Walking in the Mongolian Grasslands

After spending a day in the Xilamuren Grassland, I awoke early to a contemplative walk before most others were stirring. The day before had been so busy that it is difficult to comprehend where I was exactly: the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. It was both exotic and normal. Not understanding the language and the barrage of different cultural symbols and traditions meant that I was fully aware of a very different place. Yet, there a sense of a normality as well.

Horses on the road

Shortly after leaving our camping site and began walking on the road, I happened upon seventeen horses, including several foals, meandering down the road toward me. Although most of the horses were on the opposite side of the road, I had some trepidation. I started to slow my pace, anticipating being in close contact with unfamiliar and legendarily semi-wild horses, a man on a dirt bike appears from nowhere and began to usher the horse with whistles, voice commands, and intimidation into an adjacent field. He had a pole, about the size of a long broomstick, that caught the horses on the back of their knees and cajoled the most obstinate into the prescribed behavior. The herd were soon in the field across the road; the man on the dirt bike disappeared, after he returned from the direction he came, without ever making eye contact.

Xilamuren Temple in the early morning mist

As I turned back for my return trip, the sun had risen higher in the sky and I cast a long shadow on the road. More local people have begun their diurnal activities. I saw my first car of the day, followed by two more, during the one-kilometer walk back to Mongolian Holy Land camp. In many ways, it is a walk like any other. People, everywhere, had routines. The landscape and fauna appear similar, but there are differences: the water bugs are larger than they would be in North America; the grass a little finer. As I entered the camp I meet two young Chinese women walking out. They were singing along to a song on their smart phone. I exchanged Ni-hao with one while to other surreptitiously snapped a picture of me.