1985 Expedition

After twelve years of effort and with the help of then Vice President George H. W. Bush plus very high-ranking Chinese officials, I finally won China's approval to cross that country's western border. On August 15, 1985, at the 16,350-foot Khunjerab Pass, I became the first foreigner since 1949 to officially enter the People's Republic of China through its western boundary.

Four of the senior photographers of the China News Service joined me on this third and last expedition. In addition to the Chinese, Michael Winn-a photojournalist who had photographed our Pakistan expedition and whose stories and pictures on that project appeared in the Smithsonian, Adventure Travel, and other publications-helped make up our team of photographers, explorers, and Chinese interpreters, guides and officials.

Just like the secluded regions of Central Asia that we'd visited on earlier expeditions, Western China had not changed since Marco Polo was there; in fact, we could have used his book as a travel guide. The Old Silk Road that Polo followed along the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert in Western China had been abandoned in the sixteenth century. It stretches across 1,500 miles of devastating sand, with few people and fewer roads. Marco Polo went this way, and I followed him seven centuries later, with camels, farm tractors, and jeeps. Beyond the Taklamakan was the Gobi. This led us through Gansu Province to Inner Mongolia and then to Coleridge's Xanadu, the summer palace of the Kublai Khan.

At the beginning of each chapter I have published a copy of text from Marco Polo’s book describing his findings of the area through which we were about to travel. This was my way of comparing what he wrote to our modern day discoveries, thereby authenticating his words.

On October 23, 1985, the expedition ended safely with a great celebration in Beijing, China. That day, I sat triumphantly on the Marco Polo Bridge, my dream fulfilled. It had been one hell of a journey.