From the Library

[Biggles]

I needn't have worried - the police roadblocks have simply moved the travelling salesmen to the other side of the mountain, and as soon as I left Ketama, it began - a car in the mirrors, lights flashing, horn blaring, closer and closer until it was alongside, swerving violently as its mirror-shaded driver waved a brick of hash, shouting, "Very best quality, come see my house."
Apart from the slight embarrassment of being unable to outrun a 25-year-old Renault 9, it was quite a laugh - a proper car chase. After a mile or so he gave up and passed the spliff baton to a 4x4, parked across the road ahead. As Ken said, hit the dirt, so I foot-down-wobbled past, onto the next. And the next. And the next. To be honest, it all got a bit much. After an hour of this nonsense, I'd gone from excitement to anger to jaded weariness - there's only so many car chases a man can take - even the Dukes of Hazzard had the occasional break from the action to splash around in the creek with Daisy.
These Are The Days That Must Happen To You  Dan Walsh p14

[Biggles]

I was heading for Erfoud and the ironically named Hotel Majestic, a grubby little gaff notable only for the nosiness of its patron. He started slowly, leafing through my passport, graduated to watching me unpack and for the finale picked up a postcard I was in the middle of writing, examined the front and then started reading on the back in a Stavros accent, "Hello Mum and Dad, how are you?"
But people don't come to Erfoud for the hospitality, they come for the Erg Chebbi, Morocco's only section of rolling dunes. So the next morning I dumped the luggage, kinda guessing that within ten minutes of my departure the patron would be running round the lobby with my pants on his head, shouting, "Look! Now I am the Eengleesh man!", and took the surprisingly perky XT on the 36 km trek to the sand, dreaming crusty-demons-of-dirt fantasies in my motocross helmet.
These Are The Days That Must Happen To You  Dan Walsh p15