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Published: September 23rd 2006
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"What should we do on my free day next week?" Colleen asked one morning "Why not go to Inner Mongolia" I suggested "Ok" Colleen agreed. It wasn't quite that simple to find out some information about the area though...ie: a map??? Colleen came across the name Zhulantun a number of times & discovered that there is a train that goes there. I posted a question in the travel forum to see if anyone has been to that place, but I didn't get a response from anyone. Oh well Tracy, Colleen & I were still gung ho about the idea so off we went. Inner Mongolia is not Mongolia as some people might mistakenly assume, instead it is much like another province of China so there is no border crossing. It is only 3 hours away from Daqing by train. The visions of Inner Mongolia I conjured up in my mind included some flat brown land, a stiff wind sand blasting us, a couple of horses standing nearby with their heads braced against the wind while some small dark people stare at us as though they just saw an elephant fly. The train that just dropped us off has already long
gone...headed towards the end of the world (we didn't want to go quite that far). Romantic I know, that's cuz I do have a creative mind in order to make my life more interesting.
We were so pleasantly surprised when we arrived. We found a square, a market with things we had never seen & then a park to walk through. The weather was enchanting, the city was beautiful & the people hardly seemed to notice us. I think that was what impressed me the most, the people weren't staring! I couldn't stop rejoicing over it, it was a most delightful feeling. Unfortunately the only train leaving for Qiqihar was at 1:30pm so Tracy had to leave while our train to Daqing didn't leave until 9pm. After a somewhat disastrous lunch (took like an hour to find food in the first place) Colleen & I started to wander around. It was such a lovely place that it actually felt like we could belong there. I was thinking about Megan all day long because I just know that she would love the place, I just had to get a picture of the hospital for her. We bought tea, some
clothes & other little odds & ends. I guess there was an exception to the no staring generality, it happened when we sat down on a bench to have a drink. There was a small old man that was walking past us pushing his bike suddenly he stopped short & stared at us as though he had just been struck by lightening. After a few moments of this I said in English "ok buddy this isn't funny anymore, it's time for you to move on". No reaction. Finally Colleen burst out: "he wants your water bottle!!!". Sure enough, he stood there unmoving as a statue until I finished my water & gave him my bottle, then he pack up his stuff & moved on. The folks can get a bit of money for recycling bottles so it kind of made sense...duh. The "poorer" part of town was very much divided from the rest of the city, by the train tracks on one side & by a river on the other side. However even that area seemed clean & looked like fun. Zhulantun even had flowers & trees so that was interesting. Once it was starting to get dark we headed
Zhulantun, Inner Mongolia
ok so I just love Chinese caligraphy... over to the train station & were intercepted by the police. They wanted us to sit in their office & chat with them for a while. They were all very friendly but the only information they could get from us was answers to the questions in our phrase book. They were smoking a lot & we both had headaches so that was difficult. By the time we were on the train Colleen & I were so tired that we felt sick (only 4 hours sleep the night before). Besides my headache, my feet & legs where in so much pain that I was amazed that I actually fell asleep for 30 min intervals. It was crowded as usual. I fell asleep resting my head on a little table that 2 other people were sleeping on too, so it was weird to be all leaning on each other & sleeping but at least the time passed. The train guys woke us up & told us when were in Daqing. All in all looking back at our day we said to each other "sure, why not move to Inner Mongolia?"
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