By Ashley Eldridge
We spent most of the first day on the road, traveling from the mountains of Beijing past rolling hills and, as raindrops sprinkled on the windshield, down into the grasslands dotted with cattle. The bus rolled into Hohhot in the afternoon, where our expectant gazes fell upon peeling paint and ramshackle buildings. Further into the city center, buildings began to take on the urban shine. One building -- it could not quite be considered a skyscraper -- literally shimmered from base to roof in gold mirrors. As we climbed off the bus, I reveled in the cool, fresh breeze blowing in off the grasslands and the blueness of the sky -- Hohhot means "blue city" -- in contrast to Beijing's often overcast atmosphere.
In preparation for our tour throughout the province, we met with local officials to get an overview of the situation here. Major resources are being dedicated to preserving the region's famed grasslands, keeping the dairy industry competitive against higher quality Shanghai-- and Europe--based producers, and increasing wind power generating capacity. The Hohhot GDP is one of the fastest--growing in China, and the average per capita income in the city now exceeds 50,000 yuan.
Hohhot is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in China with 36 ethnic groups represented within the prefecture. To get a real feel of the relations among the different groups, we headed over to the community hub, Xinhua Square, to talk to the locals. The scene at the square, even late in the evening on a weeknight, resembled a carnival: shooting booths, food carts, and Power Wheels kept the square alive with activity. In the far corner of the square, an informal choir had gathered for their daily sing--along; on the evening we visited, they were singing songs from Old Gulangyu. One of the singers, a local student named Sherry, told us that the group gathers rain or shine, winter or summer, every night of the year and sang until they were tired of the sound of it.
We stopped over at the Muslim Quarter in search of good chuan'r and a lively atmosphere, and there we were serenaded by a trio of Hui vendors accompanied by a boombox. The golden domes of the mosque shone against the dark night sky as we struggled to hail a cab -- cabs in Hohhot start at 6 yuan, so trips around town are very cheap -- and tuck in for a good night's sleep.
In the morning, we set off for Erlianhot, a border town known for its dinosaur excavation site and receding grasslands. On the way out of town, we stopped in at the Inner Mongolia Museum, a state--of--the--art glass and grass complex built in 2007. There, we examined dinosaur fossils from more than 65 million years ago. Our guide pointed out the triceratops skulls and told us that their discovery further proved the theory of continental drift and taught us the origins of the name "dinosaur," or kong loong in Chinese.