By Evan
A beautiful day on the grundle busters of Bayan Nur. This picture was taken just as we realized that our path, which a farmer had told us to take "all the way" to the next village, had suddenly ended. By Evan
I’d like to quickly jot down some thoughts here about our time in Inner Mongolia as I lay in the top bunk of a Mongolian guesthouse in Hohhot. First, and as always, I don’t know why I even bother forming expectations anymore, since they invariably turn out to be wrong. We chose our current route through the “autonomous region” with a few such expectations in mind: 1) we’d be able to avoid most of the terrible industry that blighted our last trip across northern China, 2) we’d spend time with a lot of Mongolians and experience one last cool culture on the way out, and 3) by virtue of 1 and 2, we’d be able to keep up the spirit of the trip and finish out our year on the highest possible note. We were especially anxious for the above after our time in Ningxia, which was a total washout. The place was scarcely more Hui Muslim than large parts of Gansu; it was more a bastion of scientific development, with its vast industrial parks along the Yellow River alternatingly spewing odors of lighter fluid and ammonia.
So you see, we had big expectations for the grasslands of Bayan Nur, a destination we chose specifically for chances to mingle with Mongolians (since it’s just south of Mongolia). The corridor leading from Yinchuan to Bayan Nur, however, was a bleak desert traversed by innumerable coal trucks. Our only consolation for this period was the company of our friend Pete, the company of the whisky Pete brought us, and camping every night in a new place (this may be the single thing I miss the most about the trip after it’s over). Our little whisky sipping sessions were abruptly ended at the fall of dusk nightly, as swarms of mosquitoes in amounts I had never imagined in my worst nightmares (made New Orleans summer nights look like child’s play) simultaneously began their sanguine assault (more…)
