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Colin Thurbon's beautiful prose unfolds along the Silk Road, unearthing a richly layered past on his most ambitious journey.

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. A magnificent account of an ancient world in modern ferment, Thubron covers over 7000 miles in eight months enduring a near-miss with a drunk-driver, incarceration in a Chinese cell, and undergoing root canal treatment without anaesthetic, along the way.

VINTAGE VOYAGES: A world of journeys, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the mind It is hard to think of a better travel book written this century * The Times * A beautiful and profound travel book * Mail on Sunday * A masterpiece of travel writing ... a classic * New Statesman * Thubron is a very hardy traveller, and a very fine writer...[it is] a book of exceptional erudition, adventure and elegance -- Robert Macfarlane * Spectator * A poetic volume - interesting, shocking and deeply engaging, the work of a mature writer at the top of his game -- Sara Wheeler * Daily Telegraph *

Shadow of the Silk Road: (Vintage Voyages)