I've heard a lot of this. Further than Marco Polo, the Moroccan man who started his journey towards Makkah for Hajj in 1325 and ended up not coming home until 30 years later. I heard references to it in a few places and one day a few months ago, I found this treasure at a car boot sales. For 2 quids, I got the abridged version (abridge is better for such a long book) in English translation. It proves to be a good and it's quite amazing to reflect on the sort of things that he saw and described from his journey. Covering North Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe and most of Asia, the narrative is detailed and quite vivid.
A few interesting things I noticed; total lack of racial-biased perspective, what we consider modern now are not that new actualy - some things have been around for a very long time, China is more opened that we thought, human species' ability to survive is admirable, don't worry about too much details - just move on!
That's travel in my book....round the world trip should come soon!
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