There Are Other Rivers
Alastair Humphreys walked across India, from the Coromandel Coast to the Malabar Coast, following the course of a holy river. Walking alone and spending the nights sleeping under the stars, in the homes of welcoming strangers or in small towns and villages, he experienced the dusty enchantment of ordinary, real India on the smallest of budgets.
There Are Other Rivers tells the story of the walk through an account of a single day as well as reflecting on the allure of difficult journeys and the eternal appeal of the open road.
- Update frequency
- every day
- Average duration
- 4 minutes
- Episodes
- 34
- Years Active
- 2020
Snapshot
Snapshot
“The Earth teaches us more about ourselves than all the books in the world.”
All the clichés about India are true. Clichés always are. But there is so much more. There always is. India: so v…
Alone
Alone
“All great and precious things are lonely.”
Odd choice, India, if I wanted to be alone. But being alone is an important part of my journeys. Alone time. A lonely time. Alone with all of India. …
Simplicity
Simplicity
“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without.”
A couple of years ago I was out on the crumpled ice of the frozen Arctic Ocean. It was bit…
Escape
Escape
“For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the spe…
Sunrise
Sunrise
“And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid anymore.”
It is the …
Routine
Routine
“It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.”
People looking at me walking through India might envisage my daily routine to be something like:
- Get up, walk.
- Lunch…
River
River
“Don’t you dare take the lazy way... Whatever you do, it will be you who do.”
I push through a bamboo grove to the river and sit beneath a teak tree. I write my diary and study my map, a comput…
Go
Go
“The virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from here seems broad and straight and sweet.”
An urge builds in me, a voice in one everlasting whisper, da…
Flabbiness
Flabbiness
“You know how advice is: you only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyways.”
There are three stages of flabbiness in life. Each is more restricting and stifling than the one…
Dawn
Dawn
“It was a morning like other mornings and yet perfect among mornings.”
I walk quietly past the night watchman, bundled in blankets and snoring on the floor. I step out of the lodge. I’m out into…
The Walk
The Walk
“You can boast about anything if it’s all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.”
This book is not a chronological narrative about walking across India. I did…
Introduction
Introduction
“Beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes.”
“Beep... beepbeepbeepbeep... BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP.”
The alarm cl…
Author's Note
There Are Other Rivers
Alastair Humphreys walked across India, from the Coromandel Coast to the Malabar Coast, following the course of a holy river. Walking alone and spending the nights sleeping under the stars, in the ho…