ALTHOUGH it's almost 700 years since Marco Polo first lit the adventurous flame, it still flickers on.
And the latest to follow in Marco's (let's not be formal here) shining path are New Yorkers Denis Belliveau and Francis O'Donnell who for the past 17 months have been following, at times dangerously, the trail of the legendary traveller through 15 countries and six war zones.
The duo's Bible and travel guide has been The Travels of Marco Polo, and their itinerary has been charted in detail to take in all the places that the Venetian adventurer visited.
However, arriving in Hong Kong there was a slight hitch, since in Marco Polo's time this was an insignificant fishing village and he never bothered to drop by.
But no matter. Yesterday photographer Belliveau and writer O'Donnell did the next best thing and checked into the Omni Marco Polo instead - which is precisely what the old boy would have done had he arrived in town and then entered in his diary how surprised he was to find a hotel named after him.
Explained O'Donnell: ''We've spent the past six months in China where we managed to visit all 42 places that Marco Polo refers to in his writings. And it was quite a thrill to find some of the things he wrote about - like the statue of the reclining Buddha in Gansu province - still there.
''Both Denis and I are also keen historians, and we look upon this as an educational tour aimed at bringing history alive.