In the Xiangshawan Desert, a remote stretch of dunes in Inner Mongolia, about 350 miles west of Beijing, an architectural lotus recently blossomed: the Desert Lotus Hotel. The hotel is part of a new resort built amid a vast sea of sand dunes, increasingly popular with Chinese tourists. The resort hosts Mongolian-themed performances, camel rides, desert surfing, and more. Xiangshawan is also known as the "Resonant Sand Gorge", as the composition of its dunes make them "singing sands", which can produce a roaring or booming sound when disturbed, a natural phenomenon still not fully understood. Getty Images photographer Feng Li spent a few days at the resort last month, returning with the following images from Xiangshawan.
A Lotus in the Desert: China's Xiangshawan Resort
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