Tengger Desert, Inner Mongolia, June 2017
See 31 photos from a trip to the Tengger Desert that included 2 nights of camping, plus hiking, camel riding, and swimming!

The Tengger Desert is one of our favourite places to go outside of Beijing. As well as being able to trek, camp, and ride camels and jeeps way into the depths of the desert, you can also get a look at the pyramid-shaped tombs of the Western Xia.
This visit was a private trip for a group of friends from Chengdu. Click through to see all the photos!

A selfie to start the trip.

We took a stroll through a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.

The white stupa is a recent construction, funded by donations from a Buddhist businessman.

This compound belonged to the governor of the area, back in the Qing Dynasty.

The east gate of the old town of Bayanhot.

New buildings made to look like old buildings.

Into the desert!

Here’s Max, a keen photographer.

Sunset in the desert.

Fireworks in the desert.

We had a bonfire by our camp in the desert.

Roast mutton for lunch.

The drivers said this was the highest dune in the desert.

So we had to try running down it! (Better than climbing up...)

Following the ridge.

Colours of the desert.

Ready to slide down the dune.

A dune buggy.

Archery.

More martial arts.

Group shot using a drone.

We rode camels on the way out of the desert.

More BBQ mutton!

This oasis in the desert is called Moon Lake.

Hello, camel!

Time for a swim.

Diving in.

On the way back to Yinchuan we stopped for a look at the remains of some Great Wall.

The wall here is mostly made of rammed earth.

The wall here marks the border of Ningxia Province and Inner Mongolia.

The Western Xia Imperial Tombs.