Into the desert

There's a patch of desert, real honest-to-goodness desert in Hebei province that is not terribly far from where we live. It is called Tianmo, and thanks to Immersion Guide's Excursion Guide we were able to find our way there. Well, that book and our GPS. Several times we were forced off the road the book recommended because of construction.

We passed so many wind turbines. It is an incredibly windy place, this part of Hebei. However, the proximity to the desert makes it less-than-ideal for wind turbines.

Over the past few years we've been given as gifts and purchased several China and Beijing guidebooks. The only one we have that mentions Tianmo desert is the one from Excursion Guide. How long this desert has been here, and why it is here, so far from the Gobi it is like a little lost child of the larger desert. This website, though, says that Tianmo has been here since the early Qing Dynasty, and scientists still debate its origin. However, a drive through this part of Hebei province easily shows that there is definitely a drought and that desert is not getting any smaller.

Myles loved climbing the dunes. He has been interested in traveling to the Gobi, mostly because there have been dinosaur fossil finds there.

He was surprised, though, that it was still a cold wintry day out there in the dunes. "I thought deserts were supposed to be hot," he kept saying.
In the warmer months there are apparently all kinds of touristy activities at Tianmo including camel rides and dune buggies. Since we chose to go on such a cold day, we pretty much had the dunes to ourselves. Well, except for the movie crew on the next dune.

Tianmo is very popular for movie and television productions. Many Chinese movies have used this location, as well as one of Brendan Fraser's Mummy movies.

We didn't spend that much time here. It was so cold and so windy that we quickly had our fill. We could not do much more than 40 minutes on a day like Saturday, let alone 40 days.