The national highway cutting through the endless desolate desert in Xinjiang.

The bus I was in broke down twice. Once here for half an hour, the other time near the gas station for more tban two hours.

Cargo trucks are a common sight throughout china's highways. The mobile workhorses of her growing economy. In the western regions it's easy to compare these trails of metal beasts to the camels that used to slave through the unbearable deserts. Now the camels are merely funny tourists sights. Their burden shifted to motor vehicles that move no faster than them.

A bathroom in the desert. Men on the left and women on the right. Inside are slots on the floor where the wastes can drop down a six-feet pit. I don't remember the length of the slots, but one can move back and forth only so much to awoid the historic craggy peaks rising from below. And being civilized, we cover and suffocate ourselves instead of just finding a beautiful spot in the open and enjoy the landscape in the process. There is of course no water here.

This is within Xinjiang. The only sign that people had been here is the existence of the electic posts. Such barren landscape is the norm for hundreds of kilometers.

The deserts here are not sandy, just alot of bare rocks. Some are probably leftovers from previous building projects.

Large rock formations.

These large rock formations look like fingers and knuckles rising out of the earth.

I shot through the window of the bus with my Pentax. I would stare at all the bumps and when the moment a bump match the size of my reflected iris on the window glass, I quickly slided the window open and clicked.

An oasis. I can't tell what's growing here. But there ought to be enough grass here for sheeps.

Inside one of the oasis town. The bus went round and round a number of these to drop off passengers right on their doorsteps.

One wonders how a single man can watch over a hundred sheep. But then again where can they go. Sheeps are the kind of animals that prefer to hang out together rather than to run free.

After a long time of nothing but rocks, the sudden greenery might give you a heart attack. This proves well that the earth a fluid thing. You squeexe one place, some other place gets it. However, this can be tragic, as shown by floods and drougbts, and now global warming. The difficult thing is to keep a balance.

There must be water spots scatter sparsely underground for these desert plants to grow and never touch one another.

The bus came to a long section of the highway that was either under repair or construction. Behind is a large field of windmills.

This is a large field of windpowered generators. They are huge. Their height is probably 10 meters or more, and their numbers probably reached 500.

In this type road and climate, I don't see how the trucks can be any better than camels. The vehicles move no faster. But I guess the humans got more comfortable now that they have less direct exposure to the elements.

The unbearable chill and lonliness of the landscape can bring the poet out of anyone.

The picture looks quiet, but the sound construction machines and the rumblings of the cargo trucks and buses as well as the loud chattings made it feel like midtown rush hour.

In the backgound are the silhouettes of construction machines and workers' tents.

It's easy to romanticize the eerie beauty of such an inhospitable landscape, but probably difficult to explain why.

There's probably treasures beneath this place if you are willing to imagine it.