Daban town is famous for girls and windmills, while Loulan is a myth in the desert.

While Daban town is always associated with the happy melody of the famous folk song "Daban girls", Loulan is a mysterious place, regarded as the Middle Kingdom's "Pompeii" and an ancient cradle of civilization.

Meaning "a passage to get through", Daban town is situated about 90 kilometers south of Urumqi, right in a valley on the east ridge of Tianshan Mountain.

It's not the only place in Xinjiang with this name, but it is this town which features in Mr. Wang Luobin's song, making this Daban a must stop for every Chinese traveler. Halfway between downtown Urumqi and Daban, there is a great backdrop for picture buffs, the wind power plant. This is the largest wind power plant in the whole of Asia! Local people say even trucks can be blown off wheels when the wind gets up to full speed, although the wind only blows half a year here, from winter to summer.

Over eighty percent of the local population belong to the Hui Ethic group, who share customs similar to the Uygur people. They serve up plenty of mouth-watering Hui specialties, such as yogurt, dumplings and fried noodles. Moreover, when it comes to food for the brain, the fascinating history of Daban is a good starting point. Specifically, try starting at Baishui Fort Relics, just five kilometers out of town.

This site used to be an ancient fortress during the Tang Dynasty, yet now the local government has rebuilt it into a theme park, where you can get a pretty good insight into the local people's life style.

Guarding the middle route of the Silk Road thousand years ago, Baishui Fort is located right on the demarcation line of North and South Xinjiang.

Even today, you can still identify the rammed earth walls of this fortress, which was built on a single piece of black rock, and surrounded by Baishui Creek, or White water Creek.

"Daban Girls" is the first Uygur folk song Wang Luobin adapted into Chinese, and probably the most popular one.

From Daban, we move to another ancient small town, Loulan.

An ancient city in the Lop Nur, Loulan was first "discovered" by Swedish explorer Sven Hedin in 1900. The finding of Loulan brought new and unexpected glory to the ancient history of Central Asia and was something of a prelude to the exploration of Taklamakan Desert.

It wasn't hard to imagine how excited Sven Hedin must have been when he was awarded the Victoria Medal by the Royal Geography Association. More importantly, from that point on, the mysterious veil of Loulan was lowered, making it an instant worldwide sensation. Adventurers from America, Britain, Japan and Sweden, all set foot here. Then in the 1930s, Chinese archaeologist Huang Wenbi came to Luolan for the first time and made a survey of the area, which even then was in a terrible condition, with many exquisite relics wantonly excavated and carted off to foreign lands.

In 1979, a group of tombs called the Sun Tombs, known for their unique and spectacular burial forms, were excavated in the Gumugou Graveyard, the public graveyard of the Lop Nur inhabitants in the Bronze Age.

Then, in the early 1980s, in the Tiebanhe River Delta area of the lower reaches of the Peafowl River in Lop Nur, a female mummy dating back some 3,800 years was unearthed and was dubbed as the "Loulan Beauty". This set off a wave of new exploration on the Silk Road, which continues till this day.

Situated on the eastern edge of the Tarim Basin and northwest of the Lop Nur area, the Loulan Kingdom is now a lifeless zone with endless "forests" of mounds rarely seen in other parts of the world. The scene here is desolate, with scattered ruins of the Silk Road accompanied by vast petroleum and mineral resources deep below the earth. The area still possesses a shroud of mystery, clearly the lure which has attracted so many people from so many countries.

The ancient city of Loulan was the capital of Loulan Kingdom during the Han and Jin Dynasties, and covered an area of some 100,000 sq. metres.

Inside the city, there are the ruins of government offices, civilian dwellings, Buddhist pagodas and temples. In the suburbs there are the remnants of meandering dried rivers, ditches and farmland while in the north of the city one can see scattered ancient tombs, stupas and beacon towers. Surrounding the whole city, there are dozens of temples, residential houses and graveyards.

In the ruins of the City of Loulan, a substantial number of cultural relics were unearthed, including Han Dynasty coins, bronze mirrors and lacquer ware as well as woolen fabrics in Greek and Roman styles. These all reflect the once flourishing social status of Loulan and the constant business exchanges between East and West.

However, a trip to the Ancient City of Loulan is not recommended to casual tourists, since the journey is difficult and the environment harsh. If you are still determined to go, please heed the following tips:

1. Vehicles can go no closer than 18 kilometers to the ruins of the ancient city, and you will have to finish the rest of the journey by foot or by camel.

2. The best time to visit Loulan is during mid-April and mid-October, when it is less windy in the desert.

3. You must have company and several off-road vehicles to go to Loulan. Other necessities include a car-repair kit, GPS, satellite phone and medicine, as well as enough water and food to last for at least 15 days.

Finally, the temperature difference between day and night can be huge in the desert, so make sure you have appropriate clothing. If the worse comes to the worst, it's also a good idea for your clothes and tents to be a striking color so that rescuers can spot them easily.

Editor: Wing