Safar, we Indians like to think, is &lsquosuffer&rsquo. Maybe you are the kind of traveller whose journeys are restricted to the armchair&mdashin which case the only thing gracing the seat of your pants is a fat cushion. Then you will smirk and chortle at the frothy&mdashand occasionally hilarious--tales recounted in By the Seat of my Pants Humorous Tales of Travel & Misadventure (Lonely Planet Rs 550). But maybe you are an accidental-prone person this kind of stuff happens to on a routine basis. And perhaps you&rsquore reading this book in the rough and tumble of an especially disastrous trip. Can you laugh at yourself Dark humour underlines these largely self-inflicted situations. Bill Fink attempts to climb Mt Fuji at midnight, Pico Iyer takes a white-knuckle, four-wheel whirl through Ethiopia, Doug Lansky gets stuck in a Dutch toilet, Jan Morris&rsquo first trip on a vaporetto in Venice may well be his/her last, Rolf Potts sees the dubious light of enlightenment in the high Himalaya...Don&rsquot let all this put you off, though the underlying message of the book is unambiguous enough the rewards of travel are substantial travel lets you improvise, and that&rsquos fun travel is great&hellipIf anything you&rsquoll close this book on a high, emboldened in your foolery. This is regulation airport reading.
