"Had we not done our work, this road would've been buried by sand in just one night," said Tang Ximing as we zipped through a gorgeous desert route on a bright red Jeep Wrangler, golden dunes heaving on each side.

This is the Tengger Desert, China's fourth-largest, spanning 36,700 square kilometers across Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Gansu Province, and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Off the trail, Tang shows us the magic – good old wheat straw, which local farmers used to burn as farm waste, shoved into the sand in 1-by-1-meter squares, forming cubicles that stabilize the sand.