Maria Knodt

Colin Thubron

Shadow of the Silk Road

One of my all-time favorite books and one of the reasons I decided to travel along the Silk Road one day. From the best of all travel writers – no one writes prose that flows like poetry like him and is able to transport us into a distant world as if we were there right next to him. He takes us on his journey from China over Central Asia to Turkey along the ancient Silk Road, the network of trade routes that connected Asia with Europe since the second century BCE. Thereby, he meticulously describes all the subtleties he apprehends with his senses and places his experiences into the context of the history of the countries he visits. His recounts are intimate as he immerses himself in the local culture and meets the people at eye level. Absolutely beautiful!

“In the dawn the land is empty. A causeway stretches across the lake on a bridge of silvery granite, and beyond it, pale in its reflection, a temple shines. The light falls pure and still. The noises of the town have faded away, and the silence intensifies the void – the artificial lake, the temple, the bridge – like the shapes for a ceremony which has been forgotten.

As I climb the triple terrace to the shrine, a dark mountain bulks alongside, dense to the skyline with ancient trees. My feet sound frail on the steps. The new stone and the old trees make a soft confusion in the mind. Somewhere in the forest above me, among the thousand-year-old cypresses, lies the tomb of the Yellow Emperor, the mythic ancestor of the Chinese people.

A few pilgrims are wandering in the temple courtyard, and vendors under yellow awnings are offering yellow roses. It is quiet and thick with shadows. Giant cypresses have invaded the compound and now stand, grey and aged, as if turning to stone. One, it is said, was planted by the Yellow Emperor himself; another is the tree where the great emperor Wudi, founder of the shrine two thousand years ago, hung up his armour before prayer.”