Hope in the Desert
cctv.com 09-01-2005 15:41
Upon returning from a 5 day journey to the desert in Inner Mongolia I realized how absolutely fantastic it was! I had such a great trip and did and saw things I鈥檝e never done or seen before. Had some different food and met all kinds of different people. As always, the many great things about travelling! I went to a part of the desert in Inner Mongolia called the Kubuqi Desert and touched the soft sand under the scorching heat. I truly felt like I was in another world. It was so quiet and in the evening got quite chilly. Any worries you may have had would certainly have been the last thing on your mind as you stumbled along this uneven land. I went to a small oasis called Engebei which was a lovely part, with a river going through the middle of the desert in which you could take a speedboat ride. I didn't realize how hard it would be to walk up sand dunes or even on flat desert land?! It looks so soft and welcoming but in fact is a harsh and cruel working and living environment.
We flew into Baotu, and then went straight to Engebei, where many Japanese people go regularly to plant trees in the Kubuqi Desert. A Japanese man named Mr. Toyama lived in China for the last twenty years of his life in Engebei planting trees in the surrounding desert. People followed him and now there are groups of them, mainly Japanese coming to China every week to help plant trees. Whilst I was there, I watched them planting them and within an hour they had already planted just over a hundred saplings! Incredible! I even planted one!
Apart from camels, this area is rife in Ostriches. They were mostly small ones but I did see one which they said was African and it was LARGE!!!! It got close to our cameraman and then got frightened and opened its wings to run away! Well, the span of its wings was incredible!!! An absolutely HUGE bird!!! I am not quite sure what they do with them though. They are in a safari kind of park free to run around but it doesn't look like that place gets very many visitors! All my meals in Engebei consisted of ostrich, which was a little unbearable once I'd seen them face to face. I stopped eating it鈥t felt too cruel.
My fondest memory of the desert is the desert itself. It is an amazing place to be where you become worry free as you trek along the sand. It is such a beautiful and tranquil place to be that you forget what trouble it is causing to the people who live here and the economy. Due to the site's proximity to the Maowusu Desert and Kubuqi Desert, desertification and soil erosion are threats. The wetland area is also diminishing through the increasing extraction of groundwater. This is all very grave news to my ears as I was wondering through what seems to be a paradise.
Editor:Hu Hang Source:CCTV.com
