After You, Marco Polo

by Jean Bowie Shor. McGraw-Hill. New York. 1955,

Describes a determined effort by the author and her husband to traverse the entire trail taken by the Venetian explorer. She managed to visit the tomb of Genghis Khan while investigating the route in western China. (I read somewhere lately that DNA studies show that GK has an estimated 7 million living descendants. He killed a great many men, but it seems he had another use for a good few women.) Her attempt to travel the rest of the route, from Venice, was supported by the National Geographic Society. In the end, the attempt is frustrated by the successful Communist takeover of the whole country. Her worldview was of her time and class, and shows little appreciation of the realities of power and the ways of despots. She had a picnic and flight-for-fun with the (last) Shah of Iran, and was received and helped by the King of Afghanistan (also a member of the NGS). The king and her husband were wearing the same tie, purchased, as it transpired, from the same shop in Paris. Obviously, it creates a bond. The most interesting part is the account of the trek up the Vackan (or Wackan): the very narrow tongue of Afghan territory, on the south bank of the Amu Darya (Oxus), reaching eastward along the Hindu Kush and High Pamirs between the USSR and Pakistan to the Chinese border at Wakhjir. The high plateau at the end was effectively independent of Kabul, controlled by a Kirghiz bandit called Rahman Kul. Their Afghan escort abandoned them to RK, and he, for reasons not entirely clear, decided to help them continue, instead of just robbing and murdering them. Unfortunately, RK's recent activities in Chinese
Turkestan had the effect that the Chinese border troops would have shot them on sight at the Wakhjir Pass, so they ended up walking across the 20000 foot Delhi Sang pass, and sliding down into Hunza, the original Sangri-La. Her husband almost died of fever before they got properly down, but all ended happily. They did go up and step into China at the Mintaka pass, but then retreated.
Very interesting photos, including one of a yak leaping a 5 foot crevasse. There must be an article or two in the National Geographic from the early fifties.