Silk Road Journey

Nihao! Welcome to Beijing, the capital of China. Your tour begins with a welcome meeting at 6 pm in your hotel lobby when your guide will go over more details about your trip including meeting up with your guides in each city. After that, you will take an orientation walk, followed by a Beijing Duck dinner.

Accommodation:
•Chongwenmen Hotel or similar (2 nights)
Meals Included:
• Peking Duck dinner

There will be a lot of walking today as well as using the subway to get around some of Beijing’s most famous sights. Tiananmen Square, one of the world's largest public squares, is home to the Monument of the People's Heroes and the Great Hall of the People. From here enter the Forbidden City (built 1406-1420), the ceremonial and political center of the Chinese government for more than 500 years. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 and is listed by UNESCO as the most extensive collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. After the Forbidden City, we will stroll through the alleys formed by lines of traditional courtyards known by Hutong and experience the local lifestyle of old Beijing.
Accommodation:
• Chongwenmen Hotel or similar (2 nights)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast

The Great Wall at Mutianyu is about 2 hours out of Beijing. This is one of the best-preserved and restored sections so it is easy to climb, but you can still appreciate the difficulty of its construction. A picnic lunch on the Wall is provided.
Return to Beijing in late afternoon and board the overnight train to Xian.
Accommodation:
• Overnight on soft sleeper train Beijing-Xi’an (1 night)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast

Arriving in Xi'an head to the hotel for breakfast. Then today’s adventure starts with a visit to one of the best-preserved old residences in Xi'an, dating back 400 years. The courtyard was once home to seven generations of the Gao family: notable officials of the royal court. Get a taste of traditional local lifestyle of the time through the period furniture, pottery, porcelain, and paintings.
Later, take a walk around the Muslim quarter, home to the Hui Muslim community for centuries. Stroll through these narrow streets dotted with small shops, halal butchers, sesame-oil factories, small mosques markets and restaurants to reach the Great Mosque. The Great Mosque of Xi'an is the most significant mosque in China and is a fascinating blend of Chinese and Islamic architecture and aspects. It was constructed during the Hongwu reigion of the Ming dynasty, with further additions during the Qing dynasty. Previous religious complexes are known to have stood on the same site, dating back as far as the Tang dynasty.

Accommodation:
• Manxin Hotel Bell Tower or similar (2 nights)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast

Morning set off to visit the Terracotta Warriors. You will learn about this incredible archaeological find, discovered in 1976 by farmers digging a well, after being buried for 2,000 years. Three main pits are open for you to view, where just under 2,000 of the total 6,000 warriors – each individually sculpted from clay, each having a different costume, height, and even facial expression – stand in battle formation.
After marveling at this incredible display we will enjoy lunch in a local village before our private transport takes us back to central Xi’an. Spend the rest of the day cycling on the ancient City Wall. This is the most significant and best-preserved city wall extant in China, running over 13 kilometers around Xi’an.

Accommodation:
• Manxin Hotel Bell Tower or similar (2 nights)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast, Lunch

It is a 5 hour flight from Xi’an to Kashgar in China’s far west; one of the most important, memorable and culturally diverse towns of the Silk Road, hub of trade, conflict and negotiation for centuries. Here the routes from China turned south toward India and Pakistan or continued west and north into Central Asia.
In the afternoon start your sightseeing with a visit to the Id Kah Mosque, meaning place of prayer and festivities. The original mosque, built in 1442, was quite small, evolving over the centuries to be the largest in China and the focal point of the city.
A masterpiece of Islamic architecture, the Tomb of Abakh Khoja, dates from the 17th and generations of the prominent family are buried here. One of Abakh Khoja’s descendants was presented to the Emperor Qianlong as a concubine and popular belief has it that her body was transported here for burial (a 3½ year journey), however archaeologists have identified her tomb amongst the East Qing tombs near Beijing.
Spend the rest of the day wandering through the old town, which is the best place to experience the daily life of the locals as well as the traces of history. Traditional workshops are scattered at the corners, making pottery products, colorful caps, and other folk handicrafts.

Accommodation:
• Tianyuan Business Hotel or similar (2 nights)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast

One of the main attractions of Kashgar is its bazaar. On Sundays, it seems as if everyone from hundreds of miles around has converged in the marketplace. We will first visit to the live bazaar, a trading center for sheep, cows and donkeys. Then we will return to the old town to visit the Sunday Market which has historically been used to sell everything from horses and camels to silk and household items as well as being a center for social interaction. Now it opens every day, but only on Sundays can you appreciate the unprecedented scale of bazaar.

Accommodation:
• Tianyuan Business Hotel or similar (2 nights)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast

This morning take a short flight to Urumqi from where it is a 2-hour drive to Tianchi, Heaven Lake. This is a gorgeous alpine lake (1907m) set in the Tianshan Mountains below the imposing Bogda Peak. We will walk around the area where fir trees and mountain peaks frame the blue lake, and in summer Kazak nomads set up their yurts.
From here it is 2.5 hours to Turpan, legendary oasis of the Turpan Basin 154m below sea level. Settlement predates the Han Dynasty (206BCE-AD220) and as an important stop on the Northern Silk Road has seen numerous peoples move from nomad to farmer, Manichean to Buddhist to Muslim.
Arriving in the late afternoon, take an orientation walk after settling into the hotel.

Accommodation:
• Jinxiu Jinhua Hotel Turpan or similar (2 nights)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast, Lunch

Start the day at the Jiaohe Ruins, the oldest and best-preserved earthen city in the world. Capital of the Cheshi State it was also an important Chinese garrison town from the Han Dynasty.
Later, we will visit the Grape Valley to get a feeling for the sweetness of the grapes. Turpan is praised as the 'Hometown of Grapes', for the abundant sunshine provides ideal growing conditions. The fruit here is famous for its high sugar content.
The Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves are a complex of Buddhist cave grottos dating from the 5th to 14th century although most of the distinctive murals were removed by German Archaeologists in the early 1900s. Today their appeal is their position under the aptly named Flaming Mountains. In the midday sun their appearance can be compared to multicolored tongues of fire and are immortalized in Journey to the West as a mountainous inferno.

Accommodation:
• Jinxiu Jinhua Hotel Turpan or similar (2 nights)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast

Our day starts with a visit to the Karez irrigation system, a special irrigation system that the locals make full use of the topography of Turpan. The 1000 wells that make up the system have been sunk to collect groundwater from the melting snow of the Bogdashan Mountains. The water passes from the wells through underground channels to irrigate farms in the valley below and is fed entirely by gravity.
Afternoon travel to Liuyuan by bullet train (3.5 hours) and continue by road to Dunhuang (5 hours). The city was founded in 111BCE by Emperor Wudi of the Han dynasty in a fertile oasis at the crossroads of two trading routes on the Silk Road.

Accommodation:
• Dunhuang Hantang Grand Hotel or similar (2 nights)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast

Spend the morning exploring the Mogao Caves, the best known of the Chinese Buddhist grottoes. They house stunning Buddhist murals, and are perhaps, the greatest store of Buddhist art in the world and at their height 18 monasteries and more than 1400 monks and nuns as well as artists and calligraphers. The 20,000+ manuscripts that were removed to Europe by Aurel Stein and others are still a source of bitterness in China. We will watch two documentaries about the Silk Road and Mogao Caves before continuing into the caves.
Ming-sha Dunes (singing sands) and Crescent Moon Lake are a place where desert meets oasis in a quite distinct and dramatic fashion. At the base of the incredible dunes (the highest 1715m) is the lake. The dunes are quite a climb, but worth it for the views across the desert contrasting with the oasis trees below.

Accommodation:
• Dunhuang Hantang Grand Hotel or similar (2 nights)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast

Travel across the Gobi Desert to Jiayuguan, which is about five hours drive. Jiayuguan was the last outpost on the edge of the ancient Han Chinese Empire; the last Chinese-controlled stop for travelers and traders before they passed into the uncertain and dangerous deserts beyond.
After lunch, we will visit the Overhanging Great Wall. This section of wall is believed originally constructed in 1539. Built on the slope of the Black Mountain it gives the appearance of a dragon overhanging the slope; and it is not visible from a distance so deceived many enemies into thinking they could approach that way. The hike here takes about one hour.

Accommodation:
• Great Wall Hotel or similar (1 night)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast, Lunch

Jiayuguan Fort, built in 1372 primarily as defense against the Mongolians, is also known as “The First Pass Under Heaven”; its walls and buildings well-preserved. Whilst imperial China often controlled territory far beyond this point, it was considered the end of civilization – beyond lurked barbarians and desert demons. As the symbolic end of the world one of its gates was the one through which disgraced politicians, poets and criminals were sent into exile.
In late afternoon, you will leave the western part of China and fly back to Beijing.

Accommodation:
• Chongwenmen Hotel or similar (1 night)
Meals Included:
• Breakfast

Today is free and includes a transfer to the airport for your departure.

Meals Included:
• Breakfast