After a pretty awful cold breakfast we made final preparations for departure. This included posing with some pretty girls in pink dresses, who demanded to get their picture take with us. Everyone loves Italians everywhere!
Off at 8:25 for a 500Km plus journey that would get us from Daihai through the North of Inner Mongolia to Erenhot, at the border with Mongolia. After driving through the town of Daihai (large statue of Mulan, the Chinese heroine who joined an all male army), the morning itinerary takes up some challenging windy roads leading us to the top of some high hills (up to 1,600m), the last we shall see for a while.
There are many terraced plots of land where corn is the main crop grown. Without a cloud in the sky, Rudy was running very smoothly breathing the cold crisp air through its red nose, even managing to get its load over the top hills without downshifting.
Local road manners have not changed much. If anything they have worsened. We now face vehicles coming into our lane from side roads without giving any thought to us (or anyone else for that matter). Oncoming traffic will cross over and drive into our lane to park on our side of the road. Added hazards include cows, sheep and goats wondering along the road or suddenly crossing it. Usually nothing happens but sometimes it does like in the case of a big lorry we saw overturned on perfectly straight road (picture will follow).
We spot some innovative street lighting powered by both wind and solar energy.
We reach Hohot, a fast growing town with a surprising number of new office blocks and apartment buildings, most of which looked empty, six lane streets and an eight lane dusty ring road. People are friendly, cheer us on and, as before, they take pictures of us with anything they have around, mostly camera-phones. We drive through most of the town and the ring road leaving town to the north our first Passage Control of the day. These are designed to make sure all rally participants don’t take any shortcuts and it helps avoid losing them as well.
After that, the road straightens and we enter what seems to be a close relation to the Gobi desert. Flat with some crevices, shrub vegetation and nothing in sight for miles other than utility poles. Towards the end of the morning we begin to see the first yurts, the typically large Mongolian tents (picture should follow). We stop for (rubbish) lunch at a hotel entirely made up of yurts with a number of even bigger one employed as lobby, dining halls and so on.
The afternoon route takes us through more desert and straight roads all the way to Erenhot, which we reach at about 6pm. The town stands out for its dinosaur park. It’s a collection of huge statues of dinosaurs which used to populate the area, which are laid out on both sides of the road leading from the town entrance, an arch composed of two brontosaurus facing each other, to the town centre, about 5Km away.
The city is lively with many new buildings and very busy roads, natives are very friendly and a substantial crowd was waiting for our arrival on the forecourt of the hotel, cheering the arriving cars. Shortly thereafter they were busy taking their and our pictures, sometimes even handing us their babies,standing next to our old, overheated and somewhat puffing, Rudy………who wanted only to have a rest and cool down. Tomorrow we will be faced with the beginning of the real challenge as we enter the Mongolia and its renowned Gobi desert.