Inner Mongolia
Traveling through Inner Mongolia, and most of the Chinese countryside between here and there for that matter, felt like what I imagine passing through a series of semi-abandoned midwest towns in the Dustbowl era of the early 20th century might have been like. For the most part, villages are minuscule conglomerations of one-story buildings, all made from the same red bricks, made from the same red clay that is found all over the country. Half the buildings seem to be abandoned, and what businesses are open seem more like people squatting in previously abandoned storefronts than actual, legitimate businesses. The stores that do exists all seem to sell pretty much the exact same thing, and at prices that make even Beijing look like a decadent metropolis. The larger cities, if they can be called such, seem a mix between these ramshackle brick structures, and enormous, new high-rises, office buildings, and shopping centers. The contrast between the two often gave me the impression that someone was trying to build the shell of a new city on the corpse of an old one, in the hopes that some new and vital spirit might animate it. Many of the smaller towns, mostly devoted to simple agriculture or coal mining, struck me as especially sad. They were prisons without walls, where those who lived there were sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor, minimal education, and crude entertainment ( i.e. sex and violence), without more than a distant hope of reprieve. It is a hard thing to see, and the sense of powerlessness to help any of them in the slightest way is difficult to handle, difficult not to let it become cynicism. On the other hand, the countryside itself, though it must seem bleak, arid, and desolate to those who live there, could just as easily be called rugged and beautiful for one just passing through.
We learned much of the China outside of the city, and had some adventures in the grasslands and deserts of Inner Mongolia. I got to ride a horse across maybe 5 km of steppes, albeit to a small settlement which we were led to, where everyone tried to sell us something. The horse was plodding, solitary, and diffident, so naturally we were well suited to each other. I liked him immediately, and called him Bob. As we walked, I saw the sun setting to the horizon on my right, and the full moon rising on my left. It is the first time I have seen a real horizon in ages, probably since I hiked up that hill in Fairfax, unless you count the airplane to China in February. But as opposed to either of those cases, I was on ground level and could still see for miles. I could even see the stars, which has happened but rarely since coming to China. On the way back, we elected to ride an ATV through the dark, our way lit only by the full moon, as the headlights were, naturally, non-functional. We slid down and trudged up sand dunes some 40 or 50 feet high at the edge of the Gobi Desert, and lay in the sand reading. We also spent far more hours on a bus than I ever hope to again. But there is still this summer, so we shall see.
I had originally thought to do a bunch of inline links to pictures from the trip, but it\'s almost 2:30 am now, and I\'m tired and lazy. So here is the link to pics I took. http://www.flickr.com/photos/icarus_with_a_tan/sets/72157600180048561/
Blargh... off to bed now...
We learned much of the China outside of the city, and had some adventures in the grasslands and deserts of Inner Mongolia. I got to ride a horse across maybe 5 km of steppes, albeit to a small settlement which we were led to, where everyone tried to sell us something. The horse was plodding, solitary, and diffident, so naturally we were well suited to each other. I liked him immediately, and called him Bob. As we walked, I saw the sun setting to the horizon on my right, and the full moon rising on my left. It is the first time I have seen a real horizon in ages, probably since I hiked up that hill in Fairfax, unless you count the airplane to China in February. But as opposed to either of those cases, I was on ground level and could still see for miles. I could even see the stars, which has happened but rarely since coming to China. On the way back, we elected to ride an ATV through the dark, our way lit only by the full moon, as the headlights were, naturally, non-functional. We slid down and trudged up sand dunes some 40 or 50 feet high at the edge of the Gobi Desert, and lay in the sand reading. We also spent far more hours on a bus than I ever hope to again. But there is still this summer, so we shall see.
I had originally thought to do a bunch of inline links to pictures from the trip, but it\'s almost 2:30 am now, and I\'m tired and lazy. So here is the link to pics I took. http://www.flickr.com/photos/icarus_with_a_tan/sets/72157600180048561/
Blargh... off to bed now...