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Pingyao is one of China’s best preserved ancient cities and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Located in central Shanxi Province it provides an immersive experience into what a prosperous Ming-Qing Dynasty period city looked like. As you pass through one of the four gates of the still-intact city walls, you enter another world, with…
Something that has taken me a long time to get my head around has been who were the Turkic people originally and where and how did they spread across Asia over many centuries. Their ancestors pop up in basically every dynasty, empire and khaganate across the continent so it feels important to outline exactly who…
The Xuankong Hanging Temple is a remarkable architectural and religious site that clings to the side of a cliff at Mount Heng Shan. It is from the late Northern Wei dynasty in the 5th century making it over 1500 years old. The temple hangs 60-75m above the gorge below and is shaped like a dragon.…
For centuries Datong was a frontier capital and fortress city. Most famously it was the capital of the Northern Wei dynasty in the 5th century before it was moved further south to Luoyang. Before it was the Northern Wei capital, in the Han period it was a military outpost protecting against Xiongnu nomads. In the…
The Datong Nine-Dragon Wall is pretty magnificent. And its even more so when you realise the size of the palace that it must have been the front door for! Located in the center of the ‘old town’ of Datong, the Nine-Dragon Wall was built in 1392 (Ming Dynasty) as part of Zhu Gui’s Palace and…
The Huayan Temple sits at the heart of the newly-reconstructed ‘old city’ of Datong. Most of the buildings within the broader temple complex are from the 21st century, rebuilt based on what was known to be there in past times. However, the Huayan Temple is original, built in 1038 during the Liao dynasty and renovated…
Datong is a small city in Northern Shanxi, around 350km west of Beijing, and it takes just under 2 hours to get here via high-speed train from Beijing North Station. It lies on the Loess Plateau at the border between the Mongolian steppe and the Chinese heartland, and has historically played a role as a…
I’m back in China and have a 6-week trip planned that will start and end in Beijing. First up I am going to head to Shanxi Province, west of Beijing, for 4 days, to visit the ancient cities of Datong and Pingyao. I will then join a small group tour heading to Tibet for 2…
From Rishton we travelled 45 minutes down the road to the historic city of Kokond, located at the western edge of the Fergana Valley. It is most famous for being the capital of the Kokond Khanate in the 18th and 19th century, one of the major states of Central Asia at that time alongside Bukhara…
First up on today’s itinerary was a visit to the pottery center of the Fergana Valley – Rishton. The history of pottery production in Rishton goes back many centuries and is a fortunate mix of the right natural resources, availability of skilled artisans and access to the silk road trade routes. The soil around Rishton…
Margilan is another ancient city in the region and renowned as the nation’s ‘silk capital’. There is a local legend that says Margilan was named by Alexander the Great after being served ‘murgh-nan’ (chicken and bread) in the city, however historical records trace its prominence as a silk road trade hub back to the 9th…
Today was mostly a travel day as we waved goodbye to Kyrgyzstan and hello to Uzbekistan. This will actually be my third trip to Uzbekistan this year, so instead of continuing on with my group who are heading to the amazing sights of Samarkand and Bukhara (which I visited in April) I will be hopping…
I’ve included snippets of history throughout my other posts but I wanted to write something more comprehensive about the country before I move on to my next adventure. Present-day Kyrgyzstan has been inhabited since the Stone Age, evidenced by petroglyphs found in places like Saimaluu-Tash depicting animals, hunters and ritual scenes. The Scythian and Saka…
Now that I have visited Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (I’m just missing Tajikistan to complete the classic 5 Stans!) I am getting a wider sense of the region as a whole. I’ve been interested in understanding things like the natural hazards that each country is exposed to. But I thought it would be interesting…
Sulayman-Too is a rocky five-peaked mountain, rising about 200m high in the center of the city of Osh. It is named after Prophet Solomon, a revered figure in the Quran who is said to have once prayed on the mountain. Local legend also said that Prophet Muhammad once visited the mountain. Muslims in Central come…
Osh was our home for 2 nights and is an easy location to make a pit-stop before crossing the border into Uzbekistan. It is Kyrgyzstan’s second largest city (after Bishkek) and often called ‘the southern capital’. Its population is around 300,000 and it is very ethnically diverse because of its Fergana Valley location, with large…
The flag of Kyrgyzstan is a bright bold red with the center piece a golden-yellow sun of 40 rays surrounding a tunduk (the central crown of a traditional yurt). It was adopted in 1992 after Kyrgyzstan gained independence from the Soviet Union. The red is meant to represent the valor and Bravery of the Kyrgyz…
During our long day’s drive from Toktogul to Osh, we made a short stop at one of Kyrgyzstan’s oldest towns – Uzgen. Evidence of settlements in Uzgen have been dated back to the 8th century and it was a major settlement in the Karakhanid Khanate in the 10th – 12th century. There is not much…
This would be our longest driving day of the entire trip. In total, with plenty of stops along the way it took us about 9 hours and we covered about 320km in distance. If you look on the map at the route we took, we came down from Toktogul to the border with Uzbekistan and…
Colette's Grand Detour 