In 1974, despite having a young wife and three very young children, Basil suggested that he would like to take a year out and drive, with his family, some 30,000 miles, to India and back. This is the story of part of that incredible journey and of a group of young people they met and travelled with. A journey that would be impossible today. Three times held up by gunmen, in what the author describes as "the badlands between Turkey and India." Witness to a ritual stoning to death in Ghazni. Locked up for a killing in Afghanistan. And accused of smuggling in Pakistan. The book is written with great humour and honesty. It is a story of a time before e-mails and mobile phones, a time before cash machines-a time when it was possible for your whereabouts to be unknown for weeks or months at a time. A story of dangerous mountain passes and dangerous people. But above all, it is a story of deep friendships quickly formed, of trust and of belief, and of the joy of being young, when, for you the extraordinary becomes ordinary, and the impossible becomes possible.