China - detour to Beijing

Zamyn Uud lies in the Gobi desert, on the border with China. It is a small town and everywhere the inhospitable desert is felt. The gers are dirty and worn - marked by the sandstorms endured and indicative of a new permanence for which the structures were never designed. For, though Zamyn Uud exudes no sense of comfort, it is easier surely to stay here - to huddle like fat white penguins around the border's trade - than to return to old lives. To face once again a nomadic existence and live from a land that gives so little.

I entered China with little expectation. My last week in Mongolia impressed upon me a picture of a treacherous and uncompromising landscape: a place where the environment dictates the actions of people and not the other way around. It must be impossible to live differently. 'My idea of China must be hundreds of miles away', I thought; 'far beyond the desert. It is simply too hard to sustain that image here.'

It was a shock then to find Erlian, on the other side of the border, appearing to me as the most modern, commercially thriving town since Western Europe. The central square lay, a wide open expanse of polished stone. Trees grew amongst water features, their leaves vibrant and green, and the red rectangle of material with the little yellow stars on it, seemed proudly to declare as it danced in the heat of a Gobi breeze "This is China - we will have water fountains and ponds in the middle of the desert; our strength will allow you to forget the desert's heat and the sand that whips, and thirst and hunger too. This is China - look what we can do!"

It was impossible not to feel the energy of people. As though the heat served no longer to lull the body into laziness, but sparked a fire instead: to chase after all of capitalism's joys and to run from its discontents.

As darkness came the air fell thick - with the sweet smells of sugar and roasting peanuts - the scent of meat and spitting fat - of chilli that caught in the back of the throat and of pepper that drew water from eyes. Fresh sticky rice lent its earthy sweetness to olfactory senses and smoke swam in the warm evening air.

Everywhere a frenetic excitement filled the streets. People sold cold beer and kebabs. Photographs and plastic toys. Garish fairground rides and children playing in the square saturated the town with noise. And later it became apparent that bodies here were for sale as well.

The next day it came almost as a surprise to find the desert still there, beyond the boundaries of the town. But now the expanse slipped by, viewed from a smooth, tarmac road. And the emptiness now was interrupted. Always by telephone and electric wires, but often, too, by power stations or factories. Or with edifices unidentifiable to those without Mandarin.

Though the roads were a welcome change, I felt no longer part of the desert in the same way. From the smooth surface of the road, and scarred everywhere by the impact of humans, the desert seemed dull. And I was pleased to be continuing south.