Fa Xian's Diary Of Events

From the Chinese capital of Chang'an, Faxian and his party passed through Dunhuang (Tunhuang) at the eastern edge of the Taklamakan Desert. Instead of taking one of the routes that skirted around the desert, they walked straight through it, experiencing many fears and hardships.

Two months after his departure, Faxian reached the Central Asian city of Khotan. From there he took the southern route across the "snowy mountains" (the Bolor-Tagh range) into northwestern India, where he visited Udyana, Gandhara, Peshawar, and Taxila. Faxian stayed in northern India for three years, studying Sanskrit, visiting Buddhist centres and holy sites, and collecting scriptures to take back to China. He found the Vinaya he was looking for in Pataliputra and began copying it out.
For the return voyage Faxian decided to go by sea. He went first to Tamralipti, a port at the mouth of the Ganges, where he took a ship to Ceylon. He stayed there another two years, obtaining more texts.

The ship sailed via the Straits of Malacca to the east coast of what is now Sumatra, where he spent five months. The vessel he took on the final part of his homeward journey was blown off course by a storm, and instead of landing at Canton ended up docking on the coast of Shandong (Shantung). It was then 414, fifteen years after Faxian’s original departure from Chang'an.