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The romance of the open road has always been a favourite theme of novelists and poets, songwriters and film-makers; there is something intensely exciting about setting out on a journey. I will present you the new experiences, interesting encounters and the amazing variety of the natural world around us; I will show you fascinating sights, whether the journey is from Bangkok to Singapore through tropical Malaysia or through the awe-inspiring vastness of the Canadian wilderness on the Trans-Canada Highway:
"Road movies" and country songs celebrate the cult of travel; on the road we feel somehow separate from the everyday life around us as we speed by, the landscape is a source of enjoyment but is it static unlike the traveller who can move on to discover new delights.
Great highways of the world have included the straight paved roads built by the Romans in the heyday of their empire, the shifting desert sands traversed by traders in silk and spices, and the perilous rocky tracks along which thousands rushed in the quest for gold. Multi-laned expressways like those of America or Singapore have come to symbolise efficiency and modernity - the car has replaced the camel, but the urge to trade, to make contact and to experience different ways of life from our own, is universal. Sometimes a road can take us on a journey through time , as when we walk on the very stones that Roman soldiers trod as they marched along the Appian Way.
Highways tell stories of heroic endurance, of the determination of pioneers like John McDouall Stuart to open up continents despite the hardships they confronted. The story of Route 66 evokes the hopes and trials of people leaving their homes in search of a better life for their families. Sometimes, however the call of the road ahead is irresistible just for its own sake; in the words of the pilgrims on the Golden to Samarkand.
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