It's on the Meter

Yet another adventure that I have missed out on as it happened, this was all over social media, there were blogs and various interviews, it made the cover of the Wall Street Journal and was even on the BBC, but somehow I missed all mention of this. So it gets added to the list of amazing achievements that passed me by until it was made into a book, the likes of The bloke who walked the Amazon, The chap who swam the amazon and all the others I've yet to spot.

Paul, Johno and Leigh are a bunch of lads who like to have a few beers and challenge each other to do crazy stuff, one night they decided to buy a taxi and drive it as far as possible. They seem clueless at times, when they have the choice between spare parts and a "banging" sound system they choose to leave the spare parts at home. Their mechanic has only dabbled a little bit in that role and they only plan the route as far as India as they are not expected to get past Europe.

The writing is done by Paul and Johno, it jumps between the two of them throughout the book, using different fonts you can tell who is currently writing. You'd think that would make the book a mess but their character and writing style is so similar I never got my head around who was writing until they mentioned the other guy. It flows really well and it was interesting to get the two different perspective views on the situations.

It was interesting to read how they evolved and grew up....slightly... during the journey. Leigh their mechanic becomes an expert at bodging the car, 97 times he had to fix things. They never really improve with dealing with border crossings, at times things start to become a tad dangerous and you're worried they ain't going any further. The psychology behind 3 big guys in one taxi for 15months and how they managed to live that long together without the end result being violence is beyond me.

They give an honest account of the things they do, the rules they break and the people they meet. And they do meet some real crazy characters on the way. This book is a great advert for couchsurfing and the honesty and friendliness of people all over the world, even in countries/areas classed as dangerous to westerners they were treated well.

This was a great book, a classic travel book in my opinion, so many laughs and it does feel a shame that it has come to an end. If you're new to reading travel books then this is a great place to start.

Blog post is here> felcherman.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/its-on-the-meter-by-paul-archer-and-johno-ellison/