Gobi Desert Greetings

While the terrain down in the south of China where I've lived for years was very similar from place to place with the occasional mountain popping out on the horizon, the terrain here in Inner Mongolia is wild. You'll be in the middle of the plains for hours and suddenly there are mountains rising high above you only to be followed behind by a desert. That's why Adam and I were excited to find that the tour we had chosen took advantage of the varying terrain.

After spending the night drinking and laughing around a poop fire and sleeping in our yurt (seriously one of the coziest places I have ever slept!), we boarded our trusty bus and headed out of the grasslands, passed the big city, left the mountains in the dust, and stepped out in the Gobi Desert.

The Gobi Desert spans across both China and Mongolia. In Chinese it is referred to as 戈壁 (Gebi) and in Mongolian, it is Говь or "Gevi." The Gobi Desert is the fifth largest desert in the world and the largest one in Asia at 500,000 square miles. It is both sandy and rocky and it tends to be a very cold desert (I know! I assumed all deserts were hot too... until I was freezing in one!)

We were in the part of the desert called Ordos Desert. You can see the city of Hohhot to the northeast of us.

The Gobi Desert is the home of many different species despite the harsh climate including gazelles, Mongolian wild ass, and sometimes even snow leopards, wolves, and brown bears! And of course, a desert would be incomplete without camels. 

There are two species of camel in the world. The one humped dromedary camel, also known as the Arabian camel, is from (you guessed it!) the Arabian Peninsula and is found all through Northern Africa today.  The camels found in Inner Mongolia are known as Bactrian camels and are only found in small pockets in Central Asia. They are considered critically endangered in the wild and are almost entirely domesticated today. 

The Bactrian camel population VS. the Arabian camel population.

Now it's been a dream of mine ever since I was a little girl with hopes of being an Egyptologist to ride a camel through the desert. Fourteen years in the making, you can be darn sure I was going to get on the back of a camel while living in the middle of the Gobi Desert. 

After putting on unnecessary protective covers for our shoes, we hopped into a large (for lack of a better word), sand dune rover (it almost resembled those amphibian trucks that can enter into the water on those super touristy Duck Tours). The driver with no fear of hydroplaning (or the sandy equivalent), zoomed down the road and up and over the dunes. As we traveled further from our bus and deeper into the desert all vegetation seemed to vanish and nothing but golden rolling sand dunes surrounded us for as far as we could see. 

We arrived at a little oasis where we were greeted by our own little herd of camels. I was the first to hop up on a camel's back and I quickly dubbed him Clyde. 

Fun fact: when camels stand up with you on their back, it is terrifying. You lean forward and then fall back, all the while with this massive creature beneath you. But my heart quickly stopped pounding from fear and started beating for the incredible views I could see from Clyde's back. 

Cross off #103 from My Life List! 

Following behind in a perfect little line (except for Clyde who didn't like waiting his turn), we wandered through the desert. The wind was brutal and the sand got everywhere (seriously, I am still finding it, three showers later) but the relaxed amble of the camels and the wave-like patterns in the sand were incredible. 

I've always had a love for horses (I think many girls go through a stage in their younger years where they dream of owning a horse before they actually realize the cost behind it) but for some reason, I've found that my love for riding a camel runs far deeper than riding a horse (it could be that the horse's trot was merciless on my bottom and the camel's slow stroll pitied my bum). You can see why for thousands of years different people in different parts of the world have chosen the camel as their companion through the harshness of the desert. 

Being a girl from Buffalo, New York, I am very much familiar with sledding. I had my Pocahontas sled growing up that I would take down to the river with my mom and my brother. It was wet. It was cold. It was white. 

If you can sled down a hill in the snow, why not try it in the sand too?

Taking one of the super beat up, broken, and completely falling apart "sleds" one by one each of us conquered the dunes of the Gobi Desert. Standing at the very top, it's a bit intimidating. You see how steep the hill is. The wind beats at your back, threatening to push you over before you're ready. But you know how it goes--when in Rome! 

I only managed to slide down twice because once down, we had to climb back up the hill. It sounded easy but about halfway up, myself and a young French girl just turned and looked at each other and decided that right there on the dune was a perfect place to die. 

It's just incredible seeing sights like this--they belong in books or movies or your imagination. How can they be real? How can you touch them? Hear them? Smell them? As I push myself down the sand dune, I couldn't help but feel like Rey on Jakku from The Force Awakens (sorry for the major nerd out but it's true!). 

I can see the similarity.

While the grasslands were beautiful, it is the desert that I would demand that everyone gets to see at least once in their lifetime--to see that what is harsh can also be beautiful and life changing. 

Until Next Time,
Amanda

PS: Happy Hump Day!! See what I did there? ;)
55 days... 

DIY: The Expat Edition

For anyone who has lived abroad for at least a year, you know full well that desperate times call for desperate measures. And sometimes, it takes a lot to get used to your new surroundings--new language, new cultures, new fads, and new no-nos. In America, it might be safe to drink tap water but in other parts of the world, you might as well sign your own death sentence. Here in Bayannur, we wash our clothes by hand and we have to wait for the sun to heat up the water for our showers (that took us way too long to figure out!).




The life of a traveler is filled with adapting to new cultures... but there are some things that I find I just CANNOT give up, no matter how many places I've traveled or how hard I try to assimilate into the culture I live in.




Most times, you cannot easily find the things you love, celebrate, or crave... so it's up to you to get your hands dirty, get a little creative, and do it yourself!




Holidays


Holidays are always the toughest to try and celebrate when you're living in a country so different from your home. China is a perfect example. Staple holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween do not exist over here and if it does, that's because tenacious expats make sure to find ways to celebrate.




Thanksgiving is easy enough to work with--you might have to eat chicken instead of turkey. One year I made chicken wing dip but couldn't find bleu cheese dressing so I had to go with "yoghurt dressing" whatever the hell that means. It turned out okay to the untrained laymen but Adam and I could taste the difference and it was unacceptable.

Those roots are unacceptable too...

 Christmas is pretty popular in China. As a matter of fact, some stores are STILL decorated. The only aspect of the holiday that I find a bit disappointing in the fact that it somehow hasn't made it's way over to China is the elusive pickle! It's a German tradition and one that my family has always celebrated. I won't go into the fact that for almost two decades Jed would destroy me... I don't think I ever actually found the pickle.

Back when I was actually taller than Jed. Moody teenage Amanda with her itty bitty prize and adorably awkward Jed with the pickle and his stupid big prize.

For those of you unfortunate souls who are neither German nor celebrate Christmas with the pickle, let me explain. Traditionally, the glass pickle is the last ornament to go on the Christmas tree and the child who is the first to find it gets an extra gift on Christmas Eve. Today, kids strangle and wrestle one another to try and get to the tree first. I've done this all my life and not once have I succeeded.


In China, it's a bit difficult to find a glass ornament in the shape of a pickle (shocking, I know!). So, one Christmas, while in China, Adam and I decided to improvise. Instead of a pickle we used a pepper... a real pepper.

It's Halloween that's the tough one to still find a way to celebrate, no matter where you are. Halloween is a sacred holiday for me, and so, no matter where I am--China or Russia it would seem--I find a way to celebrate.




In China, I managed to carve a jack-o-lantern out of a watermelon (you can read more about that here) and somehow it actually turned out awesome! That same year, I was able to introduce the art of pumpkin (watermelon) carving to my students at an English corner. They were able to realize just how much they were missing out in the glorious month of October.

It was interesting to find in Russia, too, Halloween is not nearly as popular (or at all) as in America. Actually, Putin has tried to outlaw public displays of Halloween frivolity in big cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg because he sees it as a negative Western influence, particularly coming from America. However, Novosibirsk is far away (I mean FAR away) from Moscow and so Halloween is a bit more accepted in the city. We actually had some Halloween parties with students and some teachers even dressed up.

Luckily for me, I was off on Halloween and had all day to celebrate. But once again, it was impossible to find pumpkins to carve! It was like China all over again. Instead of watermelons, we decided to actually buy gourds and carve them into jack-o-lanterns. I think there's a reason why pumpkins were chosen for carving (contrary to what you might think when you're trying desperately to carve a circle into a pumpkin)--they're easy to work with! At least easier than the evil gourds we picked.

FOOD

Now, a good traveler is one who is always brave and willing to try new foods and be content with eating the foods of the country they are visiting or residing in whether it's rice and noodles or cabbage and vodka. However, being content with what your specific country has to offer you can only last for so long and eventually the cravings begin to set in. Usually this is once the "wonderment" phase of culture shock passes and you suddenly realize you have absolutely no access to good beer, huge hunks of meat, or cheese. It's about one month in that rice, noodles, and vegetables just aren't good enough anymore and these cravings usually start. And it is at this time that--in order to survive--you must take matters into your own hands.

I've found that DIY food projects can either turn out really good or really really bad.

The Good: Chicken wings

For my 24th birthday, instead of going out to a fancy restaurant in Hangzhou, I wanted to attempt #139 from My Life List (you can read all about our kitchen escapades right here). And so with a bottle of Frank's and 25 chicken wings from the wet market, we attempted and--I'm proud to say--succeeded in making chicken wings that were good enough to appease this Buffalo girl.

 



The Bad: Mulled Wine


For every success in the DIY expat collection, there has to be an utter failure and that would be our attempt at hot mulled wine for Christmas 2013. We figured we had cinnamon sticks, an orange, and come cloves--why not throw it in and heat up some of our leftover Chinese red wine? SUGAR. No one told us to add sugar. So, no surprise, it was terrible. We've gotten better at it! But I suppose we had nowhere to go but up.

We've done a few other DIYs over the years. Christmas ornaments, attempts at making bacon only to realize you bought pork organs and not pork, baking brownies from hot chocolate packets when you don't have cocoa powder, making olive brine by adding saltwater to your olives for the perfect martini, and building furniture out of scraps of wood you find lying against the garbage shoot (this totally worked but sadly we have no photos which is a shame!).


This past week, we've continued on in the DIY tradition by successfully making two things of food (you can clearly see that most of this post is about food... mainly because I'm hungry at the moment): homemade jiaozi 饺子 (basically dumplings you can boil, steam, or fry) and cheese!


Jiaozi 饺子:


I am a big fan of jiaozi. Ever since moving to China, they are some of my go to meals. In Hangzhou, they were usually beef or pork but here in Bayannur, most of them are mutton (Yang Rou 羊肉). Around here, they seem to be steamed usually which is fine but sometimes you just want something unhealthy and fried... and that's just what we did.


Taking what little mutton we had left from our Easter celebrations, we marinated it with the few spices we've come to recognize over here and I set to work on making the wonton wrappers. In America, you can find these bad boys at any Asian market. Around here? Not so much. Homemade from scratch it is!


All you really need for this is water, salt, and egg mixed nicely together before pouring it into the middle of a bowl of flour and some more water before you mix, mix, mix until it creates a nice dough ball. Wrap it and let it sit for 30 minutes. Once you've let it settle, it's time to bust out the rolling pin. Sadly, we didn't have a rolling pin or a wooden dowel so I improvised and used a wine bottle (I swear I'm not an alcoholic). It's a bit tough getting the dough as thin as it needs to be and after you're covered in flour and your hands are aching, you understand why you go out and buy these premade in America.

While I continued to roll and cut the dough into thin 3x3 squares, Adam began to fill them with our delicious mutton and eggs cooked in the mutton fat (trust me, it was more fat than meat). In the end, we had almost 30 dumplings to either steam or fry.

Since this was my master plan (at least in my head I knew it could work), I was in charge of cooking these little guys. Now, I'm the first to admit that I'm not the best chef in the world. Sure, I make a mean stuffed banana pepper soup but it's one thing going from a recipe and making stuff up as you go and hoping that it will all work out in the end. This had been hours of prepping, rolling, and stuffing... I couldn't mess it up now! No pressure...



Ignore our nasty little kitchen...

If the smell was any indication, things turned out better than I anticipated.


Low and behold! Our steamed and fried jiaozi turned out great (though they do kind of look like little turds) and they tasted even better.

Our first DIY of Bayannur was a huge success! But, I was determined to try something a bit harder and something I craved even more.

CHEESE

Cheese is just one of those things that you either love it or you hate it and I have a passionate love affair with it. The biggest downside of living in China (apart from being so far away from family) is the total and complete lack of cheese. I assumed that Bayannur might be a bit different from Hangzhou--dairy is actually a big part of life here in Inner Mongolia. You can find milk and yoghurt at every store you walk into but for some reason, cheese is still a myth over here.

So when I found cheesecloth at the night market, you can be darn sure I found a challenge on my hands.

Now cheese is hard because many of them require bacteria cultures which even if I could find over here I doubt I would dare use it in my food. But luckily, I found a recipe for Farmer's Cheese with just three ingredients: milk, white vinegar, and sea salt.



For anyone interested in trying this on your own, here's how we did it!


Pour one gallon of milk into a pot. It should not be super pasteurized and the pot should have a nice thick bottom. Sadly, we had to buy 15 little boxes of milk to get to a gallon... it should be easier in America!

Over medium heat, bring the milk to a boil. This takes a bit of time... It will start curdling on top so you should keep stirring it pretty frequently so it doesn't burn to the bottom. I thought I was stirring it enough but at the end I saw I had scorched it pretty bad.


As soon as the milk starts to boil, reduce the heat to low and add 1/2 cup of white vinegar. Almost immediately, the milk should start separating into curds and whey (I had no idea it was a greenish blue! Little Miss Muffet what is wrong with you?!?). If it doesn't, keep adding vinegar, one tablespoon at a time. It will be obvious when it starts working.

I'm not going to lie, I kind of lost it at this point. I started jumping up and down and shouting, "SCIENCE!" over and over again as the curds continued to form.

My SCIENCE! face.

At this point, the science part is done. Take your cheesecloth and line a colander with it and begin to scoop the curds out of the pot and into the cheese cloth. This kind of cheese is very crumbly and is in little pieces so make sure to get it all. You'll be surprised by how much cheese this actually makes!

 Once all of the curds are in the cheesecloth, rinse them with cold water to get rid of any of the extra whey. Once they're nice and clean, sprinkle the sea salt on top. The recipe I used said two teaspoons, however, this cheese is pretty bland so I would recommend more (I'm even thinking of adding garlic or onions or little peppers the next time I try this). Once the curds are salted. tie the cheese cloth, squeeze it tight to get rid of any more whey and excess water and then you should find a nice place to hang it up! It is still a bit wet so we hung it up over our sink so if it dripped it wouldn't make a mess.


After two hours of impatiently waiting, we nervously opened up the cheese cloth and voila! Our very first attempt at cheese!

And this cheese is good for up to about a week!


I was surprised by how easy this was and how well it turned out on our first try. So far we're two for two in the DIY attempts here in Bayannur. I know sooner or later we're bound to fail miserably but for now I will happily eat my jiaozi and cheese and continue counting down the 82 days until I am drowning in good beer, burgers, wings, and cheese... so much cheese.


Until Next Time,
Amanda

Visting China's Sorrow

If you can think back to ninth grade global history, you'll remember learning that rivers acted as a cradle of life--the birthplaces of early civilizations. The Tigris and Euphrates helped build Mesopotamia. The Egyptians owed their success to the Nile. And the Indus River Valley made way for modern day India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. In this list, we also have the Yellow River (黄河 or Huáng Hé) which was the very start of ancient China.

 

The River is such a vital part of Chinese culture that it has even made it's way into it's folklore and legends--especially celestial lore. It is said that the Yellow River flows from heaven continuing on as a part of the Milky Way. Another legend tells the story of Zhang Qian, one of China's first diplomats and how he went on a journey to find the source of the river. After sailing for five days, he met a young girl spinning in the middle of a herd of cattle. When Zhang Qian asked her where he was, she handed him her weaving shuttle. When Zhang returned, the old astrologer, Yen Chün-p'ing, told him that the shuttle belongs to The Weaving Girl, Vega (as in the brightest star in the constellation, Lyra) and at the same time as Zhang's journey, he noticed a wandering star in the sky between the star, Vega, and the cow herd star, Altair (the brightest star in the constellation Aquila), once again, connecting the Yellow River to the heavens.

 

 

 

The Yellow River has been a huge part of the birth and growth of China for thousands of years now. But, much like the Nile River, while it is beautiful and life sustaining, it can also be devastating when floods hit. TheYellow River's floods are the only known natural disasters to kill over a million people at a time. The first recorded disaster hit in 1332-1333 which killed more than 7 million people. The next worst flooding occurred in 1931 that killed almost 4 million people and another flood in 1887 that killed almost 2 million. The reason for the flooding is the same reason behind the color of the water (which lends to it's name)--loess, a silt sized sediment that collects at the bottom of the river, creating natural dams which then lead to flooding. In fact, over the last 2,600 years, it's been recorded that the river has flooded almost 1,600 times, noticeably changed course 26 times, and drastically changed course nine times. Hence the other name the Yellow River is sometimes known as: China's Sorrow.

 

Images from the 1931 flood



From the time of the Warring States Era (starting in 475BCE) into Medieval times, the river
was also used as a form of warfare--both defensive and offensive. By building levees,
warriors and kings could protect their land and by building dams, they could flood enemy
territory.

The river starts in the Bayan Har Mountains in Tibet. Here, it is not known as the Yellow
River because at this point, it is not yellow. In fact, it's crystal clear before it flows through the
Loess Plateau located in Shanxi and Shaanxi (I know, it's confusing) Provinces. Because of
this, it is known by several names. In Tibet, it is called, "River of the Peacock" ( རྨ་ཆུ།=Ma Chu). In
Mongolia, it is known as the "Black River" and here in Inner Mongolia, it is sometimes called,
"Queen River" (Шар мөрөн=Šar Mörön). At the moment, the mouth of the river is located
in Shandong (but that's likely to change... again).



Because of the loess (and in recent years, pollution) there is a stark difference between the
water from the Yellow River and the Ocean when the river empties out at the mouth.

So, with a build up like that, when Adam and I learned that we were just a two hour walk from
the Yellow River, we knew it was time to get our walking shoes on and find China's Sorrow.

Now remember, Bayannur is basically in the middle of the desert. It's different from Buffalo
with the river, canal, and lakes and it's different from Hangzhou with West Lake. The Yellow
River was what kept Chinese life going thousands of years ago and it's what continues to
help irrigate farmland all throughout the Steppe and along it's shores today for 3,400 miles.

You can see Bayannur along the Yellow River's shores as well as Inner Mongolia's capitol of Hohhot.

So, on a Saturday when we had nothing else going on (even though, most days we don't
have a lot going on), we strapped on our walking shoes and began our two hour trek
southeast. Most of the journey took us through our little town by the college and into the
bustling streets of the downtown area but eventually we passed the city's train station and
entereda much smaller residential area.

As we left the big city behind us, we knew we had to be getting closer! 
 

It was a lot bigger than I expected! I think it might be bigger than the airport...

After about two hours of walking, we finally came to a stop on a bridge overlooking the Yellow River.

My first thought was, Yes. It's yellow. I am sure that a big reason behind the color is the loess silt but I couldn't ignore the trash all along the shore (I even spotted a toilet). Sadly, pollution is another factor to the color in today's day and age. Many scientists think the water is unfit for even agricultural use, it's so polluted. However, I am a sucker for natural beauty and (if I ignored the plastic bottles and clothes and other bits of trash) I could take this ancient river as it really is--a magnificent, beautiful thing that demands respect.

Now this area of the river here in Bayannur is a smaller bit of it that breaks off at the city of Dengkou and reconnects near Urad Qianqi so the actual main river is much wider and far grander than this but it was nice to get a taste of it in our first month here.

This area of the city is very quiet (though Bayannur is freakishly quiet for a Chinese city) and the river is surrounded by an ecological park which is trying to build up the beauty around the river. There are pavilions and sitting areas for you to relax and enjoy the view. The Chinese pagodas are bright and colorful but also hold a bit of a Mongolian feel which I loved seeing. Two bridges connect the banks of the river allowing for a nice afternoon stroll through nature (something that's a bit difficult to find in China sometimes).

It's very rare to see China work together with other cultures to make something beautiful. It's nice to see the Chinese and Mongolian influence on this pagoda.

As we crossed the bridge to the other side of the river, we stumbled upon what looked like a Mongolian settlement. Of course, we knew it wasn't legit. 1). It's in the middle of the city and not out in the grasslands and 2). It's clearly made out of concrete and plaster, not wood and sheep wool. Nevertheless, we've been hungry to see Mongolian culture and so we headed right over to explore. Strangely, all the buildings were locked and the only person there was a security guard who almost seemed afraid to see us! We're hoping to go back on one of the Mongolian holidays (sadly we're missing one of the biggest holidays: Naadam Festival but we'll be back for Genghis Khan's birthday on November 14th)... maybe then this place gets to see some action!

**********

Right now, we're desperate for an adventure! We brought only $500 with us when we arrived in China a month ago and while it's lasted us this long, we're now clinging to the last $20 we have until our first paycheck arrives. Our trip to the Yellow River was short and free and right now that's the only adventure I think we can afford! But hopefully soon we'll have more than $20 to work with and then we'll begin to explore Inner Mongolia properly!

For now, Баяртай!

Until Next Time,
Amanda

PS: I met Baymax on the way to the Yellow River!!