The oasis town of Dunhuang marks the meeting point of the northern and southern Taklamakan silk roads and with huge sand dunes dominating the view to the south it has a certain desert feel. Unfortunately its isolation has not stopped the coach loads of Chinese tourists, and the desert have been turned into a theme park with pink plastic road trains ferrying the hordes from the entrance to the base of the giant dunes. After being caught three times trying to skirt around the fence in an effort to avoid the crowds, we decided to bite the bullet and pay the extortionate entrance fee. Having cycled across 4000km of desert we thought it was about time for a camel ride and the hour of lurching around convinced us that we had chosen the more comfortable form of transport.

The Mogao caves are the reason for Dunhuang's fame and are a spectacular sight even after a heavy session and three hours sleep (the barman had gone to bed by the time we finished up!) The 1000 year old man made caves are the first known Buddhist temples in China and have been added to over the centuries so that today one can follow the gradual evolution of Chinese religious art. Silk road traders endowed temples to ensure the success of their caravans and the money was spent on artists and craftsmen who painted frescoes and copied holy texts and it was from here that Buddhism spread to the rest of China. As the silk road traffic dwindled the caves were sealed up and forgotten until they were stumbled upon in 1900 by a wandering monk. Aurel Stein, a Hungarian explorer employed by the British, heard rumours of the caves and in 1907 bought thousands of priceless manuscripts for the British Museum for the equivalent of 130 pounds. The Chinese are obviously a little bitter about this and they are campaigning for their return, but even they acknowledge that if the treasures had not been removed they would have certainly have been lost in the tumultuous years of the 20th century.

Buddha is obviously pleased with the attention we have been giving him and with all the biscuits we have made as offerings along the road, and as a reward he has provided us with a stonking tailwind for the last few days. With a trip record of 215km (133 miles) on the day out of Dunhuang being followed up with 170km (105 miles), we arrived in Jiayuguan a day ahead of schedule. It is from a fortress just outside of town that the Great Wall begins its 6000km meander to the Pacific Ocean and Jiayuguan was therefore considered as the last outpost of the empire; the point at which the civilized world ended and the terrifying wilderness began.

The fortress contains three Ming dynasty pagodas and from the walls there are magnificent views of the mountains that rise up to the Tibetan plateau to the south and the start of the merciless Gobi desert to the North. Between these impenetrable natural obstacles runs the Hexi Corridor, a narrow strip of land that travellers to or from the West have always been channelled through. On entering the corridor the landscape has became less yellow and more green, and the tree lined road took us through quiet villages and past small fields of sunflowers and maize.

It is hard to escape the fact that the media here is heavily censored, indeed if we keep up with the political comments even chinacycle.co.uk might be blocked by the 'Great Firewall of China'. The majority of the news is a very dull update of what President Hu Jintao has been up to, followed up by Chinese sporting successes. The subjects of Japanese wartime atrocities and Taiwan are particularly sensitive; if they are mentioned on CCTV9, the state English speaking news channel, then a short educational broadcast after the news will provide 'information' on just how bad the Nanjing massacre was or exactly how 'One country two systems' works.

We are now in Zhangye, a town where Marco Polo stayed for an entire year. Perhaps it was a bit more interesting back then because we managed to see all the sights in a morning. Apart from a Buddhist monastery containing a 34m reclining Buddha (sadly covered in scaffolding), the town is typically modern and dull. The modern Chinese town is based upon a grid, with wide streets and cycle lanes. Cleaners keep the streets spotless and there is a little traffic, mainly because private car ownership is prohibitively expensive. The cycle lanes, however, are well used and it seems that everybody has either a bicycle, moped or rickshaw. Most buildings look like they have been put up within the last couple of years and although they are not ugly, it is a shame that the Chinese architects have an obsession with tiling the outsides with glossy white tiles.

After so many miles of flat desert we are now longing for some hills so we are going to head south into the Qilian mountains. Hopefully this small detour will provide us with some more interesting scenery as well as a taste of Tibetan culture. Finally, we would like to give a big thank you to all those who went along to the Manor Farm Treasure Hunt, 2300 pounds is absolutely fantastic and it means we will hopefully hit the 20,000 mark by Beijing!