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Long Way Round
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Long Way Round (2004) (edit title/settings)

Chasing Shadows Across the World

by Ewan McGregor (Author), Charley Boorman (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

It started as a daydream. Poring over a map of the world at home one quiet Saturday afternoon, Ewan McGregor -- acclaimed actor and self-confessed bike nut -- noticed that it was possible to ride all the way round the world, with just one short hop across the Bering Strait from Russia to... read more

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  • “Film-making is a fantastic experience but the technicalities are deadly dull. It's boredom, peppered with moments of passion.”
  • “I remembered the words of Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, a former SAS officer who had taught us how to survive in hostile environments: "If you can survive the prep, the mission will be fine."”
  • “But accompanying the moments that tugged at our heartstrings there were times of great wonder. And, every so often, flashes of magic. Like when we were riding at the end of the day and the sun, setting in the west, warmed our backs and threw our shadows ahead of us on the road. Just chasing our shadows as we headed east. All the way round the world to get home.”
  • “Like so many eastern European cities, Lviv was a beautiful place. Classical buildings, big squares with old men playing chess, most of the roads cobbled and uneven.”
  • “After breakfast we unpacked everything and repacked it. It was great. I'd long admired the BMW, but that morning I really fell in love with it. I was out in the car park with my iPod on, just tinkering with my bike, repacking panniers and fixing a minor breakage to my seat while the music played. I turned around as Charley came out. He also had his iPod and we had both had the same idea. It was lovely. Everyone was there. The support crew were checking the trucks and repacking them. Everything was shipshape and Bristol fashion. I couldn't have been happier.”
  • “And then came the tea. Really good tea, just like British tea. It was glorious, like being at home. "Is the tea always this good?" I asked the mayor.Eric translated his reply: "Tea for breakfast. Tea for lunch. Tea for dinner. If he doesn't have tea, a Kazakh man will die."”
  • “And as we followed the road, I came to feel that I belonged on that big motorcycle, rolling around the world. It was meant to be. And it didn't matter where exactly we were headed. We'd get there. We'd find somewhere to stay. Something or somebody would turn up. And if they didn't, we'd camp. It was that simple. At last I was living for each day, free as the eagles that lined the roadside, and I had the land of caviar, oil and gold to thank for that.”
  • “We'd travelled a third of the way around the world on the back of three bikes; people's faces had changed, their homes had changed, the way they led their lives and what they believed in were different. But with everything that was going on in the world at that time, if we hadn't been so isolated we might very easily have travelled through these countries without becoming aware that ultimately we are all the same: we all love our kids, we all need somewhere to sleep and some food. We all want the same things; the world isn't that big a place.”
  • “Cruising the valleys at a gentle 40 or 50 mph, listening to my iPod and watching the pine forests and train yards slip by was just what I needed. I sat bare-chested on the stoop, my jeans oily and filthy from the train, just pondering things and letting my concerns about sticking to the schedule slip further away with each mile we clattered along the track. After crossing Mongolia and wangling our way on to the train, I'd come to realise that we'd solved every problem we'd encountered and we probably always would.”
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • To have forgotten about the whole trip and to live in the here and now was a tremendous liberation.
    Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers
  • the concentration and the single-mindedness of it, and the desire to get it right, taking a corner fast without losing control, doing it beautifully, getting into a groove and winning the battle between your head telling you to do one thing, the bike wanting to do another and your body in between
    Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers
  • there’s one reason to come to the Czech Republic, it’s to come and see these caves.
    Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers
  • The first thing we did was to buy The Adventure Motorcycling Handbook.
    Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers
  • With no phone, no stereo and no traffic to sit in for forty minutes, contemplating what’s happened during the day, I am concentrating so hard on what I’m doing and where I’m going, and making sure that no one is pulling out to kill me, that by the time I get home my mind has been cleared of any troubles.
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • I had to sit with my thoughts and my feelings on my bike and wait until they passed. And that was a good thing.
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • I was taking fewer photographs and talking less about what we had seen and done each day because I no longer felt like a tourist or a traveller. The journey had become my life.
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • The journey was not solely about sitting on the back of a motorbike. The motorbike was just the means by which we had chosen to get us from one experience to another. I knew it would be the hold-ups and mishaps that I would remember for ever and this had certainly been one of them.
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • Film-making is a fantastic experience but the technicalities are deadly dull. It’s boredom, peppered with moments of passion.
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • Ted Simon’s book.’ Ted’s book, Jupiter’s Travels,
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
Show all 19 quotes from this book

First Sentence edit see section history

EWAN: On the last day, I walked down to the harbour.

Table of Contents edit see section history

1.The long way home: MAGADAN
2.On yer bike
3.From chaoss to bliss: DEPARTURE DAY
4.No surprises: LONDON TO UKRAINIAN BORDER
5.Little by little: ACROSS THE UKRAINE
6.Mansion on the hill: ANTRATSYT
7.Death, war and pride: BELAYA TO AKTOBE
8.Free as an eagle: ROAD OF DEATH TO SEMEY
9.Little Red Devil: BARNAUL TO ULAANGOM
10.Snow in my ger: BARUUNTURUUN TO CHITA
11.Bad hair never looked so good: CHITA TO MAGADAN
12.Tears in my melmet: ANCHORAGE TO NEW YORK
13.Appendix A Route
14.Appendix B Equipment
15.Ending with a sense of hope: Unicef
16.Acknowledgements

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Ewan McGregor (Author)
  2. Charley Boorman (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Timewarner
Country: England
Publication Date: 2004
ISBN: 0316728683
Page Count: 320

Classification edit see section history

Movie Connections edit see section history

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • Long Way Down
  • Race to Dakar
  • By Any Means: His Brand New Adventure from Wicklow to Wollongong
  • Extreme Frontiers
  • Right to the Edge: By Any Means

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history

   
  • Jupiter's Travels

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history

   
  • Jupiter's Travels

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