Shanghai – Xi’an – Xining – Tongren – Xiahe – Lanzhou – Jiayuguan – Dunhuang – Turpan – Lake Tian Chi – Urumqi – Kashgar – Osh – Ferghana Marghilan – Tashkent – Khiva – Bukhara – Samarkand – Tashkent
‘A small kaleidoscope of the wonders of the Silk Road
1,400-year-old wall trees shade the square in Bukhara; 1,000-year-old plane trees with elephantine trunks draw their strength from the Urgut spring; the sweetest grapes in the world can be tasted in the oasis town of Turfan; At the foot of the Dunhuang dunes, a species of poplar unknown in Europe, the populus diversifolia, offers leaves of different shapes and sinks its roots twenty metres beneath the sand; the so-called Sichuan pepper trees grow in terraces between wheat and maize. We were not warned: the Silk Road between Khiva the Uzbek and Xian the Chinese was a botanical walk.
It’s also a warm, gourmet walk… It’s hard to forget lunch at a local’s house, the big table under the trellis laden with dried fruit and watermelon in an old adobe village in Xinjian, the koumis (fermented mare’s milk) drunk on the side of the road in Kyrgyzstan and the honey offered by the nomads busy putting up their summer yurt, the Peking duck shared with our guides and driver before taking the night train to Jiayuguan, the ravioli feast while watching the Tang dancers – a bit kitsch – in Xian. And, more generally, the delights of Chinese cuisine enjoyed in small restaurants rather than tourist stalls. I won’t comment on Uzbek cuisine, to remain diplomatic. But the memory of a watermelon and warm bread at the foot of a spring and the invitation from picnickers to share plov, the national dish to be eaten in moderation.
Following the Silk Road for nearly four weeks, we knew its stages in advance, but despite a great deal of reading – from Marco Polo’s ‘Devisement du monde’ to ‘L’Asie centrale. History and Civilisation’ and Hervé Beaumont’s indispensable “Guide to the Civilisations of the Silk Road” – we were unaware of its wonders.
Xian and its armies of warriors and horses miraculously found underground were expected. But not the Mogao caves, hundreds of caves covered in frescoes painted by Buddhist monks between the 4th and 14th centuries. It’s an all too fleeting vision of highly colourful religious and secular scenes (ploughing and hunting immortalised in the 6th century) that calls for a review in the fine books in the library of the Musée Cernuschi in Paris.
The mythical cities of Uzbekistan are certainly photographed in every geography book. But you have to experience the heat (42°C in Khiva) and the sparkle of the blue mosaics at sunset, the impressive forest of carved wooden columns in a Khiva mosque, the sweetness of tea sipped on the banks of the great shaded basin in Bukhara to go beyond the images. What to choose? Khiva, a dream of the past enclosed within its crenellated walls, Bukhara and its opulent bazaars, Samarkand, Islam’s thirst for conquest embodied in its gigantic mosques and medersas, restored at great expense.
The Tibetan monasteries of Quinhai are the stuff of dreams for Westerners in search of exoticism, but on the spot, our curious and incredulous gaze comes up against the fervour of the pilgrims who prostrate themselves indefinitely and the carefree attitude of the young nuns who recite mantras while playing with their mobile phones.
The crossing of the Yellow River by boat is less dangerous than feared, a simple walk to reach the caves, but those at Blingling are filled with statues of Buddhas and bottitshava; one of them bears a striking resemblance to the great Buddha of Bamiyan destroyed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The last stop before crossing into Kyrgyzstan, Kashgar, the city of the Uighur country, is somewhere between the Middle Ages and the 21st century, with its small houses closed off by shady courtyards in the old town, its craftsmen at work with derisory tools and the vast avenues lined with terrace restaurants, the big Sunday cattle market – a treat for tourists – and the shopping centres of modern-day China.
In Uzbekistan, near Khiva. A moment of rare intensity as we climb up to the 2,000-year-old Ayaz Kala fortress, its remains frozen in the silence and sweltering heat of the desert. You can imagine the caravan in the distance, dreaming of the shade awaiting them in the great vaulted hall that is still standing.
On this trip, we were constantly torn between the past and the present, between solitude – in front of the magic dune at Dunhuang, for example – and the hustle and bustle of the big bazaars – the one in Osh, which, two days after our visit, was the scene of bloody clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks -, between nostalgia – the former French concession in Shanghai – and the shame of the past – the inscription ‘forbidden to dogs and Chinese’ posted in 1903 in a park in this city – , between the cold (-5° in the dining room at the hotel in Xiahe, a town at an altitude of 2,900 metres) and the heat of the cities of Uzbekistan, between delight – the gypsies circling the cars with incense to chase away evil spirits – and annoyance at the omnipresent Uzbek police and the fussy Chinese at the border.
In short, a real trip which, thanks to our attentive, well-informed and, what’s more, French-speaking guides – around ten in all on the route – a very well thought-out itinerary (4 journeys by plane, 2 night trains and thousands of kilometres by car) and an excellent choice of hotels, was a pleasure from start to finish.
Michèle and Claude Lécluse.”