Silk Road Note Making

 Silk Road Summary in English by Nick Middleton

About the Author Nick Middleton

Author Name Nick Middleton

Born 1960 (age 60 years), London, United Kingdom

Books Going to Extremes, Global Casino, Rivers: A Very Short Introduction

Awards The Royal Geographical Society’s Ness

 Nick Middleton

Silk Road Theme

What is the Silk Road?

The Silk Road was an ancient network of trade routes, linking China and the Far East with the Middle East and Europe.

What was traded on the Silk Road?

Items traded on the Silk Road include:

• Perfume

• Spices

• Silk

• Ivory

• Gold

• Paper

• Silk Road Word Meaning

• Word – Meaning

French loaves – thin loaf of French bread commonly made from basic lean dough

ducking back – quickly going inside

kora – pilgrimage (in Tibetan language)

drokba – nomad shepherd (here it means, “You look like a nomad shepherd.”)

Changtang – plateau in Western Tibet

gazelles – small antelopes

void – empty spaces

kyang – wild asses

pall – cloud

en masse – together

manoeuvres – exercises involving a large number of animals

billowed – swelled out and went

mastiff – large and strong breed of dog

tribute – payment for tax

clogged – jammed

meanders – winding curves or bends of the river

daubed – spread on the surface

hunks – large pieces

snorted – made a loud sound by forcing breath through a nostril

exited – came out of

swathe – long strip

petered out – gradually came to an end

wristwatch – a watch having an altimeter eworn on the wrist

negotiated – went around

four wheel drive – having a transmission system to provide power directly to all four wheels

lurching – moving unsteadily

cairn of rocks – pile of stones marking a special place

festooned – ornamentally decorated

careered down – descended

salt flats – areas of flat land covered with a layer of salt

brackish – slightly salty

vestiges – remains

a hive of activity – full of people working hard

as smooth as my bald head – totally worn out

grim – bleak or dreary

refuse – rubbish

venerated – respected

cosmology – ancient history

headwaters – streams forming the source

striking distance – a distance from which it can be easily reached

draught – current of air

spread the grease around on – cleaned

solitary confinement – loneliness

sanctity – holiness

hallowed – holy

prone – inclined

kicking around – passing time aimlessly

set off – started

nocturnal – happening at night

power – breathing

drifting off – going to sleep

disappearing into the land of nod – going to fall asleep

put my finger on – pinpoint

paraphernalia – dress identifying his profession

screws of paper – small paper packets

derelict – run down

pool – game similar to billiards

supremely

incongruous – totally out of place

babbled – flowed with a babbling sound

cavernous – like a cave

struck up – started

escaped from the library – removed themselves from academic work

tempered – weakened

envisaged – thought of

yaks – Tibetan ox

prostrating – stretching and lying down with face down

tummy – stomach

This chapter is part of a travelogue about the author’s travel along the ancient trade route called ‘Silk Road’ regions as they are now. This account of the Silk Road, with its contrasts and exotic detail, describes the challenges and hardships the author faced while journeying to Mount Kailash on a pilgrimage.

Silk Road About the Characters

The Author: He is a Professor of Geography at Oxford University and an environmental consultant.

Tsetan: He is the owner of the car hired by the author for the journey, as well as being a tourist guide.

Daniel: He is an interpreter from Lhasa who travelled part of the time with the author.

Norbu: He is a Tibetan working at an academy in Beijing who wants to carry out the pilgrimage to Mount Kailash.

Silk Road Chapter Highlights

• The author left Ravu with a gifted long-sleeved sheepskin coat accompanied by Daniel and Tsetan. Tsetan said that the journey would be smooth if there was no snow on the way.

• As they passed by the hills, they could see the lonely drokbas looking after their herds.

• As they passed the drokba tents, their guard dogs, which were Tibetan mastiffs, chased their car for some distance.

• Soon the turns became sharper and bumpier as they climbed.

• The sudden and unexpected fall of snow blocked their way a number of times.

• After passing through the top of the pass, they went down to reach the small town of Hor, on the shore of Lake Manasarovar, by late afternoon.

• It was a grim, miserable place without any vegetation; it only had a lot of accumulated rubbish, dust and rocks. Daniel went back to Lhasa from there. They repaired the puncrured tyres and carried on.

• They reached Darchen at 10:30 PM and found a guesthouse to stay in.

• The author had a very troubled night because of the cold. So the next morning, Tsetan took him to consult a doctor at the Darchen Medical College.

• The doctor gave some medicine and that night he was able to sleep well.

• Tsetan left the author in Darchen and went back with the car to Lhasa.

• As the pilgrim season had not started, the author felt lonely. He was looking for someone who could speak or understand English as well as accompany him to do kora.

• Then he met Norbu, a Tibetan who understood English and was there to do kora at Mount Kailash.

• Both of them decided to go together.

https://youtu.be/Lzy2TeoJFBc

https://www.chinadiscovery.com/china-silk-road-tours/silk-road-routes.html

SILK ROAD

 NOTE-MAKING & SUMMARY

1. SILK-ROAD-CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WEST

a. Greek word ‘Seres” which means ‘the land of silk’.

b. Refers primarily to the land routes connecting East Asia & Southeast Asia with South Asia, Persia, the Arabian Peninsula, East Africa & South Europe.

c. It was an ancient network of trade routes btwn Greece & China

d. Established during the Han Dynasty of China.

e. Linked World Commerce btwn 130 BCE-1453 CE.

f. It helped generate trade commerce in a number of diff. kingdoms and empires

g. Helped for ideas, culture, inventions, & unique product to spread across much settled world.

h. Venetian explorer Marco Polo used S.R. to travel from Italy to China, reached Xanadu, the lavish summer palace of the Mangolian Emperor Kublai Khan.

i. Fruits, vegetables, livestock, grain, leather & hides, tools, religious objects, artwork, precious stones, metal, More importantly Language, culture, religious beliefs, philosophy & Science.

2. DEPARTURE FROM RAVU

a. Author leaves Ravu along with Daniel, an interpreter, &

b. Tsetan, who was a tourist guide.

c. Lhamo, the lodge owner lady at Ravu, gifts a long-sleeved sheepskin coat.

d. where it would be very cold. Tsetan knew a short cut to reach the Mount Kailash.

e. The journey would be smooth if there was no snow.

3. DROKBAS ON THE WAY.

a. passing through the hills, author sees individual drokbas (nomad shepherds) looking after their flocks.

b. Both men and women were seen wearing thick woollen clothes.

c. Drokbas would stop and stare, sometimes waving to them as they passed.

4. ENCOUNTER WITH TIBETAN MASTIFFS

a. Tibetan mastiffs were seenaround the nomad’s tents.

b. The T.M. dogs used by the shepherds.

c. They would bark furiously and fearlessly.

d. They would make a chase for 100 meters to the car.

e. In earlier days, Tibetan mastiffs became popular in China’s imperial courts as hunting dogs.

f. They were brought along the Silk Road as a tax payment from Tibet.

5. ICE BLOCKS THE ROAD.

a. Reached to the Valley of Rivers.

b. The rivers appear wide and clogged with brilliant white ice.

c. The turn became sharper & ride bumpier.

d. The turns became sharper and more difficult to climb.

e. The author got a severe headache.

f. Suddenly snow started falling and soon blocked the route.

g. height of 5210 metres above sea level.

h. At a height of 5515 metres top of the pass, marked with a large cairn of rocks.

i. the atmospheric pressure became so low that Tsetan had to open the lid of the petrol tank to release the evaporated fuel.

6. HOR

a. Vestiges of the Tethys Ocean bordered Tibet.

b. The great continental collision lifted it skyward.

c. The Salt gatherers wearing long sheepskin coats *& salt-crusting boots emerged from the blindingly white lake.

d. Hor situated on the shore of Lake Manasarovar, on the old trade route between Lhasa and Kashmir.

e. Hor was a grim, miserable place, with no vegetation, just dust and rocks, full of accumulated rubbish everywhere.

f. It has lost the past holy glory.

g. Daniel returns to Lhasa from there.

h. Tsetan got the flat tyre of the car repaired.

7. STAY AT DARCHEN.

a. By 10.30 pm author reaches to Darchen. It was the end of the road.

b. The author passes troubled night.

c. Sinuses filled & chest odd, spent night propping aginst the wall.

d. Tsetan takes him to Darchen Medical College.

e. The M.C. appears like a Monastery.

f. The doctor clad like a Buddhist Monk, not in white coat, examined authors veins at wrist.

g. Medicine was a brown envelope stuffed with 15 screws of paper, a 5 day course, contained a brown powder in small, spherical brown pellets tasting like cinnamon, looked like sheep dung,

h. Tsetan was a good Buddhist and believed in life after death.

i. However, he was worried that the author’s death could affect his business.

8. THE AUTHOR FINDS A COMPANION IN NORBU

a. Darchen, sparsely populated town, dusty, partially derelict & punctuated by heaps of rubbish piled around,.

b. Authour wanted to reach Mount Kailash to do kora.

c. sitting in the only cafe , looking for someone who could speak or understand English

d. No pilgrims, as the season had not yet started.

e. He sees Norbu, a plump Tibetan working in Beijing at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, reading an English book.

f. Norbu also wanted to do kora, although he was not a religious person, a practising Buddhist. So both of them decided to do kora together.

g. Norbu, was wearing a windcheater, worked in Beijing at the Chinese Academy Of Social Sciences in the Institure of Ethnic Literature.

h. Norbu was writing academic papers about KAILASH KORA & IT’S IMPORTANCE IN VARIOUS WORKS OF BUDDHIST LITERATURE.

i. Author tags their company as ‘Two academics who have escaped from the Library’

j. Though the author envisaged making trek in the company of devout believers, had to satisfy with Norbu.