"To Beijing" we tell the post office clerk.

Inside the package is every item we can sacrifice: notes, address books, cotton shirts, anything to make room for water. It was practical to carry all these items from Beijing, now 4,500 kilometres to the east, with water comparatively easy to find.

But the next thousand kilometres will be desert, the route in some places free of towns for 200-kilometre-or-greater stretches, according to each of our three maps of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.

Xinjiang is home to the famous Taklimikan and Lop Nor deserts. It's also home to one-fifth of China's land area. Separating it from the Tibetan Plateau to the south are the soaring Altun and Kunlun mountains. To its west are Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan; to the north, Russia; and to the east, Mongolia and the rest of China.

Our route follows the ancient Silk Road, upon which caravans carried spices and silk to Europe. The original route of the Silk Road -- across the Lop Nor Desert and skirting the southern edge of the Taklimikan Desert -- was abandoned in favour of a northern route due to the peril involved in crossing the Lop Nor.

In his 13th-century account of crossing the southern route, Marco Polo describes the passage of caravans through the Lop Nor Desert. "Before they went to bed, caravans left signs pointing in the direction of their travel. Bells were attached to animals to prevent them from wandering off."

We want to follow the southern route of the Silk Road, now a road marked "313" on the map. Sure, it is dotted very sparsely by towns, but there are enough to make it possible. With more room in our panniers, we can fill each of our three 3-litre water bladders and two 1-litre water bottles, and still have room to carry food.

The parcel we ship to Beijing includes a note to the recipient, a close friend:

Mark -- Here's the latest batch of shit we're trying to ditch. We've made it to Dunhuang and are slimming down to the bare essentials for this last stretch in Xinjiang. We're trying to make room in the panniers so we can carry food, since the distances between inhabited areas are getting longer and longer. Scott and I are enclosing 4 rolls of print film. We're sending slide film to Will in Xi'an. Don't worry about getting the films developed -- we'll do that when we return to Beijing. We just don't want them to be confiscated if we get searched in Xinjiang. Please put the films and Camelbak cases with our shit in the old storage room. Sat on the biggest sand dune I've ever seen in my life. The moon is almost full now, and it's so freaky I couldn't even describe it. Hope the dunes are like this in Xinjiang. Tell Jackie I said Hi. Take care, dude. -- Brice

On day 60 of our journey from Beijing, we set off from an outpost called Dunhuang in search of Highway 313 and the Desert of Lop. (Click on any picture to see a large version)

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