The Inner Mongolia Experience
I took the flight from Shanghai to Hohhot. Hohhot is the administrative capital of the province of Inner Mongolia. The flight connected through Shenzen. On the second part of the flight I was the only westerner on the flight. The landing into Hohhot was interesting. It was a clear sunny day but the landing was aborted at the last minute with no explanation. Fortunately with the second attempt we landed without incident. I was not sure if it was an inexperienced pilot landing the plane or he saw another plane on our landing strip at the very last minute!
Hohhot is a small city by Chinese standards, but large in western terms, with 2.6 million people. Signs of aggressive growth are everywhere. Signs of new construction are everywhere. The population is still majority Han Chinese, with a Mongolian minority. I chose Hohhot over going to Ulan Bator, which is the true capital of Mongolia, because Hohhot seemed like a more interesting place to visit. (It also helped that I did not need to get a special permit to visit. My trip to Tibet was cancelled at the last minute because the Chinese government would issue my permit to visit. Apparently worries about westerners inciting revolt and the like.) They both have the same scenery, and in fact Ghengis Kahn lived in Inner Mongolia and is buried in Ordos, which is four hours from Hohhot. The city of Hohhot is bordered by the Yellow River and the Kobqi desert in the south and the mountains in the north.
The city of Hohhot is a bit like two different worlds. You see signs for the new iPhone 4 everywhere (even one of the taxi drivers had an iPhone) but at the same time you see people who obviously do not have a lot of money. There is clearly more wealth and infrastructure though than say Ho Chi Minh. The difference I would say is you see much fewer people living in poverty in Hohhot. They are poor. But have all the basics at least that one needs to live a normal life, whereas in Saigon (or Mumbai) you see much more abject poverty.
Life is very slow here. Checking out of the hotel is a 20 minute process, in fact getting anything done takes a long time. It seems to be essentially an all cash society. It is not easy to use a credit card, and if you do there is a 4% fee you pay for the transaction. The efficiency and pace of life in Shanghai has by no means reached Hohhot!
I had dinner in a Mongolian camp in the city the first night. It was a series of little huts, you go in one hut and they serve you dinner. Dinner was an experience. If you were not careful you might end up with a bull's head on your table, or your dinner might crawl away! But the food was very good. The waiters and waitresses wear traditional clothes to complete the effect.
My tour guide is a Miss Li Yuru. She is in her early twenties, a student at the Normal University of Inner Mongolia, studying tourism. She grew up in Hubei provence. She hopes to travel the world one day and see the sights. She is a very nice and courteous woman.
They have a tradition in their university where each student plants one tree per year. Thee are 30,000 students so 30,000 trees a year from her school alone. It is a great tradition, and the effect is visible everywhere in the Chinese countryside.
It is quite hot here during the day. Weather is sunny and in the high 80s or low 90s fare heir. Night is pleasant, if not a little chilly.
Westerners are quite rare here. Ms. Li says she rarely gets westerners as tourists in Hohhot. In fact at breakfast this morning out of maybe 100 people milling around the big buffet besides me there was only two other westerners. No one speaks English here which makes getting around interesting - a guide is mandatory just to figure out what you are doing and where you are going.
We are on the way to the Sheila Muren Grasslands and the Wuchan country, where we are stopping at a small local village 'to get to know the local situation of the village' among other things.
The drive is about an hour and a half. I got to learn a little bit or Mongolian too. You can see by these simple words the language is complicated:
• Welcome: Ta sai ba ru
• Thank you: Ba yeri le la
• Good bye: Ba yeri ri tai
• Sorry: Wu qi la ri ai
Mongolians are a colorful people in their dress. White color stands for purity, blue stands for sky and is often seen in the dress too as is red.
We spent the morning driving from Hohhot through the mountains to the north. It was a windy road and a steep uphill climb. The mountains are not too high in elevation, about 1000 meters. After a while the mountains leveled off and we entered into the Wuchan country.
The Wuchan countryside is very beautiful. Eventually it turns into grassland as far as the eye can see in every direction. After a period of time we got off the main road and stopped at the village of Ju Le Ba. It was the first time they have had a non-Chinese visitor. There are about 30 families in total who live in the village. Anyway by the time we got there they were about 20 adults (kids were in school) out to greet us. The mayor of the village greeted us and we went into a small hut to have some Mongolian tea and visit. The Mongolian tea takes some getting used to but is good. It is both sweet and salty at the same time. We talked about life in their village. They grow potatoes and wheat.
The village was very clean and orderly. Many of the buildings were made out of mud and straw. But at the same time they had a new tractor sitting in front of the building I went in. Communicating was somewhat of a challenge. They spoke a dialect of Chinese that only the driver, who grew up in Hohhot, could understand. So I would ask a question, my guide would translate to Mandarin, and the driver would get it to the local dialect. Anyway they said it was going to be a good harvest this year, and were very courteous. Limited Television and no Internet access.
Spring summer and fall are spent farming the land. The winter is quite cold, and they get a lot of snow in the winter. Not too much to do other than try and stay warm and pass the time until spring. After a tour of the village we got back in the van and then headed off into the deep countryside. Eventually everywhere you could see was grassland. Even here though you could see signs of investment. Solar panels were being put in for irrigation, and the road was being improved.
Going out of Hohhot and up into the mountains you could see significant signs of investment in infrastructure. Things seem to point to over investment, or at the least a major problem if growth slows. The cities outside of Hohhot are not that big, but they are built with six lane boulevards. The road through the mountains is being replaced by a new and larger road, with new investments in erosion controls. Trees are painstakingly planted along roads to add to natural beauty. The quality of the infrastructure is very good, especially for being so far from the main population centers of China. The infrastructure in these cities looks to be sized for where the population will be in ten years. Therefore the opposite of the US, which has an infrastructure sized for 20 years ago.
We drove for another our or so and came into the Mongolian camp. Here we were greeted in traditional Mongolian fashion upon arriving. I was greeted by five people in very colorful dress, singing a traditional Mongolian song. They gave me a small container of white wine. You dip your fingers in once and shake a drop of wine to the sky. A second time with a drop to the earth, and a final time with a drop to your forehead to remember your ancestors. We had lunch, and then went off to ride the horses.
Riding horses through the Sheila Muren grasslands you get some appreciation for the empire that Ghengis Kahn built. The grasslands go on seemingly forever, but riding is a hard way to get through the countryside (thought it beats walking.) His empire in the eleventh century spanned most of China over to Europe, at a time when riding from one end of his empire to the other probably was like a journey to the moon and back. All the more since while he lived to be 75, and must have built his empire in forty years at most.
During the horse ride we rode up to a stone cairn. You see them quite a bit in the countryside. The locals use them as guideposts through the grassland. Apparently it is where the boys and the girls meet too. The guide sings to the horses during the ride, and alternatively has them wandering along and then sometimes getting into a trot or gallop, but at all times has them well controlled. Nonetheless, I am holding on for dear life during even the trotting. We trot up to a local Gert hut and had some more Mongolian tea, and then rode back into the camp. It was probably a ride of an hour, I am glad it was not longer! The breeze is very strong, as there is nothing to stop it in the grasslands. And the sun is extremely hot on your back.
The Mongolians are a nomadic people. The camps are only occupied during the summer. Come winter everyone leaves the grasslands as it is extremely cold. The hut I am staying in is really not that bad, considering you are literally in the middle of nowhere. It has a tiled floor, a bathroom, a bed, and even a little nozzle for a shower. There are probably 30 huts in this camp, so it is a mid sized camp. Sitting in the hut you hear the breeze flapping through the tent, and signs of daily life at the camp. Cows mooing, horses neighing, someone singing, and pots and pans being clattered about. In fact a cow just walked by my hut! There are some other tourists here, all are Chinese.
The evening is to be a traditional Mongolian dinner, and then a bond-fire to finish the evening off. The morning brings the early promise of getting up to see the sunrise over the grasslands. A beautiful sight no doubt but also at 5 am!
Dinner lived up to expectations. Ms. Li surprised me with a bottle of Coca Cola, saying "I know how Americans love to drink Coke!" During dinner there was a special ceremony with two slaughtered lambs, that were beautifully presented, with their heads still on. This was followed by a number of people singing Mongolian songs dressed in traditional bright clothing. The Mongolian singing is very melodic, and hauntingly beautiful. Sometimes though they mix in a rap beat as an undertone to the music. Throughout dinner everyone is polite but staring a little. Finally after dinner and the drinks loosen people's inhibition, I get requests from about 20 people to take a picture of me with them, most of them local Mongolians.
The bond-fire included more singing, belly dancers, and a woman who danced while balancing four cups on her head. Sunrise was spectacular, with the grass plains and the animals waking up in the morning.
Today we are driving off to the Yinken desert and then the Yellow river. It is a long drive but the sky is bright and weather good. Forecast is 90s so hot. The roads are mostly lined with poplar trees. In addition there are three or four rows of pine trees that have been planted as well, along the roads, more signs of the students beautifying the local landscape. Driving here is interesting. It is like Thailand or Viet Nam where no one seems to pay much attention to the traffic rules. Each intersection is therefore what I would simply describe as chaos, with people going in and out walking, on bikes, driving, and of course the lorries. People pass on the left, and also on the right. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to what they do.
The drive is long. I use the time to work on the blog. The mountains are to our right as we drive. Poplar trees form boundaries around agricultural fields. Everything around us is green, save the mountains that are brown. The road gets a lot bumpier and less well maintained. The signs are in Chinese and Mongolian.
The sky is very hazy. It is from pollution from steel making, which is the main industrial activity in this region of the world. We cross over the Yellow river, which is considered the mother river of all of China. It is the third longest river in China, after the Yangtze and Jujen rivers. We enter into a large expanse of plains. We pass a farmer who is hauling materials with a camel.
We finally arrive at the desert. It is indeed a sight to behold. The area is called the Singing Sands Ravine, it is the Kobqi desert, near Ordos. We come upon a huge ravine, 400m in width. The green/brown trees and grass are on one side of the ravine. Across on the other side is a huge expanse of sand. The ravine is 100m high, at the other side of the ravine is a 100m wall of sand. You take a cable car down and up the ravine and to the top of the sand wall.
We take a big dune buggy and ride through the desert. It is up and down huge hills of sand, going maybe 40 miles an hour, I would not be surprised if they flip once in a while but it is an exhilarating ride. From there they take us to ride a camel. At that time I felt much like Lawrence of Arabia staring into the Sahara. The feel of change was complete. The camel ride is maybe 30 minutes. Not a particularly comfortable experience, and I am sure if you were racing on one in the desert holding on would be a challenge. It is a slow way to travel but the only real alternative out here if you don't have a four-wheel drive.
We meander through hills of sand. There is almost no life. I do see a little lizard, who is perfectly camouflaged in the sand. From where we are the desert goes on for hundreds of miles. It is a wonder to behold.
From the camel ride the last stop is a slide down the 100m wall of sand. The angle of the hill of sand is about 70 degrees. It is so steep it is almost impossible to climb, should one try. I go down the hill on a little plastic sled, it is a very fast ride, during which I am holding on for dear life. At first I try and use my hands to slow down, but the sand gets too hot. I give up and trust my life in nature's hands. I have a bit of a crash landing at the bottom, thoroughly covered in fine sand, but make it without breaking a leg. From there it is up the other side of the ravine and off to Hohhot to head back.
