Mongolia Comments

Interesting Trip to Inner Mongolia

Family Geiger is from Germany, recently living in Shunde, Guangdong province, China. They did the trip in the
beginning of October 2002. They stopped one day in Beijing on their way back. Here is their comment
concerning their trip in Inner Mongolia:

Many thanks for all your organizational preparations and arrangements. Let us start to review several
aspects of our trip:

+ All pick-ups have been worked out perfectly; there was always somebody waiting for us.

+ Hotels have been organized as well very fine; especially, that they have been prepared for a family;
that this was working at all places, we didn't expect because we never experienced it in that way before.

+ One exception was given because that Yuk was not very much "deluxe" as described before, it seemed
to be much more like the opposite; but obviously there was nothing better to get; yes our small one (no
problem with the size) was equipped with a bath room, but in particular the cleaningness of this room
wasn't given at all; we tried to avoid using bath room and toilette there.

+ Local guide in Inner Mongolia was a girl named "Bether"; her spoken English was ok, but obviously understanding was a problem very often even though we tried to speak slowly; at areas where we needed
to bargain and negotiate she wasn't a help at all (e.g. to organize horse riding); she simply followed the
other guides; at the Yuk area we got the impression, that she was not completely informed about possible
activities and views; but she organized well, that we got a "wake-up call" to watch the sunrise.

+ Car was ok as well; driver was sometimes strange because driving like Michael Schumacher neglecting
that he was transporting guests and driving a minibus only; as he was a heavy smoker, window was open
very often.

+ Baotou - the second city - we didn't see anything because Bether claimed, that there is nothing to see;
but spots in Hohhot have been nice and interesting as well; if your are interested, Nina will prepare for sure
a travel report and she will send to you as well if you are interested in.

+ The kids had fun especially with horse and camel riding for sure; but realizing the colder temperature and
some different landscapes have been interesting for them as well.

+ But obviously season is mainly over already because grasslands turned to become brown already and
many people told us, that it is already too cold; but nevertheless many Chinese tourists have been travelling
there as well.

+ Food was ok as we are used to Chinese food; for breakfast we even preferred some Chinese dishes
instead of American breakfast which wasn't that delicious compared to the other choices.

+ Guide in Beijing named "Lisa" was better in communication and as a helping hand as well; but we "used"
her on Sunday for travelling to the Summer Palace und the Temple of Heaven only; the Great Wall we
discovered by our own lonely on Saturday.

In a short summary: it was a very interesting trip, for sure worthwhile to be done. The question whether the
season is ok, might be answered differently.

As we have been sitting in the car quite a long time to reach all those different locations, it might be
considered whether to organize such a short trip of (less than) four days only in a little bit different way.
Beijing was too short anyway, but this was our planning and we knew it before. Therefore we need to go
there at least once more.

So, we hope that this gives at least a short impression to you about our trip to the north. We enjoyed it!

Best greetings from the south

Nina + Annika + Saskia + Juergen, Oct 2002