Xilamuren Prairie, Inner Mongolia, China

3robin338 5:00 PM Sep 21, 2011

Beautiful, but sad and desperate place
The grasslands were really quite beautiful but the locals running the place are so desperate to make a quick buck out of everything that it somehow spoils the atmosphere. We arrived at around 2pm from Hohhot and weather during the end of August is fairly pleasant, lots of sunshine and warm weather of about 25 degrees maximum during the day and about 4 degrees at night. 2 types of accomodation are available, the modern ger with air-conditioning and bathroom attached and versus the traditional ger without. My advice is to take the modern ger. The traditional ones are extremely dusty and dark inside and the toilet is easily 100-200 metres away, not a good idea at night when there's little lighting. The modern ger is a 1-2 star accomodation, acceptable in this part of the world. I set the air conditioning at 16 degrees during the day and brought it up to 25 during the night when it became chilly. The bathroom was unfortunately abit dirty and smelly so we had to keep the bathroom door closed all times. Hot water was not available so one might want to consider showering during the day. Horse riding is a must, and here is the most irritating part. The locals running the place will try to get you to pay extra, about USD$30-40 for an additional 1 hour distance where there are some small lakes. When you reach their supposed destination, you will find that the small lakes are just behind the little brick houses and you just walk there from where you alight from your horses. They didn't seem to allow the other tourists who have paid extra to go near the waters even though there weren't any barricades of any sort. Thru'out the horse riding thingy, the local herdsman was always trying to rush the horses, probably so that he could get a longer break if he finishes with us earlier. Half the tourists/ other tour groups that arrive at the place seemed to have spent only half a day here. Dinner: large servings of everything but really not tasty. If you haven't been to a Mongolian grassland before, then it is worth a visit, 1 night is the maximum. Alternatively, arrive in the morning and depart after lunch to stay in better accomodation in the main city of Hohhot.

3stephytse 5:00 PM Sep 13, 2011

The sounds of million horses and brooming grasses - lacking!
Like many chinese I was expecting to see the big prairies as shown in the TV soap called "Gengishan". Due to development of the city apparently whoever left on the grassland are no longer nomad but people who are investing in mass tourism. The only attraction in the location is a Yurt for praying. The situation of greens are more worrying: no longer green, and bearly any grass on the land. So the miles and miles of greens would only appear on photoshopped pictures I'm afraid. Still a good opportunity to visit "shepherd's home" and the local cuisine though. The horse ride is main attraction, try not to participate with your group tour and negotiate a price by yourself, it'd be much more economical!