When I approached Penguin Little Black Classics number 16, there was a particular sense of excitement. Marco Polo and his famous travels had been part of our schoolbooks, but I had never actually read him. And this selection, Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls, was about something even more intriguing: his experience of India.

Naturally, I wanted to know what he had seen here. The reading turned out to be both fun and full of wonder.

The book begins with a kingdom ruled by one of five brothers, each of whom had a kingdom of his own. One of the great sources of wealth here was pearl harvesting, and Marco Polo describes in some detail where the pearls were found and how they were collected.

He also gives the Brahmins a rather important role in the process. According to him, they had the ability to charm living creatures during the daytime and thus protect the pearl divers and fishermen from danger while they worked.

Marco Polo describes the wealth of the country at such length that after a while it seems as though every kingdom possesses a veritable treasure house of pearls and precious stones. The southern kingdoms he encountered were clearly very rich.

But what fascinated me even more were the moments when the distance of eight centuries suddenly seemed to disappear.

He writes about practices and omens that survive even today. At one point, for example, he describes certain periods of the day during which auspicious activities are avoided. I immediately thought of Rahu Kaal, which some people still observe. Elsewhere he talks about considering the direction in which one should travel, and I found myself thinking of Disha Shool.

He writes about temples and deities, idolatry and the way temple deities are treated as living beings. He spends considerable time describing what people eat and how they dress.

Reading all this in the twenty-first century is a fascinating experience because so much of it is still recognisable. Eight centuries have passed, kingdoms have disappeared and the world Marco Polo travelled through is long gone. Yet every now and then he describes something that would not seem entirely out of place in India today.

Then there were things that sent me looking for explanations.

Marco Polo talks at some length about tarantulas and their painful bites. I had always associated these large, hairy spiders with other parts of the world. Looking into it further, I discovered that India does indeed have large ground-dwelling spiders, including tarantulas. Marco Polo also describes people sleeping on beds raised above the ground to protect themselves from such creatures.

Another fascinating section describes his journey north to a kingdom ruled by a woman. Marco Polo says that she had ruled for around forty years after her husband’s death.

My first thought was Razia Sultan. The period was roughly right, but then I checked. Razia had ruled Delhi for barely four years and had died long before Marco Polo arrived in India. It wasn’t history that made me think of Razia: it was Bollywood and the image of Hema Malini with Ae Dil-e-Nadan playing somewhere in my head.

While looking this up, I realised that he was talking about Rudrama Devi.

That part regarding her ascension, however, he seems to have got wrong. Rudrama Devi did not come to power simply because her husband died. She had been designated as ruler and succeeded her father. She went on to have a long reign in her own right.

And yes, there is a movie about her as well, albeit in Telugu, Rudhramadevi, featuring quite a few well-known Telugu stars. It was amusing to encounter a ruler I knew from Indian history and popular culture suddenly appearing in Marco Polo’s travels.

His observations about Brahmins and yogis are equally fascinating. He writes about their austerity, non-violence and way of life, and seems particularly impressed by their longevity. According to Marco Polo, some of these yogis lived to be 150 or even 200 years old. And I felt, who really knows?

He also writes about early Christians in India and their customs. In particular, he spends considerable time describing the church associated with St Thomas the Apostle. What interested me was his observation that the place was revered not only by Christians but also by Muslims, whom he calls Saracens.

He also describes a custom of taking soil from the place and using it in the hope of healing illnesses.

That is what made this little book such an enjoyable read. Some things sounded strange, some familiar, some exaggerated and some remarkably close to practices that can still be encountered in India today.

Overall, Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls offered a fascinating glimpse of southern India in the late thirteenth century. I began the book curious to know what Marco Polo had seen here, and finished it surprised by how much of what he described I could still recognise.

By the time I closed the little volume, though, I had one regret. I wish he had travelled farther north. I would have loved to know what he saw there.