Silk Road Expedition, Sept 10, Day 10 – Luoyang to Hohhot

To be frank, nothing really of interest happened that day. We awoke, ate breakfast, checked out and then boarded the buses to the closest airport two hours away so that we could make our flight for the last stop on our destination; Hohhot the capital city of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (actually pronounced Hor-hot, for some reason that has yet to be explained to me.)

Our time at the airport proved to be somewhat interesting, and by somewhat interesting I mean so aggravating you just wanted to scream until your lungs exploded in a fiery inferno (well….maybe not that….)

As it turns out, once you got past the intensely meticulous security, where they’re more than eager to pat you down if necessary (don’t ask me how I know that), the only places to eat by the gates were these restaurants where the cheapest dish was a bowl of noodles for 35 yuan. Sure, that might not be too much in terms of American dollars, but the problem is that if one thinks like that all the time over here, then chances are you’re going to get ripped off left and right.

 

Anyway, while many TBC students gave in to their hunger and shelled out the necessary but extravagant amount of money for lunch, I joined a few who refused to surrender to their grumbling stomachs. While may comrades skipped out on a meal for the sake of being sensible when it comes to money, I did it more out of principle than anything; I refuse to give into any airport scheme to squeeze as much cash as possible from the wallets of hungry travelers.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait until dinner to satisfy my growling gut, for we all enjoyed a snack on the plane right before we touched down in Hohot. Now, when you hear “Mongolia” used in any sentence, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? This?

It's all right, you can be honest, for that's precisely the picture I had in my mind. Never in my wildest dreams would have I thought that we would touch down in a place like this:

A modern, bustling city, home to the nation's dairy industry plus over a million and a half residents. Who would've thought?

However, as I was to soon learn, Hohhot and the surrounding countryside are quite the far cry from one another. That is, to say that Hohhot accurately represents all of Inner Mongolia would be like saying Manhattan accurately represents all of the Great Plain - it just doesn't work.