People

Mountain Roads (04/09/07)

"A long time ago, pilgrims travelled the old mountain routes along tracks few people knew but respected deeply. Rockslides, flooding and bandits made such routes arduous to tackle, but they did exist and I was determined to find them.

The family who own Datong's only hotel

"The Taklamakan desert lies deep at the heart of China’s Silk Road, bordered to the West by the Pamir Mountains and to the South by the imposing Kunlun Shan. Tradition still hides in the cracks and crevices of these giant ranges and the connecting road between them has always been my goal.

"Riverside roads in the Pamirs are often little more than elevated river beds with the threat of boulders from above and flooding from below. No mountain range or river gives up its secrets freely and, within six hours of leaving Datong, our caravan soon found out why.

"In the late evening twilight, we three stood gazing across 150m of maddening, swirling river at the road on the other side. The clunk and whirl of an overhead gold mine was the only trace of civilisation and with light failing fast, we had no choice but to turn back."

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