Deserted in the desert

A live film set featuring imperial costumes and Qing Dynasty-era (1644-1911) braided ponytails milling among "ancient ruins" in Tianmo's scorched wasteland.[Photo by Erik Nilsson/ China Daily]

I'd researched to make sure it was open in the coldest months beforehand but didn't care anymore.

We drove past the official park's door. It seemed no different from his land - and the entry booths seemed unmanned.

Perhaps if we knocked ... Nah.

Whether we believed the main site was shut or not became irrelevant.

We were more curious about the farmer's land, something likely less contrived, cheaper and more idiosyncratic than an actual "attraction".

An authentic slice of rural Beijing's prairie where people live - not one carved out and cultivated for tourists.

Within minutes, we were swaying on horseback over the prairie - bitten barren by the frigidity - while massive wind turbines hissed in baritone above our heads.

We heard the resounding whooshes of giant blades whirling above us over the chopping sounds of our horses' hooves beneath us, puncturing the frozen sand in staccato.

They clomped across the desolate terrain in front of a frozen reservoir from which submerged trees' top halves clawed out of shimmering ice to grab toward pallid skies.

The trunks projected their seemingly skeletal digits' apparitions on the ice crust below.

A motorized trike's tires whirred as its riders tried to spin its wheels free from the clutch that slush creates by rejecting traction.

The people perched atop giggled as the wheels eventually wiggled free of the reservoir's thick, frosty scab.

We clip-clopped back, beneath the whooshing blades of the turbines that bloom like behemoth blossoms and spin in wind like gargantuan pinwheels.

They bellowed in hushed bass tones. Voosh!

The kids were too cold to take the farmers' dune buggies out for spins across the bald terrain.

Too bad.

It could have perhaps made a great movie scene.

Contact the writer at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn