Mongolia has a population of slightly less than 3 millions people and is one of the most sparsely populated country in the world. Ulan Bator has around 1 million people so almost a third of the population live in this city. Ulan Bator is also the coldest capital of the world, having an annual average temperature of -1.3C. In January, during day time the average temperature ranges from -20C – -30C and the temperature can go below -40C during night time.

Got another ticket yesterday from Zamii Uud to Ulan Bator on the train itself. Like other Central Asian countries, Mongolia has a big Russian influences and use Cyrillic alphabets.

Train Station

Got to the train station at 10.30am. Met Tuya, a Mongolian on the train and she helped me changed into Mongolian Tugrug and got me a cab to the city center. Got off at the state department store and spent 1.5 hours walking around trying to find UB hostel. The hostel has moved to a location different from the map on Lonely Planet.

Lunch, Khuitsa (a mixture of lamb, potatoes and noodles, 3800 Tugruk~USD$2.5)

After spending the last 4 nights on a train, I am looking forward to sleep in a youth hostel tonight. From HohHot to Ulan Bator, the train tickets in total cost me (36+66+191=293) 293 Yuan. However, by taking a direct train from HohHot to Ulan Bator, it would cost 972 Yuan. Both options took the same amount of time, will arrive at the same time and it’s actually the same train. This is just a travel tips for travellers.

UB Hostel (USD$6).

National University of Mongolia

Visited the Natural history museum (1000 Tugruk~USD$0.7).

In front of the National history museum. (1200 Tugruk~USD$0.80). To those who were asking what I am wearing, this is what I am wearing in the cold Ulan Bator weather.

The national history museum is quite interesting because I get to piece together some of the old dynasty and empires I read in middle east and central Asia. The Mongol empire during 13th century is the largest empire in the world, the empire touched an area from Vietnam to Poland and has some influences on world history during the 13th and 14th century.

There are many ethnic groups in Mongolia. Majority is the Khalkha and they made up 85% of the population. The second biggest group is the Kazakh Turks.
Ethnic Mongolian dress

Yurt

Sükhbaatar Square

Mongolian stock exchange is the world’s smallest stock exchange by market capitalization.

Because of the cold weather, I was a little hungry and ate 2 plates for dinner, Lamb soup noodles and Lamb Goulash. (5400 Tugruk~USD$3.5).

Lamb is a common dish here because Mongolia is a big animal husbandary country. On the train someone told me that half a kilo of lamb here only cost 2 Renminbi.

I heard some horror stories about a few tourists got robbed on the street.
The sign on the hostel doesn’t help.

Internet cafes here close at 9pm but the post office provides 24 hours internet access. Went there to update my blog and got back home at 2am and had to climb the gate to get back inside.

View Larger Map

Arrived at Erlian around 6am in the morning. Weather here is colder than HohHot. Walked around and found an internet cafe. Spent a few hours at the internet cafe while waiting for sun rise.

Train station

Found out that there is another train that will cross the border from Erlian to Zamin Uud, (ZhangMuDe) a town at the mongolian side at 5.10pm. There are trains from Erlian to ZhangMuDe on Mon, Tues and Thursday. Decided to take the train instead since it’s an easier option than taking multiple vehicles to cross the border myself, especially the weather is quite cold now. Today the weather temperature ranges from around -30C – -15C.

Mongolia couple

Got on the 685 train (66 Yuan~USD$10) at 5.10pm and crossed the border.

It looked like there were smoke on the train but actually it’s just hot air because the weather was too cold.

On the train

the conductor was selling another ticket to Ulan Bator on the same train. The ticket costing 39,200 ~190 Yuan~USD$18.

My bunk mate, from shangdong

Hot air

After going for around 10km, the train stopped at the border town of ZhangMuDe for a few hours for immigration controls and changing the tracks. The train departed from ZhangMuDe at around 9.15pm.

Arrived at HohHot(Huhehaote) at 6am in the morning. HohHot is the capital of Inner Mongolia province. The weather here is pretty cold, below -20C.

Stored my bag at the train station for 8 Yuan. Since the places I will be going next are be colder, tried looking for warmer clothes.

Traffic jam

Got on bus 58 to the provincial museum. The design of the museum is very beautiful and just like the few other provincial museums, the museum is new and free.

Unfortunately, the museum is close on Monday.

Like everywhere else in China, lots of contructions going on

ZhongShan lu.

Another shopping street

Businesses in China are very competitive.
2 other similar Nike looking stores just beside this Nike store.

Park

City View, Mongolian yurt like buildings

There is a mongolian translation on most signboards. Mongolian word for China Mobile.

Da Zhao temple.

Animal products

Soy water and douhua (5 Yuan~USD$0.8)for lunch.

The direct train from HuHeHaoTe to Ulan Bator cost 972 Yuan since it’s an international line. Decided to get to Er Lian, the border town with Mongolia first and crossed the border myself in order to save money.

Took the 10.05pm overnight train K4652 to Er Lian (36 Yuan~USD$5.5, hard seat). I wasn’t able to get a sleeping berth because the train was pretty full.

The train was packed like Sardine

because the train to Er Lian yesterday was covered with snow and was canceled. At the same time, inside the train was quite merry. Wasn’t able to sleep and had to take turns standing.

Arrived at YinChuan train station around 7.45pm in the morning.

YinChuan is the capital of NingXia province. YinChuan is sort of a small medium size city in China with a population of around 1 million. There are many Hui Chinese in the city and it’s consider as the autonomy region of Hui. A third of the population in YingChuan is Hui Chinese.

YinChuan is spreaded from the east to west. The train station is sort of separating the east and the west part of the city. Took bus 1 from the train station to the last stop, east bus station. The bus station looks new and is quite clean.

Some propaganda by the governent celebrating the 60 anniversary of the founding of People’s republic of China.

Saying the communist party did a mistake during cultural revolution, but then it learned from its mistake and moved on to a more glorious path.

Saying China has achieved a great victory, defeating America in the North Korea war.

Great communist party took a wrong direction in causing cultural revolution and caused some damages.

Saying everyone should read Marx.

Mosque

Hui Chinese selling mutton

City View

A little similar to Intel bunny

A modern lady

Stadium

ZhongShan Park. The frozen lake.

Like the museums in Lanzhou and Xining, the provincial museum in YingChuan is free and brand new. It was only built 2 years ago. I can feel that the government must have a lot of funds to build such a nice museums. Inside the museum is pretty impressive as well.

The toilet looks exceptionally clean which is an uncommon sight here in Western China.

Library, looks very new as well.

Translation literally

Science museum

Driving lessons at the parking lot of the Exhibition Center

Exhibition center

There are a lot of new constructions going on in YinChuan.

I didn’t expect the city YinChuan to have so much going on since it’s not a famous city. The city is very well planned, streets are very clean and public buses are new and are using renewable energy.

The city is constructing a very nice looking community, Forest Park

It seems like the mayor of the city is doing a very good job.

Took bus 26 to the west part of the city and then got on the K2326 6.38pm overnight train (96 Yuan~USD$14, upper sleeping berth) to Hohhot (Huhehaote), inner Mongolia. I needed to be back from Mongolia and reenter China by Jan 9th so I have to rush a little.

[mappress]

Xining is the capital of Qinghai province. The city has a population of around 1 million and has a sea level above 2000 meters. The city has a good mix of Han, Zhang (Tibetan) and Hui.

Xining is spreaded out from east to west just south of the yellow river. Took bus 9 to the provincial museum.

Inside the museum

A Tibetan exhibit section

The museum is quite new just like the one in LanZhou, just a little smaller. Both museums are free. At first I was impressed by the infrastructures in China but even now museums are well constructed. It seems like these two provincial governments have a lot of funds to spend. China has a huge reserves so the country is able to direct its surplus to construct not only hard assets such as roads and buildings but even soft assets with cultural and historical values.

Just 35 years ago, the country was embroiled in cultural revolution where museums and cultural relics were destroyed but looks like now things are changing for the better, or that is what it seems on the surface.

Xining GuangChang

Wushu Practice

Yummy duck neck (5 Yuan). It’s very spicy.

Activities on the frozen river.

A Chinese family. Because of one child policy, the whole family is able to fit in one cart.

RenMin GuangChang

Noise pollution monitor

Tibetan (Zhang Zu) family. I heard that around 20% of the population in Xining are Tibetans.

Went to a QingZhen restaurant. QingZhen restaurants are usually opened by Hui (Chinese Muslims) and they don’t allow outside food such as meat to the restaurant.
Mushroom noodle (6 Yuan)

Mountains behind the train station

Mosque

Xining is quite a diverse city. Tibetans monks and Hui Chinese (Muslims Chinese) walking on the street.

Performance across the train station

Got on the 7.24pm overnight K916 train (120 Yuan~USD$18) to YinChuan.
Inside the train station

Ate LanZhou la mian (5 Yuan) at MaZhiLu restaurant. The restaurant is well known and is considered as one of the best La Mian place in LanZhou.

Waiting for LaMian

Went to the train station and bought the 5.44pm train ticket (33 Yuan~USD$5, around 200km)to LanZhou.

Went to ICBC bank and tried to open a Chinese bank account. Banks and cell phone providers in China are fragmented. Withrawing and saving money in the same banks in a different province will get hit by a surcharge. For ICBC bank it’s a 1% surcharge for saving and withrawing with a maximum fee of 100 Yuan.

Using cell phone in a different town/city will get hit by roaming charges and every city has their own cell phone plans.

Bank of China has a better fee structures but they don’t have as many branches as ICBC.

Took bus 58 to the provincial museum at the west part of the city. There was a long line because of holiday and I really like the museum.

This sign mentioned that people who don’t dress nicely and people who are stupid or has brain damaged are not allowed to enter the museum.

an very old dumplings

This exhibit is about how life is formed in the beginning. It’s all about evolution because communism and religion don’t go together.

Dinosaur exhibits

Goods transported from China to the west through the silk road

Goods transported from the west to China through the silk road

Galloping horse

People!!!

Took the 5.25 express train from Lanzhou to Xining

Got to Xining train station at around 8pm.

Bought another train ticket for my next destination tomorrow to YinChuan (7pm, 120 Yuan~USD$17, upper sleeping berth)

After visiting around 7 hotels and ZhaoDaiShuo, finally stayed a hotel across the train station (80 Yuan~USD$12). Many ZhaoDaiShuo were like those in Lanzhou where they don’t accept foreigners.

There were 2 other Tibetan Chinese workers staying at the same dorm as me. They can speak more fluent mandarin than Uygur Chinese. They were quite friendly so I tried asking their perspectives regarding the 3/14 riot/protest last year. From what I heard before was that the violent protest by Tibetans were organized in overseas.

They mentioned that most Tibetan Chinese wanted something more than the autonomy status. They wanted a gao ji Zhi zi qu like Hong Kong and Macau.From their prespective, Chinese government doesn’t hear their plights and needs. They wanted more representive in the
government so to have more control of their destiny.

During the 3/14 riot, most Han Chinese thought that Tibetans were the one that started the riot and attacked innocent bystanders. However, from Tibetans side, they thought that the protest were peaceful and the army opened fire and send many Tibetans to jail. From the sources that they received, they mentioned that over 2000 Tibetans Chinese were killed. I am not sure who has the right information as the information that they received came from their own Tibetan friends. Rumours can be spread like fire and are very dangerous in developing country with multi ethnic group.

Tibetans are religious and spiritual

Turning the prayer wheels. Inside the prayer wheels were sacred books about Buddhism.

Tibetan writing

Tibetan Kids

HOrse Carts not allowed

There is a big military presence in XiaHe after the 3-14 riot.
Surveillance camera on the street.

There are 3 direct buses a day to Lanzhou from Xiahe. Took the 2.30pm bus (50 Yuan~USD$7).

Got to Lanzhou at around 6.40pm. Surprisingly, JianXiong, a friend I met in DunHuang was also in Lanzhou and he told me that I can share a double bed dorm with him in Lanzhou university

dorm (15 Yuan each~USD$2.20).

A simple New Year eve meal, dumplings for 6 Yuan~USD$.90.

Because of the University curfew at 11.30pm, I wasn’t able to go out and spent New Year’s eve countdown locked under a basement in Lanzhou University.

Decided to sleep in a little and checked out at 9.30am from the hotel. Got to the Southern bus station and tried getting a ticket to LinXia before transferring to XiaHe. XiaHe has the famous Tibetan Labrang Monastery. To get to LinXia or Xiahe, they require photocopies of my passport and my Chinese visa. I guess this is because of the riot in XiZhang province last year.

Got a 11am ticket (30 Yuan) to LinXia. It’s pretty diverse on the bus with Chinese from different ethnicities.

A DongXiang family sitting beside me

GOt to LinXia at 1.40pm and then got on the 2.45pm bus (20 Yuan) to XiaHe.

Arrived at XiaHe at around 5pm and walked to a Hostel 1.6km away. I haven’t really stayed in any hostel recently so I am looking forward to find the hostel.

Got a 8 bed dorm for 25 Yuan

Hosteling International XiaHe

Dinner (8Yuan)

Xiahe is the leading Tibetan monastery town outside of Lhasa. The town is populated mainly by Tibetan Chinese (I guess that’s the politically correct term to mention Tibetan Chinese instead of Tibetan). 60% are Zhang (Tibetan), 20% Hui and 20% Han.

Arrived at LanZhou train station at 9.15am after a 14 hours ride.

LanZhou

Walked around and tried looking for a place to stay. Asked around a few ZhaoDaiShuo, those places are pretty cheap, ranging from 40-60 Yuan but they don’t allow foreigners to stay there.

Finally ended up staying at DunHuang hotel and got the cheapest room with shared bathrooms (68 Yuan~USD$10).

LanZhou is a city of around 3 millions and it’s spread out along the Yellow River from East to West. It is ranked as the most polluted city in China.

First thing on my to do list, Lanzhou LaMian (Noodles)

All kinds of food

Asked around about transportation to XiaHe, a town 4 hours away from Lanzhou. Took bus 111 to the south bus station at the west part of town to get a ticket. The attendant wouldn’t sell me a ticket and asked me to come back tomorrow morning. There were 3 direct buses to XiaHe a day, 7.30am, 8.30am and 2pm.

Across the southern bus station is LanZhou LiGong (Engineering/Technical) University. Walked around the university and had dinner at the canteen.

Had dinner at the university canteen

Walked across the city from XiaoXiWu, located at the west part of town back to the train station located at the east part.

Night View

Got a Lanzhou 10 Yuan haircut (10 Yuan~USD$1.5).

This is my 3rd haircut on this trip so far and the cheapest. I got my first haircut in Luxor, Egypt. Second haircut at Piranshar, Iran and the third one here.

Dropped by GanNanLu at night. GanNanLu is a place with many bars and chatted with the owner of a bar for almost 3 hours.

Then worked on my blog at an internet cafe. To those who want to travel cheap, it’s possible to get a seat at the internet cafe for the whole night (11pm-8am) for just 5 Yuan. The chair is quite comfy and is possible to sleep in the internet cafe.

The train attendant woke me up and arrived at LiuYuan train station at 5.15am in the morning. Got on a shared taxi (30 Yuan ~USD$4.5, 1.5 hours ride) and departed for DunHuang which is another 150km away.

Arrived at Dunhuang around 7.40am and asked the taxi driver to drop me off at the bus station because it’s still dark because of winter. Since the sky will only lit up at 9am in the morning I stored my bag at the train station and planned my next destination. Spent some time thinking if I wanted to stop by JiaYuGuan or just go direct to Lanzhou.

Since time is tight, I decided to go direct to LanZhou and bought the 7.05 pm train ticket (251 Yuan, Upper Berth sleeper) at the station and skip the trip to JiaYuGuan.

Walked around and found an internet cafe close to the bus station. Finally I can check my email after 10 days without internet access. Spent an hour at an internet cafe (3 Yuan). Surprisingly, the internet speed was quite fast. I always thought that because of the Great Firewall in China, it will slow down internet access in the country.

MoGao Caves is sort of a must see tourist spot in DunHuang. The cave is around 25km away from DunHuang city. Took a public bus (8 Yuan, 30 minutes ride) few blocks down the road from the bus station and I was lucky that I don’t have to wait long for the bus to depart. Met few other Chinese tourist on the bus and head to the cave together. I haven’t really seen any tourist in XinJiang province so it’s a good thing to exchange information.

Since it’s a low season for tourism, the ticket was 50% off the usual price of 160Yuan. For people with Chinese university ID, it cost only 40 Yuan to enter but ISIC card is not accepted.

Mogao Caves

Map

Some Chinese tourists

MOgao Caves is famous for its Chinese Buddhist art. It has the greatest repositories of Buddhist art in the world. There are more than a thousand caves here. The founding of the first cave was around 366AD. There is also the world’s 3rd largest statue of Buddha 34.5 meters (The world biggest Buddha statue is in SiChuan province and is around 65 meters tall) is in one of the cave.

Camera is not allowed in the caves and the art on the wall and statues are quite well preserved. There is an infamous library Cave 17 which stored many priceless Buddhist manuscripts but in 1924, close to 20,000 of the manuscripts and books were sold to a British and French archaeologist for 150 pounds.

We visited 10 caves and then took the 1.30pm bus back to the city.

Visited ShaZhou Market

Famous DunHuang statue

With a traveller from Shanghai

Crescent Moon Lake (YueYaQuan) is around 5km south of DunHuang. Took public bus no. 3 (1 Yuan) to get there but I didn’t go in because I thought the entrance fee of 120 Yuan is quite expensive.

Able to see sand dunes outside the gate.

DunHuang has a new train station 12km away from the city. Took a bus to DunHuang new train station

at 6pm to catch my 7pm train T9668 (DunHuang-Lanzhou) to Lanzhou.