Remember when, as a child, you’d visit the beach with your family, and your older siblings, or maybe your parents, would bury you up to your neck in the sand? At the time, you probably thought it was just seaside shenanigans, but believe it or not, people travel thousands of miles to do just that, citing a variety of health benefits.

That’s because, at the edge of the Kumtag Desert in Shanshan county of Turpan in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the summer heat heralds the season for sand therapy. From June to August, visitors flock to the dunes to participate in a traditional Uygur medical practice — being buried up to their chests in hot sand.

Imagine a sauna, but instead of a little wooden shack next to a frozen Nordic lake, it’s the open desert and you’re under a sun umbrella, breathing in crisp, hot, dry air. That, in essence, is sand therapy, as described by Tswelopele Makoe from South Africa, who experienced it on June 19.

“Ethereal” was the word she chose for the roughly twenty-minute session. “It’s almost like I’m on cloud nine — super relaxed, (like I’m) floating, very calm,” she said, while lying in the sand. Turpan, sitting in China’s lowest basin, is one of the country’s hottest and driest places. Summer temperatures regularly touch 40 C, and annual rainfall averages only 14.7 millimeters, according to the city’s website.

Yet this harsh environment has provided a natural remedy, as locals harness its conditions to combat ailments like rheumatic and rheumatoid arthritis.

Guljannat Emar, a staff member at the county’s Uygur medicine hospital, which has run the therapy base since July 2024, explained that the sand can reach nearly 50 C. This warmth induces heavy sweating, stimulates the metabolism, aids blood circulation and detoxifies the body through the pores.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2026