Cindie's Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi, China daily journal (blog)

Beijing to Xian, Shaanxi, China
(July 16 - Sept. 3, 2005)

Cindie with a group of Chinese kids at the Great Wall, Badaling.

Cindie and her new friend, Henry (English name) looking at a map of the area.

We were lucky and still had a tailwind (from the east) but we soon hit rolling hills and coal mining operations.  The air was thick with soot and I wondered if I would ever see blue sky again.  We saw a Chinese cyclist on the side of the road repairing his bike.  We went over and tried to help but we could not figure out what was wrong with his bike so we left him with his companion on a motorcycle.  Not far down the road we saw another cyclist taking a break under a tree.  We met three more cyclists on the road today.  All the cyclists were from China, I was impressed and wished they were riding in our direction.

While riding around 1:00 pm the wind suddenly changed and it started to rain almost hail on us.  We found a place to take shelter while the road dried.  The road became very slick with the wet coal dust.  After riding past a huge power plant, we limbed into Zhangjiakou and meandered around looking for a hotel.  We somehow got an escort who kept telling us the hotel was up the road a little farther.  5 km later we had to go searching for a hotel ourselves, he had good intensions but he took us to the most expensive place in town, we just wanted something cheaper.  We found a hotel/massage pallor. They showed me the facilities and they were quite nice.  I was too tired and dirty to indulge. Yet again we were covered in soot and I had developed a hacking cough and I had difficulty speaking at times.

My hacking cough is starting to go away, for some reason Tim did not have the same problems I had with the heavily polluted air.  Today the air cleared and I could see the blue sky.  I wished that we were riding today.

When we did find a restaurant we met a man who was trying very hard to tell us something.  We gave him our flyer written in Chinese, so he knew we were from America.  He searched my phrase book for the word he was looking for and he then asked me my religion.  I pointed to Catholic, I personally grew up Catholic and know that religion the best, and he pointed to Muslim.  He then asked us if we liked Muslims and we said yes we like Muslims.  He was a bit doubtful, I could tell that he expected us to dislike Muslims.  Yes, even out here in the middle of no where they know about the war in Iraq.  His interpretation was that it was American's war against Muslims.  He also wanted to know what religions are practiced in the USA.  Hmm that is a tough one. We showed him the list of religions in our phrase book and we said that all these religions can be found in the USA. He was happy to know that. 

We took the exit to Huai'an and found a truck stop hotel for the night. It was clean and pleasant, we paid 50 Y ($6.25) for the night.  It was cheap but not as cheap as southern China.

Photo of the Cindie cycling along the remainder of the Great Wall.

The traffic on the highway was daunting, big truck everywhere.  Since the highway was under construction the trucks were all routed to one side and we had the other side mostly to ourselves.  We rode the new highway all the way to Xinghe, it was better than fighting with the trucks for space on the road.  The drivers give us a lot of room but they like to blow their air horn at us when they are right next to us.  The noise is deafening. We found a place to exit the expressway near Xinghe.

Photo of coal trucks on Hwy. 110, we share the road with these guys

 We sat at a gas station to rest and gather the gumption to start looking for a hotel.  The road was lined with restaurants for truckers and I knew one or two of them were a hotel.  An old man from the gas station volunteered to show is a hotel.  We arrived and they showed me the most expensive room. A huge place with a large bed and sitting area but no bathroom.  The bathroom was down the hall and they wanted to charge 120 Y ($15) I asked for a cheaper room and got 60Y ($7.50) room, it was not worth it but I was too tired to bargain any more. Water is hard to come by here and our shower and toilet did not work, they said that there wasn't much water in the entire town. They also overcharged us for dinner too.  Well you can not get a fair deal all the time.

 Tim was a bit delighted when he said, hey now you have had more flat tires then me.  Yes it is true, in Asia I have had at least 4 flats and Tim has had only two. Not bad for 8 months.  The scenery was stunning today, green green grass and fields of corn with floating clouds and a deep blue sky.  We are in Big Sky country now.  We thought that we would ride 98 km today but made it to the turn off to Jining in 78 km.  I guess our map was wrong.  I limped into town very tired, Tim was fine, I think the low tire wore me out.  I went to a hotel and the price on the wall said 128 Y per night. I tried to bargain but they would not change the price.  The hotels here post their rates and they do not bargain, so different from the hotels in the south.  Now I just walk in and look at the posted rates to decide whether we want the room or not.  I found a hotel for 65 Y ($8.12) a night and it had everything we needed. A large room, a sitting area, a shower and western toilet.  At least the water worked.  When I went to check in with Tim I asked for three nights. The clerk tried to change the price to 100 Y a night.  I told her that I did not want the room anymore.  She changed the price back to 65 a night after I pointed at the price on the wall.  We carried our stuff upstairs and went to sleep early.

We rode through a small town where a group of men were collecting water from a well.  We decided to stop and fill our water bag. This caused quite a commotion.  The people were very friendly and the men helped Tim gather water from the well.  The well head looked ancient.  There was a stone with a hole in it from drawing water from the well. 

Tim getting water from a village well.  The Chinese man in the white shirt is lowering a bucket tied to a rope while the other Mongolian men are reading our printed flyer printed in Mandarin.

I am not sure of the religion here, it is different, some women wear a white hat on their head and their clothes are black.  We went though a small town and looked for a camp site on the other side.  We set up camp along a side road.  The locals left us alone.  In the morning motorcycle after motorcycle went by.  They all waved and said hello. Some men were wearing a white tunic with a white hat and a red piece of cloth.  A sheep herder came by to visit and I could tell that he loved our tent.

Photo of our tent drying in the morning sun after illegally camping in China.

A very sad sight, a sliced tire.

The road improved some but still it was slow going.  We saw new houses being built along the highway but they were still empty.  Zhongqi was a welcome site.  We stopped at a restaurant and had lunch, a local man who could speak English helped us order.  He insisted that we try mutton. So we gave it a try, we also ordered eggplant and tofu.  We enjoyed the eggplant a tofu.  The mutton arrived Mongolian style.  Hmm.  Two big pieces of boiled bone arrived.  We were not sure what to do with it.  The owner showed us how to eat it.  He took a knife and sliced off a piece, dipped it in a sauce of vinegar and then a paste of chili.  The piece he cut off was pure fat.  Yuck.  I tried to cut off what meat there was and eat it.  It was not bad but not something I would order again.  An hour later Tim and I had a stomach ache and decided to return to our policy of only eating vegetables in the country.

We looked for a hotel and the first one was too expensive.  We wandered around town looking here and there. Every time we stop we drew a huge crowd.  The people are friendly and curious. We had a few people help us find a room but then it had a bad toilet or no shower.  We finally arrived at a hotel that suited us, it was expensive 100 Y ($12.5) but comfortable.  The girl who helped me find the hotel also wanted to take us to the grasslands, she made it sound like it was free and I asked the price and she said 300 Y ($37.50), I am sure that was per person.  We declined I did not have the energy to go anywhere.

Our touring bikes our sheltered from the storm in an adobe building.

We entered their house and took a seat on their bed that took up half the room.  Two men and a women lived here.  The women of the house was making a fire, the fuel was dried cow poop.  Now I know what burning poop smells like, I had smelt it before and thought that it was burning rubber.  She stoked the fire with a bellow to get it going.  She opened a large lid to revel a steaming rack of noodles and green beans.  When she lifted the lid steam filled the small room and it felt like a sauna, mean while outside the rain had turned to hail.

Cindie checking out lunch a plate of steaming noodles and green beans.

 I was thankful we were inside this house and not the well house.  Then she cut up some garlic and pulled some vegetables from a cupboard.  She mixed vinegar and soy sauce together with an oil, possibly butter, and mixed that with the garlic.  This was the sauce that we poured on our noodles.  Meanwhile the rain was coming down hard and the men went running out of the house with shovels.   We sat and ate our delicious lunch with the lady of the house. She was very gentle and pleasant.  We communicated with a combination of our phrase book, the little Chinese we know, and our flyer written in Chinese.  After lunch we had a few people from town come to visit.  We discussed our trip with a man in an army jacket, possible the head of the village.  It cleared and we were hopeful that we could leave.  I walked back down towards the well house and was shocked to see the river of water surrounding the well house.  We would have been very uncomfortable there and I did not see a safe place for our bikes.

We now knew that we were heading north and not west.  We had time to ponder what to do next.  We knew we could not stay with this family, it was not permitted. Too bad it would have been interesting.  Our next dilemma was which direction to go, continue north on the pavement or west which meant backtracking 13 km and then going west on a dirt road.  I wanted to go west and Tim wanted to go north.  Finally, the sky cleared and we knew we could ride.  The temperature had dropped, I had to put on our jackets to ride. I put on my tights as well.  The wind was almost a gale force from the south.  That pretty much made our decision, go north.  North we went with a fantastic tailwind.  We rode for about 15 km and came across a small town with a family run hotel.  We asked about the room and it was 5Y per bed.  OK the price is right and they even let us bring our bikes inside.  The only draw back was the toilet.  It was the village toilet.  I checked it out and it was barely passable if I held my nose.  Since the wind was so strong we decided against camping for the evening and stayed in this small village.

Soon we had what seemed like the entire town in our room.  Everyone was coming over to meet the foreigners.  I could not blame them, they were being curious.  Tim took video of the crowd in our room and people peering in our window.  They were all pleasant and a bit comical too.  We did not have much privacy and sometimes it feels a bit smothering to have so many people around but I can understand that they are curious.  The very same reason I am here, I am curious about them.  We had a nice dinner of eggplant and tofu, sound familiar, and bread.  We have not seen rice for a while.  We do not see rice fields anymore, they have been replaced with wheat fields.

The townspeople who would get in our photo.

We set off early and I was surprised at the chill in the air.  The wind now came from the northeast.  Tim pushed the wind for half of the ride until we turned more to the southwest.  The area is drier than the area we just left.

We arrived in town in search of a hotel once again.  We were directed from one location to another.  We asked someone and they said, oh yes, follow me.  I was guided to a hotel that had 5 beds in one room, two were occupied and then was told I could have a bed for 5 Y (63 cents).  I was not interested in sharing a room with 4 men so I asked if he had a room with two beds.  He took me down the alley to another hotel.  This hotel was clean, had a nice room with two beds, but did not have a shower.  We have come across many hotels without showers.  We took the room for 40 Y ($5), knowing we were being charged double.  We hooked up our solar shower and took a shower in the bathroom.  When I took a shower in the afternoon there was no problem, but when Tim took a shower in the evening the washroom was busy with many men.  I guess one of them told the owner he was using a shower in the bathroom (we had already explained what we were doing, we had nothing to hide).  Later, the owner came into our room, something we did not want, and scolded us for using the shower.  Hmm, who was the tattle tale and who really cares anyway.  We lost our comfort zone when we realized the owner was in our room while we were at dinner.  We checked and everything was in place, he had just changed the hot water bottle.  It seems that this hotel owner felt he could just barge in and come into our room anytime he wanted.  Privacy was something we did not have.

We stopped in front of a family run hotel and I looked at the room, the room was great, the bathroom predictable and the shower absent.  I asked where I could get a shower and a young girl said she would show me.  To my relief, she spoke some English.  We started down the road and walked for about 5 minutes.  I thought she was taking me to another hotel, instead she took me to a bath house.  Hmm, well this is interesting.  I decided that we could handle this slight twist from the norm. Plus I really liked the friendly girl. I returned to the hotel and Tim was surrounded by people, I could not see him.  He was speaking with another girl who spoke fluent English. We decided to take the room and brought our luggage up to the room.  The cost 30Y ($3.75) for the night.

Cindie plays badminton with a local family.

We did a slide show presentation on the computer with the family and friends.  We showed them Tim's family and my family.  They especially liked the photos of the Hilly Hundred with the fall colors and the birthday party pictures we had of Tommy, Tim's brother son and Grandpa Pete's birthday.  They did not understand Halloween but they liked the carved pumpkins.

Picture of Tim camping in Inner Mongolia China and listening to the BBC on our shortwave radio.

We had a couple of visitors but they were friendly and only bringing in the horses from the pasture or herding sheep.  At night the stars were beautiful, I miss this part about hotel room, we never see the stars at night.  We were also treated to a very bright Venus and Mars too.

Crowds usually gather when we stop in seldom visited areas of China.  Most Chinese in this area have never seen a foreigner before.

We located a hotel and jumped into it, it was 100 Y ($12.50).  It happens to be a type of spa, relaxation, healthy place, unfortunately it is men only so I did not get to go to the hot tub, sauna or steam room.  Tim had to take a shower there because the hot water ran out, literally stopped flowing, in the room.  He says I did not miss much.

Back on the trail to the Wudang Lamasary, we rode in the car for 2 and a half hours and finally arrived.  I knew we were there because I had seen pictures on the internet.  The entrance fee was 30 Y ($3.75) and I bought a book for 15 Y ($2).  There were no foreign tourists at all and very few Chinese tourists.  The place was lovely, very well maintained Palaces and residents, the only thing that was missing were the monks themselves.  This monastery is  large enough to house 1200 monks and I saw maybe 10 all day.  It is very low key.

Wudang Lamasary, Tivetan Buddhist Monastery in Inner Mongolia.

Inside the SuGuQing DuGong (Palace).

We were amazed how modern Bautou looks.  Every time we stopped to ask directions a crowd would gather, this is quite normal in places that rarely see foreigners.  But here in Bautou a suspicious cop would come over and investigate what was going on every time a crowd formed.  That was not normal.  Then we went looking for a hotel in town.  We stopped at the West Lake Hotel and the rooms cost 158 Y ($19.75) a room, way above our budget. We met Henry who spoke fluent English and he said he would help us find a room.  The next room we found was perfect, clean large room, hot water, and western toilet all for 80 Y ($10). we said we would take it.  When we came down from inspecting the room Tim was outside with a large crowd.  Henry was quite amazed at the gathering.  Then we tried to check in and they said we could not have the room because it was not safe for foreigners to stay there. (that is what they are told, in reality they did not have a permit) this hotel is probably safer then the large ones where the maid comes in the room.  They practically ran us back into the street.  We were shocked and disappointed. Then we went to another hotel they said they were too small and that they did not have a permit for foreigners. We were pointed down the road towards other more suitable safer hotels.  We found another hotel, this time it was 130 y ($16.25) it came with breakfast, and it was deemed safe for foreigners, (yeah a good place to get gauged for money).  We were too tired and hungry to argue any more, it had taken us nearly two hours to find a room.

We found out a couple of American geologists were staying in the hotel. I just had to met them, Jana from the University of Wisconsin, is working on her PhD and Chris her assistant is finishing his masters at the University of Texas, Austin. They had a Chinese interpreter who was also a geologist and driver with them.

We went out to dinner with the Geologists and had someone else do all the ordering.  It was great, we tried a few new dishes and learned a Chinese drinking game.

The rain hit while we were eating lunch, we were lucky we had stored out bikes under an outdoor porch.  Three hours later we negotiated a room for the night.  It was basic and better than going back to Bautou.

We thought we would come across the memorial at any time and it turned out that we still had 27 km to go.  I was having stomach problems once again, seems to be common here in Inner Mongolia.  It was getting late but we decided to push on anyway.  The late evening is a pleasant time to ride, but it did not give us much time to find a place to stay.  We passed what looked like the memorial all covered in scaffolding.  We asked about lodging and a guy on a motorcycle took us down to the Yurt camp ground.

Photo of a Yurt Village.

He took us to the farthest one, at least a half a kilometer away from the bathroom.  I did not want to stay there and it was starting to rain.  We picked out another Yurt closer to the bathroom and moved our stuff inside while the sunset.  The Yurt, a round structure covered by a canvas had a concrete floor.  It is the modern day style not the kind the nomads used hundreds of years ago.  The nice thing was we had room for our bikes inside.  We ate some Mongolian beef and eggplant for dinner and slept well all night.

Photo of Genghis Khan's Mausoleum, under construction.

We had lunch at one of the restaurants near the memorial, we had our standard tofu and eggplant.  The eggplant was the worst we have had in China, pan fried in oil (probably used) and no seasoning.  I asked the price of the tofu but forgot to ask about the eggplant.  When we asked for the bill the girl said 50 Y ($6.25) I asked her three times, I thought she said 15Y ($2.10).  OK so the tofu is 10 Y so that makes that eggplant 40 Y. I do not think so.  I gave them 18 Y, 10 for the tofu and 8 for the eggplant.  That is the fair price.  She was yelling at Tim all the way out the door.  So I do not recommend that restaurant either.

At least the family at the Yurt was honest and pleasant.  Not everyone is trying to swindle us.  Again, it is important to ask the price of things.  We went back to our Yurt and had a nice dinner with them.

This part of hwy. 210 is narrow and full of coal truck traffic. We stopped 18 km from the Yurt and had breakfast.  The road eventually turned to dirt and we could see that a section of a new highway was finished.  We jumped on the highway and we were glad we did because the road went through some very deep mud puddles.  Then we crossed from Inner Mongolia to Shanxi province and the road immediately improved.  The wind was strong from the north and the sky dark, we continued to ride.  We debated on whether to ride all the way to Yulin, it was an easy decision.  We did not see any hotels, barely any restaurants on this entire stretch.  It would have been difficult to find enough water to camp in this desert.

On the road to Yulin, riding through the sand dunes.

The weather looked too bad to even think about camping.  So on we pushed.  Luckily the first hotel we stopped at took foreigners and we were inside before it really started to rain.  The room cost 80Y ($10) per night and included breakfast, hot water and a western toilet.  Ah the luxuries in life.

In the middle of the night I got extremely sick with diarrhea. It was not a one time affair, more like continuous.  This alarmed me so I decided that it was time to take the citrpoflaxin that I carry with me just for such an occasion.  I thought that I would be better in a day or so.  I did not realize how sick I was and that it would wipe me out for three days.

Tim on the other hand worked on our web page.  I basically keep up my journal and he does the rest.  We have been getting a lot of email lately asking how we make money on the internet.  That is really Tim's department and he works hard on it every time we stop and take a break.  He is constantly updating the web page, adding pages on equipment and answering email.

Tim did laundry today and we hung the clothes up on the railing outside.  We are in the back of a fancy hotel.  We took a cheap room in the back where the staff live.  They were doing their laundry too.  As bike tourists we do not carry that much but compared to what people have here, we are wealthy.  We washed three pairs of socks, two tee shirts, one jersey, two bike shorts, and one pair of pants for Tim.  I had three pairs of socks, two bras, five pairs of underwear, one bike shirt, two bike shorts, one pair of pants, and two tee shirts.  We took up most of the railing.  The staff brought out their laundry and each one had two or three pieces of clothing.  That's it, nothing more.  It made me sad to see that was all they had, at the same time it made me feel like a glutton with all my things. They did not see all the things we had in our room, although they wanted to come in and clean all the time. 

We (Tim and I) appear to have a lot and I can only imagine what the rest of the USA looks like to them.  They know we are buying all the things that are made here in China.  Do we really need all these things that we buy?  I can easily say no to buying things because I have to carry them on a bike but I know before I left on this trip I bought whatever I thought I needed, now I ask, do I really need this and most of time the answer is no.  Will I go back to being a big consumer when I return to the States? only time will tell. I do know that I will continue to ask myself, do I really need this? and think of all the people I have met who live without all the things we can buy in the USA.

We crossed back over the Great Wall today.  I did not see it but I could see the difference immediately, desert to the north and fertile crop land to the south.  The people have changed to Han Chinese and Muslims.  We no longer see Mongolian on the signs we now see Pinyin (something we can read).   Our guide book said that Yulin was a small town with old gates and the Great Wall going through town. Now there are high rises that can hold 5,000 people and construction all around.  It is one of the fastest growing cities we have seen.

We rode south southeast along a river and into a head wind. Tim kept us moving along over 20 km an hour, not bad for a head wind.  We rode past a Buddhist Shrine and had to stop and take a look.  Interesting.

We arrived in Mizhi in search of a hotel.  We asked someone near a round about where a hotel was located.  Suddenly there was a huge traffic jam in the street, everyone was rubber necking to see who had arrived in town.  We quickly found the hotel and I took a look at the room.  It was 50 Y, not a bad room, I am sure the locals pay less but I can only bargain so much.  The room was nice and clean. We shared a toilet but it was clean too. However, they did not have a shower. They did give us a wash bin with hot water.  Strange, they have a hot water tank but no shower.  It was bird bath time.  I can not imagine doing this everyday.  I guess I would get good at it, but I prefer a shower. 

We arrived in Qingjian looking for a hotel.  The town was rustic, half the building were built in the side of the cliff and the streets were filled with people buying things from vendors. Where ever we stopped the crowds gathered only they were huge.  We found a hotel and put everything in our room.  The price was steep at 100 Y but I could not bargain her down any more.  The room was adequate a bit run down but a welcome shelter from the hordes.  I really do not blame people for being curious, it can be a bit intimidating to be closed in by a mob, but they are friendly and mean no harm.  We went out for dinner and were mobbed everywhere.  This is new, usually we are left alone when we are not with the bikes.  Such an interesting town with friendly people, I truly wish I spoke more Chinese.

Visited the Communist headquarters from 1939 - 47.  We decided to visit Mao's residence in Yanan.  The real reason I wanted to go is because I wanted to see what the bunkers looked like inside.  After riding through this area and seeing homes built into the cliffs with only the front door visible I was very curious to see what it looked like inside.  It turned out to be more spacious than I thought, although it still had a cave like feel to it.  Mao's residence was simple at best.  appeared to be elevated to a god like status here. 

We arrived in Huangling and looked for a hotel.  I found a cheap one but it was too dirty to take the room.  We ended up paying 130 ($15.75).  The room was not worth it but we had not choice but to pay the inflated price.

I have developed a cold and it is difficult breathing and riding.

We decided to take the city bus out to the Terra Cotta warriors since the bus left from outside the train station.  For 5 Y ($0.63) each we rode to the Terra Cotta warriors, the last stop on the line.

The complex includes a museum and Pits 1, 2, and 3. Pit 1 is the largest excavation and the most famous.  The larger than life terra cotta warriors and horses were all lined up in eleven columns with ten rows of rammed earth in between.   Each warrior is an infantrymen, archers, calvary, or general.  Each face is different, perhaps modeled after real warriors or the artists themselves.  Each warrior once had a weapon in its hands, the weapons are now gone, in some back room some where.  The amazing thing is that these warriors were buried with Emperor Qing, 2,250 years ago.  The detail and craftsmanship is amazing.

Pit 2. is not excavated as much as Pit 1.  Here is where Chariots 1 and 2 were excavated.  Many treasures are still buried beneath the earth.  Only four people were working on the excavation when we viewed the Pit. 

Pit 3 was the command center and the most looted.  There are some explanations in English but it really does not put the whole thing into perspective.  I did here guides explaining different objects at the Pits and believe that a guide would be a worthy investment if you want to get more detail on the warriors.  Otherwise there is plenty to look at in every Pit.  The museum is rather new and I found very lacking in detail. I know that there is more here than what is displayed. 

In the end I realized that the terra cotta warriors were not the only national treasure at the site, the real treasure to me is a glimpse into the past (2,250 years ago) and gaining an understanding of the military intelligence, social, political, scientific, and artistic talent of the era.  I am very glad that this national treasure was spared the cultural revolution that has affected many other historic areas of China.

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4 Australia
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Central America
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4 Australia
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