After Wednesday night’s festivities on the grasslands, I wasn’t sure that anything could top our bonfire / singing / storytelling experience. However, Thursday proved to be equally eye-opening, with more hands-on activities and more unique perspectives on local life.

We began the morning with a Naadam Festival demonstration by the local nomadic men, as the real games begin in mid-July. As I discussed in a previous blog post, Naadam, which literally means “games” in Mongolian, is a summertime event comprised of traditional Mongolian wrestling, archery, and horse racing.

To begin, a group of ten riders raced at lightning speed along the grasslands, displaying their incredible horsemanship skills. Later, we witnessed a Mongolian wrestling competition, in which the goal is to get an opponent’s body part (other than his feet) to touch the ground. Our guests delighted when they were handed the uniform to take part! Slowly but surely, a few pairs donned traditional garb to challenge one another to friendly matches in true Mongolian style.

Our hands-on day didn’t stop there. For lunch, we drove another 30 minutes to a smaller yurt community that was managed by a single family. There, in a larger yurt, we sat around tables learning how to make Mongolian dumplings. Helping our guests manipulate the dumpling dough to create the perfect shape was a fun challenge. While some found it to be an easier task than others, the process was enjoyed by all.

Crafting Mongolian dumplings in the sun.

The homemade lunch on which we dined from the local family was incredible. Before we even began eating, I felt so lucky that this family had invited the guides and drivers into their own dining room for this lunch. It was one thing to eat their freshly-prepared food, but another to consume it where they usually have their own meals.

As for the food itself, the freshest eggs and lamb graced our table, and made even the most standard of Chinese dishes – such as egg and tomato – that much more delicious. Potato noodles, lamb stew, lamb dumplings, bitter melon, and other local specialties graced our table that afternoon. This meal reaffirmed for me that Chinese home cooking is truly the best in China. Regional classics with a family touch, in my experience, has a taste that no restaurant can replicate.

On our second-to-last day in Inner Mongolia, as I sat with my fellow guides and drivers, I felt like a part of a Chinese family at an intimate home gathering.

Stay tuned for more of my stories from Inner Mongolia on the WildChina blog.

In my last post on Inner Mongolia, I discussed Shirley’s and my arrival to Inner Mongolia’s grasslands. After arriving, we took our guests to build yurts – traditional nomadic housing with a circular wooden frame and burlap/felt covering.

Yurt building, I learned last Wednesday, is easier than one might think. After all, a yurt had to be quickly constructed and disassembled according to nomads’ cattle, horses, and lambs. Mongolians had to be prepared to move at the drop of a hat if sustenance for their animals, their main source of food, was no longer available.

At around 4 pm that afternoon, Shirley and I divided our guests into three teams to build yurt frames. The first step required teams to stretch out a few latticed wooden siding, which was curved to make the circular shape of the yurt. Once these wooden frames were stretched out, a few nomads instructed our guests on how to tie these sections together. By looping thin rope from the top to the bottom of the sections, the guests ensured that the yurt frame would be sturdy. (This is important for keeping warm during the night, when temperatures drop significantly and wind chill on the grasslands increases.) After finishing this, the guests tied the door frame to the last two untied sections of the frame, completing the circular shape and entrance of the yurt.

Components of a Mongolian yurt.

A row of completed yurts in our community on the Xilamuren Grasslands.

The next section of the yurt required a lot of coordination and teamwork between the nomads and our guests. Going through the door frame, a nomad stood on a short ladder and held up a circular wooden yurt top, known as a “crown”, which would hold the support roof poles in its slots. As he held the crown, our guests took red and yellow poles, secured them in the top’s slots, and then secured them to the latticed frame.

We finished the entire frame in about 30 minutes. While nomads could easily put these up in about 10, our first try at constructing nomadic housing wasn’t bad.

Yurt building successfully finished, we retired to our nomadic housing for some rest before the night’s festivities.

Stay tuned for more of my stories from Inner Mongolia on the WildChina blog.

Welcome to my third installment of On the Road in Inner Mongolia, in which I give you a glimpse at life on Inner Mongolia’s Xilamuren Grasslands. After an action-packed day in Baotou and the Kubuqi Desert, Shirley and I traveled with our group to experience nomad culture in the grasslands.

Spending time in Baotou the day before had opened my eyes about industry and modernization in Inner Mongolia. Although I am well aware, from living in Beijing, that China’s development in recent years has been remarkably rapid, it is another thing to see it in action in other parts of the country on a day-to-day basis. Baotou was essentially a large construction site, as many second- and third-tier Chinese cities currently are. I could see its the growing pains as it tries to catch up with Beijing, Shanghai, and other Chinese supercities. Almost every block featured a construction project in progress.

Xilamuren was a eye-opening departure from the urban industrial feel of Baotou. Driving to the grasslands, I could clearly track the transition from urban hub to nomadic territory. Construction sites gradually melted out of the landscape; city centers distilled into smaller roadside strip malls; and eventually, all that was left along the road was grass and sky. As one might expect, the air was much clearer as we neared the grasslands. The gray, sunless haze that so often characterizes Chinese metropolitan centers was absent, with large clouds and soft sunlight in its place.

As we neared our destination for the day – a yurt community in which we would stay the night – pockets of nomadic communities began to pop up on the flat, green landscape. Some big, some small, these communities were all characterized by white and blue yurts – small dome-shaped structures that are typical of nomadic tribes in the area. After taking a few dirt roads to a more remote part of these grasslands, we finally reached our yurt community. Mongolian flags waved in the breeze over a wood-framed entrance.

Mongolian nomads greet us at the entrance of their yurt community.

Nomads prepare the traditional alcohol ceremony.

Walking into the community, we were greeted by nomads dressed in traditional Mongolian costume (similar to that of the Mongolian dancers we had met the day before). Two lines of singing nomads ushered us in one by one. For the adults in the group, they offered a small cup of local Mongolian alcohol. Before drinking it, one had to first dip his or her ring finger into the alcohol three times: once, to flick it to the sky; another, to flick it to the ground; and finally, to touch the forehead. After this, the guest could finally drink the alcohol.

Once we had all been formally greeted, we set out to an empty space of land where we learned to construct yurts.

Stay tuned for more of my stories from Inner Mongolia on the WildChina blog.

In my next installment of On the Road in Inner Mongolia, I am taking you through my day in Baotou and the surrounding area. As I mentioned in my last On the Road in Inner Mongolia post, Shirley and I awoke in Baotou early Tuesday morning to begin our trip after our trip on an overnight train from Beijing.

After getting off the train, we headed to a local hotel. A hot breakfast was an excellent start today after a long (though comfortable) night on the train. Fed and energetic, we went to learn traditional Mongolian dancing.

At 10 am, we watched eagerly as a group of four Mongolian women gave us and our group a personal demonstration, which entailed dividing us into four smaller groups to practice the moves shown to us. The dance sequence was characterized by slow and methodical but sharp shoulder movements, sways and leans from side to side, and delicate hand gestures. The dancers donned long blue and red dresses with silver accents, as well as elegant traditional Mongolian headpieces. While our level of Mongolian dancing proficiency was far from that of our instructors, we nevertheless enjoyed practicing and performing a small slice of Mongolian tradition.

One of our teachers shows us the proper technique for a traditional Mongolian pose.

Dancing and a homestyle Chinese lunch was proceeded by an afternoon at Kubuqi Desert (库布其沙漠), the third largest in Inner Mongolia, which is situated in the northern part of the province. After a 1.5 hour drive, we arrived at Xiang Sha Wan (响沙湾), one of the few areas of the desert that is accessible to visitors. Taking a cable car across the desert’s canyon that was formerly a river bed (it has since dried up), Shirley and I enjoyed a panoramic view of the (seemingly) endless expanse of sand.

After traversing the river bed, Shirley, our local tour guides Charity and Iris, and I took our group to ride camels. I had never ridden a camel before, and it was certainly an adrenaline rush. While the ride was bumpy at first, I eventually got used to the rhythm of the camel’s stride.

Besides the trail of us riding camels in the sand, the desert exuded an incredible sense of calm. Though we were in a tourist-friendly spot, the perspective atop a camel was one of stillness and isolation. It was a time during the trip that we could access, in some way, a sense of nomadic life in Inner Mongolia.

A full day of activity and exploration left us satisfied but tired. We retired early to bed, in anticipation of the next day’s activities.

Stay tuned for more of my stories from Inner Mongolia on the WildChina blog.

Dear readers,

Welcome to On the Road in Inner Mongolia, part of WildChina’s “On the Road” collection of blog posts. I am just back from my trip to Baotou, Hohhot, and the Xilamuren Grasslands (more on these later), and hope to give you a glimpse at how we at WildChina experience China differently in this province, as well as all over China, through the day-to-day activities on my trip. In addition to my blog posts, I will be posting multimedia updates to show you where I’ve gone and what I’ve done. Enjoy!

Now, onto my travels:

On Day 1 of my journey with my colleague and Beijing guide Shirley, we boarded an evening train at Beijing’s South Railway Station to Baotou, Inner Mongolia.

Trains in China, as I have discussed in a previous blog post, are an integral part of Chinese travel. They are cheap, convenient, far-reaching, and generators of social interaction. Our 13-hour ride was a great start to our week of travel together.

At around 8 pm, Shirley and I settled into our hard sleeper beds – thin bunks that are 6 to a section – for the evening. As the night went on, we chatted in English and Chinese about our backgrounds and our work at WildChina – she, a longtime guide, and I, the Beijing office marketing associate.

Hard sleeper living: 6 beds to a section, with a hot water jug and small table.

My one-on-one time with Shirley in the confines of the train car enabled us to build both a strong personal and guiding relationship before arriving in Inner Mongolia. As travel in China can at times be unpredictable and difficult, guide chemistry is crucial to leading a successful trip through delegation of tasks, staying flexible according to clients’ needs, and problem-solving when necessary. Shirley has worked with us for a few years now; she has great perspective on travel and a magnetic, easygoing personality. I was sure she would make a very personable co-leader.

At 6 am the next morning, Tuesday, June 7, Shirley and I woke up on the train in Baotou, ready to lead our week-long trip.

Stay tuned for more of my stories from Inner Mongolia on the WildChina blog.

Many parts of China can get quite hot in the summertime. But, did you know that there are three cities that are notorious for their heat?

Meet China’s “Three Furnaces” (三大火炉): Wuhan (capital of Hubei province), Nanjing (capital of Jiangsu Province), and Chongqing (a provincial municipality previously a part of Sichuan Province). Incredibly hot, humid and uncomfortable in the summertime, these cities are those from which local Chinese are sure to stay away when vacationing in warmer months of the year.

Given the reputation of these and a number of other Chinese cities in June, July and August, where can travelers beat the heat and experience China differently in the summer?

Dunhuang, in China's northwestern Gansu province, is home to the Mogao Grottoes. Gansu is a pleasant summer destination for travelers to China.

WildChina has three solutions for comfortable warm-weather travel:

Inner Mongolia – Hulunbeier: In Inner Mongolia, experience traditional Mongolian wrestling, archery, and horse racing at a Mongolian Naadam Festival (which literally means “games” in Classical Mongolian). Large cultural influence from Mongolia means that travelers can find Naadam festivals all over this northern Chinese region as well. For the Naadam event best suited to families and groups, visit Hulunbeier in July and August. This is a great way to experience the outdoors, traditional sport and game, and moderate summertime weather in China.

Yunnan – Dali, Lijiang & Zhongdian (Shangri-La): Three of Yunnan’s culturally- and historically-rich towns – Dali, Lijiang and Zhongdian – are generally quite pleasant in the summertime and offer a number of diverse sights to explore. There may be precipitation during this rainy season, but lower temperatures and amazing landscapes more than make up for this. Find more information and ideas by looking at our South of the Clouds itinerary. One word of caution: due to the summer rain, hiking in Yunnan’s Tiger Leaping Gorge at this time is dangerous. WildChina strongly advises against doing so.

Gansu – Dunhuang and Xiahe: Home to a portion of the Silk Road, Gansu boasts dry summers whose temperatures peak in the mid-80s (Fahrenheit). Visit Dunhuang, the main traders’ stop in Gansu along the Road, for the Mogao Grottoes; and Xiahe for Labrang Monastery in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Our Marco Polo’s Silk Road: Across the Taklamakan journey has an optional post-trip extension to this area. (We recommend avoiding July and August for the entire trip, since temperatures in the arid desert of Turpan can reach 113°F [45 °C] during the day.)

Want more information on cooler summer destinations in China? Email Alex at alex.grieves@wildchina.com. And, be sure to check out the rest of WildChina’s travel tips.

Discovery of a mini T-Rex called the Raptorex was recently announced, after being discovered in a lake bed in Inner Mongolia years ago. Perhaps this mini dinosaur, 1/100th of the size of the T-Rex, should be nick-named the Wee-Rex?

Archaeologists and paleontologists have long been researching dinosaurs in China’s northern Gansu province, but this new discovery makes it seem likely that hoards of scientists will be flocking to Inner Mongolia to look for relatives of the Raptorex.

If you’re interested in learning more about searching for dinosaur fossils in China, send us an email at info@wildchina.com WildChina won’t guarantee that you’ll make  the next great paleontological discovery, but it will definitely be a ton of fun and an amazing experience.