To celebrate that I’d finally secured a job in Beijing, Hannah and I thought we should go on yet another holiday. Having never been to a desert before (unless you count sailing down the Nile through the Sahara as going to the desert - I don't) we decided that we'd go to the Gobi desert in Inner Mongolia (curiously, Outer Mongolia is a country in its own right, whereas Inner Mongolia is a Chinese province, although both speak the same language). We both liked the idea of sitting by an oasis and looking out at the sand dunes as they flowed to the horizon and beyond.

However, the only trip we could find involved visiting Ningxia beforehand; the province directly to the south of Inner Mongolia. When we arrived we were told that the town we were to be staying in, Yinchuan, was only 50 years old and that we would shortly be visiting all the tourist attractions it had to offer. Now, my parents are both older than 50 and I don't consider either of them to be tourist attractions and I'm pretty certain that most people wouldn't pay a premium to fly out and visit them in the hope of seeing something historically interesting! I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to learn that this new city had been set up near several ancient Chinese points of interest, including a section of the Great Wall of China. So, we got off the plane and headed straight for the western section of the wall. Unlike the Great Wall near Beijing, this part of it has not been renovated at all and just looks like a rather large sandcastle built by a few kids. It was, however, strong enough for us to walk on but since it had almost completely fallen apart, most of us did enough to stand there and have a photo taken before scarpering to safety in case more of it collapsed.

We were also taken to the Oriental Pyramids; China's answer to the Great Pyramids of Giza. These aren't quite as majestic as those in Egypt but they are about as old. They were constructed between the 21st and 16th century BC, making them at their oldest over 4000 years old. They were built for the same reasons as those in Egypt; tombs for the emperors, in this case the emperors of the Xia Dynasty. Set against a background of the Helan Mountains, they still look very impressive.

While all of these sites were worth visiting, everyone in the tour group was most looking forward to the Gobi Desert. The following day we embarked on a two and a half hour drive through the Helan Mountains and on into the desert. The mountain scenery was spectacular and despite the early start, every single person in the coach was wide awake, not wanting to miss the visual glory passing in front of their eyes. Once we had successfully passed through the mountains, the road began to disappear, erased by the desert as the dunes made their slow progress across the arid land. The vehicle we were in was not built for this kind of journey, but this seemed not to bother the driver, who ploughed through the sand at top speed, as though he were driving on the smoothest of black tops.

Just as people were starting to get a little scared, fearing that before long we would be rolling to our deaths in the bus and left as carcasses for the vultures to find, we pulled over and swapped vehicles. We unloaded our luggage and set it in a military style four wheel drive truck, which we learned was going to take us through the desert to our hotel by the Moon Lake oasis. The roads at this point were completely non-existent and so it was with mixed feelings of excitement and trepidation that everyone boarded these quite old but sturdy looking transports looking forward to a journey through the deserts of Tatooine (well, that’s what I was thinking anyway).

Once everyone was aboard we were told that the final leg of our desert jaunt was to take approximately one hour and that we should all enjoy the ride. We were also told that the drivers, all of whom were Mongolian, were very experienced at desert driving but that they also liked to entertain their passengers. If we wanted to go faster, all we had to do was shout and he'd put his foot down. Off we set, barrelling through the dunes, everyone screaming for the driver to ignore all pedals that didn't make the truck go faster. It was pretty exhilarating sitting in a military off road vehicle as we carved through the Gobi desert at speeds too high to survive if we crashed. We also managed to spot some rather odd sights; road signs in the middle of the desert. Obviously we knew they were put there for the benefit of the drivers of these off-roaders but it still made everyone double take to make sure they weren't seeing mirages.

We arrived at our hotel, shaken, but still in one piece and had a quick walk around the lake. It is quite strange being in the middle of a vast expanse of nothingness but also strangely peaceful. No-one and nothing could touch us where we were, and we felt like we were the last humans on Earth. An early night was called for since we'd been travelling for quite a while and we had an early start to our final day.

Even though we had breakfasted by 8am, the heat was fast working its way towards intense, but none of us really seemed to mind. We were going on an hour’s trek across the desert on camels and everyone was looking forward to it. Riding a camel is a lot more difficult than it looks, though. Staying on while the camel rises from its kneeling position is the hardest part and it takes a good five or ten minutes before you get used to the way the camel walks as it trudges through the sand. It has strangely rolling gait and it takes ten minutes or so to adjust your balance and feel confident that you won't be falling off during the ride. And then, just when things are as comfortable as they are likely to get, the rolling sand dunes come into play and ruin everything. These dunes were higher than I thought they’d be, making for tricky riding when the camel is climbing up the face of them and almost terrifying when the camel is descending. Everyone was told that the camels were as sure footed as mountain goats and would never get close to falling over but it doesn’t feel like that when the two humped beast almost skids down a large dune. I found myself hanging on for dear life on more than one occasion and my legs and hands were becoming unpleasantly sweaty where I was gripping the camel. Despite the frequent moments of terror, the ride was immensely enjoyable and the various views of the rolling ridges and the Moon Lake oasis were stunning. Having said all that, I was quite glad when the ride ended because it had become almost unbearably hot and my backside felt like I had been in prison for a couple years, having been cast down along with the sodomites.

The desert at night is just as spectacular, although for slightly different reasons. The night sky is so clear and so populated with stars that it almost seems as if the big black blanket that is the sky is about to tear in hundreds of places, allowing the light shining behind it to flood out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars at once and, for the first time, I also managed to see the Milky Way, the galaxy our own tiny planet is situated in. It is a breathtaking view.

The journey back to civilization was just as exciting as the trip into the desert and the mountain scenery just as amazing but I was unable to dwell too much on the weekend; for the first time in 8 months, I was preparing myself for work the next day. And I found myself strangely excited by this.