The Silk Road Journey

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One of the world’s biggest and busiest commercial ports: Much like Zheng He’s treasure fleet, massive vessels transport moder...
The sun sets on China’s maritime ambitions: On his last voyage here, Zheng He dies and is buried at sea, ending China’s domin...
This African trading port was Zheng He’s final and farthest destination. Lateen sail fishing dhows head for open waters at d...
During Eid, marking the end of Ramadan, everyone dresses in their Sunday best. The beauty of these people is said to be becau...
During Eid, marking the end of Ramadan, everyone dresses in their Sunday best. The beauty of these people is said to be becau...
Lamu, Kenya's oldest living town, reflects the influence of Arab, Indian and Persian cultures. The stone buildings along the ...
One of the last of the great sailing dhows, the Sanjeeda, catches the wind off the Swahili coast of Kenya. During Zheng He’s ...
Fishermen, waiting for high tide, inspect the hulls of their wooden dhows. Sur, Oman
Zheng He would have no trouble recognizing Sanaa’s markets in the old quarter, with stalls stocked with the traditional tunic...
The 2000 year old capital of Yemen. Zheng He stopped here to trade for frankincense. The mud and brick architecture has chang...
It is widely believed that Beijing Opera was brought to India by Zheng He, inspiring the local theatrical form of Kathakali, ...
Kathakali performers spend painstaking hours applying their own elaborate makeup, as do singers in the Beijing opera, which m...
A Sadhu, or holy man poses for a portrait. These ascetics who worship Shiva, renounce worldly goods in their goal to achieve ...
page 463
The pulling of nets each morning involves the entire village. Not much has changed here since Zheng He’s day, as motorless fi...
The Esala Perahera festival honoring the sacred tooth of Buddha is the largest and longest festival in Asia. For ten days th...
The Esala Perahera festival honoring the sacred tooth of Buddha is the largest and longest festival in Asia. For ten days th...
Zheng He, as did every explorer who visited Sri Lanka, made comment about Adam’s Peak, “There is a large mountain which penet...
Marco Polo called Sri Lanka “the most beautiful island of its size in the world.” And Zheng He certainly would have experien...
Malacca became China’s first settlement outside the confines of the empire, thanks in large part to Zheng He’s expeditions th...
Malacca became China’s first settlement outside the confines of the empire, thanks in large part to Zheng He’s expeditions th...
Sulphur miners at Ijen volcano face toxic gases and back-breaking loads that must be carried up steep quarry walls to distrib...
Traditional dip net fishing as it has been done for centuries in Jakarta harbor. Jakarta, Indonesia
Children play in the surf on Bali beach. Bali, Indonesia
A bugis schooner under full sale in the South China Sea. Indonesia is home to the last great sailing fleet. Jakarta, Indonesia
As a Muslim, Zheng He must have been happy to stop in Brunei for Friday prayer. He must have learned to pray in similar fashi...
The lavish mosque, Omar Ali Saifudden Mosque, is a 20th century construction dedicated to the 28th Sultan of Brunei, but it i...
The island of El Nido lies between the South China Sea and the Sulu Sea, and like the thousands of other islands in its archi...
The chronicles of Zheng He’s voyages as recounted by Ma Huan frequently mention the Thai devotion to Buddha, as well as the l...
Here Zheng He, known in Thailand as San Bao, is worshipped as a god of prosperity. Monks at the temple Phanan Choeng dedicate...
In the dry season, the river becomes shallow enough to walk into Thailand. Mekong River, Laos
page 432-433
Aquaculture explodes in a sea of yellow, with marigolds being grown over water. Learning to live on the sea was something th...
The Cantho Flower Market is busiest during the Vietnamese New Year celebration of Tet. “As to the four seasons, they take the...
Women separate rice husks, used for animal feed, from the grain destined for human consumption by shaking the rice in woven b...
page 424-425
A tourist pauses to read an inscription at the “edge of the world” on Hainan Island, China’s southernmost point. This was co...
The entire population of fisherman and other coastal dwellers was mobilized to build the 300 ships for Zheng He’s fleet.
Looking like matchsticks linked by fishing nets, its likely that Zheng He passed hundreds of scenes like this while embarking...
Tea pickers gently pluck leaves from the perfectly groomed rows of tea plants at one of the three largest tea plantations in ...
This 30,000 ton stone monument was commissioned by Zheng He’s patron, the Emperor Zhu Di, in honor of his own father, but was...
Zhu Di, the third Ming emperor, was the patron of Admiral Zheng He, the famed sea-faring explorer. It was Zhu Di who moved th...
In the village of Akesai, descendants of Khazak nomads gather to honor a departed elder, with upturned hands for prayer and f...
The birth place Of Zheng He, a Muslim town at east 30 days walk to the sea. How did he ever learn the nautical skills that wo...
Portrait of Zheng He, who lived a century after Marco Polo, was the unlikeliest of great admirals. He was born a Muslim in th...
Receiving alms (binthabat) is a ritual of daily life for the hundreds of Buddhist monks in Myanmar, where accepting charity i...
Hundreds of glimmering Buddhist temples — “temples of gold” as Marco described them. The world’s largest existing site of Bud...
A reflection of the Potala Palace, which towers 100 meters (300 feet) above Lhasa, floats among the mountains and the marsh t...
Along the pilgrimage route to Lhasa, faithful Buddhists prostrate themselves fully in an elaborate exercise over hundreds, so...