Turkestan Solo: A Journey Through Central Asia (Tauris Parke Paperbacks)

In 1932, long before traveling in Central Asia became fashionable, Ella Maillart travelled to Russian Turkestan, bordered by China, Tibet, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Setting out from Moscow, she crossed Kyrgyzstan as far as the Tien Shan range (the Celestial Mountains). She climbed the 5,000 metre-high Sari Tor on makeshift skis, explored the legendary cities of Tashkent, Samarkand, Khiva and Bukhara, and crossed, solo, the freezing and hostile wastes of the Kizil Kum, the Desert of Red Sands.