During the Spring Festival this year, I went on an amazing journey down the Silk Road; mostly to see if it is a journey I could do again to go to see the Total Solar Eclipse taking place in August, 2008, but also to finally see many of the sites I have heard about for so long.

I took this picture of myself at Jiayuguan Fort, which was built in 1372 and known as the "Impregnable Defile Under Heaven." The western-most portion of the Great Wall of China is also in Jiayuguan and only about 5 km from here.

There is one thing that I should warn you about if you make a stop at Jiayunguan on your own and are using the May 2005 version of Lonley Planet China travel guide. The location of the train ticket booking office is wrong on their map. It further South down the street and the bank it's next to is not an ICBC. The building is up on some steps and looks like a bank.