Arriving on the outskirts of Xi’an, home of the famous Terracotta Warriors and the official eastern end of The Silk Road, we should not have been surprised to find a sprawling city of snarling traffic and bustling crowds. Finding a hotel for Green with safe parking for us was a challenge, but Green had received […]

Leaving Xiahe and the Labrang Tibetan Monastery, the scenery varied from terraced fields to more of those massive apartment buildings that appeared to be unoccupied. Road signs were a continuous amusement. Outside of Pingliang we were reminded that if there was any flat place bigger than half a basketball court, someone had planted something. By […]

After our exciting drive, following muddy switchbacks down the mountain in the dark to Xiahe, we were just happy that Green knew a pleasant hotel, the Tara Guesthouse, she had stayed at before and it had a quiet courtyard for us to park and camp. In the morning, we were a 5-minute walk to the […]

After our fresh noodle dinner we spent a quiet night in the hotel parking lot. In the morning we met Green in her room and did some email before heading towards our next stop, Xiahe in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province. It is famous for its Labrang monastery, the largest edifice of the […]

Getting a late start from the end of the Great Wall of China, we were back on the monotonous highway. Looking for a place to camp, we saw a side road and followed it to a field with hundreds of bags of just-harvested onions, but no one around. We guessed that trucks would be coming […]

It was late when we wound our way through the dark streets of Jiayuguan (Gansu Province) to find the official end of The Great Wall of China. A really full moon, the biggest and roundest of the year called Harvest Moon, lit the way as we arrived at an empty parking lot with a sign […]

Leaving the oasis of Turpan, we were back on the seemingly endless and quite boring toll highway along the northern edge of the Taklamakan desert. It felt like driving across Nevada. By late afternoon I was falling asleep. Then we saw it, an actual break in the fences and guardrails into the black rock desert […]

After a short drive from the Gaochang ruins we arrived in the pleasant city of Turpan. Turpan is China’s “Death Valley”. Part of the Turpan basin is 154m, (505 feet), below sea level, making it the second lowest depression on earth, just after the Dead Sea. It is the hottest spot in China. In July […]

OK, so we can almost cross the Taklamakan Desert off our China Bucket List; amazing but thanks to the paved oil exploration road, not so bad. Given that without the road it would have lived up to its reputation, “The Sea of Death”. We had to make a “few” miles every day because we still […]

Three hundred and thirty seven thousand square kilometers, (130,000 sq. mi), The Taklamakan is one of the largest sandy deserts in the world and one of the most dangerous. Nicknamed “The Sea of Death”, one translation in Chinese is, “If you go in, you won’t come out.” Flanked by the high Tien Shan Mountains to […]