It is not intended to comment in detail on the sights to be seen every day – the suggested guidebook (and indeed others) do that very well, and a lot more detail will be added by the tour guide. Some overall background notes will be given here to put things in context.

The City Walls are remarkable, although relatively recent in Chinese terms, dating from the Ming Dynasty (!4th Century AD) and restored over the years. They are almost nine miles (14km) long, 40 ft (12m) high, and a small arm can walk abreast on them. Close to them are the Bell Tower (where an enormous bell was rung at dawn and to mark the passing hours) and Drum Tower (from whence the curfew was sounded). These are also 14th Century, and while the Great Bell is a replica, visitors can ring it for a small fee, to the confusion of anybody listening and who can hear it above the traffic noise.

Close to the walls is the “forest of Steles”, a remarkable display of stone tablets and other permanent writings with enormous historical interest, in which the scholar can trace the development of Chinese and Buddhist thought. In fact Xi’an is a place where ancient religions met (and by all accounts co-existed in reasonable harmony), and one on the exhibits in the Forest of Steles is a tablet with a small cross and engraving on the Nestorian Christian Church, dating from the 780s. A fair number of other Silk Road artefacts are to be found here.

The Great Mosque is much older (late 8th Century, but present layout also from Ming times) The streets around it are worth an exploration, time permitting, and give an impression more of Muslim Central Asia than of China.

Finally, the Big Goose Pagoda represents the Buddhist religion. It was built for (or in honour of) Xuan Zang, one of the most indefatigable Chines travellers and emissaries of the emperor, on his return from India round about 650 AD. Clearly the 7th and 8th Centuries at the height of the Tang Dynasty were a time of religious tolerance and indeed refuge of religious minorities. Again see Susan Whitfields book for more on the time.

If there is one thing on this tour that needs no introduction it is the Terracotta Army. The tomb of Emperor Qin Shihuangdi (see above) is about 22 miles outside Xi’an, and round his burial mound are a number of interesting sites of the period. It was normal for somebody of his status to be accompanied to the afterlife by a retinue according to that status, including, very often an army for maintaining that status. This could indeed be real soldiers buried alive, but in this case it was thought that none could be spared from the tribulations of this life and earthenware (terracotta) warriors were produced instead. The burial was destroyed and lost in antiquity, rediscovered about 30 years ago and is being restored to its former glory. There are probably over 7000 warriors in the pits, each life-size and probably modelled on an actual soldier of the time (210BC).

Moving further back in time we can see the remains of the Banpo Neolithic village (about 7000 years old) well preserved in its own museum. It is as complete a site as may be found almost anywhere, and gives enormous insights into life in prehistory in China. Not directly related to the Silk Road, but difficult to pass by if it’s open. At the time of writing it isn’t; it’s closed for renovation but is due to be reopened by the time of the tour.

The Huaqing Hot Springs (a favourite bathing spot of the Tang Emperors and their lady friends) will conclude an interesting day.

Museums may sound dull, but I suggest you reserve judgement on this one. I also suggest you carry at least a skeleton chronology of Chinese dynastic succession in your head or pocket. The place is built in Tang style, and the halls will take you through the roller-coaster of China’s rise, decline and rise again through its 7000 year history, as it appeared in the Yellow and Wei River valleys. I won’t begin to suggest what to look for, but it’s got a wonder or two for nearly everybody. It will take a good couple of hours just to skim the main features, and ideally more to linger a bit at the more interesting (for you) sections.

We now move on. Unfortunately we can’t cover the whole Road (see the “important principle” above) and we propose to concentrate on the Tarim Basin and trace some of the footsteps of Aurel Stein. This means missing out the Hexi Corridor and flying to the gateway to the Tarim at the Jiayuguan Pass and Fort, arriving at a civilised time for an evening meal and relax.

The Jiayuguan Fort was a major outpost at the very end of the later (Ming) Great Wall, for a long time marking the boundary between metropolitan China and the outer territories which China controlled but didn’t really regard as quite civilised (I use concepts slightly loosely here). You might read Mildred Cable’s account of the fort and its uses before visiting if you have the book. The first section “On the Threshold of the Desert” gives an account of the fort and its inhabitants about 80 years ago, at a time when it still served its original purpose to a large extent.

From the fort the Wall runs off in three directions. The main part runs back into China, and continuously (if nowadays occasionally ruinously) to the sea getting on for 1500 miles away. A second shorter length runs to the mountains where it stops as they get too high to get round it; the third sections goes to a small tower overlooking a virtual precipice into a deep channel from the mountains. This is the so-called “overhanging Great Wall” and marks the real end of the Wall.

From here we take coach for Dunhuang, the name meaning “Blazing Beacon”, from the chain of beacons used as a warning of approaching danger during the time when this was a military outpost of the Empire. Dunhuang is about 350 km away from Jiayuguan, but the journey is mainly along good highway. All the same this will take several hours, but the ever-changing Gobi landscape holds its own fascination. On the way (time permitting) we will stop at Wei Dynasty tombs – a massive cemetery with a single tomb open for visitors. It is empty (although wooden coffins and other grave goods are in the little above-ground museum), and the main attraction is the remarkable painting on the bricks of the burial chambers. Each painting occupies a single tile, and they show scenes of hunting, butchery and other day-to-day activities of the time. One brick painting, of a horseback courier holding a letter, has been used a symbol for the Chinese Post Office. A ruined city of the Qing Dynasty (much later, around 1750 to 1800) will also be looked at if time permits.

The Silk Road (Dunhuang) Hotel is fairly new, and built in the style of a Ming Dynasty palace. It is light and airy, and I know of few better places for simply sitting in the lobby and sipping a beer or two. At this stage in the tour some relaxation time is in order, and most of this day is devoted to just that.

An early start is called for, although not too early since we are now at least an hour by the sun West of Beijing, although Beijing time is still observed. Anyway a walk of a kilometre or so in the morning twilight will bring us to the Minsha Dunes, or singing sands. A certain amount will depend on conditions, but I would expect us to be able to climb the dunes in the twilight – bare feet is best – and watch the sun rise over the more distant sands. This can be a magical time. There may well be large numbers of other tourists around – it’s very popular with Japanese and Korean groups - but they all mount camels at the entrance and lope off in long strings to watch the sun come up in a cacophony of noise a mile or two away. We will see their camel chains passing below us as we sit on the dunes watching for the sunrise. The year is getting later, so warm clothing will probably be needed.

The Lake of the Crescent Moon is described by Mildred Cable in a passage in “The Lure of the Gobi” from her book The Gobi Desert. “the skill of man made the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, but the Hand of God fashioned the Lake of the Crescent Moon” is the old Dunhuang saying. The lake was, she was told, “more beautiful than words can tell”. It lies at the bottom of the dunes and is fed by a perpetual spring, so that the water-level stays constant, and (in her times) the only human activity there was an isolated shrine tended by a priest as a place of peace and prayer. The sand dunes behind are probably the “rumbling sands” described by Marco Polo, which produce a deep rumbling if anybody slides down them in the right place. Nowadays large numbers of tourists try to find the rumbling for themselves, and at peak times the place becomes a bit like Blackpool beach, but get there in the early morning before they do and the peace and beauty of the place can still be seen and its calm felt.

Back to breakfast and (it is suggested) a peaceful day. For those who can’t sit still for more than a couple of minutes, or who prefer activity to contemplation there is much that can be done, and local advice will be given. Taxis to town (a couple of miles away) cost a pound or so, and an early evening excursion has something to commend it for local sights and produce. Otherwise the hotel beer is very good (and very cheap), so a contemplative bottle or two taken seated on Ming-style chairs in the massively tall and airy hotel lobby has a great deal to commend it.

For many today will be the highlight of the tour. If you have been following the events at the British Library exhibition you will know that the “library” from the Mogao grottoes in Dunhuang is one of the most exciting hoards of ancient documents ever found. You will also have heard of the somewhat dubious way most of it found its way to Western museums and libraries. Much more is said in various books, and you may want to look at (for example) Peter Hopkirk’s “Foreign Devils on the Silk Road”

Be that as it may, the grottoes themselves are still magnificently decorated and are now set in a small park which mitigates the heat of summer, at least partly. Again, this is a place with enormous numbers of tourists, but it rarely seems uncivilised. Guided tours are the order of the day, and we expect to have the specialist guide attached to the Dunhuang research Institute who will give us some extra insights into the life and times of the caves.

Together with a visit to the museum on the same site, where several caves have been copied to take some of the pressure off the originals, this visit will take most of the day. After dinner we will take the sleeper train to Turpan, also known as Turfan or Tulufan to the Chinese who have no “r” in their range of sounds.

We are now in Xinjiang, the “new territories” of China, and an area where Islamic influence is strong. The Emin minaret and mosque are good examples of Islamic influence and art. It was started in 1777 by Emin Khoja, the hereditary ruler of Turpan, and completed by his son. It uses local materials well (mainly mud bricks) and has a beautiful, almost stark simplicity and peace. The minaret is less than fully stable, these days, although not about to fall down, so it can’t be climbed, but the views of and from the mosque are well worth the visit.

Gaochang is an ancient city close to the present town in Turpan, made of mud bricks and rammed earth. It dates from the second century BC and in its heyday (roughly 2nd to 5th centuries AD) it was a major centre of power and influence in the region, and a significant trading post. It was also very cosmopolitan, and a stronghold of Manichaeism. It declined gradually as the Silk Road declined and was eventually over-run by the Mongols in their sweep through on the way to power as the Yuan Dynasty. Much of the ruins still survive because of the dryness of the atmosphere, the main threat being farmers who see the mud walls as fertile soil for their fields.

The coach trip to Urumqi is fairly short (probably about 2.5 hours) but full of interest. At this point we are leaving the Silk Road proper for a bit (although no doubt various routings did go this way) to catch a plane to Kashgar at the other end of the Tarim Basin. We haven’t time to take the train or go by road, unfortunately, and in fact both of these can get a little tedious to all but the committed train or desert aficionado. We will travel along the main highway from Shanghai to the Kazakhstan border, at this point being 4000km from Shanghai. Again the ever-changing Gobi will be present, with a pass through mountains and one of the biggest wind farms on the planet. See Mildred Cable again about the region “Anxi - where the great winds blow”. There are gale-force winds most days, and there are central refuges where high-sided lorries turn off nose-to-wind and wait for it to blow by.

The Urumqi regional museum was being renovated last time I was there, and this is a major job so it may well still be closed. However, many of the most important exhibits are being shown in a temporary display in one of the halls, and even this small sample takes a good hour and a half to look at. The Tarim Basin is very dry, as already mentioned, but before drying up was a cradle of civilisation for much of Central Asia. There are old cities everywhere, some excavated, some not, and many of the recovered artefacts are in Urumqi. It may sound slightly gruesome to think of a display of desiccated human corpses, but in fact these give an excellent insight into the history of the area, together with all the everyday utensils and grave-goods from the Astana graves, among other places.

The city of Urumqi itself is said to be the farther from the sea than any other city in the world, although the same is said about Kashgar as a town. It is also described as a Han (Chinese) city in a Uighur sea, from the fact that in Xinjiang the Chinese are mainly city dwellers, the Uighur mainly rural. If time allows it is interesting to wander a little in the middle of the (rapidly modernising) city and see how the two cultures interact.

The flight to Kashgar is likely to be a late one (we haven’t got the timetable at the time of writing) and the return from Kashgar even later, perhaps in the wee small hours of the morning. In this case dinner will be taken in Urumqi and we will go straight to the hotel and bed.

We return to Kashgar for freshening up, dinner, and a late flight back to Urumqi.

27th October Relax for the day in Beijing. Stay at Beijing Hotel

After this amount of travel a day to relax, do some last minute shopping in Wangfujing or the Silk Market before the flight home. Obviously for the tireless there are many other things to do in and around Beijing and advice will be available.

28th October Morning at leisure until departure for Capital Airport. Flight back to London with Air China CA938 14:05, arrive London Heathrow 17:50 same day.

“Morning at leisure” is probably only a couple of hours, unless you have a very early breakfast, as we will need to be at the Capital Airport by about 12.00 at the latest, thus leaving the hotel about 11.00. A last-minute stroll in Tiananmen Square, maybe, or the last last-minute souvenir. Remember to keep 90 RMB each for the airport tax, and have a good flight home!