In Xanadu

A travel adventure to commemorate Marco Polo’s journey along the Silk Road, Scottish historian (Cambridge student at the time he took this journey), William Dalrymple, uses older historic narratives and maps to help guide him and fellow travelers from the Holy Land to Xanadu (Shan-tu, just north of Beijing).

William’s companion traveler for the first half of his journey (until Lahore) is Laura. She is determined to stay on a tight schedule to ensure she meets her obligations and arrives in Delhi by a certain date, so she propels William in her wake. William tries to take as many side trips as possible to view remains of cities, living mosques, or simply enjoys views from certain mountains, always hurrying down just before sunset.

At one point, he is intercepted by a police official in Iran, who asks to see his passport. Dalrymple indicates it is at his hotel, but the officer is unimpressed and takes him to the station, where he accuses him of being against Iran and of being a spy. No, William replies, we love Iran, it’s the British government that hates Iran; especially that evil Thatcher who is ruining things. The officer tells William that a nearby city recently had a few bombs go off, and repeats his accusation of being a spy. Finally, William realizes he has his Cambridge library card on him and produces it. The effect is immediate. “You are a scholar! I am at your service.” For the remainder of the day, he has a tour guide for the city. Library cards work wonders.

Louisa joins up with William in Lahore for the last half of the Marco Polo trek. Her civil service contacts helped arrange some official documents on this Cambridge-backed study of Marco Polo’s route. It seems like all is clear, though things would from time to time become murky as they do on voyages into places where one doesn’t speak the language and relies on smiles and good-natured shrugs and pantomiming skills.

There’s a close call in Kashgar when Louisa has an allergic reaction to something, and William moves heaven and earth to bring her to the city’s solitary western doctor. As she recovers, William explores the city’s bifurcated culture: the modern main roads fitted out with newer infrastructure, featuring the type of restaurants one may find in any large Chinese city. Then, taking a few turns and winding along some side roads, he comes across villages of Hui Muslim minority people and their landmarks, tea houses, and homes. The book is eminently readable, though some passages could be phrased, for lack of a better term, more culturally kind. These passages occur primarily after leaving Iran and before entering China. One use of the term “Chinaman” had me cringe a bit and recall the line from the movie The Big Lebowski, “Dude, that is not the preferred nomenclature.”

Many wonderful photographs accompany the text. Here is one, taken in Syria.

Dalrymple finally does make it to Xanadu in the end with the help of a military escort and a few yuan for their effort. At the end of a dreary day in a downpour, he and Louisa find the ruins of Kublai Khan’s great summer palace near the river Alph with evidence of parts of its wall. And William notes the occasion by reading Coleridge’s poem aloud while pouring a small vial of oil from the eternal flame of the Holy Sepulcher onto the ground.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
    Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.