Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Inner Mongolia was incredible!
We left on Thursday with a 20 hour train journey ahead of us。 I have traveled to the south of Italy by train before, so it didn’t seem too daunting, but the time absolutely flew by。
We sat around playing cards and chatting。We even convinced Alex that she was psychic about an hour, which was incredibly entertaining。
When we arrived there were some problems with them checking us in because we were all foreigners and that obviously means that we all have Swine Flu。 They eventually let us check in and choose our rooms。 Oley and I finally managed to share a room on one of these things (although we are pretty use to it now after all the Saturday nights that I have to spend at hers)。
Once we had showered we went off to explore Hohhot。 At first it seemed pretty grim。 We couldn’t find anywhere to eat and ended up in a KFC after searching for about an hour。 During that time me and Oley saw a man being beaten up on the street。 It was really horribly violent。 We have no idea what it was all about。
Everything brightened up after we had eaten。 Hohhot is a really amazing city。 It is a Muslim area of China, and it in incredible to see mosques in Chinese architecture (see photo)。There was a mosque right next to our hotel that light up in neon lights at night – I am unsure about what Allah would think about that!
We wandered around and entertained ourselves by sliding down some concrete steps (it‘s hard to explain) and taking photo’s while jumping in the street。 OK – that sounds pretty peculiar, but we were very excited about the trip, and seeing the rest of our friends。
We found a Llama temple down the road from us, unfortunately it was just about to close so we were unable to go in。 Instead I experienced something more amazing than the temple。 It has to be one of the most random moments ever。 I bumped into a man from Carmarthen。 He directed us to some good bars in the area and wrote down the Chinese for us。 He was studying language and specifically the Mongolian language in Inner Mongolia。 Then his girlfriend came over。。。。and I really wasn’t prepared for what happened next。。。。。She started to talk to me in Welsh!!!! Apparently she has set up a website for Chinese people learning welsh to try and help them with the phonetics, but no one has ever logged on。 I had to stop myself from saying “you don’t say” in a really sarcastic way。
Across the road from this temple was a traditional shopping area。 It looked incredible, and we managed to purchase something that pretty much made the holiday – cowboy hats :-)
Alex, Adam, Oley, Laura, Thore and I all started to prance around Hohhot in cowboy hats – you wouldn’t believe how happy they made us!
That night we jumped into a car and went to explore the area the bars the Welshman had suggested were。 We found one that had the most incredible singer in it who sang Western songs。At one point they even played Martin McCluchen “Perfect Moment” – I am amazed that that made it to Asia!
On one of the side streets we found a barbeque so we spend a fair amount of time next to that practicing our Chinese food knowledge。 In China they have these steamed buns called Man Tao。 They are really nice, and at this barbeque they covered it in a spicy sauce。 It tasted just like Marmite on toast- delicious。
- comments