There and Back Again : Road to Mongolia

This post consists of bits and pieces. Little paragraphs i managed to eke out on the road on my laptop. Might sound a bit disjointed.

On september 14th the client called us for a job, in the Province of Inner mongolia, a two day drive . So we started preparing for the job.We checked out tools, loaded our equipment, and we're all packed up by 9 pm.Next morning after a briefing with my manager and a visit to the bank and phone company to make sure we were fully stocked up, we left for Xi Lin Hot- Inner mongolia


First Stop - Beijing
On the way to Beijing we caught up with what seemed to be a group of very rich sports car enthusiasts driving their Ferrari's and Lambhorgini's and Ford GT's on the Jing Tang Expressway between Tanggu and Beijing. Unfortunately for them the driving was reduced to a crawl since there had been an accident on the way which had blocked the road.













The Wall

We didnt enter Beijing, we took the by pass and headed for Zhang Jia Kou our pitstop for the night. And i was in for a pleasant surprise. The Great Wall. The great wall was built to keep out mongolian invaders, and to get to Inner mongolia(the Chinese province bordering Mongolia) we had to cross the Great Wall. We actually took an easier way. We drove right past the great wall and then underneath it through a tunnel.Even from far, the sheer slopes and height at which these walls were built traversing impossible paths through the hillside, was a magnificent sight. The great wall apparently stretched 13 km(Badaling) at this point. I made a note to visit this place some other time, it isnt all that far from Beijing. One weekend would do. But getting the weekend off is the hard part. We hurried past this Wall and continued onward to reach our stop for the night by sundown.
















Xi Lin Haote
We left very early the next morning. We were to leave Hebei province where we had spent the night and cross into the Grasslands of inner mongolia. We were heading for Xi Lin Hot.

The grasslands built up gradually. First we passed through some barren hills. And slowly the land got flatter and flatter and soon we were in the real grasslands. We met our client in Xi Lin Hot and after a quick lunch procceded on to the wellsite which was another 200 km away. Miles and Miles of grasslands in between, no towns no cities, and the villages also thinned out very quickly. We did see the occasional "Yurt". The traditonal mongolian nomad's dwelling complete with a mongolian horse. But I hear most of them have taken to motorcycles now. But many of the mongols still live away from the cities, grazing their sheep and catttle and selling the meet to the cities dominated by the Han - Chinese. And very soon my crew chief was telling me that we would have to travel 100 km on the grasslands itself. There was no road to the rig. But until then the road was smooth and thhe view of the sun bathed golden grasslands of inner mongolia(Xi Lin Haote) was just perfect. It was almost exactly the same as the Praeries were in Alberta almost exactly a year ago.Atleast now I can let go of the regret for not having a camera back then. Well anyway, the title for this post is there and back again, simply because im on my way there, back for another job. And we managed to stop at the Wall for 15 mins. More pics coming up soon.