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Published: October 8th 2007
Firstly, I have to say sorry to everyone for not updating the blog for so long. I know many of you have feverishly been waiting for the latest news. I try to cover as much as I can without making you read fifteen pages of blogage. As I left off before, we had arrived in Shanghai. Dan and I spent four days there. We took time to check out as many things as we could. On our first day there we met a
woman named Yang; she is Chinese but lives in Japan and also speaks fluent Mandarin, which was a large help to our communication attempts.
While we were there, we lived the high life and went to the world’s tallest hotel to have a drink on the top floor. It was defiantly worth paying an American price for a drink. We saw some other great stuff while we where there, including some interesting French influenced architecture, and a lot of cheap stuff that we could spend our money on. After we left Shanghai via train to Beijing (12hrs) we used a day in Beijing to recharge a bit before Dan and I took off for Mongolia. At the time we figured it'd be a good idea to save the sights so when Kevin arrived its still be fresh to us.
From Beijing we took another train to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia (11.5hrs) In out first day we were greeted by the hostel owner in Hohhot on then train when he arrived to pick us up at the station. He brought us to the guest house which was on the 9th floor in an apartment building. The guest house turned out also to be the home of a Mongolian family complete with grandma and younger siblings. It was an interesting experience seeing their daily lives; we were fed salty tea with cheese on the bottom (which is actually very good), and we quite a bit of lamb. The young boy that was living at the house was doing his homework one night, so we watched him study for a bit. His homework consisted of his study of English, Mandarin Chinese, and traditional Mongolian. This kid was mastering 3 languages and he couldn’t have been older than 11 years old! All that I can say is; watch out America. I haven’t seen any kids in the states his age doing that kind of school work.
After one night at the house, we wanted to get to the Mongolian grasslands, so we took a public bus about 120km out side of town to go camp out amongst the “nomads” . We got set up in a Yurt or ger as the Mongolians say had a huge lunch which consisted of more lamb, more salty tea, some vegetables and some large rolls. The amount of food was ridiculous. Dan and I were stuffed beyond belief, and we felt bad not to eat it all, so we finished every bit food on the table. I have to say that when I left for this trip, I thought that I would be eating a lot less than usual, but since I’ve been here, I have found that there are so many opportunities for food, and it all so cheap. The only downside is that a lot of the food is fried or most likely smothered with MSG and oil.
After our lunch, Dan and I wanted to go ride some horses, so we found some for rent and took them out for about 3 hours on the grasslands. It was really a great experience. We got to a point where the only thing you could see in any direction was rolling green grass hills with no signs of human inhabitance. The horses were defiantly one of my favorite parts of this trip thus far. That night we ate another giant dinner with the main course once again being…lamb. The next day we spent in Hohhot, and took a look around the city. There wasn’t too much happening except a few somewhat interesting temples. It was time to get back to Beijing and Meet our friend Kevin who was supposed to meet up with us, and continue the trip to Kathmandu, Nepal with us.
During our time in China, we prefer to travel from city to city by train. Unfortunately for us the first week in October is the “Golden Week” in China, which means that everyone in the country has a whole week off work and school. What that means is that there is no space on the trains, unless you purchase your tickets far in advance. Since we weren’t able to take the train, our next best option was by bus.
Our guesthouse recommended it because it only took six hours to get back to Beijing, instead of the twelve by train. Our bus left Hohhot at 7:30am and was supposed to arrive in Beijing at 1:30pm, but we hit another bump in the road.
About three hours into our trip we had already had a couple close calls slamming into other vehicles. Our bus driver was swooping through traffic, and honking his horn erratically. Dan and I both were defiantly not at ease with the drivers skills. The thing that you never want to have happen when you’re traveling in a foreign country on a bus happened to us. The bus driver was trying to speed past a big rig truck in the left lane and cut in front of him when the back driver side of the bus slammed into the big rig. We grinded metal for a little bit, the bus shook and swerved to the side as the driver tried to correct his mistake. I was almost certain we were going to flip, so I woke Dan up to warn him (and say one final goodbye), but somehow our bus driver pulled it off. Our bus was ok, but the big rig went through the center divider, and was totaled. Luckily the driver was fine. We pulled to the side of the road, and assessed the damage to the bus. It wasn’t too bad, just some chewed up body panels. We had to wait for an hour for the police to arrive, and take the report. Once we started going again, we pulled off at a bus a few minutes later at a rest stop to sit another two hours and wait for a tow truck to check the bus out. The bus started up again and was moving in the right direction, which was sigh of relief. Even though we lost three hours, we were happy to be moving. My happiness suddenly changed when we ended up turning around to go the direction we were coming from. The language barrier proved to be most frustrating at this point.
We ended up going about an hour back toward Hohhot, to a junkyard where we waited another seven hours. They kept the masses entertained with a barrage of really bad action movies and “France rolls,” which tasted a lot like Hawaiian sweet bread. The bus, like some parts of China smelled of a combination of shit and cigarettes.
Finally at 1:12 am another bus came to the rescue and we quickly piled into the bus as if it was the last bus we would ever see again. We passed trough a series of toll roads. Just short of Beijing, one of the toll roads was blocked. Our driver turned the bus around and proceeded to drive the bus off road. We drove on this bumpy streach of road for about two hours and finally reached the outskirts of Beijing.
It started to rain as we arrived. The bus made its final stop at 4:00 am in a dark side street, where a combination of taxis and motorized rickshaws awaited weary travelers. We grabbed our packs and walked quickly to a lighted main drag. Mostly because of the rain, but I think we both wanted to get away from our ordeal and to our hostel without meeting any shady characters.
We got a cab quickly and the driver knew where we wanted to go. It was a relief to be in a familiar part of a very big city. Our taxi driver dropped us off; we walked and stumbled upon a restaurant owner making dim sum. We made a brief stop and gorged ourselves on an early morning treat. We left the restaurant and walked about a block to our hostel. We were glad to see the light on. I guess Tom Bodet knew we were coming. We got to our room and passed out.
Dan and I both apologize for being slackers…..we meant to update more, but limited internet and lack of time slowed us down a bit. On the next blog in a couple days we’ll be back up to speed. Including what happened in Beijing and Xi’an. Tomorrow we are taking China’s new “Sky train” to Lhasa, Tibet. The train is the highest in the world, going up to 16, 500 feet! The train is even equipped with oxygen masks to help with the oxygen deprived air. We miss everyone back at home. It feels like we have been away for a very long time even though it only been about 20 days or so. With hopes of a good internet connection in Lhasa….we will keep you updated ( for real this time!)
-ds
-pk
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anonymous
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stay safe.. have fun....B BOut to check the surf in the cold land!