Next day I reach Markit, about 90 kilometres away. It's one of the most memorable rides of my trip. I ride across an uncultivated waste between the living farms. Then, from behind the trees a huge sand dune rises, like a wave of golden sea poised above the green shore. I climb up the big dune and spot the other fields growing up a few kilometres beyond these waves of crystal earth. An old camel lies quite prone among the dunes...

He gets up onto his shins as I approach. Poor guy, he looks so thirsty, as if somebody has left him deliberately to languish between the dunes. I leave him alone. Two more villages and then no more. I get off my bike and ascend the road shoulder: sand as far as I can see. Only sage and a sedge-like grass grow in the ditches...

No more trees at all. Another 40 kilometres to Markit. The 2:00 P.M. temperature reaches 34 degrees. No clouds. I ride on. Not far into the desert I cross a waterway speeding from the Kunluns into the desert. A single family lives beside the watercourse among some small shrubs. A man driving a donkey cart trots by, and he barely notices me. I keep going. Finally, after an hour or two of desert heat, I see a faint line of green.

At last I'm among the shade of the huge old trees. Between them lie fields of vegetables and grain. This farm must be the biggest commune in all of Xinjiang. An ambulance passes from behind and stops. The driver sets himself onto the pavement. He's a mammoth. Carefully balancing upon his corpulent mass, he focuses his one-eyed gaze on me: he has an eye patch. Then as I ride by, he asks me, without reference to anything particular, "Dos shao chien?" That's Mandarin Chinese for, "How much does it cost?" Well, I don't know: maybe he refers to the strange farm all around... Or his missing eye.

Then I pass a van parked beside the road. I spot the police guards then. They sit among the shady trees along the fields. In the sun on the fields a big crew of people are laboring. They are all male and wear the same beige and olive striped shirts and pants. Of course, they're prisoners. This place is a gigantic work farm!

Then, walking towards me, two gangs of convicts, walking in a long line, two by two. All of them are males. In front, a Chinese guard strolls along in olive drab; he totes a compact automatic rifle. I see two groups of prisoners, actually. The first group is mostly Chinese, and they wear hats. Some wear colored shirts and shorts. Some even smile. Only a few Uigurs are mixed in with them. Their feet are an unchained melody of shuffling, two by two, up the road. The second group is different. They wear no hats and no colorful clothing: their uniforms are striped. But, unlike the first group of Chinese, these men are mostly Uigurs, and they are chained together at the ankles. None of them smile. Some of them stare at me. So I wave and some manage a smile, but most faces don't change. Maybe they can't or won't see me for real; how could a foreigner like me ride a bike through this forbidden zone?

Then I am pierced with a pang of pity: they're all prisoners, and I don't know what they have done to end up here. Maybe they are all drug dealers, thieves and murderers. Some are political prisoners. The guards are Chinese men and there aren't any Uigurs carrying machine guns. I can't help but think that the Chinese are maintaining a colony in Xinjiang. It's like a scene from the black slave days of America - the chain gangs of Oklahoma. I go on, riding between the endless, huge fields...

The whole place is ten or fifteen kilometres across. Ahead, an old man walks along the road. He holds a bag of nothing in one hand. Maybe they just released him today... It's another 15 kilometres to town. Then, more guards under the trees watch a group of convicts spray insecticide on vegetables. I pass one more chain gang of shaven-headed Uigurs in heavy irons. Again, they are led by a guard wielding a machine gun. The last prisoner in this chain gang is a big fellow hobbling on legs permanently misshapen below the shins; he has endured the yoke of punishment for years. I want to stop and take a picture, but don't because I'm afraid the guards will get angry with me. The last group of armed guards whom I see near the road do not smile like the guard following the last chain gang. These Chinese men look seriously depressed. I'm glad to get past the prison farm, with its beautiful trees as big as God.

The little market town of Markit appears and the hotel lets me stay, no questions asked. Recently, somebody has built a rack for the grapevine to grow up by the rooms. I share a room with a grinning ex-con playing tapes of Uigur folk and Chinese punk music. I know he's an ex-con because his arms are laced with tattoos: his prisoner number and his female regrets, all the emblems of frustrated and satisfied masculinity. Maybe he knows I've seen something most foreigners never see - the convict farm. So, even in silence, he feels intimate with me. Then some kids annoy me, watching me as I wash up. So, I heave a full pail of water, sousing them: the little boys run away screaming and won't come back.

Morning drops a road from Yopurga, due south to Yarkant town. This stretch is densely populated with Uigur villages. I spot some fruit pickers and their orchard of nectarines...

Many endless lanes, powdered with fine beige dust, lead the way to mud and straw homes. Children play in the irrigation canals and some women on donkey carts don't even notice me making their photo...

Men and boys along the road are keen to pose, too...

I arrive early in Yarkant, and make for the central hotel on a large street with dozens of shiny new buildings. I argue about the rate and they put me into the oldest wing of the hotel. The place resembles a ward in a loony bin 80 years ago: its brick walls, half-a-metre thick, are designed to keep the place cool during midsummer, and cozy warm in winter.

I find myself entirely alone with my thoughts. Nothing to do but relax and enjoy the cool temperature. I wash my bicycle, shower, then eat dinner in the hotel dining room. I wander the street looking for diarrhea medicine - I've been pretty loose lately. The wilderness is only two days away... I drink beer, one, two, three of them. I smoke some hash some friends gave me in Taipei. I try to relax, but feel restless and walk outside again. It's so dark everywhere, except at the entrance to a new bowling alley next the hotel. Beyond, I see the flashing lights of a disco.

I open another beer inside the disco and watch the show. Local guys and one or two girls are hopping around to Chinese music as goofy and square as it comes: semi-operatic singing crossed with martial melodies and lyrics about a "dear friend..." I can't stand it and finally ask loudly for, "Disco, disco." A few minutes later the old Chinese maid running the awful show is ejected by a youngster. Oops. Someone starts to play recordings of original-sounding Uigur dance music, all synthesizers and Persian funk, fast-paced and hypnotically rhythmic... The snaky-voiced singer climbs up and down the scales as if his grief and ecstasy are real. Then they play some disco and the people nearby drag me onto swirling feet. I dance then giggle when I see the Uigur guys jump into a Russian jig. Unbelievable: they look so much like real pro Russian dancers! The men, so quickly, skip up and click their heals, then kick their feet straight out. Hands on hips, they grin, nod and swivel their heads to and fro. The music sounds Russian, too: fast, with an electronic beat. The dancers are very happy, knowing how to do this, making me wonder why I can't... I just flop around like a drunken fish.

Night progresses and I need to kill solitude. So I sit with a group of four guys and a couple of girls. I drink and they do too, unusual for Uigurs. Maybe the girls are Chinese, but I can't see very well through the dark veil of alcohol. Then a local guy slips onto the stage and wails over his synth keyboard. He really can sing and he plays the synthesizer to an accompaniment of taped music. Later, I ask whether or not if he knows if we can get me any "Nishi-nishi" and then his buddy shows me the local stuff: it's grey and powdery, but smells good. We smoke and I am far gone. In fun, the singer slips my expensive watch onto his wrist and refuses to return it. I ask Mr. Balls the singer to please give it back. He doesn't even listen. Then, we're on the street - me, the singer and his pal. The disco is shut and we need to find an all-night place with a reliable dealer they claim to know. I still don't have my watch back and realize how drunk I am. Dreading the idea these two may want to relieve me of my wallet, I give up and grab a taxi.

Next day, at breakfast, I meet the singer's pal eating with two girls. First, he says the crooning wonder will soon arrive with my watch. A moment later he goes to make a call then tells me the singer won't come because he's left town. So often China is made of lies. I laugh inside, since it really was all my fault. I decide to leave and won't push my luck. Let's just say the singer's pal looks pretty grim. Obviously worried I might go to the police, he tries to scare me as I ready my bike: he puts his old finger between the needles of a pair of pliers, and it's, you know - hint, hint... I'm just another rich prick - so why should I want to bother about retrieving my lovely Japanese watch, right? Right.

So I'm riding away, happy to leave my folly behind. Just remember - all's well that ends up not making any trouble, especially while travelling in a strange foreign country...

On the street the sun blinds everyone equally. There's a wide boulevard and an intersection right before my eyes. As I proceed to turn right, a young boy of fifteen rides past very slowly, and he's riding one of the oldest bikes I've ever seen. But, he's too far out in the traffic lane for the secret policeman hurrying round the corner behind the wheel of his black VW Santana... The windows on the secret police car are very, very black: I can barely see through to note that the policeman wears black sunglasses, too. So obviously blind, he side-swipes the poor kid riding the old bike, who falls instantly to the pavement. The VW slows down momentarily, but the coward cop driving it can't be seen outside his car; he doesn't stop, but stays inside, behind black glass, then speeds away. The kid picks up from the street and he's okay. But when he gets back on the bike, his tired old wheel wobbles terribly.

I feel grim about the universe for a few seconds, then can't help but laugh out loud at the absolute idiocy of a policeman's need for glass so dark and secret that he can't possibly see where he's going! The modern colonial police state exhibits an inextricable pathology, all its own...