A puzzling phenomenon can be observed in the travel writing from the PRL era. Despite the ideological slant of the texts produced at the time, there was a margin for the cultivation of traditional colonial narratives. This is noticeable at different levels of constructing the
presented world. The present article demonstrates this phenomenon by analyzing two books: Indyjskie wędrówki [Indian Wanderings] by Jerzy Ros (first published in the 1950s), and 25 tysięcy kilometrów przez Indie [25,000 kilometers through India] by Janina Woźnicka
and Andrzej Ryttel (from the 1980s). The motifs and themes associated with the colonial, imperial or Western arena are marked in them with a varying degree of appeal and in different ways. Narrative games are also played with the semi-peripheral identity of the “Pole abroad,” which points to a broader set of ideas about locating the identity of Poles while traveling (in real terms or only potentially, in their imagination) in the geopolitical orders of the world. Mary Louise Pratt’s category of the imperial eyes is used in the analysis.

Keywords: imperial eyes, travel writing of the PRL, travel to India