A young man in a white skullcap brandishes a long knife. He’s beckoning us to notice his chrome, cross-shaped machine – part Middle-Ages torture implement with sharp points and a hefty screw, part useful tool - and the rich crimson liquid bleeding into a red bucket below it.

He’s got bottles of the stuff already filled, and just as we are about to shudder and turn away, we realise he’s squashing the ruby juice from pomegranates.

This is the Kashgar Sunday market, on the far western border of China, and high point of the week. The locals dress up for this, hook the family donkey to the cart, then pile on and head for town.

The place is absolutely bursting with people. They come for the food – mounds of figs, cartwheels of bread, baked sheep’s heads, pomegranates - the energy, and the socialising. It was hard to imagine that a thousand years ago (and a thousand years before that) this place would have been just as busy.

The saga of the Silk Road is a long and complicated one, the story of a hapless scout that spent more time in gaol than research, a mystery fabric craved as much for the manufacture of pennants as petticoats, and a trade route that flourished, then foundered.

The Silk Road covers thousands of kilometres from Xian in the east (already 1165 kilometres west of Beijing) with several routes branching north, south and central, seeking mountain passes and safe passage. The world’s rarest and most precious commodities passed this way, and the travellers also traded knowledge, culture, religion, and bloodlines. Born in mythic times, in the end it gave way to simple economics - ships of the sea over ships of the desert.

Much has changed. Today’s travellers are clad in polyester; China’s beasts of burden are black smoking Dong Feng lorries, their blue paint chipped; and the oases are petrol stations where the tarpaulin covered ships of today’s desert, refuel.

We spent three weeks playing polo – that’s Marco Polo, you understand - down the same trails he explored in the 13th century from Kashgar in the west to Xian in the east. He returned with amazing tales of tigers and oil wells. We came back to amaze our friends with tales of 3000-year-old mummified bodies preserved by desert sands and now displayed in glass cases in a museum at Urumchi, and Turpan, the world’s second lowest city, with its brick raisin-drying lofts.

For 1400 years or so, from around the second-century BC, this would become the route for all sorts of precious things – ivory, gemstones, coral, gold, and textiles from the west; furs, ceramics, bronze, and of course silk, from the east. Food travelled too – ginger, rhubarb, cinnamon. Millet and mulberries from China, and peaches, dates, grapes, and nuts from the Middle East and Europe.

Yet the importance of this route collapsed quite suddenly. Finally the European courts which coveted silk for flags and fashion, cracked the process for making it themselves. The climate was changing in western China, too, with many oases drying up; and of course the sea routes from Guaghzhou to the Middle East became established, creating a more cost-effective means of transport.

At an altitude of three thousand metres, we were led to ‘Little Tibet’, Xiahe in Ganzhou province with its authentic lamasery (monastery) one of the largest in the country, with its treasure of relics that include 60,000 volumes of Tibetan scriptures. And although we felt vastly separated from what we now call Tibet, we discovered that this is the eastern extremity of the Tibetan plateau.

Here we watched a colourful temple ceremony involving deafening and mournful horn music as hundreds of monks in maroon cloaks and knee-high felt boots congregated on the steep stairs before kicking off their boots and filing inside for the ceremony.

At Xian, those terracotta armies in the walled city awed us, of course, but a lesser-known display of Lilliputian figures from recent excavations nearby at Hanyangling, was just as enthralling. And as we looked at the hills surrounding the area – many of them that same humped shape that had been the clue to the warrior’s tomb - we realized that this place must have so much more to unearth.

At Crescent Moon Lake near Dunhuang, we discovered an unexpected oasis amongst the towering Sahara-like Mingsha dunes. Camels sat ready for use as transport or as a photo-op, while other people scrambled the steep ‘singing sands’ to a view they would never forget.

The two ancient and deserted cities of Jiahoe and Gaochang showed us only crumbling remains of 2000-year-old cities abandoned to the desert winds, yet the ghosts of the life that once filled them were still present.

Then, days later, we encountered the intact fortifications of Jaiyuguang Pass at the western end of the Great Wall, known as ‘the Impregnable Pass Under Heaven’.

Always changing, the Silk Road is as fascinating today as it was a thousand years ago.

You can almost hear Marco Polo agreeing with us.

FACTFILE:

The Ancient Silk Route extended 7000 kilometres from Xian into Central Asia, India, and Syria, and continued from the second century BC to the 15th century AD.

Getting There: Helen Wong’s Tours (www.helenwongstours.com) offers fully escorted 26-day tours covering the entire 4000 kilometre length of the Chinese portion of the Ancient Silk Route, which includes air travel from Australia and all accommodation.

To do similar: Fly to Beijing then Urumchi with a side-flight to Kashgar – it’s too far to drive. Self-driving in China is difficult, as most road signs are not written in our script, so for the trip from Urumchi to Xian you should hire a car and driver and an English-speaking guide.

Accommodation: There is a full range of accommodation in China from basic to quite comfortable three stars in smaller more remote towns, and luxury five stars in the larger cities.

Getting around: Trains may be ‘hard’, or ‘soft’ with sleeper accommodation. They are usually a quick and comfortable way to travel.

Best time to go: April to October. The climate varied from harsh desert to mountains, and conditions change rapidly, so pack accordingly.

Food: Do not drink tap water. On the Silk Route the food varies enormously from west to east. In Urumchi and Kashgar Muslim meals are mutton based, becoming spicier with other meats as you travel east. There are Tibetan restaurants in Lanzhou and Xiahe, then around Xian, dumplings and Cantonese foods.

Currency: There are approximately 6.3 yuan renminbi (RMB) to the Australian dollar. Tipping is now more commonly practiced. Allow between $3 to $5 a day for drivers and guides.

Visa: Australian citizens are required to have a visa for travel in China.