get ready for a long post...but don't let that discourage you! keep going!
so contrary to what this title might suggest, Inner Mongolia was actually really awesome. weird, crazy, and annoying at times, but super fun.
Last friday morning we left for Hohhot (pronounced Hu he hao te- it's best to chant, like in finding nemo when they're swimming around the volcano in the fish tank). We decided we wanted to leave at 5am, so we asked our program supervisor guy, Wang Xiaoming (basically our travel agent and personal assistant), to call for us for taxis at 4:45, just in case they were late. So he asked them fro 4:30, just in case they were late. So at 4:15, fresh out of the shower, i get a call from the first taxi driver saying he's there in some crazy chinese that I barely understood. I called everybody else to tell them, please be ready now, even though it's 45 min earlier than I told you. Luckily the taxis were cool and waited for us and people were fast. So we get to airport and of course, we're mad early so they aren't checking us in yet. then after a half hr, they start checking us in and charging us outrageous overweight baggage fees. once we get through security we're captive in the airport. at like 5:45am. with no food. nothing opened until 7am, but we could see all the food just waiting there to be eaten. it was torture. they opened at 6:30 fortunately so we can instant noodles. yippee. (sarcasm) we were told in advance by wang xiaoming that the flight was very discounted (we got a good price) so not to expect food or drinks on the plane. he didn't mention that it would be the oldest plane ever, super small, and falling apart. even I, at 5ft4in, had squished knees. and none of the chairs reclined. the pocket in the seat in front of me was broken so i also had a wire digging into my leg. my seat cushion was torn. the tray table latch was broken so it would randomly fall on me, awakening me from an already unpleasant slumber. oh ya, let's not forget the in-flight auction going on. to be fair, I missed most of this asleep but apparently, this chinese woman with a loud, high-pitched voice was auctioning off items such as hair dryers, and bai jiu (chinese grain alcohol, like 100 proof). and she would keep yelling until someone bought it.
next begins the saga of Anda Guesthouse, what appears to be the greatest hostel ever, but in reality is a huge mess of disorganization (but still cute and maybe well-intentioned). so they were supposed to pick 13 of us up at the airport, for free (cuz we booked tours with them). of course they're not there. and stupidly I did not bother to write down any information about them, like their phone number or their address or anything. luckily another group of foreigners (french) were on our flight and also going to anda and should have been picked up. they called anda and they said they'd be there soon. and they were actually (probably the only time they were fast about anything). Zorigoo (yes really, that's his "english" name), the hostel owner, met us at the airport and was very surprised, despite weeks of emailing and confirmations, that we had 13 people and that the other group was 7 or something. so then we packed into a van and other people had to take taxis, who got lost on the way i believe. perfect. then we arrive at anda's and they make us, in very chinese style, take our shoes off at the door and put on slippers, slippers that they provided for us, probably barely ever washed, except for when you wear them in the shower. great. but i actually thought it was kinda cute since it was like we were living in a chinese family's home (that was the idea). then they, again surprised by the fact that there were 13 of us, told us that they didn't have enough beds for us and asked if we minded sharing beds with each other. seriously?! I emailed them weeks in advance, but did they write anything down or keep track of how many people were coming? nope. so my friend alex and I did have to share a twin size bottom bunk that night. oh, and the beds are just 3 inches of foam "mattress" on top of a wooden board. (the bed frame was real, but that was what you were sleeping on). awesome sleep. not.
Now this is still day 1, about noon. crazy right? that's how we felt too. we still hadn't had a real meal yet, even though we'd got up at 4am. so we had lunch and they gave us these crazy crawfish things we had to peel, pretty delicious actually.
so then we went to the Inner Mongolia Museum (Hohhot is the capital of Inner Mongolia Province). It was free so that's cool. There was a lot of random stuff there, like dinosaurs, solar system stuff, chinese space program (what space program? you mean russias?), and random historical stuff. the building was really cool though. here are a few selections:
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| (from left) Annie, Nirmal, Katie (my roomie), Diggory, Me, and Matt in front of the museum. On the left is a random field (maybe supposed to be like the grasslands), the middle things are the actual building, and on the right is a fountain and a giant pot (can't really see that here). |
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| really awk pic of us being dinosaurs (but it's these kinds of things that make museums fun, duh) (from left) me, Diggory, Katie, Sup, and Nirmal |
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| group in front of a dino skeleton, too many people to name (I'm in the fonrt being chinese) |
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| the solar system exhibit, we're holding up the world: jeff, alex, diggory, katie, magnolia, and matt |
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| us with that pot thing I was talking about- Alex, Katie, Magnolia, Me, Diggory, and Jeff |
The next morning we had mongolian breakfasts that we ordered from the hostel. After some (of course) confusion about when we wanted it, we ate mongolian breakfast pastry things (pretty delicious) filled with lamb and cabbage-type stuff, and millet with mongolian cream (me and diggory liked it but nobody else did). then we left for the desert, an hour late of course. and the 13 of us fit in one van, but a lot of the seats were in the aisle of the van so they just folded out and had no back. then within the first half hr, we went over a really big bump and the 3 of us in the back row flew out of our seats, then banged down so hard something broke in the seat so poor Sean, sitting next to me, had a straight up pole digging into him the rest of the 3.5 hr ride. me and katie's seats collapsed some too. But we played games and listened to music and napped so it was ok. The ride was pretty through/by the mountains.
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| Sean and I preparing in the car for the desert sandstorms |
Then we stopped for lunch at one of those made-to-accommodate-mass-groups-of-western-tourist restaurants, that always have shitty food. little did we know, that'd be our last real meal for over a day...
we finally arrived at "the desert" parking lot thing, full of random yurts (mongolian tents/houses- it's what the mongolian family lives in in the movie Babies that came out this year), old temples, and stuff that was meant to be historic i think, but all translations were so weird and wrong that we couldn't figure out what they meant.
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| Sean, Me, Magnolia, and Diggory in front of the Fawnnini (we named it) temple |
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| Us around a random pole in this random courtyard |
so then after waiting around for over an hr, Zorigoo reappeared to take us to the real desert, where we got baller sand shoes. they're basically bags that go over your feet and tie at the knee and ankle to keep sand from getting in your shoes. mostly affective, if they stay on...
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| Diggory and Alex displaying their sand shoes |
By now we're pissed that it's like 4pm and we've done nothing all day. but here's where the fun starts: we got in the sand-surfing car to go to the oasis farther into the desert. You can see for yourself below, but the car looks like one of those water-land cars. and sitting in it, you kinda feel like it's WWII and we're pulling up to the shores of normandy on D-day. seriously though. it's crazy. basically the driver goes as fast as he can over giant sand dunes and you fly up and bounce around and it's awesomely terrifying.
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| sand-surfing car; also see sand shoes :) |
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| magnolia fearing for her life in the sand-surfing car (in motion); also notice the headphones she used as earmuffs (ya it was freezing- more on that later) |
so then we arrived in oasis- it was awesome. sanddunes everywhere! unfortunately from one angle, you can still see billowing smoke stacks of a nearby factory, really ruins the majesty of the desert. but oh well. industry really is everywhere in china. and its disgusting. even in hohhot with only 1 million people, you still can't see the sun or the nearby mountains because of the pollution. but still feels much cleaner than shanghai. cuz it is. anyways, desert...so we get there and Zorigoo tells us to set up camp and gather fire wood cuz when it drops from 50 with wind to 25/30 with wind at night, we're going to want a fire. so like good like americans who listen to directions and understand the outdoors, we all work really hard until sunset to prepare our camp. meanwhile, the french sit around and listen to techno and the irish and the english play in the dunes and pick up like 5 twigs for their fire. We took a break at sunset to have a drink (we were given baijiu (see above for description)) and enjoy the view.
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| me and magnolia on top of a sand dune at sunset- sooo pretty |
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| so here's where our camp was before we set it up, i am on top of a sand dune taking the photo while looking for firewood |
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| the desert, sooo beautiful, all those bumps in the distance are dunes, the green is the oasis where we were |
so then it got dark and we lit our fire.
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| success! thank you boy scouts |
and because we had the best camp (declared by Zorigoo), everyone came to enjoy our fire for dinner. sure, no problem, we work all afternoon to have this awesome camp, but of course, you can just come a free ride off our hard work. anyways, we had been promised an already meager dinner of dried fruit and dried meat, yum. but instead we got a few tins of spam, some cold hard bread, a few pieces of fruit, and a few mini sausages. for 40 people. get real Zorigoo. so now we're all really pissed off. I had to resort to eating cold spam, with a fork, out of the tin. I hope I never have to resort to that again.
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| sitting by the fire eating dinner |
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| sitting by the fire enjoying our lovely camp before we were invaded by the french, irish, and the english |
then the irish tried to steal our good firewood, which resulting in a near fist fight and much yelling. the irish and the english left. but the french just stayed cuz they knew they were hopeless about their own fire. finally we got our camp back to ourselves and played around in the sand dunes, had relay races, pushed each other down the dunes, did "mongolian wrestling", etc. we slept in tents that were kinda warm, but not really. we were all really unprepared for just how cold the desert would be. It was bearable during the day, but at night it was brutally cold. I had on jeans, a turtleneck, sweatshirt, and a windbreak, and a scarf, in 25/30 degree weather, plus wind. yikes. half way through the night i realized my feet were outside the tent since we had forgotten to zip it, that sucked. and my sleeping bag didn't zip. most of us spent the night shivering uncontrollably and mumbling to ourselves about the cold.
then we woke up to see the sunrise. it was really beautiful.
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| magnolia trying to stay warm- we all just took our sleeping bags outside with us |
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| the sunrise |
then we broke down camp, and rode camels back most of the way! camel riding=fun.
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| camels |
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| Me and Genghis Khan, my camel |
then we got on sleds and slid down the dunes
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| not actually as fun as it looks, the sand slows you down a lot |
then we waited around for like 2 hrs, as usual. then went to the same bad restaurant for our first meal of the day, around 2pm (after a 5am wakeup for the sunrise). then in the car, we made the mistake of referring to Zorigoo as mongolian and he got soooo pissed. cuz he's chinese, not mongolian. serious display of nationalism right there. also i think cuz Mongols are traditionally more barbarian and uncivilized, etc, it was really bad. sooo awk. no one really talked for the next 2 hrs. then we overheard him later telling his family about us and how we stupid americans don't care about anyone but ourselves and america and how arrogant and ignorant we are of other cultures, etc. and that night we again had to share beds.
the next day we went shopping at a temple and got some kinda cool inner mongolian stuff.
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| unfortunately we didn't buy these hats since they were real fur and really expensive |
then we went to a "princess palace" which was actually just a park, great. then we just napped/hung out during the afternoon/night.
I know this is super super long, but keep going.... you're almost there!!
so the next day we went to the grasslands, only a day trip this time. not as long of a ride, and we went really through the mountains this time and it was beautiful.
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| view from the car, mountains all around us |
then we arrived at a mongolian family's home and played around while they made lunch for us.
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| pretty barren, but quite beautiful in real life, nothing for miles anywhere |
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| us standing in the tall grass |
then we had a yummy lunch in a mongolian yurt and napped.
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| yurt from the outside |
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| lunch inside the yurt, jeff, matt, katie, and jay |
then we rode horses through the grasslands (in a different part). that was maybe the greatest thing all trip. we got to do pretty much whatever we wanted on the horses. most of the people in my group were beginner riders but then 6 of us went out another hour and we just trotted and galloped around the grasslands like little mongols. it was sooo awesome. (unfortunately no pics from this,i know, sad). the horses were weird though, they were really short, like only a bit taller than me, which is really short. and the stirrups were also really short. anyways, now i'm impossibly soar from all the riding. everytime I stand up, i feel like i'm waddling cuz it hurts so bad. but it was worth it.
almost done... i promise!
then we tried to do some more shopping yesterday but kinda failed, although i did get a few little things. then we went to the animal park, like an animal kingdom basically and did a safari. it was actually pretty cool. but also sad, a lot of the animals were chained. or in really small cages, or were being forced to do stuff not natural for animals, like elephants dressed up and picking people up for photos. or bears standing on their hind legs and spinning in circles for food. and the stupid chinese people were sticking their hands and their babies through the cage bars and then were surprised when the animals lurched at them to bite them despite the signs, in chinese, saying "dangerous animals, do not touch, keep away". so stupid and sad. but anyways, still really fun. it was a nice day too, not too cold in the city.
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| me and the giraffe |
returned this afternoon, on a somewhat nicer flight. reclining chairs this time, but still not leg room and the auction still happened. my friend ben pointed out the most obviously but still amazing thing today on the plane- when we looked forward towards the front of the plane, every person had pretty much black hair, it was so unusually homogenous, it was crazy. it seems obvious, but try it sometime if you're in asia, particularly china.
school tomorrow and saturday- our last weekend class ever! yay! saturday night we're doing a booze cruise on the Huangpu River, right through the city! and we get to dress up like pirates! yay!
starting to actually miss America, especially the food and the efficiency.
if you made it all the way down here, you are really dedicated and must love me a lot. :) thanks for caring! bye bye for now!
