View Denis Belliveau’s photographs from the journey from Venice to China and back.
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- A Tajik warlord in Northern Afghanistan who thought we were in the country to hunt for the giant mountain sheep called Marco Polo, named in honor of the explorer.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- “The Tartars are of all men, the best able to endure exertion
and hardship... They will go for a whole month without
provisions and can ride a good ten days’ journey without
making a fire, living only on the blood of their horses.”
-- Marco Polo
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- The view from
St. Mark’s Square, Venice,
overlooking the gondola quay
and Grand Canal.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- In Tibet a cham or masked dance is held to commemorate the victory of Buddhism over Bon (the old animistic religion).
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- The Cham went on like this for hours, the
crowd mumbling their prayers and kneading their prayer beads behind us. We sat mesmerized, in awe of the spectacle in front of us, ringside seats to a forbidden rite.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- "They speak their own language and call themselves Tibet. . . . In
this province coral brings a high price for it is hung round the necks of women and idols with great joy."
--Marco Polo
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- Behind us lies the famed Khyber Pass into Afghanistan in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, where if we didn’t get our visas for Iran we had concocted a dangerous plan.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- This photo is one of our favorites. Not only because it captures the moment we landed in St. Marks Square two years after setting out from Venice but because it is candid and not taken by us. Most other photo’s of ourselves were self portraits, the camera sitting atop a tripod, a blank stare on our faces as we wait for the self timer to go off.
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- Here we are under the detailed Byzantine styled arch adjacent to the Polo family home not far from the Rialto Bridge in Venice.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- The Chinese mu yu or slit drum is hollowed out from a solid log, usually in the shape of a fish, and it used ritually
in Buddhist and Taoist temples.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- The best-known parts of the Great Wall were built
after the fall of the Yuan dynasty, when the Ming
emperors determined that China would never again
be overrun by the Mongols.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- Venetian merchants, including the Polos, traded extensively in silk and, by the fourteenth century, the Italians themselves had learned the secret.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- The inside of the tomb of Christ, or Holy Sepulchre, where the Polos obtained the precious holy oil requested
by Kublai Khan, who believed it held miraculous properties.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- Kublai Khan had requested that the Polo brothers return to him with one hundred
scholarly priests, hand-chosen by the pope, as well as with holy oil from a lamp that the
faithful believe burns eternally inside Christ’s tomb.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- Erdene Zuu Monastery, Karakorum, Mongolia. Before Kublai embraced Tibetan Buddhism, the Mongols were shamanistic, worshipping heaven or the “clear
blue sky.”
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- “There is not a bridge in the world to compare with it... It has 24 arches and piers and is built entirely of gray
marble . . . on either side are columns topped by marble lions of great beauty and workmanship.”
--Marco Polo
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- A young monk festively adorned for the Cham festival.
Tibetans send their sons to the lamasery to be educated in Buddhist scriptures, Tibetan language, handwriting, literature and art as well as philosophy, logic and astronomy.Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- Our traveling companion, somewhere out on the steppes. After the fall of the Yuan, the Mongols went back to their old shamanistic ways before re-adopting Tibetan Buddhism in the sixteenth century.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- The parasol is one of eight auspicious symbols of Buddhism. Its
function is to cast a shadow, symbolizing protection from the
heat, suffering, and desire of spiritually harmful forces.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- “There are great numbers of maidens who are dedicated to amusing their male and female idols, to which they sing and dance and afford the merriest sport in the world.”
--Marco PoloPhoto © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, Kandy, Sri Lanka. A tooth of the
Buddha is encased in seven gold caskets studded with precious stones, which have been given by various
rulers over the centuries.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- The ruins of Warangal where Rani Rudrama Devi ruled from 1261 until her death in 1296, the year after the Polos returned home.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
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- Built in 1268, the Keshava Temple at Somanathapura is adorned with a riot of human figures that gave us a snapshot of daily life in the Hoysola kingdom at precisely the time Polo was there.
Photo © Denis Belliveau. All rights reserved
(42 votes, average: 4.74 out of 5)
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I’m 14 and in Mandy’s class. I enjoyed the seeing your love for history and travel. I liked the part when you shaved your head haha (to Francis) What made yall want to go on this journey? I liked where you saved yourselves with the cigarettes!
11/05/2008 :: 04:13:42 PM
Herta C. Fuchs Says:
Bravo!!These photos are fabulous - the portraits are so sensitive & lifelike, you feel as if you know the people. Don’t think you can beat that view of Venice!