Mongolia July 2009,second part:

When we got our tour for Grassland ,we were about 6 people and were supposed to get a car with the guide. It took 2 hours to get there. It was such a spiral

way and bumps on the road anyhow with listening to Mongolian music and some Chinese with us practicing their English for free as usual, which is not a big surprise we arrived. It was a nice impression to see grassland but such a pity to see how they want to treat you ,cause you are a foreigner.

The food was quite basic and economical and we slept in a Mongolian tent(yurt) which was made from concert and hard ,but the same shape of traditional one.
The next day we paid for 2 hours horse riding which was good and nice to have some horse riding. In fact Mongolian horses are short and me and Wijbren had

imported European horse other wise for Wijb would be such a pain in butt to sit in a horse which his feet would drag on the floor, longer than horse's leg .!

Anyhow we walked along a small lake and saw the wrestling and racing match which was nice. After 2 days we backed and the following day a bit rest and hag around the city and then went to desert tour which was 4 hours far from Hohhot and quite far in fact .


The area was quite small and it was nice to see real desert but riding on camels for 2 hours and some areas were so steep and we both were scared to fall from camels and all 2 by 2 camels hooked on each other ,with one guide in front. To me horse riding was much doable than camels, they were a bit nasty and slow.. but I could managed to take some nice photos on the camels. One time camel was scared and I was close to fall…
I can cope wth camel riding bt to be hoenst is not my favourite things to do and wijbren's face was so pssy and full of anger casue he didn't have ny proper saddle just siting on bundle of blankets.

We had 4 tents and when we arrived to oasis settled our camp there and we had another Dutch boy and 2 Korean girls and a Spanish guy. Our driver was a bit crazy and had 2 big bottle of Baizhou( Chinese wine) which taste terrible.


We had to company those crazy guys and drank the whole 2 bottles and some beer which was not what we wanted. At least on grassland we had nice Austrian and German couples and better company at night for barbecue ,but anyhow it passed and we had to listen to stupid ,charming conversation of those 2 girls and guys ,crush on each other and were drunk and in the morning were all of them pissed…anyhow the way back we waited and a big German truck came to pick us and took us back to base camp out of the desert and then the way back to Hohhot…

Trip to Mongolia July 2009

Located at the center part of northern China, it was inhabited by Eeduosi people 20,000 years ago. With a long history, it was called Inner-Mongolia for the first time in the Qing Dynasty.

Beautiful and abundant in resources, Inner-Mongolia is a province with the wildest longitudes in China and its special location dictates the abundance and variety of its tourism resources. With grassland scenes and folk custom as its two major tourism resources, Inner-Mongolia has such natural scenes as vast grasslands, deserts, forests, and lakes.

After staying in Beijing for a week then we got our first class train ticket to Mongolia,lets correct it inner mongolia,which the capital is hohhot.......

Our hostel was nice but the impression from the city was terrible as the train station was so dirty and filty better to say...after 22 hours on the train our guide from hostel took us to our hostel and we rested the first day and hang around the area and we found out quite few nice muslem restaurants with Kababa dishes.

This pagoda is quite unique in Mongolia. The style is from Indian Buddhism. Although it is called the "1000-Buddha Pagoda", there are actually some 1563 carvings of Buddha on its exterior walls. Inside the Pagoda there is, sadly, nothing at all - it was all stripped-out and destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. However, the empty interior has been used to display an ancient stone-carved Mongolian Map of the Cosmos - on Buddhist principles. Another copy of it is outside, set in the walls of the Pagoda grounds.

Inner Mongolia's dairy products include cheese, milk curd, salty milk tea, and fermented horse milk, all of which are acquired tastes. Those who visit yurts (Mongolian tents) in the grassland (see last paragraph) will probably be offered fermented horse milk, which is supposed to drive away cold and invigorate circulation, although it has been known to bring on headaches in a few people!

Then what we did on the first day was visiting five temple pagoda which is located on the East side of the city.This pagoda is quite unique in Mongolia. The style is from Indian Buddhism. Although it is called the "1000-Buddha Pagoda", there are actually some 1563 carvings of Buddha on its exterior walls. Inside the Pagoda there is, sadly, nothing at all - it was all stripped-out and destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.
However,

the empty interior has been used to display an ancient stone-carved Mongolian Map of the Cosmos - on Buddhist principles. Another copy of it is outside, set in the walls of the Pagoda grounds.

basically Hohhot is like other cities in China with cleaner and fresher air infact.

We decided to get 2 tours to got to grassland and sleep there overnight and another tour to desert,Gobi desert and stay in oasis for one night and practic our camel and horse riding which was a great experience in fact.