Four men, two dogs,
ten camels
The party that left Xian was small: the caravan leader and photographer, two assistants, an American cameraman, a Mongolian camel driver, a Chinese guide, two Kangal dogs and ten trained Bactrian camels trucked more than a thousand kilometres across the Gobi.
Arif Aşçı
Kervanbaşı, photographer
Conceived the expedition, led the caravan and photographed the whole road. Formerly an instructor at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul.
Necat Nazaroğlu
Kervancı, photographer
On the road the full 12,000 kilometres, from the western gate of Xian to the walls of Topkapı.
Murat Özbey
Kervancı, photographer
Kept the animals and the loads. The white camel Kınalı took its name from the henna he put on its throat hairs.
Paxton Winters
Kervancı, filmmaker
The American member of the party, filming the journey. The only non-smoker among the four.
Lee and Pang Yong
The Mongolian camel driver, Lee, was the one man in the party who knew what he was doing. He loaded the packs two by two to keep the animals balanced and fastened them with knots none of the others had seen: they open at a pull from one end and tighten if pulled the wrong way. It took weeks to learn them.
Pang Yong, the Chinese guide, went with the caravan through China. The camels themselves had been trained in Chinese — “Ta” to sit, “Ço” to stand — and answered to nothing else.
Dost and Talas
Two Sivas Kangal dogs, flown from Turkey to Xian in cages and kept for protection. They trotted alongside the caravan the whole way, having first to get used to the humid, semi-tropical weather of the early Chinese stages.
Named on the road
“At first we had been a bit shy of these animals, but by now they were our companions and we had begun to think of them as individuals in their own right, and called them each by name.”
| Camel | The name |
|---|---|
| Rasta | The acknowledged leader, who never once gave up his place at the head of the line. |
| Kınalı | The first of the three white camels; Murat had hennaed some of its throat hairs. |
| Dino | A head that seemed as large as a dinosaur’s. |
| Zito | Two large lumps on the cheeks, like Zito Corleone in Brando’s film. |
| Bağırgan | The howler — always howling about something or another. |
| Süslü | Fancy: pretty eyes and long eyelashes. |
| Sami | An “S”-shaped brand on the neck. Sold in China with a foot infection that would not clear. |
| Karagöz | Black Eyes. The first camel lost, before the first month was out. |
| Büyük Beyaz | Big White, lost later on the road. |
| Demavend, Mehnaz, Shirine | Bought in Iran to make up the caravan for the last stages. |
