Sunday 20 July 2008

The Silk Road in China : The What, the When and the Where

This post, and our journey predated President Xi, and his (genocidal?) crack down in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The western half of our journey we be very different today, if it is even possible

We will shortly be setting out to travel across China following the route of the Silk Road. And that is a statement that needs some explanation so here it is....

China, Rome and Silk

China

Two thousand years ago a trade route was established between China and Rome, the greatest empires of the east and west. This route came to be known as The Silk Road, although Chinese silk may have found its way to Egypt a thousand years earlier.

Xi'an, the Eastern End of the Route

In 221 BCE Qin Shi Huang, he of the Terracotta Warriors, united the core of what is now China, built huge chunks of the ‘Great Wall’ and settled his capital at Chang’an, the modern Xi’an. His dynasty was, however, short lived and in 206 BC the rebel warlord Liu Bang founded the Han dynasty.

The guard at the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang
(Either these are 21st century re-enactors or I have a time machine. Guess which)

The Han ruled a united China for over four hundred years and defined the national identity to such an extent that China’s main ethnic group still describe themselves as ‘Han Chinese’.

Zhang Qian

The Wall had been built as a defence against harassment from the Huns, a Turkic people who would later turn their attention to ravaging Europe. Hun prisoners told The Han Emperor Wu of their battles against the Yuezhi, a people dwelling in the far west beyond the Taklamakan desert. In 138 BCE, wishing to make common cause against the Huns, Emperor Wu sent a young man called Zhang Qian as his ambassador to the Yuezhi.

Qin Shi Huang's Terracotta Army, Xi'an

Thirteen years later, when all assumed he was dead, Zhang Qian returned. He had failed in his objective, but instead brought back strange tales of far-flung lands. He had visited the kingdoms of Ferghana, Samarkand and Bukhara, in what is now Uzbekistan, and he told stories of the even more distant and fabulous realm of Persia, and beyond that, unimaginably far away, the land of Li-jien – almost certainly Rome.

So the Chinese discovered the existence of Rome, now all that was needed for the Silk Road to come into existence was for the Romans to discover silk and China.

The Battle of Carrhae

Exactly how this came about is unclear, but the battle of Carrhae in Eastern Turkey is reputed to have played an important part in the story. In 53 BC Marcus Licinius Crassus, whose only previous command had been against Spartacus twenty years earlier, was leading an expedition against the Parthians. Feeling his inferiority to the other members of Rome’s ruling triumvirate, Julius Caesar and Pompey, he was out to prove his military virility. Through inexperience, he allowed himself to be lured onto unsuitable terrain by a much smaller Parthian force and when attacked, ordered his troops into inappropriate formations. Already tired and suffering from sunstroke, they found themselves pinned down, often quite literally, by the Parthian’s mounted archers. Whether the Romans finally turned and fled because of the silk banners waved by the charging Parthian cataphracts is a moot point. I am inclined to believe the Parthian victory was the result of superior tactics rather than superior textiles, but according to legend this was the Romans first encounter with silk. Legionaries captured at Carrhae were subsequently pressed into guarding the Parthians’ eastern borders where they bought silk from Chinese traders following in the wake of Zhang Qian.

Silk Reaches Rome

However it happened, there is no doubt that when silk ‘as light as a cloud’ and ‘as translucent as ice’ reached Rome it caused considerable excitement. Via the Parthians, and a host of other intermediaries, trade was established with the land of ‘Seres’ where, as Pliny wrote, the inhabitants ‘are famous for the wool of their forests; removing the down from the leaves with water’.

Despite, or perhaps because of, their ignorance of how it was made, the Romans developed an inexhaustible appetite for silk. In AD14, the Emperor Tiberius banned it as an instrument of decadence, but he could not hold back the tide. In 380 the historian Marcellus Ammianus noted that ‘the passion for silk, once confined to the nobility, has spread to all classes’ and was contributing to a balance of payments problem.

Spinning silk, Hotan

The Silk Road Becomes a Major Trade Route

If silk had been the only commodity traded then the Silk Road would not have survived the fall of Rome. The traffic, however, was far more diverse and far from one way. Westward came furs, ceramics, iron, lacquer, cinnamon, bronze objects and, believe it or not, rhubarb. Eastwards went gold, woollen and linen textiles, ivory, coral, amber, asbestos and also glass. The Chinese may have had paper and gun powder before Europe had even dreamed of these things, but the Romans were way ahead in glass making, a technology which did not reach China until the fifth century. And it was not just goods that travelled, but ideas too. Buddhism swept into China in the seventh century along the Silk Road, followed three centuries later by Islam.

It was the goods rather than the traders that did the bulk of the moving. A merchant bought supplies, transported them a couple of hundred kilometres and sold them on. No Romans manned stalls in the markets of Xi’an, no Chinese traders were seen in the forum, although the historian Florus reports that Chinese ambassadors were received in Rome as early as the reign of Augustus (27 BCE to 14 CE).

There were cities, particularly around the oases of the Taklamakan desert, that owed not just their prosperity but their entire existence to the trade passing through them. Those who controlled the routes controlled the taxes and this motivated the Chinese to push west across the Gobi and around the Taklamakan to incorporate what is now the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region into their empire. Chinese control here has often been tenuous and frequently been disputed, indeed it still is.

The remains of the silk road city of Jaiohe, Turpan Oasis

By 1278 Kublai Khan controlled an empire that stretched way beyond China’s borders. The country was open to travellers, traders and missionaries. Arabs and Venetians could be found in Chinese ports and Marco Polo described the lifestyle and treasures of the imperial court.

The Decline of the Silk Road

But the secret of sericulture had already been smuggled west, and this climate of openness encouraged the development of new sea routes for other goods. It was the beginning of the end for the Silk Road. In 1368 the Kublai Khan’s Yuan dynasty, gave way to the Ming dynasty and China entered a period of isolation that was to last over six hundred years. Overland trade ground to a halt. Whole cities around the Taklamakan were evacuated and the desert slowly re-assimilated their mud bricks. Great centres of art and civilization disappeared and were forgotten until European explorers arrived at the end of the nineteenth century.

Surprisingly, the name 'Silk Road' - more precisely Der Seidenstrasse – was only coined in 1877 by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen, uncle of the Red Baron. The title, though both handy and romantic, is doubly misleading; silk was not the only commodity traded, and it was also not one road, but a series of routes across the Asian landmass.


Our Forthcoming Journey

Our self-imposed task in July/August 2008 was to travel the Chinese section of the Silk Road. We would fly from Shanghai to Xi’an and from there pass through the Hexi corridor by train to Jiayuguan and continue by car to Dunhuang in the Gobi desert, where there was a major bifurcation. The Gobi is benign, as deserts go; water is easy to find and the climate is merely extreme. Beyond that are the arid wastes of the Taklamakan, where there is no water and the summer heat and winter cold make ‘extreme’ seem temperate. The northern road round the Taklamakan was easier, though more troubled by bandits, as it hopped from oasis to oasis along the northern edge of the desert below the Tian Shan Mountains. The southern Silk Road was more rugged but safer, plotting a course between the desert and the Kunlun Shan, the northern rim of the Tibetan plateau.

The Dunhuang Oasis

In an age without bandits, although the authorities live in constant fear of terrorists, we travelled the northern route by train from Dunhuang to Turpan and then to Kashgar (Kashi), where the two roads rejoin at the western tip of China. We then returned some five hundred kilometres along the southern route to (K)hotan before flying north across the desert to the regional capital at Urumqi and thence home. We wanted to see what has become of the glories of the Silk Road, and learn something about the lives of the people who live there now.

China with the stopping points on our journey ringed in red

Peter Hopkirk’s Foreign Devils on the Silk Road describes in detail the effect 18th century European explorer/merchants/plunderers had on the what remained of the Silk Road Culture. While I would recommend the book, I must take issue with his final comments ‘In 1979' he wrote, 'when the first party of British tourists stepped down from their coach at the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas …. the last shred of mystery and romance had finally gone from the Silk Road.

The Cave of a Thousand Buddhas, Mogao, Dunhuang

No Pdeter. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Any person who walks among the ruins of Melikawat or Gaochang and does not feel their feet rummaging among the bones of long dead civilizations has little brain and no imagination. Any European who can stand in Kashgar’s Id Kah Square and not feel the thrill of being somewhere totally foreign and utterly remote should probably have stayed at home. Yes, we travelled in air-conditioned cars and by railway trains not camel trains; maybe we did not go without water or food when we became lost in the desert, but we did visit places that see few other foreigners, and we did eat and travel with the descendants of those who made The Silk Road the greatest trade route on earth. True, no physical privations were involved, but no mystery? no romance? Pull the other one, Peter.

The Chinese Silk Road
Prelude: Shanghai
1 Xi'an
2 Jiayuguan: A Total Eclipse and the Last Fortress under Heaven
3 Dunhuang: Dunes in the Gobi
4 Turpan: Ruined Cities of the Silk Road
5 Kashgar (1):  The Sunday Market and the Former British Consulate
6 Kashgar (2): Upal, Abakh Hoja and the Old Town
7 Hotan (or Khotan or Hetian): City in the Desert
8 Urumqi: A By-word for Remoteness
Postscript

Saturday 31 May 2008

Cardingmill Valley to Great Whitley: Days 1 to 3 of the South West Odyssey

The South West Odyssey was a long distance walk.
Five like-minded people started in 2008 from the Cardingmill Valley in Shropshire and by walking three days a year finished at Start Bay on the South Devon Coast in May 2019
.

The First Three Days of an Epic Walk that would take 12 Years to Complete

29-May-2008

Shropshire

Day 1: The South West Odyssey Starts by Going East across the Stretton Gap, over Caer Caradoc and along Wenlock Edge

The South West Odyssey started on the 29th of May 2008 from the Cardingmill Valley car park on the edge of the Long Mynd in Shropshire.

David, Francis, Alison, Mike & Brian ready to Odyss

Most walkers ascend the valley onto the Long Mynd but, being perverse, we descended towards and then across the Stretton Gap before climbing Caer Caradoc.

Walking down the Cardingmill Valley

At 459 metres Caer Caradoc is not the biggest hill in the world. If it was twice as high it would be classified as a Munro, but its 270 metre prominence is more than enough for it to qualify as one of England's 176 Marilyns. It is also more than enough to raise the heart rate and to provide a fine view from the top. According to legend the Iron (or late Bronze) Age hill fort on the summit is the site of the last stand of Caractacus (or Caradoc) against the invading Romans; hence the name of the hill. Nice story, but probably untrue.

Alison atop Caer Caradoc with the Stretton Gap and Long Mynd as a backdrop

Dropping down from Caer Caradoc we skirted Cardington Hill and made our way to Longville in the Dale, where the Longville Arms provided a welcome and much needed pint or two of lunch. Revived, we continued west to Wenlock Edge. A coral reef on the ocean floor in Silurian times, Wenlock Edge is now a hump of limestone running across 25 kilometres of Shropshire countryside. Although it has inspired a poem by A.E. Houseman (On Wenlock Edge) and a song cycle by Vaughan Williams, the word I associate with Wenlock Edge is 'mud' which is neither poetic nor musical. The footpaths on the top double as bridle ways and during a wet spring horses had churned the surface to a considerable depth. We wallowed rather than walked along Wenlock Edge.

Climbing onto Wenlock Edge

Leaving Wenlock Edge, field paths took us to Brocton and the end of the day's walk, some 18 km east of our starting point. We spent the night at the Fox Inn at Much Wenlock.

30-May-2008

Day 2: An Amphibian Surprise and Mislaid Binoculars on the Way to Cleobury Mortimer

Brocton - has Alison noticed we've gone?

Setting off again from Brocton we crossed field paths through Skimblescott and Great Oxenbold, villages that are actually smaller than their names.

The path to Great Oxenbold

We then crossed parkland to the larger village of Burwarton where the Boyne Arms provided us with a glass of lunch and an Amphibian Surprise.

Brian is unfazed by the Amphibian Surprise

We left Burwarton and survived the heroic crossing of the Cressell Brook.

The Crossing of Cresell Brook

Our journey continued along a grassy bank that had once been a railway line. At some point we stepped carefully from one OS map to the next. Francis put his binoculars down on the bank, changed the map in his map case and strode off, leaving 800 pounds worth of optical equipment lying in the grass.

Along the disused railway

Half an hour later he spotted an interesting bird and was startled to find he had nothing to look at it through. We phoned the cavalry (Lynne, Hilary and Alison T) and arranged that Mike and Francis would walk back, retrieve the binoculars and make their way to the nearest tarmac road where they could be picked up. Meanwhile Brian, Alison and I would continue to a point where our path crossed an appropriate road and wait there until Mike and Francis were delivered. There were plenty of opportunities for the plan to go wrong, starting with the assumption that it would be easy to find a pair of binoculars sitting quietly in the long grass.

Brian, Alison and I reached the rendezvous point, waited for five minutes and then a car appeared and Mike and Francis were back with us, Francis clutching his precious binoculars. The plan had been perfectly executed. [You might think Francis would learn from his experience, but on April Fool's Day 2010 he left them outside a pub in Telford. Fortune - and the pub landlord - saw to it that Francis and binoculars were again reunited.]

I was probably not the only one feeling footsore and weary by the time we reached Cleobury Mortimer where we spent the night in the Kings Arms.

The King's Arm, Cleobury Mortimer

31-May-2008

Day 3: Meadows, Skylarks and the Abberley Clock Tower

Cleobury Mortimer is, with 2000 residents, the second smallest town in Shropshire. Among its many charms is a church with a twisted spire.....

St Mary's, Cleobury Mortimer with its twisted spire.

....but it's not half as twisted as Chesterfield.

We spent the morning walking through rolling woodland and crossing several small rivers....

Crossing the River Rea

...and then across field paths and wildflower meadows.

Skylarks are still a common feature of Shropshire farm land. They fluttered above us, singing their hearts out and trying to lead us away from their nests. It is very pretty, but a waste of time and energy as humans do not eat skylark eggs- you would need too many to make an omelette! Nor do we ever find their nests - except hawk-eyed Mike did, spotting one half-hidden in the long grass at a field edge. An adult sat on a clutch of eggs, eyeing us nervously. In an ideal world you would now scroll down to a picture of a skylark on its nest. I did not want to disturb the bird by using flash, so I photographed it without. The results were dark, very dark indeed, so instead I will show you a picture of a wild flower meadow.

Meadow near Clows Top
Worcestershire

At some point we crossed into into Worcestershire and the final afternoon was brief stroll across more fields and through a wood and across the Abberley estate. There has been a manor house of some sort at Abberley since the early fourteenth century, or even longer. The current Abberley Hall was built in Italianate style for Birmingham banker John Lewis Moilliet who acquired the estate in 1836. In 1867 the house was sold to Joseph Jones, an Oldham cotton magnate. His son, John Joseph Jones, built the remarkable clock tower in 1885. He boasted that none of his farm workers would knock off early as the all knew what the time was. Perhaps it might have been better if he paid his workers enough to own a watch each rather than spending his money on vanity projects.

Abberley Clock Tower

Abberley Hall now houses a preparatory school, and Saturday afternoon games were in full swing as we walked past. We emerged on the A443 and made our way to Great Whitley and the conclusion of the first part of the Odyssey.

Relieved to have reached the end
from Left to right: Alison, Mike, Alison T, Brian, Francis, Lynne and me
(so Hilary must have taken the picture)
The South West Odyssey (English Branch)
Introduction
Day 1 to 3 (2008) Cardingmill Valley to Great Whitley
Day 4 to 6 (2009) Great Whitely to Upton-on-Severn via the Malvern Ridge
Day 7 to 9 (2010) Upton-on-Severn to Andoversford
Day 10 (2011) Andoversford to Perrott's Brook
Day 11 (2011) Perrott's Brook to the Round Elm Crossroads
Day 12 (2011) Walking Round Stroud
Day 13 (2012) Stroud to North Nibley
Day 14 (2012) North Nibley to Old Sodbury
Day 15 (2012) Old Sodbury to Swineford
Day 16 (2013) Along the Chew Valley
Day 17 (2013) Over the Mendips to Wells
Day 18 (2013) Wells to Glastonbury 'The Mountain Route'
Day 19 (2014) Glastonbury to Langport
Day 20 (2014) Along the Parrett and over the Tone
Day 21 (2014) Into the Quantocks
Day 22 (2015) From the Quantocks to the Sea
Day 23 (2015) Watchet, Dunster and Dunkery Hill
Day 24 (2015) Dunkery Beacon to Withypool
Day 25 (2016) Entering Devon and Leaving Exmoor
Day 26 (2016) Knowstone to Black Dog on the Two Moors Way
Day 27 (2016) Morchard Bishop to Copplestone
Day 28 (2017) Down St Mary to Drewsteignton
Day 29 (2017) Drewsteignton to Bennett's Cross
Day 30 (2017) Bennett's Cross to Lustleigh
Day 31 (2018) Southwest Across the Moor from Lustleigh
Day 32 (2018) South to Ugborough
Day 33 (2018) Ugborough to Ringmore
Day 34 (2019) Around the Avon Estuary to Hope Cove
Day 35 (2019):  Hope Cove to Prawle Point
Day 36 (2019) Prawle Point to Start Bay: The End
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The Last Post

That's All Folks - The Odyssey is done.

Sunday 25 May 2008

The South West Odyssey: An Introduction

The Genesis of an Epic Walk


The South West Odyssey was a long distance walk.
Five like-minded people started in 2008 from the Cardingmill Valley in Shropshire and by walking three days a year reached Start Bay on the South Devon Coast in May 2019
.

Go West! (1998 or 9)

First there was Go West! in which six like-minded people decided to walk due west from Stafford, or as due west as footpaths would allow, until halted by the sea. After nine days walking - spread over five months - we had all stood knee deep in the briny on Barmouth beach. That was in 1998 (or maybe 1999 – it was certainly in the days before digital cameras put a nice clear date and time on every picture).

Go North! reaches Settle - and Alison wears a fine pair of trousers

Go North! (2002-4)

After an intended year off, which foot and mouth extended to three, we embarked on Go North! and after fifteen days walking - over three years - we reached Hadrian’s Wall and a natural conclusion. This time we had allowed ourselves some deviation from due north – strolling through the suburbs of Manchester with rucksacks on our backs and walking boots on our feet would have looked weird. Instead we swung east to traverse the moors between Oldham and Sheffield – much more natural walking country.

Beside the South Tyne, (photograph: Alison)

By the end of Go North! we had established a pattern of walking for three days during the summer half term whilst non-walking spouses were kind enough to drop us off at the start and after a spent doing touristy things, picking us up at the end.

The South West Odyssey (Welsh Branch) (2005-7)

Up the Cardingmill Valley onto the Long Mynd

The South West Odyssey started in 2005. Setting off from a point near Shrewsbury on the Go West! route, we headed for the Long Mynd and then along the Welsh border before turning deeper into Wales towards Brecon.

The River Usk at Brecon

The western extremity of the Brecon Beacons National Park seemed an appropriate place to stop, so in 2008 we returned to the Long Mynd and set off on an English branch to the South West Odyssey.

Brecon Beacons

In Homer’s poem Odysseus, Greek hero of the Trojan War, spent ten years wandering around the eastern Mediterranean trying to find his way home to Ithaca. The gods chose to shower him with problems and diversions, but even so the eastern Mediterranean is small and ten years is a long time; the inevitable conclusion is that Odysseus was a pretty crap navigator.

Corn Du and Pen y Fan - Brecon Beacons

Like Odysseus, we will, doubtless wander. [update 2011:We have spent whole days walking southeast, and at least one half-day walking north]. Our wandering is not the result of navigational problems – ‘if in doubt follow Francis’ is (almost) foolproof – it is by choice. Our Odyssey is about the journey, not the destination. Our ‘Ithaca’ is, at best, hazily defined; we may take ten years to reach it, or more, or less, it matters not; no Penelope is waiting at the end fending off suitors with unpicked needlepoint.[Update 2019: It actually took 12 years, and ended, with a little gentle irony, at Start Bay on the south Devon Coast.]

The Black Mountain - Brecon Beacons

To find out about the walk or just look at the pictures simply click on the episodes below

The South West Odyssey (English Branch)
Introduction
Day 1 to 3 (2008) Cardingmill Valley to Great Whitley
Day 4 to 6 (2009) Great Whitely to Upton-on-Severn via the Malvern Ridge
Day 7 to 9 (2010) Upton-on-Severn to Andoversford
Day 10 (2011) Andoversford to Perrott's Brook
Day 11 (2011) Perrott's Brook to the Round Elm Crossroads
Day 12 (2011) Walking Round Stroud
Day 13 (2012) Stroud to North Nibley
Day 14 (2012) North Nibley to Old Sodbury
Day 15 (2012) Old Sodbury to Swineford
Day 16 (2013) Along the Chew Valley
Day 17 (2013) Over the Mendips to Wells
Day 18 (2013) Wells to Glastonbury 'The Mountain Route'
Day 19 (2014) Glastonbury to Langport
Day 20 (2014) Along the Parrett and over the Tone
Day 21 (2014) Into the Quantocks
Day 22 (2015) From the Quantocks to the Sea
Day 23 (2015) Watchet, Dunster and Dunkery Hill
Day 24 (2015) Dunkery Beacon to Withypool
Day 25 (2016) Entering Devon and Leaving Exmoor
Day 26 (2016) Knowstone to Black Dog on the Two Moors Way
Day 27 (2016) Morchard Bishop to Copplestone
Day 28 (2017) Down St Mary to Drewsteignton
Day 29 (2017) Drewsteignton to Bennett's Cross
Day 30 (2017) Bennett's Cross to Lustleigh
Day 31 (2018) Southwest Across the Moor from Lustleigh
Day 32 (2018) South to Ugborough
Day 33 (2018) Ugborough to Ringmore
Day 34 (2019) Around the Avon Estuary to Hope Cove
Day 35 (2019):  Hope Cove to Prawle Point
Day 36 (2019) Prawle Point to Start Bay: The End
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The Last Post

That's All Folks - The Odyssey is done.