Dear Travelers,

Last year I traveled to the Sultanate of Oman and fell in love with this country. There’s so much to see – the only ziggurat found in Arabia, impressive fortress-castles that are reminders of Oman's unruly past, and four UNESCO World Heritage Sites (Aflaj irrigation systems, Bat tombs, Bahla Fort, and The Land of Frankincense). One of the most electrifying sites is the ancient city of Ubar (read The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sand). After decades of search, this 3000-year-old city was recently found using NASA Satellite imagery that clearly showed the camel-trodden path by which frankincense caravans crossed The Empty Quarter. Look for our trip to Oman and Dubai, scheduled to depart in late December.

We have designed several other new itineraries to offer you. A full solar eclipse passes through western China in August and you can experience this rarely viewed solar event while exploring China’s Silk Road. Departing in September, Voyage through History includes ten days on a Turkish gulet, or wooden yacht, leisurely cruising through the Dodecanese Islands from Kos to Rhodes. In October, join Dr. Jennifer Tobin to travel through Greece, and view nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites including Vergina, thought to be the burial place of Alexander’s famous father, Philip II. Bob Brier fans will be happy to know that he has agreed to lead a new trip up the Nile on the smallest, slowest, and oldest watercraft available! The SS Karim, a yacht with only 15 cabins built in Britain in 1917 as a gift for King Fuad, is powered only by her original steam engine and stern quarter-wheel paddles. And ask about our journey to remote Eastern Turkey led by Dr. Jeremy McInerney, a renowned Teaching Company instructor.

South India! The mere written name calls up captivating scents and vibrant scenes. Journey with Griffith Observatory Director and astronomer Dr. E. C. Krupp and search for astronomical features in the many stunning historical sites. The itinerary includes several days in the Kerala Backwaters, rated one of the top three tourist destinations by the World Travel & Tourism Council and featured in National Geographic Traveler's '50 greatest places of a lifetime'.

Our trips to Libya continue twice each year. Please feel free to ask for contact information of people who have traveled there recently with Far Horizons.

Be sure and visit our award-winning website - www.farhorizons.com - to lean about our new destinations.

Happy traveling!

Mary Dell Lucas
Founding Director

Dunhuang and the Silk Road

By Anthony DiBlasi

Dunhuang’s atmosphere is pregnant with the contradictions of the Silk Road. It is simultaneously a backwater and a cultural magnet. Here the sense of cultural mixing is pronounced, both now and historically. As one walks the streets, one sees the various ethnic groups that inhabit China’s portion of the old Silk Road. Here, for example, Han Chinese and Uighurs live side-by-side, but they do so in a small city that owes its existence to its good fortune in being an oasis in a harsh, surrounding desert. At the edge of town, one sees the broad expanses of sand, and not far outside the city the immensity and loneliness of the region is driven home. Here also is ample evidence of the religious diversity of the region as Buddhist pilgrims and Muslim residents share the streets.

Dunhuang also allows us to look back in time and see the historical aspect of the Silk Road, an aspect that transcends the severity of the surrounding environment. Entering the caves of the Mogao Grottoes reveals stunning wall paintings that testify to the power of the spread of Buddhism through Central Asia into China. These polychromatic visions of deities, paradises, and landscapes can still stupefy the observer today. Monuments to both religious devotion and artistic vision, these paintings underscore that before the modern age some of the world’s greatest cultural collisions occurred via caravan routes through an austere and inhospitable region.

Yet, Dunhuang is just one of the many sites and towns along the old Silk Road that bear both living and historical testimony to the way the human spirit is driven to exploration, commerce, and proselytization. Whether wandering the bazaar in Kashgar, visiting some of the region’s many mosques, or viewing the ruins of fortresses abandoned in the medieval period, the traveler is part of a long tradition in a region that continues to be one of history’s most important.

Dr. DiBlasi leads our Silk Road in China trip which also includes a total solar eclipse. Please see the trip on our award-winning website.