Rolls Around the World 2007: 23 Erenhot to Datong, China

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Miles for the day - 256 (412 km) Miles to date: 11,191 (18,010 km)

James and I went to the bank to change money first thing in the morning. It was quite a procedure - we had to find a copy centre to provide two copies of my passport, fill in a long form and wait while the US bills were examined minutely - one was rejected for the tiniest mark on it, so I replaced it and finally the transaction was completed.

We were picked up and taken back to the customs area at the border where we were pleased to see the container with the Rolls hadn't been moved. I drove the car out of the container, and then waited another 2 ½ hours for clearance to leave. A local car wash did a good job cleaning the car up, although there is so much dust under the dash and in cracks that my glasses still coated with dust, but a lot less frequently.

On the way out of town we passed miles of life sized dinosaurs on each side of the four lane divided expressway, depicted in various poses - eating, sleeping, fighting and so on. The grand finale were two giant brontosaurus facing each other from opposite sides of the road with their heads meeting in the middle, forming the gateway of Erenhot city.

Rocky desert gradually changed to grazing land, then trees and fertile farm country as we sped along the excellent road. We stopped for lunch at Sonid Youqi, where we had the right front wheel balanced - one of the weights had broken off in the Gobi. It was not a good job - on open road it shuddered almost as badly as before. While the work was being done the car attracted a large crowd, including 4 police in a patrol car. The police have not asked for any documents, in spite of having passed various police checkpoints.

After lunch we were on good two-lane road before we started to climb into mountains. The final part of the drive was in the dark over rough, twisting roads loaded with transport trucks and other vehicles. It is bad luck that both times I've had to drive at night that it has been in mountains on poor road! The drivers are mad - a transport truck crawling up winding hills passing other trucks on blind curves is a normal occurrence.

Hohhot is a modern city of 1.5 million, a big surprise to me as I'd expected a small provincial capital. We checked into the Xincheng Hotel and as I was pretty tired after fighting traffic in the dark we decided to get something light to eat in the hotel. We spotted a sign for an English bar, where only Heineken and Budweiser were offered. They finally found a Chinese beer for us - Marilynn had to drink beer as well as there was no wine or gin. There was a very limited food menu - most items we could not identify and no one spoke English. I ordered "popcom", which we thought was popcorn misspelled, and it turned out to be cold sliced sausage. In the end we actually did get real popcorn - so that was dinner! James was more sensible - he went out to eat.

In the room I got onto the computer - good hotels in China all seem to have free wired or wireless Internet. There was a knock at the door, and as I had on only underwear I peeked around the door to see a small crowd headed by the front desk manager. I said I wasn't dressed, but she insisted on coming in, saying they would be only two minutes. Surrendering to the inevitable, I stood aside and a procession filed into the room carrying footstools, bedding and cushions. James had told them there was no way I'd fit into the standard single bed, so they brought everything required to extend the length!

Friday, September 21, 2007

Miles for the day - 160 (257 km) Miles to date: 11,351 (18,268 km)

When we went to warm up the car and load the luggage we attracted a crowd of about 20 people. A hotel employee who spoke some English translated the many questions - it was like a press conference! Eventually Marilynn showed photos of our grandchildren, which her rapt audience all strained to see.

Roads were great 4 lane expressways, getting us to Datong by 11 AM. Highway signs are bi-lingual Chinese and English. The entry to Datong was ghastly - horrible rough roads, heavy air pollution, big trucks kicking up clouds of dirt and coal dust. Datong is a major coal and coke producer, and has huge coal fired electrical generating plants supplying a wide area with electricity. It was five km through crawling traffic on a hot sunny day to reach the hotel. We had to stop once as the car was overheating - that attracted such a crowd of pedestrians, cyclists, motorbikes and cars that traffic couldn't get past!

The Hongan International Hotel is one of the best I've stayed in anywhere, even though it rates four stars. The room was huge, with bathroom to match. Service and staff are first class - there is nothing we could want that is not provided.

After a delicious (and inexpensive) lunch in the hotel a local guide and driver took us to see the Yungang Buddhist Caves originally built by the Northern Wei Dynasty in the 5th century. There are 45 caves, but the most spectacular are the first 20. The principal statue in each cave varies from 10 meters (33 ft) to 17 meters (56 ft) in height. There are a large number of other statues, and the walls and ceilings of the caves are a sculpted and painted. It survived the Cultural Revolution as it came under the protection of a high-ranking official who stationed troops here as protection from the Red Guards. Cave five alone has 1,800 statues, and cave six 3,600. It is one of those places that must be seen to be appreciated.

Back at the hotel, disaster - my computer crashed. By the noise it sounds like the hard drive that was replaced in London has gone again. Fortunately, I keep a portable hard drive back up, but this is going to make keeping up with writing difficult, as Marilynn needs her computer for photo editing.

The hotel had an amazing buffet dinner, which included unlimited beer and wine. James joined us, and we did serious justice to a good quantity of beer while Marilynn put a significant dent in the white wine stocks. The spread of food included shrimps, smoked salmon and other fish, a Japanese food section, salad bar, dozens of hot items and a section of raw fish and meat to be cooked to order. I had lamb chops and steak. The entire bill came to 204 yen ($27.43) for the three of us.