![]() ![]() Entering Luristan on a mule, draped in native clothing, Freya bluffs her way past border guards and sets off into uncharted territory places where few Europeans, and no European women, had ventured. ![]() ![]() The Valleys of the Assassins chronicles Stark's treks into the wilderness of western Iran on the hunt for treasure and in an attempt to locate the long-fabled Assassins in Alumut, an ancient Persian sect. Boarding a cargo ship to Beirut in 1927, she went on to became one of her generation's most intrepid explorers - her adventures would take her to remote areas in Turkey, the Middle East and Asia. But it wasn't until she was in her thirties that she was able to leave Europe. Growing up in near-poverty and denied a formal education, Freya Stark had nurtured a fascination for the Middle East since reading Arabian Nights as a child. 'If I were asked to enumerate the pleasures of travel, this would be one of the greatest among them - that so often and so unexpectedly you meet the best in human nature.' INTRODUCED BY MONISHA RAJESH, award-winning author of Around the World in 80 Trains The travel classic by intrepid explorer Freya Stark, relating her journeys through the infamous 'Valleys of the Assassins' alone in the 1930s. ![]()
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