Taklamakan Desert

The name alone promises an unparalleled adventure—loosely translated, it means the 'place of no return'. As the local story goes, the Taklamakan Desert was created by god for the imprisonment of a local Turkic man's youngest daughter, who lost the key to a great house of treasure, given to the people by god. Vast numbers of mummies discovered in the Taklamakan Desert region show that Turkic, Chinese, Mongol and Tibetan people resided here at different times in the smattering of oasis towns. Despite being a place made up almost completely of stormy, shifting sands, the Taklamakan Desert was already inhabited at least 4000 years ago by Tocharians. Ancient Buddhist cities and temples containing priceless artefacts skirt the edges, most notably the carved grottoes at Dunhuang, labelled by archaeologists as the greatest single source of Buddhist art in the world.