This is another article that I wrote at the date below. I have not posted anything in a LONG time and that is because I am currently in China and sometimes have difficulties getting past a firewall to get to websites like blogger.com. BUT! I am back! And here we go again! :)
May 7, 2008
This article will be about my trip to Inner Mongolia, which was from April 30th to May 4th. By the way, Inner Mongolia is not part of Mongolia the Country and there are many more Chinese than Mongolians in Inner Mongolia.
A group of over 100 left BLCU (Beijing Language and Culture University) at around 7 P.M. on Thursday the 30th. We took a train to Hohhot, a city in the Inner Mongolian Province of China. The train ride was basically uneventful, except that I met a woman from India and Melissa (from Florida) and I had a very nice time talking with two girls from Indonesia.
When we woke up in the morning, mountains and villages and fields surrounded us.
We had breakfast in Hohhot and then boarded coach buses to the Xilamuren Grasslands. We drove through mountains and eventually came to rolling grasslands where we went to a local’s house and tried what was said to be Mongolian snacks. Most of it tasted a little weird to us, but the milk tea was popular. There were pieces of butter-like flakes -very hard, sweet bread, pieces of what tasted like very old cheese and some sort of cereal-like snack.
The house reminded me of the houses in Trebinje (Bosnia and Herzegovina), but these weren’t as clean and beautiful. There were cows, horses, chickens and a dog. Besides the brick house, there were the Mongolian style round houses with tables and chairs for sitting and eating. I think they were there mainly for tourists.
The grasslands were very, very windy. Our faces got really dirty because of the dirt flying with the air.
We had lunch in another part of the grasslands and were greeted by Mongolian-dressed people singing Mongolian songs and some alcoholic drink that I didn’t recognize. We were supposed to drink it too. Which I did, come on its a custom, and it tasted fine.
Next, we went to another part of the grasslands and watched a horse race and Mongolian wrestling, although neither were very authentic. Then, we all got a horse and went for an hour-long ride.
The ride was really amazing. The horses were small, like the ones at the Yellow River. They weren’t all good horses either. While everyone was getting on a horse, one of the horses spooked or something, because next thing we knew, it was jumping around and the boy on it had flown off and had hurt his ankle somehow. He was taken to a nearby clinic and was fine but could only hobble around for the rest of the trip. A woman from Japan fell off her horse when cantering and a Kevin from England was thrown when his horse spooked from his camera bag.
The ride went over the rolling hills of the grassland. I was able to get my horse to run a lot, which was really nice. There were small, short flowers on the grasslands and more dirt than grass.
An example of the Chinese tourist business: at the place where we rode, there were women with baby goats, and we took pictures with them and then realized that you had to pay five kuai (RMB) for it. Talk about getting owned.
That night when Melissa and I settled in our hotel room, we were much too tired to sing karaoke with some of the other students. We went straight to bed.
The next morning we had to get up at six to go to the Yinkenxiang Sand-Bay in the Kubuqi Desert and an arts and crafts factory.
The Desert was one of the highlights of the trip. Everyone knows that there is a lot of sand in the desert, but you never really realize it until you go to the desert. There were at least seven activities offered, a real tourist attraction. You could ride a camel or horse, 4-wheeler, take a sand surfing car, roll down a hill in a big blown up ball, or plastic ball, take a hang-gliding ride behind a car and sled down a monstrous sand hill.
Melissa and I, along with the two Indonesian girls, took the sand surfing car out into the desert. We didn’t go far, but it seemed we were in the middle of nowhere. All around us was hills of sand and small vegetation. The sand was really fine too. We picked handfuls and the grains flew through our finger and back to earth like water.
The sand surfing car was really fun as well. The driver flew over the sand and we almost felt like we were on a roller coaster.
Then, we took a half hour camel ride. We each got our own camels, which were all tied together, and led by a Chinese man. The camels were big and slow, of course, and we had a lot of fun with them. The camels were docile, especially when you compare them to the horses we rode. They were big and shedding all over the place. One camel licked Andina, one of the Indonesian girls, and she was disgusted.
We wanted to go hang-gliding, but didn’t have enough time, so instead, Melissa and I went in the blown-up, plastic ball. We crawled in and were strapped in across from each other. A man held the ball with a rope and guided us down the hill as we rolled over and over. We laughed and got sand in our eyes, mouths, ears, hair, and clothes. But it was one of the best parts of the desert.
Finally, we went down the huge sand hill on wooden boards. It was a little bit scary. You went REALLY fast, and felt like you were just about to go out of all control and fly to who knows where.
That afternoon, we went to an arts and crafts factory. Basically, we were taken there so that we tourists would spend money. But we saw some nice clothes and scarves.
We got to our hotel and after getting all the sand off of us, Melissa and I joined a bunch of other students for karaoke until midnight. Everyone left without paying and six of us were left with a thousand kuai bill. The next day we haggled everyone into paying their share. :) (We are learning the tricks of good bargainers fast!) But Diana, from Mexico, and I had had the time of our lives singing Britany Spears all night long.
The last day consisted of going to a temple in Hohhot and going to Datong to see some caves.
The temple was called Wu Ta Temple and the most colorful I have ever seen. It must have been kept well because none of the colors were faded. There was also an old, unpainted building. It had a small dark staircase you could take to the roof where there where pillars with carvings on them. I have never seen so many Buddha carvings in one place!
The drive to Datong took around five hours. Our guide liked to sing to us and make us sing. Most of the time, we did what we could to get out of participating. But this time, she got two Korean boys to go to the front of the bus and one sang a Backstreet Boys song and the other danced. When Koreans sing or dance, its always nice to watch, and I don't mean that in a nasty way!
The caves in Datong are called the Yun Gang Caves. They were very impressive. There were huge Buddhas, little Buddhas and some caves had carvings over every inch of the walls and some were painted and colorful. In front of one Buddha, that wasn’t in a cave, there were HUGE sticks of incense. I’ve never seen such big incense in my life. -And I need to correct myself, this is the place that has the most Buddhas, EVER!
But by now, most of us were ready to be back in Beijing. We had hot pot for dinner. They had blood with the hot pot. No one ate it, but a few others and I tried it. It really wasn’t too bad, didn’t taste like much at all. But I don't think it's something I am going to start buying for myself.
We had to wait until eleven to get on the train to Beijing. We pasted the time playing BS with Koreans and a hand game they taught us -it was a brutal hand game, you really get hurt! When we finally got to Beijing the next morning, I wasn’t up for going to class. Instead, I went home and straight to bed.
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