Since 911 the reader has been inundated with academic volumes about radical Islam the geo-political alliances of Pakistan & the identity of the Taliban What has been lacking is Travels in a Dervish Cloak an affectionate hashish-scented travel book full of humour & delight written by a young Irish foreign correspondent living on his wits on the contacts from his grandmother s address book & with a kidney given to him by his brother Others might have conserved this gift of a life-saving kidney by living a sober & quiet life but it had the opposite affect on Isambard Wilkinson who took to the adventurous life of a Daily Telegraph foreign correspondent like a cat assured of nine lives His rich & wonderfully intimate picture of Pakistan describes the country in all its exuberant colourful contemporary glory It s a place where past empires be they Mughal or Raj continue to shine like old gold beneath the chaotic jigsaw of Baluch Punjabi Sindi & Pashtun peoples not to mention warlords hereditary saints bandit landlords smugglers & party-mad socialites The only way to understand the contradictions is to plunge into the riot of differences & to come out grinning