Travel Guides & Tips in this video
Wilko Wanders takes us along a stretch of China’s ancient Silk Road to Turpan, where the superlatives start piling up. He steps into the Jiaohe ruins, a 2,300-year-old city carved into the earth itself, sitting in the Tarim Basin and a striking 154 meters below sea level. This is not a city built with bricks but etched into earth, with roads carved into the ground and a compact, rammed-earth construction that adapts perfectly to the desert’s heat and dryness. Wilko explains the city’s unique layout, with residential zones to the north, government buildings in the center, and religious sites to the south, all connected by sunken streets and a natural fortress formed by nearby cliffs. He highlights how the site was a Silk Road outpost and a military capital, shielded by its cliff walls and the single entry point, which lent security and control in a wary desert frontier. The narrative threads through the urban planning that allowed the settlement to thrive in harsh conditions, including
Next travel video:
