13th August 2006 - Dunhaung
It spread out before us in every direction. An enormous grey ocean and sand, flat and lifeless. Devoid of any evidence of either plant or animal life and extending to all horizons motionless except for the fierce hot desert wind that blew continiously across it's face. We were driving away from Dunhuang past the mountainous sand dunes that mark the western border of the Great Gobi Desert and forward into it's heart. It was here, more than two thousand years ago that construction was begun on China's Great Wall. A mamouth straw and clay barrier standing some 10 metres high by 3 metres wide. We stood momentarily on the threshhold of history. Eroded by time, the Wall is now reduced to a broken chain of ruined sections except for two remaining gates, a control point through which merchants and travellers must have all passed in order to continue their journeys by either the northern or southern Chinese Silk Routes before heading south towards Tibet and the Himalayas. This journey of more than 2000 km would only take us a little over three weeks by truck but many months by camel for those in whose footsteps we would follow.
The Silk Route may have been the trade and information super highway of its day, but today's internet is a much simpler and quicker way to conduct business - but not necessarily better.
2 comments:
You write very well.
Thank you Lona - it helps to have interesting things to write about.
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