When photos fall short: The emotional pull of Xinjiang

Shortly after the tour began, I was interviewed at a sharing session and asked what I hoped to take away from Xinjiang. My answer: a feeling.

When I travel, I want an emotional experience, because, outside of just my own personal pleasure, it makes these stories worth writing. Absent some kind of insight into the human condition, this story would be little more than a bland facsimile of the tour's itinerary, which I'm not interested in writing, nor would you be likely interested in reading.

Luckily for you (and me), dear reader, I got what I asked for.

The tour began with a trip to the Xinjiang Ancient Ecological Park, a popular cultural tourist attraction featuring a petrified wood forest, exhibits showcasing Silk Road artifacts, a collection of meteorites, ancient Populus euphratica trees — a resilient species of deciduous tree that thrives in inhospitable environments and is known to live for hundreds of years — and art inspired by the region's wild horses.