> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Thubron-Lombre-de-la-route-de-la-soie/109116

> L’Ombre de la Route de la soi de Colin Thubron, dont le propos est explicite, parallèle à celui de Rory MacLean, en plus classique.
—Nouvelles Clés

An interesting trip written by someone with a deep knowledge of the history they are travelling. Lots of great tidbits and personal observations but in the end, maybe a temple or ruin too many. ( )

Setting out from Xian, the author travels overland, taking in Tibetan monks; Yongchang (where he explores a fascinating tale of a Roman army division being sent out to fight the Parthians in 50 AD...and the sometimes 'European looking' locals...meets the Uighur, on the edge of the Gobi desert, Ends up in a SARS quarantine camp, through Krgyzstan and Samarkand...and into Afghanistan, still ravaged by war, the silenced people of Iran, and through the Elburz Mtns to Antioch.
It's masterly writing. I was glad to nget to the end but that's in no way a reflection of a beautifully written travel narrative. ( )

Colin Thubron went back to cross from China via Central Asia and Afghanistan to Iran and Eastern Turkey, to travel the ancient Silk Road. He published “Shadow of the Silk Road” in 2006, the book, but more so his journey, an extraordinary feat, given the threat from SARS in China and the hostilities in Afghanistan at the time. All the more striking, then, that Mr Thubron, quiet and relaxed as always, just does his own thing, finds his own way, often ignoring official directions if he thinks they are useless and ineffective. He may get arrested, so once in a while, but it doesn’t seem to bother him that much. As I have observed in other books of Mr. Thubron, he has a special way of observing, not necessarily focusing on the tourist highlights, but often on more obscure, somewhat irrelevant yet interesting aspects of the region he travels through. Helped by his linguistic skills, he travels off the beaten track, and he meets people, mostly ordinary people. All very interesting, yet, it seldom gets very exciting – which does not, in any way, diminish the respect I have for this man, who wrote his first travel book in the 1960s!

The last part of the book deals with Iran, which he traverses along the northern route, like Dervla Murphy did. Unlike Ms Murphy, Thubron is strong on historical context, which is interspersed with his own travel experiences, past tombs and towns, Teheran and Tabriz. Like Ms Murphy, he also observes the striking difference between Iran’s Persian population, and the large swath of Azerbaijani Iranians, who are culturally quite different. Although Mr Thubron stuck me earlier as quiet and relaxed, during his passage through Afghanistan for the first time some fear shimmers through his travelogue, when he realizes he is the only Westerner, except for the occasional foreign soldiers, in the wide surroundings, in an area where even the locals don’t want to tread – resulting in him taking a plane to Herat, instead of his usual overland travel. But back in Iran, he is his usual self again, back to what I called earlier “a special way of observing, not necessarily focusing on the tourist highlights, but often on more obscure, somewhat irrelevant yet interesting aspects of the region he travels through”. In fact, I enjoyed the latter part of the book more than the earlier, Chinese and Central Asian part. ( )

From Xian, China, to Antakya, (Antioch), Turkey, Thubron traced the footsteps of ancient traders and legendary explorers as he traveled the fabled Silk Road.

I have to say, this is one of the best travelogues I've read. I enjoyed it immensely. I've always found the Silk Road a fascinating subject, and Thubron brought both ancient legend and the modern region to life. ( )