The Taklimakan Desert

I didn’t find it easy to write about this Chinese desert, pictured above from space. Situated in the north west of the country and surrounded by some of the highest mountains in the world, including KR and Everest to the south, it is one of the largest shifting sand deserts in the world. In the path of the ancient Silk Road, it has two routes around it, one each to the north and south, with a number of oasis towns along the way, all with various tourist attractions within reach.

I started researching it a few weeks ago when it was one of the titles in a Helium competition, but I soon realised that I wasn’t going to meet the competition deadline with any chance of a prize. You need to post at least four competitive articles of really good quality to get enough points for that. I had only posted one other, about the giant pandas in the Bifeng Valley. (If you’d like to do me a favour, click on this link to head over there and read it. You might find it interesting.)

Anyway, at Constant Content, a client who publishes an ex-pat magazine in China is often looking for China travel features has bought several of mine in the past. So I decided not to waste my research, but to beef it up and submit an article there. I’ve been working on it for a couple of hours here and there ever since.

I finally completed, edited and proofed it today and it has now been submitted, awaiting approval. It’s really satisfying to get such a project under my belt, even if I can’t price it high enough to be a fair reward for my time. If I did, I can’t believe it would ever sell.

Such is life.