Behind the Wall

Summary

Having learned Mandarin, and travelling alone by foot, bicycle, and train, Colin Thubron set off on a 10,000-mile journey from Beijing to Tibet, starting from a tropical paradise near the Burmese border and reaching the windswept wastes of the Gobi desert and the far end of the Great Wall. What Thubron reveals is an astonishing diversity, a land whose still unmeasured resources strain to meet an awesome demand, and an ancient people still reeling from the devastation of the Cultural Revolution.

© Colin Thubron; (P) Random House