The last few weeks have seen a somewhat different challenge to the mountain passes of Kyrgyzstan. The Taklamakan desert is the second largest in the world, covering an area more than twice that of England. You'd be forgiven if your first thought about cycling 1400km across it was 'that sounds bloody tedious', and to be fair it hasn't exactly been the most varied of scenery. The iPods have been getting plenty of use across the vast expanses of nothingness, and the rare appearance of green on the horizon marking an oasis town is a truly welcome sight, not least for the prospect of a shower. At the same time though, the remoteness is definitely part of the attraction; there's something strangely satisfying about cycling across the middle of nowhere with little but sand and rocks to one side and a jagged mountain ridge to the other. Although the main road skirts the slightly less desolate northern edge of the desert, it is still rather sparsely inhabited; sometimes we can cycle well over 100km between hamlets, which once we reach them are nothing but a few ramshackle huts including the all important cafe. The lack of supply stops, combined with the searing heat, mean that we have been carrying a huge amount of food and water on the bikes; at times up to 40kg worth between us.

With the road lying just where hot deserts meet high mountains, we have experienced some pretty extreme weather conditions of late. For the initial three days out of Kashgar, we were treated to sandstorms every evening. The first of these caught us unawares, and we were still on our bikes when the storm hit, reducing visibility to just a few meters on the rare occasions when you could open your eyes enough to see anything. After this we quickly learnt to recognise the telltale yellow clouds on the horizon, and make a desperate rush to a cafe if we happened to be near one, or to get the tents up if we weren't. I don't think I'll ever forget the experience of waking up to find face, pillow and everything else in the tent covered with a thick layer of dust - the mesh tent walls are no impediment to the finer dust. Recently the sandstorms have abated only to be replaced by regular lightning storms. Fortunately these have never been very close, and provide a stunning spectacle as the sheet lightning lights up the night sky all around us.

Sandstorms aside, the camping on this stretch has been a real highlight. It's a delight to camp in true isolation, miles from any settlements, especially now that the days are long enough for us to sit around outside in the evening after cooking dinner, watching the often spectacular sunsets. Once the sunset is over we are then treated to a fantastic view of the stars - with no major sources of light pollution for hundreds of kilometers around, you can see amazing details of galaxies and shooting stars.

Since we will be in China for longer than any other country, we've been trying to make a bit more effort to learn the language. So far this has been rather complicated by the fact that the vast majority of people here aren't actually Chinese as we know it, but Uyghur - a Turkic race who have much more in common with the people of Central Asia than the Han Chinese (ie 'normal' Chinese), both visually and linguistically. Unfortunately this also means that most cafes still serve the same noodle and gristly mutton concoction - laghman - that we ate all across Central Asia. Although the Uyghur version of this dish is definitely superior to the rest of Central Asia, a little more variety wouldn't go amiss. Fortunately for us, the government policy of Han migration into this region mean that there are a few Han restaurants around which we actively seek out. As well as serving more varied food, they seem very eager to please, often putting on English music videos in honour of our visit - anything from Michael Jackson classics to 80's aerobics videos!

Of the few oasis towns we have passed through since Kashgar, only Aksu stands out as worthy of note - upon our arrival we were intercepted by an Uyghur man who taught English at a local school, eager to help us find a hotel. He must have been pretty keen to practise his English - personally I'd have run a mile if confronted by such a filthy and smelly group of cyclists as we were at the time. Once we'd showered and finished removing sand from various orifices, we met up with Muhtar and his sister Maryam, who very kindly took us out to dinner. They also pointed out that the following day would be Party Day - our initial excitement at the prospect of this was muted when we realised it just meant Chinese Communist Party self congratulation day, rather than the mardi gras we had optimistically envisaged. A photo shoot with a local journalist as we left, watched by a crowd of gawping onlookers several people deep, completed an enjoyable stopover.

We are currently taking a couple days out relaxing in Turfan, a pleasantly green oasis town at the edge of a large depression - actually the second lowest point on earth, after the bottom of the Dead Sea, at around 150m below sea level. Unfortunately this also means it's rather warm - over 40 degrees when we arrived. Tomorrow we'll be back on the bikes to head to Dunhuang, just 800km or so down the road.