Inner Mongolia Trip

On July 21st and 22nd, four of us visited Inner Mongolia. TF, BF, and co-workers QL and WW visited the expansive grasslands of the first autonomous region of China. It was established in 1947. The tour was arranged by the Chinese Culture Club (exposes English speaking people to the culture of China) to Hohhot (the capital of Inner Mongolia) and then to the grasslands of Huitengxile. http://www.chinesecultureclub.org/calendar/calendar.php

The trip started with a taxi ride at 5:15am to the airport. We had a little bit of trouble communicating with the taxi driver. We think he was asking if we wanted to take the Airport Expressway to the airport or to take local roads to avoid the toll. I gave him 10RMB and pointed to the Airport Expressway. He took the Expressway and 15 minutes later we understood why he was asking us. The traffic came to a dead stop and people were out of their cars. The driver again began talking to us and gave us the hand signal for the number 6 (looks like the Texas Longhorn hand signal). We phoned the concierge at the apartment building to have them talk with the driver. Turns out the road was supposed to be closed until 6am while they worked on a bridge. The driver got off an exit around 5:40 and of course we noticed that the expressway had opened up and traffic was flowing. Oh well.......we got to the airport on time to meet the tour operator to get our tickets. The airplane ride was only 50 minutes (600km away but would take about 6-7 hours to drive).

We arrived at Hohhot (Green City) and boarded our bus to go to a Tibetan Buddhist Temple (had already seen a ton of these in Tibet) so we just wandered around. We then went to an old shopping street next to the temple to see some of the local culture (children playing with pet pig, the local barbershop, Christian church , rocks for sale, local fruit seller, and, grocery store).

After visiting the temple we headed for the grasslands. The drive was over two hours. The first half was on a nice highway. The second part of the journey was on a hilly road that was under repair. After driving on this road for 15 minutes we turned off onto the grasslands on a small dusty path. It was very bizarre traveling on this large tour bus across the grasslands on a dusty path that sometimes was lined with rocks or white spay painted lines at 2100m above sea level.

The area has so much open space and wind that there are large windmills everywhere producing electricity. Then out on the horizon you could see a little yurt village (our home for the night).

There were about 30 people in our tour group. Each person was greeted by the Mongolian herdsmen with a little ceremony. Each person was presented with a silver cup of hard clear liquor. You were to receive the cup in two hands then dip your right 4th finger into the liquor and raise it to the heavens, then dip the same finger again and point down to the earth, and dip the finger and cross your forehead and then drink the liquor. There is a story as to how this ritual got started but that I will leave to your imagination.The tour operator then handed out keys to our "luxury" yurts. I think the regular yurts may actually have been better situation. The bathroom attached to the yurt had its drawback (I think you know what I mean and no one used the shower the next day).

After checking into our "hotel" room, we met outside a gate to arrange for horse riding across the grasslands. We decided to take a 3 hour tour. QL an WW had never ridden a horse so this was a great new experience for them. It turns out that the herdsmen basically walk (most of our horses) while we sit on the horse (very tame). The tour was 3 hours but we only rode for maybe half the time. At the half way point we stopped at a herdsmen yurt to have milk tea and of course a visit to the grassland bathroom.

After the horse caravaning we watched some Mongolian horse racing and wrestling. There was a large US college group who also visited the same grassland village. They were on a cultural break for their college abroad program in Beijing. The boys and one girl wanted to get into the wrestling action. It was very entertaining and they represented the US well.

Then it was dinner time. If you like meat, this was a good place.

There were further activities after 9:00 including a "disco". We were tired from an early morning and decided to call it a night. We were awoken by the fireworks and music but were able to get back to sleep on our rock hard beds and fragrant room.

The next morning we got up to the cool, windy, rainy weather (~50ish) to eat a Mongolian breakfast. There were hard boiled eggs, fried dough, loaf of bread, cold rice soup, and then a plate of fried eggs and a large bunch of bananas was brought to the table. To drink there was milk tea and sweet nescafe instant coffee.

After breakfast BF, WW, and QL decided they wanted to ride ATV's. BF went for the manual one. She had a little difficulty with it but got in out onto the grasslands. A Mongolian herdsmen followed her on a small motorcycle as she had a little bit of trouble with the clutch and shifting. BF and WW went off into the distance where we could no longer see them. The herdsmen came back 10 minutes later on BF's ATV. I was a little worried but he told QL that she wanted to ride the motorcycle and traded with him.

We also decided to do a little archery but with "well used" aluminum arrows that had no fins.

at 10:00 the Chinese Culture Club boarded the bus for a visit with a local herdsmen family for milk tea and Mongolian snacks. For those of us who went on the 3 hour horse ride, we had already visited the same family the day before.

Our guide did give us much better explanation of the life of the herdsmen and how life has changed for them recently. Each yurt has a picture of Ghengis Khan rather than Chairman Mao. Each family typically has 3 or 4 yurts (one for the kitchen, living room, bedroom).

While the visit to the Mongolian people and the grasslands was very memorable and worth the trip, it is somewhat sad to see and hear the changes. Tourism is beginning to be a big industry for the Mongolians and is helping to preserve their culture. Most of the young people are turning to life in the city and leaving the simple but hard nomadic life.

The grasslands are in bad shape right now. There has been a drought for the last 3 years and what should be knee-high grass is just barely covering the dry arid ground. There were dry lakes everywhere and no water to be seen. Our tour guide can remember when the grass was chest high on adults in her youth.

The rest of the day we drove to Hohhot and then visited a 5 pagoda temple and Muslim mosque. BF and I could have done without those stops as we have already seen enough of these on previous trips.

Then it was off to the airport for the trip back to Beijing. We got back to the apartment by 9:30pm. So it was a busy but very interesting cultural weekend. Like the Tibet trip it was very memorable but I would only do it once. Maybe someday we will go back to Inner Mongolia to visit the Gobi desert or maybe not.......