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Published: October 13th 2013
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Tuesday, October 1 - Thursday, October 3
Inner Mongolia, China
It has been a wild, wild whirlwind of a couple of weeks! As we determined, Rachael and I hit 8 cities in 12 days, and spent most of those days trekking around on foot. It was a fast-paced, adventuresome vacation, and both of us had brand new experiences of note.
The first of these experiences was Inner Mongolia. To summarize our time in Inner Mongolia, it's a good thing that that is how we got started, because the only way for the rest of the trip to go was up! Hohhot is described as being an, "up and coming city," which, in reality, means it is a run-down ghost town with a lot of construction going on. There is absolutely NOTHING to do in that city. However, we only used the city itself as a homebase to meet up with friends and head out to the Grasslands and desert for our actual adventure.
The Xilamuren Grasslands
The Xilamuren Grasslands reminds me a bit of the American West. It's a plains area, wrought with would-be tall grasses and open spaces, dotted with dude-ranch style compounds
Archery
What else are you going to do in the middle of nowhere in China? made up of yurts (round, single-room, lambskin sleeping quarters) and horse stalls. The people of Inner Mongolia have created a tourist destination out of their land by simply multiplying their yurts, offering horseback rides, calling it a Genghis Khan experience and charging 400rmb for an hour on a tired horse. I grant you, we made the most of it and had a grand time laughing together and freezing together in the yurt. Temperatures dropped to around freezing at night, and our compound's version of a bonfire was a 16" open charcoal grill in which small Chinese children were frequently lighting sparklers, thereby making the premises exceedingly hazardous. Hence the freezing together. Fortunately, we were all wise enough to pack accordingly, and took advantage of the opportunity to step away from the crowds and enjoy an evening under something we haven't seen in nearly a year: stars.
The Kubuqi Desert
Our second day in Inner Mongolia was worth the waiting for. For less than the cost of a horseback ride at the Grasslands, we snatched up access tickets for a desert buggy ride, camel riding, sand sledding, and a quick round on miniature sand-rigged motorcycles. Dressed as desert nomads,
Camel Ride
Jessi on a camel. Enough said. we traipsed around that desert like we owned it. The entire venture out to Inner Mongolia was made entirely worth it for me by the camel ride. What an experience! The things are MASSIVE, for one thing -- much larger than I anticipated them being. They are also exceptionally docile. The previous day, out on the Grasslands, we came across a wounded, would-be-pure-white-were-it-not-for-the-dirt female camel. She allowed us to get very close to her (closer than I would have thought wise given the nerdy reading up about these animals that I naturally did before boarding one...), and much more patient and willing than the horses were. Despite my sore rear end from the previous day's horse ride, I was exceptionally comfortable a-way up there, and had a great time imagining life in the sand. Anyway, we made a grand time of the thing before being hauled back away by our sand buggy car thingy that made the sand dunes seem more like roller coaster tracks.
That night, we had to endure another 4-hour bus ride to get back to Hohhot (pronounced, I kid you not, Ho-hu-hot-tuh... Dear China, ...). Little to no communication was required when the
Desert Jump!
Jessi, Lee and Taryn in the Kubuqi Desert five of us made eye-contact right around hour 2 of that ride: we couldn't stand to do another day in this region. We'd had a blast... but it was time to call it while we were ahead. So, we spent several hours back at the hotel working with travel agents to arrange our escape. Eventually, we were able to confirm plans and opted to head to Annie's new hometown of Tianjin for the next two days.
More to come in Part Two!
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Grandma
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As you know your great grandpa (my dad) was in WWII....Anyway, he rode camels while in the war, probably in Sicily and he used to laugh because he said they do spit!.....I guess several caught the camel\'s \'throat clearing\' action several times.....Guess it didn\'t smell too good........Anyway, keep those blogs coming. I enjoy. Love ya, Grandma