On 17 June we passed the Silk Road monument, which is built on the old mustering point for silk road caravans at Xi'an. It marks the start and the end of the silk road, so it's official - we've completed it. Silk Road - tick. Some statistics: 1. Geography: - it took 89 days for us to travel 19,400 km by road from Dover to Xi'an. - our highest point was 4,090 metres above sea level on the road to Tashkurgan. - our lowest point was 50m below sea level near Turpan in the Taklimakan desert. - the coldest temperature was some -5 celsius while camping in the Turkish mountains in April. - the hottest was +38 celsius in the truck entering Xi'an. - we crossed three deserts (the Kara Kum, the Kyzyl Kum and the Taklamakan). - it took us two weeks to cross the Taklamakan, the second biggest desert on Earth. 2. People - eight of us started in Dover and eighteen finished in Xi'an (we picked up new friends along the way). - most of us lost weight during the trip. In my case it was 1kg every ten days. 3. Helena and equipment - Helena had to have one starter motor and two suspension springs replaced. The starter motor was on day 2 in Belgium and the springs were in Kashgar and Turpan. - Helena ran out of diesel once (an hour off the ferry in northern France) - We lost seven tents (six stolen from the truck in Georgia, and one from the mountains in Kyrgystan). - We nearly lost another (Jim's own tent with his gear in it), when it headed into the Taklamakan at 50 mph during a sand storm. Dave, Mike and myself caught it after a 1.5km run, when it snagged on a bush for a few minutes. 4. Souvenirs Along the way I picked up: - 3 x Turkmen carpets; - 1 x Turkmen sheepskin hat; - 2 x Turkmen cushion covers; - 1 x Kyrgyz mouth harp; - 2 x Chinese silk carpets; - 1 x new Lovegrove (due in October) We are now enjoying luxury in the Bell Tower Hotel in Xi'an. I have to confess that within four hours of arriving, Jeff and myself had eaten McDonalds, bought a DVD player, and some DVDs and some replacement stocks for our mini-bar and had turned our room into a home cinema. Three months in a truck changes your priorities. To date we have watched Star Wars Episode III, Notting Hill, Serenity and The Mummy. Future plans include The Bourne Identity, Toy Story and Monsters Inc. When we leave Xi'an, the DVD player will be donated to Helena as she heads off to Beijing. The seven of us heading for Hong Kong are transferring to Archie, who has just arrived here from Mumbai, having crossed the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau. Archie, sadly, lost one of its passengers in Tibet due to pulmonary edema. He had to be evacuated to Chengdu where we hope he is on the mend. Helena's passengers are all in more or less good health, except for poor old Warren, who had been a bit under the weather for the last week or so. Yesterday he went to see an English speaking doctor. After a number of chest x-rays, the doctor wrote down his diagnosis. It wasn't good. The diagnosis said "May be common cold. Or Something Else." We hope that it is just the common cold. People have been known to die from Something Else. Xi'an is of course home to the Teracotta warriors, which we saw two days ago. They don't move much and nothing explodes. DVDs are, on the whole, rather better for that sort of thing. Xi'an also has an impressively preserved city wall, which is surrounded by defensive flowerbeds and ornamental gardens (it is hard to scale walls in armour when you are trying to avoid treading on flowers). We leave Xi'an tomorrow and head south. From here on, the trip will have much more of a touristy feel as there is no more camping - it's hotels all the way. We've also reach summer, having dropped below 1,000 m for the first time since April. So all of my camping gear and cold weather clothes are now en route to the UK courtesy of China Post. Highlights over the next three weeks include fighting martial arts monks in Wudang Shan, cruising on the Yangtze (the secenery is supposed to be three gorgeous), talking to pandas in Chengdu and fishing with cormorants on the Li river before taking the train from Guangzhou to HK which I should reach on 11 July.