We had spent the morning walking across a flat, stony landscape on the edge of the Gobi Desert, the monotony of the scenery broken only by an occasional conical brick tomb.

Suddenly, in the distance, I spotted a rare flash of colour, glowing scarlet in the intense sunlight. As we drew closer, the mirage slowly took shape until it became a bright red canopy with picnic tables underneath.

We sat down to a feast of chicken, salad, watermelon and jasmine tea, served by waitresses in smart red tunics. It was the most surreal picnic I have eaten.

I had been fascinated by the idea of an organised walking holiday in China. I was used to the European model, where rambling was an excuse for lavish picnics, local wines and small, character hotels.

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What would it be like in China, where the hotels are high-rise and functional, the people drink rice spirit instead of wine and where walking is something you do if you cannot afford a car?

We were following in the footsteps of Marco Polo by tracing the route of the Silk Road from Xi’an, the ancient capital, to Kashgar. This great East-West trade route, established during the Han dynasty, brought silk and spices to Europe but also brought China into contact with foreign religions and ideas for the first time.

Buddhism arrived in China at Dunhuang, whose Mogao caves, a Unesco World Heritage Site, contain a remarkable treasury of Buddhist art spanning 1,000 years.

From our base at the Silk Road Hotel, a modern-day caravanserai beneath the dunes, I crossed the road to the Lei Yin Si temple, where pilgrims bowed their heads in prayer while monks chanted and beat on a large red drum.

In the desert outside Dunhuang, the Yangguan Pass was an outpost of empire, a place where weary travellers would find rest, food and shelter and receive a passport for the long journey ahead.

The customs post and fortress is now in ruins, but there is an interesting museum on the history of the Silk Road, with bronze chariot bells, leather wine pouches and vivid tomb paintings depicting scenes from everyday life, such as oxen ploughing and children collecting mulberry leaves for silkworms.

From Yangguan we walked to Nanhu (South Lake), a small town surrounded by vineyards and avenues of poplar trees. Our backpacks, shorts and trekking poles must have made us a curious sight, but farmers offered us bunches of grapes while children stopped to practise their English as they cycled home from school.

It would take months to walk from Xi’an to Kashgar (particularly as we were doing only two to four hours a day, with plenty of sightseeing and shopping), so we cheated by taking internal flights.

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