Monday, July 10 Road to Inner Mongolia

 (written a week later)

For some logistical reasons we drove to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, instead of taking the new bullet train. It took us about 6 hours driving instead of under 3 hours on the train. We were one of a few cars driving on G7 Beijing–Ürümqi Expressway that is going all the way to Xinjiang; numerous service stops were now close despite the tourist season in Inner Mongolia – all people take the train. It is the tourist season here thank to the chill climate in the summer: Siberian winds and lower temperatures.

Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of China bordering the country of Mongolia; Hohhot is the capital, means "blue sky" in Mongolian. Hohhot used to be called Kweisui (归绥) – a Chinese name meaning "returning pacifying", emphasizing Chinese aims of unifying the country, but also annoying Mongolian minorities. Mongolia was formally part of Qing dynasty's China until 1915 when it declared independence. Still, Inner Mongolia remained part of China. My American textbook "The Wobbling Pivot" says, without elaborating, that there are some strategic reasons for securing Inner Mongolia for Beijing – otherwise Beijing is simply too exposed to invasions from the North; I don't totally understand this cause Beijing is separated from Inner Mongolia by the range of mountains in Hebei, a province inbetween. Clarifying a common misbelief, Mongolia was never part of the Soviet Union; but they were friends, and Mongolia even switched to Cyrillic for writing; Inner Mongolia remained to use the ancient vertical Mongolian script. Now, Mongolia the country wants to switch back to Mongolian script by 2025. I'm diverging a little.

It took us two or three hours to drive out from Beijing. Then, the mountains that were visible from the city – somewhere in the mountains there is the Great Wall, but I did not see it anywhere, again. I realized how cleaver the Great Wall design was – indeed, they did not build this grand wall on the flat land; instead, they took already hardly crossable mountains and reenforced it with the wall making it virtually impossible to cross by Mongolian armies.

We stopped for lunch in a small village in Yanshan county in Hebei in the mountains. A street with old style buildings on one side, sometimes a gate with a yard inside, sometimes just a store front; on the other side – socialist flags and billboards with some information, or socialist slogans, and trees. The villagers are quite interesting to observe; very talkative too. I feel like I'm watching a Chinese movie – perhaps, they see me the same way. When we were leaving the restaurant owner gave us two fat cucumbers for free and said it's for luck to give a gift to a foreigner. 

Mountainous landscape gave a way to smaller hills, and eventually Mongolian steppes. Lots of industry, it seems, and lots of wind turbines. The wind is pleasant here. We were in Hohhot by the evening.