The Hall Of A Thousand Columns

The sequel to the bestselling 'Travels With A Tangerine', follows the journey of Moroccan traveller Ibn Battutah.

All the best armchair travellers are sceptics. Those of the fourteenth century were no exception: for them, there were lies, damned lies, and Ibn Battutah's India. Born in 1304, Ibn Battutah left his native Tangier as a young scholar of law. He returned nearly thirty years later having visited most of the known world between Morocco and China, the Prince of Travellers for some, a blatant Munchausen for most. It was India that stretched his readers' credulity beyond the limit.
Ibn Battutah left India on a snake, stripped to his underpants by pirates; but he took away a treasure of tales as rich as any in the history of travel.

Back home they said the treasure was a fake. Mackintosh-Smith proves the sceptics wrong.