Inner Mongolia - The Grasslands

The next day we got up early to take a 2 1/2 hr bus to the grasslands. Once you're to the city closest to the grasslands you have to hire a taxi to take you to the actual place. We were all pretty excited about the grasslands. We'd heard you could visit or stay with an actual Mongolian family, try Mongolian milk tea, ride horses, stay in a yurt. We knew we wanted to avoid tours because we wanted a peaceful, authentic experience. I now agree with Lonely Planet. If you want to experience Mongolian culture, just go to Mongolia. China has hit Inner Mongolia. Our guide book had said that 70 % of the people living in Inner Mongolia are Han Chinese, only 30% are of Mongolian ancestry. But we held out hope...

There are several grasslands you can go to. Some are super touristy, some are more remote. We were aiming for remote, so we went to Gegentala. We were a little out of prime season for the grasslands so the grass wasn't very tall or green, but it was still beautiful wide open space.

When we arrived at Gegentala, we were immediately alarmed. This looked nothing like an authentic Mongolia grassland...it looked like a theme park: Yurt Land. But after talking to several people we realized this was our only option because of time constraints and the season. Yurt Land it is. We did see horses, and we did see yurts, so we figured we'd make the best of it.

Horses.
Now, coming to Inner Mongolia, I knew I'd be presented with the task of horse-riding. And I wasn't so much scared of the horse as I was perplexed with how to get on the horse. But mount the horse, I did, though without a bit of grace, and off we went. Being in China, and especially Inner Mongolia, we knew bargaining was a must. But we had our precious Peach so we didn't worry too much. The sad part about being in a tourist trap is just that, it's a trap. No bargaining because all the other yuppies are gladly paying the high price. Because of the price, 150 yuan, we decided to get the most out of our horse and do the three hour ride. But after coming to the first "stop" I realized I didn't want to get off my horse and try to get back on, and I wasn't exactly loving the whole riding experience, so Peach and Brad went to look at the altar/temple thing. So there I was left alone with three Mongolian horsemen. One of them was a supreme jerk, and after some rude gesturing and comments, I decided I wanted to head back rather than face two more hours of his presence. So I went back, led very slowly by another rider (since they didn't teach us what to do with a horse) and enjoyed the surrounding grasslands.

About 30 minutes later, Peach and Brad come back steaming. The aforementioned jerk had gotten even jerkier. He took them barreling down a hill at full speed (did I mention no one taught us how to ride a horse?) even though Peach asked him three times to slow down. He just kept going faster. By the end, Peach was crying, Brad had open blisters on his hands and legs, they had been refused milk tea (which was supposed to be included), and they definitely didn't get their money's worth since the ride was less than an hour.

We went to complain to the boss (other families experience the same or worse treatment, but the Chinese way seems to be to just take it.) out of principal. Peach got the job done, and after probably an hour of going back and forth, we got our money back and the boss offered Peach and Brad a personal ride (at a slow pace) with a nice horsemen. I politely declined (my butt was sore from the first ride) and went to hang out in the yurt. Then the door blew off of the yurt and Chinese people continually stared at me in my own yurt!














We were all tired and not thrilled with the place. We went to have dinner and were outraged at the prices for one dish. It was truly robbery. But we had to eat, and we were stuck at Yurt Land. After our terribly disappointing, overpriced meal, we were told there was a traditional Mongolian dance performance. Of course, we had to pay for that too. And it turned out to be more of a talent show by Mongolian people, not a picture of traditional Mongolian culture.














So we retired to the yurt, which turned out to be an excellent pallet, the most enjoyable part of Yurt Land.














The next morning we took a taxi back to the bus station and found out we had to go two hours back to Hohhot in order to catch a bus to go two more hours to BaoTou. Sigh...if only we knew what was in store...