Babak Fakhamzadeh
I've been wanting to read anything by Battuta for ages. Battuta, living in the 14th century, is best known as a traveler and explorer, who, in a period of some 30 years, covered around 117,000 km. He visited most of the Islamic world as well as a series of other countries, including parts of North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the West, the Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Central Asia,Southeast Asia and China in the East. A distance surpassing that of his predecessor and near-contemporary Marco Polo. If Battuta would be making his journey today, he'd be visiting around 44 countries. Indeed, it's surprising that 30 years of travel can be captured in a mere 240 pages. And that's including notes by the translator.
I stumbled upon this book in a bookstore called Get Lost in San Francisco. Little did I know that a comparable copy is available online. However, the book is not very good. This publication has left the early 19th century translation, by a Rev. Samuel Lee, intact, complete with printing errors and an errata page. With the sometimes archaic English and the changes in spelling and pronunciation of names, this is not the most convenient.
Also, Battuta's style is far from engaging. Mostly losing himself in descriptions of the holy men of the cities he visits, he's a very bad travel writer. Only towards the second half of the book does he become a bit more descriptive of his experiences.
The book, obviously, is extremely suitable to turn into some online interactive map-based experience. And, of course, this has already been done.
What I don't really get is that this guy traveled for almost 30 years. Where did he get the funds and, perhaps more interestingly, how did he constantly manage to get all sorts of riches from the kings and princes he visited on his journeys. I'd be very interested to learn that trick.
I've been wanting to read anything by Battuta for ages. Battuta, living in the 14th century, is best known as a traveler and explorer, who, in a period of some 30 years, covered around 117,000 km. He visited most of the Islamic world as well as a series of other countries, including parts of North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the West, the Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Central Asia,Southeast Asia and China in the East. A distance surpassing that of his predecessor and near-contemporary Marco Polo. If Battuta would be making his journey today, he'd be visiting around 44 countries. Indeed, it's surprising that 30 years of travel can be captured in a mere 240 pages. And that's including notes by the translator.
I stumbled upon this book in a bookstore called Get Lost in San Francisco. Little did I know that a comparable copy is available online. However, the book is not very good. This publication has left the early 19th century translation, by a Rev. Samuel Lee, intact, complete with printing errors and an errata page. With the sometimes archaic English and the changes in spelling and pronunciation of names, this is not the most convenient.
Also, Battuta's style is far from engaging. Mostly losing himself in descriptions of the holy men of the cities he visits, he's a very bad travel writer. Only towards the second half of the book does he become a bit more descriptive of his experiences.
The book, obviously, is extremely suitable to turn into some online interactive map-based experience. And, of course, this has already been done.
What I don't really get is that this guy traveled for almost 30 years. Where did he get the funds and, perhaps more interestingly, how did he constantly manage to get all sorts of riches from the kings and princes he visited on his journeys. I'd be very interested to learn that trick.