In many people's minds, the desert is a silent place which contains little or no signs of life. Last Thursday was the closing ceremony of the 11th All China Secondary Schools Students' Games in Inner Mongolia, but Young Post decided not to go shopping and souvenir-buying.
Instead, we followed the Hong Kong basketball and boys' volleyball teams to the Singing Sand Ravine, a scenic tourist site in the Kubuqi Desert. It is about an hour away from Baotou city centre and is quite unknown to most people.
The athletes brought laughs and cheers to the land of absolute silence. All the athletes were happy and carefree while visiting the desert. After focusing on the competition for more than 10 days, they could finally relax and enjoy themselves. Competitions for the three teams (boys' and girls' basketball and boys' volleyball) had finished the day before.
Basketball player Karton Ma Ho-chun was very excited about his desert visit.
'I thought nothing lived in the desert and I really enjoyed the endless scenic view of the sand,' said the Form Five student from La Salle College. 'I used the desert kart, which was really fast. But the most exciting part of the tour was probably the sand skiing. We skied down a slope really fast.'
A sand skier slides down a sand dune on a wooden tray, clutching their haversacks to their chest.
