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A short background to the Silk Road in China |
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| The Silk Road as a trade route goes can be traced back for well over 2000
years. The road was a major trade route from ancient times; it carried many
different kinds of goods but had relatively little to do with silk, the name
being given to it by a romantically inclined German traveller and explorer,
Baron von Richthofen, as late as 1877. It was never a single road, but a
collection of tracks from the old Imperial capital of China at Chang’an (modern
Xi’an) westwards to the Middle East, with a variety of finishing points,
including Venice (Marco Polo’s starting point), or more often Antioch or Tyre
on the Mediterranean, whence goods could be shipped to a final destination.
Merchants would normally only travel part of the route, and centres on the road
such as Kashgar (Kashi) were used for selling the goods for onwards shipment,
and restocking for the return journey in the other direction. |
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In China the Silk Road is in two main sections. Travel from the old capital of
Chang’an (modern Xi’an) is westward and upward to Lanzhou, then through the
Hexi (or Gansu) corridor to Jiayuguan pass, the end of the Great Wall and for
many years the end of civilised China, at least as seen from a Han perspective.
This part of the route was relatively easy, being in the heartland of China,
then and now, with plenty of supplies of both food and water. In the map above
this is just east of Anxi.
Passing through the gate of the great fortress at Jiayuguan, the traveller was
now in the Gobi Desert heading for the Tarim Basin, a great inland depression
and a cradle of Asiatic civilisation in postglacial times. A few thousand years
ago it was a sheltered and fertile region, but as the glaciers retreated the
Tarim Basin slowly turned to desert, and became a legend for difficult travel.
The Silk Road travellers now stood facing one of the most fearsome deserts in
the world - the Taklamakan (the name comes from a Uighur expression meaning
that anybody going into it won’t come out again).
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Picture: the West gate of the last fort at Jiayuguan. This was known as the
“Gate of Sighs” (see Mildred Cable “The Gobi Desert”) where criminals and
general miscreants were pushed out of China proper and left to fend for
themselves.
There are two routes round the Taklamakan, either to the north via a series of
ancient oasis settlements such as Hami, Turpan, Korla and Aksu, or to the south
via Dunhuang, Qarqan, Hotan and Yecheng. In each case the road is close to the
foothills of the great mountain ranges encircling the Tarim Basin, close
enough, in fact for water still to be available through the rivers and streams
flowing from the mountains to be lost on the great inland expanse of the
Taklamakan or Lop Nor deserts, or where the water table is still close to the
surface and wells or underground irrigation systems (known as Karez) make like
possible.
The roads meet again at Kashgar, where travellers would either sell and buy in
readiness for the return journey, or would gather strength and re-equip before
tackling the high passes of the Pamir or Tianshan mountains for the onward trip
to Central Asia and journeys end. That is a tale of another journey, however.
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Do please note the following principle–it is important.
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China is a large and fascinating country with an vast amount to see and do.
There are many tours to the principal sights, and most of them pack in as much
as possible, sometimes bewilderingly (and exhaustingly) so. The Silk Road
particularly has an immense number of sights to see, and we couldn’t possibly
cover everything in six weeks, let alone two. We have tried to strike a
balance, covering the most interesting things, but doing so at a pace which
makes it possible to appreciate what they are and absorb the atmosphere, rather
than fit in the maximum possible. In short we are treating this as something of
a “taster”tour.
As a result there could well be things which you may desperately want to see in
the centres we visit which aren’t on the itinerary. If possible we will try to
accommodate these wishes somehow.
If the desire to see a particular site is general we will try to modify or
extend the programme. There may be a cost involved, but this would not usually
be very large. If it is just two or three people we will try to arrange to a
visit for these few; this would be instead of something on the itinerary which
the rest of the party will go to. Again there would be an extra cost, but
generally speaking the hire of a taxi for an hour or two will only cost a few
pounds.
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This tour covers the historic capital of Changan, with its wealth of
information and insight into Imperial times, particularly the Tang dynasty when
China and the Silk Road were at a zenith, and the Road in and around the Tarim
Basin, where the desert will be experienced, oases will be explored, the finest
Buddhist art seen, and a crowded and clamorous city investigated (Kashgar). A
day-long expedition into the Pamir foothills on the Karakoram Highway to lake
Karakul at 3,600 metres will round off the trip as we see the Road go on over
the High Pamir towards Central Asia and beyond. By then the year will be late,
with the snows beginning to move down from the mountains to the lake, and the
difficulties of the Road will become clear.
For part of the way we will follow in the steps of Aurel Stein always
accompanied by his terrier, Dash (of whom there were several, but always given
the same name). Stein was a great explorer of the Tarim Basin and indefatigable
collector of Buddhist art for western museums. Was he a benefactor of art, or
simply a thief or robber?
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