Wide Open Spaces - An Introduction to Inner Mongolia

I never planned to go to Inner Mongolia, but little by little, the signs led me to it, and there I found myself my fourth Golden Week in China (the first week of October, 2015).

Melissa, my travel companion, described it as "China on a tranquilizer," and in Hohhot (呼和浩特), this was particularly true.  We arrived on the first day of October to a small city (by Chinese standards) with a laid-back, frontier-town feel -- all the usual mainland brands and KTV joints, but a notable absence of blaring horns and mopeds on sidewalks. It didn't seem touristy at all. The city is cool enough to have solar panels on their street lights.  We had a delicious dinner of tofu-veggie rolls, home style lamb noodles, and the best tempura oyster mushrooms I've tasted.  There was a university nearby; we stayed at the only hostel (Anda Guesthouse) which was full of all the international people in the city.  For a staff used to sparse people, a population the size of a normal Chinese tour group was baffling, but they were troopers and did the best they could with us for a four-day tour around their province.  I don't usually go in for tours anymore, but with a limited time, during the most crowded week in China, in a remote province, it seemed like this would save a lot of headaches and problems, and it did.

Inner Mongolia is vast. It takes hours to get anywhere by a rickety minivan, on a limited number of highways. Still, the scenery is breathtaking - brown mountains and plains, cows and sheep, vibrantly blue skies with the occasional cotton candy cloud, an absence of white-tiled architecture, cornfields, potato beds, drying sunflowers, and, this time of year, golden trees dappling the landscape.  The crisp autumn air was perfect for apple cider, which I never found, but I was armed with la tiao - it hits the spot. (Later, I found the cutest miniature apples I've ever seen!  Delicious, too.)

Our first stop was the grasslands.  To the untrained eye (like mine) they seem like nothing more than an endless expanse of small hills covered in grass, occasionally punctuated with a horse or a large puddle or a wind turbine, though I'm sure a proper scientist could find a number of worlds within.  The emptiness is poetic, and peaceful for a few days, but I kept thinking how hard it would be to live without trees and a bit more water flowing or lying around.  We all ate lunch in a family home, led by a young man whose name sounds like "Hussler," a stew of beef, carrots, and tomatoes, with a side of straight-up lamb meat.  (As time went on, I came to realize that Inner Mongolian cuisine strongly resembles Irish fare.) I rode horses with a Malaysian diplomat living in Beijing, and rented an ATV with Melissa for a windy ride around the local area and stone Buddhist shrines.  The smell of livestock permeates the air.  We had Mongolian hotpot for dinner, which struck me as a mix between seaweed and sauerkraut.  We spent the very cold night in a traditional Mongolian yurt with people from Germany, Denmark, Estonia (did you know that was the home of Skype?), and Norway.  (The Inner Mongolian people are no longer nomadic - the grasslands have been divided according to population restrictions by the Chinese government, and most folks have settled in permanent homes.) There were French, Belgians, Italians, and an Indian with us as well.  The cow dung bonfire couldn't warm us, and we all awoke to frost on the yurt and on the grass in the morning.  Without the interference of urban civilization, though, the sunset, night stars, and sunrise were beautiful...but I have to say that, for me, they couldn't compare to Switzerland or Peru.  Breakfast was milk tea with millet and bread.

On Day Two we made a pit stop in the desert.  Getting there was half the fun - we took a fast ride in a giant Codzilla-esque dune buggy that was more like a roller coaster than a mode of transportation. This desert was a beach with no water - soft, rolling dunes with ripples in the sand and the occasional sea-oat looking plant.  I couldn't help but compare it to the Valle de la Luna in Chile...the dunes weren't as tall, and the colors weren't so striking, but the soft palette was peaceful just before sunset.  We could see the edge of Inner Mongolian civilization on the fringes.  We got to try three desert activities, other than gazing:  sand boarding, camel riding, and another ATV.  Sand boarding was quick but smooth - a short ride down a hill on a sled, and blissfully warm (much preferred to snow sledding).  Riding the camel was a bit like the Wild West meets Arabian Nights - the mount and dismount were clumsy - on the part of the camel - but I felt more secure between the double humps than the single one (the only other kind of camel I'd seen before, and ridden in Morocco and at the county fair) and the smug, smirking animals plodded along, softer than I'd expected and not so smelly, a string of brown and cream winding through the dunes.  A little later, a herd of camels stampeded across the landscape, led by one of their own and tailed by a man on a horse with a dog, all curious I was curious.

To cap it off, Melissa and I both splurged for a reckless ATV ride, tandem with a driver, over some of the steepest slopes around. It was quite an adrenaline rush, and I clung to the metal bar of the backseat for dear life.  Last but not least, we all got to ride the giant dune buggy back to return our clown-like sand shoes.  Even the hotel that night was an adventure - when Melissa and I walked into our room, there was a stream of water falling from the light bulb in the ceiling to a puddle on the floor.  Our tour guide, Nancy's, reaction to that was the best...not only did we end up in the "suite" that night (which we shared with two other ladies who also happened to be WorldTeachers) but the hostel upgraded us from the dorms to a private twin for the rest of our stay, at no extra charge.  That was perfect, because although I often still feel like a study abroad student in my mind, when I'm around them I'm reminded that I am, in fact, not one anymore.

The following morning, we visited a temple possibly called Meidazhao - sources are conflicting.  Even though I've seen a lot of temples in China at this point, all have some unique features, and this one was resplendent with its golden roof shining in the sun, Chinese eaves, city wall surrounding it, and desolate mountain setting - a little like Ghengis Khan meets Tibet with a splash of Thailand and leaves it in northern China. (His legend is everywhere.)  Inside, we stumbled upon a unique altar splattered with assorted colors of paint, stalagmites amidst Buddhas with blue hair. A sign pointed us to (a sculpture of) Chile.  I had a conversation with an orange ladybug clinging to peeling paint  - places always seem more authentic to me when they're unrestored.

Thus, the next day, the newest section of the Great Wall (to me) did not disappoint.  It straddled the border between Inner Mongolia to the north, and Shaanxi/Shanxi to the south.  It's brown here, and in ruins, set amidst trees like molten gold, better than a New England fall, surrounded by wind turbines that sound like airplanes from far off.  Don Quixote would have a hard time fighting those metal giants.  We enjoyed the view over a picnic lunch, and then took a slow hike snaking along the wall and down a dirt road through the forest, past fields of potatoes and the year's last watermelon.  The last stop was the White Pagoda at dusk.  It was actually closed when we arrived, but the driver somehow convinced the reluctant groundskeeper to let us in.  On the outside, the White Pagoda is pristine, adorned with carvings like Greek statues.  Inside, however, the visitor is surprised to find it black - dark tunnels of cold stone leading up winding stairs, past barred windows, to a faded and dusty shrine on the seventh story - like a gothic prison, or a medieval dungeon above ground.  Surely, it must be haunted - but the tickets told no stories.

After that, it was back to Hohhot for xiao kao, xi jiao and shopping.  I found my favorite BBQ peppers, among other delicacies, and, though it wasn't as spectacular as my favorite place in Hengyang, had any sore travel muscles worked out (with the interesting addition of a reflex tool).  Melissa and I didn't have much luck finding traditional winter clothes (it was all too costume-y) but we bought office gifts and ate curry...Hohhot has a surprising number of food options, considering the popularity of bread and potatoes in the rest of Inner Mongolia.  Then, for me, it was a double-night train back to Hengyang - it's amazing how fast time passes on the slow train (the flight up was only two and a half hours, but, availability and time permitting, I'd choose the train any day). All in all, I'd say it was a successful surprise trip to Inner Mongolia - another side of China today.