We left Saturday night on the night train and arrived Sunday morning in Xilinghaote. The city is smaller and cleaner than Huhhot and Nova told us that it is one of the richest cities in Inner Mongolia. We went to our hotel to have a rest and drop off our stuff. It was a nice hotel with the internet so we were able to call home.
We went to lunch at the only western restaurant in the city--Dico's. It mostly had chicken but they also had doughnuts! Which when we tried them were great disappointments. Then we went to a nearby temple. Nova told us it was a temple for llamas which we took in stride. When she began pointing and saying "llama! Llama!" we looked all over for the animal but all we saw was a bald guy in red robes. When we explained our confusion Nova got a real kick out of it.
At the temple Nova bought some liquor and some scarves and we went up to where tourists are allowed. There were these huge columns with thousands of scarves tied around each one. Nova went to one and began splashing the liquor onto the scarves. We walked around three times while she splashed and then we each tied our scarf to the pile. Nova told us to 'make the wish of our heart'. After that we did some more souvenir shopping. Mitch bought a magnified clock that doesn't quite keep the time but he thinks is super cool because you can see all of the gears working.
The next morning we got up very early, had breakfast at the hotels' buffet and then piled into the car of Serge's uncles friends (or something)(oh and Serge is Novas' boyfriend). He drove us for about two hours into the middle of nowhere to a gas station where we met our student Ben's father. We got into his car where we quickly left paved road behind us and spent another forty-five minutes bumping along the grasslands. Every once in a while something that resembled a house would show up on the horizon and I would think to myself 'not that one! There's no way anyone lives in that!'. At one point I realized that I better stop thinking that because knowing my luck I'd think that and we'd pull into one. And so we did. The whole family was there to meet us including the goat.
I have to admit that some things about staying there were quite shocking. I wasn't expecting much but no toilet at all was a bit of a surprise. They just pull up the nearest patch of dirt. I preferred taking a five minute walk to a bush.
They fed us a lunch of mutton. Something that I didn't enjoy then and I didn't enjoy at every other meal after. Later they took us out to their Yurt which we quite enjoyed exploring. Nova told us that the family was only at the house because of us. Normally they live in the yurt. After that we helped to water their sheep.
After dinner more family showed up to meet us and we began to name the kids. There was Ben (our student) and his younger sister Becky, one cousin we named Sophie who lived down the hill and two other, Susie and Tia who lived in the second half of the house. Mitch quickly became their favorite person to follow around. He would say words and phrases in english and they would mimic him.
We went to bed that night on a wooden platform with carpets and blankets laid on it. It wasn't exactly comfortable but we were so tired that we slept surprisingly well.
The next morning we woke up with the sun and enjoyed a nice mutton breakfast. I should explain that this meat is served right on the large bones and you just take a knife and cut stuff off to eat. I wasn't very good at it and stuck to the cold scone-like bread. We were told that there was going to a party that day not far from the house and that we would go. By party they meant festival but it was fun to call it a party. We piled into the car again and headed out for an hour or so until we saw a circle of cars and some yurts. They were actually set up on a hill near a small town and when we got out and began to walk around the local cops became quickly interested in us. We hadn't even had a chance to look around before we were bustled into the cops car and taken into town. They told us that we were twenty kilometers from the Mongolian border so we had to check-in. Unfortunately Mitch had left our passports back at the house which gave them an excuse to keep us around. Nova was very mad at them all. It wasn't hard to figure out that basically they were very bored cops and that we were the most exciting thing around. Eventually we called Ben who was still at his house and told him where our passports were. They let us go back to the party telling us that we'd have to come back when we got our passports.
We watched a bit of Mongolian wrestling where one guy tries to knock the other one onto the ground and then we watched a horse race. Well, actually we stood around for a long time waiting to watch the end of the horse race but in actuality being the center of attention. Groups of people formed around us wherever we went. Many people wanted pictures with us. Even more just wanted to stare at us. After what felt like forever our friend the cop took us in his car out to see the race. That was cool! We saw the leaders and drove along side of them as they ran their tired horses. There were two of them--one was a young boy and the other was his older brother. We were very impressed with the concern that the elder brother had for his brother. He could have taken quite the lead from his younger brother but instead he stayed with him and urged him onward. It was actually quite touching and we were quite excited when they won.
After the race we were invited into the mayors' yurt for lunch. Mitch was taken up to sit with the men while I got shunted off to the side with the other females who weren't serving the men. Now I'm not much of a feminist but there was something about that pack of smoking men sitting there chomping on meat while they didn't even acknowledge the women who served them unless it was to beckon for something that they wanted to got me grumpy. Eventually the mayor who was sitting next to Mitch left and Mitch motioned for me to sit next to him. I did and Nova had to explain to the rest of the men that Mitch was very kind. Sheesh.
At the party we met another one of our students who we named Jane who invited us to her house because she didn't live very far away (although we soon learned that our idea of not far and theirs were two different things). We slept in a yurt while more wrestling went on and then we headed to Jane's house. They were much more wealthy than Ben's family and it showed in their home but still the bathroom was the great outdoors and the food was mutton. This family took us to the hills of the grasslands to a large pile of rocks that we spent quite some time scrambling around on.
I think the best part of the grasslands is the air. It was cool and clean and it felt so good to be scrambling about in something like the mountains of home. In Huhhot I get my exercise by walking around a dirt track by our apartment. It was so nice to be out away from the city.
We left the hills as it began to rain and headed back to Ben's house. It was amazing to me how nice it was to 'come home'. We had only stayed with that family for one night but their faces had already become familiar.
We woke the next morning and took pictures with the family and eventually headed back to the city. We were sad to leave the family. The Grandma cried and we gave them gifts and hugs. They want us to come back some day.
The next morning we headed to another small but wealthy city where a friend of Serge's lived. We had lunch with him and his wife. After that we drove out to another 'city'. Nova had a hard time explaining what we were about to do so Mitch and I were a little confused. Eventually we stopped at some huge gates and an even bigger rock that had Genghis Khan carved into it. After looking around and seeing a huge ariel shot of an ancient city we figured out that we were going to get to tour one Genghis Khans ancient cities! We piled into these large golf carts and headed into the city. Our first stop was a large wall that had been uncovered and the second stop was the remains of what used to be the house of the princess. From there were could look out and see many other ruins and we got very excited. Unfortunately after that we were taken back to a boardwalk that we had passed on our way in. This boardwalk sort of meandered around the grasslands for no particular reason. Now don't get me wrong the scenery was very beautiful it's just that I wanted to see more ruined old stuff! ;)
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