Travel is a journey to humanity

I grew up believing the Sahara to be a faraway paradise of charm and freedom, just as the Chinese author Sanmao described it in her 1976 memoir Stories of the Sahara.

For many years I longed to meet these kindhearted desert people in Sanmao's stories, to live in the simple, albeit cozy, camps, and ride on the camels.

My dream came true last Christmas when I traveled to the Sahara with my parents. But instead of finding the romantic stories of Sanmao's life, my trip was colored by truthful human interaction, sincere friendship, and unavoidably, some disillusionment. All these encounters have made the Sahara that once existed in my imagination suddenly real.