"It was easy to understand how the Mongol hordes so terrified medieval Europe as 13 of their descendants crammed into the small van, pushing me on to a space on the floor . . . " Sheila Paine is not your usual travel writer. She was in her 60s when she set off on this journey across Central Asia in search of an explanation for the embroidered triangular amulets that have fascinated her for 20 years, and she has little patience with the rip-off merchants and crummy hotels she encounters en route. Her style is that of a gifted amateur rather than the polished prose of the seasoned pro, and the book is all the better for it - and when, in the midst of some mosquito-infested pseudo-Soviet kip, she comes across a piece of her precious embroidery, the prose lights up as if illuminated from within. Few travellers manage to get below the surface grottiness of central Asia: Paine, now and again, touches something very deep indeed. A.W.