Datong & Hohhot

11.6

For all of you who have forgotten what we have already done on that day I will recap. Yes, this is a very nice thing and potentially unnecessary as you could just go back and check as I might have done, but I know no one will do this. On that day we visited the forbidden city. In this era it is not really forbidden you just need to buy tickets. I think the spirits of the old emperors would disapprove whole heartily, but as they are dead, they can't really do anything. Nonetheless, I am convinced they told the sun to basically burn us alive. So, in the afternoon the two of us exited the city sweaty and hot, eager to go to cooler places on this earth.

The journey on the wheeled worm went surprisingly smooth and we left the meeting hub in Datong only a couple of hours later. At this point in time the sun had already set behind the horizon. With high spirits we followed the signs to the bus station. We are as usually perfectly prepared and knew that there was some way to get to the place we wanted to go. Well, it was too late for the bus. Who in the city council decided that 7 pm is the perfect time to stop the busses? Yeah, I don't like to be out at 8 pm anyways and sunset strolls are super nice. For once we decided that walking for several hours through the baking sun in the forbidden city is enough for one day and we went to the taxi stall. For that we followed the signs down deserted stairs with small turns to a parking garage. There several taxi drivers were sitting and playing a card game. When we entered they looked astonished to see us, maybe they don't really get any costumers. No wonder for they were hiding in the best hide-and-seek spot in the whole station. The system there is quite simple, at least in theory. You simply follow the directions to a guy in a uniform, explain to him where you want to go and he directs you to the next taxi in line. So much for theory. We did manage to walk up to the guy. He was very confused by our directions. We only had our hotel address in English and even showing him the spot we marked on our maps did not give him any insight. Attracted by his confusion and our pointing more and more people came. Quickly a crowd of up to 11 drivers formed around us, with more coming and others leaving in confusion. None of the taxi drivers seemed to know where the point we marked on the map was. I am really confused by this. In my understanding taxi drivers know the city and would be able to identify a big red pin in the middle of it.

Maps.me even had the street names in Chinese characters, so that was not the problem. Another aspect that always amazes me is how much people continue to talk to us in a language that we obviously don't understand. In the end Artey translated the address with google translate and showed it to the crowd of confused taxi drivers and just like a cartoon a collective “ahhh” spread through the gathering. With the direction settled we headed towards our hotel. We were very excited for the lobby of our hostel seemed very fancy and the card that was handed to us said “business hotel”. Our room was indeed not bad. Yes some parts of the wall started to peel and the beds were just boxes with thin matrasses, but that is apparently the style in that area. We had two large beds, our own bathroom, a big TV (which is really useless if you're not a fan of Chinese propaganda or soap operas in mandarin) and a kettle. Our first impression was however a bit overshadowed by the large and I mean the entire wall big, very photoshopped picture of a woman who was not a strong representative of modesty. Very strange choice of wall décor for a business hotel. We were just very happy about the shower.

12.6

Our day started with breakfast. With our cunning observation skill we knew that breakfast was at the second floor. Sadly the very strict guardian of the door did not let us enter for we were lacking the necessary sheets of parchment. That means that we needed to head downstairs get them at the check-in, walk up the stairs again and try to pass the door guardian again. Our only hope was that there would be some kind of fruit or veggies at breakfast. Our prayers were answered. The majority of breakfast were mushy overly boiled veggies, mostly cabbage. To counterbalance the over boiled veggies we had very hard potatoes. But I can't complain we had something green. We also got steamed buns, rice porridge (more rice tea than porridge) and soy milk. After breakfast we started our quest of the day. We wanted to visit the Yungang Grottoes. A series of caves with splendid Buddhists carvings and statues. A very big plus in our opinion was that grottoes/ caves are indoors and therefore not in the sun. We had researched how to get there. Meaning read a couple of blogs and they all stated that several busses run to the grottoes driving abut 1.5 h. With a great plan formed we walked to the spot maps.me marked as “bus station to grottoes” and with a small detour, one dead end and a sprint, we jumped on the right bus to the caves. The driver was very nice, for we did not have the right amount of change and just paid something close to the right amount (did the same thing with the taxi driver the day before). Then we settled in for what we assumed would be a 90 min journey. After 20 min the bus driver shook us out of our stupor, for the bus was empty and we had arrived. There we also confidently walked in the wrong direction and ended at the exit of the caves instead of the entrance. At the second try we found the entrance with the ticket office (might have walked past the ticket office the first time) bought two student tickets for half the price and made our way to the caves. As you might have noticed our brains were only running on max. 30% speed that day. The grottoes were very nice, though not as indoors as we thought. After an hour of walking between small cave openings that lead to halls filled with ginormous Buddha statues and colorful paintings, we stopped for lunch. We had two portions of cold noodles and a bit of a break in the shade. We strolled a bit more through the green park past more caves and then sat down for a cup of coffee and tea. Simple brews that with the help of a rather complex spell can be transformed into magic potions that restored some of our brain capacity and energy. With that we marveled at some more caves, Buddha’s, carvings and intricate paintings that endured the passing of millennia. In the afternoon we decided that we have had enough of sunshine and returned to the city.

There we rested for a while before making our way somewhere in the search for dinner. After a bit of wandering, we found a small restaurant where we ate two different kind of traditional noodles one was served with pork that tasted like red wine and the other was a soup with rice cakes and tofu. Our hunger stilled and a bit tied we made our way back to our hotel. On the way we passed a family that had a barbecue on the side of the road. It was quite the sight. About 10 people sitting on small stools around two tables laden with food and next to them a long barbecue. The oldest man, presumably the family father spoke to us. Out of the whole group one lady spoke a bit of English, so she translated for us. In no time we found ourselves sitting on these small stools on the sidewalk eating freshly grilled meat and drinking Chinese beer. Everyone seemed very interested in us, for they kept asking a lot of questing that the one girl tried desperately to translate in her broken English. It was very nice, but as we just came from dinner, we were not that hungry. The thing in Chinese customs is that once you have finished your plate or in our case the skewer of meat you get more. Easy enough one would just stop eating with something left. Well, the older lady sitting next to us always encouraged us to eat more every time we stopped. The meat was very good and I was very happy that our tolerance to spicy food is so high otherwise we would not have been able to eat them. After a while the father of the family started a bit more serious discussion and asked us something that the English-speaking lady refused to translate. From what I could gather the father had the impression that as Germans we would have a lot of money and should give him some. The rest of the family seemed very uncomfortable at the idea of asking their guest for money and strongly disagreed with him. We took that as our sign to leave and made our way to our hotel without any further stops.

13.6

The 13th day of a month is usually connected to bad luck, but we are the masters of faith and swatted all evil away that dared to approach us. The day started as every day that is worth talking about with breakfast. All things that hinder a person from breaking their fast are constructs of the malicious workings of the devil. The breakfast that day was very different from that the day before. Not really, but the potatoes were replaced by some other boiled vegetable and we managed to get two eggs instead of one per person which is a big win in my point of view. If your point of view disagrees with that I would advise you to move. After breakfast we got to actually explore Datong. Datong has a very impressive city wall and some nice traditional houses. Along the way we were always on the lookout for our good friend the snowman. I don't think we have mentioned the snowman by name but if you know you will find mentions of him several times. The snowman is a producer of magic potions and ice-cream. We have come to love him in the time in the land of tea and walls for his Jaes are exquisite and only cost half as much as any other merchant. In Datong we also heard his song for the first time. I would recommend it to you but the scribbling they call writing here is beyond the capabilities of my computer. On the way back to our hotel we passed a local market where we grabbed some lunch before making our way to the speed worm meeting hub. We arrived at the station early so we settled in the waiting area and prepared our lunch. That consisted of noodles and a separately packaged sauce. Both of them were transported in plastic bags which are used way to often here. So, we put the plastic bag of noodles in our Tupperware containers and poured the sauce over it. Just as we had started to eat the people got up and formed a queue to board the train. Reluctantly we packed away our food and grabbed our stuff to enter the train. Every train we have taken in the land of speed worm and ancient dynasties was a bullet train. Very modern and high speed. This one was not. This speed worm had a max speed of 120 km/h, not even half the speed his modern siblings can manage and it had bunks instead of seats. As the sun was still up in the sky and we were not in Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan no one was asleep and the people gathered in the bottom bunks. There we finished our meal and amused everybody else on the train. A couple uneventful hours later we departed the speed worm in the city of Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia. To settle everybody's confusion Inner Mongolia is not part of Mongolia but a district of China. Prepared as always, we planned to take the subway to the city center. Sadly, we left the station on the wrong exit and were in no mood to cross the station to reach the subway. Instead, we decided to figure out which bus we could take, which was definitely less difficult than walking to the other side of the station. With our brilliant minds, maps.me and a bit of faith we boarded some bus. The bus quickly became full of humans and the two of us with our animal companions ended up standing in the way wherever we turned. The next hour we spent our time trying not hit people with our companions and shuffling out of the way of boarding or exiting passengers. In the end we got out at the right station and made our way to our next inn. To our surprise this one was very modern as well. As our bus ride had taken a bit longer than expected we were eager for some food. Before that we went to the other speed worm meeting hub in Hohhot. We had already secured tickets on the speed worm the following day half way to the capital of Mongolia but we hoped to get some that would take us all the way there. We were not successful. Not really bothered by this we turned our focus on dinner. We ended up in a local restaurant run by a very friendly woman and ate fantastic rice with tofu and bell pepper and rice with sweet and sour eggplant.

14.5

That day we wanted to explore Hohhot a bit. Hohhot is maybe not the most interesting of all places we have been to. We also didn't want to overly exhaust ourselves for the day was going to be a long one. So, after breakfast we spent some time relaxing. For lunch we ate some simple noodle soups and then went to the Museum of Inner Mongolia. A large part of Inner Mongolia consists of the Gobi Desert. Gobi is not only an empty wasteland but also home to a range of fascinating creatures, fossils and a rocket launch site. Wandering through time we first marveled at the largest collection of dinosaur bones I have ever seen in my life. But not all the bones belonged to dinosaurs we also saw a complete mammoth skeleton and the remains of a Platybelodon grangeri, which is a kind of elephant with a very large bottom lip placing it in the shovel tusker family. That is the strangest creature I have ever seen.

Then we quickly jumped forward in time to marvel at some old clothes, the story of space travel and then to the next highlight: the collection of animals that live in Inner Mongolia. Apparently, someone let the intern stuff some of the animal. Firstly, I want to clarify that I wholeheartedly disapprove of stuffing animals, it is just unnecessary. Still the two of us where howling with laughter at the weird faces some of the animals made. They ranged from completely bewildered to shocked and simply stupid. Our learning effect was a bit hindered by the lack of English translations but it was still a very interesting experience. After some time, we left the Museum of Inner Mongolia to do some shopping for the next day’s journey. We acquired nectarines, cucumbers, a mini melon, oranges, lunch and dinner (for the following day). For dinner we decided to simply go to the same restaurant as the evening before. The other dishes we tried were just as good as the one we ate the previous day. And then as the sun began to set we made our way to the speed worm meeting hub and to the next adventures.