The Silk Road Journal

Date Posted: 01/05/2016

5000 Miles. 13 Countries. Filming The Silk Road for BBC4 was one of the biggest challenges of my life. I had been to none of the countries I was to visit. What was I most excited about? China? All those millions of people, all those miles of desert; Tajikistan? All that er…stuff (I had no idea where it was let alone what was in it); Iran? We would be the first BBC Film Crew in Iran for a decade and all I had heard of the place were whispers of wonder; Uzbekistan? Those amazing ancient battle sites and cities, centres of philosophy, mathematics, art, culture; Istanbul? Desperate to see the Hagia Sofia and Galata Tower – how else can you explain the Silk Road without explaining the role of the Venetians and other European maritime traders?

We decided early on that I would take a journal with me, and fill it with quotes, poems, lists, instant photographs, sketches, maps, as a way of treasuring everything I would see. And here are a selection of pages….

Catch up and watch clips from all three episodes here.