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Published: February 23rd 2012
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Nei Mongol We had an entire week off the first week of October for National Day. China’s equivalent to July 4
th. 8 of the 10 teachers including myself traveled to Inner Mongolia; a present day Chinese province but historically Mongolia. The Mongolian heritage had not been lost. Every sign was in Mongolian and pictures of Genghis Khan filled every family restaurant and convenient store. The food was a carnivores dream. Any and every kind meat seasoned over open flames. One teacher ordered leg of lamb and literally got the whole leg, picture a 5 lb. 18 inch chicken wing. We stayed at a hostel filled with all sorts of international kids; German, Polish, Dutch, French, Spanish, English, and Swiss. Most were exchange students traveling during the break from school. While I’m not hip to sharing a bathroom with 12 people it was an excellent way to meet people and exchange all kinds of stories and to hear about places they had been to inspire my own excursions.
Our first journey was a night in the grasslands inside a urt. Urts are round tents historically used as homes by the nomadic Mongols to follow their herds. Green rolling hills as far as the eye could see and the most stars I had ever seen at night. We rode horses during the day and substituted the supposed archery sessions with riveting game of throwing rocks at glass beer bottles from 30 paces. At night we ate a traditional meal with a local family and got acquainted with a delicacy of boiled coagulated lambs blood amongst other homemade goodies. Here should also be stated if you ever get the chance to hangout with any Polish people take it, you won’t be disappointed. Side note…if you’re ever presented with the choice to share a urt in freezing conditions with either French people or Polish, here again, choose the Polish.
After the grasslands a 6-hour drive to the Gobi desert for a session of camel riding and desert volleyball, beach not present. That was my first encounter with a desert, quite intimidating to think of being a mile or so out and being lost. Every sand hill looks the same for miles and miles, an ocean of sand. Next we took for granted two things; the epicness of our last venture out the next day, and the nightlife of Hohhot. Unfortunately the latter was chronologically the former so a few missed out on the journey while the rest of us went at it at about half speed with extreme nausea.
After a short bus ride through desolate farms the bus stopped on top of hill at a gate where a pristine new concrete road started. We started walking on a dirt path down over the hill through very small villages and fields of crops as people harvested what was left to pick in the fall. About 2 hours of walking over the picturesque countryside we come to the top of a hill and snaking over the ridge as far as the eye could see was a large, decrepit looking wall made of stone and packed dirt. An earlier section of the Great Wall, nothing like you see in pictures of Beijing with the ornate gray stone stacked orderly. Granted it probably looked more intimidating 600 years ago, it would do the job of keeping Mongols on horseback from invading. Walking along the top of the wall we all instantly approved of the days expedition. Some places the wall is barely wider than your foot making feel like a tight rope act as you hope the 600 year old mix of stone dirt doesn’t crumble under your feet. It did crumble under the girl behind me. A Dutch girl slipped and dangled from waste down over the side as I and one other person helped lift her up. I’m not painting a picture of a life saving event but an unpleasant 25 foot drop at least. Seeing that relatively untouched section of the wall in the countryside, with no other tourist for hundreds of miles was the highlight of the trip hands down. The whole walk back on the wall all I could think about, as the pristine concrete road snaked along side, was this had to be one of the worlds best motorcycle rides.The week was over time to say goodbye to the best food in China and return to the inadequate meat portions of ZZ. Only after buying a 10 lb. bag of lamb jerky in the airport.
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