Just finished up reading A Short Walk in The Hindu Kush (1956) by Eric Newby. The book describes an expedition through modern-day Afghanistan, carried out by the author and his diplomat friend Hugh Carless which includes an abortive attempt to make the first ascent of Mir Samir and ends with the whole caravan contracting "persistent dysentery" and running out of all but the most basic of supplies.
Despite the continual sense of failure, A Short Walk... nevertheless manages to be quite cheery in tone and is characterised throughout by a very English self depreciation and understated wit. In his short preface, that champion of old fashioned English whimsy, Evelyn Waugh, describes the book variously as being absurd, beguiling, idiosyncratic, romantic, and of exemplifying the essential traditional amateurism of the English. In other words, definitely worth inclusion in this blog. Go have a read.
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