Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Book Review: Night Train to Turkistan by Stuart Stevens


With three companions Stuart Stevens sets on a mission to retrace the renowned journey undertaken by Peter Fleming and Ella Maillart across Chinese Turkistan in 1934. In this journey by Stuart he is accompanied by a triathlete, a Kung Fu expert and a female rower. This group travels by bus, donkey cart, truck and bicycle and aeroplane. During this journey they face numerous challenges. Many of the challenges are political but the physical challenges are also worth reading. The harsh climate, landscape and remoteness during their journey is really interesting to read.

The author at many instances relates his own journey with Fleming’s and tries to draw various comparisons between both of them. Taklamakan desert, Buddhist caves, explorers who visited the caves, trading routes, different ethnicities, physical infrastructure, social conflicts, hotel facilities and the Chinese bureaucracy are under discussion in the book. Sometimes the book also seems to present a reflection in the form of a critique of the daily life in China.

In my opinion this is a good book for travelers who intend to learn from various experiences in life. Traveling with a group and not finding everything in perfect shape is obviously not very pleasing. Instead, keeping the group intact and learning from the harsh realities on the ground makes the traveler stronger minded for any future adventures.

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