The Other Long March (Part 2: The Desert Campaign)

If you are planning on coming to Beijing for only a few days or a week then in reality you’ll likely be wanting to focus on the BIG TWO of the Chinese Tourism Machine – namely the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors in Xian (which, as we have found, you can do from Beijing in one very long day trip). With Mum and Dad in town for over 5 weeks though we felt there was the opportunity to throw in a few less obvious Chinese gems that the first time sino-explorers wouldn’t usually get to. We would end up covering the buried pottery padres anyway, so why not seek out something very different that would really show them the extremes in terrain and scenery that we have found makes China such an interesting place to see? And boy, did we end up picking a winner.

Desert, Dune Buggies and Dunny Tragedies
All organised and booked in before we left Australia, the epicentre of Mum and Dad’s China visit was a planned trip with the Chinese Culture Centre to Inner Mongolia and Ningxia over the National Day long weekend. While we were initially on the waiting list due to its popularity, we got a guernsey thanks to an overwhelming response and the need for a double tour party. Ningxia, one of the newest regions of China and home to the Hui muslins, would provide a significant contrast to Beijing and its overpopulation. Being located on the edge of the Tengger Desert of Inner Mongolia the province was sparse, and the vegetation even sparser. And while the sightseeing looked good, it was also packed with some real adventure which was sure to test the fine print in Mum and Dad’s travel insurance policy (you mean that WASN’T covered?).
I had yet to explore the desert areas of the country, and with the lunar calendar scheduling a full moon for the weekend it was fingers crossed for clear desert skies to make the most of the amazing landscape.

After a very early trip out to the Beijing airport we met up with the tour group and took a 2hr flight west to Yinchuan, the capital of the Ningxia Autonomous Region. Flying during the day, we were able to see the desert out the plane window, but as we descended into Yinchuan airport the view of the Yellow River bordered by a thin green fertile belt and then into sand dunes really gave it an Egyptian Nile feel. After getting ourselves onto the tour bus we quickly made acquaintances with the other tour group participants, and as is the norm with these things quickly picked out those in the group who would best match our personalities (and be easy to get on with), and those we would be wanting to leave locked in a Chinese public toilet at the first stop. The latter this time ended up being a real narcissist, and had trouble understanding why not everyone wanted to hear about her medical problems in acute detail.

On our trip out to the Mutianyu great wall earlier in the week Mum had expressed a desire to see some of the unrestored ‘original’ great wall, and our first port of call this trip gave her just that. Located just outside of Yinchuan lies an area called Shou Dong Guo and a section of the original Ming dynasty great wall, unrestored for your authentic viewing and meandering pleasure. And while the sections of wall around Beijing look grandiose in their brick construction splendour, you won’t find any such fancy building materials here. This section of the wall was made of rammed earth, yet even with the passing of time and subsequent erosion you can still make out the guard towers along the way and access the tunnels that acted as gates through the defences. And if the great scenery around the wall wasn’t enough of a bonus for the tourist, the area also hosted an extensive cave system used to house the Ming wall guards, a nice little lake (with some actual bird wildlife not in cages) and a Chinese-style sideshow shooting gallery right out of Mad Max II. The area also housed the living quarters of the foreign archaeologists who did alot of the early discovery work on the prehistoric people of the area (there is lots of evidence of this on display in their old living quarters), and although they were European in descent you would have thought they were from the American Wild West, with their little settlement looking like a landscape from El Paso.

Surely this can't be China. Where is John Wayne?

Rammed earth section of the Ming Dynasty Great Wall.

Mum and Dad on the Ming Great Wall - awesome views.

OK, NOW lets start the haggling.

After taking about 5000 photos we boarded the bus and headed back to Yinchuan for what would be the first of a number of ordinary meals for lunch (interdispersed with two good ones, including a great dinner at a local Yinchuan muslim restaurant). Loaded up with chilli and mutton we were then off on the bus again for the trip to the ‘Tengger Terminal’ and then into the desert. The “Tengger Terminal” is essentially a carpark at the end of a bitumen road which marked, well, pretty much the end of the road. From here on in any travel was by 4WD or by camel only - the shifting dues were your road and the quickly disapearing tyre tracks of previous jeep trips to the lake your road signs. With night time fast approaching for us it was no time for Laurence of Arabia, and we prepared to throw all of our things into the back of jeeps organised as part of the tour. Before we got into a potentially s&*t scary situation on the edge of a large dune it was a good idea to rid ourselves of the excess s&^t, so as we looked around the carpark for a toilet we spotted in the distant a couple of hardy looking sheds that seemed to be welcoming our kind of business.

What resulted though was the worst public toilet experience I’ve ever had. The shed didn’t offer a toilet so much as just a hole cut in the wooden floor, and no hole dug underneath to send the packages out of sight of the naked eye. Yep, nothing like being able to check out the days takings while you make your own deposit.

If that business wasn’t enough to highlight China’s often wide deviation from the norm, the trip out to our resort - a 40min jeep drive into the desert over the dunes was to seal the deal. With the tour group allocated a particular set of jeeps in which to jump into, we eyed off a not so new looking one and decided that would be our chariot to adventure. Well, this chariot seemed to have some maintenance issues, which started as soon as the driver flipped the back open to load our bags in. With a strong smell of petrol fumes coming from the back of the truck, it was soon obvious that fuel had actually leaked from a can onto the floor of the luggage compartment. In the usual “she’ll be right, mate” attitude prevalent among the Chinese business fraternity he grabbed a blanket and laid it down, before piling our luggage on top. In we hopped, with Maddy jammed in between Amy and I along with Mum in the back seat sans seatbelt (only 3 for 4 passengers) and Dad in the front. With the car started and ready to roll, the only concerns we thought we had were the chance of a rolling jeep down the dunes, and the not-so-secure top suitcase in the rear which looked like it could hop into the drivers lap on any sudden rise in the bonnet level. But OH-NO, this driver was trained in really testing the nerves of his passengers. Just when we thought all dangers would be met after departure, he pushes the jeep’s cigarette lighter into the dash and a minute later decides to light up a durry. He obviously didn’t like the overpowering smell of the PETROL FUMES, so wanted to get rid of the PETROL FUME smell so decided to replace PETROL FUME smell with cigarette smoke. Now what was that email address for Darwin Award nominations?

This could so nearly have been the last photo of the Guihot family alive. Waiting to board the jeep out into the dunes.

We did make it though, and after settling into our rather basic but comfortable rooms at the 'resort' (with the standard uncomfortable chinese bed) we took the opportunity for some great scenery shots (full moon over the desert dunes) before heading to dinner. Being a predominantly muslim area mutton was big here, but even with mutton there are still good and bad bits. The dishes we got served as part of the deal had us wondering what they did with all the GOOD cuts of the geriatric lamb bag because we seemed to get every knuckle, meatless bone and spinal vertebrae from the animal.

Amy and I on the balcony of our Desert 'resort' room (taken by Maddy, hence the great artistic use of side props).

Full moon over the Tengger desert. Memorable moment, methinks.

Whatever it was in the dishes it didn’t seem to do my blood pressure any favours, as I woke up the next morning to have breakfast interrupted by a persistent bloody nose. Luckily it settled just as we were boarding the camels for the cool morning ride to the Sun Lake, about 1 hr trek away.

This ride over the dunes in the cool hours of the morning was absolutely amazing, as we got to look back at the lake next to our resort and the contrasting nothingness beyond. The terrain of the camel train route mostly involved traversing across the dunes, but every now and then required us to sit right back and hang on (or push down into the stirrups) to save us going over the front of our own camel and into the arse of the one in front.

The camel train goes on, with Maddy up front in the pink.

The front group heading down to the Sun Lake.

While the camel ride was great, the destination ended up being a bit of a fizzer - though the dunes and the lake looked amazing, there seemed to be no real plan for what to do with our group as we waited like shags on a rock for the jeeps to come and pick us up. Mum and Dad had a rawer end of the stick though as they took the jeeps out to the lake and then had to trek over sand dunes for about half an hour to the pick up point for the camels. A bit more organisation from the tour company for this leg of the trip would have been nice. Mum and Dad headed off on the camels to the Moon Lake and our jeeps eventually showed up and took us back to the resort - yep the wrong destination.

Dad and Mum getting set for their camel ride back to the resort.

Family shot at the Sun Lake (in the Nevada desert this could easily be a newspaper headline).

We had to jump on a boat to rendevous with Mum and Dad at the Moon Lake to enjoy some of the other activities on offer including dune boarding, dune buggy riding, desert golf and swimming for those keen on some calcium carbonate therapy (which the lakes were very saturated with). Unfortunately the other 200 resort guests had the same idea, so we used some of our aquired knowledge of 'lining up chinese style' to push in and get across in time to at least have a go of the dune buggies before having to head on back (the dune boarding and desert golf seemed to have been closed down for the season).

A chance conversation on the boat ride back across the lake showed what a small world it is among the expats in China (no six degrees of separation here - try 2 or 3). On talking with one of the tour party families from Shanghai I discovered that the husband worked at Volvo, and that he knew an old aquantence of mine who also works there (boyfriend of an ex Flying Cocktails, now in London). Getting a hello from him in Shanghai through the mobile of a total stranger in the middle of the Inner Mongolian desert was certainly not something I expected.

Putting all the above frustrations aside, we still had a pretty amazing experience. However there was still one more opportunity for the hotel to stick another thorn in my side - as we went to check out, the hotel staff tried to charge me for a washer I had used to clean up the bloody nose from earlier that morning. Sure - I pay 8 kuai to 'replace' something they can go and wash and re-use. Piss off!

Rock Stars
The next stop on the tour (after jeeping our way back to a western road system) was the Xixia mausoleum of previous local emperors. Like huge beehives the size of pyramids (they are known as the "Oriental Pyramids"), they were interesting to checkout but by this stage we really needed something impressive to match the great experience of the desert. The second last stop of the weekend did that, as we went to a local museum and mountain pass in the Helan Shan range dotted with various rock paintings and carvings. The whole group really seemed to enjoy this, with the museum gift shop and the usual souvenir shop doing great business (including our own pick of a charcoal rubbing of a sun god carving - not overly Chinese but something that will always remind us of our visit there). The charcoal rubbings of the carvings were proving to be popular with the group, as was the local stone of the area which had been used to make some great and unique pieces (owing to the nature of the rock which was black with green running through it).

One of the burial mounds at the Xixia Mausoleum.

Maddy seeking inner peace through sublime thought (or Chocolate thought)

Sun God carving (charcoal rubbing of which now takes pride of place in our apartment hallway).

So it was home time, and with most people on the bus verging on homicidal rampages becase of the group's resident P.I.T.A (Pain in the... ) everyone (my folks especially) was looking forward to enjoying their own bed and being served meat that wasn't older than they were or packed with Ningxia's own version of the Guatemalan insanity chillies. Aside from the poor food (which you seem to expect on these trips) and the crazy bus driver it was though a great weekend, and one that I would recommend to anyone visiting China (just be sure to throw some two-minute noodles in your bag).

Next post - weekend at old Pingyao, Chengde, Pottery Warriors and the China Experience wrap-up.