Heading North to the Grasslands—Ulanqab—2 (Wild Grasslands)

It gets pretty cold in a yurt at night, so I’d suggest bringing a jacket or something. Having spent a night in one, let me start with my impressions. First off, I wouldn’t really recommend it. The conditions aren’t that great. Washing up and all that is fine, but the smaller yurts apparently don’t have private bathrooms, so you have to go outside to use the toilet. Seriously inconvenient! You could easily consider finding a hotel in a nearby banner town—basically what we’d think of as a county town.

Huanghuagou

After getting up in the yurt that morning and having a quick breakfast (I discovered that the eggshells here are so thin—at least the thinnest I’ve ever seen), we headed to Huanghuagou for some fun. There are two ticket options at Huanghuagou: 215 and 235. I strongly recommend getting the 235 ticket. It costs 20 yuan more, but it saves you loads of time, and some sightseeing shuttles and cable cars are only available with the 235 ticket. If a particular cable car has too many people waiting, the staff will even tell people with 215 tickets not to bother. A bit of a rip-off, honestly. Just imagine having to walk instead of taking a cable car in that blazing sunshine. It’s genuinely brutal.

    There’s a mini geological museum next to the Huanghuagou ticket office, with all sorts of mineral specimens on display. If you’re waiting for someone or whatever, it’s worth a look. There are usually fewer people there than in the ticket hall, so it’s a bit more comfortable.

    Once we entered Huanghuagou, there were wooden walkways as far as the eye could see.

Following the wooden walkway brought us to an attraction: an ovoo, a mound of stones used by Mongolians for worship. We saw lots of people stopping to pay their respects, but since we didn’t know much about it, we just looked around and moved on to the next attraction.

The next attraction was pretty good. Once you climb up, you can see the valley behind it, and the scenery is really lovely. You can get some seriously cool photos here, too.

A little farther on, we reached our first cable car. That was when we noticed someone dangling from the zip line on our left. I’m guessing he was too light to keep moving, so in the end the staff had to pull him back. Forgive me for laughing at his expense, hahaha.

After that came the usual scenic-area routine: queue, ride, queue, ride. We finally reached somewhere we could rest for a bit, and there were performances to watch here, too. I thought this one was pretty good and worth watching.，

I must have been too tired by then, because I fell asleep after watching this.Maybe that’s also why I thought this one was pretty good, hahaha.

Then it was back to queuing and riding. Finally, there was something a little different from the earlier routine: queuing, then riding a little train.

Basically, the little train takes you on a loop around the grasslands. When we passed a few cows along the way, the others kept grazing, but this one just kept looking at us. Who knows what it was thinking?。

    After the little train ride, we reached the end of our route through the scenic area. Looking back, I personally didn’t find it all that interesting. It was basically just queue, ride, queue, ride—not much fun, to be honest. At the exit, we saw a dog tied up. You could say it had made it to the grasslands, but then again, it hadn’t, hahaha. All the other dogs were running around having the time of their lives out there. Poor little dog.

Wild Grasslands

    After leaving the scenic area, we discovered a serious problem. Our package tickets included a free bus ride from the exit back to the entrance, and we had to get back because our car was still there. The problem was that loads of people were queuing for the bus, and buses hardly ever showed up. Looking into the distance, we could see a traffic jam stretching at least five or six kilometers. Walking back along the road would take at least two or three hours, maybe even longer. So we decided to cut straight across the wild grasslands beside us.

    First, I have to say that this was unquestionably a perfectly reasonable decision. These wild grasslands fulfilled pretty much every fantasy I’d ever had about grasslands. The grass along this route was much greener than inside the scenic area, and there were streams, at least ten-odd horses along the way, and two or three foals. We even saw a few cows near the end. I thought this was much more worthwhile than the scenic area, exhausting as it was.

    At first, we walked a short stretch along the road. Then we figured we should be able to cut across the grasslands on the left, so we stepped over a fence (which someone had actually already flattened) and set off across the grasslands (there was 💩 and little sheep-poop pellets all along the way, though the grasslands inside the scenic area were covered in them too). We weren’t actually sure we could get through. After all, we were near the scenic area, so there would probably be more fences in the way. Sure enough, after walking a little farther, we came across a stretch of fencing. Luckily, some legend had already made a hole in it, so we crawled through too.Honestly, even just this first half was pretty fun, though the two girls with us had a rough time of it.。

    As we kept going, we found all sorts of fantastic spots for photos. I even ran around the hill opposite us, hahaha. I was having such a blast! It felt so free and uninhibited. I absolutely love that feeling.

By this point, we’d covered about half the distance, but between the uphill climbs and all the different kinds of “land mines” on the ground, it was still exhausting. We kept going, crossed a small hill, and suddenly found a whole bunch of horses in front of us, with hardly anyone around. If you were brave enough, you could absolutely get up close to them, but thinking about those hooves, we abandoned that idea. Later, we did get closer to the horses while trying to stay as safe as possible. It was the first time I’d really seen the muscles on a horse. It looked like its body fat percentage was close to 0%, with incredibly well-defined muscles. I felt my own belly and got a little jealous.

We also happened to see a foal nursing.：

    Finally, we were almost done. There was just one last bend to go, but we decided to skip the detour and climb straight up instead. After stopping for three rests, we finally made it to the top. Behind us was the route we’d walked.

After that, it was flat ground. I noticed that the little flowers here were bigger than the ones near yesterday’s yurt. There was also a cloud in the sky that looked so genuinely “pure,” as if someone had spilled a bottle of pure milk up there.

    Finally, finally, we made it back to the car. We were absolutely exhausted. Then we “slaughtered” the watermelon from yesterday. This watermelon had definitely come to repay us a favor—it was perfect. Just look at the way we were eating it and you’ll see how amazing it was.

    By the time we finished the watermelon, it was getting late, so we got ready to head to Ulanqab. Honestly, along the way we spotted lots of wild grasslands with gorgeous scenery, and plenty of people taking photos there. We even felt that if we came again, just driving around and finding a patch of wild grassland would be more than enough. No need to visit the tourist attractions again, hahaha.

    On the way, we also happened upon a group of horses crossing the road. They seemed so polite: after crossing, they even nodded at our car, hahaha. Some had straight bangs, some had middle parts… So much personality.

    An hour and a half later, we arrived in Ulanqab. It was around six or seven by then, and I suddenly noticed how atmospheric the sunset looked through the car window, so I snapped a few photos:

Once we reached the city, we had a quick meal and got ready to rest. I decided to go outside and see if there were any stars. Well, that was pretty disappointing—nothing at all.So all I could do was come back, finish the leftover watermelon, and go to bed.

And of course, a reminder to protect yourself from the sun. Otherwise, you might end up like me, with a face so red you can practically see the blood boiling beneath the skin.

Of course, we also took all sorts of lovely photos along the way. Personally, I think they turned out really well:

These last two posts both took me ages to write, and it feels a bit too time-consuming. So from now on, I’m aiming to spend no more than an hour writing each post. If a post gets too long, I’ll split it into several.