During the Mid-Autumn holidays last September 22-24, me and my friends decided to join the Inner Mongolian trip of a friend who is studying Mandarin in a nearby Chinese university. He mentioned that him and some other fellow Pinoys would be going on the trip, so we decided to tag along since Inner Mongolia sounded like an adventure. There were a heckload of preparations as we decided to join them the week of the trip, and we needed to be prepared (clothing-wise). While preparing for the trip, I realized that I had left behind my duffel bag at home, so I had to go and purchase a new one elsewhere. Another thing we had to prepare for was the cold Inner Mongolian nights, so I had to buy a fleece jacket at a nearby underground shopping market which my friends frequented. In preparing for Inner Mongolia, buying boots were also necessary as I didn’t have the necessary footwear for the trip. Aside from sandals and slippers, my running shoes were not your normal rubber shoes as they had breathing holes on the bottom and on top of the shoes, plus they were white.
Day 1
Me and my flatmates were out of the house by around 4am (or even earlier than that) as we had to be at the meet-up place by a certain time. Meet-up place = Mcdonalds. Soon after we arrived and purchased breakfast, we were able to meet-up with the other Pinoys who were going with us on our trip. Looking at our group, we actually took up majority of the tour group, with Pinoys taking up more than half of the tour group. We left our meeting place sometime before 6 as the bus arrived a little late, and we arrived at the Inner Mongolian grasslands around noon. On the road heading there, we passed by a few stops for bathroom breaks and at one point even passed by a part that had a great view of part of the Great Wall.
Upon our arrival at the grasslands, we were welcomed by a rowdy group atop some horses. Staying alongside the bus, the men on horses led us to the entrance of the “yurt hotels” as I would simply put them. Our tour guide mentioned that it was a custom to accept the alcohol that would be served as we were descending the bus. Each of us were given a small cup half-filled with alcohol which we had to down, the last person to get off the bus had to down 3 full cups of alcohol. Luckily an American guy we befriended on the trip volunteered to be the last one to get off.
The biggest yurt-looking building in the area was the dining area. We were served with a lot of Inner Mongolian dishes. We even got to see another set of tourists who ordered an entire lamb for their meal. Expensive as it was, at least we had the opportunity to see it for ourselves as we couldn’t afford to order it for ourselves. Haha.
