Inner Mongolia - From Grassland to Desert

I already thought that all my trips here in China would be more or less done before I leave Beijing, but random things do happen… I have just enjoying a beer with my friend and she was telling about her plan to travel Inner Mongolia with couple of other friends and that one of then cancelled so there was a free spot to fill up. Yes, I was in – And what a great trip it was! Usually I am more or less prepared myself a trip to know at least where Im going or so on, but at this time only thing I knew about whole trip was time of departure and arrival, price included everything and it was toward Inner Mongolia… But that is what is often said: when you don’t know what to expect, you won’t get disappointed easily.

Clock stroke 5am in Friday morning, some people were on their way home from the bars but we were sitting in a tour bus ready to head up towards Inner Mongolia. The worst part of the tour was definitely long bus rides, first around 7 hours Hohhot where we had our lunch: 10 people sitting around round table and more food just kept coming from kitchen = paradise!

Then it was another two hours in bus as we drove to grasslands. Mongolia is famous of its horses so what would be better time to get familiar Mongolian culture than riding horses over grasslands. In total the riding tour took almost three hours but luckily we had few stops on the way because otherwise my ass would hurt as hell. And not just the riding was great experience, but also the whole place where we staying overnight. It was type of hotel that every room was built to remind a shape of a tent that Mongolians traditionally used to live with, I counted that there was almost two hundred “rooms” so it was kind of a village in the middle of grasslands. At the evening in the main building there was a dinner served, and also a show with traditional songs and dances. Table was again full of food but the “main dish” was over others easily. We had lamb which was so delicious that I cant even describe it: Chef was cutting huge chunks of meat on the plates from a whole lamb and the plates were bought to our table, and we “tried” manage them with chopsticks – although I realised that using hands were must convenient in this case. Later at evening we had some beers and bbq outside under Mongolian stars – so bright and so beautiful sky.

Second day we change environment completely as we were heading to Gobi desert for different activities. To get to the desert the tour bus dropped us on a parking place, there were few shops if someone wanted to do last minute purchases to protect him/herself against desert… As known, Chinese people are generally not really those ones who enjoy sun that much, so they were really preparing themselves: Putting their phones and other stuff in small plastic bags (because of sand) and covering themselves all over with scarfs… I mean it wise in the desert but still a bit over in my opinion. Anyways we took a miles long cable car to the desert, feeling was like going to skiing as the cable car was exactly the same… only difference was direction: It went straight forward instead upwards to the top of some hill. Finally it reached to its destination where we were surrounded by sand. In total we had four activities: camel riding, sand sliding, quad bike driving and kind of “desert boat” round (a car that drove fast over dynes making us feel that were in the rollercoaster). Camel riding was interesting… especially after riding horses previous day. I thought to get my ass sore riding a horse but no way, after riding a camel, horse feels like sitting on a soft pillow.  I mean everything was really cool experiences, also because I they were all something that I haven’t ever experienced before in that kind of surroundings.

Last day was a really long day in a way that in total we spend more than 12 hours in a bus… But luckily we had some stops. Absolutely the funniest one at one traditional courtyard house. It was renovated to show what kind of housing were built in the cities early ages. It reminded a lot traditional Chinese courtyard houses on its structure so that itself wasn't that stunning but which made it fun was that there a possibility to try archery skills and dress up on traditional clothes to take photos. After a session of photo shooting it was time to get up back into the bus… Finally at evening we arrived back to Beijing, long exhausting trip but I really worth.