Inner Mongolia: Beautiful scenery, not so beautiful transportation.

I have a long story to tell but it’s rather comical so it might be worth your time…


Last year, while I was studying here for 3 months, I had dreams of going up to Inner Mongolia to ride camels in the Gobi desert and go sand boarding on the dunes. Unfortunately, since Chongqing is in the southern part of the country, it would have been something like a 36 hour train ride (one way) to make it that far north. Therefore, I abandoned the idea and traveled to locations closer to the school.

Beijing, however, is a mere 10½ hour train ride from Inner Mongolia. So, what I thought was a dead dream, became a reality during this last week during our 5 day break before our first teaching session begins. Four other year long facilitators and one of the Chinese staff members (Chris, who happened to have a nephew up in Inner Mongolia) and I headed up on the train this past Saturday night. Yet, we had multiple frustrating and hilarious complications in getting there (and back).

First of all, we had paid for a sleeper train which accommodates you with a soft mattress and air conditioning in a compartment with only 3 other people. So, after hauling our luggage from our campus, on a 15 minute bus ride and then almost an hour and a half long subway ride with 3-4 transfers, we arrived at the train station 25 minutes before our train was to leave which was at 9:40pm. Perfect timing right? Well, under normal circumstances it would have been, but upon looking at our ticket, Chris realized that we had come to the wrong Beijing train station! As a result, with 25 minutes to work with we frantically rushed back to the subway and began making our way as fast as we could underneath the city to the other station praying with all our might that God would either speed up our subway or delay the train. Yet, to our dismay, we arrived 17 minutes after it took off (China, for once, was actually efficient!).

At this point, I thought we were completely out of luck and that I had just thrown 250 kuai ($37.50) down the drain. But, after talking with someone at the train station, Chris was able to get us on a different train at 11pm that same night. The only problem was that we did not have a seat and were told that we may have to sit on the floor or stand during the trip.

This is where the “fun” begins. After eating dinner at McDonalds, we walked to the terminal, past the comfortable sleeper boxcars that we should have been on 2 hours earlier, and down to the “hard seat” part of the train. Here we were met with absolute chaos. The train was 300% overbooked and was more like a cattle car than an actual train! The seats, which only cost 76 kuai/person compared to the 250/person we paid for the sleepers, were all full and dozens of people were standing in the aisle in a single file line due to the crowded condition, with their luggage sprawled all around them. It was so packed that one of the train attendants had to loudly yell at us to squeeze closer together in order to get the doors shut. There were people sitting against their luggage in every nook and cranny possible. Being an American didn’t help our situation at all. For the first 10 minutes or so everyone couldn’t stop staring and laughing at us. Being foreigners, it was simply assumed that we would be in the sleeper cars, and they got a kick out of our misfortune.

To make matters worse, I got stuck right next to the only two bathrooms available for the hundreds of people in our section of the train, and was forced to stand there for the first 4 hours of the trip from 11pm-3am. Therefore, people were constantly coming in and out of the horribly smelly “squattie pottie” bathroom, and lining up right next to me to wait their turn. The doors were constantly slamming shut adding to the noise and the overall messy situation. Furthermore, this part of the aisle was no more than 3 feet wide, and I had my large suitcase at my feet which made it very difficult for people to get by. I constantly had to move back and forth to make room for people to pass, and on two occasions they pushed a snack cart (like what you see on an airplane) through this 3 foot section – and I had to lift my 35 pound luggage above my head to allow them to get through while being careful not to step on the people sitting around me!

As if this wasn’t bad enough, before the train even left the station there were more than 6 Chinese men smoking within 5 feet of me. And, in such a small space with no open windows and weak air conditioning, there was instantly a tobacco hotbox that made me feel even more claustrophobic and nauseated. This smoking continued throughout the journey.

By 3am, a handful of people got off the train at one of the midway stops and I was able to move away from the bathrooms and back towards my friends. Yet, without an actual seat, I had to take turns with Tim sitting on his uncomfortable luggage to rest our legs. Then, at about 5:30am, when I thought I could stand up no longer, I was offered a seat by someone who was getting off at the next stop. Exhausted but grateful, I sat down and fell asleep with my head on the table in front of me within seconds. When I awoke we were still about an hour and half out, but I couldn’t sleep any longer because my throat was too sore and scratchy from all the second-hand smoke.

Finally, at about 10:30am, the train pulled into the station. We slowly made our way off and were welcomed by the sunny Inner Mongolian weather. We went to the parking lot and were greeted by Chris’ nephew and uncle. They had managed to borrow two cars from some friends, and while we had hoped to go directly to a hostel to sleep, Chris’ family told us it was a perfect day to go to the Gobi desert and so we decided to go. This included a three hour drive, where most of us were able to catch up on a little sleep. Once we arrived we realized that the suffering we had experienced the night before was all worth it. The desert was beautiful as the pictures will reveal, and we were able to go on almost an hour long camel ride in what ended up being a thunder and lightning storm. We also were able to go sand sledding, and enjoyed two rainbows and the sunset over the Gobi.

The next day, we took a trip out into the Mongolian grasslands and stayed overnight with a family of shepherds in a traditional Mongolian yurt. There, we ate multiple authentic Mongolian meals and were able to go on an hour long horseback ride (As a side note, I now have much more appreciation for people who lived earlier than 150 years ago and rode horses for hundreds of miles. My whole body hurt after this, especially you know where, but it was still a great experience.)

Additionally, I should mention that the yurt was rather unusual. While it had no running water and the bathroom was the open range, the family had a satellite dish and had wired in cable TV. Also, while we slept in a traditional Mongolian yurt, it had a television and sound system and so we watched the movie “Hitch” once the sun went down. Furthermore, while the family was shepherds, they used a dirt bike to herd the sheep!

In the middle of the night, I was awakened from my slumber by a loud thunder storm accompanied by bright lightning that lit up the entire inside of the yurt. The rain water hit hard against the metal roof and prevented me from going back to sleep. So, I crawled out of my covers, put on my rain jacket, and precariously leaned out of the yurt to watch the lightning. This was an amazing sight to see. Gigantic lightning bolts were striking a mere 2 miles away, and they lit up the entire night sky. I was immediately thankful that God controls the storms and decides where each lightning bolt will strike!

In the morning we hiked to a nearby shrine which consisted of a large pile of rocks and multiple cow and pig skulls. Our host family told us this was an offering to the “sky god” and locals come from miles around and put a rock on the pile and make a wish after sacrificing an animal to this “god.” This was very fascinating, and I couldn’t help to think of the pagans in the Old Testament who made idols of wood and rocks and made sacrifices to make-believe gods.

Next, we drove back to the city of Hohhot and went to a hostel where we stayed for our last day and a half. We explored the city that afternoon, and chatted with other travelers at night. We also had traditional Mongolian hotpot for dinner. This tasted good, but didn’t sit so well with many of our stomachs. We were in and out of the bathroom multiple times during the next 24 hours drinking pepto like it was a juice box.

On our trip home, we took a sleeper bus instead of a sleeper train from 7:40pm to 5:30am. This mode of transportation was only slightly better than our train disaster. One problem was that the beds were not built for lengthy 6’2’’ people, but rather for 5’6’’ Chinamen. Consequently, my legs had to be continually bent to where my knees would hit the two metal guard rails on the side of the skinny bed. Other frustrations included constant bumpiness due to pot holes and poorly constructed roads making sleeping almost impossible, blinding lights due to other vehicles leaving on their high beams, toll booths every 20 minutes with multiple speed bumps further hindering my ability to sleep, people smoking on the bus, and 4 separate bathroom stops including one 15 minutes into the trip, and then one half hour stop at 1am at a restaurant for people to eat a “midnight snack.” Ridiculous.

A few lessons learned:

1) Never miss your train. Ever.

2) While the train ride was specifically taxing, it allowed us to empathize with the Chinese working class. It was humbling to think that millions of Chinese take trains like that every night.

3) Pack lightly. I lugged around my huge suitcase with bedding in it because I thought we would need it if we stayed in one hotel room with 5 people. Next time I’ll take the floor, or rocks, or sleeping sideways on a picket fence for that matter if it means I don’t have to haul that suitcase around.

4) Sometimes God ordains suffering so that we will appreciate His beauty and His grace more than we otherwise would. The desert and the grasslands were a sight for sore eyes after the miserable train ride.

Lastly, I’ll mention that our first session starts this coming Monday and I will be in Beijing at least through September because things have fallen through once again at the “new campus.” I’ll update at the end of the first week.

Kyle