"From the beginning, it was a silly idea. This, of course, I
liked." So begins Night Train to Turkistan, Stuart Stevens's
irreverent, irresistible Chinese travel tale. In the late fall of
1986, Stevens, a young political consultant and writer, invited
three friends to join him on an unlikely 5,000-mile quest along
China's Ancient Silk Road. Their goal was to retrace the steps of a
famous journey made in 1936 by Peter Fleming, an eccentric British
writer/traveler, who, like his brother Ian Fleming, had a flair for
exceptional adventures. Stevens's choice of companions is more
amusing than useful-a triathlete and closet good ole boy, a kung fu
expert from Yale, and a six-foot-tall female rower in Lycra stretch
gear. Only one of them-Mark Salzman, author of the acclaimed Iron
& Silk-had ever been to China before and Salzman is profoundly
unsure of he likes being back. Together this improbable foursome
sets out from Beijing determined to follow Fleming's route on the
Silk Road to Kashgar, the fabled capital of Chinese Turkistan (or
Tartary as it has been known for centuries) is one of the wildest,
least populated regions on earth, dominated by the fierce Takla
Makan desert, a name which translates into "you go in, but you do
not come out." In the unbelievable cold of a Chinese winter,
Stevens & Co. rumble across China in trains, donkey carts,
bicycles, and some of the more memorable buses in recent
literature. Often trapped in monolithic Russian-built hotels, they
battle, bluff, and plead their way through the mazes of Chinese
bureaucracy, surviving on such delicacies as lamb fat and cold
noodles. Crammed with unforgettable characters and unforgettably
funny scenes, Night Train to Turkistan is a rare, high-spirited
romp across a country where travelers are greeted with "Comrades,
we welcome you to your journey. Please do not spit everywhere . .
."
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