Shadow of the Silk Road
Ratings4
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings4
Average rating3.8
A journey along the greatest land route on earth, from the master of travel writing Colin Thubron On buses, donkey carts, trains, jeeps and camels, Colin Thubron traces the drifts of the first great trade route out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey. Covering over 7000 miles in eight months Thubron recounts extraordinary adventures - a near-miss with a drunk-driver, incarceration in a Chinese cell during the SARS epidemic, undergoing root canal treatment without anaesthetic in Iran - in inimitable prose. Shadow of the Silk Road is about Asia today; a magnificent account of an ancient world in modern ferment. 'It is hard to think of a better travel book written this century' Times 'Thubron is the pre-eminent travel writer of his generation' Sunday Telegraph
Reviews with the most likes.
I liked this book, but I didn't love it. The idea of the book was initially fascinating to me: Travel down the old Silk Road and see what is still intact, relating a little ancient history and telling stories about the people that used the road in the past.
I loved the ancient history and the stories about the people and places of the Silk Road. What irritated me were Thubron's conversations in his mind with an ancient traveler; these seemed silly to me.
