Eastern Taklamakan Desert

This post is a little bit out of order. About 6 days ago I was in Dunhuang, in the west end of Gansu province. Dunhuang is an oasis at the eastern end of the Taklamakan Desert along the ancient Silk Road. The Taklamakan is called the largest sand desert in the world and the dunes are majestic, enormous, and (as I found out) extremely difficult to cross. To this day, it remains one of the few deserts that no man has crossed without caravan (I'm told). From Dunhuang, the Silk Road splits into a Northern and Southern route to avoid the desert.

The dunes rise to about 1000 feet above the surrounding area and can bee seen from the town of Dunhuang where I was staying. When it cooled down one evening, I walked for about an hour to the entrance to a tourist park which offered various activities on the dunes for a rather steep 100RMB entrance fee. I chose to stare at the dunes from outside the park. As I was walking back to my hotel I ran into a young Portuguese traveler who said he planned to camp out in the dunes and that you could walk around the the park. I had already checked into a hotel for the night but I invited myself along anyways and he agreed to wait for me.

I grabbed a cab back to my hotel where the staff was extremely confused by the abandonment of my room, they literally chased after me as I was getting into a cab. I had grabbed my tent, and sleeping bag, left a few items in the room, and got back to the dunes as quickly as possible.

David, the Portuguese guy, was waiting when I got back and we started making our way through camel stalls and narrow paths looking for the end of the fence that prevented our entrance to the dunes.

A little about David.

First of all, this guy could have told me he was from an Illinois farm town and I would have never doubted it. His English was superb, and he even said, "Okie Dokie" every time he took a break and then started going again. Second, he looked like a damned camel he had so many things on his back. And it seemed like none of his stuff was in his backpack, just fastened on the outside rather. For all I knew there may not have even been a bag under there at all, maybe just a peg-board with two backpack straps. Watching him don this thing was like watching my 81 year-old, 6'6" Papa get out of Corvette-- some slow, deliberate movements, followed by a make-it or break-it heave. Finally, he told me he had been on the road for about 3 weeks and was planning to travel overland back to Lisbon in the next month.

By the time we found where the fence ended it was night. The sky was clear but no moon; I took my shoes off and started climbing the first dune barefoot. Barefoot worked well. The sand was cool and felt good on my feet. David wore some Wellington-style boots he had picked up in Mongolia. Then when he saw my success he decided to go barefoot as well. Problem was, taking off Wellies isn't easy, especially when you're on a dune and you're wearing a 60 pound pack. I had to help, a lot. And fearing something of his might fall off his pack and slide down the dune, I offered to carry the boots.

We climbed about 800 feet that night before finding a place to camp between two colliding dunes. The dry air made for wonderful star watching. The milky way was as bright as I have ever seen it.

I woke early to catch a sunrise that took forever to arrive. It was nice, but somewhat anticlimactic; nothing like watching the sun rise over the ocean.

We went back to sleep.

When the heat woke us, we ditched our packs on the backside of a dune, I covered-up the best I could with a combination of a long-sleeve dress shirt, and a makeshift Arab keffiyeh I fashioned from some bandannas I had, and we let out to hike to the top of the tallest dune in sight.

Whenever we reached the tallest dune in sight, a taller one appeared. Running low on water, I finally made David agree to where we were going. He was quite reckless in judging how far we could go on 8 oz. of water each. With 8 oz. left each, I agreed on a route that would put us about 45 minutes from our packs, where we had a water-filled melon awaiting us.

He ended up having more trouble than me.

It was about 3 p.m. now and the sand had heated with the days sun. I had put on sandals hours before but now even the minimal sand that slid onto my foot bed was too hot to bear. I tried high-stepping, shaking my feet in between strides. It didn't work.

We made it to our packs by 4 and got set to go down the dune. I had jokingly, suggested we slide down the dune on our sleeping pads but David really clung to this idea. I knew it wouldn't work, but David was convinced otherwise. I don't like to tell people they are wrong so I merely suggested it wouldn't.

4:00 PM,

"You think it will work?"

4:02 PM,

"I don't know, it's not that steep."

4:03 PM,

"Your pack weighs a lot."

Then I got more explicit.

4:03 PM

"It's not gonna work."

He tried anyways, shoving off with his pack in front of him between his legs, and from all of 10 feet below me, shamefully asked me to come down and help him get his pack on.

I chose to run down the dune, taking giant leaps, letting the sand slide and absorb the impact. It was like I was running on the moon.

Once down we made our way toward the lake from the backside-- the free side. Chinese tourists took photos as we walked into the oasis from seemingly nowhere. I like to imagine I looked like Bruce Willis in Armageddon, but after seeing photos of me in my homemade keffiyeh I don't think that's good comparison. And Aerosmith wasn't there.

Ripples in the sand. Late in the day.

Camel stalls on the way to the dunes, day 1.

Sunrise over the desert lake. This lake , which lies at the edge of these giant, moving dunes, has been documented for 2000 years. The dunes literally sit at the edge of town and it almost looks like a slow moving Tsunami. From the top, you can see long veins of sand encroaching on the artificial forest meant to keep the sand at bay.

David, early day 2.

I should have taken a movie of this. He made it to about the end of his shadow in this photo before giving up.
Another shot of the lake. You can toboggan down the dunes on the right. It sounded pretty lame but then I saw someone come down. Awesome! I swear this guy must have been going 30 mph when his sled drifted to the the right, hit a flag and launched him into cartwheels for 30 feet.

I had to get a photo of the ridiculous booties. These two ladies were happy to pose.

A video of me running down the mountain.