Dewey's China Trip: Stories: Inner Mongolia Trip

Trip Planning

Over the next couple of weeks I spend a lot of time with Xiujuan and she becomes my best friend. She's so cute, sweet, intelligent, and fun to talk to. Unlike most Chinese people I meet, she always speaks to me in Chinese instead of wanting to practice English with me. This is really good for me because it helps me improve my Chinese speaking and listening ability. Xiujuan is fun to hang out with and likes walking just like me. One hot afternoon, after exploring some of Beijing's historic sites, I make Xiujuan return home with me on foot, instead of taking the bus. We don't know the way, but my GPS guides us. The distance is 14 kilometers (nine miles), but we make it home in time for dinner, hot, sweaty, and exhausted.

I ask Xiujuan to go on a backpacking trip with me as soon as she finishes her final exams. We decide where we want to go by buying a Chinese map, almost randomly pointing to a city within reasonable distance of Beijing, and immediately buying train tickets to go there. The train tickets cost 50 RMB ($6 US) per person.

I have all my backpacking gear with me in China, but Xiujuan doesn't have any, so she borrows pack, sleeping bag, and pad from a friend and buys some good outdoor clothing. For food we pack quick oats, whole milk powder, and sugar (so we can make oatmeal), as well as some nuts and dried fruit, Meal Pack bars that I'd brought from the US, and dry compressed food biscuits. We want to take only dry food to save weight. We can obtain water from streams along the way and filter it to make it safe for drinking.

Leaving Beijing

Xiujuan and I leave Beijing at 11:30 p.m Monday, July 07 2003 from Beijing West Railway station, aboard a train headed west to Datong. Datong is a city in northern Shanxi, six hours west of Beijing by rail and just below the Inner Mongolian border. Rail travel is quite commonplace in China, so trains are long and crowded. The seats are bearably comfortable, but not really comfortable enough to sleep in. Xiujuan sleeps some of the night, but I stay awake thinking how lucky I am to be going on a trip with such a great girl.

Chinese trains have three rows of seats on one side and two on the other. We are on the side with two rows. Pairs of seats face alternating directions with a small table in between. The guy sitting across the table from us is a major slob. He snacks constantly, throwing all his garbage under his seat. His pen on the table is leaking all over the place. He accidentally knocks it off on the floor, then picks it up, notices the leakage, makes a funny face, and tosses the pen under his seat. Xiujuan and I can't help giggling at him, but he doesn't even seem to notice. He falls asleep sprawled across the small table, and by the time he wakes up he has ink all over his arms, his face, his shirt and his pants; but he doesn't seem to care.

Datong

By 6:00 a.m. Tuesday, Xiujuan and I are walking the streets of Datong. There is dirt and trash everywhere and the air smells bad. We want to buy a map so we can begin the next phase of our journey, but we have to wait until 8:00 a.m. for stores to open. In the mean time we wander the streets. All over the place businesses are opening up for the day, and all the employees are beginning the workday by gathering out on the sidewalk and doing aerobic exercise to blaring music. We buy some steamed pork-filled buns for breakfast, and some bananas for desert, both for pennies from street vendors.

In Beijing most signs are written in both Chinese characters and English. However, in Inner Mongolia you don't see much English; instead signs are written in both Chinese and the very strange-looking Mongolian characters. I'm trying to read the signs on every storefront we pass, because I want to find a bookstore where we can buy a map. I see the weird Mongolian characters on almost every sign.

Finally we buy a map. Now we want to leave this dirty city of Datong as quickly as possible, so we pay five yuan (sixty cents US) each for train tickets on a train headed north for the Shanxi-Inner Mongolian border. However, the train is leaving in five minutes, and an annoying lady is really taking her time inspecting our SARS health declaration forms. Thus we miss the train. Rather than wait for the next, we throw away our train tickets and take a bus.

Journey to Inner Mongolia

The bus ride is somewhat uncomfortable, being hot and stuffy and mostly on dusty dirt roads accompanied by big coal trucks spewing diesel fumes and coal dust. We pass through many factory towns with smokestacks spewing pollution, surrounded by thousands of people living in tiny dirty crumbling brick dwellings.

Finally the bus stops by the road and the conductor tells us that if we get off here we can walk a short distance and come to the Great Wall. We get off and look around. We are in a small town with a factory spewing green smoke in the middle. A railway line runs through the middle of the town. A large crumbling mud wall surrounds the town, and most of the people appear to live in mud and straw dwellings or tiny brick houses. The sun is beating down on us, so we stop to put on sunscreen and hats. Within a minute or two we are completely surrounded by dozens of children who seem very curious to see an American.

In order to avoid walking right past the smelly factory, we walk down the railway for a while first, and get out of the town. During just these few minutes of walking on the tracks, quite a few long passenger, coal, and fright trains pass us. Chinese railways are certainly very busy, which is not surprising considering that China is so huge and populous, and has poor roads compared to the US.

Before completely leaving the village, we walk through a gap in the mud wall and ask for water from the first person we see. The woman brings us a bucket of water and we filter it into our water bottles and add chlorine to it for extra precaution. Then we head out across some fields.

There is a stream between us and our destination, the hills, so we follow the stream for an hour or so, hoping to find a bridge to cross. Finally we see a shepherd and his sheep wading across, so we start considering doing that as well. Another shepherd happens along and tells us the water isn't deep. After crossing we wipe the sticky mud off our feet, then climb up the hills on the other side, crossing another railroad. Continuing upward, the landscape reminds me of Ireland, with green grass, hills, rocks, and sheep.

Visiting a Village

We were now in Inner Mongolia, although it isn't clear exactly where we walked over the border. We give up hope of seeing the Great Wall; perhaps we have wandered too far northward. We spend most of the rest of the day gradually climbing higher and higher. Along the way we run into several peasant farmers as well as sheepherders.

The sheepherders obviously have a better life—they have a more valuable product, and don't have to hoe the hard dirt all day to make a living. Some of them even have cell phones. The farmers are very poor, often living in tiny holes made of stones cemented together with mud. They toil all day under the sun hoeing small plots of corn and other crops. Most of them have skin dark, wrinkled, and cracked from the constant sun; most have black, rotten teeth.

Everyone we meet is very friendly and helpful to us, although since they don't speak very good Mandarin Xiujuan sometimes has trouble communicating with them. Perhaps Mongolian is their native language. I can't understand a word of what they say; my ear is still getting accustomed to listening to standard Mandarin, and I'm hopeless when it comes to understanding non-standard Mandarin speech.

We reach a high, flat plateau, and keep walking north until we come to a tiny mud village. The people here are quite poor, even poorer than the people down in the valley—water here is especially scarce. It was now evening and we are hungry, so we ask some of the residents if the village has a store or a restaurant or a bus stop. Of course the answer is no.

One village woman kindly offers to cook us a meal for two RMB (24 cents US). She invites us into her home where many family members young and old crowd around while she steams wheat cakes over a coal fire. The wheat cakes have a red-bean filling and are quite delicious. She tells us that if we continue walking on the path that leads away to the north we will eventually come to a larger village with roads and a bus stop. We finish our meal. Xiujuan tries to pay for it, but the woman refuses any payment.

We continue north on the path the woman pointed out. We see what looks like a village in the distance, but the sun is setting, so we set up my tent in some tall grass and go to sleep, utterly exhausted.

Finding the Prairie

We wake up at 5:00 a.m. Wednesday morning and continue onward toward the village in the distance. When we get there we find it to be a bit bigger than the previous village; it has a single car and a dirt road. The tiny car is heading out for the day, but is packed with people, so there is no room for us. We walk with a group of school children down the dirt road, which leads to a small town where the children attend school. In front of the schoolhouse is a well-used dirt road.

Eventually a car comes along, stops, and offers us a ride to the city for 15 RMB ($1.80 US) each. That's way too expensive, so Xiujuan says we'll pay 15 RMB for the both of us, and they have to take us directly to the train station. The driver agrees, so we squeeze into the back with our big packs and are off. The other passengers in the car are interested to meet an American. They buy two American dollar bills from me as souvenirs. After a long drive we arrive at the train station. Within a few minutes we are on a train heading for Baotou, an Inner Mongolian city 120 kilometers (75 miles) to the north.

All the seats on the train have already been assigned and we are left to stand in the aisle. Every few minutes someone walks by and we have to go though contortions to get out of the way. On the train we meet a man who loves traveling and climbing mountains. He gives us some travel advice. He says that if we want to see the prairie we should get off a few stations before Baotou; we can take a bus to a village on the prairie from which we can walk 80 kilometers (50 miles) west across the prairie and in a few days reach a town that has a bus to Baotou. We can then take a bus to Baotou and from there go explore the nearby desert and the mountains. We follow his advice and get off early, very glad to do so; we were getting tired of standing up in a jammed-packed train for hours and hours.

We find ourselves in another typical Chinese city, dirty and crowded just like all the rest. So we only stay long enough to eat lunch and replenish our water supplies, then board a bus heading for the village on the prairie.

It's a long but scenic bus ride over a high mountain range. On the way we meet a man who lives at our destination. He gives us some advice for walking across the prairie. When we get to the village he gives us a tour of his small house, then we set out, hiking towards the north.

First we climb over some small grassy hills. The man warned us about a plant that we shouldn't touch, but we weren't paying enough attention at the time and now we've forgotten what plant he was talking about. Then Xiujuan brushes against a patch of the stuff and yelps in pain. A few minutes later I blunder through a patch and get stung right through my pants, on both legs. It hurts like stinging nettle, but worse, and makes painful welts. We learn quickly to stay away from the nasty stuff.

Crossing the Prairie

On the other side of the hills we continue due north across the prairie. We want to get deep into the prairie before turning to the west and heading for the town 80 kilometers away. Using my GPS, I project a waypoint that is exactly 15 kilometers north of our starting point. We decide to walk to that point, then turn west.

Near dusk we come across a monument to the remains of the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534 AD) Great Wall, inscribed with Chinese and Mongolian characters. The wall itself no longer exists here; I suppose the harsh weather has caused it to erode away.

We also pass many Mongolian tent dwellings and around dusk run into a man who asks us where we are going. Xiujuan tells him, and he says it is too far to walk; we should ride horses instead. Xiujuan replies that we don't have any horses, but he says he has four horses; we can use his. Xiujuan objects we don't know how to ride, but the man says he can teach us. We politely say no thanks, goodbye, and continue walking north.

Soon the GPS reads ten kilometers north of our starting point. It's now completely dark except for moonlight. We set up the tent, and eat cold oatmeal for dinner. After eating and rinsing out our bowls we drink the rinse water; every bit of water must be conserved when packpacking in arid climates. The prairie is quite dry this time of year; we haven't seen any source of water all day. Cuddled up to stay warm, Xiujuan and I fall asleep.

What's an American?

In the morning we walk another five kilometers north, then reach our waypoint and turn west. The sky is completely blue except for one tiny cloud. The ground is nothing but green except for the occasional herd of sheep or rock outcropping. That last cloud in the sky disappears over the western horizon. It is a lovely environment for hiking. However, a bit after noon the prairie starts to give way to farmed areas and the occasional village with buildings constructed of mud. Everything is very dry and the soil very hard, but the people here still manage to live by farming potatoes, corn, wheat, rapeseed, peas, and a few other crops.

In the afternoon we finally come to a stream and fill up with water, but an hour or so later most of my water leaks away when I carelessly remove my backpack for a rest and don't realize that I've knocked my drinking tube's bite-valve off in the process. I resolve not to use the drinking tube anymore and disconnect it from my water bag. Now we are in a rather arid region. Dark thunderclouds loom overhead and lightning flashes all around; we long for rain to pour down, filling all the bone-dry steam beds and giving us relief from the heat. We never get any though, other than a few big, fat, tantalizing raindrops.

In the morning I told Xiujuan that I wanted to meet someone who'd never seen an American before. Now it's evening and we come across a man hoeing his small field. He looks at Xiujuan strangely and asks what kind of creature I am. Xiujuan says I'm an American and that she's from Beijing. The man is very puzzled by this. It seems he doesn't know what an American is, or what this Chinese girl is doing with such a strange-looking person.

We've walked 35 kilometers (22 miles) today with heavy packs on our backs, and we're dead tired. Furthermore, we have no water left; I'm amazed at how fast I consume water in this dry heat. We set up the tent by the edge of a pea field, eat a dinner of cold oatmeal, and go to sleep.

To Baotou

The next morning we find a dirt road. We run into some people who ask Xiujuan what country I am from. She says America, and they ask if I traveled to China from America on foot. We find a house by the dirt road with many penned goats and sheep in the yard. We ask for water from the woman in the yard, and her husband comes out and draws us bucketfuls of water from the well that we filter and chlorinate for drinking.

Tired of seeing nothing but farms and villages instead of green prairie, Xiujuan asks whether there is a bus route anywhere nearby. The woman said yes, this road has a bus to Baotou once a day, sometime after 7:00 a.m. Since it is now 7:00 a.m., we wait there by the road and flag down the bus when it comes. The dirt road is in very poor condition and the ride to Baotou takes many hours, but the bus is very modern and comfortable and we are too exhausted from walking to mind the long, slow trip.

Baotou is another dirty city, indistinguishable from all the others. The air is especially bad smelling; factory smokestacks spew noxious smoke everywhere. We eat dinner at the home of a classmate of Xiujuan's who's returned home for the summer. People in Baotou typically don't have showers in their homes, so must go to the public showers to get clean. Xiujuan's classmate helps us find a room to stay in for 30 RMB ($2.60 US) a night.

The Desert

The next morning we get on a bus heading for the desert. Eventually the bus drops us off on the side of the road and we are told to walk west to get to the desert. We do. After passing an annoying tourist area, we leave all traces of other people behind. There is nothing for miles around but endless sand dunes.

The heat and glaring sun are almost unbearable, since it is midday. Things cool down a bit towards late afternoon. We consume water at an unbelievably fast rate. We walk slowly and take breaks often.

We find a protected area between sand dunes to set up the tent for the night. Then we eat dinner at the top of a sand dune and watch the sun set. It cools down a lot, which feels great. The air is cool, the sand is warm and clean, and the moon is full, so we have plenty of light to see by. Xiujuan is especially happy to be able to play in the sand, since she's never even been to a beach before. We take off our shoes and I grab her hand and run with her over the dunes. I pick her up and carry her up a sand dune, down the other side, and up the next, where we collapse exhausted in the sand. We cuddle up in the sand and try to sleep like that out under the stars, since it feels so much more comfortable than being in the tent. However, mosquitoes find us and we retreat to the tent.

The Mountains

The next morning we cross out of the desert and replenish our water supplies from a cornfield irrigation ditch. Then we wait by the first road we come upon and in five minutes we are on a bus back to Baotou. Now we want to go see the mountains, so in Baotou we change busses and leave the city again. Later we have to change busses again, but this new bus is hardly a bus at all, just a tiny van. It has no markings of a public bus on it either, and is indistinguishable from a private automobile.

We get dropped off near a coal-dust choked road at the base of a vast mountain range. It is noon and we are hungry so we go into a little shack where some coal miners are eating and ask for food. They bring us fried wheat noodles with green peppers. We eat these and then one of the men says he is heading to the coalmines back in the mountains and we can hitch a ride with him. So we climb into the back of the truck—the part that will later be filled up with coal—and hang on for dear life.

The road is long and rough, and we have to hang on tightly. We get totally blackened with coal dust, but it's great to be in the open air with an unobstructed view of the mountain scenery, instead of in the stuffy cab of the truck. When the driver stops by a stream to fetch water for the truck's radiator, we climb out and begin climbing the nearest mountain, despite warnings from the driver that wolves might eat us.

Along the way we see only one mammal, a chipmunk, but throngs of caterpillars, butterflies, and fat spiders. When we get to the peak, there is no place to set up a tent, so we have to go down a ways and then back up to a ridge that has a flat spot just large enough for our camp. We eat dinner and go to bed exhausted. Afraid of wolves, Xiujuan cuddles up with me tightly.

The next day we do a little more mountain climbing, and then hitch a ride in another coal truck to get back. This time we have to squeeze into the cab with the driver, because the back is piled high with freshly-mined coal. The driver takes us to the freeway. About once a minute a bus to Baotou goes by; the driver of the third bus that passes is nice enough to stop for us.

Return to Beijing

Once in Baotou, the plan is that I will go to Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi, to visit my friend Bi Sheng; Xiujuan will return to Beijing. However, there are no seats on trains to Taiyuan available until the next day, so I decide to accompany Xiujuan back to Beijing and then take the train from Beijing to Taiyuan, instead of staying overnight in Baotou all by myself. Anyway, I am happy to be able to spend another day with Xiujuan.

We take a sleeper bus back to Beijing, since it's cheaper than the train. The trip is supposed to take 13 hours, but in fact it takes 20 hours due to a traffic jam which completely blocks traffic all night long and into the next morning. Furthermore, the bus driver loses his way a couple times. It is extremely hot and almost unbearable to lie in the bus for that long, but at least I have Xiujuan with me. It is also interesting to watch the Chinese traffic.

Between cities, the traffic is all trucks and a few busses, no cars. The trucks I see carry all sorts of strange cargo, including four semi-truck flatbed trailers piled up high with hundreds of beehives, the honey bees flying all around in a big cloud. They are probably just as mad as we are to be stuck in a traffic jam in the stifling summer heat.

Once a traffic jam starts in China, it takes a long time to get sorted out—sometimes days even. Drivers in China tend to try to get ahead at all costs, and when one lane of the highway gets blocked up will often move into the opposite lane in an attempt to get around other vehicles. The result is that many vehicles end up in the wrong lanes going the wrong direction, bringing all traffic in both directions to a hopeless standstill even long after the obstacle that originally caused the blockage is cleared.

The bus stops to let people go to the bathroom or get something to eat. I walk into the restaurant and ask where the bathroom is. The man laughs at me, points outside, and says the whole thing is the bathroom. I go back outside, and sure enough, people are going to the bathroom all over the place. Even the women don't seem to care very much who can see them; they've been holding it for so long. Most people throw their empty bottles and other garbage all over the place; the whole area is a big dump, piles of trash and human waste everywhere. These people are a bit uncivilized!

Finally we arrive in Beijing. It feels hot and uncomfortable compared to Inner Mongolia because the Beijing air is so much more humid. Xiujuan helps me purchase a train ticket for Taiyuan, leaving that evening. Then we go to a public showers to get clean. I don't think I've ever been as dirty in my life before, after not showering for several days, hiking across a desert, riding in the back of a coal truck, climbing some big mountains, and then being stuck in a hot, sweaty bus for 20 hours.

Missing my Train

It is time for me to leave, so Xiujuan accompanies me to the train station. I am really sad that I will be leaving her. We take a bus to Beijing West Station, then switch to a taxi because we're running late. When we enter the station we search for my train's number on the departures display, but it's not there! It turns out that we've come to the wrong station; my ticket says Beijing Station, not Beijing West Station. My train should be leaving in a few minutes, so there's no hope of getting to Beijing Station in time. I return my ticket for an 80% refund and purchase another ticket for Taiyuan, on a train leaving the next evening.

Xiujuan and I wonder what to do next. We decide to take a bus downtown and take a stroll while we think about it. She seems to be feeling really guilty for causing me to miss my train, but I try to convince her that it's no big deal—in fact, I'm quite glad to have the opportunity to spend another 24 hours with her. I grab her hand as we walk.

I'll need a place to stay for the night, and Xiujuan knows of a hotel near her school that is comfortable and not too expensive. We go there and she bargains, getting me a room for 170 RMB ($21 US) per night. I want Xiujuan to spend the night with me so I won't be lonely, and she does, even without my asking. Once we're in bed with the lights out, I can't resist the urge to start kissing her. But we're both so exhausted from our travels that we only kiss for half an hour before falling asleep.

Saying Goodbye

The next day I spend hanging out with Xiujuan, sad that it's the last day I'll be seeing her in a while. I feel like canceling my trip to Shanxi, but that will do no good, because Xiujuan needs to return home for summer vacation and there's no way her parents will let her bring a boy—especially an American boy—home with her.

We spend a lot of time making out, sitting in the grass on her school's campus. Later she takes me to a barbershop and I get a haircut. The hairstylists do a careful job, spending at least an hour on it. It's the best haircut I've ever had and it only costs 25 RMB ($3.00 US).

That evening I sadly board the train for Taiyuan. Xiujuan helps me find my seat and then I kiss her goodbye. It's so sad to watch her walk off the train. I spend much of the night trying to ignore the pain in my heart by teaching the Chinese men I'm sitting with how to play poker. I get very little sleep, even though I really need it. The train arrives in the dirty city of Taiyuan at 6:00 a.m. the next morning.

Xiujuan will be returning to Beijing for school at the end of August. She won't let me see her before then because she's spending her summer vacation at her parents' home in Zhejiang province, caring for her sick grandmother. I will have to temporarily forget about her and try to have fun traveling in China without her for a month and a half.

Dewey's China Trip: Stories: Inner Mongolia Trip

Contents: