Want to follow in Marco Polo's footsteps?

Authored by Wang Miao and Shi Baoxiu, both of whom are ambitious travellers, the book titled "Tracing Marco Polo's China Route" gives contemporary readers a glimpse into his travels in North and Northwest China.

After the book was published by the China Intercontinental Press, it became one of its best sellers for a long time.

Steve Young, a long-time traveller who has been living in Beijing for some time, voiced his agreement to the authors' decision.

"If they want their work to be a best-seller, one of the necessary prerequisites of success must be something new. In other words, they must give readers fresh ideas instead of mere platitudes. And they succeeded in doing so," Young said.

About 700 years ago, Marco Polo, the famous Italian traveller set off on his trip from the city of Venice to China, a country the still shrouded in mystery and myth in the Western world.

According to historical records, Marco Polo and his colleagues passed through the present-day Middle East and central Asian areas.

His incredible adventures in Asia and the book he wrote made this Italian merchant world-famous. Upon its publication, "The Travels of Marco Polo" created a sensation throughout Europe, and is still widely consulted today.

It is physically impossible to completely follow in the steps of Marco Polo because after hundreds of years the topography in Middle East and Central Asian countries has changed a great deal.

Due to the southerly movement of the deserts and the fact that many rivers have changed course, his original route has long since disappeared, Wang admitted.

"This is one of the main reasons why we did not trace the footsteps of Marco Polo outside China. Instead, we decided to follow his steps within China. So our starting point is Kunjirap Pass in the Pamir Highland. Travelling eastward, we passed through Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Qinghai Province, Gansu Province, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Hebei Province. Our final destination was Beijing which was called Dadu about 700 years ago," introduced Wang.

"We have to admit that there is one difference: Marco Polo traversed the route by horse and camel but we had the modern comfort of a car," Wang continued.

However, according to Steve Young, this did not decrease his vivid interest in the new travels.

"On the contrary, their descriptions in this book are captivating. From mid-summer to late autumn, Wang and Shi covered the 12,000-kilometre route starting from a plateau over 4,000 metres above sea level and ending on the North China Plain at an altitude of less than 100 metres. Their description and the photos taken during the trip offer us different sights of different regions and various lifestyles of the ethnic groups along the route," said Young.

In the opinion of both authors, covering such a long distance within 80 days was not an easy job. They witnessed so many things that just do not exist in big cities.

However, the natural scenery and local people's lives were the two major topics that the authors attached importance to on the journey.

"We did not focus attention on either excessively and both of them get equal attention," they emphasized.

After carefully researching Marco Polo's travels, they decided to draw on the good points of his travels. For example, they described in detail the ethnic groups, society, customs and local products according to the descriptions from his travels.

"But the contents of our stories are completely new," they said.

In addition, Marco Polo's travels do not give any account of the specific route the traveller took. But the book written by Wang and Shi avoids such a deficiency. They mention the specific route in the book and offer detailed maps going from one place to the next.

"We hope our book can arouse people's interest in researching such a great historical figure as Marco Polo," they concluded.

Language: English. Price: 72 yuan (US$8.90)

(China Daily 09/22/2005 page13)