I follow a meandering little road through green sugarcane fields. The broad river, my river, is on the right, flowing slowly in the opposite direction to me. Enormous cotton wool clouds glow pink, lit from beneath the horizon by the sun. Men are already working in the fields, wielding sickles as their grandfathers’ grandfathers would have done. Will their grandchildren do the same, I wonder?

Every day on the road includes many tiny routines.

An urge builds in me, a voice in one everlasting whisper, day and night repeated until I just have to go. It doesn’t really matter where I go. All that matters is that I go. Somewhere different. Somewhere new. Maybe I get bored with where I am. Maybe the restless dissatisfaction rises from everything being too familiar, too easy. Whatever the cause, being in motion feels good.

There are three stages of flabbiness in life. Each is more restricting and stifling than the one before. They creep insidiously over me like vines until it takes one hell of a struggle to escape their clutches. If ever I feel the saggy symptoms snuffling up on my life then I know it is time to hit the road.

I walk quietly past the night watchman, bundled in blankets and snoring on the floor. I step out of the lodge. I’m out into the world. I have begun. Dawn will come quickly. But not yet. My pack feels comfortable. It’s as small as I could manage, but we can’t travel without baggage. We carry it wherever we go, even when we’re trying to leave it all behind. I glance up at the dark sky. I find Venus and use the bright star to check my bearings. I turn my back on it and begin walking west. I...

This book is not a chronological narrative about walking across India. I did that as I went, sharing my experiences through Twitter. It’s like adventure haiku and a few excerpts should suffice to recount the walk.

The alarm clock has just taken me on a journey. A journey that passed in an instant but which took me from one world to another. A journey from the magical world of dreams to a completely different one. A new world. A new day. India. Why am I in India? It does not matter that I am in India. This could be anywhere. Anywhere new to me. The story would be the same. What matters to me is why I am here.

Here’s what this book is not: • A book about India. • A chronological account of a coast-to-coast walk across southern India. • An epic adventure tale. So what is it?

Alastair Humphreys walked across India, from the Coromandel Coast to the Malabar Coast, following the course of a holy river. Walking alone and spending the nights sleeping under the stars, in the homes of welcoming strangers or in small towns and villages, he experienced the dusty enchantment of ordinary, real India on the smallest of budgets. There Are Other Rivers tells the story of the walk through an account of a single day as well as reflecting on the allure of difficult journeys and...