Ten years ago this weekend, I and three friends went on a 4 day road trip out of Beijing. We were headed to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia in search of the ruins of the ancient Yuan Dynasty (Mongol) capital of Xanadu. Amazingly enough, we found it! This is all that’s left of a wall…
Inner Mongolia
Xanadu: The Trip
This isn’t going to be nearly as entertaining as the book, nor as exhaustive, but here’s our story of finding Xanadu! Hang in there, it’s going to be on the long side. The Narrative: We met up with our driver, Mr. Xu at the Lido Holiday Inn on Tuesday morning and set out, opting…
To Xanadu
A number of years ago, I read a book called "In Xanadu: A Quest," written by travel writer William Dalrymple , in which he recounts his attempt at retracing the footsteps of Marco Polo from Jerusalem to Xanadu, the summer capital of Kublai Khan (who, at that time was the emperor of China. It was…