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Monday, March 9, 2009

Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅳ

Day5: July 9, Duolun-Yudaokou-Jixielinchang, 100km

It’s another sunny day. We were going to arrive our final destination, Saihanba National Forest Park. We got up early and had some Mogolian breakfast in the restaurant we patronized yesterday. Today’s journey was the easiest. We arrived at Yudaokou soon. After we had our lunch, turned north, we began to march to Saihanba.

our Mongolia breakfast

scenery on the way

Border of Inner Mongolia and Hebei Province

Riding to Saihanba was enjoyable. The road was in good quality and we still rode before the wind. What’s more, not like the way to Duolun, there were lot of flowers, butterflies, cows instead of pure grass. The hight is about 1500 here, not very high, but it not easy for us to come here from Beijing which is only tens of meters above the sea level. At a down slope, I refeshed my speed record: 62.5km/h!

On the way to Jixielinchang

At about four o’clock, July 9, 2008, An Bo and I reached at Jixielinchang successfully, with a distance of 540km.

We lived in a inn called Red Moon Inn, which provided imitative Mongolian yurts. “Extreme joy begets sorrow”, as the saying goes. When we were hanging around in the town excitedly, An Bo tried to jump over a deceleration bar but failed with tumbling. What we can do now was only sitting down peacefully to enjoy Bashang barbecue. Ok, that’s the end of today.

We’ve rolled 540km from Beijing

Street barbecue. This guy behaved dishonestly when we checked out

Day6: July 10, Jixielinchang-Ulanbutong-General Pond-Ulanbutong-Jixielinchang, 20km×2

Today we made a round trip to Army Horse Ranch and General Pool, both located in Ulanbutong. I’ll write brief description under each photos instead of writting essay here.

The Source of Luanhe River

The General Tong Guogang, uncle of Kangxi Emperor, sacrificed in the battle against rebel army

The rock pile called Obo, which is something religious in Mogolian culture

Obos are used for sacrifice now, but their initial usage were showing directions or territory. It is said you will be lucky if you walk three circles clockwise and three circles counterclockwise around it.

The Grassland of Ulanbutong. We planned to try ridding horses, but the expense was too expensive.

The Grassland of Ulanbutong. The weather was not very good

Unfortunately, the desertification is frightening the beautiful grassland

Imitative Ancient military camp. Yurts are special houses for Mongolian and other nomadic groups on the grassland because they are easily to be moved.

It’s a sea of flowers. However, hundreds of years ago, the beautiful grassland was cruel battlefield of Qing dynasty and their rebel army.

The General Pond was named in honor of General Tong Guogang. As I’ve told you, he died in the battle against rebel army from west. It is said this is the most beautiful place of the area. but I don’t think so.

An Bo and his bike

And this is my bike

Archery is a popular and necessary skill for Mongolian people. You can have a try here.

The left target was An Bo’s, and the right one was mine…

In the Mongolian yurt. The people in the paint was Genghis Khan, a great Mongolian leader who expanded Yuan’s territory to today’s Europe and built the largest empire in human history.

On our way back to Jixielinchang, a heavey shower suddenly came. We even didn’t have one more second to find a shelter. It was the first rain since we left Liulimiao.

Back to Jixielinchang, we ate a roast lamb leg

More About the Trip

Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅰ
Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅱ View Map
Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅲ View Map
Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅳ View Map
Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅴ View Map
Bike Tour - Bashang Grassland Ⅵ View Map1 Map2

5 comments:

  1. You have a really interesting blog. I enjoyed reading the story about cycling. I did a lot of cycling in South Africa when I was studying. I did nature conservation and mostly went birding by bike in those days.

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  2. Thanks Vernon. I enjoy cycling, especially riding an MTB to explore the nature. Your job is attractive and one of dreams is working in tropical rain forest someday as a naturalist

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  3. Interesting! I just read about the difficult battles of the Kangxi emperor against the Zunghar leader Galden, referred by you here as the rebel army, in the end of the 17th century. While Kangsi defeated Galden, it would be during the reign of the Qianlong emperor that the Zunghar state was finally eliminated.

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  4. RE:Wayne
    Thanks for your story. It's really interesting to study Chinese history.

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  5. That Mongolian breakfast doesn't really look Mongolian at all. It's rather Chinese. Looks disgusting.

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