Around the World in 80 Days

Blurb

Around the World in 80 Days is the book that Michael Palin wrote to accompany the BBC TV program Around the World in 80 Days.
This trip was intended to follow in the footsteps of the Phileas Fogg in the Jules Verne book Around the World in Eighty Days. The use of aeroplanes was not allowed, a self-imposed restriction. Steam liners don't exist any more, so all of the long sea journeys had to be on container ships or freighters. The one exception was the trip from Dubai to Mumbai on a dhow, a high point of the trip.
This book, like the other books that Michael Palin wrote following each of his seven trips for the BBC, consists both of his text and of many photographs to illustrate the trip. Unlike the following books, in which the pictures were taken exclusively by Basil Pao, the pictures in this book are from many sources.
To some extent the book reads like a diary, as Michael Palin starts each section of the book with a heading like "Day 42 - Hong Kong". This reflects the fact that the whole trip was a kind of "race against time" effort, and being aware of how many days have passed and how many days are left before the magic number 80 arrives adds extra excitement.