BaoTou

We had low expectations of BaoTou because our travel books had said it was basically only good for spending the night en route to another place, for us, the desert. Our plan was to grab a hotel, get some dinner, and head out early the next day to Singing Sands Gorge. The bus dropped us off not at a bus station, but seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Undaunted we pressed on, searching for a hotel.

We came across a pharmacy and decided to stop and have someone look at Brad's hand. It looked like someone had shot him, but really it was just a blister from the horse riding excursion. And there we met the first nice person in Inner Mongolia! The lady at the pharmacy was NICE! She smiled and politely asked us where we were from. She cleaned up Brad's hand for free and told us where to find a nice hotel. We love BaoTou!
















The first hotel we went to was recommended by my travel book. We'd already established a routine for this trip. In anything dealing with money, Brad and I would hide somewhere while Peach went to make the deal. It's the only way to survive this brutal bargaining game. So Peach had everything settled, Brad and I showed our faces, and the woman at the register said, oh, sorry, no foreigners here. I guess they didn't have the specific codes or regulations befitting a foreign guest establishment. Pretty funny considering my foreign guide book suggested it...

Meanwhile fireworks are going off directly over our heads in celebration of National Day. They were pretty to look at, but were so loud! If you closed your eyes it felt like you were in the middle of some terrible war...booms and crashes and car alarms going off because of the noise. But they were pretty...

We found another hotel and settled in, found some dinner (it might have been duck intestines but even if it was, I liked it), and breathed a sigh of relief. BaoTou was just a normal city, with normal people, much like our Yichang. It was exactly what we needed for a night.

Next stop...the desert!