Frontiers of Heaven : Journey Beyond the Great Wall

In the early 1990's, Stewart travels from Shanghai, up the Yangtse, to Xi'an, then along the silk road through to Kashgar, and on into Pakistan. I enjoy his writing style - articulate and well balanced with history, descriptions of places and interactions with people, and in good humour.
“In the southern suburbs of Xi'an stands the Big Goose Pagoda, so named because its namesake in India marked the spot where a dead goose fell out of the sky. This must be a fairly routine event for dead geese, but the monks who witnessed it demise, possibly light headed from chanting, decided the ex-goose was a saint and set about building. It is the kind of episode that can give religion a bad name.” P54
“I arrived in the village just as two sheep were being slaughtered, and I though, as their glazed eyes fixed on mine, how strange it was that their last glimpse of the world should be a foreigner in a brown trilby. Despite this shock, they went quietly.” P195/196
Worth reading for there sorts of paragraphs alone.