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News from Tartary

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News from Tartary

By: Peter Fleming
Narrated by: Richard Mitchley
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About this listen

For most travellers, and all merchants, the road from China to India lies as it has lain for centuries, through Singkiang along that ancient Silk Road which is the most romantic and culturally the most important trade route in the history of the world. In 1935 Peter Fleming set out to travel that route, from Peking to Kashmir. It was a journey which swept him and his companion 3500 miles across the roof of the world. It took them seven months to complete the journey.

They travelled across deserts and mountains, through ice and sand and into some of the most beautiful, mysterious and dangerous areas in the world. His account of that journey is filled with endurance and adventure, with strange encounters in the wilderness, with tales of Chinese, Mongol tribesmem and Indians, and with a spirited sense of humour and courage.

©1936 Peter Fleming (P)2012 Audible Ltd Travel Writing & Commentary

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I am an avid reader of travel books and sadly, albeit Fleming is an accomplished writer, this just didn't hit the mark for me. It was more of a meander through a region, of minimal eventuality, rather than anything of real substance. I would not go as far to say I did not enjoy the book. Metaphorically it was more like lying in a gentle steam, not unpleasant, as opposed to standing under a waterfall, exciting and invigorating. As with most matters of taste, one concedes, this is a purely subjective assessment.

A Matter of Taste Perhaps

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Peter Fleming's famous book, News from Tartary makes for compelling listening. It is a fascinating and colourful tale of his extraordinary journey from the wilds of China across a huge range of mountains and into India in 1935 - something that none of his small party of four ever thought would be possible. For some reason I have yet to discover, Fleming did not appear to have any particular reason for making the trip, except perhaps that he enjoyed testing himself in every way, and perhaps because the impossibility of the journey appealed to his sense of adventure - which, in his case, was clearly a great deal stronger than most of his contemporaries. His description of the journey by overloaded truck along impossible roads, hanging on the outside of the towering cargo as all possible seating places were occupied and spying a great fat louse climbing up his neighbour's back, but not having a hand free to remove the creature and put it to death as both of his were fully occupied with clinging desperately onto the swaying bundles of goods, is riveting....

Read the story and be amazed by the fortitude and resourcefulness of the four travellers and rejoice when they finally reach their destination. Definitely a must read for anyone interested in travel and adventure nearly 80 years ago and marvel at how they all survived.

BRILLIANT IMPRESSIONS OF A WORLD LONG GONE.

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This is a most wondrous account of traveller redline and an ability to make light of the most troubled days. Even today, especially today, this journey would be hard to pull off.

Resilence

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