My Silk Road Explorations

One of my dreams is to travel the full length of the historic Silk Road from the traditional origin point in China, the present city of Xi’an, to the western-most point in present-day China, Kashgar.  (Image from China Highlights)

In 2007, I had the privilege of visiting the western Xinjiang region, where I was able to visit some historic towns and cities. (Image here from Route 312 near Turpan.)

In 2008, I was in Xi’an, but I was not able to go further.

In 2009, I was again on the Silk Road, this time in the Province of Gansu.

My first attempts to share these experiences occurred before I started this blog site.  Initially, I created online photo albums with the Google/Picasa photo-sharing service that, unfortunately, is not now available to my Mainland Chinese friends.  Later, I experimented with a Chinese story-based web site, Show Story.  The advantages of the latter included the capability to write in both English and Chinese (with translation help of a Chinese friend here in Canada). (Photo above is of a statue of Marco Polo in Zhangye, Gansu Province.)

My long-term plan is to give an account of all of my travels along the old Silk Road but it may take some time to fully achieve my goal. 

For starters I am choosing to provide links to descriptions of my tranvels that already do exist at various locations.  Later, I intend to write more specific articles of my experiences at many of these same locations and provide these same links again in new blog postings.  So far my travels have included these locations:

(1) The City of Urumqi, Capital of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region

(2) A site known as the Centre of the Asian Continent (see photo at the right).

(3) The modern roadways south of Urumqi, then east and west along the major trans-China highway system, known as Route 312.

(4) The town of Hoxud, hometown of a professor friend and historic oasis stop along the original Silk Road.  (Photo at right shows men of the Uyghur minority people who follow the Muslim religion.)

(5) The famous oasis town, Turpan, where a very interesting underground irrigation system was constructed as a kind of ancient engineering wonder.

(6) I’ve also visited the Beseklik Thousand Buddha Grottos, the Flaming Mountains, and the ruins of the ancient city of Gaocheng, all located just a short distance east of historic Turpan.

In 2009 I was back to Gansu Province.  I travelled from Lanzhou westward to Zhangye to visit a professor friend, then back again.  (Photo here is from a mountain pass where virtually all travel connections, including the ancient caravan route, converge.)

So, here are links to existing accounts of these travels. 

Starting with my most recent travels in Gansu Province, these stories are in both English and Chinese and should be accessible from most locations…
     Bus Trip Along the Silk Road, Part 1
     Bus Trip Along the Silk Road, Part 2
     Historic Turpan on the Silk Road (Xinjiang Region)

A previous posting is available on my visit to Zhangye (Gansu Province)
     A Brief Visit to Zhangye

I also have other photo albums relating to my Silk Road travels.  I will introduce them in time with other blog postings, but if you wish to go directly, click here.

 Latest update:  2010/01/29