Desert adventure

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-30 11:50

Venturing into a village on the outskirts of the Tianmo Desert area, the group witnessed a taste of everyday village life. Jonah Kessel

Heading towards the water, we marveled at the miles of farmland containing primarily sunflowers, corn and wheat. Occasionally, the farmland parted giving way to the colossal wind generators, part of the Guanting wind power field, which were scattered as far as the eye could see.

Surrounding the reservoir, the Guanting wind power field is Beijing's first major wind power field. The recently completed first phase saw the construction of over 33 new wind power generators, which are expected to help ease Beijing's coal consumption by 50,000 tons.

After stopping at a farmer's house for a mid-afternoon meal of fish, fried rice, eggs and noodles, we traveled along the banks of the reservoir, making our way towards a highway bridge crossing the reservoir.

Soon we came upon a group of men, garbed in camouflage, constructing some new structure that had yet to take a distinguishable shape.

It seemed to me as though China's expansion is not limited to the hustle and bustle of metropolitan areas, I thought to myself. Approaching the men in an attempt to practice on my Chinese, I unsuccessfully made an attempt at finding out as much as I could about the surrounding area.

With my limited vocabulary stretched to its limits I made an attempt to communicate in the universal language of music. Reaching into my backpack I pulled out my harmonica. Laying down a few measures of the classic 12-bar blues I smiled as looks of amusement swept the faces of the workers as they gathered around.

As we neared the highway we spotted a small collection of fisherman's houses on the banks of the reservoir and decided to ask one of the fisherman to take us across the river, putting us closer to the town we spotted from atop the dunes and closer to our train home.

The fisherman, spotting the look of desperation in our eyes and a good business opportunity, charged us a good sum of money to take us across and after a bit of reluctant bargaining, we were on his boat making our way home.

We made it to the village, found a taxi and arrived at the train station just in time to catch the last train back to Beijing.

Though the morning started out rough, our time spent wandering the countryside of the Tianmo Desert was the adventure we had been looking for.

The group sat atop the largest dune in Tianmo. Jonah Kessel

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