jiayan

Hi all,

I am back! Well I came back yesterday around 3PM-ish, but didn’t have the time to post until now. I actually came back a day early (was supposed to come back today) because I had booked the wrong plane tickets back home and everyone on the trip ended up changing their flights to mine because we visited when most tourist events were over and did not have as much things to do as anticipated. But nonetheless it was still a really great and eye-opening experience. I have so much to tell and my post will be really long so I’m going to break up my trip to Inner Mongolia in three posts.

We took a 30-hour train ride from Beijing to Hailaer, which left on Saturday morning 9AM and and arrived on Sunday around noon. I slept most of the ride and tried unsuccessfully to do some homework. I did take a lot of scenic pictures throughout the train ride not only because the view is so it was so different but also because it was so breathtakingly beautiful.

One of the many scenic views from the trainride

"Doing work" on the train...

Stephanie on the beds we sleep/sit on for the 30 hour ride

More scenic pictures!

...As we approach Hailiaer

And we're here!

After finding our hotel (which had a wedding in the lobby, making it very difficult for us to find a 服务员 to book our rooms), we set out to get some “Mongolian” specialty that was recommended by Lonely Planet. The specialty turned out to be a lamb dish but all the food in general tasted really good and for a decent price. After eating we took a taxi to the Underground Japanese Fortress and the taxi drivers helped us get our admission tickets for half the price (30RMB instead of 60RMB). The admission tickets not only gave us access to the fortress but also provided a tour guide who explained the history behind the fortress. Unfortunately, she spoke in rapid Mandarin and I was not able to keep up with her enough to share the story. Hopefully the pictures I secretly took (you were not allowed to take pictures for half the tour) will shed light for you readers.

Crashing a wedding as soon as we arrive to Inner Mongolia

Japanese fortress!

Our tourguide with a digital book that you can flip with the motion of your hands (how cool, right?!)

So begins the pictures I snuck...

Map of Hailaier when Japanese hid in Inner Mongolia (this was under us with a glass pane)

"Pants worn during the imprisonment camps"...

Bones!

Group picture as we go underground

Pictures down a dark alley - bad quality because of the dark

After touring the underground fortress we also toured the area surrounding the fortress, which was mostly a grassland area. As you can see by the pictures, we were very silly and had a lot of fun.

Jenny, Steph, Me, Nancy

Haha..John being "Zoolander"

Failed attempt at a "jumping" picture

99% success - I jumped too early

Ben, Zack, John, and Colin

Exploring outside -- look over there!

We found sheeps and a cow outside..

Our battle-field playing ground

The taxi drivers waited for us at the fortress to drive us back to our hotels (most taxi drivers offer to do this and some would add a small fee for waiting). One tax driver recommended this restaurant after hearing about our intention to go to this hot pot restaurant recommended by lonely planet. It turned out that he has a deal with the restaurant owner where she would give tourists a menu that was double the price of the original menu – yes, they went through the trouble of preparing a separate menu for tourists. The menu was also laminated. That experience was a shocker but it also forced us to realize that there will always be people trying to rip us off and we should definitely not trust taxi drivers, especially when the taxi driver LEAD us into the restaurant himself… The only reason we found out about the separate menu is because after ordering and consuming all the food we ate (which was pretty expensive in itself: 182RMB for a small plate of beef, lamb, winter melon, cabbage, and noodle) and not feeling full, John went to look for our waitress (the owner of the restaurant). Not able to find her he asked another waitress for the menu and she did not realize we were tourists (since John is Chinese and speaks Chinese fluently), she gave us the menu that all the other customers have been using, which has the same food but is much, much cheaper than the menu we were using. John went to ask the waitress why our prices is significantly higher and the owner of the restaurant said the menu with the cheaper prices is for children. When John tried to ask the other customers, the owner started getting nasty with us and snatched the menu away from John, saying that we were disturbing the other customers. She also said that when she saw us she thought were were locals and wanted to experience the true taste of hotpot so the more expensive menu was more appropriate – which is a blatant lie because three of our friends are non-Asian and clearly not locals. So even after getting caught in her own lie, she did not have the courage to confess and admit her wrong. We spent about an hour there arguing with her and trying to get her to charge us the original price but she would not budge. That experience really brought all eight of us together and opened our eyes. Afterwards we went to another local restaurant for a second dinner and went convenience store hopping – the highlight of our nights in Hailaer because there is absolutely NO nightlife. We finished dinner around 8PM and just about everything was closed, except for the convenience store. After convenience store hopping we went back to our hotel rooms and that was the end of Hailaer Day 1.