Nomad Land

Hohhot aka Hohot aka Huhehot depending on who you are talking to, of course this lends to some confusion when buying tickets or talking about where you're off to but it's still pretty easy to get here on an overnight train. Quite peaceful in fact and so we started our visit soon after arriving, just the time to sample some mongolian milk tea - might sound good but you need to be prepared for the portion of butter and salty taste! The town has an interesting mosque and a couple of lamastery temples which are worth seeing. The architecture is quite different to other places in China too, having a large number of domes on the roofs which either represent yurts or those middle eastern domes.

Hohhot Street

The grasslands in Xilamuren being the nearest prairie to Hohhot we decided to go here, and of course this way we had some european company from Austria and England. Max has already been travelling a year but doesn't intend to stop yet and Martin who although alergic to peanuts intends to spend about 8 months in Asia. Our guide, also the guest house owner took us in his car out to see a Mongolian family he has befriended (in the interests of tourism) and from here we experienced the freezing winds blowing over the steepes and some local food. The grass is now short but apparently grows quite high in the spring/summer months, the temperatures however were the real shock, the wind quickly freezes anything exposed (it actually snowed at 500m). In terms of local fare we sampled two cheeses, both hard, one of them very sweet like a bonbon. Butter and salt in the milk tea kind of ruins the taste for us, but it's the thing to do so we showed willing by added butter (-salt).

Minaret

Next off we travelled into the edge of the Gobi desert, a small town called Daqi. The whole place is lined with restaurants all the way up to the imposing chimneys of the power plant. We found a way out to visit a sand gorge, otherwise known as singing sand ravine (because the slides down the dune make a rushing noise), the dunes rise up 110m which means some serious uphill walking and some fun jumping down. We were lucky enough to arrive before the 18th when all the sand sculptures will be torn down. These sculptures celebrated 60 years of CCP and local culture. Although only 3 hours from Hohot and the prairies the temperature was much higher in the sun.

Mosque

The desert makes up a large portion of Inner Mongolia, (Gobi, Tengger, Badain, etc) and is gaining on the inhabitated parts, the government should be planning ways to save land by replanting but it seems more intent on building power plants spewing their noxious fumes into the atmosphere. We saw around 10 in this province which were all right next to townships. Mongolians only make up about 15% of the population and there may be some hard feelings towards the Chinese, certainly with our guest house owner.

Dazhoa temple

Simon Turning the Scriptures

Wall Painting Xilutu

Mongolian Fare

In the Prairie

Yurt

Max on Sand Dune

Camel

Tree in the Desert

Sand Sculpture

Jumping down Dune