Resonant Sand Gorge

The next morning we tried the Chinese breakfast of the hotel. Once again I’m not made to eat Chinese food at 7:30am, especially when it’s the same food they would eat for lunch or dinner. We left Hohhot for Baotou, 3 hour drive. By now I confirm that the van does not have shock absorbers as every bump on the road and the whole van jumps.
We reached the Resonant Sand Gorge just before lunch time. We got ready for the desert (my first time ever in a desert, believe it or not) and after a quick lunch we took the cable car to reach the other side.
Beautiful landscape but again, a very touristic area, while we were after something more like trekking in the desert. We quickly escaped the busy area and walked further away to enjoy the view.
Take the tour here.

PS: the terrible thing about desert is the sand, especially when it's windy. After 2 hours in the desert I had sand everywhere it could go (I do think I even ate some). It took 2 showers back home to get rid of it.

Hohhot

Done with the Tropical lunch we drove 2 hours to Hohhot, the capital of Autonomous Inner Mongolia. Population: 2.6 millions so by Chinese standard this is a town, not a city. And you can really see the difference. It does look like a provincial town, clearly less developed or organized, and dirty. We were supposed to visit the Inner Mongolia Museum with 44000 objects relating to ethnic history… what a disappointment. This must have been one of the worse museums I’ve ever been to. In 45min we were done (the building was big and we checked each room, just in case the next one would be better). Again if you were to go to Mongolia, skip the museum (even if the entrance is for free) and spend more time hiking the grassland.
An example of the board introducing each room in the museum (read it)

For dinner we went to a typical restaurant to discover some more Mongolian specialties. This time it was some sort of noodles (see picture) that you eat together with a soup. Very good. The other dishes were pretty similar to what we had the day before.

Tropical restaurant

Once we were done “riding horses” we drove to the town nearby, Zhuo Zi Xian, for lunch. Our guide took us to a Tropical restaurant. Namely a Mongolian restaurant located in a giant warehouse decorated with tropical plants. It felt like eating in the botanical garden.


At the same time as our lunch there was a wedding. We benefited (or survived should I say) from the wedding music and animation. Trust me when you’re not Chinese it’s really hard to appreciate traditional Chinese music.
The bride and the groom:

Horse riding or so

The main activity for the morning was horse riding: “we will have some horseback riding. You will know how Genghis Khan conquered the whole Asia and part of Europe. You have the option of sitting on the horse guided by experienced nomads or riding the horse on your own” said the tour description.
Reality was that we couldn’t ride the horse on our own. Very disappointing. We still went for a ride as there was not much else to do but honestly I don’t think Genghis Khan conquered the world riding at that pace. He would have never made it to the great wall.

Morning visitors

After a very windy night (I mean that you actually wonder if your yurt will stay on the ground or take off), we started our second day in Mongolia. We had breakfast; the same as the day before but this time we had brought Oreos with us as an alternative to the food provided. When we came back to the yurt to pack we found out we had some funny visitors, very eager to get in.





PS: I forgot to mention that the weather had changed. Beautiful blue sky, bright sun… but still very windy and cold. At least no more rain :)

Back at the yurt hotel

After the Yellow Flowers valley we returned to the yurt hotel. We “settled down” in our traditional yurt. It was freezing cold. So cold you could see your breath when breathing. Given we had 1 hour to go before dinner we decided to take a nap. We wrapped ourselves in the blankets and quickly fell asleep. Despite the cold outside and in the yurt, those blankets were keeping us warm; almost incredible the contrast between the temperatures.
Traditional yurt:





After the nap we went to the main yurt for a Mongolian dinner.
The dinner started with a Mongolian tradition. Your “host” offers you some rice wine to welcome you. After that different dishes arrived and the food was quite good (and much better than the lunch, although that was easy).



We had the opportunity to listen to some typical Mongolian instrument. Something from the family of the violin, using horse hair as cord.


It was planned for us to watch some Mongolian wrestling and horse riding race but given the cold and the rain it was cancelled. The hotel staff put on some “disco” music for people to dance (yes outside) but none of us was in the mood for it. I have to acknowledge that it’s a good way to keep you warm though. Thus we went back to the yurt and chatted until nearly frozen :)

The Yellow Flowers Valley

The Yellow Flowers Valley takes its name after the yellow flowers that grow in it (obviously). There were not so many flowers open but still enough to get a feel of what it could be when they’re all blossoming. After climbing a small hill and passing by a horse (poor thing, attached to a pole up there alone) we reached the valley. WOW! This alone made the trip to Inner Mongolia worth it. The valley is beautiful, the view is incredible from up there (although every now and then a wind mill shows up but let’s face it given all the wind it’s probably one of the best place to put them).
Again I felt like seeing some landscape from Brittany, without the sea of course. Those rocks were so similar that I had a déjà-vu impression. We manage to convince the guide to spend longer time in the valley walking around or sitting just enjoying the amazing view.
Judge by yourself here.

Biking in the grassland

Our first activity was mountain biking in the grassland. Despite the weather (cold and slightly rainy) we decided to go. It took us quite some time to get the bikes ready as of course tires were not full of air and seats were adjusted for Chinese height. Once all the technical details were sorted out we left the yurt hotel. After 5min biking we quickly realized something: wind blowing at your face does not help and make biking tough and mud is really not your friend (how can you move forward when you are 5cm deep in the mud?). By a combination of biking and walking we eventually moved forward.
The grassland is quite impressive. It reminded me of the Mont D’Arree in Brittany. Long green area, nothing on it (well except for wind mills that seemed to be everywhere here), few flowers… we passed a village and met some of the inhabitants of the grassland (horses, pigs, sheep).
Have a look here.
In the village it started to rain hard and I went to hide from the rain into a little brick house that looked open. Silly me, it was the toilet. Namely, 3 holes in the ground, separated by a 1 meter high wall. The smell was impossible and the sight was even worse. Everything you can think of that goes through that hole in the ground just piles up under it for you to see and smell. Not to mention that apparently some people missed the hole and it fell right next to it… And this was only the first of a long series of similar common toilets we’ve had to go to (to be honest after a while we started going in the while behind a rock or a tree as a better alternative).
At some point Alice and I gave up the biking and preferred to walk. Honestly if I were to do it again I would skip the biking and just hike the grassland. As once you don’t need to focus on where you will pass with your bike, you can then enjoy the landscape much more and even notice the butterflies flying around.
A few hours later (feeling like we’ve been up for the whole day, that’s what happens when you wake up at 4:30am) we stopped for lunch in another Mongolian village. Leo our guide directed us to a yurt which he said was a restaurant. He ordered food for us while we were resting in the yurt. The inside of the yurt was very simple. About 1 meter from the entrance you have a resting area where you can sit, lie down, eat… that’s the living part of the yurt. We waited a long time to get the food. So long we complained after 45min. the reality is that our “chef” was a woman cooking in her kitchen and of course she was not prepared for 6 people in one go. Bottom line nothing was prepared in advance so she started from scratch… thus it took long… and the food was not really good. Very greasy and some dishes that included the yellow flowers from the valley next door was not to our taste. But we did try every dish of this poor woman.
Video lunch in Mongolian village
Stomach relatively full we crossed the village to go see the Yellow Flowers valley.

Mongolian breakfast

A little bit longer than 1 hour including half an hour of bumpy road (why would you slow down when you see the giant holes in the ground?) we arrived in the yurt hotel. It’s called a hotel but it’s actually a collection of yurts gathered around a big central one. There were 2 types of yurts: traditional ones (all in wood and fabric) where we would spend the night and modern ones (in concrete).
Concrete yurt


Given the previous night had been windy the traditional yurts needed to be checked before we could access to them. Therefore we went to a concrete one to change (i.e. put all the warm clothes we had brought on as it was freezing cold) and refresh (i.e. use the toilet that had no flush because there was no running water). Next stop was Mongolian breakfast. That turned out not to be a hit with us. First the Mongolian tea is a milk tea that is salted. Absolutely impossible to drink. None of us could take more than a sip. No coffee or normal tea as an alternative. Food wise it was not a big success as the cheese was sweet (well that’s what I was told as I still do not eat cheese), the steamed buns and porridge were on the other hands not tasty at all, last but not least there were hard boiled eggs. Believe it or not, all of a sudden they looked super attractive and we all ate 2 or 3 of them (so much for our cholesterol). There were also some Mongolian bread brought in the town we passed by. Those only tasted oil and left your hands covered with a layer of oil after holding them. Better than the rest not that much better.
Breakfast

The train to Inner Mongolia

So there we go: Alice, Tamara, Arif, James and I met Leo (our guide from cycle China) at Beijing West railway station at 8pm. We are to take a night train to Jining at 9pm. The train station was packed with people leaving Beijing as tomorrow is Dragon Boat festival, which means we get a day off. As it is a Thursday a lot of people took Friday off as well and are leaving the city for a long week-end. We passed security check and ticket control and got in the train. I was quite excited as it was my first trip in a Chinese train. As it is an overnight train we had booked soft sleepers (i.e. beds) vs. hard sleepers (i.e. a board). I have to say I was quite impressed by the soft sleepers and the first class in general. Although it looked old the beds were long and comfortable enough, with only 4 persons per cabin (as opposed to 6 with hard sleeper). We quickly settled down and ate dinner. Given we were to get up at 4:30am, we chatted a bit and then went to sleep. Yes another record in going early to bed, by 10pm, everybody was asleep. 2 hours later I woke up. Obviously the train being in motion so was my bed, so was my back. Sadly it didn’t like it and as of midnight I dozed on and off. Not to mention the train was noisy. I was actually happy when it was time to wake up. 30min later we were on the platform, freezing. Gosh it was cold and on top it was raining!


The train station was another opportunity for surprising Chinglish.


We then took a van for 1 hour drive to Huitengxile grassland.

Jining, Inner Mongolia

Jining, that's where I'm going tonight. We're taking the train to go explore Inner Mongolia. Will be back on Sunday morning with great pictures :)


Agrandir le plan

One dog policy

I had heard of it from different sources and today I decided to check it out.
Indeed there is a one dog policy in Beijing implemented in November 2006 to fight rabbies.
"The policy sets a legal limit for dog height at 14 inches (35.5 cm) and restricts every family to one dog as a maximum. Dogs are not allowed to be abandoned, and owners cannot take their dogs to public places such as markets, parks and sightseeing areas"
On top of it there is a regulation on the size of the dog (. Now I understand why I've never seen big dogs in Beijing.

Source

Still blocked :(

It's been more than 10 days and the access to Blogger.com is still blocked from China. What a pity :(

Ritan park

Saturday morning after a breakfast at Kempinski Deli where we had the largest pastries ever and fruits, we went to the Ritan park. The Ritan park is one of the parks of Beijing, quite small compare to the others but nice for a couple of hours to spend. Not to mention it hosts the temple of sun (did you know that to mirror the temple of sun, in the west part of Beijing there is a temple of moon?).
Water area



Baby frogs


A frog on its water bubble (thanks Yann for spotting it)


Marble boat

Qinghui pavilion

Tree in "camouflage"

Mural on ritual sacrifice to the sun

Temple of sun, just an altar (and quite a big one)

Free exercise area where you can demonstrate your physical skills...



While sitting in the shadow we were on the best seats to observe birds building a nest and even 2 males fighting for a female. The fight was so intense we even receive wood sticks that fell.

It's a lovely park where I can picture myself coming back with a good book and spend the afernoon there... Maybe next week-end :)