Night Train to Turkistan

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.