The Silk Road: Taking the Bus to Pakistan by Bill Porter (PDF)

Description

To travel upon the Silk Road is to travel through history. Millennia older than California’s Camino Real, and perhaps even a few years senior to the roads of the Roman Empire, the Silk Road is a network of routes stretching from delta towns of China all the way to the Mediterranean Sea – a cultural highway considered to be essential to the development of some of the world’s oldest civilizations. It was upon this road that that Chinese silk traveled and was exchanged for incense, precious stones, and gold from India, the Middle East and as far the Mediterranean, contributing to the great tradition of commercial and idea exchange along the way.In the fall of 1992, celebrated translator, writer, and scholar Bill Porter left his home in Hong Kong and decided to travel from China to Pakistan by way of this famous and often treacherous Silk Road. Equipped with a plastic bottle of whiskey, needle–nose pliers, and the companionship of an old friend, Porter embarks upon the journey on the anniversary of Hong Kong’s liberation from the Japanese after World War II and concludes in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, at the end of the monsoon season. Weaving witty travel anecdotes with the history and fantastical mythology of China and the surrounding regions, Porter exposes a world of card–sharks, unheard–of ethnic minorities, terracotta soldiers, nuclear experiments in the desert, emperors falling in love with bathing maidens, monks with miracle tongues, and a giant Buddha relaxing to music played by an invisible band.The Silk Road is the second of a three–book memoir series about Porter’s travels in and around China to be published by Counterpoint. With an eye for cultural idiosyncrasies and a vast knowledge of history, Porter continues to make with his mark as an expert and travel writer.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Few travelers are as prepared for making their way on the Silk Road as Bill Porter. An award-winning translator of Chinese texts, Porter lived in East Asia for 22 years, including four years at a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. He speaks Chinese and is a knowledgeable traveler.This is his story of going from Xi’an, China, to Islamabad, Pakistan, primarily by bus. He and his friend, Finn, were a pair of beer-loving, frugally funded, rucksack-toting, intrepid adventurers. Their experiences included staying in a yurt, outsmarting black market money-changers, spending the night in a rattle-trap bus in freezing, high altitude temperatures, clearing landslide boulders off roads and hiking around landslides that were going to take months to clear.Bill Porter is no Rick Steves. His travelogue is heavy on history and light on travel advice (which would be outdated by this time anyway.It’s still an interesting book for anyone fascinated by the Silk Road and its history.

⭐An enlightened and historical tramp on the most alluring and mysterious roads of time. Red Pine again amazes, engages and deeply informs his readers with exquisite details, insights and the wry wit of a seasoned traveler-zenmaster.His astounding historical lexicon of knowledge brings insight to the tales and legends of each locale.

⭐I really enjoyed this book. It had humor and told the history of all the places they visited along the route, as well as their encounters with people along the journey. A test good armchair travel book.

⭐Bill Porter is a great translator but enjoy his books regarding travel in China. Enjoyable read!

⭐Informative.

⭐Thank you!

⭐Reading this travelogue about a Silk Road journey in 1992 (after finishing his earlier one that followed the Yellow River in 1991) I have the feeling Bill Porter didn’t enjoy this trip nearly as much. Beginning with a sojourn in Xian, Porter proceeds to travel and trash Lanzhou, Wuwei, Zhangye and Jiayuguan in short order. Dunhuang was OK, but Turpan, Urumqi and Yining didn’t meet expectations. Yes, it was 30 years ago, and the trains were like cattle cars, the hotels like barns. It was easy enough to make a fake ID and cheat on China’s foreigner entrance fees. But so what?Once Bill leaves Kashgar on the Karakorum highway, things improve significantly. Anecdotes about bus passengers, border officials, landscapes and landslides do not fail to amuse. Folk tales from the local tribes sometimes seem silly, but that is their nature. The descriptions of the scenery and towns in the Himalaya Mountains and the Indus River are breathtaking. The gloom that permeated the prior leg of the journey lifts, as do the spirits of our itinerant host and guide. He even notices that the Pakistani uniforms fit much better than their Chinese counterparts do.Porter’s credibility is difficult to deny, speaking fluent Mandarin from his language study at Columbia U. and his years in a Taiwanese Buddhist monastery. He has a deep knowledge of Chinese history and culture due to his anthropology studies and extensive travel experiences. His descriptions of the shrines, temples, tombs and museums border between bored and cynical, but he hits the highlights adequately enough. Summary critiques of thousand year old religious artwork are artfully juxtaposed with evaluations of the temperature and quality of the local beer.I think this is a good book to read if you’ve already been here, or if you want to go. It is of course dated from 1992, but having seen many of these sights in 2014 not a lot has changed, except for the ease of train travel and quality of hotels. Of course it costs a bit more, but not much. The Gansu corridor, the northern Silk Road and upper Xinjiang remain as they always were, timeless and beautiful. I hoped to love this book more, like his enthusiastic descriptions of the northeast. The places here are well worth the time to see, and are better in person than as told in this tale.

⭐Great idea. Looks like a superb adventure. Good research. But the trip was hurried! To keep moving was the goal! These guys apparently didn’t eat. Or meet anyone. Or share ideas with locals. This has voluminous amounts of history, but fails on every level in its description of of these guys actually taking a TRIP. Only their quest to make the next bus, taxi, or train. Not for this traveler……………

⭐A lovely gentle read crafted by a writer who sees what everyone one walks by.Captures China just when it was changing.

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