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You are here: Home › Photo gallery – Silk Riders

Photo gallery – Silk Riders

By Gareth Morgan on July 20, 2005 in Photo Gallery

In the footsteps of Marco Polo, our Silk Riders trip from Venice to Beijing … in photos!

Browse through the galleries below.

  • Silk Riders »
  • Tackling the Taklamakan
Oops - whose is that cheeky whitey in my nature shot? Still got the squirts I see
A good bit of the metal road
Planet moonscape
Feet down trying to stay upright in the sand
Canyons ahead
abh
the road disappears int teh canyon depths
A river crossing! What sort of a desert is this?
abl
Threatening to engulf the road
Switchbacks, gorges and mountain passes
Bowl of noodles - just the potion t face the second half of the day on
Our southern route through the desert moves in near the Kunlun range that rings the Taklamakan southern boundary.
Salt crusting that goes for miles
An asbestos factory in the middle of the desert
Oil pumps everywhere
What a relief - melons for sale in the desert!!
aca
And after it's all over - a flash hotel threatened by encroaching dunes
Giant sandunes of the Tacklamakan dwarf us as we pass by
Windstorms in the Taklamakan can be so firece they bury cities. Our bikes and tents stood up to this one well.
A damned hot one - be grateful for a dip in the warm, muddy slicks
Who's bike got buried in that maelstrom then?
Last shop before you enter the desert - get your water here!
Massive and foreboding
test for the tents - how far can they implode before we're squeezed out?
close to liftoff
The bikes stay sturdy in the face of a Taklmakan tearaway
Storm gone, peace returns to the ridge
aai
hello a desert maiden decides to do a runner
up to the top of a dune
.. and then down down down, rolling in her silksack
Dave sits a healthy distance from one of the Taklmakan twisters
A pumping station on the Tarim highway - pump attendant at work fixing the irrigation lines
They are equi-paced across the whole 522km of the Tarim highway
beautiful - nature's artform
Drilling for oil
Flax matting to keep the sand from invading the highway
a long way back
Bactrian two humped camel
.. and babies watching us pass by
Dave, Jo and Gareth wonder why they organised this
Jo comes into a desert stop after a harsh 350 kms
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