The Silk Road
This ancient trading route was opened up by Han Dynasty power from 138 BC when Emperor Han Wudi sent a mission into Central Asia and launched westwards extensions of the Great Wall into the Gobi Desert. Used by silk merchants from the 2nd century AD until its decline in the 16th century, the Silk Road is open in parts to tourists eager to explore its heritage. This long string of caravan trails, oases, roads and mountain passes, stretched from northern China, through bleak and foreboding desert and mountainous terrain to the ports on either the Caspian Sea or Mediterranean Sea, and was the conduit for goods and ideas passing between ancient China and the West. The Mongols later used the Silk Road to bind their vast empire, as Marco Polo found when he travelled it in the 13th century.
The two main routes are split into the north route and the south route: the north starting in China at Xi’an, running through the Gansu Corridoor, Dunhuang, Jade Gate Pass to the neck of the Gobi desert, following the Tianshan mountains round the fringes of the Taklimakan desert to Kashgar (Xinjiang province), across the Pamirs to Samarkand or Tashkent (Uzbekistan) onto the Caspian Sea. The south route runs with the north until the Jade Gate Pass and then stretches round the southern edges of the Taklimakan desert to Kashgar and then over the Karakorum mountain range (see Karakorum Highway in the Pakistan section) into India.
The Silk Road was a major highway for the spread of Buddhism into East Asia, and later for the growth of Islam, and consequently a number of monasteries, grottos, stupas, minarets and other ruins dating back to the early centuries can still be seen along the way. Other attractions of the route are the diverse scenery, various minority peoples and romantic cities.
Within China, the main sights are found in Xinjiang Province, including the Buddhist grottos at Dunhuang and ancient relics at Turpan, such as the ruins of the city of Jiaohe and the lively Sunday market at Kashgar. Travel along the Silk Road can be quite difficult due to the terrain, harsh climate and lack of developed infrastructure. Visitors to the region are advised to travel with an organised tour company or travel agent.
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