With 2006 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics and Cal Professor George Smoot, discover the Silk Road in far western China’s Xinjiang Province. See the extraordinary sight of a Total Solar Eclipse, August 1, 2008 at Altai, near the intersection of China, Mongolia, and Central Asia. Our visit will include spectacular mountain and desert landscapes in Xinjiang, the ancient Silk Road cities of Turpan and Urumqi, Kanas National Park, renowned Kashgar with its famed livestock market, and Tashkurgan.

Follow the Karakoram Highway across Khunjerab Pass for another highlight—five days in spectacular Hunza, surrounded by 7,000-meter peaks. Meet Uyghur, Kazakh, and Tajik people, and learn about the "Great Game" when Kashgar was a center for imperial clashes between British and Russian colonialists.