| Summary | None |
| Owner | Matthew Gilbertson |
| Creation Date | 2009-07-05 20:47:53 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Western China: Trekking the Silk Road
Eric Gilbertson, Matthew Gilbertson, Amanda Morris, Amanda’s Mom June 9-22, 2009 We wanted to experience the heart of Asia. We wanted to walk on the same dirt that Marco Polo had stepped on, to taste the same snow that had blanketed the yurts of Uyghur nomads for thousands of years, and to sweat in the same desert sun that shone upon camel trains traversing the ancient Silk Route. We wanted to experience a part of China that few ever get to see. We started with a flight over the North Pole to Shanghai, then took another flight to Urumqi, in the Xinjiang province of northwestern China. Urumqi is farther from any ocean that any other city on Earth. In terms of distance, it’s 50% easier to get fresh seafood in Montevideo, MN than to get it in Urumqi. The city and the rest of the region are a mix of Uyghur and Han Chinese, two vastly different cultures. Street signs are often written in Arabic, Chinese, and Russian, and occasionally there’s even some English. After Urumqi we camped in snow in the Tian Shan, rode camels up the Flaming Mountain near Turpan, climbed the desert sand dunes near Dunhuang, and crossed a suspension bridge spanning a giant canyon at the western terminus of the Great Wall. |