The great wall’s journey through northern china continues westward by setting a landscape that becomes increasingly parched. Our journey has brought us halfway across northern china and the grasslands are becoming hot, dry and desolate. Wandering these wastes are creatures that look more African than Asian. These are goitred gazelles, skittish and easily startled. When threatened by danger, they are as fast as a race horse. But in this intense heat, they favor a gentler pace. There is little standing water here, but gazelles have remarkable ability to extract moisture from dry grass, although finding enough worth eating keeps them constantly on the move. Even out here, in the semi-deserts, the wall continues its long march. Here it’s made of a little more than compacted earth. But with hardly any rain falling, it suffered very little erosions over the centuries. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives building it. Yet it seems hard to believe that anyone felt that these distant wastelands needed protecting. But the wall still has one final surprise. This is jiayuguan, the mighty fortress in the desert. Built in the Ming dynasty over 600 years ago, legends says that the construction of this fortress was so meticulousily planned that 100,000 bricks were specially made and only one brick was left unused. This fortress marks the end of the Great Wall of China, the greatest man-made barrier on earth.

 

  But ahead, lays an even more formidable barrier, a vast no man’s land of deserts that stretch westward to the borders of central Asia. jiayugaun fortress was considered to be the last outpost of Chinese civilization. Beyond this point, lays utter desolation. The china’s largest desert, the taklamakan lies out here. Its name has been translated as “you go in, and you never come out”. This is a place of intense heat, abrasive wind blown sand. Totally hostile to life. Yet, there was a route through the desert, for those brave enough to risk their lives for it.

for the ancient silk traders, the problem was still how to get valuable silk from the fortress a jiayuguan through the deserts to markets of central Asia and beyond. Those early travelers heading west on the Silk Road were setting off on the worst voyage imaginable through some of the most terrible places on earth.

Starting with the world’s tallest sand dunes, strong winds whipping in from the west, load the sand into ever higher dunes. Over millennia, mega-dunes build up walls of sands soaring to over 500 meters tall.

Camels are the only beasts of burden that tackle with these monstrous dunes.  Their feet are wide and splay outwards to stop them sinking in loose sand. The wind that whips the sand into dunes has created other bizarre shapes in china’s western deserts. Mysterious giant structures, known as yardangs, were sculpted by flying sand. The wind brought other hazards to travelers in these deserts. Marco polo wrote, sometimes the stray travelers will hear the tramp and hum of a great cavalcade of people away from the real line of march and taking this to be their own company, they will follow the sound and when day breaks they find that a cheat has been put on them and that they are in an ill plight. To this day no one knows what causes the sands in some parts of the desert to sink. No wonder travelers call this place “fury of god” and “sea of death”. But the most severe problem was lack of water. The reason this place is so intensely dry can best be appreciated from a satellite view. China’s deserts are the farthest places on earth from any ocean. This lack of water is what created the Taklamakan. An area the size of Germany covered in sand dunes through which the silk road traversed, this is the world’s largest shifting sand desert. Most living creatures would die here, but the camel is uniquely equipped for desert survival. Its nose humidifies the dry desert air as it breathes in then dehumidifies it in the way out conserving precious water. The camel’s thick fur keeps it warm for night while reflecting sunlight by day. And its body temperature can rise by 6 degree Celsius before it even begins to sweat. With these adaptations they can go for days without drinking. For the camel trains travel through the desert is about moving between one life-saving oasis and the next. When they finally do reach a drinking hole, camels can drink up to 60 liters of water in ten minutes.

Without oasis, life in the taklamakan couldn’t exist and travel would be impossible. But nothing is permanent in the desert. The shifting sands and the extreme climate means that these precious water sources can disappear. This is exactly what happened in the Aydingkol Lake. The lake bed is the second lowest place on earth at 154 meters below sea level. It’s the hottest place in china with the air temperature recorded as high as 50 degrees Celsius and ground temperatures up to 80 degrees.

Yet not far from aydingkol is a surprise, a thriving human settlement in the desert. This is turpan oasis. And it’s famous in china for unexpected product-grapes. But how on earth can a water-hungry crop grow in such abundance in the desert? The secret lies below ground. A subterranean network of canals known as karez is used to channel water around turpan streets and into raving yards. But where does the water come from? The clue lies on the desert floor in these lines of holes which mark the course of the subterranean water ways. Over 2 millennia ago, local people carved more than 3000km of these canals beneath the desert diverting water from the distant mountains. Channeling the flow underground means that less water is lost to evaporation in the desert heat.

In August the grapes are harvested. This rich bounty has not go unnoticed. In the lush vineyards of turpan one animal is thriving. Red-tailed gerbils are hardy desert creatures, but those in turpan have never had it so good. Once the grapes have been picked, some are sold in the market, but most are hung up to dry in the special drying houses. This place is far too tempting for any rodent to resist. Red-tailed gerbils are excellent climbers. But why bother when there is plenty of bounty lying around on the ground unguarded. Rather than suffering the extreme environment in which they live, the wild life and people of turban have found innovative ways to cope with the conditions beyond the wall. But not all desert communities world are as resourceful as turpan.

Between here and china’s western borders lies the ruins of many great cities. In their day they were vibrant thriving places. But in the fifth century, the Silk Road fortunes took a turn for the worse. Once again, a princess was involved. She smuggled silkworm eggs out of china. the secret of silk was a secret no more. And china’s stranglehold on this lucrative trade was over. Even when marco polo passed along the silk road in the 13^th century, many of these cities had been died for over 500 years.

But the silk road’s most famous city managed to survive. Where the desert ends beneath vast mountain ranges, china’s western most point is only a stone’s throw from the borders of 5 central Asian countries. This is kashgar where east meets west. The silk that travelled along the Silk Road ended up here where it is still traded today. Kashgar is famous for selling everything under the sun. The local Sunday market is one of the Asia’s largest and most exuberant gatherings. But looking around the market it’s hard to believe you are actually in china. kashgar is a melting pot of non-Chinese ethnic people. Uyghurs, tajiks, kirghiz, Uzbeks and many others. Here, our journey heads northwards into one of china’s wildest places.