Palin on a high

IF you have been watching Michael Palin's gentle six-part trek through the Himalayas on the BBC, you will know that by now he has reached the stage of his journey where a British army officer who was with him was abducted by Maoist guerrillas in Nepal.

It made for an unsettling moment in what had up until then been an amiable journey across the roof of the world in the company of a kindly English eccentric.

Since filming Around The World In 80 Days in 1998, the former Monty Python star has made a huge name for himself as the quintessential English traveller who balks at nothing, tries just about anything and always finds time for a nice cup of tea.

Then, suddenly, reality intruded. While Palin and his team were filming the notoriously tough Gurkha recruitment process in a Nepalese village way off the beaten track, some "visitors from the forest" - two young men who looked like students but were in fact Maoist guerrillas - abducted Lt Col Adrian Griffith and two retired Nepalese Gurkha officers and took them to meet their high command.

The incident was skated over in the TV series. In the book to accompany the series, however, Palin deftly captures the sudden fear and vulnerability that descended on his little party. The Maoists appeared at the entrance of the BBC party's tent and peered around inside. One spoke roughly to a sherpa, Nawang, expecting him to translate.

"Nawang's eyes simply grow wide and he seems transfixed, speechless with anxiety," Palin writes. With the Maoists gone, taking the British officer with them, the BBC team suddenly felt very alone.

"I find myself scanning the faces of the villagers," Palin writes. "Everything seems very different from this morning. Perhaps they all hate us, stirred to anger by the Maoists, who've portrayed us as friends of a corrupt and oppressive government?"

The incident proved not to be as serious as it first appeared. Col Griffith and the two gurkhas with him were eventually released without harm. But it was a timely reminder for Palin and his fans that the world isn't always quite as comfortable as the English gentleman traveller would like to suppose.

"There is a definite air of menace about a place when things turn against you like that," he said, speaking about the incident later.

Thankfully, however, not even the Maoists could put a stop to Palin's travels.

The Himalayas stretch about 1,800 miles from the hostile borders of Afghanistan to the wilds of south-west China, a virtually unbroken wall of Jurassic rock that remains one of the planet's most majestic natural barriers - as well as a melting pot of different cultures, religions and races.

During the course of his televised journey, Palin meets the Dalai Lama, enjoys a meal with fellow pilgrims at the golden temple of Amritsar, climbs to 15,000 feet to reach the base camp of the spectacular Annapurna range, and - in an episode yet to be seen - makes use of the "Number One Toilet in Heaven and Earth", a narrow little squat-and-go facility suspended high above the cliff-face of the Tiger Leaping Gorge in China's Yunnan province.

Palin kept a diary throughout, and the result is an entrancing book to accompany the TV series: vivid, often funny in a self-effacing manner, and accompanied by spectacular photographs, though thankfully not of the Number One Toilet.

Despite the popularity of his travel programs, the 61-year-old Yorkshireman remains engagingly modest about the secret of his success.

"I always think my audience comprises two sorts of people," he says. "The people who love travelling and want to hear all about my exploits and the people who just hate travelling who are going look at this programme and say, 'Well there we are, that's precisely why we don't go'."

No doubt travellers of both types will be among those turning up to see him at Waterstone's in York tomorrow.

Himalaya by Michael Palin is published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, priced £20. Michael Palin will be at Waterstone's in York at 12.30pm tomorrow to sign copies of the book.

Updated: 08:39 Wednesday, October 20, 2004