Inner Mongolia is a Chinese province that shares the vast Gobi desert and an immense area of dusty grassland with the country of Outer Mongolia to the north. It’s said that Inner Mongolia is so barren, that if you want to hang yourself you have to walk a hundred miles to find a tree.
Inner Mongolia has several large deserts, many of which extend into the neighboring Qing Hai and Xin Jiang provinces as well as into the bordering state of Mongolia.
The largest one is the Badain Jaran Desert, but from Inner Mongolia's two biggest cities Hohhot (Huhehaote) and Baotou, the Kubuqi Desert is the one that is most easily accessible to tourists.
Kubuqi dessert (meaning ‘bowstring’ in Mongolian) extends for about 400 kilometres along the Yellow River, but only few places are accessible to tourists.
The most famous one is the Resonant Sand Gorge or Xiang Sha Wan, which is a canyon, with colorful rock formations at the one side and a steep and enormous sand dune of about 110 meters at the other.
The Resonant Sand Gorge carries this odd name, because it is said that the echo of the sand that moves in wind creates a 'Shhhh...' sound that reverberates through the gorge.
When we arrived at the parking area, the sun was low at the horizon (it was about 4pm).
These are our pictures:
