Cycling the Silk Road

From the Cycling the Silk Road website:

In the late spring and summer of 2006, four young wannabe explorers went on a long-distance cycling expedition retracing the travels of Marco Polo along ancient Silk Road trading routes in Xinjiang and Tibet in China. For months on end, we were cycling nomads traveling in Marco Polo’s shadow. We also raised money for communities along the modern silk road.

Although we swapped camels for bikes on this trip, the objectives of our journey – to explore unfamiliar landscapes, encounter new cultures, and experience different modes of life – and the challenges faced along route were similar to those of Polo’s journey. From the Taklamakan desert to Kashgar, Mount Muztaghata to the high Tibetan plateau, we followed a similar route in space but a wildly different route in time. We discovered that the truth and reality of a place is best revealed on dusty, winding trails, in remote communities, inside yurts shadowed by unnamed mountains. Those were worlds worth exploring, and worlds best explored from the vantage of a bicycle.

via Travelistic