Follow Marco Polo's great adventure on the Silk Road. It was the world's first superhighway, a series of desert and mountain crossing that fabled silk road to make its way from the ancient Chinese capital of Xian. The Silk Road allowed links between China and the West to flourish, an exchange of art, ideas and culture as well as trade. 

The Silk Road originally extended over 6,000 km through ancient China, India, Persia, Europe and Arabia, linking the mighty civilizations of the East and the West. Our journey to the East starts from Istanbul officially. 

If you take the Adriatic Sea route,you will travel through Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania and Greece to Turkish border. Another interesting route would be through Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria to Turkish border. 

Group meets up in the hotel in Istanbul. By crossing the bridge over the Bosporus Straight, we have officially left Europe and Asia awaits us. So many things to see and experience in Turkey including the ancient roman ruins, Cappadocia underground city, and the old imperial capital Istanbul. 

We enter Georgia at Batumi and reach Tbilisi, the capital city. Don’t miss Georgian wines ! In the foot of the Caucasus mountain we ride to Sheki, our first night in Azerbaijan. 

We will visit the old city of Baku, the fabulous oil city and take a ferry across the Caspian Sea to our first Stan countries, Turkmenistan. Meet our guide to sort out border formalities we will take a long ride to the White Capital, Ashgabat. We then venture into the desert of Dashaguz and spend a night camping next the gas crater, nicknamed as “gateway to hell”. 

Leaving Turkmenistan, welcome to Uzbekistan, one of most welcoming stan countries. We will visit many of the historical sites on the ancient silk road. We will ride to our third stan country, Tajikistan. Riding the Pamir highway is our most adventurous section of the journey. We will soon hit the Chinese border after crossing our fourth stan country, Kirgizstan. 

We enter China and ride to Kashgar city. Visiting this far-flung part of China is a chance to seamlessly mix modern-paced adventure with ancient culture. The arts and crafts of the region, strong since the Silk Road era, are still thriving. 

In the next two weeks you will travel almost the entire length of the Himalayas and Karakorum mountain ranges. We will follow the western edge of the Taklimakan Desert to Mazza. Then we ride to Ngari-the largest city in the far west Tibet, climb some of the highest passes and cross some beautiful valleys. In the following days this journey we will cross the great Chang Tang (Northern Plateau) into far-west Tibet through the wildest land on earth. 

Meeting nomads dwelling in low, black tents, tend flocks of sheep and goats as well as herds of the yak. Pilgrims of Buddhists, Bon, Hindus and Jains all come to pay their homage to this sacred mountain. Further within the heavily eroded sandstone canyon and valleys of the upper Yarlung River are numerous ruins of ancient cities that once comprised the kingdom of Guge, temples in that area are still intact and contain exquisite murals and decorative motifs with a history of more than ten thousand years. 

Highlight of our adventure will be riding your motorcycles to Mt. Basecamp. Continue the journey to the holy city Lhasa, where you have spent some days to explore the different lifestyle and existing culture of the roof of the world. Monasteries and shrines are the center of the religious faith, which plays an important role in their day to day life since from thousand years. 

We follow the eastern Himalaya ranges to Shangri_la, visit world famous Tiger Leaping Gorge and World Heritage city of Lijiang. We then ride north to Chengdu to take a look at the Giant pandas and Xi’an to visit many historical sites including the Terra Cotta Army, Goose Pagoda etc.., what a great feeling to actually stand on the city  wall of Xi'an,  the very beginning of the Silk Road. Our great journey will end in Beijing with a visit to the Great Wall ! 

Ride China can arrange the logistics shipping your motorcycles worldwide. Please get in touch !

A film made by our Italian customers who rode from Rome to Beijing.