Fascinating adventures within and around Baotou

Next morning, as dawn rose over the desert, I went back out to the same location, climbing again the soft, powdery sand. However this time I was intrigued by the many animal tracks across the surface - some showed claw marks, others were slithery, possibly a snake? Then I remembered desert animals are nocturnal - they come out at night, exactly were I had walked!

After a breakfast of milk tea, meat and bread sticks it was back out across the dry river bed to the main highway that ran south passing Xiangshawan, the ‘Resonant Sand Gorge’. When I was there several years later a chairlift carried visitors across to the dunes, but in 1997, I had to put on large cloth overboots and physically climb the forty metre high sand walls! Hard work! Beyond however, travel was by camel, the ‘ship of the desert’, across a sea of rolling sand hills. It was so beautiful, I just wishing I had time to go farther across this incredibly peaceful wilderness. Descending back to the river valley was fun - slowly sliding down while creating a deep resonant sound with my feet.

In 1997, the road onward to Dongsheng was narrow and crowded with coal lorries. A few years later an expressway greatly eased the journey. The area I would pass through known as Ordos, referred to as ‘people guarding the palaces’ - the four temporary palaces of Genghis Khan and later his tomb. I was there to visit the Genghis Khan Mausoleum (chengjishan ling) at Ejin Horo Qi, an hour south of Dongsheng. The main building resembled three large interconnected yurts with roofs tiled in dark blue and yellow. Within the halls were many displays of smaller yurts, domestic equipment associated with the nomadic life; decorated saddles and military equipment that would be carried or worn by the horsemen. It was fascinating wandering through the halls looking at statues and various images of Genghis Khan. To show traditional respect I was invited to drink from a metal bowl of baijiu and this was at 10.30am!

Outside, it was a beautiful warm morning. A small dagoba marked an earlier location of the shrine. Nearby was a former film set scattered with yurts, wooden wagons, great chariots while sheep grazed nearby.

All great memories of Inner Mongolia that I reflected on while being driven through a mixture of semi-desert; grasslands; farmland and villages before the road crossed the Yellow River near Shuanghezhen to climb up onto the plateau that would lead back towards Hohhot.