The antique Silk Road that connected the Chinese and Mediterranean Worlds for more than a millennium, facilitating the exchange of both goods and cultures, is widely known and celebrated. Less familiar is its more southerly equivalent, the ‘Ancient Tea-Horse Road' that once linked the lush tea gardens of southwest China with the frigid wastelands of Tibet and – beyond – the torrid plains of northern India. The latter is also sometimes called the ‘Southern Silk Road', though this is something of a misnomer, as silk seems never to have played a very important part in the traffic that travelled along it. By contrast, the name ‘Tea-Horse Road' is both appropriately descriptive, and of considerable antiquity...

See More Images: Click TEA HORSE ROAD (below) to see all related images, click related searchable terms for more specific images, or use the Search Box at the top of the page