num_pages: 320
description: Having learned Mandarin, and travelling alone by foot, bicycle and train, Colin Thubron sets off on a 10,000 mile journey from Beijing to Tibet, starting from a tropical paradise near the Burmese border to the windswept wastes of the Gobi desert and the far end of the Great Wall. What Thubron reveals is an astonishing diversity, a land whose still unmeasured resources strain to meet an awesome demand, and an ancient people still reeling from the devastation of the Cultural Revolution.
language: English
title: Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China
titlecomplete: Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China
genres: Biography, China, History, Journalism, Reportage, Travelogue, Asia, Nonfiction, Travel, Memoir
ratings_count: 793
awards: awardedAt: 568022400000
name: Hawthornden Prize, awardedAt: 568022400000
name: Thomas Cook Travel Book Award
publisher: Vintage