JERKING his Beijing 212 jeep around a hair-pin bend, Wang Xin Wu said: ''I'm a Chinese cowboy. I can do anything except bear a child.'' Machismo, a mistress and mao tai are Mr Wang's fuel as he manoeuvres around ruts, ravines and rivers on the quickly disintegrating road - at the end of ''road season'' - to the middle of nowhere.
''Nowhere'' is Xinjiang's Kanas Nature Preserve, nestled in a forgotten triangle of China's most western province.
Slightly closer to Hong Kong than Moscow as the crow flies, Kanas has evolved from military outpost to natural neutral zone within the past two years. Until last year, Chinese army units kept a watchful eye across the Buerjin River into Kazakhstan.
Now, the only visible military presence is an abandoned watch tower which overlooks a prosperous Kazakh horse farm in the adjoining valley. Borders have disappeared and relations have continued to thaw since the establishment of the Confederation of Independent States, formerly the Soviet Union.
In this pristine frontier without fences, trading gun-fire has been replaced with trading horses - and the odd bottle of vodka and pack of cigarettes.
''Borders don't mean very much around here,'' said Mr Li, a Han Chinese ''settler'' who lives year round surrounded by the reserve's snow-capped peaks, sweeping grasslands and network of glacial green rivers.
With his Kazakh wife and the product of their cross-cultural contact - two-year-old Oscar - Mr Li runs a log cabin homestead, one of three rustic accommodations available to people travelling without their yurt.