13/3/07 Driving across the Chinese Nullarbor

I'm now sitting in a 'Western' cafe in Dun Huang 敦煌 close to the Gansu/Xinjiang border - I guess this is the furthest west I'll get in China this time. Dunhuang is a rural town in the middle of the desert - I'm almost certain we drove past the vicinity of a nuclear testing ground today. Remember how I wrote yesterday that there was a vast nothingness beyond Jiayuguan fort - well we drove into that vast emptiness today. It was 400km of sand-dunes, sand-storms, tumbleweed and the odd China-Mobile mobile reception tower. I was really amazed when Dunhuang appeared out of nowhere - first we saw teenagers out on bicycles on the highway in the desert, then some small farms and then 5 minutes later out of nowhere the gates to a settlement in the desert. I'm guessing the us ride was what driving across the Nullarbor would be like - just hours and hours along a straight road through a desert!



Believe it or not I was sitting next to an Accenture employee on the bus! She recognised the logo on my backpack as I'm carrying my shitty - falling to bits - Accenture backpack as hand luggage. She was a lone backpacker as well who works in the Shanghai office in the Financial Services group as a consultant. I found her demeanor a bit offputting which is not surprising as she's a Tsinghua grad. haha I guess in a company with 100,000+ employees worldwide I was bound to run into one sooner or later on my travels but I never would've guessed it would be out on the edges of the Taklamakan Desert - still it was interesting to talk to her about her travels and working life - they work very long hours for slightly above average pay, a familiar story...



The long hours on the bus also gave me time to finish 'Angels and Demons' by Dan Brown. Quite a thrilling read and quite fitting as I'm going to see some thousand year old Buddhist frescoes tomorrow and the book has encouraged me to take more of an interest in ancient religious art and the symbolism behind it!