If you are itching to get away from Beijing and the big city for the weekend (preferably a long one) then Inner-Mongolia might be just your ticket. It is an affordable trip, about ten hours from Beijing overnight, and with plenty to do outside, like riding camels and horses, you can clear away the smog under a sunny sky. Although my trip saw very little of it, Hohhot means 'blue sky' in Mongolian, perhaps because this is one of the sunnier parts of China.

　　Leaving Beijing is a special experience. If this is your first time taking a Chinese train, as it was mine, prepare yourself, this is not Amtrack(tm). You're in China. Boarding a Chinese train for the overnight is not that bad, just make sure that you get one of the lower bunks, and preferably the middle bunk of the three when you arrange your ticket. Ticket prices from the station will run you around 100 yuan(US), slightly more or less depending on which bunk you take. We arrived at ten in the evening by cab, to catch a ten thirty-five train.

　　BOARDING: Boarding in Beijing is a different animal than in the states, or any other western country. We pushed in among the screaming masses, and managed to elbow a girl out of the way to get to the gate. Just to go stand outside in the cold. To go to Mongolia. To get out of Beijing. To go ride horses in the grasslands. To ride camels in the Gobi. To live in a Yurt.

　　MONGOLIA: We arrived at nine in the morning. We disembarked, and were met by a Chinese man holding a sign over his head with my name on it. Gao Jun. There were only two of us on the tour, and it stood to reason that there would only be one guide. This was, as we were soon to find out, not to be true. He lead us away from the train, over the tracks, and to his two companions waiting by the bread shaped mini-bus. Three guides. One to guide, one to drive, and a third to sit, who as far as I could tell, did nothing the entire time. This is not your most common of occurrences on a Mongolian tour, however we were travelling on a regular weekend out of season, so expect there to be far more people when you go, and a different staff to client ratio.

　　We were told that first we were to be heading to the desert quite some distance away (a distance, it turned out to be, of around three hours). We headed off, stopped for gas and drinks, and later lunch. We drove all through the Inner Mongolian countryside, down a road for over an hour and a half, which had a great plain to one side, and rising mountains and cliffs to the other.

　　THE DESERT: I had never seen a desert before, and as we went down a sand covered road, our mini-bus turning to avoid ruts, I knew we were drawing near. When we finally came to the bottom of the hill, the desert lay on the other side of a huge chasm, bridged by a ski lift. In the layers of the chasm walls, you could see the different colours of sedimentary layers, in teal, red, brown and green. They were the only colours visible in the area, as the swirling sands and overcast skies hid the colours of the world. The desert lay stretched out before us, and we could see small clusters of camels mounting the dunes as they continued on, seeming to never end.

　　It cost 25 yuan to cross the divide on the ski-lift. From our vantage point we could see, quite clearly, the effects of desertification. There was a small house that had once been on the hillside, and was now nearly invisible, only a small piece of roof and a single window left outside the grasp of the dune.

　　Once on the other side, cloth boots were placed over our shoes (at a cost of 10 yuan), and we bought face masks to protect ourselves from the sand. I wish I had brought sunglasses, or any kind of glasses, to protect my eyes.

　　CAMELS: Camels, it seems, are rather surly beasts. They are tall, as tall as the largest of horses. They are funny looking, covered in thick hair clumped in dreadlocks, with two tall humps on their backs. They have padded feet which expandsintosthe sand. Their reigns are pierced through their nose. Our two camels were bound together by this piercing. Mine was second in the line, and his nose line was tied to the hump of the first. We were to go riding for one hour, a closed circuit, marked by red flags to keep us from getting lost. We had a guide who was on foot, leading the way for us out and back. The sensation of riding a camel is quite unlike that of a horse, as the animals shoulders drop with each movement, so one feels more like they are at sea than in a desert. The saddle is comprised of a few folded blankets and a set of stirrups. You hold the hair of the front hump as you ride, and you lean against the back.

　　It was amazing to head outsintosthe great sands of the Gobi, one of the worlds larger deserts, and to come over top of one last dune, see nothing but sand stretched out both in front and behind, with no traces of civilization anywhere to be seen. It seems that distance does not matter: if you are a half a kilometre, or one thousand kilometressintosthe desert, you still feel lost and small, as everything around you is the same, and there is no capacity for direction in the overcast sky.

　　When done, we got off, disrobed our feet, and returned to the ski lift, were hauled back to the other side of the chasm, and immediately went to wash our hands. I don't know how many of you have ever had your hands stuffed in camel fur for an hour, but it really makes you want to wash.

　　THE YURT: We arrived in the grasslands, and headed straight for our Yurt, a traditional Mongolian residence that had been set up for tourists like me. There were rows of the round, low slung structures, wrapped in canvas held on by ropes. The door was steel, and ill fitting, and the ground at the entrance on the inside was concrete. Here we left our shoes, stepping up onto the platform for our bed. On the platform was a small table, and mounds of blankets from which we were to make our bed for the night. The inside of the Yurt was wrapped in old blankets to hide the frame, and one could feel in the walls the steel structure and surrounding insulation. The roof came to a peak in the centre, fromswheresa bare light bulb hung from a wire. It was home. It felt good not to move, even if for just a half an hour before we were shuttled off to dinner.

　　DINNER: The Mongolians have tremendous hospitality. We were fed until we could feed no more off of traditional Mongolian dishes, most especially lamb. My friend is a Vegan, meaning she eats nothing related to animals, and even this they accommodated by bringing out a variety of su or vegetarian dishes.

　　THE GRASSLANDS: The next day we awoke to a howling wind, and a chill. We could feel that we were on the plains, and dug our heads down deep in our sleeping bags to ignore the cold. We could not ignore the constant knocking of our guide, who was insistent on our getting up. We finally did, and rose to see our horses tied to a post in the yard. One was brown, the other white. I was immediately informed that the white one was mine.

　　After haggling with the men over the price of riding the horses (they initially wanted far too much) we agreed to go for a two hour ride at 200 yuan per person. They had wanted to lead us around in a paddock, but we had refused. We wanted to ride on the grasslands damnit, and that is what we were going to do.

　　Chinese horses are really small. It felt like I was riding a pony. The short gait of the horses made it impossible to post the trot, and difficult to post its gallop. None the less, we arrived after an hours ride (of being the only ones on the grasslands, which was wonderful) at the house of a local Mongolian. There was a main house, powered by a wind generator high on a staff, and a barn area. There was an enclosure with hay for the billy goats, a few sparse cattle, and a camel. We were told to wander around and take a look at all that we wanted to, and we did. It was very interesting to see how they had recycled tiressintosbuckets and bags, and other ways that they reused discarded items.

　　The inside of the house had the bare minimum. There was a hard queen size bed, three chairs and a table. On the right hand side were some bookcases filled with curio items, and to the left was a television. I think they even had satellite.

　　We paid them our 3 yuan, and left, riding back an hour to the Yurt site, to have a rest and some more tea.

　　By the time we left, the day was drawing late. We thanked our hosts, got in the van (with the same three men) and headed off for Hohhot. On the ride back we could see the scenery we had missed on the way in, and were amazed at how the entire countryside had been touched by man. The hills had mounds constructed in uniform patterns as far as you could see to prevent erosion, and every tree looked as if it had been planted with a purpose. Frightening to think that so much damage had been done, and the amount of available manpower to try and fight its effects.

　　HOHHOT: Since we only had a weekend, we did not get to see much of Hohhot. There are many things to see in Hohhot, things that I wish I had seen, especially the Hohhot Museum (Nei Mengu Bowuguan) which has dinosaurs, a yurt, and a mammoth skeleton on display, along with other displays of Mongolian historical artefacts. If you travel to Hohhot in the summer (between mid-July and mid-August) you may get to see the Naadam, which is a summer festival loved by the locals, and with many things to see.

　　If you are going to Inner Mogolia, you definitely can do it in a weekend, and for not very much money (as low as 650 yuan - perhaps even less). You may, however, want to take a bit more time, so that you do not feel as rushed to pack it all in as we did. It is a beautiful place to go, not far from Beijing, and with a tremendous amount to see and do outside of a city, especially good if you are itching for country air.