Like the storm surge of a petrified ocean, dunes a thousand feet tall roll across northern China's Alashan Plateau. Salty spring-fed lakes stud this corner of the Gobi like colored jewels. Nuoertu, it is the biggest pearl in the sand sea.
        
Compared with other deserts of the world, one specialty of the Badain Jaran desert is the existence of numerous permanent lakes among the dunes. However, some of the lakes even dried up completely. At present, the largest one is Nuoertu, which is 1.5 km?in area and 26 m in depth. Walking along the lake, it will take two hours and a half to circle around.
        
There's no reason to hurry, traveling in the Badain Jaran is a nice adventure. Gradually, one will get used to this local rhythm of life and start to see the real: isolate, hot and beautiful…… But sand is never easy walking, and climbing each dunes pitched face is exhausting. Sweat stings the eyes and soaks the shirt. However, after standing atop a dune, you share back at your progress and will discover that you've entered a vast sand mountainscape. The sand mountains are draped in a dozen shades of saturated yellow beneath a clear blue sky. Bellowing us, Nuoertu, like a huge sapphire, is set in a bowl-shaped valley. At the valley's northern end, fringed in rich green grasses and reeds. Sheep and goats drift across the dune hillsides, eating the sagebrush-like artemisia that grows on them. Camels and a few horses graze near the lakeshore. And at the far end of the lake, all alone, sits a pair of small square blockhouse.
        
In the evening, you may lie on the warm sand, which is sunlit in the daytime:

           "I have the largest house in the World
            Under the young moon.
            My house has no doors and no windows. 
            It has no walls and no locks.
            Its ceiling is painted with stars.
            Its floor is embroidered with sand.
            My cozy and comfortable place."