Intrigued by an exquisite & mysterious amulet on an antique dress from Kohistan, `land of mountains` in Pakistan, Sheila Paine began an epic quest that took her from the peaks of the Himalaya to the shores of Greece. In this, the first part of her journey, she set off alone & undaunted for the rugged Hindu Kush, her only possessions a tiny rucksack & a litre of vodka. Over the course of several months she followed endless clues
- the patterns on a woman`s dress, pendants hanging outside village houses to ward off djinns, scraps of embroidery in a bazaar
- that took her to some of the most remote & inhospitable places in the world. She travelled to Makran & in Pakistan, an area closed completely to foreigners, & to Iran, where she was constantly watched by government minders. She was smuggled into Afghanistan by a band of mujahedin, & then forged on into Iraq & Turkish Kurdistan from Iran, before one final piece of evidence led her to the small town of Razgrad in eastern Bulgaria & news of the amulet she so tirelessly sought.