Andrew Benfield

🏔️ Adventurer 🧘🏻 Meditator 🙏 Martial Artist + Presenter of the BBC’s Yeti show!

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

I’m no longer posting on X - find me at https://t.co/VX32lz1jSn instead!

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

I’m up north right now for a change of scenery….

And, talking of changes, I’ve also made the decision not to post on X anymore, so please come join me on Instagram instead at https://t.co/VX32lz1jSn
and enjoy my Alaskan adventures with Mr. Richard Horsey! 🙏

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

Time to take flight again across the sea, over the Atlantic, skirting Iceland, traversing Greenland, across the Rocky Mountains, and finally touching down in rugged British Columbia.

Canada, we’ve never had the pleasure before, but I already feel you’re going to be rather special, for a number of reasons 🇨🇦🍁

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

Mum had always been very clear that she wanted a colourful Celebration of Life, not a mournful funeral, and so that’s exactly what we tried to give her.

Standing up in the chapel to deliver my eulogy on Tuesday, there was rather a lot to fit in.

First was her creativity - an artist, sculptor, poet, writer, dressmaker, musician, ballroom dancing teacher…it just never stopped.

Then there was her curiosity for the world. At just 21, she sailed half way around it to Australia where she lived for the next 6 years before taking another ship home via the Americas, so completing a circumnavigation of the globe. And all that in the 1960s with no WhatsApp, ChatGPT or Google Maps in sight.

She was always learning and reading - the last book she left on her bedside table (at 82 years old) was “Neuroscience for Dummies”. That sense of wonder and openness to new things was combined with a delightful playfulness, an adamant refusal to grow up, reflected in the almost constant twinkle in her lovely green eyes.

Then there was her generosity and kindness. She constantly saw the best in people and supported us in whatever we did, so long as our hearts were in it. EVEN when my sister decided to become a sex therapist and I went off in search of the yeti.

She always told me the world was my oyster as I was growing up, which set in motion my peripatetic life. Thankfully though, I was right back at her side when she passed. And by some miracle that confounded even the doctors, she emerged from her comatose state and opened her eyes for a short while as we played her favourite songs and told her we loved her.

As I sit waiting to board my flight out of London, I’m still in a netherworld, all certainties dashed, floored by the omnipotence of “this too shall pass”, even the one person who was always there right from the very beginning.

But I do know that she would want me to carry on the adventure she began, to continue the dance. And the journey to new shores I’m embarking on now feels the perfect way to do so. As well as to start coming to terms with the biggest change, the biggest loss, that I’ve ever known.

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

To our beautiful, funny, elegant, charming, one-in-a-million mother, who departed this earth on her final sailing this afternoon.

Wherever you are in the world, we’d be so grateful if you could raise a glass to her today to celebrate a simply amazing life - and please send a photo 🙏

Joanna and Andrew

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

It’s all about the people you meet really, isn’t it? Most especially when they hook you up with fancy speaking engagements…

I struck up conversation with the extremely charming English couple while hiking up towards Mount Everest in the Nepal Himalayas a couple of years ago. Not only were they absolutely lovely and the perfect company for hot rum toddies later in the day, but it turned out that one of them was also the famous travel physician, zoologist and author Jane Wilson-Howarth.

And now she’s only gone and gotten me on the speaker list alongside her for next January’s Adventure Travel Show in London 🤩

It promises to be an absolutely fantastic show and I hope to see you there - here’s to talking to strangers!

https://t.co/AsI8re3rKI

#notquiteyeti #bbcyeti #yetibbc

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

@dawnafinch @BBCiPlayer This is absolutely fantastic and I have just preordered my copy! Huge congratulations!

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

Throwback Thursday: I spent the next few years living in Myanmar (or Burma if you prefer - it’s more complicated than you might think…). It’s a beautiful, fascinating and diverse country, from the golden Shwedagon pagoda in Yangon to the lush rolling hills of the Shan states, from the sublime Inle Lake to the pristine beaches and islands of the far south.

I think it’s also the only place I’ve ever been where hawkers come round renting books to read on long train journeys - a testament to the remarkable resilience of people’s desire for knowledge, something that’s somehow survived decades of under-investment in the education system.

But it’s not just the education system unfortunately. Tragically, the country’s enormous potential across the board has been stymied by a long history of oppression and armed conflict. Events took an even darker turn with the 2021 military coup (by which time I’d already left the country). The army refused to accept the results of democratic elections and an ongoing brutal crackdown now makes violence and suffering a daily reality for millions.

It’s been absolutely devastating to see how events have unfolded over the last couple of years and the terrible impact this has had on my many Myanmar friends and the people of the country as a whole, a people who have already suffered so much over so many decades. We can now only hope that we’re approaching the cusp of a new dawn.

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

In all the years I’ve been training in Tai Chi Chuan, I think this wins the prize as the most beautiful spot I’ve found for morning practice - up at 4,000 metres just outside the charming village of Phortse in the Nepali Himalayas, with Mount Everest right around the corner.

Training and teaching this martial art has been the one constant in my life over the past couple of decades. And yes it IS a martial art, although most people have sadly forgotten that side of it. The smooth flowing sequence is actually a series of self defence moves that you perform slowly to get them right. You’re supposed to then separate them out, speed them up, and practice using them against a partner who plays the role of an attacker. The complete art also includes a range of conditioning and energy-boosting drills and even weapons work.

But apart from the practical self defence for which is was designed, Tai Chi also has simply amazing health benefits, including some invaluable mental ones - moving slowly and smoothly accompanied by breathing deeply inevitably calms a hyperactive mind and brings you back to the beauty of the present moment.

There really is no better way to start the day!

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

Throwback Thursday: I’ve so far refrained from mentioning former significant others in these posts out of respect for their privacy. But suffice to say that, as an itinerant tramp, it’s never been easy maintaining a long term relationship.

Another motivation for my admirable discretion in this regard is atonement for having perhaps once gone just a tad too far in the other direction, penning an entire book that guest-starred my ex-partner.

My time in Nepal had come to an end when, on a short consultancy assignment to Burma, I became rather smitten with the country and so decided to move there next. I soon realised it would make an even better home if I had my old Royal Enfield motorcycle from India with me to pootle around the back roads of Mandalay on, and so, in a flash of genius, I decided to pop back over to Delhi and ride the bike over, passing through Nepal and Bhutan en route - I mean, how hard could it be?

Quite bloody hard as it turned out.

I invited my partner of the time to join me, mainly as a way to try to impress her as I had a niggling feeling that she found me rather underwhelming a lot of the time. Following a complete lack of adequate preparation, we then rode through some of the wildest parts of India, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma. Along the way we contended with suicidal roads, tribal head-hunters, an alarming number of men with guns, and a border that hadn’t been crossed in fifty years. That all took a very heavy toll, both on the bike and on our relationship.

Having barely survived the whole experience and more than a little perturbed, I decided it would be cathartic to write about it. And so “The Wrong Way Round: How Not to Travel to Burma by Motorcycle” was born, a book that British national treasure Joanna Lumley subsequently very kindly described as “a spectacular journey…a thrilling rollercoaster…gripping from start to finish…madcap, funny, evocative, daring…and quite soppy at times!” Bless her.

It’s available on Amazon - https://t.co/ST8t3ahgLw - and at all dodgy bookstores, plus an audiobook version is on the way!

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

In the past very much a water city, many of Bangkok’s canals have now sadly been concreted over. But just about enough remain, along with the majestic curvatures of the mighty Chao Phraya river, to get around by boat if you’re a little creative.

And may I just say what a damn fine way to travel that actually is.

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

Really hoping that facsimile I’ve been waiting for since 1986 comes through by the time I get back to the room tonight.

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

@mthagen65 Yes indeed!

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

Throwback Thursday: Scrambling up a volcano near the Congolese border behind a man with an AK-47 was not my ideal way to spend a Sunday afternoon, especially when there’d been recent guerrilla activity in the area. But I had a good reason - there’d also been recent gorilla activity in the area.

Rwanda is an absolute jewel in the heart of Africa, known as the “land of a thousand hills”, most of them impossibly green and gorgeous, especially when adorned with wisps of morning mist. It’s also a land of horrendous recent trauma where everyone you meet over a certain age has lived through a genocide.

I’d flown in from Kathmandu for an assignment with some foreign embassies in Kigali and was making a quick dash upcountry to try to see a gorilla, an animal dismissed for centuries as a myth by outsiders. Just like the hippo. And the panda. And the Komodo dragon. And I could go on - this “they can’t know anything we don’t” narrative was to become very familiar when I embarked on my yeti quest years later. But it already rang a bell for my work in Africa and Asia, as often the real root of the problem I’d been hired to fix was a failure to listen to the knowledge and expertise of local people.

That afternoon, as I saw a giant paw through the trees and then a curious, half-turned face, I was initially convinced it was someone in a gorilla costume. The features, the expression, the intelligence in the eyes, I’d simply never seen anything like it outside of my own species. I quickly lowered my gaze to avoid a provocation and thankfully the giant silverback resumed munching on his bamboo. For the next couple of hours, I crouched in the foliage while he and his family gently went about their business around me. It was an absolutely enchanting experience.

But the uncanny valley feeling haunted me long afterwards. And when I was in the Himalayas with Richard listening to people’s yeti stories, they described very similar creatures and reactions. And if those creatures really are out there, I can well understand why, like the gorillas of Rwanda, they’re holed up in a remote corner somewhere trying to escape the madness of Homo sapiens.

#notquiteyeti #yetibbc #bbcyeti

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

@BasuAshis @jojolly @bbcworldservice Oh that’s great to hear! Richard and I will actually be paying our first visit to Canada in August and very much looking forward to it!

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

Anyone in need of a Himalayan fix? Well I’ve just the ticket: my most talented friend and former BBC Correspondent to Nepal, Jo Jolly, has a stonker of a new podcast out - Chasing Mountains!

It tells the true story of five female mountaineers, all of whom are trying to become the first woman to reach the summits of the 14 highest mountains in the world. It’s absolutely riveting stuff with mind-blowingly impressive people and, like all good stories, quite a twist in the tale…

Very well worth a listen and available now from wherever you get your podcasts - just search for “Chasing Mountains”🏔️

Jo also deserves a very special mention for two good reasons: (1) when we first met and became friends in Nepal, she let me fulfill my lifelong dream by allowing me to stand in front of a TV camera with a microphone and say, “This is Andrew Benfield, for BBC News, in Kathmandu” (sadly this was never broadcast to the nation).

And (2) it was her who had the idea that Richard and I’s ongoing quest for the yeti might just make a fetching BBC Radio 4 show and podcast - something we’d certainly never considered. It was also subsequently her storytelling genius that morphed our rambling adventures and musings into a series fit for public consumption!

I should also mention that, being a quintessential Renaissance Woman, Jo has written a fascinating book on a completely different subject that you should check out - Red River Girl. Oh and she directs brilliant pantos.

Honestly, some people….

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

By popular demand: a video of me getting slapped extensively in the face.

For the full account of what the devil was going on: https://t.co/3jegs4Yusy 😊 👋 🙏

[Andrew Benfield @particularbear]

I find there’s something quite cathartic about playing an instrument and singing - it’s a great way to release emotion and also come back to the present moment for a bit and shut your own head up.

A couple of years ago I took the plunge and started doing it in public (to be clear, not just like randomly in the street but in bars and with the owner’s permission). Singing in front of an audience is a bit intimidating at first, but there’s nothing like a round of applause (and even the occasional whoop if punters are tipsy), to give you a nice warm buzz and the feeling you’ve given someone a little bit of joy, even if it was with Gloria Gaynor’s helping hand.

So a new venue has asked me to send them an example of my oeuvre, and I’ve just submitted this - now waiting to hear if I will survive their vetting… 😬