The Silk Road was actually a series of trade routes linking the Far and Near East. The main route began in Xian, China and stretched across Central Asia to the Mediterranean. The Chinese were the only ones who new how to produce silk, so that any silk that turned up in a Constaninople bazaar would have to have travelled by camel caravan through storms of dust, snow and marauding nomads. From just before the time of Christ to around 1400, goods and ideas were exchanged between East and West. This included silk, teas, spices, Islam, Buddhism and, rather less romantically, the bubonic plague. The route is still encrusted with ancient trading cities and caravanserais. Caravanserais were like rest stops for weary travellers where sleep could be caught, goods exchanged and, in my overly-romanticised mind, where turbaned men smoked shishas and watched the stars in flickering fire light.
We are now stepping into the shoes of Alexander the Great, of Marco Polo, of the Hun and the Mongols, of the great Morocaan explorer Ibn Battuta, of a load of hairy hippies in vans.
So, don't think we're just bumming around the world for a few months, we're bumming along the greatest trade route of all time!
I shall write a proper entry soon and will hopefully include some pictures so you don't have to bother with the reading bit (we haven't had the facilities to include pictures for a while).
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