Inner Mongolia -or- Showering: Why Bother?

Blue skies!

As usual protocol for overnight train trips, we left late at night to sleep on the train and save lodging costs and arrive at a reasonable time and not 4am. In retrospect I would have preferred a plane. Being on a train for half the nights of a vacation kind of sucks. For anyone bemoaning the death of the railroad industry in the US, shut up until you can tell me you actually enjoy taking the train from Chicago to New York, and on a regular basis too. Once a year isn't enough. It's a 20 hour ride and you're in what basically amounts to an airline business-class seat. For a bed you have to pay an extra $300 so you might as well just fly at that point. Point is, unless you're in a small to midsized country in Europe (okay every country there I guess) trains generally suck. Our train was delayed by an hour or so and we arrived at Hohhot around 10am. This is a small to midsized Chinese city of 2.5 million much like any other. Its got the dirty feel, only this one had fewer McDonalds' (on the return trip we looked for a place to eat before leaving but nothing convenient was nearby, no KFC either). Also, Mongolian writing adorns most businesses and in theory is required for any establishment open to the public.

We got in a van and headed to a yurt camp. The yurt camps were quite honestly a little disappointing. All of the ones I saw were clearly tourist traps and the actual yurts themselves were nothing special, basically a large and circular box tent like at a summer camp. When our van pulled up and we got out, they greeted us with shots of baijiu (白酒) that was the most foul liquor I have ever tasted. Far worse than the beef cough syrup. Worse than Skol vodka. This was liquid fire in your throat, and it truly did make you feel warm for many minutes afterward, as long as you could still feel nerve endings.

After the shot and a lunch that was decidedly untasty and unfilling that involved some very un-tender lamb, chicken stomachs, and more bad-tasting vegetables we went for a horse ride. It was 200 kuai for a couple hours so very expensive. In front of the horse paddock there was a genuine Mongolian man wearing a not-so-genuine Dolce & Gabbana hat: (click for big)

I don't think he even realized I was taking a picture of him.

The horse ride was rough. First off, I was wearing shorts as I tend to do in any month not named Decemember or January. The amount of chafing my calves endured was nigh unbearable until I nerded up and stretched my socks way up. And in more evidence that this country was not built with whitey in mind, my feet did not fit into the stirrups. The shoes were just too wide. So I jammed them in as best I could and just hoped nothing bad would happen. This worked out surprisingly well. I have not ridden a horse in at least a few years. The amount of times I have ridden a horse at any appreciable speed can probably be counted on one hand. I am not experienced by any stretch of the imagination. My horse was apparently obedient (乖) enough to not be required to be tied to our guide's horse while Shino's and our other co-tourist's were. Due to the aforementioned shoe problem, sitting up in the saddle was a very dodgy prospect. I tried as best I could, but for too long I simply sat my ass down while it slowly got grated like a very fine parmesan. Perhaps you didn't want to know that , but I didn't particularly enjoy it so be glad you're a degree removed from the experience. It started raining in the middle of our ride so we got off to stop into the yurt-home of a woman who lived out in the grasslands. She made her living selling tourists like us soy milk, milk balls, and other little snack items. After the cessation of precipitation we resumed our hard ride and returned to camp. On the way my horse, untethered, decided to chill with his friends as we passed by a rival yurt camp's horse party. I felt and looked like an idiot for not being able to control my horse.

Upon return we spotted a little white goat just chilling and munching on grass. His owner eventually came by and she let me hold him. I probably have fleas now that are just incubating and waiting for a chance to get to America. Also, half a dozen middle-aged Chinese men asked to have their picture taken with me. This would happen again too. We later had a dinner that was as disappointing as lunch (and just as throatburning) and then returned to the yurt. Our tentmates were playing a game similar to Presidents, Asshole, or whatever regional appellation you want to give it. I couldn't figure out some of the more subtle rules so I opted not to play. We were then invited to witness a prepackaged and touristy version of Naadam festivities. We saw a simple horse race and some Mongolian wrestling. After the wrestling they asked for volunteers from the audience. I did have an inkling of a desire to go wrestle a Mongolian and get laughed at by both him and the Chinese tourists as I got my ass handed to me. Unfortunately by the time I worked up the testicular fortitude to have my "I'm Spartacus" moment the offer was apparently dead as the wrestlers and their special vests had disappeared.

After a nap on my part, it came time for the touristy Mongolian tribal performance. I don't know what was going on precisely, but I assume it had something to do with Mongolians and a desperate attempt to preserve culture while at the same time packaging it into Disney-like authenticity. Regardless of reasons or implications, some Mongolians dressed up in traditional costumes and did some skits and dances about God knows what. It then degenerated into open-mic night. There was a jam session by our hosts. The dean of the local police academy whom had earlier arrived in a motorcade of black sedans led by a cop car got up and started rambling, visibly intoxicated. A little girl got up and made a speech about the Olympics and how proud she was of China and how she hoped everyone could come together etc... In the middle of a speech by one of the Mongolian guys who actually worked there, a random (and drunk) guy got up on stage with him and started talking and singing. He also handed the Mongolian a Qingdao beer. Then a couple probably in their 30s got up and sang a song "甜蜜蜜" that is basically one of the most popular love songs in the country. Upon hearing it here I realized it was also one of the Chinese songs one of my teachers sang at KTV a few weeks ago. There was also a miniature fireworks show being set off ridiculously close, only a few meters from yurts and well within a couple hundred of the crowd watching the stage.

I experimented with a few long-exposure shots of the moon through cloud cover, I went to sleep. After all we had to get up early the next morning (This is a theme basically for my entire time in China it seems, even when it is on weekends.) to get back in our van, leave the yurts, and head to the start of the Gobi. That day was the first day I wore pants this entire summer. I also wore my long-sleeved zip-up to the desert. The sun was apparently too fierce that Shino, in loco parentis, threw a fit when I took off the jacket so I put it back on. It was surprsingly not sweltering though the sun was indeed fierce. At the edge of the Gobi we put on special cloth "boots" to prevent sand from getting in and took a gas-chugging jeep up a few dunes. We followed a "duck", the type used in the Wisconsin Dells, that was spewing black fumes--check the video "recdesertoffroad" to see this and also get an idea of how bumpy it was. I recorded it in black and white for that extra frontier feel. That's not exactly true, I can't even say I did it to save space; I just forgot that the video uses the manual settings and I had it last set to black and white. At the little outpost we rode camels

YEAS?

for half an hour, then took a toboggan ride down the dunes. Shino was supposed to take a movie of me but somehow managed to grab a half-second video of basically nothing. Despite how steep it was which you can see in the picture, the sand created plenty of resistance and it never picked up an incredible amount of speed. Our desert adventures over, we returned to Hohhot, went on a very boring tour of a traditional Mongolian clothing factory, and returned to the train station. In the entire relation of this story, I was never able to shower.
24 hours, 30 hours, whatever. As Kid Nation's very own Taylor put it: Deal with it! My next entry will be solely dedicated to Pizza Hut and maybe a quick rundown on the 4 train rides.