Oscar Chun

China has a really convenient 高铁 (high-speed railway) system, which we took to get from Beijing to Ulanqaab. It was a smooth 3 hour ride from 北京南站 (Beijing South Station) to 乌兰察布站 (Ulanqaab Station). The size and coverage of China’s railway system is really impressive. Often it's more convenient (and cheaper!) to take the train instead of driving a car or flying. As a frequent Amtrak rider, Chinese trains are so much more comfortable.

When entering Ulanqab station, something I was immediately curious about were the station’s signs. Most signs were written in three ways: Simplified Chinese characters, English letters, and a Mongolian script called Mongol Bichig. It was interesting to see how the sign designers balanced the vertical Mongolian script with horizontal Chinese characters, usually squishing them to fit.

After we exited the station, our driver, who would be taking us around for the next few days, came to pick us up. Our driver was really friendly, patient, and quite shocked by the number of foreign students he would be driving. We first headed to a grocery store to pick up some snacks and water for our trip, as our first stop, Wulanhada Volcano Geopark, would be about 2 hours outside of Ulanqab’s central city. 

On our way to Wulanhada Geopark, we hit a few bumps in the road—metaphorically and literally. Besides the occasional pothole, we had a bit of difficulty buying tickets to the Geopark because we didn’t have Chinese 生份证 (ID Cards). Since we were using foreign passports as proof of identity, our service representative had to manually input all of our passport numbers. The line was growing behind us, and I couldn’t quite understand what the representative was saying—I later learned that they were speaking Ulanqab’s local dialect—and it was a really stressful situation. Thankfully our driver stepped in and was incredibly helpful with translating bits we didn’t fully understand and got our tickets in the end.

With our tickets in hand, we were finally able to head into the geopark and things were going smoothly…until we got stuck in traffic.

Traffic into the Geopark was rough. The park only had a two-way road, a big difference from Beijing’s 6-lane mega-roads, so we spent quite a long time inching down the path. I’d really like to thank everyone who went on the trip for their patience. We kept the mood up yapping, playing games, and oohing-and-awing at the occasional grazing cattle and sheep. I wouldn’t have wanted to be stuck in traffic with anyone else. 

After a few camel sightings, we finally saw our first volcano! It would be a few more kilometers until we reached the specific volcanoes we were visiting, but it was a really exciting sight.

We’ve finally reached the 6th volcano, known for its dark red and grey terrain that makes it look like Mars. The massive volcano was a shocking sight. It was like a dark plateau stuck in the middle of the grassland. According to our driver, the volcano looks this way because of human activity. The majority of the 6th volcano’s resource-rich rocks have been mined, exposing the dark rock and leaving a massive moat along its edge. Visitors aren’t able to climb this volcano, so we walked around it and took a couple photos before heading to our next stop. 

Next, we headed to the 5th volcano, officially called the Middle Alchemy Furnace but unofficially called the “matcha volcano”. Out of the Wulanhada volcano group, the 5th volcano is the only volcano left in its natural state. Thanks to the traffic earlier, we got to this volcano right at golden hour. If we hurried, we could catch the sunset on its peak! We scurried up the mountain and realized really how untouched this volcano was—there were no stairs, no guardrails, just a dirt path and our two feet. The scenery was gorgeous, but some parts were so steep we were climbing on all fours. But the view at the peak made it all worth it!

As the sun sunk under the horizon, we headed back to our bus to our accommodations for the night—Mongolian-style yurts! Ulanqab is a pretty tourist-centric area, so there’s a couple mini-towns of yurts out in the grassland. Our tour guide works at one of these yurt towns, so they organized for us to stay in the area. The night we arrived, the yurts were lit up with glowing lights and a massive fireworks show. It caught us by surprise, but it helped wake us up from our long ride.
 

Ordering dinner for 17 hungry travelers was an interesting challenge. The menu was entirely in Chinese, but the pictures and the staff’s explanations helped us figure out a reasonable meal featuring a number of Inner Mongolian specialties. As a grassland and desert-dominated region, Inner Mongolia is best known for its grazing animal products. In particular, milk and meat from cows, sheep, and goats. We had some of the creamiest yogurt I’ve ever tasted, salty milk tea containing meat and rice, and Inner Mongolian 烧卖 Shaomai, a type of dumpling. 

We’ve finally reached the end of our long, long day of grasslands, volcanoes, and sunsets. Though we had a few challenges, our first day in Ulanqab was an amazing start! This was my first time seeing camels in person, climbing a volcano, and having meat in my milk tea. There’s so much to experience in Inner Mongolia and I’m excited to share what else we got up to in the next post!