Travelling the Incense Route

Book excerpt: "She has a gift for people; she has an eye for places." - The Times The Incense Route is one of the most ancient and important highways in the world. It was once a rival to the Silk Road, at a time when faith in the mystic power of incense was at its height and its traffic - frankincense and myrrh, spices from India, gold and exotic African animal skins - was the lifeblood of the countries through which it passed. Barbara Toy set out to travel the length of this long-forgotten route at a time of particular turbulence in the region and became the first western woman to have made the journey. Beginning in Bir Ali, Can'a of ancient times, she passed through war zones in Yemen, joined a band of pilgrims as far as Mecca, forged on to Jeddah and Medina, explored the breath-taking Nabataean city of Madain Saleh and then turned north, to Midian, Aqaba, Petra, Amman and finally Damascus. Travelling the Incense Route is both a gripping account of intrepid travel and a portrait of Arabia unlike any other.