Colin Thubron’s book Shadow of the Silk Road [ISBN 978 0 099 43722 2] is an account of his journey following the major towns and cities of the old silk route across Asia. It is most beautifully written – his prose is a joy to read, and it is a fascinating and humorous reflection of the different ways the people he meets think about the world.
Colin Thubron’s book Shadow of the Silk Road [ISBN 978 0 099 43722 2] is an account of his journey following the major towns and cities of the old silk route across Asia. It is most beautifully written – his prose is a joy to read, and it is a fascinating and humorous reflection of the different ways the people he meets think about the world.
Thubron’s journey takes him from Xian across China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afganistan (even though the war is on) through Iran and then into Kurdish Turkey. There is a SARS epidemic in China which stymies him for a while but he manages to find people to drive him and in some cases translate for him throughout his journey in out of the way places.
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