When Eric Newby, improbably earning his living in the London haute-couture trade, sent his fateful cable - CAN YOU TRAVEL NURISTAN JUNE? - it was the first step on a legendary journey from Mayfair to Afghanistan and the mountains of the Hindu Kush, north-east of Kabul. Ill-prepared and inexperienced, Newby and Carless endured a month of hardship with great good humour in one of the most beautiful wildernesses on earth.

`The most successful travel writer of his generation. It's impossible to read this book without laughing aloud' Observer

`Tough, extrovert, humorous and immensely literate' Times Literary Supplement

`Full of serendipity and surprise' The Economist

`A total success' New Yorker