Qiemo is an oasis town along the southeastern rim of the Taklamakan Desert in southern Xinjiang. It is another place in this part of China, which can be quite hard to get to without encountering problems. The desert surrounds the city and it would seem to be within an easy reach, however it is not. That handful amount of tourist who come here organise transportation to the dunes and as every foreigner are forced to pass checkpoints before leaving the city, which is typical enough for Xinjiang. To get out of the city on foot, we had to wake up at 3 am and quietly sneak through the roadblocks. Because of its size, the dunes appeared to be close by, but this was illusory and we had to walk about two hours to reach them and the same back. It was worth it.
