They don't come across well.
Went to interesting places, but really. a pair of western twats.

Self-indulgent actors, on a self-indulgent trip around the world. To be fair, I never saw the TV show, but I still just came away convinced that these guys are pretty terrible people.

I really wanted to like this book but couldn't. It could have been so much better. It could have been a tale of hardship, adventure, discovery, humananity, etc. Instead it was a story of two middle aged men moaning about how their GPS and iPod didn't work on their luxury BMW motorbikes. Get over it.

In a recent episode of Pointless, one of the categories was Michael Palin’s travel documentaries. I gave “Wrong Way Around” as an answer, thinking that was something he’d done. My wife, thinking I was referring to “Long Way Round”, corrected me. It turns out we were both wrong, as I was completely making up an answer out of nowhere and my wife was referring to Ewan MacGregor and Charley Boorman’s motorbike trip from London to New York, going via Europe, Russia and Asia and back through Canada and the United States. Much in the style of Michael Palin’s travelogues, this 2004 trip became a television series I haven’t seen and a book I hadn’t read, until my wife pointed out the copy on our bookshelves that she had before we got married.

The two men met on a film set and bonded over a shared love of motorbikes. They decided they needed a challenge and settled on riding motorbikes from London to New York, but going the long way around, as the shorter route across the Atlantic wouldn’t really have worked out on a motorbike. This book tells the story of how the trip came to pass and tells both men’s point of view as they were travelling, apparently taken from diary entries they were making at the time, highlighting all the joys and challenges; physical, mental, administrative and mechanical that they faced along the way.

Whilst I knew of Ewan McGregor’s film career, as I’d seen him in a number of films, I wasn’t aware Charley Boorman was also an actor, as I’d only seen him as a contestant on “Celebrity Masterchef” and as a guest on various other shows and I knew very little about this challenge. So it was interesting to find out more about both of them as people and that was the real strength of this book for me. I did find it took a little while to get going, as I’m neither much of an adventurer or a motorbike fan, so all the details they went into towards setting up the challenge both as a television programme and the planning that went into organising the motorbikes they would use was a little dull to me, but that was largely down to my particular areas of interest than for any other reason.

Once they got going on the trip, however, I felt the book picked up and became more of an emotional journey. Between the two of them, they went through an awful lot of experiences, from being terrified by the sight of men with guns and knives and being unsure of their intentions, to being moved by the plight of homeless and abandoned children in a number of parts of the world. They had to overcome physical challenges of traversing high rivers, riding through mud, snow and gravel and break downs and accidents on the roads. They also suffered from homesickness, lack of sleep and slightly too intrusive organisation from some of the back-up crew and sometimes they took it out on each other as being the only people around to moan at and about.

But there were moments of beauty as well, as they enjoyed some scenery in parts of the world that many of us will never see. They were moved by how helpful complete strangers who couldn’t speak their language could be and thrilled in the joys of smooth tarmac and open road when they were able to find it. They met people they expected to meet and some they didn’t and found they revelled in some of those meetings and were slightly overwhelmed by some of the others. They veer frequently from dejection to exhilaration and from friendship to argument and all of it appears within these pages.

This was help by the book being comprised of collected writings supposedly made on the road, which gave the whole book a first person narration that made it more emotional and a little more real. Whilst neither man is renowned as a writer, they at least manage to get their feelings across very well and it was possible to feel some of the tough moments as well as some of their joy as it went through. There was plenty of swearing as a reaction to various events and, whilst they did come across as a little spoiled at some points, they also appeared genuinely humbled by some of the sights they saw, particularly on the occasions where they stopped to visit some of the work UNICEF is doing on the other side of the world. I would have preferred more of the latter moments than either the former or the setting up of the trip and perhaps a little more in Asia where things were most difficult than in Europe or North America where things were a little smoother, but it was largely a good read.

Perhaps the one issue with this first person narration from both men was that it wasn’t always obvious which one of the men was writing. Whilst all sections started with the name of the one who was writing, some of them were several pages long and I had to turn back to the start of a section to check who was on point at that stage, but mostly it was sufficient to see who was referred to in the third person to figure this out. I would also have preferred it if the sections were a little shorter, as there were the odd occasion where they would reach a point on the trip and then the book would take a fairly large step backwards so the other could recount their feelings about the section, where splitting it up into smaller pieces may have been a little more effective.

However, some minor gripes aside, I did enjoy this travelogue. Both the journey and the book were driven as much by emotion as they were by petrol engines and that came across quite well and made the book more enjoyable for me, as a person not normally interested in the obvious subject matter. There may not quite be enough travel advice for the traveller, not enough about the bikes for keen bikers, but there is plenty here for casual fans of either subject, or either actor.

Whoo! A travel book that I actually finished! I am so proud of myself. I hate myself for liking (and then consequently bagging on) chicklit lately. But Long Way Round was quite an easy read if only because it was written by Ewan McGregor and his friend, a fellow actor whom I had never heard of called Charley Boorman. This was about their motorcycle trip from London to NYC (via Asia).

The book was okay. The downside was all the talk about their motorcycles, which I didn't care about at all and a couple of anecdotes about people recognizing Ewan in the most random places in the world. You ain't that big a movie star, boy! But I guess everyone knows Star Wars. Otherwise, it was an entertaining read as most books my celebs are. They are entertainers for a reason. And also, I liked that Ewan and Charley didn't get a long a lot of the time. Way different then the usual get stuck in the worst situations, but we are best friends till the end! Them fighting a lot made it way more real.

I am a glazer when it comes to reading sometimes and this book, if you glazed over a page, you may have missed a whole story, so that aspect kept me awake. I didn't want to miss anything because the stories that were noted where very well written. They were mainly about the people and situations they came across in the wilds of Asia, re: things you would never even think of, like not having a paved road. Crazy.

Grade: solid C

I saw the series on TV , the book is SO much better!

This was great. Of course it wasn't a literally masterpiece, but I listened to the audiobook and it was captivating. it narrated an adventure between two great friends and it was easy to imagine those experiences they had. It was fun and adventurous and it just made me wanna learn to ride a bike so I could make such a trip myself.

I was not enchanted by the shop talk and obvious love of motorcycles. The guys often came across as entitled westerners. And, not too many months ago, I read a book by Kate Harris called "Lands of Lost Borders" where her and her traveling companion took bicycles over much of the same Asian terrain - though their starting and ending points were vastly different. The difference was that Ewan and Charley traversed the trail about 15 years earlier, and things have become much less isolated in that time. I wish I'd read this book first. It was a fine book and it certainly had its moments. Just didn't wow me.

I am into motorcycles and adventure and could not finish this book. They are just trying too hard and it got old quick.

A lovely gift from a lovely friend, but sadly it is a portrait of two Englishmen whining about being on the adventure of a lifetime. As a somewhat accomplished global bike trekker, I couldn't believe the crap I was reading. If it wasn't for Ewan's additional contributions to motorcycling (see Faster and Kentucky Kid), I would have dismissed it after two chapters.

It was pretty obvious they were sponsored by BMW as it was mentioned often. These two act like they have never been away from home before the way they went on and on about how they missed their families, that got a bit tiring.

I wish they had said more about the North American portion of the trip but I’m sure it was petty boring after Mongolia etc.

What I did like is that pictures and maps were included as they are so often not included in travel memoirs.

I’ve watched the series a few times. The first time before I went travelling in Asia and it gave me the need to drive Vietnam north to south by motorbike. Reading this book let’s you see their trip from a different perspective and has equally lit the flame of my need for a bike adventure. The book also shows more of the personal struggles and journeys they undertook on this trip. I loved it and have already recommended it to my mate. Right I’m off for a bike ride.