Inner Mongolia. Contrasts Day 3

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Geo: 36.8945, 104.166

We got up early for a quick walk about the town with the early morning sun light. There was ice in the river so it was pretty cold. There where cows roaming the street, which seemed a little odd. All of the shop signs where not in Chinese but in Russian. That was a little odd too. The houses where pretty basic timber frame with wooden high fences that kept in the horses or cows in the field. In the vegetable garden there where cabbages and the Chinese long lettuce growing.Breakfast was boiled eggs, bread, rice porridge thingy and tea. It was ok. We walked around to the bakery and bought more bread for the journey. It was a little sweet and still a bit warm. Yum.We drove for a while until the road became just a dirt track. We stopped at the base of a small hill and of corse the kids run up before I even got out of the bus. The grass was a golden yellow color that just went on and on forever. The kids had a great time and I asked when they saw from the top of the hill and the reply was, "More grass. It's all the same."We travelled on and the road became narrower and it became one lane. We hoped we didn't meet up with a car coming the other way because I'm not too sure how they would be able to pass by us.We came to a village which was just one Main Street with about 12 houses either side.We were lucky that we were invited into one of the houses.It was very basic and absolutely freezing inside the house.<br style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: wf_segoe-ui_normal, 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe WP', Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: normal;">Under the floor boards was where they kept their food. We saw potatoes. I suppose you don't need a fridge when it's so cold. Inside the house there where drying chilies and garlic. Outside there where carrots, turnip and corn drying out in the sun.We went to the local shop that was just a room with very little in it.We all bought drinks and food.I think, they made more money in that 5 minutes then they did for the whole year.For lunch we stopped off at the side of a road where we sat outside by the river and ate what ever food they where making that day.<br style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: wf_segoe-ui_normal, 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe WP', Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: normal;">The beers where kept in the stream to keep them cold. Once again the food was great as long as you weren't vegetarian.Now we where off to the Eergu'Na Genhe Wetland Park which we were told that in China, at this present time, this was one of the largest wetland areas that is kept in its most intact and original state.As soon as we stepped off the bus in the car park to the Wetland Park we where overwhelmed with Chinese tourists that wanted to have their photo taken with us.We had to run away otherwise we would still be there now.The sun was going down and we had to walk a fair way to get to the Wetlands.<br style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: wf_segoe-ui_normal, 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe WP', Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: normal;">There is a great viewing area from where you can see just how big the area is. There is also another look out a little further. In the area below we could see sheep, a man fishing and even people walking. It was really pretty as the sun was going down.That night we ordered a whole sheep to eat. It arrived all in one piece including the head. It had a pretty red scarf tied around its neck. A bit odd but it was really tasty. Once again if you where vegetarian there wasn't much to eat. Rice maybe.

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