August 20, 2011

• The Silk Road (Sort Of) Overland
  Saturday 20 August 2011
  
  Flying with the Airbus 380 was fabulous! What a plane!! The take-off at Beijing was absolutely awesome, and the flight was very smooth and the economy seats surprisingly comfortable, with decent legroom. And the in-flight entertainment on Emirates is, as always, second to none. I watched Unknown with Liam Neeson (quite good). This plane is not used on many routes yet, but if I ever get a chance to fly on one again, I'll take it.

  The contrast between the no-seat Chinese train ride between Turpan and Xi'an and the flight on the Airbus 380 last night couldn't have been greater. The Airbus is not exactly in the spirit or style of the ancient Silk Road merchants and their caravans, but perhaps a bit of a treat after some of the modes of transport I've tried over the past seven weeks.

  I'm extremely pleased I've been able to make this Silk Road journey this summer, and I also feel it's been a privilege, since I now have both the time and the resources to do it (I had neither five-six years ago). This region has opened up to independent travel very recently, and maybe going back only five years, it would have been more difficult than it was for me.

  It's true that quite a few issues have come up over these seven weeks - refused visas, delayed visas, fully booked trains for weeks ahead - and it's also true that several times I have very nearly thrown in the towel and almost booked a ticket back to Dubai, or perhaps to Thailand or somewhere where I could just relax and do nothing. However, with some changes to the route and by changing the means of transport sometimes, e.g. my flight from Actau to Almaty in Kazakhstan, I've been able to keep to the spirit of my Silk Road project, if not exactly to my original planned route. Also, at times, a few words from a friend have made the difference between giving up and carrying on.

  

  Looking at my Silk Road route in its entirety, now after the event, I feel that even my ambition of doing the entire journey overland has more or less been fulfilled. There is obviously nothing "overland" about flying the two thousand kilometres between Actau, on the Caspian Sea, and Almaty, not far from the Chinese border (instead of the intended 67 hour train ride). However, when I then had to re-route and travel back west - all the way to Khiva in western Uzbekistan and then back east again - I kind of "undid" all of that flying when I travelled those distances on Uzbek trains.

  My Silk Road project has been great fun. It's been a very hands-on, a very visual and real lesson in history, religion, art and culture - covering a huge area and spanning over two millennia. And above all, I've seen so many incredibly beautiful sights that I will need time to just digest it all.

  Following the Silk Road - the medieval Internet, the medieval Super Information Highway - is definitely worth the effort and all the hassles.

  • 12:37 am
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