Just a little bit of background flavour

Recently I read a book (ten thousand miles without a cloud, by sun shuyun) about a Chinese monk called Xuanzang, who in 630 AD who made an epic journey from China to India by skirting round the himalayas and travelling through modern day afghanistan.

He does this to obtain copies of the ancient sutras of the Indians, which he believes will help him to obtain enlightenment.
He has lots of adventures, including bandit attacks, his followers being wiped out by an avalanche while crossing the tien shan, and one desert king being so impressed with his wisdom he tries to force Xuanzang to marry his beautiful daughter.

I have no idea why this hasn't been made into a Hollywood movie, especially with so much interest in the east at the moment.

Heres the historical story of his adventures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanzang

But the Chinese also made a famous legend about his quest. In this version, Xuanzang is called to India by the Bodhisattva Guan Yin to obtain sutras not available in China. He is accompanied on this quest by The Monkey King Sun Wukong, the pig-monster Zhu Wuneng (豬悟能), and the half water demon Sha Wujing (沙悟淨) - all of whom have agreed to help him along the way as an atonement for past sins. His horse that Xuanzang rides is itself a dragon prince.

Here's the story of the legend.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclop...ey-to-the-West

I dunno, I'm sure the mod team already know about all this stuff, but apart from the jaw-dropping screenshots thread, this board seems a little quiet, so I thought I'd beef it up with a bit of Chinese history/mythology