Perhaps Marco Polo was the most influential traveler in history. After all, it was he who had journeyed through the waters of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, ventured into the endless Gobi Desert and became a close advisor for an emperor ruling in a strange foreign land unfamiliar to most Europeans at that time. But here are 4 astonishing facts about the great explorer that you might not know yet.

1. Marco Polo wasn’t the first European to visit China

This may seem disappointing, but the Polos weren’t the first Westerners to get to China; rather, western contact with China started around 1500 years before them. Marco Polo’s precise, albeit weird, document about his journey earned him fame.

2. Marco Polo only met his father properly not long before his adventure

Before Marco Polo was born, Niccolo and Maffeo Polo, his father and his uncle respectively, set up trading posts in Constantinople and Sudak to start their trading business in the Silk Road. Then, a few months after Marco Polo was born, the brothers left Venice – their hometown – for an expedition to China, or “Cathay”. At home, Marco was mostly raised by his relatives as his mother had died when he was young. By the time Niccolo and Maffeo returned to Venice, Marco was already 15 years old. Then, a couple of years after their reunion, a 17-year-old Marco Polo accompanied his father and uncle to China for a brief journey to Kublai Khan’s – the Mongol ruler of China’s – court. Turned out, their “brief” journey lasted for 24 years.

3. Money, Milkshake, and Unicorns?

Marco Polo was one of the few Westerners to witness amazing things from the East. These things include new concepts, like paper money and the Chinese government system. In fact, Polo was credited for introducing paper money to the West! Another interesting thing he witnessed was an ancient form of milkshake. He described the Mongols drying milk and storing the powder for horseback travels. Besides that, he reported seeing “unicorns” and “serpents”, but now it is believed that the unicorn was probably a rhinoceros and the serpent, a crocodile. Still, who could blame him? Both the rhino and the croc were unknown aliens to the Europeans. In addition, Polo, like many others of his time, was a big believer in superstition. For example, his travelogue described sorcerers summoning rain, magicians conjuring wine, and evil spirits haunting the Gobi Desert. Though the first two accounts cannot be proven, the “evil spirits” in the third are assumed to be the natural phenomenon of “singing” sand.

4. The first draft of “The Travels of Marco Polo” was written in prison

Shortly after Marco Polo arrived back home, he commanded a Venetian galley into battle against Genoa, a rival city-state, which resulted in him being caught and imprisoned in Genoa. While in prison, he told his fascinating stories to a fellow cellmate Rustichello da Pisa who was a renowned romance writer. The two started working on a detailed account of Polo’s travels in their cell, which later became the Il Milione (The Million)

Grace Wang
AIS, Mandalay, Myanmar