Of the three William Dalrymple books I've read this one is the least satisfying. Its a fun read but ultimately not a very substantial one. City of Djinns & Age of Kali are both excellent books on India and highly recommended. In Xanadu is one of those travel books that is dominated by its itinerary. You hear lots of exotic sounding words and place-names but are not left with much more than a glimpse of each place passed through. Each country just feels like a check point as the border crossings are what give the book what drama and humor it has. For example in Iran he is detained by a policeman at a remote checkpoint but when he produces his Cambridge library card the officer exclaims, "Oh, Agah, by the great Ali! This is the most famous university in the world." And then the officer not only lets him go but offers his services as a tour guide. It is a funny story but as a reader you begin asking yourself what the point of the journey is if all Dalrymple is really concerned with is crossing borders and finding the next mode of transport to get him to the next town. The journey at times feels more like an endurance challenge than anything else. Dalrymple does quote from a number of great travel writers at timely moments along the way but in doing so he simply makes you wish you were reading their books instead of his. There are a number of books about the Silk Road or Persia in particular(Robert Byron's In Oxonia) that may be worth considering as an alternative to this book. Dalrymples expertise is architecture and he spends time speculating about the medieval churches and crusader fortifications which he encounters. The few architectural passages are interesting and informative but there are only a few of them. Later he will put his architectural expertise to much greater use in Delhi for his book City of Djinns. There is an admirable amount of information in the book but there are a few moments when he suggests that he is perhaps the first person since Alexander the Great or Marco Polo to see certain sights at which time you become very aware of the authors age. By the time he arrives at the ruins of Xanadu you feel Dalrymple has conned you into believing he has actually achieved something. And when he quotes the poem by Coleridge with his girlfriend I was kind of embarrased for the author. After leaving Xanadu and seeing that his journey has come to a close he feels depressed and then quotes Sir Richard Burton who after reaching Mecca wrote about experiencing a depression. But no reader of travel books will mistake Dalrymple for Burton. After all the Silk Road is now for the most part a paved highway and the most formidable foe most ravelers are likely to encounter is the drinking water. Dalrymples later books are much better. He wrote City of Djinns after living in Delhi for five years and the book is a well organized telling of that citys long and diverse history with portraits of its most famous inhabitants. And Age of Kali full of excellent reportage and gives you detailed glimpses of the different regions of India.

Well not quite, but sort of.

At least this is what I kept thinking of as the author (referred to as Fatso by Mick, an expatriate hippie in Kashgar) and his travel companion Laura (she's the one clad in black) head out across Iran.

They are on a madcap quest, ostensibly to retrace the tracks of Marco Polo in his journey from Jerusalem to the seat of power of Kublai Khan in Xanadu, bearing oil from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Dalrymple, a student at Cambridge, came up with this idea to kill time between college terms. Presumably the quasi academic cover was in some way necessary, and the intermittent references to Polo and his voyage are mildly interesting. But really this is a chronicle of a road trip plain and simple - a 1980's kind of On the Road.

The Silk Road, that is.

Anyway, all this makes for idle but entertaining reading, filled with intelligent observations and humorous snippets.

Here, for example, is the English menu from a restaurant in Turkey:

Kujuk Ayas Family Restrant

Ingliz Menuyu

Soap

Ayas soap
Turkish tripte soap
Sheeps foot
Macaront
Water pies

Eats From Meat

Deuner kepab with pi
Kebap with green pe
Kebap in paper
Meat pide
Kebap with mas patato
Samall bits of meat grilled
Almb chops

Vegetables

Meat in eathernware stev pot
Stfue goreen pepper
Stuffed squash
Stuffed tomatoes z
Stuffed cabbages lea
Leek with finced meat
Clery

Salad

Brain salad
Cacik - a drink made ay ay
And cucumber

Frying Pans

Fried aggs
Scram fried aggs
Scurum fried omlat
Omlat with brain

Sweets and Rfuits

Stewed atrawberry
Nightingales nests
Virgin lips
A sweet dish of thinish batter with butter
Banane
Meon
Leeches

Recommended reading if ever you find yourself on an over civilized vacation.