We'll try to work it out. Murrin turns his lecture next to the terrain of central Asia, yet another challenge for travelers and a topic revisited many times throughout the quarter, with slide lectures and maps upon photocopied maps. You're looking tired already. The Silk Road makes an indirect path between East and West, snaking northward, dipping south, sometimes doubling back on itself where the terrain is impassable. No matter how you come across Asia, sooner or later you're going to hit mountains.
Rivers change course or suddenly flow underground.
The Chinese called the Pamirs the Onion Mountains, because they thought it was the local onions that made them sick. We now know it was the altitude. Travelers looked for other routes, only to be blocked by the deserts, where they could easily be lost with no water or supplies. The names of the deserts suggest something already. Gobi means 'pebbled' or 'stony desert,' which means you can go off the road here and not get stuck.