This was officially the start of the sight seeing tour. The first stop was the desert (库布齐沙漠 响沙湾). Took a rather long bus ride to the desert, but I think it was worth it. My first time at a desert (I think its almost everyone’s first time, except of course for the tour guide.) Most of us wore this leg cover (which we rented for RMB10) before we went up the sand dune, to protect our legs from the sand. It’s actually rather cute!

The initial climb up the same dune was damn tiring. (However, looking back now, it wasn’t the most tiring thing we done on the trip.) The sun was scorching (expected of a desert, right?) and the sand was hot. So, lucky we had our leg covers on. Camel Riding! It was a 1 hour round trip which costs RMB60. We rode on a camel led by the local guide, who brought us further into the desert to visit a natural heritage museum which had “caged” animals and skeletal remains of various animals, including horses, cows, dogs, ostriches and etc.

After returning from our camel ride, we stood around did our usual photo taking session. Everyone is always so “trigger” happy!!! Hahaha!

Sand Slide … what you do is sit on this wooden board and then slide down the sand dune. Looks rather scary from the top, but when you actually go down the dune, its really not as fast or thrilling as you though it would have been. It was still fun even though the ride down was really very short.

As we were leaving the desert, suddenly a huge gust of wind blew and the sand started flying towards us. We were in a mini sand storm. The fine sand beat against us and we stood there for a couple of minutes back facing the wind, waiting for the wind to die down.

That wrapped up the desert escapade. Next stop … …

Genghis Khan (成吉思汗陵) Mausoleum … that was another long and torturous, butt numbing experience especially with the road constructions along the way forcing the bus to detour onto rough mountain roads. Notable things at the Mausoleum: 1. Smelly toilet. 2. Very fast speaking tour guide. 3. Nice paintings on the wall. I must admit that there were really a lot of interesting things said by the tour guide about the history and background of the place, but as usual I only could understand bits and pieces of whatever was said. Furthermore, it was major information overload to remember everything that the guide says.

Night 2’s hotel, was at Baotou (包头) … still good, but not as grand as the previous night.