Taklamakan Desert to regard the Taklamakan Desert as separate and independent from the Gobi Desert region to its east. The People's Republic of China has constructed two cross-desert highways. The Tarim Desert Highway links the cities of Hotan (on the southern edge) and Luntai (on the northern edge), and the Bayingol to Ruoqiang road crosses the desert to the east. In recent years, the desert has expanded in some areas, its sands enveloping farms and villages as a result of desertification. The Golmud-Korla Railway (presently, under construction; expected completion time, 2019) will cross the Taklamakan as well. Because it lies in the
Monastery of Christ in the Desert Monastery of Christ in the Desert The Monastery of Christ in the Desert is a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery belonging to the English Province of the Subiaco Congregation of Benedictine monasteries. The monastery is in Abiquiu, New Mexico, surrounded by miles of undisturbed wilderness amidst the Chama River Canyon Wilderness area 75 miles north of Santa Fe. It is accessible by Forest Road 151, a 13-mile dirt road off of US route 84. The monastery was founded in 1964 by Aelred Wall, O.S.B., a monk of Mount Savior Monastery in Pine City, New York. The original monastery was designed by