News from the road – China’s Silk Road – September 2025
Travelling on the Silk Road is to follow in the footsteps of traders, warriors, mystics and explorers who, over the centuries, traversed Asia and Europe in search of wealth, power, enlightenment and knowledge.
More of this ancient route lies within China than everywhere else combined, and on this tour we traversed much of it and saw some highlights not visited by many international tourists.
We began our journey where the Silk Road began (or ended): the ancient capital of Xi’an. Here a Muslim quarter and a famous Buddhist pagoda demonstrated how these religions had come to China from the west along the route we were about to travel. Of course we had to visit the Terracotta Army — intricate detail on a massive scale.
At Jiayuguan we explored a fort that during the Ming Dynasty guarded the western gateway of the Chinese empire and the end of the Great Wall. We climbed a portion of this famous wall before heading out into the wastes of the forbidding Gobi Desert.
A stay at an oasis surrounded by rolling sand dunes, Dunhuang, allowed us to experience the largest surviving treasure house of Buddhist art in the world — Mogao grottoes, lined with paintings and sculptures dating back more than 1,500 years. A journey into the desert took us to the spectacular landscape at Yadan, once the bottom of a vast inland sea and now a fascinatingly textured wilderness.
We sped across the arid landscape in a high-speed train to Turpan, a lush grape-growing area in a dry desert thanks to an ingenious irrigation system. This was our first stop in China’s westernmost province of Xinjiang, and the change in ethnic composition of the population was immediately evident.
Westwards we continued, to the ancient Silk Road trading centre of Kashgar. Though still within today’s China, we were much closer to the Mediterranean Sea than the China Sea. Up we went into the Pamir mountains, populated by ethnic groups such as Tajik and Kazakh, reaching the end of our Silk Road journey near the borders with Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
China is always changing. Motorways and high-speed railways continue to grow like a spider’s web across the country. Forests upon forests of high-rise apartments spring up around cities and towns. Vast solar and wind power stations spread across the desert.
Those of us who had visited China before also noticed a different sort of change. The country is becoming more orderly. Traffic flows more easily and without incessant horn-sounding. Cities are cleaner and greener. The frequent exhortations for the populace to be more civilised are obviously having an impact on public behaviour.
A trading route that changed the ancient world. A vast country that continues to modernise at a dizzying pace. Dramatic scenery ranging from snowy mountain peaks to a desert below sea level. A kaleidoscope of cultures — peoples with their own language, religion, dress and cuisine. This was a richly rewarding adventure.
