Babak Fakhamzadeh
This is no frivolous account of a journey along the Silk Road. Introspective, in depth, almost scholarly. I had to read slowly to fully grasp the whole text. A joy. The author traveled from beyond Xian, in the heart of China and once the imperial capital, also the home of the terra-cotta warriors, to the Mediterranean at Antioch, now Antalya.
Not only is Thubron's journey epic, his retelling is fantastic. His prose is gorgeous, his sentiment melancholic. Interspersed with in-depth histories of peoples, heroes and geographies, this is perhaps the most impressive travel story I've ever read. But... He flies from Maimana, in northwestern Afghanistan, to Herat. Who has recently traveled the Silk Road without chickening out somewhere?
Thubron easily gives Theroux a run for his money.
At last, clarity as to why typical central Asian shoes have upturned noses: to reduce friction in the sand!
"I'm afraid of, on my travels, nothing happening, experiencing nothing. Emptiness. Of only hearing myself."
This is no frivolous account of a journey along the Silk Road. Introspective, in depth, almost scholarly. I had to read slowly to fully grasp the whole text. A joy. The author traveled from beyond Xian, in the heart of China and once the imperial capital, also the home of the terra-cotta warriors, to the Mediterranean at Antioch, now Antalya.
Not only is Thubron's journey epic, his retelling is fantastic. His prose is gorgeous, his sentiment melancholic. Interspersed with in-depth histories of peoples, heroes and geographies, this is perhaps the most impressive travel story I've ever read. But... He flies from Maimana, in northwestern Afghanistan, to Herat. Who has recently traveled the Silk Road without chickening out somewhere?
Thubron easily gives Theroux a run for his money.
At last, clarity as to why typical central Asian shoes have upturned noses: to reduce friction in the sand!
"I'm afraid of, on my travels, nothing happening, experiencing nothing. Emptiness. Of only hearing myself."