Following the Silk Road through China

The Silk Road makes for a wonderful map, but an even better journey begins when you stop imagining it as a single line across Asia. For centuries, merchants moved along a shifting network of routes connecting China with Central Asia and lands further west. Silk travelled outwards. Buddhism travelled into China. Ideas, languages and ways of making things went in both directions. Much of this happened through small exchanges between people who might never have travelled the full distance themselves.

The road through time

To follow the Chinese stretch today is to cross a country whose landscapes change dramatically as you head west. Start in Xi’an, the former imperial capital once known as Chang’an, and allow the journey to unfold towards the desert.

Xi’an is a fitting place to begin. During the Han and Tang dynasties, Chang’an was a major political and commercial centre, connected to routes leading towards the Hexi Corridor and the oasis settlements beyond. The city’s history can feel monumental, particularly around its ancient walls, but the more interesting question is what left its gates. Goods moved with travellers, and travellers carried their beliefs and skills. The Silk Road was never simply about selling silk.

Further west, Dunhuang sits at a meeting point between desert and oasis. Its Mogao Caves are among the most extraordinary records of that exchange. Carved into cliffs, the Buddhist sanctuaries contain murals and sculptures created over roughly a thousand years. Some paintings show merchants and caravans; others preserve details of clothing, religious life and the world as it was understood by the artists who worked there. Stand before them and the history becomes less abstract. These were places where ideas arrived, changed and took root.

Dunhuang also makes room for the landscape itself. At Mingsha Mountain, sand dunes rise beside Crescent Moon Spring, a small body of water that has long drawn attention in this dry region. The contrast is striking, particularly towards evening, when the light shifts across the dunes. It is easy to see why reliable water and sheltered stopping points mattered so much to people crossing these distances.

Continue into Xinjiang and Turpan, where the terrain becomes harsher still. The ancient city of Jiaohe lies on an elevated earthen platform in a dry valley, its ruined streets and buildings exposed to the open sky. Walking through it, you can trace the layout of a settlement that once occupied a strategic position along regional trade routes. Nearby, the Flaming Mountains rise in bands of red and ochre. Turpan’s history also depends on water: its traditional karez irrigation system channelled underground water towards farmland, helping sustain an oasis in an unforgiving climate.

At the western end of this journey, Kashgar turns the focus back to commerce. Its historic bazaar remains a place to browse textiles and spices, watch traders at work and find Uyghur food. Freshly baked naan and lamb skewers are good reasons to linger. The market’s importance lies in its everyday activity, even as its history reaches back to the era when Kashgar linked routes across Central Asia.

A journey along the Silk Road takes planning, and distances between these places are considerable. Mogao Caves require advance booking, while travel arrangements in Xinjiang should be checked carefully before departure.

The route is worth the effort. China’s Silk Road landscapes can look almost empty from a distance. Get closer, and the ruins, irrigation channels and market streets begin to show how people made a life here. The desert was never merely something to cross. It was where the journey had to make sense.

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