The Silk Road conjures images of the exotic and the unknown. Most travellers simply pass along it, but Chris Alexander chose to live there. Ostensibly writing a guidebook, Alexander found life at the heart of the glittering madrassahs, mosques and minarets of the walled city of Khiva immensely alluring, and stayed.
Immersing himself in the language and rich cultural traditions, Alexander discovered a world torn between Marx and Mohammed; a place where veils and vodka, pork and polygamy freely mingle against a backdrop of forgotten carpet designs, crumbling but magnificent Islamic architecture and scenes drawn straight from The Arabian Nights.
Working for UNESCO, Chris explores the ancient art of natural dye-making and Timurid silk carpet weaving, establishing a self-sufficient carpet workshop, employing local women and disabled people to train as apprentices. His search for Persian illuminated manuscripts for inspiration for carpet designs brings him back to the libraries of London and Cambridge and to the bazaars of Afghanistan, and across the fabled cities of Bukhara and Samarkand.
A Carpet Ride to Khiva sees Alexander being stripped naked at a former Soviet youth camp, crawling through silkworm droppings in an attempt to record their life-cycle, tackling a carpet-thieving mayor, distinguishing natural dyes from sacks of opium in Northern Afghanistan, bluffing his way through an impromptu version of 'My Heart Will Go On' for national Uzbek TV and seeking sanctuary as an anti-Western riot consumed the Kabul carpet bazaar. It is an unforgettable true travel story of a journey to the heart of the unknown and the unexpected friendship one man found there.
