We went with a large group of teachers from BYU on a week long Silk Road tour. We flew far west from Beijing about 2300 miles. The 5 hour flight had us end up near the border of Pakistan, Mongolia & Russia. We followed the Marco Polo trade route. We started at a site of an ancient walled city. It was built around the time of Christ.
We came to a little town the people grow grapes and dry them and sell them. The children were selling food, the many adults were cooking and selling their foods. There were many shops with people saying "Heelloo, Aumercun". We found nuts, dried fruits, scarfs, and Muslim foods.
You can see the grapes just hanging and drying there above my head.
The put the vines over trellises and allow the grapes to grow down so they can dry on the vine.
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| This is what the houses looked like with multiple families living in them. |
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| This is a mom and dad cooking in a hut with a cloth over the top and selling food on the street. |
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| A mom with her groceries and child on the back. In china there are no car seats or helmets. |
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| This is a bed they sleep outside in the summer no air-conditioning |
It can get up to 130 degrees.
We travelled to the Gobi Desert and rode camels, there were over a 1,000 camels.
About as many riders as camels.
It was interesting, many people were riding in sleds down the sand mountains.
Just like we do with snow!
We went to Dunhuang and visited the Mogao Buddhist Caves where there are over 735 caves with Buddha's statues and paintings in them from as early as 366 a.d. We were allowed to see about 9 caves. They change what caves they allow to be opened each year. Our guide unlocked the chosen caves for us to see, then locked them after we left.
This is in one of the caves. It was a great thing to see the caves so pristine and so old.
We flew two hours to come the the city of Xi'an. (pronounced shyann) We went to a Muslim Street where the very old housing is still in existence in Xi'an, and bought great bread that looks roundand flat like a pizza crust. They were making hard candy, you could buy sheep hoof, crabs on a stick and many other delightful foods. ;)
We went to see the 8th wonder of the world, the Terra Cotta Warriors. It really was impressive and Chris and I were able to be terra cotta warriors just for a moment!!! We really enjoyed the silk road trip!
