The main aim of Aurel Stein 2nd foray into the Tarim basin was the excavation of the recently rediscovered city of Lou-Lan. Setting off from India with a small party including two old friends from his first expedition, Ram Singh seconded from the Survey of India and Muhammad an old caravan man from Yakin. The party travelled over the Pamir knot (the meeting point of the Pamir, Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountain ranges) to Kashgar where Chiang Ssu-yeh, a young Chinese interpreter, was taken onto the payroll.

Leaving Kashgar and travelling by night (to avoid the heat) the party set off along the southern leg of the Silk Road. For the next 5 months the party excavated at a number of sites (Khadalk, Domoko, Niya and Miran) arriving in Charkhlik at midwinter, the only time of year excavations at Lou-Lan were feasible

Before setting out for Lou-Lan, Stein reinforced his small party with 2 local guides, 50 labourers and 18 camels to supplement their 7 baggage camels. 11 days out of Charkhlik the caravan reached their target and started to excavate. Working in the teeth of howling gales and keeping themselves from dying of exposure by burning the trunks of long dead trees, Stein and his men excavated the sand filled buildings for the next eleven days. After 11 days they left Lou-Lan with a rich haul of Chinese documents, detailing life in this distant Chinese outpost, and a quantity of tablets in Kharoshthi (an ancient Indian script). The Kharoshthi tablets named the town as Kroraina and show that the Chinese military authorities allowed the indigenous administration to continue in the hands of the local ruling families.

After replenishing his supplies at Abdal the caravan returned to Lou-Lan and approaching by a different route the found rows of fallen dead trees lining the dry Kuruk Dara, the dry river that once supplied water to Lou-Lan. Excavations in this area revealed abundant Neolithic arrowheads and Jade showing that it must have been a fertile and productive for a long span of time. Another short spell of excavations at Lou-Lan, the party then left in a NE direction following and excavating along a line of forts and cemeteries hoping to trace the Silk Road to Tun-huang