Now We Are In Xanadu!
Tom Carter travels to the winter wonderland of Inner Mongolia.
In the summer it is a scalding expanse of desert, in the spring verdant grassland; but in the winter, Inner Mongolia is a white kingdom few travelers, beyond the occasional Mongol nomad, brave to enter.
Indeed, the traditionally nomadic lifestyle of the native Mongolian reflects the region’s unforgiving climate. To quote the usually intrepid Lonely Planet guidebook chapter on Inner Mongolia, “...from December to March – forget it!”
Occupying 12 percent of China’s landmass in a majestic arching slope of over one million kilometers, Inner Mongolia borders eight other Chinese provinces in addition to the colossal countries of Mongolia and Russia to the north.
Today, Mongolians make up only 17 percent of the provincial population. And while leather-skinned warriors on armored horseback may no longer pose a threat to the Chinese, the mainland is now seeing a second Mongolian invasion, this time in the form of sand. The vast Gobi Desert, which already consumes Inner Mongolia’s northwestern border, is dramatically expanding at a rate of 10,000 square kilometers per year and is calculated to turn 40 percent of the People’s Republic into a veritable wasteland, evinced by the apocalyptic sandstorms from the north that assault Beijing during summer months.
But vacationers to Inner Mongolia (“Nei menggu” in Putonghua) need not concern themselves with such things as environmental catastrophes, for in winter the golden sands of the Gobi slowly give way to white as frost slowly veils first the north and then the entire province.
Arriving in the Inner Mongolian capital of Hohhot (pronounced “Ho huh ha ta”), one finds that it truly is a “Blue City,” as its Mongolian name implies, but with a comparatively modern ambiance nonetheless.
The urban skyline falls behind the horizon as the journey via steam train progresses across the frozen plateau to the more rustic northeast. Following electrical lines from village to village, the train’s ice-trimmed windows reveal an otherwise barren countryside dotted with red brick homes stacked with chimneys continuously exhaling their coal smoke.