An Ancient Pathway

Although I am joining a tour for this particular trip - a first for me, as I usually eschew anything organised - it does still feel like a bit of an adventure. Why the Silk Road? It is the last place I expected to be going to in my lifetime, but somehow it beckoned to me with a quiet insistence and the idea insinuated itself into my consciousness. Then somehow, as often happens in life, a combination of circumstances made the remote possibility more of a distinct probability.

The first little seed of the idea, if you like, came when an exhibition called Travelling the Silk Road: Ancient Pathway to the Modern World came to the National Museum of Australia from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Its evocation of the sights, the sounds, the smells and the science of the Silk Road was powerful,and even the names of the trading posts seemed infused with mystery and excitement - Xi'an, Turfan, Samarkand and Baghdad.

But I suppose above all it was the idea of transference of knowledge and materials that took place at different stages along the Silk Road that intrigued me - the way people traded goods like silk, spices, tea and ceramics from China westward, and ivory, glass and metalwork from the West to further East. They also traded knowledge and technology - bringing not only techniques for transforming raw materials into things of beauty and utility, and scientific ideas about astronomy and science but also religious ideas and practices to transform hearts and societies. In a sense I suppose it was the beginning of what we now call globalisation.

One day I received a notice of a tour organised by World Expeditions in my inbox. I had signed up for their newsletters never thinking I would join a tour as they are usually far-flung, rather expensive and longer than my holiday entitlement. But The Journey of Buddhism on the Silk Road caught my eye and I dithered and wavered about signing up and then it was all sold out. However, as luck would have it, Mr Capon agreed to lead another in September. Perhaps it was lucky that the first trip sold out so quickly as since then it has been tweaked so that we have less time on bum-numbing train trips :) and unfortunately no visit to Urumqi because of recent terrorist activity. Not sure about the Uyghur camels or overnighting in a caravanserai either but I am confident we will have plenty to learn, to experience and to enhance our understanding of history and the ways in which people have interacted with each other to share their knowledge of their worlds. That's what travel is all about, isn't it?

PS: Can't find the Uyghur translation but maybe they will understand me if I do need help getting off my camel and ask in Chinese? According to Google Translate it is:  请帮我把我的骆驼 Qǐng bāng wǒ bǎ wǒ de luòtuó)