Monday, May 14, 2007

finally i got all the photos from everyone! we had tons of photos man..took up 3GB of my space and my laptop cant take it anymore. im left with a pathetic 2GB. i took an hour to sort them out, delete the repeating ones and collaging them. im so tired now. Back to inner mongolia..beware, lots of photos ahead.

Day 3 - Grassland
we took a long 4 hour bus ride from Hohhot to the grassland and we were greeted with the extremely beautiful scenery in the outskirts. the sky was clear, fresh air, infinite grasslands, sheeps, mongolian tents..


we went for a 3 hour horse ride when we reached our destination, 165rmb for the entire thing. it's not very cheap in terms of yuan, but for a once in a lifetime experience, its definitely worth it. we stopped by one of the natives' house for tea and of course, we took tons of photos in the field. the sunset is beautiful! im in love with that place..
if you are wondering what's that pile of bricks with branches on top in the photo, that's an 'aobao', for religious purposes.



it was dark when we reached our camp. the horses still lead us to the right place despite the darkness..we had dinner and some traditional mongolian performance after that.


we slept in the mongolian tent for a night and it was the coldest night i ever experienced in china, no heater, no proper bed and pillow, no bath. i slept in my jeans, winter jacket and 4 layers of clothes plus long johns, 2 thick blankets on top of me and it was useless, i still felt cold. i was shivering so badly before i slept. i wont want to go through that again.
that's the us, the girls, outside our tent
we all rented their traditional costumes and cam whored in the middle of nowhere in the grasslands..
here's the rural china toilet for u. its a hut built in the middle of no where, with 2 'cubicles', there's a hole dug out in each cubicle and which is filled with a pile of shit and other stuff. it stinks like hell when i was close to the toilet. i went in there only once and i never stepped in there again. haha..i did my business 'anywhere' after that.
Day 4 - Desert
it was another super long ride from the grasslands to the desert, we reached there at sunset. the tepee like thing is where we spent our night. its a hotel in the middle of the desert. we had to take a ride on that green vehicle in the photo to get to our hotel.

took a cable car ride to get into the middle of the desert.
camel ride..
more of inner mongolia in the next post.
coming up, suzhou...

belle * 6:15 PM