The Grasslands of Inner Mongolia...

So we're back... back from the green green grass of Huitenxile (if you can't pronounce that don't worry! It's a bit like this: "hey-ten-she-ler").



Martin and I had a great time, only slightly marred by the annoying lack of tall grass. Before we left Hohhot on Tuesday, I had images of riding horses bareback through long grasses for miles on end. The grasslands are nothing like that. The horses we rode were led by people and cost a pretty penny, and the grass was so short it was as if a giant walked the lands each morning with an enormous lawn-mower!! But it was lots of fun nonetheless.

We left our hotel at about 9am in a little minibus filled with the two of us, 2 Japanese guys and a South Korean guy. (We later met up with another minibus with 2 Dutch girls, a Korean/American guy and an older Korean lady) Our guide spoke wonderful English so that was a huge plus! But he was rather obsessed with getting us to sing songs in the car on the way there... he kept saying "Japan sing song now", then "Ok now you Korea!". It was very funny, the entire 2-day trip he refered to people by their nationality... screaming "Oi Holland, come here!" or whatever. This country-name-calling didn't extend to Martin and I however, for some strange reason he'd decided that we were a lovely couple and needed special treatment - he refered to us as "happy family". Sweet.

After a 2-hour ride through some gorgeous lands (mountains, green hills, rivers etc) we finally arrived at the gatepost to the grasslands. It was so beautiful, just miles upon miles of grassy plains in all directions, sheep and horses dotted all over and nothing else to be seen. As we drove further in we started to see small groupings of yurts here and there. Some were rather touristy, more like round concrete houses than anything else but, luckily for us, we stayed in slightly more authentic ones. They still had concrete floors but with material sides and roof. The "happy family" were given a yurt all to ourselves... continuing the special treatment (I'm not complaining!), which was nice because we could then make a nice big bed in the middle so we could sleep away from the sides (where all the nasty bugs live!).



After we'd all settled in, we were given lunch in a big communal yurt in the centre of our little 'village'... I went in rather sceptical as I'd heard from the American's we met in Datong that Mongolian food consisted purely of mutton, with salty milk tea on the side! True enough, there was the mutton, all on the bone ready to be gnawed. But luckily enough, there were enough tasty side dishes to fill all of us - lots of veggies and other Chinese delights. (I must say though, that Martin really enjoyed the mutton, I think he was filling up after almost 3 years of no lamb!!) I had been craving steamed buns before we arrived and there were even some of them on the table for me!! Lovely lunch. Pity I can't say the same about the milk tea... lovely black tea with milk, all hot and ready to be drunk, with salt instead of sugar!!! What's going on??? It's a traditional Mongolian drink which is served throughout the day and with every meal... but I just couldn't stomach it. Even when the wind picked up and it was really cold outside I couldn't bring myself to drink it, I would rather have plain hot water!!!

After lunch we were given free time until the evening, and after chatting with all our new tour buddies, we all decided that this was a perfect time to go horse riding.
I was excited, having not been on a horse since my own horse died when I was about 15 years old. 10 years later... could I still ride? Did I still know what to do? Help! But Martin was even worse off... he'd never ridden before!
Neither of us needed to have worried however... the Mongolian horses were really small and we weren't even allowed to ride freely... we were all led by the horses owner! A little disappointing but nothing compared to what happened to Martin and I next...

We all set off in a big group, all of us planning on a one-hour ride (too expensive for any longer!). Martin and I soon noticed that we were lagging behind the others though, and wondered why?? My horse, poor thing, kept stopping and trying to turn around as her foal had not followed us so she was worried. We knew our guide had spoken to the two people leading our horses and told them to keep the "happy family" together, but this was still no reason to seperate us from the rest of the group (also only riding for 1 hour). After a while we were turned around and headed off back to the yurts, strange considering we'd only been riding for about 20 minutes. After taking us back past the yurts, collecting the foal on the way, I made a comment about the time and they agreed to continue walking us a little further.

This entire time the woman leading my horse bugged me by banging my leg and asking for money. We thought that they were trying to say that after the ride, we should give them the money directly instead of giving it to the offical guy back at camp. I had no problem with that, thinking that unless we did that they wouldn't see half the money we paid, but was still really irritated by the constant leg-banging!

As we walked across the silly little bit of grass behind our yurts, us thoroughly annoyed that we hadn't stuck with our friends, Martin's horse suddenly fell over!! I'd noticed it's leg was a little strange but hadn't realised it was that serious. Poor Martin got such a shock, but luckily didn't get hurt (he just leaped off the horse like an experienced rodeo clown!). After that, plus the troubles with the annoying woman leading my horse, we decided that we just wouldn't ride anymore. I got off and we started walking back to our 'home'. They followed, of course, not really understanding why we were cross. The guy just kept asking for Martin to get on another horse he had standing by, but he was frustrated and angry and refused to even talk to him. When we got back, we called our guide to help with interpreting and after many a word we finally settled on a price (much lower than our hour ride should have costed) and told the man to fix his poor horsey!

Once the money was settled, we sat down outside to take in a bit more of the gorgeous countryside around us.... that didn't happen however, as the rain clouds rolled in and within about 2 minutes it was pouring! The weather changes so quickly out there.

We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with our new friends inside a yurt and waiting for supper. At 6pm we were driven to a place to watch horse racing and wrestling... but that didn't happen either! The rain had made the ground really wet and slippery so it was too dangerous. Never mind... back to the yurts for dinner and some Mongolian music/alcohol/dancing.

The dinner was nice, pretty much the same as lunch (and more yummy milk tea!), but it was unfortunately accompanied by the strongest, most foul liquor I've ever had to drink. Nobody could bow out of drinking it as it is considered a Mongolian custom, and is presented to you by brightly dressed 'Mongols' with sashes... but I did at least manage to swop some of mine with my new Korean friend and fill my glass with water (sneaky!!). The custom dates back to the days of old Ghengis Khan, when he apparently out-drank an opponent and thereby won a battle before it had even began.

Later that evening Martin and I enjoyed some star-gazing (in the cities you just don't see them!) and then played cards with our two new Dutch friends.

The next morning we woke up at 4:30am (as instructed by our guide) and went out to watch the sunrise. It was freezing!! I couldn't believe how cold it was... and the annoying thing was that the sun didn't bloody-well rise till almost 6am!! But by that time we were already back in bed... we'd given up after about 30 minutes. It was lovely and quiet out there, but sitting in a duvet watching the sky not change from bluey-orange to redy-orange wasn't that fun.

When we got up again for breakfast at about 8am, our guide told us that because we were the "happy family" and he felt so bad about our terrible horse ride the day before, he'd paid for us to go out for another hour. What a lovely guy. So off we went... riding lovely fit horses out into the wilderness (if you manage to avoid seeing the windmills all over the place!). We had a great time, got sunburnt, and came back feeling wonderful. While we waited for the Korean guys to come back from their 2 hour ride, Martin and I went for a gorgeous walk out into the grasslands... we met a lovely shepard there and just enjoyed the sunshine. It was so lovely that we almost got left behind - we had to practically run back to meet the car at 11:30!

Once back in Hohhot, we spent time just wandering around the city, buying food in the supermarket ready for the train journey, and doing nothing much else!!!

And that's the story of the grasslands...