Few places on Earth were more dangerous in 1983 than Peshawar, Pakistan. With a savage war being waged a few miles away between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen, Peshawar had become the new Casablanca. When she wasn't being bombed, her narrow streets hosted a swirling human cocktail of turbaned freedom fighters, tight-lipped foreign mercenaries, naïve foreign aid workers, cruel Pathan warlords, and more spies than ever lurked in Berlin. Riding through this fiery forge was CuChullaine O'Reilly. The journalist who turned equestrian explorer was already familiar with Peshawar and the surrounding lawless portions of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. A convert to Islam, the wandering horseman was unfazed by religious obstacles, fluent in the patois of the tribesmen, and able to partake of any local offering from luke warm goat fat to sullied ditch water. Setting off from Peshawar, O'Reilly began an equestrian odyssey into a mediaeval portion of the world devoid of mercy and machinery. His mission was to ride over some of the world's highest mountain ranges, thread his way through untamed tribes, and miraculously get back to war-torn Peshawar. Yet the adventure he sought demanded a high price. His horse died and was eaten by eager natives. He was kidnapped, tortured, imprisoned in Pakistan's most infamous prison, and met murderers, bandits, whores, and princes. Yet despite these setbacks, O'Reilly never lost hope that he would complete his mounted exploration of the remote and dangerous heart of Asia. Lavishly illustrated with dozens of drawings and maps, the resulting book was compiled from the field notes, maps and diaries the author brought back from his travels. It includes an in-depth glossary of native words, and the largest collection of ethnological, historical, political, sexual, and religious information ever gathered about life in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. "Khyber Knights" is thus a rare talisman against a world grown soft and predictable. Its pages burn with a bawdy portrayal of the darkest secrets of this cruel and beautiful region. It is a tissue of mishaps and romantic adventures, poetic passages and natural beauties, set to the echoing of horses' hooves. Told with grit and realism by one of the world's foremost equestrian explorers, "Khyber Knights" has been penned the way lives are lived, not how books are written. It makes every effort to rip the reader's nerves to rags with its ruthless devotion to the unvarnished truth about life in the North West Frontier. You do not read "Khyber Knights". You survive it! "You have written a masterpiece! This is the book that will top all other equestrian travel books." Jeremy James, Founding Member of the Long Riders’ Guild, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and author of Saddletramp. "As its remarkable author frankly tells us, Khyber Knights is fictional in its framework but based upon hard fact and actual events. And what a tale it is. We can learn from this book, one of the greatest I have ever read. It is a book that one would not want to live without." John Rodenbeck, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, American University, Cairo. "Khyber Knights is an epic account of one of the most extraordinary adventures ever taken on horseback." Nick Smith, Explorers’ Club Editor and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. "Political analysts will immensely benefit from the author’s first hand experience and incisive study of a complex period in our nation’s history." Dr. Maleelia Lodhi, Ambassador of Pakistan. "I spent the last two days reading Khyber Knights. I couldn’t put the book down and now that I have read the last sentences I feel orphaned." Arita Baaijens, Dutch explorer, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and author of Desert Songs. "You emerge from the book shaken, albeit the wiser in many aspects of the hardiness of equestrian long distance riding and of human folly in general. Of course Jack London could do it in his time, but CuChullaine O'Reilly has shown us it can still be done in our day." Bjarke Rink, author of The Centaur Legacy. "Kipling would have loved Khyber Knights." Derek O’Connor, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and author of The King’s Stranger. "Khyber Knights is a real life thriller. Once you start the adventure you won’t be able to get off." Dr. Amjad Hussain, author of The Taliban and Beyond. "An important and courageous work of a time and place that has since melted into the past." Alistair Carr, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and author of The Singing Bowl, Journeys through Inner Asia. Explorers’ Web described CuChullaine O'Reilly as “a living legend” and praised his adventure travel book, Khyber Knight, as “magical.”After extensive travels in Afghanistan, CuChullaine converted to Islam, journeyed to the Muslim holy city of Mecca, then made a daring solo equestrian journey across Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.The book des