Site icon Dana Stabenow

Photos from the Silk Road

Dana

I went to China in 2005 to do research for Silk and Song. Here are a few photos from that trip.

I figured Marco Polo must have got on a camel a time or two. I could do no less.

A bit smoggy that day (as when wasn’t it), but if you squint you can see the Tian Shan, or Heavenly Mountains on the horizon.
Guy shoeing a mule in the Dunhuang marketplace. One stall over, a dentist was drilling out someone’s tooth.
A bread oven, aka a tandoor. The smell was the first thing to hit your nose as you walked into the market. After the donkey manure.
Uighur passing lane.
The parking lot at the Kuche market.
The camel herd at the pit stop.

So, okay, that last photo, a story goes with it. We were out tarryhooting around in the middle of nowhere and voices were raised in request of a pit stop. So our driver pulled over to the edge of this huge dry riverbed, conveniently lined with boulders.

In mid, er, stream, a movement caught the corner of my eye. I looked up from trying not to pee on my shoes and, lo, around the bend of this dry riverbed appeared a herd of free-range camels.

Only in Asia.

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