silk road east to west

1. great wall
2. xian terracottas
3. Ta'er Si (near Xining) magnificent Tibetan Buddhist monastery
4. Jiayuguan (western end of Great Wall) fortifications with Gobi desert behind
5. Mogao Caves (west of Xining, east of Dunhuang) carved into cliffs & adorned with painted statues, most exquisite of these 'caves of 1000 buddhas' date back to Tang dynasty
6. Taklamakan desert (west of Dunhuang) largest sand desert in the world, 100m-high red dunes
7. Turpan (next to Tian mountains, 2nd lowest place on the planet, circled by fascinating collection of relics from Silk Road's past)
8. Kashgar's Sunday market (silk road's largest & most colourful shopping expedition)
9. Karakoram Highway (amazing feat of engineering runs 1300km from Pakistan to China, on Pakistani side can see original Silk Road chipped out of the cliffs opposite)
10. Samarkand & Bukhara, Uzbekistan (golden road links these 2 great academic cities: their mosques & medressas)
11. Esfahan, Iran: cool blue domes in Imam Square (2nd largest city square WW)
12. Palmyra Syria
13. Mount Nemrut Turkey (gigantic stone statutes)
14. Istanbul, Turkey
15. if have a few months, take train from Istanbul to Tehran & then to Ashgabat, Tashkent & Almaty to Xian