Taklamakan Desert, China

my next card is a great official I received from China....

CN-410694

The card shows camels in the Taklamakan Desert, which is situated in the northwest of China, in the XinJian region.

The vastness of deserts has always amazed me....as well as the fear of 'would i be able to find my way if i ever get lost in one'. It is a public secret that i am terrible in orienteering myself..even with a map and buildings around which serve as key points..you know that saying "Why men don't listen and women can't read maps?"...well it is perfectly applicable to me, so if you let me lead you somewhere which is not my hometown, make sure, you're gonna get lost...so it's up to you to take the risk :)

now, looking at this map and the journey on it, reminds me of something i watched not so long ago, about a group of Chinese students going to school and the road they take in order to get there....you don't need to understand Chinese in order to understand the video....and after you watch it, maybe next time you complain your way to school/work is difficult, think about the kids here....and if you had ever actually had to endure something even close to this to get to where you had set off....and lest not forget, it is children we are talking about here

there are four great stamps on the card...ok, the right one is already preprinted, matching the postcard. as for the other three..the one next to it was issued in 1993 in a set of two camels' stamps. The birds are definitives from a set of 3 issued in 2002, while the last stamp was issued in 1998 and is a joint issue with Switzerland

Desert in Libya

Well, maybe it is not the most appropriate season of the year to be posting desert pictures, but it might feel nice too all of you out there who have snow and very cold temperatures...so maybe a glimpse at this card will take your thoughts away and once you realize how it would be to be trapped in a desert, all of a sudden the snow and freezing temps wont feel so bad :)

The Libyan Desert is part of the Sahara. It covers some 1,300,000 km2 in Libya, Egypt, and Sudan and consists mainly of gravelly plains, rock outcrops, and vast areas of shifting sand dunes. Elevations generally vary from 150 to 900 m. In the northeast, in Egypt, the Qattara Depression drops to 133 m below sea level - one of the lowest points in Africa.

The Libyan Desert is extremely dry; it often receives no rain for several years at a time. Nomadic herders traverse the region, but permanent habitation is possible only at scattered oases. The northern part of the desert was the scene of intense fighting during World War II.

The desert features a striking diversity of landscapes including mountains like Jebel Uweinat (1980 m), the Gilf Kebir plateau, and sand seas.

The stamps are from a set of 16 issued in 1996, representing Maghreb Handicrafts