Imagine being a merchant’s apprentice leaving his village for the first time to travel thousands of miles from East to West, trading your wares. What astonishment would you experience as the landscape transformed from fertile green valleys to parched deserts to high mountain passes? How would it be to hear another language for the first time? Or to witness a prayer ceremony unlike your own?
This was my romantic vision of the famed Silk Road.
In truth, the traders who traveled this route to exchange their goods rarely went very far; instead, the bolts of silk, furs, spices, horses, ceramics, and other luxury wares were passed from hand to hand, town to town, until they reached their destination. Would you believe that because of this chain of trade, the highly-prized threads of China’s silk farms have been found as far as the ancient graves of Scandinavian kings!?
Chris bought a straw hat in Xi’an, China, and transported it all the way to Khiva, Uzbekistan, before giving it to our friendly innkeeper. Does that count? Maybe not.
I am the silk of the day!
So then, I am not the merchant’s apprentice. Perhaps, then, while tracing the routes of the Silk Road, I am the goods themselves?
These ancient trade routes are still used to move hot commodities, but the caravans that bounce from one mark on the map to another are now taxis, buses, and trains. Their wares? Mostly travelers like me, wanting to connect to the romantic ideal of the world’s oldest highway. Ah-ha! I am the silk of the day!
Cynics might say that the current rendition of these ancient towns is a poor substitute for the real thing—that the ‘Disneyfication’ of the mud houses and their labyrinths of alleyways is robbing them of their authentic soul.
I, on the other hand, think it’s a good deal. Tourists’ dollars are helping fund restoration projects to keep the absolutely magnificent architecture of ancient mosques and minarets still standing. Tourist interest in the traditional handicrafts of these old towns is keeping those traditions profitable. The tours they purchase are perpetuating the spirit of education that filled the ancient madrassas with purpose.
I like to think, too, that this road is still abundant in the trade of ideas.
In Andijan, Tashkent, and Bukhara, we met some fellow travelers and timidly asked if we could go from town to town together. (They said yes!) Elise left Paris seven months earlier to challenge herself. Abby, Ed, and their children are from the U.S. but were on fall break from their third year teaching at an international school in Kazakhstan. Josephine left a fantastic career in Germany to seek the next step in her life. We luxuriated in spending an entire week with these beautiful people, sharing our stories and opinions, our ideas.
In the end, I found exactly what I was seeking from the Silk Road. My concept may have been romantic and only loosely tied to the real story of the past. But, in the role of a bolt of silk and a collection of thoughts, I played my part well. I saw the human and physical landscapes change with each passing day, and I was part of the constant trade of concepts that keeps us learning about what lies beyond our own boundaries.
