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Night Train to Turkistan: Modern Adventures Along China's Ancient Silk Road
“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 . . .”
252 pages, Paperback
First published January 13, 1988
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About the author
Stuart Stevens
14 books85 followersAn American travel writer, political consultant and Daily Beast columnist. He is the cofounder of Washington, DC-based political media consultancy Stevens & Schriefer Group. He served as a top strategist for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
May 18, 2021
Although proposed as a trip to retrace the route of Ella Maillart and Peter Fleming, it really isn't. The route from Beijing to Golmund is the same, then Stevens and his fellow travellers are forced to take the northern route around the Makla Makan, rather than the southern route taken by Maillart. Both both trips reached Kashgar. Here Stevens returns to Beijing, whereas the more famous travellers carried on to India.
There are some nicely written passages in this book. Anyone who has struggled to buy a train ticket in China will recognise elements of this description of the station in Xi'an:
"Each window sells tickets only for certain precise and limited circumstances - such as non-express trains leaving on Mondays for Xinning. Another window will handle Tuesdays... None of these are marked or arranged in order. To discover the designated purpose of each window, one waits in line. And waits and waits."
Or boarding a bus to secure a seat:
"Like many encounters of sudden violence, I can't recall how we managed to fit into the bus. The bench seats were narrow and short, a squeeze for two people. Each held three. I ended up wedged next to the window with two PLA soldiers muscling in next to me."
An enjoyable, easy read but really it is the 'lite' version of the Maillart/Fleming trip, and ultimately it ends up a little pale.
There are some nicely written passages in this book. Anyone who has struggled to buy a train ticket in China will recognise elements of this description of the station in Xi'an:
"Each window sells tickets only for certain precise and limited circumstances - such as non-express trains leaving on Mondays for Xinning. Another window will handle Tuesdays... None of these are marked or arranged in order. To discover the designated purpose of each window, one waits in line. And waits and waits."
Or boarding a bus to secure a seat:
"Like many encounters of sudden violence, I can't recall how we managed to fit into the bus. The bench seats were narrow and short, a squeeze for two people. Each held three. I ended up wedged next to the window with two PLA soldiers muscling in next to me."
An enjoyable, easy read but really it is the 'lite' version of the Maillart/Fleming trip, and ultimately it ends up a little pale.
December 25, 2017
"Chop Stuart"
Travellers come in many flavors, just like ice cream. Some try to "get in" with the natives of the places they go in order to learn more about foreign ways and perceptions. Others prefer to challenge themselves with tests of strength and endurance, paddling up jungle rivers or scaling giant peaks. There are innumerable variations. However, there is one type of traveller whose tales tire me very quickly. That is the type who likes to regale their readers (or listeners) with the total awfulness of everything, to impress (?) people with what they had to put up with, and to tell how ___________ the people were. (choose from among....greedy, stupid, venal, tricky, persistent, dirty, lying, impossible) Occasionally they meet one or two different individuals who only prove the point about the rest.
Stuart Stevens did not know anything about China. His attitude seems to hover most of the time around the level of "frat boy goes China". He managed to recruit two other babes in the woods, plus Mark Salzman, who did know Chinese, had spent a couple years in China already and had written a decent book about it. It would be interesting to hear Mark's opinion of this trip. That travelling rough in Third World countries tends to be difficult is hardly news. Of course, it all might not have been nearly as bad as Stevens says because he is so securely fastened into the "vomit, spit, and urine everywhere" school of travel writing. Stevens had the idea to contact a famous solo traveller from the 1930s, Ella Maillart, a Swiss lady, who had journeyed with a British man along the southern edge of the Takla Makan desert in Xinjiang province (once known as Chinese Turkestan). He tries to retrace their steps, but fails totally and completely. He is forced by Chinese bureaucracy to take the usual tourist route around the north of the desert, winding up in Kashgar, almost to Pakistan. This is an interesting part of the world, and when Stevens can get away from his lightweight moaning about the primitive conditions, the cold (who told him to go in December ?), the bad food, and duplicitous, intransigent Chinese, he writes a nice description. In fact, I would say that this is a well-written travel book with nice flashes of humor, but focussed mostly on the negative. The author takes a leaf from Carlos Castaneda in his "Conversations with Don Juan". He just repeatedly fails to get the message. If he had only decided early on that Chinese hate to tell others "NO" directly, but prefer to give some excuse which may sound lame to Westerners, but which indirectly tells the recipient that "what you are asking is not possible", we could have been spared all the incredulous, open-mouthed astonishment at the Chinese bureaucrats' "lying ways". What we have here is a failure to communicate. I'm sure this is all part of a non-organized trip to Turkestan, but it is not the major part, nor is it a very interesting part. If you are into the Yuck School of Travel Writing, this work is just up your alley. If you would like some sort of perspective on Xinjiang, its people, history and problems, give this book a miss.
Travellers come in many flavors, just like ice cream. Some try to "get in" with the natives of the places they go in order to learn more about foreign ways and perceptions. Others prefer to challenge themselves with tests of strength and endurance, paddling up jungle rivers or scaling giant peaks. There are innumerable variations. However, there is one type of traveller whose tales tire me very quickly. That is the type who likes to regale their readers (or listeners) with the total awfulness of everything, to impress (?) people with what they had to put up with, and to tell how ___________ the people were. (choose from among....greedy, stupid, venal, tricky, persistent, dirty, lying, impossible) Occasionally they meet one or two different individuals who only prove the point about the rest.
Stuart Stevens did not know anything about China. His attitude seems to hover most of the time around the level of "frat boy goes China". He managed to recruit two other babes in the woods, plus Mark Salzman, who did know Chinese, had spent a couple years in China already and had written a decent book about it. It would be interesting to hear Mark's opinion of this trip. That travelling rough in Third World countries tends to be difficult is hardly news. Of course, it all might not have been nearly as bad as Stevens says because he is so securely fastened into the "vomit, spit, and urine everywhere" school of travel writing. Stevens had the idea to contact a famous solo traveller from the 1930s, Ella Maillart, a Swiss lady, who had journeyed with a British man along the southern edge of the Takla Makan desert in Xinjiang province (once known as Chinese Turkestan). He tries to retrace their steps, but fails totally and completely. He is forced by Chinese bureaucracy to take the usual tourist route around the north of the desert, winding up in Kashgar, almost to Pakistan. This is an interesting part of the world, and when Stevens can get away from his lightweight moaning about the primitive conditions, the cold (who told him to go in December ?), the bad food, and duplicitous, intransigent Chinese, he writes a nice description. In fact, I would say that this is a well-written travel book with nice flashes of humor, but focussed mostly on the negative. The author takes a leaf from Carlos Castaneda in his "Conversations with Don Juan". He just repeatedly fails to get the message. If he had only decided early on that Chinese hate to tell others "NO" directly, but prefer to give some excuse which may sound lame to Westerners, but which indirectly tells the recipient that "what you are asking is not possible", we could have been spared all the incredulous, open-mouthed astonishment at the Chinese bureaucrats' "lying ways". What we have here is a failure to communicate. I'm sure this is all part of a non-organized trip to Turkestan, but it is not the major part, nor is it a very interesting part. If you are into the Yuck School of Travel Writing, this work is just up your alley. If you would like some sort of perspective on Xinjiang, its people, history and problems, give this book a miss.
September 25, 2014
Lame attempt to retrace Peter Fleming and Ella Maillart's epic 1935 journey through Turkistan and on into India. What Fleming would discount as a minor annoyance, Stevens would dwell on for pages as a major episode -- hot temperatures, delays, etc; what did he expect? Some things are just better left alone.
March 11, 2024
I picked this up at a Friends of the Library book sale a couple of years ago. I thought it was serendipitous at the time because my challenge group had some tasks that required reading in some specific countries of Asia. Somehow, I had more to read then than I needed and didn't get to this.
In the mid-1980s, Stuart Stevens and some friends planned to retrace the route followed in 1935 by an Englishman, Peter Fleming, and a French woman, Ella Maillart. Depending on the exact route, it was a 3,500-5,000-mile trip across the sort of territory boys' adventure stories relished labeling "barren and inhospitable." Neither of those earlier travelers had planned to travel together and each published a book describing their journey. In this publication, Stevens frequently references that earlier journey mostly to show the contrast. Stevens journey was, afterall, in communist China. It was an adventure of a different sort.
This trip would begin in Beijing and terminate in Kashgar. Despite the title, very little of this trip was by train. From Xi-an, they had to negotiate with various Chinese communist bureaucrats to get tickets to the next stop. Hotels were ill-equipped and sometimes even water was rationed so that it was not available for many hours at a time - not even for toilets!
I am an arm chair traveler and this book did not dissuade me that I've made a wrong lifetime decision in that regard. I like my conveniences and I'm not especially good at making adjustments. As I - and they - got more than halfway, I began to have less sympathy for their difficulties. The front cover of says A wildly hilarious ride through an amazing, surreal land. For me, I cannot even describe what an overstatement that is. I'm not sorry to have read this, but it is only 3-stars.
In the mid-1980s, Stuart Stevens and some friends planned to retrace the route followed in 1935 by an Englishman, Peter Fleming, and a French woman, Ella Maillart. Depending on the exact route, it was a 3,500-5,000-mile trip across the sort of territory boys' adventure stories relished labeling "barren and inhospitable." Neither of those earlier travelers had planned to travel together and each published a book describing their journey. In this publication, Stevens frequently references that earlier journey mostly to show the contrast. Stevens journey was, afterall, in communist China. It was an adventure of a different sort.
This trip would begin in Beijing and terminate in Kashgar. Despite the title, very little of this trip was by train. From Xi-an, they had to negotiate with various Chinese communist bureaucrats to get tickets to the next stop. Hotels were ill-equipped and sometimes even water was rationed so that it was not available for many hours at a time - not even for toilets!
I am an arm chair traveler and this book did not dissuade me that I've made a wrong lifetime decision in that regard. I like my conveniences and I'm not especially good at making adjustments. As I - and they - got more than halfway, I began to have less sympathy for their difficulties. The front cover of says A wildly hilarious ride through an amazing, surreal land. For me, I cannot even describe what an overstatement that is. I'm not sorry to have read this, but it is only 3-stars.
March 11, 2017
Not as much travel literature as a collection of anecdotes from a trip to Western China.
The plan is to go from Beijing to Kashgar, one of the great crossroads on the ancient Silk Road in Chinese Turkistan, an area that has been on/off closed to the Western world since 1949.
Now we are in 1986, China is beginning to open towards the West and Stuart Stevens decides it´s time to go.
Even I do appreciate the idea of following in the footsteps of Peter Flemming and Ella Meillart who travelled the route in 1936, the idea seems flawed in so many ways.
I know I should only judge the literary qualities but …
What could have been an interesting and intriguing tale of travel to an area most of us will never see, is drowned in frustrated ramblings about Chinese bureaucracy and the bad quality of long distance busses.
In all honesty, we do get a bit here and there, it´s just not enough to justify the subtitle “Modern Adventures … “
Being in a strange land, but not being able to decipher bus schedules and struggling with languages are not adventures, it is circumstances you have chosen.
This is a typical travel diary, and it should have been kept private.
The plan is to go from Beijing to Kashgar, one of the great crossroads on the ancient Silk Road in Chinese Turkistan, an area that has been on/off closed to the Western world since 1949.
Now we are in 1986, China is beginning to open towards the West and Stuart Stevens decides it´s time to go.
Even I do appreciate the idea of following in the footsteps of Peter Flemming and Ella Meillart who travelled the route in 1936, the idea seems flawed in so many ways.
I know I should only judge the literary qualities but …
What could have been an interesting and intriguing tale of travel to an area most of us will never see, is drowned in frustrated ramblings about Chinese bureaucracy and the bad quality of long distance busses.
In all honesty, we do get a bit here and there, it´s just not enough to justify the subtitle “Modern Adventures … “
Being in a strange land, but not being able to decipher bus schedules and struggling with languages are not adventures, it is circumstances you have chosen.
This is a typical travel diary, and it should have been kept private.
August 21, 2007
The author seems like a spoiled shallow person who makes the least out of his experience.
December 19, 2011
Stevens and three friends (including Mark Salzman) follow the route of Fleming and Maillart, a 1930s adventure couple from Beijing to Kashgar, the capital of Chinese Turkistan. This is a fun little book, at times truly hilarious, as Stevens blithely recounts the squalid horrors of traveling in a Third World country, or is challenged again and again by mendacious, obstinate bureaucracy who will say anything to prevent them from traveling.
But there’s not much history or anthropology to speak of, other than a few comments about the Tibetans or Uighurs, or passages from Fleming’s book. Nor does Stevens come to any novel or shrewd insights about China, other than the Cultural Revolution must have sucked, although no one will talk to him about it, and its bureaucracy is like an army in its cold homogeneity. It even dismisses the Tiananmen Square riots at the end! A lightweight, amusing travel piece; it could have been more meaningful, such as Salzman’s books or Bill Holm’s Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays.
But there’s not much history or anthropology to speak of, other than a few comments about the Tibetans or Uighurs, or passages from Fleming’s book. Nor does Stevens come to any novel or shrewd insights about China, other than the Cultural Revolution must have sucked, although no one will talk to him about it, and its bureaucracy is like an army in its cold homogeneity. It even dismisses the Tiananmen Square riots at the end! A lightweight, amusing travel piece; it could have been more meaningful, such as Salzman’s books or Bill Holm’s Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays.
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August 13, 2023damn that's a lot of lamb. bureaucracy's been an abiding interest of this reviewer in recent days & the malleability here of "impossible" as a concept depending which functionary is looking at which scrap of paper is fascinating. a lot about chinese institutions being decrepit, hidebound, etc is looking p ironic given how things have shaken out here & there in the intervening 25 years... who from the people's republic wants to tackle night train to kankakee?
February 1, 2008
I loved this book. Stevens has a great sense of humor and tells an engaging tale of an area of China that is already rapidly changing due to modern rail access. Definitely better than Malaria Dreams . . . although both are worth a read.
June 12, 2019
Four punks visiting China.
The question - “But tell me again, why is it you wanted to do such a thing?” - stays unanswered through out the book. Except perhaps for this “From the beginning it was a silly idea. This of course I liked …”
The four punks are in a constant fight with the Chinese bureaucrats, but that does not make a very interesting read. It is a small wonder that at last the reach their destination (Kashgar or Kashi) at least three of them do. The most memorable moment, and writing, is the flight back.
In the beginning of the 1980’s, when China was just opening up for western tourists, I planned a trip. Reading this book I am happy I had to wait for another ten years and a much better reason to go. Not for the problems they are facing, what’s the lesson of a journey without difficulties, but for the fear of turning out to be an unconsidering punk like these guy’s.
The question - “But tell me again, why is it you wanted to do such a thing?” - stays unanswered through out the book. Except perhaps for this “From the beginning it was a silly idea. This of course I liked …”
The four punks are in a constant fight with the Chinese bureaucrats, but that does not make a very interesting read. It is a small wonder that at last the reach their destination (Kashgar or Kashi) at least three of them do. The most memorable moment, and writing, is the flight back.
In the beginning of the 1980’s, when China was just opening up for western tourists, I planned a trip. Reading this book I am happy I had to wait for another ten years and a much better reason to go. Not for the problems they are facing, what’s the lesson of a journey without difficulties, but for the fear of turning out to be an unconsidering punk like these guy’s.
March 14, 2016
This is very sarcastic, witty and humorous tale of 4 Americans recreating, in a sense, the Silk Road trip that Ella Maillart and Peter Fleming originally made famous in the 1930s. I don't know why so many reviewers are saying Stevens had a bad attitude when writing this book, have YOU ever tried to travel within China? I did in 2010s and it was a goddamn nightmare... what Stevens went through in the 80s, when Deng Xiaoping had only recently opened the country to foreign visitors, sounds legitimately like a hellish time! Actually, it sounds a lot like my recent trip to India...except his experience involved a lot less sexual harassment so he wins.
Very enjoyable and funny read.
Very enjoyable and funny read.
October 18, 2016
I'm actually giving this book four stars, though I liked it not that excessively, because of the author's sheer persistence. I don't think the voyage was all that useful, except to learn about the territory and the societies and people there; I mean, the four people traveled all the way across China, three made it to Kashgar, and they all lived to tell the tale. They didn't do anything other than just get there. The point then becomes, they did get there. They arrived, and lived through it. I am stunned, actually, at the amount of sheer bureaucratic nonsense that ground their gears almost to stripping, the whole way. It was published in 1988, so not that many years after the Cultural Revolution, and not that long after China absconded with Tibet's self-rule. I wonder how China got that wide, obstructionist, bureaucratic streak, and now I hope for someone else to write about traveling across the country, to satisfy my curiosity as to how it goes now, in 2016. I'm not going. I am surprised and a little gratified, that English was found in some form almost everywhere they went, though understandably not a lot of usable English. On a whim once I took Google Earth to the Gobi desert, and wandered around, following roads on the satellite projection on my computer screen. It really is that desolate and difficult to get around in. There are smaller areas in the United States where roads peter out, because of difficult terrain and lack of usable water; the border area between Montana and Wyoming comes to mind. But the area they traveled through, to Kashgar, was an order of magnitude more hostile to human life, and yet vastly more populated and speaking English, where I don't think you could find above one or two Chinese speakers, of any dialect, in northern Wyoming where I grew up. The sheer frustration the travelers experienced, and the people they met: the combination of bald-faced lying and preserving face while being as obstructionist as humanly possible, made me think that conditions during the Cultural Revolution and previous Communist experiences, planted on top of a corrupt warlord and empire base, must have been horrific. It may be that they were so obstructionist because the penalties for helping people were terrible. I suspect fear has a huge part in this. Suddenly the enjoyment of relaxing Falun Gong, without any fees or registration to restrict and control it, seems a threat to the restrictive parts of the culture, government, yes, but also the parts of the culture itself that fear anyone stepping out of his or her appointed place. Them's pretty wobbly high heels you're on, there, China. The tide is coming in; you can't learn English without learning English concepts.
March 3, 2012
I unassumingly ordered this from Paperback Swap because the title and description seemed intriguing. Little did I know I was embarking upon a new author obsession…
Stuart Stevens’ travel writing is absolutely hilarious. In this adventure he and three friends decide to journey across China in 1986, retracing the 1936 journey of Peter Fleming, an eccentric travel writer and yes, brother of Ian Fleming. Stevens never really offers a satisfactory explanation for his motivation – in the first line of the book, he admits, “From the beginning, it was a silly idea. This, of course, I liked.” The whole adventure is thus crazy from the get-go, and I was immediately hooked. Stevens and co are so completely out of their depth, despite the fact that one member of the group speaks Chinese and spent a great deal of time living there before the adventure. They are trying to deal with the impossible preposterousness of the Chinese government in the 1980s, when apparently the primary occupation of any citizen was to enforce a multi-layered bureaucracy that specialized in passing the buck through an endless maze of ministries. At every way point on their journey, Stevens and his friends are delayed while they try to find transport for the next leg of the trip, and trying to get official clearance to travel through the next province. It gets so frustrating at times, it’s laugh-out-loud hilarious. Apparently no one travels to western China, so every official they talk to is baffled and suspicious about their intentions.
And then there are the conditions: awful, inedible food, the bone-chilling cold of western China in early winter, squalid hotel rooms lacking electricity and running water, overcrowded, mechanically-challenged busses…
Somehow, however, Stevens seems to have fun. His wry observations about these experiences, and the idiosyncracies of the country he’s traveling across, are just so damn entertaining. I literally couldn’t put the book down, and often felt oddly envious of Stevens and the fun he seemed to be having.
In the book, Stevens refers in passing to his being an accomplished skier, but otherwise doesn’t offer much information about himself. I have since tried to track down more info, but nowadays Stevens is an incredibly accomplished political PR specialist and aside from his travel books and some guest columns and interviews in major news media, there’s not much out there. I was surprised to find out he’s a conservative, though it’s obvious from his books that he doesn’t have any money problems. Honestly, his travel writing is just so engaging and funny, I really don’t care, I just sat back and enjoyed.
Stuart Stevens’ travel writing is absolutely hilarious. In this adventure he and three friends decide to journey across China in 1986, retracing the 1936 journey of Peter Fleming, an eccentric travel writer and yes, brother of Ian Fleming. Stevens never really offers a satisfactory explanation for his motivation – in the first line of the book, he admits, “From the beginning, it was a silly idea. This, of course, I liked.” The whole adventure is thus crazy from the get-go, and I was immediately hooked. Stevens and co are so completely out of their depth, despite the fact that one member of the group speaks Chinese and spent a great deal of time living there before the adventure. They are trying to deal with the impossible preposterousness of the Chinese government in the 1980s, when apparently the primary occupation of any citizen was to enforce a multi-layered bureaucracy that specialized in passing the buck through an endless maze of ministries. At every way point on their journey, Stevens and his friends are delayed while they try to find transport for the next leg of the trip, and trying to get official clearance to travel through the next province. It gets so frustrating at times, it’s laugh-out-loud hilarious. Apparently no one travels to western China, so every official they talk to is baffled and suspicious about their intentions.
And then there are the conditions: awful, inedible food, the bone-chilling cold of western China in early winter, squalid hotel rooms lacking electricity and running water, overcrowded, mechanically-challenged busses…
Somehow, however, Stevens seems to have fun. His wry observations about these experiences, and the idiosyncracies of the country he’s traveling across, are just so damn entertaining. I literally couldn’t put the book down, and often felt oddly envious of Stevens and the fun he seemed to be having.
In the book, Stevens refers in passing to his being an accomplished skier, but otherwise doesn’t offer much information about himself. I have since tried to track down more info, but nowadays Stevens is an incredibly accomplished political PR specialist and aside from his travel books and some guest columns and interviews in major news media, there’s not much out there. I was surprised to find out he’s a conservative, though it’s obvious from his books that he doesn’t have any money problems. Honestly, his travel writing is just so engaging and funny, I really don’t care, I just sat back and enjoyed.
September 15, 2017
Not quite as entertaining as his other travel adventure novel (Malaria Dreams), this entry by Stuary Stevens is nonetheless filled with humor and sarcastic wit that is sure to be appreciated by most readers of travel literature. Deciding to replicate a famous journey by Maillert and Fleming in 1936, Stevens sets off in the late 1980's to cross portions of western China to reach Kashgar, a destination apparently unheard of by most Chinese even at the time. Struggling with language barriers, brutal bus rides, incessant cold, and seemlessly endless amounts of mindless redtape which is unfathomable by the casual observer, Stevens still manages to slowly make his journey westward. This is in the company of an acquaitance who speaks Chinese but hates China, a buffed-up former Marine of sorts, and a lycra-clad female athlete who manages to capture the attention of Chinese and Tibetans alike. Its a fun romp to read as it deviates from the typical traveloque restricted to descriptions of the Great Wall or other typicla tourist destinations.
May 28, 2008
This book was recommended in a review of Rob Gifford's China Road - the reviewer said that it was superior to the Gifford book. WRONG. In my view, Stevens book is sophomoric and self centered next to Gifford's interesting and insightful narrative. It should have been interesting to see how many changes there were in western China between the Steven's trip (in the 80's)and Gifford's (about 2004?)but it was hard to compare since Steven's book is mostly a series of complaints about how uncomfortable and miserable he and his friends were. They planned badly, researched little about the area and traveling, had only one person who spoke Chinese so could not really learn much. There were a couple of interesting contacts - eg a dedicated school teacher who invited them to come to his class - but the potential for writing about this positive encounter is lost. Skip this book and read Gifford's and read anything that Peter Hessler has written, starting with River Town.
August 20, 2010
Twenty years old now, but still a favourite read. A wonderful account of a handful of sometimes-hapless American expats crossing China west into Xinjiang, the old Chinese Turkistan, in the late 1980s, trying to follow Peter Fleming's itinerary from the 1930s. Xinjiang is China's western edge--- desert and mountain, only conquered late in the 19th-c., and inhabited (where it is inhabited) by Turkic Muslims who resent their Han occupiers. No one went there in the late 1980s, and it's beginning to be risky to go there now. So--- a sometimes very funny and always very intriguing travel book about a part of China and the world that's likely to be as out of reach in 2010 as it was 1879.
January 10, 2008
The other Stevens book, in my humble opinion. This is not as charming or well conceived as 'Malaria Dreams' so I would not read this one first-his writing style and approach to reporting his travels were better in his other book. There are a few memorable moments (a brutal hotel experience is one that comes to mind), but not an enlightening book. Good read if interested in the interior of China but more research could have made this a better travelogue-would pick up Theroux's Riding the Red Rooster for a better China travel book (dated as it might be it is still a better read). By no means is this a terrible book just so-so.
December 9, 2013
Although the title is enticing, the book itself is not a great book. It focuses more on how the hotels they stayed were, the bus and train details and almost nothing about the culture and history of places they have passed. If you are reading to learn about the Turkistan and its people, this is not the book to do so. It is more about the daily practicality of their journey, how they found the bus/train where they sat and how it was etc. The author is obsessed to follow the route of Fleming without any particular reason and they cannot achieve that.
February 24, 2014
I picked up Stuart Stevens' "Night Train to Turkistan" because both of the book-related websites I visit recommended it for me. I have no idea why. I made it about half-way through before I got so bored I gave it up.
Stevens' book details his travels through China along the Silk Road. He mostly carps and complains about the conditions of the hotels, conditions of the train, conditions of the roads... you get the general gist. He also seems to have a great dislike for every single person he encounters.
This is a good contender for one of the worst travel books I've ever read.
Stevens' book details his travels through China along the Silk Road. He mostly carps and complains about the conditions of the hotels, conditions of the train, conditions of the roads... you get the general gist. He also seems to have a great dislike for every single person he encounters.
This is a good contender for one of the worst travel books I've ever read.
July 13, 2016
Funny, sarcastic, and above all, real. Not overly poetic or worshipful, Stevens book is full of characters you can really imagine. If you have traveled in China, you know these types: the unhelpful ticket agents; the bureaucrats; the suddenly and surprisingly useful and friendly heroes who appear about once a week out of the crowd, to help you out of a static situation; those enthralled by the west who are dying to listen to the Rolling Stones and speak English; the food in its full…spectrum; the freezing cold, cement hotels. Great book.
January 25, 2014
Four Americans go to China to travel the silk road, and it's only Mark Salzman, author of Iron & Silk, who's been to China before. Ill prepared for the trip, the troupe narrowly escapes accident time and again, with many set backs and re-winds as they try to follow the path of Peter Fleming's 1936 travel adventure. Reading Stevens' descriptions of Mark Salzman is hilarious if you've read Iron & Silk.
May 7, 2017
Although this book was written in 1986 and I am sure some things have changed in China since then, I found the writing delightful and entertaining. While attempting to follow the southern Silk Road as two adventurers did in 1936, four friends, athletes and modern adventurers attempt the same while encountering the most bizarre red tape, lack of accommodations and food, bitter cold and some of the most friendly and endearing people. I really enjoyed it.
September 15, 2007
I read this book after I read Rob Gifford's "Road to China:A Journey into the Future of a Rising power" written about Rte 312 the Old Silk Road. Gifford wrote his book in 2005. "Night Train... written in 1985, is also about China's Old Silk Road. It was quite interesting to compare 2005's capitalistic/communist China with the more idealogical/rigid China in 1985.
Currently reading
September 11, 2008I'm just starting this and am not far in enough to rate it. So far it's good though. It's fast-moving and charming in an old-fashioned and slightly dated style which makes it seem much older than it is.
February 18, 2017
The story of an improbable group of people on an impossible journey. A good read indeed, with some absolutely brilliant passages such as a meeting with the Chinese Ski Club in a Beijing hotel. This is why we love travel writing.
May 29, 2017
Modern travel is usually not very interesting. This trip was taken at just the right time no cell phones no laptops. The book like the trip itself was a little long other than that it was pretty good.
July 31, 2008
Not one, but two reluctant travelers. I had just read Mark Salzman's books so it was a treat to see him in the second person.
August 21, 2008
Funny, read with his Malaria Dreams, these stories are real travels that seem totally impossible, especially today.
October 17, 2008
A fascinating portrayal of travel through pre-capitalist China.
November 13, 2010
This book started out very well, but petered out slowly. I began to lose interest about a third of the way through and sped read the rest. It would have made a great article.
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