After being away for my 4-day trip to Mountain Heng Hanging Temple, Datong Yungang Buddhist Caves, Inner Mongolia Grassland and Desert, I have this irrevocable feeling of having the need to post a blog about that indescribable trip! With a mix of fun and a few woeful events, it was indeed a very, very memorable one.
When I enrolled in BLCU, I wasn't able to prepare extra money for this additional expense trip to Inner Mongolia. The school arranges a 4-day trip and it costs about 1,750 RMB. My friends told me that it would be much cheaper to join a trip arranged by an agency, so my classmates and I chose to go with an agency instead. True, the trip costs only 1,460 RMB compared to the school's trip so we saved around 300 RMB in the expenses.
The trip was organized by Happy Holiday - an agency located on the 9th floor of the Conference Center. They organize people in groups. So if you're planning to have friends with you, register yourselves under one name so that you can be together in the bus and the places you are going to.
The first day of our trip was spent on visiting the Mountain Heng Hanging Temple and the Datong Yungang Buddhist Caves. The place isn't really enormous or entirely breath taking but they do have positive sides. First is, your stay in the bus will be shortened immensely and you'll spend the night in a hotel, so the number one priority of including these places in the tour is your comfort. You can also spend some time appreciating how much effort, time and skill were placed in creating the Buddhist caves. I'm giving a salute on how perfectly they carved on the stones to create the altars for their gods.
The second day was spent in the Inner Mongolia Grassland where we met the locals and rode horses through the grassland. I've never really seen a grassland before, but when I saw it, I just knew why it was called a grassland!! Haha. There weren't any trees and the wind was so cold. At first, we didn't pay the 300 RMB cost for the horse because we thought it was too expensive. But realizing that we can only stay in the bus while waiting for our friends to finish riding the horses, we knew it was going to be extremely boring. So we got the cheaper one at 200 RMB and still rode the horse but to fewer places. We never regretted spending extra though. At night we slept at the Yurts (without heater and hot water), so I kind of suffered the whole night with roughly 3 hours of sleep due to the cold weather.
On the third day we went to the Inner Mongolia desert and I think this was the best day of the trip. We rode the cable car, the camel and took the sand slide. The camel-riding was really a cool experience. It was much slower than the horse but the experience was unique in it's own way. At night we were able to stay in a hotel so it made up for our 1 night stay at the cruel yurt!
Going back to Beijing took us around 13 hours and that includes a couple of stops (for lunch and stopping by the toilets). 13 hours and we were counted lucky because the tour guide said that it could have extended to 17 hours if we were caught in the traffic jam. That was indeed an adventure!
If you are planning to go to a trip to Inner Mongolia, be ready to bring hand sanitizer, face moisturizer, baby oil for your hair, lots of tissue, a face mask (to cover your face when using the most gruesome toilets) and as many thick clothes as you can! Enjoy!
When I enrolled in BLCU, I wasn't able to prepare extra money for this additional expense trip to Inner Mongolia. The school arranges a 4-day trip and it costs about 1,750 RMB. My friends told me that it would be much cheaper to join a trip arranged by an agency, so my classmates and I chose to go with an agency instead. True, the trip costs only 1,460 RMB compared to the school's trip so we saved around 300 RMB in the expenses.
The trip was organized by Happy Holiday - an agency located on the 9th floor of the Conference Center. They organize people in groups. So if you're planning to have friends with you, register yourselves under one name so that you can be together in the bus and the places you are going to.
The first day of our trip was spent on visiting the Mountain Heng Hanging Temple and the Datong Yungang Buddhist Caves. The place isn't really enormous or entirely breath taking but they do have positive sides. First is, your stay in the bus will be shortened immensely and you'll spend the night in a hotel, so the number one priority of including these places in the tour is your comfort. You can also spend some time appreciating how much effort, time and skill were placed in creating the Buddhist caves. I'm giving a salute on how perfectly they carved on the stones to create the altars for their gods.
The second day was spent in the Inner Mongolia Grassland where we met the locals and rode horses through the grassland. I've never really seen a grassland before, but when I saw it, I just knew why it was called a grassland!! Haha. There weren't any trees and the wind was so cold. At first, we didn't pay the 300 RMB cost for the horse because we thought it was too expensive. But realizing that we can only stay in the bus while waiting for our friends to finish riding the horses, we knew it was going to be extremely boring. So we got the cheaper one at 200 RMB and still rode the horse but to fewer places. We never regretted spending extra though. At night we slept at the Yurts (without heater and hot water), so I kind of suffered the whole night with roughly 3 hours of sleep due to the cold weather.
Going back to Beijing took us around 13 hours and that includes a couple of stops (for lunch and stopping by the toilets). 13 hours and we were counted lucky because the tour guide said that it could have extended to 17 hours if we were caught in the traffic jam. That was indeed an adventure!
If you are planning to go to a trip to Inner Mongolia, be ready to bring hand sanitizer, face moisturizer, baby oil for your hair, lots of tissue, a face mask (to cover your face when using the most gruesome toilets) and as many thick clothes as you can! Enjoy!
