Seeing and being touristic sights.

We found an internet cafe again. We're in Datong now, I think far away the dirtiest and ugliest city I've ever seen in my life. But first my update for the past days. My last message ended at the great wall I see, so a lot to tell...

Dancing in the park
The next day (day 5) we went to the station in the morning to buy traintickets for Hohhot (Inner Mongolia). We moved to another hostel closer to the metro for one night; the next evening we would leave. These things (and buying another phone card) took us half a day. So we were quite late for all the sights, as they close around 17h. We decided to go to the Temple of Heaven Park, but also here we were too late for the sights. We walked through the park however, and from there we could see the sights fromt he outside so that was ok; there is a very nice round pagoda in the middle of the park. Another interesting thing in the park was watching people ;). There were a lot of people playing cards, and later on we even found a square with music and everybody dancing! Very funny to watch how everybody was dancing on his own way!

Last day in Beijing
For our last day in Beijing we had a rather busy schedule because there were a few things we still wanted to see before we would leave (and for which we were too late the day before). So we stood up in time to go to the Maosoleum. This was a very short 'museum', but interesting to see how it's treated. We couldn't take any bags with us (and no camera) so I waited outside while Dian went in and vice versa. There were two halls, the first had a large statue of Mao on a chair. People could buy flowers to leaf in front of the chair (and a lot of people did). Then we walked slowly (in between the whole mass of people) to the second hall whith Mao's grave. You can actually see him behind the glass! Then it finished in a shop where you could buy all sorts of Mao-souvenirs.
After the Maosoleum we went to the Lama temple, which is an ancient and very big buddhistic temple. Somehow it felt weird to walk there as a tourist because a lot of people were praying. And it was forbidden to make any pictures, because it were al religious things. But it was very beautifull.
And finally we went to the Summer Palace, where we met the German guy and American girl from our great-wall tour. This is without doubt the prettiest place of Beijing! It felt like walking through the Efteling (Dutch atraction park). The Summer Palace lies next to a large lake and when we went up to the top of the palace we had a magnificient view. I'll try to put a picture; I think it'll give a better idea.
When the palace closed we went for dinner with the other two guys (who actually spoke Chinese; very convenient). We went to a place where we had Korean BBQ. Then it was time for us to take our night train.

Inner Mongolia; horse-riding and Chinese tourism
The night train was not bad at all, we slept pretty good; it was not too hot and the beds were not uncomfortable. Next morning we arrived in Hohhot. We first searched for a hotel, we took the bus to one of the hotels from the Lonely Planet. In the bus all the people helped us to find the right stop and to get out, very nice. And then when we got out and were looking where to go, a girl asked us in perfect English if she could help us. She was a Mongolian girl who studied English. She was very nice and brought us all the way to the hotel! When we were checking in we already got a phone call from the a tourist office if we wanted to go to the grasslands. This agency had good reviews in the lonely planet, so we decided to book a tour for the next day with a night in a yurt.
The hotel was next to the University Campus and there was a swimming pool, so we decided to swim a bit. Was very nice, appart from the fact that there were only man (the girls want to stay white, so they don't go to the swimming pool), and that most of them were staring at us because there are not so many tourists in Hohhot... But there was a very nice woman in the pool (she lived in Paris for a while and she actually wants to get tanned now :)), so we laid down next to her.
After swimming we called Amy/ Wen Mei (the Mongolian girl) if she wanted to have dinner and drinks with us. She brought us to a Mongolian restaurant where we had a (salty) milk tea and a meat pie with camel meat! (tasted really good...) After dinner, we played some pool on one of the pool-tables that was standing by the side of the street.

Next day we had to wake up early for our trip. Our guide was nice but didn't really speak English. Luckily there was a Chinese girl who spoke a bit of English in the group. Besides her, the group was composed of her parents and grandmother, and a German man and woman. I especially liked the grandma, she couldn't speak a word English but somehow it was quite easy to communicate with her with a little help of Dian's Chinese phrase book. Our minibus drove into a little street (I don't think this was very good for the car) and after a while we stopped at a sort of farm with a lot of yurts next to each other (some real ones, some made of stone) and a lot of horses. We went out of the car and did a horse-riding tour into the grasslands to three 'sights'. They told us that they would take really good care of our safety (and that was why it was rather expensive), and that two guys would join us and teach us. In the end they just put us on one of the horses and on the way back we even went on full speed! I think I've been horse-riding once before in my life, so I was a little scared. But luckily Dian is a pro, so she told me what to do (and she said I was a talent ;)). The sights were not very interesting; the first was a 'buddhist temple', which was in fact just a bunch of stones with some white and blue scarves onto it. Then we went to the 'Mongolian family', but I'm sure that they are only living there to welcome tourists every day. And the last one was a 'grassland' where the grass was a little higher as in the other places. Our Chinese fellows seemed to love the touristy things (they tried on the Mongolian clothes to make pictures etc), but the Germans and us, we just enjoyed the view. And that was great!
When we came back to the farm there was a 'wrestling show' and a 'horse riding match'. The wrestling was not very interesting, untill one of the visitors managed to beat one of the Mongolian wrestlers for a couple of times (I think it hurted his ego). The horse riding showed that as people say, Mongolians are very good drivers. Then we would have stayed for our night in the yurt while the others of our little group would go back to Hohhot. But Dian was quite pissed about the horse riding; she said it was really not safe, and I guess she knows. Also we didn't really like the atmosphere in this place and the evening programme didn't really appeal to us (way too touristy). So we decided to join our group back to Hohhot. Back in Hohhot we had a tea with the Germans in their hotel. They were really interesting people. I guess they are in their 50's and they are still travelling the world in the same way we do now (only with a bit more luxuruous hotels). They are quite experienced and have seen many many places. They also invited us for dinner; we went to a place called 'Golden Hans', with all the waiters dressed up with sort of lederhosen. I think this is what the Chinese call 'German food'; just Chinese food but a bit less spicy and eaten with a fork and a knife. Really funny to see. Then we went to the train station to buy traintickets for the next day to Datong.

Datong (Shanxi); the good, the bad and (especially) the ugly
Yesterday afternoon we arrived in Datong, after being stared at for four hours in the train. As I already mentioned, Datong is the most ugly and disgusting city I've ever seen. They are constructing everywhere (so maybe in a few years it'll look better), there is garbage everywhere and every corner of the street has another smell (they're all horrible). Yesterday I thought it would just look bad because it was cloudy (as I already experienced in Beijing that clouds make the city look way worse), but no. Today it's blue and it still looks bad. Yesterday we didn't do much; we found a hotel next to the station (saves us carrying our luggage :)), bought traintickets for two days later so that we wouldn't be too late, ate something and then played a Chinese game with some people in the street :)

Today we went to the Yungang Caves. We decided to walk to the regional bus station from where a bus would go, so that on the way we could recharge our Chinese (international) simcard. But unfortunately that was not as easy... After being sent forwards two times, our third Chinese Mobile store told us that we could only recharge our card in Beijing! Aaargh, seriously, how hard can it be to just buy a simcard here in China! We still haven't sorted out what to do with this. I just googled and found a webpage that can recharge it for us, but it says the service is only available in urban cities, and I'm not sure if this is one of them. So I might not be able to call for a while (somehow with my french phone it's impossible), but you can reach me on my french phone.
Anyway, then we finally took the bus to the Yungang caves, and those were great! Like the lonely planet says about Datong; it isn't going to win any beaty pageants, but who needs good looks when you've got art? The caves were build from 460 AD, and contain thousends of small and big buddha's carved out of the rocks. The biggest one is 17 meters high (picture)!
The caves are surrouned by the mining industry. In the other side of the road is a huge coal mine. We wanted to check out the beacon tower from the Ming dynasty; a signal system to protect the pass leading to Mongolia. This wasn't very interesting, but it was cool to walk through the little mining town. It was all dust and dry land (I think there was a river once, but there was just a little bit of water left). And on our way back to the bus we took a ride on the back of a motor, really cool! :) Then we took the bus back,and now I'm in the internet cafe.

For the next couple of days; tomorrow we'll go to the 'hanging monastery', a temple build on the side of a cliff and then we'll take the nighttrain to Pinyao. A little town (40000 inhabitants) to the south of Datong. It's famous for being one of the best preserved old walled cities of China. Then we might make a little stop at Yan'an, a former communist centre and 'the birthplace of communism in China'. Or we go straight to Xi'an, depends on the tickets we can get. We decided to skip Luoyang, because the caves there might be a bit similar to the ones we've seen today.

Well, that's it. Quite a long story again, but now you're all up to date. And I put some pictures. Also with the previous stories. They appear in random places, so you might have to scroll a bit up and down ;)

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