Art By Tali Landsman

When you enter the Durbar Square in Kathmandu, you are surrounded by impressive old buildings. Each one represent a different old Nepalese architecture style, and has intricate wooden carvings and beautifully shaped windows and roofs. The old Kumari residence, is another beautiful building, with an open courtyard and it serves as the home of the current “Living Goddess” who is believed to be the bodily incarnation of the goddess Taleju (the Nepalese name for the Goddess Durga). Kumari literally means “virgin,” and it is the tradition of worshipping virgin young girls, as a manifestation of the divine female energy. A very young girl, as young as 3-4 years old, is carefully selected from the Shakya clan of the Nepalese Newari community. This caste is usually composed of silver and goldsmiths. She will live in the Kumari Royal residence and will be worshipped as a living Goddess, until she begins to menstruate. When she finally becomes a “woman,” it is believed that the goddess leaves he...

Episode #1 The edge of Western China, almost the border with Kyrgyzstan: We were driving behind a young couple, who was riding an old clanky motorcycle on the highway. It was the edge of the Taklamakan desert and the road was narrow, monotonous and long, with no services for hundreds of kilometers. It was a two lane highway with no separation and no markings, and the asphalt was burning hot. On both sides of the road, there was nothing but dry desert and some low thorny bushes. The motorcycle stopped ahead of us, in the middle of the road… The young woman, who was holding a young baby, pulled out a thin fabric. She placed it on the dirty scorching asphalt, and spread it in the MIDDLE of this narrow highway, taking one whole lane….. She laid the baby on it, to clean his butt. I am NOT exaggerating here, she did not place the cloth on the side of the road, because there were no shoulders to this highway, she spread the large cloth in the MIDDLE of the road, taking a whole lane. Her baby-...

I was a little nervous about attending the ancient Nepalese animal sacrifice festival. Our guide Ganga suggested that in order to better understand the culture, we should really attend a bi-weekly festival to see the traditional Nepalese Hindu animal sacrifice. He added that it is NOT the BIG festival, which takes place each year in October. He said that it is still a very holy festival and that most Hindus sacrifice an animal at lease once in their lifetime. Most people sacrifice at least once a year, but often people sacrifice on special occasions, as a “Puja” which is a ritual offerings to the goddess Kali. An animal sacrifice is believed to sanctify weddings, is done as a gratitude for a new home, a good job, or when purchasing a new car or truck. The new owner may splash the car’s exterior with fresh animal blood, to ensure that the vehicle will not be involved in an accident. This killing of the animal is done to please the gods, but it is also believed that the lower animal’s so...

Kopan monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, situated on a high hill in the Boudhanath neighborhood, on the outskirts of Kathmandu. The monastery is open to visitors, and it even offers multi days meditation retreats and daily classes for Westerners. It was established by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. My guide Ganga, pointed to a photo of a Spanish boy, and told me that Lama Yeshe, was re-incarnated after his death, as a little boy in Spain. This little boy, born to Christian Spanish parents, started speaking Tibetan at a very young age, and wrote in Tibetan the names of his closest disciples and the details of the Kopan monastery. He is now a recognized reincarnation of Lama Yeshe and he comes to the monastery and sits on the honorary chair, on high holidays. The grounds of the monastery, are beautifully manicured by a group of women who cut the grass with hand held scissors and pull out the weeds with small knives. They work slowly in groups while they chat and laugh. There ...

Smoke is making my eyes tear…. And my lungs are being filled with smoke…. I am aware that I am uncomfortable standing here and inhaling…….. breathing in this smoke…. Made from human ashes…. The Pashupatinath temple, is a holy place for Hindus. It is located on the banks of a dirty narrow river, called the Bagmati River, which makes its way all the way to the Ganges River in India. Many open cremations are being made here. Seeing a cremation done in the open air, is a worthy experience. It brings you closer to your ideas about death, and it will challenge your belief system. To me, it is so obvious that the body holds no life of its own. That it is no more than a clay puppet, moved by the spirit and motorize by the power of Life. Seeing the body of a beloved person being cremated…. Seeing the body engulfed in flames, finger falling of the frame…. It brings you face to face with your concept of mortality and death, and it challenges the space betweenwhat you THINK you believe and what yo...

We arrived in Kathmandu on a rainy day. It is the monsoon season here…..the locals tell us it is the “slow season”…. and the majority of the tourism here is from India. Usually in high season, this place is filled with mountain hikers and adventure travelers. The weather had turned sunny a day after our arrival, and it stayed warm and sunny since. We spent a few days getting to know the city. The first thing we did was to shop for some really cool loose clothing. Funky pants and cool jackets… It felt heavenly after 50 days in rural China to finally WANT to buy anything… Most of what is sold in rural China is utilitarian or fake labels like Nike, D&G and Gucci, but there is no similarity to any of the original designs, only the names are apparent. We located some great cafes and places to eat, where you can lull away an afternoon sprawled on cushions among travelers and backpackers from all over the world. The Kathmandu valley is composed of a series of small cities that used to be ...

We spent a rainy day in Hotan. Today we shipped another box of our cycling gear back to the USA. We walked around the bazaar, visited the humble local museum and spent some time in a tea house, sipping tea and trying to overcome our disappointment over the change in our plans. There is a saying that “Many tears have been shed through the years, along the Silk Road….” I know that I added my share to the fountain of tears…. I cried for Tibet… And even yesterday’s good dinner and a large beer did not do much to uplift my spirit. Today felt gloomy, and I will be leaving tomorrow on a fight to Urumqi and later to Chengdu, with a next day flight to Kathmandu. We finished the Silk Road. We will not be visiting Tibet this time, and I leave with a heavy heart. Today Hotan is grey dusty and rainy, it feels as if the city is crying with me….

I have not posted anything in the last 3 days. This is because we got some extremely disappointing news…. The Chinese government is not granting any foreigners an entry to Tibet for the next few weeks. This means that our planned trip to Tibet, which I was dreaming about… Is canceled. I was feeling devastated…. And later anger, towards these policies. We spent the last few days getting over our sadness and making new plans of what to do with the next ten days which we have open now. We already booked and paid for a stay in Shanghai, so we have to fly back to Chengdu on June 29th. We decided on ten days in Nepal. It took us a lot of work, to get this new route planned. We had a lot of difficulties in booking an airline ticket with a good price from Chengdu to Kathmandu. We spent some time choosing a hotel for the first few nights in Kathmandu and I had to fight many times tears of disappointment over the loss of our Tibet trip, which we already paid for in full and will be only getting ...

When the heat and dust and noise of Kashgar got to be too much for us, we decided to take a drive into the mountains, where the high elevation make it cool and the air is always clean. The Karakoram Highway (fondly called the KKH) lays just to the South-West of Kashgar. It is the highest paved international road in the world, but at its peak at the border, it is only paved on the Chinese side. The KKH connects China and Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain range. At its highest pass, it reaches an altitude of 4,693 m/15,397 ft Due to its high elevation and the difficulty in constructing and blasting it through the mountains, it is also referred to as the “Ninth Wonder of the World.” Construction of the KKH started in 1959 and was completed in 1986 after 27 years of construction. (810 Pakistani and 82 Chinese workers lost their lives, mostly in landslides and falls, while building the highway.) The route of the KKH traces one of the many paths of the ancient Silk Road. We took a detou...

Apakh Hoja Tomb (or Xiangfei Tomb) This Tomb was built in 1640. Seventy-two family members (five generations) of a Sufi family were buried here. According to a legend, Iparhan, granddaughter of Apak Khoja was given to the Chinese emperor Qianlong, as a concubine. She was called Xiangfei (fragrant Imperial Concubine in Chinese) because of the rich delicate fragrance of flowers that her body emanated naturally.

The next morning we visited the livestock Sunday market in the outskirts of Kashgar. Villager from all around the city, bring their sheep, goats and donkeys to be sold in this bazaar. It was a lively affair perfumed with the scent of animal manure…. Watching the people was my greatest interest. Their leathered skin, eyes, mouths, facial expressions and postures, told me subtle stories about their lives… There were more than people who came to buy or sell animals, there were people selling knives, slices of melons or watermelons, ice tea made from dates, cold yogurt drinks, fried meat dumplings, and fresh vegetables. We spent the rest of the afternoon in a cool and relaxing tea-house- restaurant, with a good meal and a large pot of tea.

Kashgar is a hot place in this season. We started strolling towards the big bazaar, when we noticed an old adobe village on top of the hill. Most of it was in dilapidated state, but people were still living there, and the streets were charming and filled with shaded narrow pathways and humble homes. We walked around, photographed the people and the buildings, some were built around 300-500 years ago, and resembled medieval architecture. The big bazaar, was similar to the smaller one by the Id Kah Mosque, but only much much larger, and packed with many more people. The sellers in this bazaar, were more aggressive and a bit forceful for my taste, in their attempt to sell us things we did not wish to try or buy. After a long walk, we felt fatigued and went to a lovely restaurant that had a menu written in English. They had bay windows with cushion seatings to lay on. We tried the local tea, which was flavored with lemon rinds, orange and apples. We also ordered salads, one with yogurt and...

We arrived in Kashgar by the evening. We checked into our hotel and went for a walk in the nearby bazaar and the surrounding streets. The streets of Kashgar are a mixture of the old adobe neighborhoods, which are still charming, despite their dilapidated condition, mixed with the characterless new concrete buildings built with no attention to beauty or even comfort. There is a major effort to encourage more Uyghur architecture around the old town, and you will see some fine examples of stone and brick work, decorating these traditionL looking buildings. Around the old Mosque, the narrow streets are filled with people selling fruit, baking bread, making all sorts of food, right on the busy sidewalks. The majority of the fruit sold in this season, are mulberries, small apricots, melons, watermelons, cherries, and small mangos. The bazaars in town, are geared towards the locals. They sells silk scarves, a large selection of women’s clothing, fur hats and coats, nuts and dried fruit, and a...

The next morning, the higher officer was in our hotel, registering our passport and Jason and Joe’s ID cards again. She even recommended to us a good place to have breakfast, and drove ahead of us to make sure we will find it. We ate a thin pancake wrapped around veggies, and a dish of creamy tofu with a spicy sauce on it. Both were delicious. We drove out-of-town through another beautiful stretch of landscape. We observed wild camels walking in a dry river bed, stone houses, made from the same rocks as the river, and blue sky everywhere….. The road took us up the mountains and down again into beautiful green valleys. When we reaches the town of Artux, we saw again the same grey looking desert landscape that made me want to escape into the mountains to begin with. In Artux, we ate a fabulous lunch at a Uyghur restaurant and went to visit a small village with an elaborated Uyghur interior decoration. The rooms were filled with silk rugs, sitting cushions, and wonderful plaster and stone...

We cycled 62 KM, and arrived in Wushi by 6 PM. The first thing we did was to go to the bureau police (a different place than the traffic police station and the regular police station.) A very friendly policemen, copied by hand, what seemed like every page of our passports. We were told NOT to photograph anything while we were in the area. I was glad I had taken some photos before we arrived there. We drove around town looking for a place to eat. We have not eaten anything beside fruit and bagels, which we bought in a roadside stand. Lunch was tasty, although it always feels a little strange and disheartening to eat while the cooks and servers are hacking, coughing, spitting….or swatting flies. After Wushi we loaded the bikes and drove to Kaqi. The road meander through beautiful small villages, with people of Kyrgyzstan ethnicity. The men wore white hats with a black inner lining folded upwards. The women had red cheeks and the elderly women wore headscarves. There were almost no cars, ...

Every day of our trip has been packed with so much adventure. When Jules asked me this morning: “Are you ready for another day of fun and adventure?” I have to admit that I was not expecting much…. I was expecting another cycling day going through the hot desert and not much more…. Who knew that by the end of the day, I would see some amazing scenery and that we would get detained by the police….. The map showed two options, the National road, marked as a red line, and a narrow route marked as a thin white line with only two towns placed on it, Wushi and Akqi. While researching which road to take, Jules came upon a blog of a woman who took the narrow remote road before. She said that the National road is just a boring road through the shadeless desert, while the longer alternate road, takes you through high grassland, through mountains and adobe villages, filled with Kyrgis people, trees, farms, land filled with wild donkeys, free roaming camels, herds of sheep and goats. We decided to...

After the Aksu canyon, we cycled back towards Aksu. Most of the way, the road was lined with tall trees on both sides, providing much appreciated shade for us. Along the road, we saw many old ladies and old men, riding donkey carts, carrying people (as a taxi service), or hay, or vegetables. We saw young men with red cheeks, wearing beret hats, standing at awe as we cycled by them… We saw mulberry trees, loaded with berries…. And people crouching by the road, resting and watching life go by. We ate dinner in Aksu. Dinner was a sizzling spicy potato, a similar dish with Daikon radish, green beans, and spicy cabbage. Everything wad delicious, but our driver called to tell us that our van is not staring. Hopefully by tomorrow, he will get it fixed and we will be able to leave on schedule.

China never ceases to amaze me…. When we checked into our hotel in Aksu, Jason (our Chinese guide) asked me if we wanted to stay for two nights in Aksu. We usually stay for two nights if we arrive late and there are sights that we want to see around the area, on the next day. But here in Aksu, nothing showed up when we looked for it online. People mentioned things to see that are actually located in Kucha. As we checked in, I noticed a beautiful photo above the registration desk. I pointed to the photo depicting a stunning canyon, and asked Jason to inquire if it is in the area. “Well, yes actually, only 90 KM away.” Said the girl. We left after lunch the next day, to see this canyon. The road turned into a gravel road for a while, and no other cars were in sight. At the end of the road was a gate and a few dune buggies and a couple of large Hammer four wheels vehicles, for driving on deep sand. The stuff told us that they only have one four-wheel drive ATV (all terrain vehicle) but th...

Today we started earlier (9:30 AM) with a visit to the market to buy some fruit for a healthy snack. It is important to us to snack on good healthy things like nuts or dried and fresh fruit only. We bought some yellow apricots which are very small here, but packed with flavor. We also bought some bananas and white apricots. We cycled 55 KM from Kucha to Baicheng. The path was mostly flat with some trees growing on both sides of the road, which added some visual interest. There were also people selling honey. They raise bees and live in tents next to their bees. Cycling through fields of swarming bees turned out safe. Jules and I did not get stung and we stopped and bought some honey which is fragrant and tasty. We ate it with the large flat bread that we bought in the market, right out of the oven. We stopped for lunch at a Uygur restaurant in Beicheng. Lunch was sliced tomatoes sprinkled with sugar, a potato dish and noodles. We drove to Aksu in the rain. It was our first real rain of...

What a great day…. First we visited the remains of the Kizil Grottos. Carved into the mountains, these Buddhist grottos have almost no painted wall frescos and no sculptures left in them, but the caves carved into the cliff overlooking the valley, are just as majestic as ever. We took a walk into a canyon called “Heavenly Mountain Mysterious Grand Canyon.” The path twisted and turned between tall cliffs and narrowed down so much, that we were hardly able to squeeze between the rock walls, and under boulders as we walked on the wet river bed up the canyon. We climbed makeshift ladders, and crossed over shaky plank walkways and squeezed and bent and faced excitement and danger…. it was great fun! It was beyond beautiful to be there…. breathtaking…. In the middle of this majestic canyon, which is a masterpiece of Mother Nature, there are also carved Buddhist grottos which are man’s addition to the magic of this place…. The access to the caves was closed, but we saw the high mountain steps...

Going through the Taklamakan desert feels so inhospitable. There is no shade, no water and it feels as if someone turned the over on hot and forgot it for years… Our driver looks hurt, when we ask him to put on the air-conditioner in the car. Just like he is reluctant to turn on the car headlights at night, until it is totally pitch black…. he gives us as sad look, as if the whole van will explode from the use of the air conditioner… so we drop our request and drive with all the windows open, sweating and with dust and grime all over our faces. We arrived at the town of Kucha late this afternoon. Kucha is divided to a new part of town, and an old part of town which lies on the banks of the river. Naked boys are swimming in the silty river and people brings their horses and donkeys to rest and drink water there. The people are so friendly, smiling and gathering around us, asking us questions and inviting us to sit with them… we are the only foreign tourists walking in this chaotic and w...

These caves are considered to be the earliest caves in the Turpan area, dating back to the Jin and the Earlier Liang dynasties, (over 1,700 years old.) There have been forty-six caves some with Buddhist murals, but the cliffs are collapsing now and the caves have been closed to the public for safety reasons. We took a walk through the most picturesque adobe village, and walked across the river, to see the caves from a distance. We took photos of daily life and the local Mosque, saw the ancient tombs and burial ground, filled with earthen adobe graves. Our path which was closed to visitors, meandered along the old cliffs, which now pose a serious danger of collapsing. The path was broken in many places, and we needed to “jungle climb” to make our way across it. It was most fun.

No doubt an Ancient Tombs, but the name as “The Underground Museum” is a bit overrated, judging from what they are allowing visitors to see. The area is filled with underground ancient tombs, but only three are open to the public. Most of the rest are closed or lay buried under many hundreds of years of desert sand. In one of the tombs, we saw two very well preserve mummies, and the two other tombs, had the remains of the underground burial chambers and some lovely murals depicting figures, ducks, pheasants, and flowers, done in a naive sweet way. Buried in these tombs were nobles, officials and others from the period beginning in the Western Jin and ending in the middle of the Tang Dynasty. (1300 – 1700 years old) Many of the corpses found in more than five hundred tombs, did not rot, but instead they have become dried-up mummies. The bodies are not wrapped as mummies, and most of the dried-up bodies are completely intact. Maybe due to the dry and hot climate, many paintings, earthen ...

Today we continue to explore the sights around Turpan. Because of the extreme heat and below sea level elevation, it was too hot to cycle, so we took a drive about 50 KM out of the center of Turpan, to see the Bizaklik Thousand-Buddha Caves. The road took us through the Taklamakan desert and the famous “Flaming Mountains,” named poetically, because their red color in extremely hot days, look as if they were on fire. The Bizaklik Thousand-Buddha Caves, are carved into a cliff, above a valley with a flowing river, grape vines and mature trees. The whole area is surrounded by sandy desert mountains. When we were there, a sudden desert storm blew sand into the air, blocking all view and making the air appear as if it were made of smoke… But soon enough the wind calmed down and we were able to see what remains of the caves. They were called the Ningrong Grottoes in the Tang Dynasty. There are seventy-seven numbered grottoes, about forty of which still have small remains of murals in them. T...

A most charming place to visit in Turpan, (also called Tulufan) is the Grape Valley. Located only a short distance from the center of the city of Turpan, Grape Valley, is a place where gaped are grown commercially and local people live in, but it require an admission fee to get into. The main street of Grape Valley, are lined with traditional adobe earth homes. Because of the visibility to tourist, most of the adobe homes are beautifully kept. The entrance doors are all hand painted with scenes of the valley, of fruit and flowers, and they add a charm to the place. The streets are lined with grape vines and old mulberry trees, which are ripe now. As we walked to photograph the beautiful adobe homes, the colorful doors and the grape vines, I could not restrain myself from picking and munching on the ripe mulberries everywhere. I put them in my mouth unwashed, as the juice stained my fingers… Behind the main entrance door to the houses, there is usually a courtyard and in it, there is a ...

What a day…. Urumqi to Turpan. We cycled through seventy-five kilometers of desert…. With seriously strong winds. You want to know the plus? The blessing? Well….. The wind was on our tail, pushing me at 30 KM per hours up the hills. It may sound effortless, but the wind was blowing so hard, that I was covered in dust and small pebbles hit my expose skin. Holding my breaks on the down hills, to prevent my bike from going 50 KM per hour, and navigating a safe passage on the badly pothole national road, had turned out to be quite a challenge too. Later a light rain started, and the wind intensified, but it was soon back to dry windy desert. The name of this area, not to be confused with the Gobi desert, which we left behind now, is the Gebi (stony) desert. As we reached Dabancheng, we came upon three old ladies who were setting up a street stall selling broad dried beans, cold drinks and from an aluminum cooler, they served me their home-made yogurt. (none of the boys tried it) It was mos...

Heavenly Lake is a lake about 30 miles southeast of Urumqi in Xinjiang. It is 2,000 meters (6,500ft) above sea level on the stunning Bogda mountain. (Bogda is a Mongolian word for “God”.) When we pulled into the parking lot, I felt my heart sink…. So many tourists……it is usually not a good indicator for a wonderful place. But we took the drive out of the city to get here,……. so we decided to go with it. This high lake is indeed a magnificent place. It is surrounded with a distant view of the snow capped mountains called the Tian Shan Range. We were driven to the top of the mountain, on tourist buses, through a narrow mountain road lined with villages, trees and a rocky river. After taking the scenic spot photos, in front of the lake, we saw a sign pointing to a mountain top Taoist temple called “Ancestral Temple Of Queen Mother Of The West.” The path was almost empty and it took us for a few kilometers, along the rocky cliffs above the blue green lake. It was a beautiful path filled wi...

I love old markets. They are the remaining link to the way selling and buying used to be, along the Ancient Silk Road. The Grand Bazaar in Urumqi is a good place to see what fascinate the people. It is mainly beauty products including an array of henna for the hair, food, craft, nuts and dried fruit, decorated knifes, fur products, silk scarves, silk rugs, jewelry, live scorpions and healing potions…. The busy food streets, are filled with food that we do not dare to taste… (nor care to….) So we bought some freshly baked flat bread and munched as we strolled and soaked the atmosphere.

The city if Urumqi is the capital of Xinjiang Province. It is a busy hub of mixed ethnicities that you will rarely see anywhere else. The people here have been intermarried for many hundreds of years, and now the gene pool is filled with unique looking people, with ancestry that can be traced back to Russia, Kazakstan, Pakistan, Uiygur, Turky, Han Chinese, Hui, Mongolia, Kirghiz, Uzbekistan, Manchuria and Tajikistan. Today we visited the Southern Pastures outside of Urumqi. These green Nanshan Pasture, lay at the foot of the Tianshan Mountain range. When we left the city it was a hot, stuffy and sunny day. The elevation around the Nanshan Pasture is about 1, 600 meters, but as we cycled up into the mountains, it turned comfortably cooler and the elevation reached 2100 meters. We cycled up a very steep and beautiful path, that meandered gently between spruce and pine trees, a rocky river, wild flowers, green grassland dotted with brown sheep and horses. The Kazakh people move their herd...

Taking a day off from being a traveler, and spending almost a whole day in a comfortable bed in a five-star hotel, is a true luxury. The Oasis city of Dunhuang, is usually so very hot during the day…. People do not walk the streets during mid day, or they walk with umbrellas, to shade off the piercing sun. Today after breakfast, I took off my clothes, put on a soft bathrobe, got back into the high quality sheets in the king size bed, and took a long nap. With the cool air-condition, and the pleasing modern decor of the room, I was resting in heaven….. My stimulated mind so filled with images of all the art and sites we seen…. Was running colorful pictures in my mind’s eye, until I drifted into sleep. In the late afternoon, we walked the streets of Dunuang, exploring the local markets. I usually love to make healing tea for us to drink, while we travel. All hotel rooms in China, offer a tea making facility with a kettle and tea cups So we bought rose petals, goji berries, yellow flowers...

We left Yumen this morning and drove a long way through the dry Gobi desert. For many miles the only thing we saw, was small earth mounds that are actually graves. There is no designated burial area.... If a loved one passes away, the family select a place by the foot of the mountains, or simply by the road, and they dig a hole, bury the body and cover it with earth, to created a mound about one meter tall above it. The whole desert is dotted with these anonymous graves. The sun and the heat was just too brutal to cycle. After hours of driving, we arrived at a town that is truly a desert oasis called Dunhuang. On the outskirts of town, there are the Mogao Grottos. Words can hardly describe this magnificent place... Into a rock in the middle of the Gobi Desert, there is a massive complex of square caves, that are filled with cultural and artistic treasures. The caves are more than 1600 years OLD..... And despite robbers, earthquakes and change of political environment in China, through ...

Cycling in the Gobi desert, is everything I thought it would be…. It is hot, dry, incredibly dusty…..and with roads that are so bad, they gave up on fixing them, and created a new sleek expressway instead. Being on bicycles, we stay away from the expressway and we cycle on the rugged roads. There are huge potholes and trucks that do not move an inch. The truckers wave at me with enthusiastic friendliness, as they almost run me over… They raise thumbs up in the air or yell encouraging words to cheer me up, as they blow their engine and honk they loud horns to salute me. We stop to refill our water bottles from the support van very often. There is no food or stores to buy water anywhere in sight for many miles. We spot a beautiful Mosque along our route. The minarets pierce into the heavens…. We stop to photograph the beautiful mosque, and the people come out and gather around us in curiosity. We are the only Western tourists that ever visited this remote Mosque. They tell us that today ...

The Hexi Corridor, is known as the main path of the ancient Silk Road. It stretches east to west and was the main trading route to and from the ancient capital Xian. With the foothills of the Tibetan plateau, in the form of the Qilian Mountain range, soaring up to the south, and a merciless Gobi desert stretching to the north, the Hexi Corridor offers the only feasible way through the area, for travelers entering or leaving China. Historically, given the total absence of alternative routes, whoever controlled the Hexi Corridor could operate a stranglehold on the fabulous riches of the Silk Road trade. Inevitably the Chinese had a major interest of keeping the corridor under their control, and keeping the Mongol and Barbarians out of the region. They erected the Great Wall along the Hexi Corridor under Emperor Qin Shi Huang starting in the third century BC. Later, the Han dynasty succeeded in incorporating the region into their empire, though the influence of central government remained...

[gallery]The Gobi desert is arid, dry and barren. The city of Jiayuguan, is a desert oasis. After breakfast, we went to see the Jin and Wei Dynasty tombs, that were found in this area. From a distance, you only see an earth mound.... Granted, it is a large earth mound... But still it look like a pile of small stones. But this pile of stones leads ten meters underground, into a burial chamber, that is constructed from hand painted bricks, depicting scenes of every day life in this area. The coffin itself, is made of painted wood and is places in the last and lowest chamber. The first two chambers have a circular ceiling all lined with the same painted bricks. The vast Gobi desert area, has thousands of tombs. Most of them are 1900 years old. Currently, only 18 tombs have been excavated and unearthed. During the years, most of the articles buried in them, were stolen, but the structure, the painted bricks and the wooden coffins, remained kept in perfect shape for 1900 YEARS..... Now, onl...

Today was a great cycling day. We cycled from Zhangye 65 KM towards Jiayuguan. We cycled along farm land growing mostly corn, and stalls selling red dates. It was a great day for cycling. The weather was warm, with only a light wind and the roads were not very busy. We had a bit of a mountain biking action, where the paved road was torn for construction. Tonight we sleep in a lovely modern room in hotel Jiayuguan. Tomorrow, we will see the Great Wall of China. Jiayuguan is the western point in which the Great Wall had ended. In old times, beyond this point, there was a gate, and if you passed through it, you would be out of China…. And into the Gobi Desert. I am wearing a comfortable bathrobe in bed now,… Tired and happy as a clam…

Outside the Dafosi temple, we saw some women sitting on low stools, surrounded with plastic buckets. They were making a leaf wrapped sticky rice with local dates. We wanted to taste what they were making. One of the ladies took a small flat bread, filled it with the cooked mixture of sticky rice and dates, sprinkled it with sugar and gave it to us. Another elderly man, pulled two low stools for us to sit on, gave us chopsticks and napkins and showed us how to roll the bread and how to eat it. It was SUPERBLY YUMMY… Later on a market street, we saw a man selling the funky sunglasses that I saw elderly men wearing along the Silk Road. It turned out, that these sunglasses are made from two slices of dark stone. They looked too funky to pass….so I bought a pair. I walked around the market wearing them, making everybody laugh at the weird foreigner and her wacky sense of style……. Doesn’t she know that these stone sunglasses are worn only by elderly men?….. Dolce and Gabbana is cool…. Old me...