If you know much about China and Asia, you've probably wondered what the Mongolian Grasslands are like, and you picture men like Genghis Khan on horseback weilding swords and conquering the world...
Well, I can't say that the Grasslands are like that today, but Inner Mongolia is definitely a different world from Beijing. Hohhot itself is just another Chinese city, but if you venture out into the grasslands (which you definitely should!) you'll find it's quite different!
We arrived in the morning and straight away started looking for trips out to the grasslands. We had one night in Inner Mongolia and we wanted to spend it sleeping in a yurt in the grasslands! We found a company at the train station that seemed like a pretty good deal, so we sorted it out and off we went!
Slowly, we went...the car that the driver took us in was a piece of dung...we thought it was going to fall apart! But after a couple hours of driving, we arrived at a little yurt gathering. Upon exiting the car, we were greeted by costumed people bearing white scarves and little cups of baijiu. Prior to this, I had sworn never to drink baijiu again after the incident in Shanhaiguan, but you can't really say no to people right in front of you who are making a big ceremony out of the deal...
After the baijiu shots we put our stuff in the yurts and went off to sort out a horseback ride. After much deliberation we decided on the 3 hour ride that went to a little old lady's traditional house for lunch and the grasslands. The first stop wasn't really lunch persay, but butter milk tea and a few munchies. It was nice though. The house was interesting, and they had baby sheep!
Then we went to the grasslands. It's beautiful. Rolling hills of grass for as far as the eye can see. A far cry from the rows and rows of modern buildings in Beijing! We romped around in the grass for a while. It's not long soft sweeping grass like we imagined...it's shorter tough tufts of grass growing on little mounds. But it was fun, nonetheless.
We went back to the camp and had lunch. It was just regular Chinese food, nothing exciting. After lunch we had a few hours to just relax and do nothing. That was nice. We wandered around the camp a bit, played cards, took a nap in the yurt. Just before the nap, I heard some sheep bleating crazily so I decided to sit up and look out the door to see what all the commotion was about. Boy, was that a mistake. I looked out to find 2 sheep - one in a truck, the other being slaughtered - about 100 feet away from our front door!!! It was so disturbing, but I couldn't look away. Guess what was for dinner?
So needless to say, I wasn't real hungry for lamb at dinner. I stuck with some veggies and rice and soup. It's good to see that sort of thing every once in a while, though. It really makes you think about what you're eating. During dinner there was a performance, and after dinner the baijiu and the KTV microphones came out. It was pretty funny. Then came a ceremonial lamb and some rituals were performed. Not sure what the significance is, but I am curious - especially since I watched it die!
The sunset was beautiful that night. I could have sat there and watched it forever. But it got pretty cold pretty fast, so we snuggled up in our yurt for the night. We got up early and had breakfast and headed back to the city.
We got back at around 9am and our train didn't leave until about 8pm so we had the day to waste in Hohhot. We decided to go to the Inner Mongolia museum. It was interesting, but it is really big and not everything is in English, so we got tired of it after about 3-4 hours. We got in a taxi and requested a coffee shop. He took us to a UBC and we sat there and had pizza and coffee and played cards all afternoon until about 6 when we headed back to the train station.
It was an excellent trip! I only wish we had spent more time in the grasslands instead of in the coffee shop in Hohhot!!!
More thumbnails ...
