Inner Mongolia blog long overdue

Dear all,

I've been crazy busy the last month and don't know where to start. At the end of September I started of on my first trip. After heavy discussion, me and four of my friends decided to go to Inner Mongolia, which is located in the north of China. We did not go to Hainan or Macau or the Yellow mountains because these are traditionally the more tourist places and seeing as we were traveling in the 7 Day National Holiday we thought it would be wiser to avoid those places. So we left by plane with a company called China-SSS which in my personal opinion can be referred to from now on as China-Ass. I must mention it is the RyanAir of China but the trip was not pleasant. Throughout the flight someone was screaming nonstop through the microphone in Chinese, it turned out this was advertisement and the seats were smaller than anything I have ever experienced. I’m 1.85m and I could not sit straight and had to sit sideways to fit into those ‘for Chinese made’ seats. Just another way of experiencing Chine! Another startling incident occurred when halfway through the flight we started to descend! Seeing as all the announcements at the airport and on the plane were in English, it was unknown to us that we would have a layover halfway through the journey. Imagine sitting in a plane and all of a sudden noticing that the plane is losing altitude! After quick inquiry we knew what was going on but it did, for a second, make us think we somehow got on the wrong flight! However the on flight muscle exercises in which everyone participated provided the needed entertainment! Arriving in Hohot, the capital of the province, we got to our little hostel safe and sound. The most noticeable difference was the temperature, seeing as at the time it was 25-30 degrees Celcius in Shanghai the 5-10 degrees we were exposed to in Hohot provided quite the reality shock! Luckily we came prepared with gloves, jumpers and coats! However, we had not made a clear plan on what to do and where to travel. Seeing as we arrived late in the evening we went out for dinner and had a traditional Inner Mongolian meal. It started off with us sitting at a table with a large grill positioned in it. When we received our first batch of cold vegetables we were all excited to grill them but those were unfortunately meant to be cold. Then some nice soup, but where was the meat. It took a while but then a large piece of lamb meat arrived and was positioned in front of us and we were given really long knives and forks to eat and cut at a distance, a wonderful way to start our journey.

The following day we packed up our things went to a temple but quickly set off to the train station to try and get a bus or train ticket to Xilamuren. These are supposed to be the most beautiful grasslands in the world. They did not disappoint, even though it was not the best season to see them they provided a wonderful change of scenery. Away from the skyscraper filled skies of Shanghai and the overly crowded Hohot. We managed to worm our way through the crowds at the train station and found an illegal taxi driver who was willing to drive us there and would make sure we had a place to stay and some activities to do. The drive there was long but we arrived at a settlement far away from the main tourist locations. We went horse riding, hiking, we ate freshly killed lamb, drank the traditional milk tea and at night drank so much we joined the locals in karaoke!

The next morning, still a little woozy, we drove back to Hohot to see if we could get train tickets to Yinchuan. With the little Chinese we knew we got the only train tickets still available, Fourth Class, which means hardseater. Hardseater indicates that you have a seat which is a cushioned bench, a small table you share with 5 others in a confined space. Yet the tickets were for the next day, so with nothing to do we went back to our driver and told him we wanted to go to the nearby Gobi Desert. We set off immediately having full faith in our driver to arrange everything for us again at the destination. One must keep in mind that our taxi driver was not the cleverest of men and that he did not understand a word of English, so every form of communication was done via hand signals, drawings and looking things up in the dictionary.

After a 6 hour drive our driver admitted to being lost. Well, he did not tell us but we knew because he got out the car and asked locals where to go and in the end he followed signs which depicted camels and desert! Going to several different hostels, hotels and even local people we arrived at a hard to find location which was, quite awkwardly, deserted, so yes there was room for us. Arriving there at midnight they were willing to open up the kitchen for us and we sat and drank with the owner and our driver for some time. Only to fall asleep and have the first shower in 3 days!

On the morning of our fourth day we woke up and climbed to the roof of the building to get an idea of where we ended up. Keep in mind we were driving over dirt roads and did not see any other vehicles for some time before arriving at our hotel. To our surprise our driver/guide had done it again, we were at the foot of the desert and could see the sandy dunes in the distance. A short drive later we were in our desert socks walking on the edge of the Gobi Desert. We did a long walk to a nearby local ‘desert zoo’, not something to recommend for animal lovers. Then again zoo’s in general should be avoided in China all together because they think very different about the hygiene and freedom of animals in captivity. The highlight of the desert has to be the motor biking over the dunes and doughnut’ing in the sand in an ATV. We continued our journey to Datong where we would hop on our train and continue our journey to Yinchuan. Datong which is located in the Shanxi province is one of the most polluted cities in the world. It is said that it is considered healthy to smoke because air then at least goes through some sort of filter! Luckily for our future offspring we only stayed there for several hours as we waited for our train to arrive.

We all looked forward to the train ride; we bought snacks, a crate of beer, a watermelon and so on. So all our hands were filled with food and drinks for the journey and tied to our backs were 60-80L backpacks. Looking like mules we waited for our train which would leave at 21:00 and arrive in Yinchuan at 6:00. When the train arrived we were shocked. We were staring at a train fully packed with people, rush hour in Shanghai, Rotterdam, New York or any other major city cannot compare to the amount of people that were cramped into that train, and we, mules, still needed to get on. Luckily carriages are numbered so we got on the right one but unfortunately our seats were at the other end! Making our way through we sat in a sweating crowded space and were frowned upon by the Chinese some of whom had never seen foreigners. So this is where 9 hours of sitting in a confined, smelly and dirty train began!

Arriving at Yinchuan at 6:00 we met up with two Chinese girls (depicted in the picture with our driver) who were on their way to school and asked them to help us. They talked and bargained with a local illegal taxi driver to drive us around and find us a hotel. The girls would spend the next 2 days with us and made our lives a little easier as they would translate what we would need! So we visited a large Chinese museum and tomb first. Museums in China are very different as they depict stories in real size. Walking through a museum, you walk from room to room and in each room a part of the story is told. Following this we would go to the national park and the cave drawings. The part that got to us and me the most was the landscape how the flat, grassy and rocky landscape transforms into large mountain ranges out of nowhere. After visiting these places we would go to our hotel, which turned out to be a brothel! So we asked for clean sheets and told them that when we would go out for dinner we wanted the rooms to be really clean otherwise we would leave! That dinner was pretty exciting because the restaurant did not give us the food we ordered and gave us a dish short. Seeing as in China you pay before you receive your food we demanded our money back. The owner refused and started to get upset seeing as we were the last ones in the restaurant and they wanted to close. However we would not stand for it because we had the idea that they knew exactly what they were doing. So we phoned the Police! They were there in no-time and we explained the situation to our friend in Shanghai on the phone and then gave the phone to the police so she could translate our situation. The police were so helpful and kind and sorted the whole situation in minutes! So with a satisfied grin on our faces we returned to our brothel and slept, not thinking too much about the room we were in!

We were all excited about the next day! On the schedule was the Great Wall and seeing some Pagoda’s. The great wall was very different to what we expected. We drove for several hours and all of a sudden he, our driver, stopped the car on the middle of the highway and told us to walk up the hill. When we reached the top he tried to explain to us that this was the wall! Not at all like what we have seen from pictures and stories, this was a line of stones about 1.5 meters high and one does not recognize it quickly. Walking up the wall for several kilometers we reached a high viewpoint and could now see the size of the whole thing. It stretched till the horizon. The Great Wall of China was not built all at once. It was a project that involved connecting a lot of existing walls to create a long network that would roughly mark Chinese territories. None of the walls now look like it does in pictures, only the parts renovated in the 1980’s. So it was nice to see both sides of the story, the true old and worn out part and later during my visit to Beijing see the renovated wall as it should have been a long time ago. Up next were the 108 Pagodas in Qingtongxia, these are pagoda’s which act as tombs for monks who died while meditating. The 11 floor pavilion houses them in an orderly fashion and they are mummified and cemented into the meditating position so they will go to the next life in meditation and peace. It’s a magnificent story marked on a beautiful hillside overlooking a river with mountains in the background.

On the last day in Yinchuan we decided to have some more fun and go to a desert near a lake which is named accordingly, Desert Lake. Taking a small boat ride towards this ‘man-made’ desert we enjoyed a day of relaxing in the sun, looking at some sand carving and dune buggy racing! The most interesting thing was that the restaurants sell the large fish to its clients. The clients pick out the fish in a tank, which is positioned in front of the restaurant, after which the fish is smacked on the ground to kill it!

Seeing was we did not want to experience the train ride we had previously. We decided to book first class, soft sleeper, tickets back to Hohot. A wonderful experience, you sleep in a cabin with in total 4 people. Music is played in the morning to wake you in time for arrival and a waiter comes by and chats with you and ensures again you are aware that you might be arriving shortly. After reaching Hohot we visited the Inner Mongolian Historical Museum for some more information on the Mammoths that once walked these grounds and the history of the people of Hohot. It shocked us most seeing as Hotot was at one point the front line of China during the Second World War, that during the time period of WWII, Germany is not mentioned once. The Chinese refer to WWII as the Anti-Japanese War, which when considering makes sence as the Chinese never directly fought the Germans.

That night we flew back with our wonderful China-SSS carrier in seats that appeared to have shrunk since we were last in them!