Eastern Approaches

Introduction

In 1877 a German geographer of Central Asia, the Baron von Richtofen, coined a new term to describe the ancient caravan routes of innermost Asia: the Silk Road. Shortly afterwards, news began to trickle back to Europe of fabulous treasures buried in the sands that had long blown over these caravan routes deep in Chinese Turkestan: silks, manuscripts in both known and unknown languages, precious objects in a perfect state of preservation, wall paintings covering the caves of ancient monastic communities still as fresh as the day they were painted, monuments from the humblest houses to elaborate temples still standing, entire ruined cities.

By the turn of the century, the archaeologists started arriving. The first objects brought back to Europe caused a sensation: unimaginable art treasures that combined elements of Greek, Persian, Indian and Chinese civilisations perfectly preserved in the dry sands sent scholars hurrying to rewrite their art books. An entirely lost ancient Indo-European language was discovered which the first linguists pronounced related to Celtic. An whole lost civilisation was revealed, where Christian monks rubbed shoulders with Manichean priests, Buddhist mystics and Taoist sages in perfect amicability. The first tentative archaeological probes soon became a stampede, so that by the early years of this century German, British, French, Russian, Japanese and American teams were competing with each other to bring these art treasures back to museums at home. Out of it, the legend of the Silk Road was born.

Then the Chinese slammed the door shut. Since the 1930s the region remained out of bounds, and Chinese Turkestan became once more as utterly inaccessible as it had been before. The winds blew the sands back, the caravan routes fell silent, and questions remained unanswered.

Now, the Chinese are allowing visitors to return to their westernmost borderlands. In addition, the recent discovery of spectacular mummies perfectly preserved in the sands has caused a new sensation, both re-awakening old controversies and creating new ones: for the first time in a century dramatic archaeological discoveries in this part of the world are astounding the scholarly world once more.

This tour both follows in the footsteps of the early archaeological pioneers, and sees the recently discovered mummies. It covers the full circuit of the Takla Makan Desert: its northern rim from Urumchi to Kashgar, then its southern rim from Kashgar to Niya. On the way, we visit the vast deserted cities of Karakhoja, Yarkhoto, Karashahr, Subashi, Khotan and others, as well as the cave complexes at Kizil, Bezeklik, Tuyoq and elsewhere. Many of these are not normally open for tourists, but have been made available for this group by special permission. This remote part of China is enormously difficult to reach (the airfares alone are over £1000), let alone arrange a tour to, but taking advantage of new opportunities next door Kyrgyzstan, we are able to fly in via Bishkek and see something of this country as well.

Information

Extra Notes

The price of this tour is all inclusive except for the cost of visas.

Accommodation

Usually 4 star or otherwise best available throughout. In practice these are generally quite comfortable; that in Niya (Minfeng) is fairly simple (although all have rooms with private facilities). Most are for 2 nights. Generally, single night stops are interspersed with stops of 2 nights.

Travel

Flights from London to Bishkek are on British Midland International and from Bishkek to Urumchi are on China Southern Airlines. Comfortable modern coach throughout, except for excursion to Rawak Stupa which is by jeep.

Local conditions

This must be expected to be quite strenuous: it is very long, there are some very long days of travel, many hotel changes, dusty conditions in places. Some walking around sites is involved, although never more than 2 hours at a time apart from the excursion to Rawak, which requires a walk of several hours over desert. Weather in September should still be dry but might get quite cold, especially later in the tour, so a sharp drop in temperatures is possible, especially nights and early mornings. Note that food, while generally of high standard, is invariably Chinese throughout.

Note that tourism in these parts of China is in its infancy and very few foreigners visit many of the places we go to. Whilst infrastructure in China now is very high, unexpected delays, changes, adjustment and frustrations might well still occur