Silk worm cocoons

There are lots of things to get excited about on our Silk Route tour.  Obviously the cycling is a big reason for joining a 4 and a half month bike tour (I hope!), but there are a lot of reasons people choose to travel by bike.  

Reason like experiencing new cultures and learning new languages,  the local people you’ll meet, your fellow riders, the scenic beauty, the exotic foods and of course since this is a Tour d’Afrique Ltd adventure tour you can expect a few challenging surprises along the way. 

Bike tours are always better when you know a bit about the history, culture and language of the places they travel through.  So when I came across this blog post by science fiction writer Gene Lemmp I thought I’d share it with you.  What does a science fiction writer have to say about the history of the Silk Route?  Well a lot actually.  Gene uses history to inspire the plots and characters of his own stories.  And the silk route is rich with stories of human drama and exploit. 

It’s a worthwhile read and should spark your imagination as to what lies ahead for us as we start our own journey on the Silk Route Bicycle Tour starting in May 2012. 

I’ve included a abbreviated version of the full post below, please click though to read it in its entirety.  When I contacted Gene about using his story, he mentioned he will be working on similar stories about the silk route in the future.  I hope that’s true and I hope he shares them with us!  Thanks to Gene for the great words. 

--- Paul McManus, Silk Route 2012 Tour Leader


Designing from Bones – Ancient Silk RouteThe Silk Road consists of many land and sea routes



Trade grew from the need of civilizations to acquire goods and resources not available in their home regions. This trade was often driven by empires, conquerors and religious establishments.

The Chinese held one vital resource, silk, and readily traded it for a wide variety of required goods and treasure over the following 500 years. However, the Chinese silk monopoly ended in the 3rd century when two Christian monks discovered the secret of making silk and spies were sent to steal precious silk worm eggs. Not long after silk began to be produced in the Byzantine Empire and the Silk Route drifted out of use, giving way to Islamic-controlled routes.

Conquerors, Adventurers and Death

A new conqueror, this time Genghis Khan and his Mongol hoard, re-established the Silk Route from the early 1200′s until the mid to late 1300′s. During the interim the Islamic trade routes had held a stranglehold between Europe and Asia but they could not resist the power of the Mongols. Genghis breathed life back into the Silk Road and it thrived.

Two famous travelers moved along the Silk Route during this era. One a much lauded noble traveler and the other a far more insidious and ignoble traveler.

The first was Marco Polo, a Venetian explorer, although he was only 17 when he and his father and uncle, a successful merchant team and headed along the route for China. Marco would end up traveling both the land and sea segments of the Silk Route through China to modern day Burma and back. For 24 years, Marco and his companions adventured through foreign lands before returning loaded with a wealth of treasure and knowledge.

The second famous traveler of the Silk Route during this era was the Black Death (commonly known as the Bubonic plague although this connection is in dispute). Many studies feel that the Black Death moved along this famous trade route from China to Europe most likely carried by merchants or the rats that hitchhiked with every caravan of the era. The Black Death led to the deaths of approximately half of the European population and changed the course of Western history forever.

Cultural Exchanges

While the need for goods spawned the Silk Route it was humans that transported those goods. As such the route served as a primary exchange of culture between the West and the East with Central Asia acting as a centralized stew pot of ideas, art, technology and religion.

The route allowed Christianity to advance as far as China while Buddhism missionaries traveled from India with caravans reaching into China and Central Asia. Caliphates of Arabia introduced Islam along the Silk Route in the 7th century and at one time the three great religions brewed together in the melting pot of Central Asia.

Alongside of religion moved art, paper, architecture, music, sculpting, dance and theater. It is easy to see in some areas of what we now call the Middle East the wide variety of cultural influences that at one time blossomed here.

You can read the Gene’s post in it’s entirely on his blog.
 
Gene Lempp is a science fantasy and science fiction writer with interests in archaeology, history and astronomy.  In his spare moments of lucidity, Gene blogs about the uses of history and archeology in discovering story through his Designing from Bones series, reads every craft book he can find and roams worlds where science becomes magic and power evolves from the human spirit.

Kow Ata Camp
The countries we travel though are great.  Many like Turkey and Georgia, have ancient histories and date back to the 4th and 5th centuries.  One of the pleasures of visiting the old parts of cities in places like Istanbul, Tblisi, and to some extent, Baku is the charm of the old buildings and narrow, often cobbled, streets.  I’m a big fan of city planning.  Smart streets.  Livable cities.  The old parts of these modern cities have many of these ‘liveable’ elements that today’s city planners are struggling to achieve.  Things like mixed use structures with apartments on the upper floors and retail stores at street level create neighborhoods that operate as independent communities.  You buy your groceries from your neighbor, his son helps you paint your house, you might see your doctor or your mechanic at the laundry or local pub.  Most things are within walking distance. The narrow streets make travel by vehicle more difficult than walking or public transport.

Of course the design is not perfect. These communities were built hundreds of years ago when population density was lower and public services were minimal.  So things like efficient waste disposal, parking, street cleaning, code enforcement etc… still need a lot of improvement.  Retrofitting old buildings to accommodate modern needs like electricity, HVAC and plumbing can prove difficult and often leads to some less than ideal compromises (it’s pretty hard to run pipes and electric wires through a 12 inch stone wall).  As economies grow there is a demand for larger stores and more people need to commute to work which can clog the streets with noisy, dirty traffic.  When you contrast the lifestyle of people in the old cites to their modern counterparts it makes you wonder whether we should focus our efforts on modernizing buildings or changing our own lifestyles to be less demanding.  Certainly both are needed.  

Ashgabat, in Turkmenistan, has no old city.  Not that I’ve seen. Not in the same way as other countries we’ve visited on the Silk Route. The city was rebuilt after the 1948 earthquake that killed over 100,000 and leveled the city but the most attractive feature of it’s reconstruction was apparently a giant topiary in the shape of an airplane.  Saparmurat Niyazov, the first President  of Turmenistan (also called Turkmenbashi – Father of Turkmen) created a grand plan to renovate Ashgabat when the country gained independence in 1991.  The old structures were torn down, even the historic site of the original Ashabat settlement, Gorka, was plowed under.

The city now is beautiful, but has a strange feel to it.  Sort of sterile.  By city ordinance all buildings must be covered in Marble tile that are 80 cms x 50 cms and 3 cms thick.  10 and twelve story white marble building line the center of the city along a great pedestrian mall.  At one end of the mall is a 75 meter monument dedicated to Turkmenbashi.  At the top of the monument is a 12 meter statue of President Niyazov that is made of gold and rotates to always face the sun.  Behind the monument is a memorial to the 1948 earthquake that depicts a giant bull (with surprisingly large testicles) with the world skewered on its horns.  Atop the world is a golden child statue, riding out the shaking of the earth and representing the future of Turkmen.  Surrounding the mall are many other grand buildings and monuments and of course, a few more golden statues of Turkmenbashi.   The city center of the city is surprisingly void of people and it is very clean. Smoking is banned in all public areas, ever since the president quit smoking a decade ago.

Our ride through Turkmenistan started from the port in Turkmenbashi (named after the President).  We were a day behind schedule because the ferry was late arriving so we rode 80 kms in the desert heat before putting everyone on a bus to drive 290 kms closer to Ashgabat so we could ride the last two days into the city.  On the way we stopped at a salt lake for cool dip. Initially we had problems with the police, who were very concerned for our safety and were not happy with our diversion from the route, but eventually we were allowed to swim and interact with the locals who had also shown up for a dip.  The next day we were very lucky.  The blazing summer sun was subdued by cloud cover and the wind was in our favor.  Most riders covered the 140 kms to camp 4 to 5 hours.  We camped at Kow Ata, an underground thermal lake and place of legend and myth for Turkmen.  Located at the bottom of a cave 175 meters down a steep stone staircase the green, sulfuric, thermal lake is said to have all kinds of healing properties.  Climbing back out of the cave and towards the light you feel like you are ascending back from the river Styx.  We’ve found the people of Turkmenistan to be very friendly and curious.  80’s music seems very popular here.  The restaurant where I had dinner last night played a loop of Bruce Springsteen videos on a big flat screen and the cab driver who took me to the large bazaar outside the city played hits from Rod Stewart, Huey Lewis and Depeche Mode.  The Tolkuchka bazzar was really interesting.  Held on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sunday it is a very different from the city itself.  You walk by camels and sheep being lead into trucks by their new owner as you weave your way thru the vegetable market and back into to the carpet area.  Nearby are men selling Turmen hats and cloaks and women selling old jewelry and wedding costumes.  It’s a lively place that really gives you a sense of the countries history.  Tomorrow we head out of the city towards Mary and eventually to the Turkmenbat and the border with Uzbekistan.  Only 8 riding days left on tour.

The rest day in Amasya has been nice.  In Safranbolu we caught up on all the pre-tour preparations we were unable to take care of in Istanbul so this rest day there was not much to do which gave us all a chance to relax and sight see a bit without feeling rushed or pushing ourselves too hard.  The ride into town was smooth and mostly downhill for a change.  

The city, once ruled by Alexander the Great,  is located in a valley surrounded by high rock walls and has a good size river that runs thru it.  There is a boardwalk that meanders along the river with vendors every few hundred meters selling Maras (Turkish Ice Cream), grilled corn, potato skins, slushies and other treats.  Above the old Ottoman houses on the West side of the river, high up in the rock cliff are the remains of a castle and tombs from the rule of Pontus.  Pontus ruled until around 47 BC when the Romans took the city, along with all of Anatolia.  After the Romans, the city was ruled by the Byzantines, the Seljuks, and the Mongols.  Amasya is also the birthplace of the world’s first geographer, Strabo.  I’m not much of a history buff, nor am I very sentimental, but wandering the city armed with the little bit of history I could glean from the local museum, tourist maps and guide books it feels pretty special to be here. 

Today Amasya is quite modern and seems to be a destination city for people from all over Turkey, a sort of romatic getaway.  Couples walk together on the boardwalk, climb up to see the tombs, relax in the hamam (separately of course) and dine in quiet restaurants that overlook the river.  The streets are lined with small shops selling everything from electronics to hardware and fresh fish and vegetables.  No Walmarts or Carrefours have robbed the city of its charm.  Let’s hope it stays that way. 

I only met him for a few minutes.  I was setting up my tent on a hillside just before the town of Ormanli.  He was obviously on his way home from school, wearing a navy blue school uniform with a tie hanging loosely around his neck.  He walked over to watch me set up my tent.  He spoke a little English and I spoke a (very) little Turkish.  He liked football and asked if we could play (we were camping in the middle of the soccer field after all).  I said I could, knowing full well that I would be leaving in an hour to scout a new route for the next day.  But I know how to say “OK” (Tamam) in Turkish and I don’t know how to say “ Sorry I’d love to play with you but I have to drive to our next campsite to check the route”.  I figured some of the riders or other staf would be around to play later on.  I finished setting up my tent and he waved goodbye, say again “play football?”  “Tamam” I replied and waved goodbye “ Gule Gule” – go with smiles.  

I returned to camp after scouting late that evening.  Ricardo was still awake and we prepared the next days rider meeting together.  As we finished he got up and said he had something for me.  Returning from the van he held up and old blue soccer jersey with the name of a Black Sea football club on it.  “A young boy brought this here this afternoon and said to give it to Paul” It was a touching gift from someone I had only me briefly.  Another example of the friendliness and hospitality of Turkey.