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Published: October 11th 2007
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I just got back last night from Inner Mongolia or Nei Mongol and had a blast. I am also sore all over from the saddle, but it was so worth it. Cait and I left our dorms in Beijing at 4:30 in the morning on the first of October for the beginning of China’s National Day Holiday in order to catch the bus and drive the supposedly 7 hour drive to Hohhot. It was a rainy start as we stood in the one lone store open at that time to avoid the rain and waited for the buses and all the people to arrive. When we were finally sorted into the correct buses, we headed off north. What should have taken maybe 9 hours with traffic took us 14 hours plus a break for lunch and some kind of factory/museum stop. We got to the grasslands at 10:30 that night, ate our dinner in the cold building, and then headed off for the yurts to go to sleep. It was probably one of the most miserable bus experiences of my life and I just wanted to get off. That night, Cait and I shared our yurt with four Chinese girls who
spoke very good English. The next morning we got up for breakfast - hard-boiled eggs, rice water/porridge, and an assortment of various pickled items. There was also hot water that was almost tea, but we were told ahead of time that we were on our own for breakfast and lunch so we had plenty of snacks. Once breakfast was over, our personal tour guide, Wang Jing, prepared our horse ride and we headed off for about 4 hours of riding across the grassland, just Cait, An Lin (our horse guide who spoke no English), and me.
The extent of my riding horses up to this point has been trail riding on various vacations and almost only walking. However, in Inner Mongolia we trotted or cantered almost the entire duration of the ride, on wooden saddles, across the vast expanse of short grasses. It was exhilarating and a little scary, and after the first four hours, I was still doing well. We had lunch and then acquired a new companion to join us on our second ride of four hours. She was a German woman named Claudia (aka “Crazy Claudia”) who talked a lot, and we were stuck with her
for the rest of our trip. After the second ride that first day, I was so sore and wasn’t sure if I would make another day. That night we had dinner and then back to the yurt to talk and write in our journals a little and I was so exhausted that I was in bed and asleep by 8:45 pm. The next morning Cait and I skipped out on the “breakfast” and had some apples and a bread/pastry thing that we brought with us. The morning ride our second day wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to feel, but by the end I was even sorer than before. We had some lunch back at the main yurt place where we slept and headed out again after lunch for our last ride of the trip. At this point, I was almost in tears from the bouncing on the wooden saddle, but after a while more I was beyond pain and could enjoy the scenery some more. I know that it sounds like it was a miserable time, but it was absolutely amazing and if I had the choice to do it over, I would definitely do it again.
My bruises will be gone soon and I will feel back to normal, but I will remember the beauty and everything else for much longer. And it makes for an entertaining story.
The third night in the yurts, Cait and I went for a walk to look at stars and there were so many of them! We could actually see a strip of the Milky Way cutting across the sky. We also watched the small set of fireworks they set off that night, because we had missed them the first two nights by staying in the yurt wrapped up in extra layers and blankets from the cold. Our yurt was not heated, although it did have electricity in it. It is very cold in Inner Mongolia at night, probably getting down to the low fifties, and it only gets to be in the upper sixties during the day. The good thing was that we had very good weather and it didn’t rain on us at all, although there were some portions of time where it was overcast.
After our last night in the yurt, Cait and I loaded a bus heading back to Beijing and even though the
seats were much more squished, we enjoyed a much shorter ride than on the way up. So last night we got in to Beijing around 10:30 grabbed the first cab we saw and hit the sack as soon as we climbed the six flights of stairs - which is extremely painful after sixteen hours on a horse. I now have a bunch of homework and laundry to do, and I am going shopping in the next couple of days. Time to get back to school and reality again.
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