The Last Secrets of the Silk Road is jolly hockeysticks meets Genghis Khan; four English girls in their mid-20s decide to retrace the old Silk Road through central Asia by horseback and camel. This adventure is so outrageous and splendid that in the first few pages you wonder whether it can really be true. The girls all have happy schoolgirl nicknames, Alex, Wic, Mouse and Lucy. They seem to think that trekking across the Taklamakan Desert will be just one notch up from the local gymkhana.

The honesty and freshness of the whole adventure is finally winning. You can get caught up in this exaggerated summer camp experience. It was sweet that the girls cared so much for their hard worked horses and underfed camels. When the author fell in love with her Uzbekhi horse guide, the handsome and sensitive Shamil, the story took a personal turn that led to jealousies and petty recriminations amongst the girls. You expected them to resolve the problems with a pillow fight and a midnight feast, but instead they resort to home-made vodka and tots of bad Russian champagne around the campfire. By the end their determination, zest for life and willingness to encounter real danger and hardship wins you over. --Dwight Longenecker

2005-06-27 Pretty poor .. more's the pity ....

I'm afraid that i would have to agreed with the views expressed so far. It could have been so much more. The raw material had limitless potential but the human input was not up to the job.
I had a vague unease throughout. The animals welfare for one thing. No mention of even a basic supply of tried and tested veterinary drugs being carried. Setting off on both legs with grave doubts about the health of horses and camels leading to them being discarded or palmed off along the way.
The bizarre lauding of all things Russia and the wonderful Russian people. Years of cowed servitude to the State, the Industrial horror show that is their economy, a society fuelled by corruption and vodka, the shambles and cruelty of their failed military, the technological ineptitude that gave us Chernobyl and the rusting nuclear scarpyard leaking God alone knows what up North .... these are all just blips ?
Was it impossible to find geldings and save all that biting and fighting? I don't know but i'd have liked to have been told.
The book does improve towards the end with some nice descriptive passages but by then i had become almost unwilling to give credit where it was due.
It was a gruelling and emotional trip that very few of us would even contemplate and that they made it through does them great credit.
But simply put; this is not a very good book.