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Around the World in 80 Days (Michael Palin book)
Encyclopedia
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 (fictitious) 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 anymore, 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 (Bombay) 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 (almost) exclusively by Basil Pao
, the pictures in this book are from many sources. (Basil Pao did provide the pictures for the Hong Kong to Shanghai stretch.)
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.
An interesting aspect of this trip is that almost 3/4 of the time (59 days) was spent getting around the first half of the globe (Europe, Middle East, Asia, Pacific to the International Date Line
) and only 1/4 of the time (21 days) for the last half of the trip (rest of the Pacific, U.S.A., Atlantic). This is also reflected in the number of pages in this book: 180 for the first half of the trip, 60 for the last half.
There are a couple of reasons for this discrepancy. Traveling across the Pacific and the Atlantic was done on fast modern container ships. The trip across the U.S.A. was done by train, which was fairly fast, and this stretch was presumably considered to be less interesting for Western TV viewers (the intended audience) than the more exotic parts in the Middle East and Asia.
One major difference between this trip and the following Michael Palin trips for the BBC was the desire to follow a preordained route that involved a lot of time traveling at sea. Day after day of sailing does not make for very exciting TV. For example, in an almost grotesque sequence, Michael Palin arrives in Singapore harbor on one ship at midnight, rushes through immigration and departure processing, and embarks on the next ship at 2:45 a.m. Neither Palin nor the viewers get to see a single view of Singapore.
The text of this book is available free to read online on Michael Palin's official web site.
Michael Palin
Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....
wrote to accompany the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
TV program Around the World in 80 Days
Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days
Around the World in 80 Days is a BBC television travel series first broadcast in 1989. It was presented by comedian and actor Michael Palin. The show was inspired by Jules Verne's classic novel Around the World in Eighty Days, in which a character named Phileas Fogg accepts a wager to...
.
This trip was intended to follow in the footsteps of the (fictitious) Phileas Fogg
Phileas Fogg
Phileas Fogg is the main fictional character in the 1873 Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days.Fogg attempts to circumnavigate the late Victorian world in eighty days, or less, for a wager of £20,000 with members of London's Reform Club. He takes the wager and leaves with Passepartout,...
in the Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
book Around the World in Eighty Days. The use of aeroplanes was not allowed, a self-imposed restriction. Steam liners don't exist anymore, 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 (Bombay) on a dhow
Dhow
Dhow is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with lateen sails used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Some historians believe the dhow was invented by Arabs but this is disputed by some others. Dhows typically weigh 300 to 500 tons, and have a...
, 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 (almost) exclusively by Basil Pao
Basil Pao
Basil Pao Ho-Yun is a Hong Kong-based photographer who is perhaps best known for his work as the stills photographer on the BBC filming teams that made Michael Palin's TV travel programs.-Early career:...
, the pictures in this book are from many sources. (Basil Pao did provide the pictures for the Hong Kong to Shanghai stretch.)
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.
An interesting aspect of this trip is that almost 3/4 of the time (59 days) was spent getting around the first half of the globe (Europe, Middle East, Asia, Pacific to the International Date Line
International Date Line
The International Date Line is a generally north-south imaginary line on the surface of the Earth, passing through the middle of the Pacific Ocean, that designates the place where each calendar day begins...
) and only 1/4 of the time (21 days) for the last half of the trip (rest of the Pacific, U.S.A., Atlantic). This is also reflected in the number of pages in this book: 180 for the first half of the trip, 60 for the last half.
There are a couple of reasons for this discrepancy. Traveling across the Pacific and the Atlantic was done on fast modern container ships. The trip across the U.S.A. was done by train, which was fairly fast, and this stretch was presumably considered to be less interesting for Western TV viewers (the intended audience) than the more exotic parts in the Middle East and Asia.
One major difference between this trip and the following Michael Palin trips for the BBC was the desire to follow a preordained route that involved a lot of time traveling at sea. Day after day of sailing does not make for very exciting TV. For example, in an almost grotesque sequence, Michael Palin arrives in Singapore harbor on one ship at midnight, rushes through immigration and departure processing, and embarks on the next ship at 2:45 a.m. Neither Palin nor the viewers get to see a single view of Singapore.
The text of this book is available free to read online on Michael Palin's official web site.