Off-road trekker crowns himself king of the desert

The journey was sponsored by a travel agency in Yuli county.

Ma Xingjian, head of the agency, says the cross-desert journey is expected to help promote beauty of the area, including poplar forests and sand dunes, so as to spark tourism in the county.

The track Dong and his teammates followed throughout the 18-day journey covered more than 43,758 square kilometers, which has been recognized by Carrying the Flag World Records, an institution in London that specializes in acknowledging world records, as the largest navigation track "China Land Map" in the world.

It was not the first time for Dong to lay claim to a world record.

Since October he has driven a domestically produced off-road vehicle across the Taklimakan Desert alone three times along different routes, each time managing to lay claim to a world record.

"When I drove into the depth of the desert, I was the only human in the area, staying far away from what is artificial. Such a boundless openness that I wouldn't find anywhere else enabled me to be peaceful and sort things out."