Bettina Selby - My Life
At the age of 47 I found myself free of the commitment of
providing for
my family, and at liberty to do what I had long wanted, namely, to see
something of the wilder regions of the world. I also wanted to
pursue a career in writing, and so the two ambitions came together at
the same time. I had already discovered the eminent suitability of a
bicycle for travel and exploration, and so, with little more ado, I set
out.
My first objective was the Himalayas. I planned to ride from Karachi to
Kathmandhu; firstly along the line of the Indus River through
Pakistan, and then to weave in and out of the Himalayan Valleys in
India and Nepal. Five months and five thousand miles later I achieved
my goal. Back home I set to work on the account of this journey. I
called it RIDING THE MOUNTAINS DOWN, after a
poem by e.e.cummings.
With the book published and selling well (it had German and Japanese
editions too, under the title `HIMALAYA’) I was commissioned to write
another book. This was a very different undertaking. I decided to make
a journey from London to Jerusalem following the routes of the Medieval
Crusaders and early Christian pilgrims. As physically challenging as
the Himalayan journey, it was also one of the most enjoyable long
distance rides I ever made, and not just for the many different
countries and cultures I passed through, but particularly for the
numerous and amazing sites of antiquity that I had long wanted to
explore. RIDING TO JERUSALEM is the
account.
My third long journey was a far more dangerous enterprise. I
followed the course of the Nile from its Delta on Egypt’s Mediterranean
coast, through the length of Egypt and Sudan to the Mountains of
the Moon in Uganda. It was a journey that presented great
contrasts - the most stunning African landscapes and wonderful and
diverse peoples on the one hand, and on the other the terrible problems
of drought, poverty, desertification and the plight of refugees.
And always there was the problem of my own survival; of staying alive
in the deserts; of finding food and clean water; and of steering a way
through the skirmishes of the Sudanese civil war and the aftermath of
the Ugandan massacres. The account of this journey, published as
'RIDING THE DESERT TRAIL', is available in
German as 'AH AGALA'
A second African journey centred on yet another of that continent's
great rivers. This time I followed the course of the Niger, which bites
deep into the Sahara Desert before turning back on its course to flow
through some of the poorest countries in West Africa. Through the
remote desert lands of the Sahel, home to the last of Africa’s nomadic
tribes, through Niger and Mali, I struggled with the sand and the
climate to get to Timbuktu. Again beauty and hardship were the
two poles of the experience. The terrible beauty of an inimical desert
terrain permeated by the ghosts of the past, of black empires steeped
in gold and the slave trade.`FRAIL DREAM OF
TIMBUKTU' is also available
in a German translation as `TIMBUKTU'
I have also written two books about my own country. RIDING NORTH ONE
SUMMER was intended as a celebration of the English landscape seen
through the web of its history. It was as good a summer bicycle jaunt
as I ever took - three
months of cycle/camping through the byways of England,
discovering a green and pleasant land that still existed there, away
from the motorways. Like all journeys, it produced its own surprises.
My other `home book’, 'THE FRAGILE ISLANDS',
is about the Outer
Hebrides - a string of small remote islands off the North West coast of
Scotland. I find them as exotic as the remotest places I’ve travelled
in, and even after spending a very wet summer there in a very small
tent, my love for these Western Isles remains undimmed.
More recently I travelled in Eastern Turkey, going by way of the little
explored and horrendously mountainous Black Sea
Coast, before heading up into the even more mountainous lands of
Kurdistan and Armenia, and on through the vast plains to Mount Ararat
with its legends of Noah and the Flood. Beyond the crossing of
the ancient Silk Route I rode on to the strange landlocked area of Lake
Van - the central melting pot of Western history and seemingly older
than time itself. `BEYOND ARARAT' is also
available in German
translation as `ARARAT'
A quite different journey was one I made to the north-western corner of
Spain, exchanging wilder tracks for the well-beaten path of a thousand
years of pilgrimage to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela. It
proved to be a richly rewarding experience, and also surprising in the
unexpected demands it made upon me, and in the insights it afforded
into my own motives and feelings. It also gave me a tremendous sense of
rubbing shoulders with other pilgrims past and present. PILGRIM’S
ROAD is published in German as JACOBSWEG
My most recent travel book is also something of a departure in that it
explores a political situation. Up till then I had
managed to keep clear of politics. But `LIKE
WATER IN A DRY LAND’ was,
in a real sense, a debt of honour, something I felt I had to
write. It is about present day Palestine. I set out to ride from
Cyprus through Lebanon, Syria and Jordan to finish in Jerusalem, and my
main motive was to discover what the peace moves in the Middle East at
the time of the Oslo Agreement were really adding up to. I certainly
did not find the predicted peace, and much of what I did see was deeply
disturbing. Nonetheless, the journey was rewarding and proved as
much of a surprise as all real journeys should. Reviewers have been
kind enough to write that the book sheds light on a difficult and
complicated scenario. LIKE WATER IN A DRY LAND is at present only
available directly from ourselves at Mountain
House Publications.
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My long distance bicycling days are now at an end. Nothing lasts
forever, at least physical strength and stamina do not. But I consider
myself very fortunate in having had two good decades of such satisfying
travel and adventure.
Anyone who reads my books and is at all inspired by them, especially if
they are moved to set out independently and explore the planet
for themselves, I wish them well.
I would also like to take the opportunity to introduce my two tabby
cats, Sappho and Dido, who have recently persuaded me to assist them in
publishing their first book. They are cats with decided literary
pretensions and, living as they do in a house with computers,
have become computer literate and highly articulate. To find out
more click on:-
Two Cats Walking