He seemed the epitome of an explorer to me: part adventurer, part mystic, ever-drawn to distant horizons. What inspired you to cycle the Silk Road?Īs a kid, I idolized Marco Polo based on the storybook version I knew of his travels. It’s an uplifting realization that gives hope for the future of humankind. The book shows us that no matter how far off the beaten path you travel, people have far more in common than they do differences.
Lands of Lost Borders looks beyond these imaginary political boundaries meant to divide us. Riding disguised in masks and with Chinese flags fluttering from their bikes to avoid detection by authorities in occupied Tibet, Harris muses that “Borders reinforce the idea of the alien, the Other, stories separate and distinct from ourselves.”
With outstanding insight, wit and humility, she reflects on borders and what they mean. Families and individuals from all walks of life fed and housed the pair-again and again exhibiting decency and respect to these dusty, road weary strangers.įuelled by instant noodles and battling sickness, snowstorms, and endless flat tires Harris stays buoyant throughout.
Despite language and cultural barriers, no matter where their bikes took them they were lent a hand by most everyone they met. Obsessed in her early life with someday going to Mars, Harris’s travels take us instead to a place that to many is almost as foreign, right here on Earth. At one point, the pair even snuck around an armed border checkpoint at night in order to gain access to the Tibetan Plateau. Negotiating bureaucratic red tape in these countries is harder at times than climbing and descending the rough mountain roads of the route. Abandoning academia, she set her sights on intimately experiencing this formerly grand trade route now fallen silent behind restrictive borders. Inspired by explorers like Marco Polo and Fanny Bullock Workman, Harris grew up yearning to strike out on adventures of her own.
The yearlong odyssey of author Kate Harris and her cycling pal Mel Yule draws back the curtain on a little-travelled area of the planet, giving us an intimate peek at life in countries like Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. Combining autobiography, adventure, philosophy and history, Lands of Lost Borderschronicles a wild cycling journey along the fabled Silk Road.
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