Who knew that desert life is so beautiful

We spent the last few days crossing the Taklamakan desert. 

It’s that huge empty patch of yellow on your maps of China in the western part of the country, going almost up to the border with Kyrgystan (which we’ll be crossing in few days). 


I absolutely fell in love with the Taklamakan. It’s huge, empty, totally inhospitable, sand dunes every direction you 
look, the only vehicles on the only crossing road are huge cargo trucks. Its name means “go in and you won’t come out”. Well I proved them wrong! We camped each night in the middle of the sand, cooked dinner, made a campfire, looked at stars from the roof of the truck. Gusty winds in the sandy dunes mean one thing: sand gets absolutely everywhere. In each piece of your clothing, in each opening of your body, in your food, tent, teeth and toothpaste. You learn to like crunchy meat and beer for dinner. 
And it’s still so amazingly beautiful out there. Just before sunset the wind picks up and the loose sand does its pretty dance on the top of the dunes. And Taklamakan even has its very own oasis town of Turpan – green (they invented their own ancient clever irrigation system), bloody hot as it is after all one of the hottest places on earth (temperatures here can get up to 70 Celsius). I loved it there…