Mysteries of the Gobi Searching for Wild Camels and Lost Cities in the Heart of Asia

by Hare, John

• ISBN13: 9781845115128
• ISBN10: 1845115120
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-12-15
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

The Gobi is the largest, coldest and driest desert in Asia. Once part of the great Mongol Empire and home to many of the legendary Silk Road cities, its inhospitable sands have been inhabited for centuries and parts of it have been crossed by some of history's most famed explorers. Despite this, the Gobi remains a place of mystery. Its shifting sands conceal ancient cities, 3,000-year-old mummies, dinosaur bones and areas where no man has set foot. It is also the last place on earth where the wild Bactrian camel clings to survival, its fragile habitat threatened by poachers and development. With the conservation of this elusive creature in mind, John Hare was inspired to venture with domestic Bactrian camels, Chinese scientists and Kazakh herdsmen into the wildest parts of the Chinese Gobi on an expedition during which they crossed a hundred miles of sand dunes, unexplored in recorded history. Several weeks into the journey, Hare and the team discovered, in two unmapped valleys, a population of wildlife with no experience of man. Interwoven with the account of his remarkable journey, Hare tells, for the first time, the story of an epic migration made by Kazakh nomads in flight from Chinese communists through what would become the infamous Chinese nuclear testing ground. He also describes the historic and current tensions between the Chinese and the indigenous Uighur population of Xinjiang. A blend of history and high adventure, discovery and conservation, Mysteries of the Gobi is a unique and compelling account of modern-day exploration.

Author Biography

John Hare is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club of America. As well as living and working in Africa for many years, he has made several expeditions to the Mongolian Gobi and China's remote Xinjiang Province. He was the first foreigner to be invited to visit Lop Nur for over 45 years and the first foreigner in recorded history to cross the Gashun Gobi from north to south. In 1997 he founded the Wild Camel Protection Foundation and, with Chinese colleagues, established a 175,000 square kilometer Nature Reserve in Mongolia for the wild Bactrian camel. He is the recipient of the Royal Geographical Society’s Ness Award, the Royal Society of Asian Affairs’ Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Gold Medal and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society’s Mungo Park Medal for distinguished contributions to exploration. He is the author of The Lost Camels of Tartary and Shadows across the Sahara.

Table of Contents

Preface

The Call of the Wild

Beyond the Dunes

Sweet as Eden is the Air

Take Flight and Follow

Hie to the Deserts Wild

Death's Shadow at the Door

Over the Unknown Pass

The Desert's Dusty Face

The Secrets of the Sands

Greater than Anyone Thinks

The Current Situation of the Uighurs in Xinjiang

The First Published Account of the Wild Bactrian Camel

Spies among the Kazakhs

Bibliography

Acknowlegements

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