in stopping places, with nothing beyond their monumental look offinality breathing You've arrived to the traveler. — POH

" Athens is a four-hour city," one man said, meaning that was all the time you needed to see it in its entirety. That hourly rate seemed to me a helpful index for judging cities. — POH

Adventure

Adventure travel seems to imply a far-off destination, but a nearby destination can be scarier, for no place is more frightening than one near home that people you trust have warned you against. — FAF

For me the best sort of travel always involves a degree of trespass. The risk is both a challenge and an invitation. Selling adventure seems to be a theme in the travel industry, and trips have become trophies. — FAF

Travel and Optimism

It was the poor person's way of going abroad — standing at the seaside and staring at the ocean. All travelers are optimists, I thought. Travel itself is a sort of optimism in action. — KBS

Travel, its very motion, ought to suggest hope. Despair is the armchair; it is indifference and glazed, incurious eyes. I think travelers are essentially optimists, or else they would never go anywhere. — FAF

Travel is at its most rewarding when it ceases to be about your reaching a destination and becomes indistinguishable from living your life. — GTES

Travel and Tradition

Villages endure destitution better than towns, and rural poverty can perversely seem almost picturesque. — POH

All places, no matter where, no matter what, are worth visiting. But seldom-visited places where people were still living settled traditional lives seemed to me the most worthwhile, because they were the most coherent — they were readable and nearly always I felt uplifted by them. — POH

Observing local rituals while traveling is important, not for

its dubious sanctity, but because the set of gestures in rituals reveals the inner state of the people involved and their subtle protocol. — GTES

Travel and Politics

Any country which displays more than one statue of the same living politician is a country which is headed for trouble. — POH

In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits, the best people are bare-assed. — DSS

Sightseeing is perfect for a dictatorship — China is surely not anything else, politically speaking. The tourist visits, sees the sights, and when they've all been seen, it's time to go. The non-sightseer lingers, ignores the museums, asks awkward questions, fills people with alarm and despondency, and has to be deported. — RIR

Travel and Porno

It seemed incontestable to me that a country's pornography was a glimpse into its subconscious mind, revealing its inner life, its fantasy, its guilts, its passions, even its child-rearing, not to say its marriages and courtship rituals. It was not the whole truth, but it contained many clues and even more warnings, especially of its men. — POH

Landscape in Travel

A landscape looks different when you know the names of things, and conversely, can look exceedingly inhospitable and alien when it seems nameless. — FAF

It is rare to find silence anywhere in a natural landscape. There is always the wind at least. The rustle of trees and grass, the drone of insects, the squawk of birds, the whistle of bats. By the sea, silence — true silence — is almost unknown. But on my last day here in Palau's Rock Islands, there was not even the lap of water. The air was motionless. I could hear no insects, nor any birds. The fruit bats flew high, beating their wings in absolute quiet. It seemed simple and wonderful: the world as an enormous room. — FAF