IN the forbidding terrain known as “China’s Bermuda Triangle,” six Shanghai women had the experience of a lifetime.

They were part of a 35-strong expedition team that traversed the mysterious Lop Nur Desert of northwestern China for six days in May.

The expedition went from the city of Turpan in Xinjiang to Dunhuang in Gansu Province, transiting Lop Nur from northwest to southeast.

Departing on May 2, the team traveled across 1,116 kilometers of desert and wasteland in 11 SUVs and five support vehicles.

It was organized by the Shanghai Morning Post and the Shanghai Photographers Association.

The team returned home with tales of getting lost, enduring horrifying sandstorms and nearly falling off a steep sand cliff.

The women include a white-collar worker, an art teacher, and doctor and a retiree.

Lop Nur, located in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is a vast, dried salt lakebed. Marco Polo is said to have crossed the area during his travels, followed generations later by 19th- and early 20th-century explorers such as Ferdinand von Richthofen, Nikolai Przhevalsky, Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein, who attempted to fill in a blank space on maps.

In more recent decades, two Shanghai adventurers died in separate incidents while trying to explore the desert area on foot.

The terrain features some of the harshest landscapes in the world. Since about 1920, the area has not been permanently inhabited. Before it turned to dust, the lake there was the second-largest inland body of water in China.

“When you look around, there’s only endless sand extending to the horizon in every direction,” says Zhou Yaping, one of the six female team members. “You can easily lose your sense of direction, even with GPS in hand.”

The women were experienced in outdoor sports and adventure travel.

Pan Mian, 40, an experienced marathon and cross-country runner, returned to her job in the foreign trade industry the day after returning to Shanghai.

“It wasn’t tiresome for me,” she says of the trip. “People at my age usually stop doing physical exercise, but I think with proper training and preparation, we can still achieve a lot.”

Shanghai Daily talked with three of the women on the expedition.

Ba Jianming, 51

Doctor at Shanghai No. 10 People’s Hospital

“What attracted me in Lop Nur was not anything visual, but rather an abstract sense of mystery,” says Ba Jianming, a doctor at the Shanghai No. 10 People’s Hospital, who served as team doctor and an amateur photographer on the trip.

The small number of women on the expedition team might stir up worry that sexism had kept women from applying for the trip. However, Dr Ba says she never felt discouraged from going by anything resembling the cult of domesticity.

“I experience little prejudice growing up in the international metropolis of Shanghai,” she says.

“And I have the right to live for my own pleasure if I am fulfilling all my duties to my job and family.”

Ba epitomizes the group of women who perceive increased gender equality. In her profession, the number of female medical doctors surpassed that of male doctors for the first time last year in Shanghai, though the average income for Chinese women doctors proved 10.4 percent lower than that of their male counterparts, according to a survey on more than 30 thousand doctors in 2015.

“Some say that the expedition was more difficult for us women, but the harshness of Lop Nur has nothing to do with anyone’s gender,” says Ba.

To her, all earthly beings seem equally insignificant compared with Mother Nature. “All of us are no different in this respect from trees, ants and birds,” the doctor says.

Ba believes that humans should never try to control nature and can only prepare themselves for challenges posed by nature.

“The most unforgettable thing in the wilderness was humans’ interesting reactions to the extreme environment,” says Ba.

She recalls a formidable sandstorm during her first night in Lop Nur. She did not feel much fear but instead curiously wondered whether the sandstorm would come every night.

“The impersonal shock and pressure that nature puts on you is completely different from the interpersonal pressure I experience as a doctor,” remarks Ba, but she experienced both kinds of stress during the journey because as the only doctor on the team, she took charge of the group’s health issues.

Several adventurers, or about 20 percent of the entire group, suffered from diarrhea during the trip, and Ba felt afraid that the situation would worsen. Fortunately, the load of drugs that she brought along helped alleviate the crisis.

Ba does not regret going on the expedition despite the hardships.

“We never thought about going on a scenic tour in the first place,” explains Ba. “We deliberately threw ourselves at the harsh environment. In Lop Nur we feel a loneliness and helplessness that city dwellers may never have the luxury to experience.”

Nevertheless, Ba insisted on bringing one habit from the civilized world to the unsettled frontier, as she saves water to brush her teeth every day.

“Personal hygiene is important even in desperate situations,” says the doctor, who complained a little about not taking showers for days in a row. One of the expedition’s sponsors, Shanghai Mylike Medical Cosmetic Hospital, offered the six ladies to skin check-up and care for free after the expedition, “but men can also go if they like,” adds Ba.

Many adventurers in the group possess great artistic talents, and these photographers, painters, calligraphers and seal cutters journeyed to Lop Nur for inspirations. After the team returned Shanghai, they held a photography exhibition featuring nearly 150 photos taken during the trip at Shanghai Mass Art Center in late June.

However, Ba, also an amateur photographer, did not exhibit her personal favorite — a picture of herself with the stars.

“You can see 7,000 stars in Lop Nor, but you can only see 500 in Shanghai even if you go to an observatory,” Ba says she was amazed by the starry night on the desert. “I took photos when I felt moved by what I saw, not to impress others.”

“What attracts me in Lop Nor is not anything visual but an abstract sense of mystery,” adds Ba.

She feels intrigued about how the lake of Lop Nur dried up in the 1970s and what Yu Chunshun and Peng Jiamu — two Shanghainese explorers who died there — experienced when they got lost in the desert.

Zhou Yaping, 48

Art teacher at East China Normal University

Zhou Yaping, an art teacher at East China Normal University, took her camera and brushes on the Lop Nur expedition to record what she saw.

During the six-day expedition in extreme conditions, Zhou, 48, took more than 10,000 photos and did 10 oil paintings capturing the haunting beauty of the remote desert region.

“I love adventure travel,” says Zhou, 51. “When I heard about this expedition to Lop Nur, I immediately signed up.”

It was not a trip for the faint of heart. Lop Nur, once considered among the most dangerous places to travel in China, claimed the lives of two Shanghai explorers in years past. In 1980, biochemist Peng Jiamu disappeared in Lop Nur after leaving a note in his tent that he was going out in search of water. His body was never found. In 1996, Yu Chunshun died when trying to traverse the desert on foot.

So when Zhou told her friends about the trip, some were naturally anxious.

“They asked me why I would want to go to such a dangerous place,” she says. “I told them that things have changed with new technologies since the tragedies of Peng and Yu, and the trip would be safer because we were traveling in vehicles. What matters most is not what others think but rather that you are following your heart.”

Zhou recorded much of the beauty of the trip with a small palette and box of oil paints.

“I want to capture the scenes and the moods of the moment,” she says. “I also took photos of the painting set against their natural backgrounds.”

She did her paintings while sitting in vehicles. Every painting took less than half an hour, and the pigments dried quickly in the desert. The works included “yarding” rock formations carved by the dual action of wind and sand abrasion, and a stunning sunset in Lop Nor. Against such an inspiring backdrop, she gave a talk on art appreciation during one of the expedition’s nightly get-togethers.

“You just never know what will happen in the desert,” Zhou says.

The team encountered a fierce sandstorm on its first night in Lop Nur. One of the tents was blown from its moorings and disappeared. Another night, the expedition got lost, arriving at a small settlement hours later than scheduled.

“The feeling in Lop Nur was so different,” Zhou says. “The desert was our classroom, and the sky its star-studded ceiling.”

Despite the development of technology that she explained to anxious friends before the trip, Zhou says the expedition was still the most dangerous experience she has ever undertaken.

On the way to Bayi Spring on the fifth day of the trip, the vehicle in which she was riding was nearly swallowed up by quicksand. The ground surface was dry and firm, but underneath that the terrain was as moist as a marsh, gradually pulling the SUV down.

“It was lucky that our driver was so experience and managed to extricate the vehicle before it was too late,” she says.

As the vehicle later drove further on, arriving near the spot where Peng Jiamu disappeared, it nearly fell off a sand cliff.

“I have hiked the Grand Canyon and many other places with tough conditions,” Zhou says, “but in Lop Nur, I never felt so close to death.”

Undaunted, Zhou says she is looking forward to her next great adventure.

“Adventures doesn’t have to mean taking risks,” she says. “As long as you properly assess the dangers and make careful preparations in advance, it’s worth the risk. We humans need challenges.”

Back in Shanghai, Zhou says she intends to do more paintings based on the trip but this time on a larger canvas.

Xu Genling, 53

Retired office clerk

Xu Genling, 53, began traveling as an ordinary sightseeing tourist and ended up an outdoor adventurer.

“I always liked traveling, but the more I traveled, the less interesting I found the usual, commercialized scenic spots,” says Xu. “I realized nature’s true beauty lies in more unexplored, rugged places.”

Before retirement, Xu worked as an office clerk for decades, spending work hours in offices. On annual leaves, she managed to travel to places like Mount Everest and Hoh Xil on China’s Tibet-Qinghai Plateau.

“My husband and child are often busy, so I traveled by myself or with friends,” she says. “My family has been very supportive, happy that I have found something so enjoyable to do after retirement.”

Xu says the women on the expedition were more mentally prepared for the trip than their male counterparts.

“When facing setbacks, the women could handle frustrations better than the men sometimes,” she says. “Women are more careful than men. We could better look after the whole team in so many detailed ways during the expedition.”

Xu was no dusty, bedraggled member of the team. Besides regular jackets, she brought nice-looking garb especially for taking photos.

“I wore jackets most of the time during the expedition,” she says. “But I also felt it was important in my personal appearance to mirror the beauty of such wild, natural surroundings. If one is able to personify and share beauty, isn’t that a wonderful thing?”

She even had her nails done before departure on the trip.

“There was always sand under our fingernails, which was very uncomfortable,” says another woman team member named Zhou Yaping. “At that time, we thought why didn’t we all apply some nail polish before leaving so at least we wouldn’t have to look at all the sand lodged there.”

As with many other expedition members exhilarated by the trip, Xu says she is looking forward to her next adventure already.