丝绸之路小结 Silk Road afterview

I am back to Ann Arbor finally. But I have been sick for 2 weeks. Seems every time I go back to China I get sick--no longer used to the polluted air. I had to carry the x-ray of my lungs with me to the airport in case the airlines suspected me having SARS. Funny.

I was in Beijing for 4 days and then went to Zhengzhou to attend a family gathering. After that I flew to Kashgar (Kashi) in Xinjiang and started my Silk Road journey. In the next 11 days I traveled through Turpan, Jiayuguan, Dunhuang, Lanzhou, Xining (Qing Hai Lake), Tianshui, and arrived in Xi'an.

The Silk Road is marvelous. I had heard about it so much before but never imagined it to be so, different. Any traveler would greatly enjoy this part of the world--the driest desert and nothingness, and then civilizations striving and flourishing and lost and rediscovered. I started from the west most part of China--Kashgar (near some *stan countries--Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, etc. where I would love to visit one day) and took the train eastward back to Chinese civilization. At the beginning of the trip I felt I was in a completely foreign country where nobody spoke any Chinese. One guide book describes Kashgar as the time of 1001 Nights, and it seems true. Kashgar was one of the most rewarding parts of my trip. Going east I saw more and more Chinese influence and I visited places that I read many many times in books and poems and stories when I was growing up. I understood what our ancient poets meant when they talked about desolation and exile.

From the air some of the areas look absolutely like Mars!

Xinjiang from Above

I got sick when I reached Xi'an. I visited my relatives there and then I went to Hong Kong and stayed with my parents. I did not get out of the house (except to see doctors) for a whole week. Afterward, I flew back to the San Francisco, went down to LA to pick up a car, drove back to Michigan. On the way I stopped in the Colorado mountains to visit a friend.

Most of my trip was largely seeing old faces. I counted: since I left Ann Arbor 5+ weeks ago, I had met over 60 old friends and relatives from all the way back to kindergarten days through elementary school, middle school, to graduate school days (my high school and college days were very elusive and left almost no friends). Everyone was happy to see me and wanted to talk to me and I wanted to talk to everyone. I stayed up several nights to talk to friends. Naturally the trip was exhausting and no wonder I got sick.

I took many pictures of the beautiful region I traveled, but sadly I don't have much time to write a travelogue or even write captions to my photos. Lots and lots of stories. Anyhow, with great difficulties I selected 10% of my pictures and put them online, at:

http://caltechc.caltech.edu/~asw/SilkRoad2004/

Next time it is definitely Nepal and Tibet.