My long overnight 5-in-a-bed bus ride across the Inner Mongolian plains brought me to Baotou for 5 in the morning of August 2nd. There isn't really very much to see in Inner Mongolia so I didn't want to hang round much and was on another bus to Yulin, in northern Shaanxi, an hour later. What was interesting at Baotou bus station was that all the signs were dual language - Chinese and Mongolian. China seems to take good care of its minority groups and promotes them well (while still keeping a good firm hand on things) and I've come across many different minority groups and cultures throughout my travels, but up here and throughout my journey to the far west of China this became more and more apparent than it ever had been elsewhere. I think that's what made this part of my trip extra special for me, along with the usual amazing landscapes and monuments...
I arrived in Yulin for midday and after a shower went off to explore. I didn't know very much about this town, except that it's an out-of-the-way northern town with some well-preserved yet not overly restored original features. This was enough for me to add it to my itinerary and was a good decision, I think. It has a fairly modern centre which was quite average but when I branched off the main drag I came across a 'restored' tourist street of completely new old-fashioned shops complete with bell-tower and ornamental wooden gates. These were so new that they were still putting on the final coat of paint as I walked past. The area was pretty dead. Obviously Yulin is not yet on the tour routes, but it intends to be. It was a shame that around this little area you could see that original buildings had been demolished to make way for all this development. This is the problem with rapid tourist development in many areas it seems; knock down the old and build a Disney-version of what used to be there before.
I walked straight through all this and came to the city walls. These made the trip worth it alone. The walls still stand round a good half of the city, mostly still at near-full height and most retain their outer brick layer, even if this is in a pretty poor state of repair. Parts were already being cleared to be rebuilt and I felt extremely lucky to see such a sight in original, untouched condition. I appreciate the need for repair and restoration, and these walls do need it as they really didn't look that safe, but there was something special about the sight that you just didn't get in other restored walled towns like Pingyao and Xi'an.
Also quite cool was the opportunity to take a look around a normal northern town. It was pretty dry and dusty, and all the buildings were a fairly uniform shade of grey, but not in an unattractive way. I walked up a hill to one side of the town following the walls and around this side of the town there was still quite a lot of original low-rise architecture. I was having a great time just walking up and down these little streets, just wandering wherever I fancied.
It was along one of these streets that an old man and a young lad passed me walking down the hill. They made some comment about foreigners and I gave them a wave to say hi. A few minutes later the young lad came back up the road and asked me where I was going. I told him that I didn't know, so he asked me again, 'where do you want to go?'. I told him 'nowhere' and tried to explain that I was just walking. He didn't quite get it though and ended up following me around for the rest of the day. I was a bit non-plussed by all this but he seemed nice enough so I let him. His name was Gao Xiang, and he was a Senior 2 student. His English wasn't great, but he'd run home to grab his notebook so he could practise with me and that was cool.
After discovering an amazing double gateway surviving in the mudcore wall that was all that was left at the top of town, we walked together back down to the main centre of town to catch a taxi out to Zheng Bai Tai, a restored fortress on the ruins of the Great Wall which runs past Yulin. This was cool enough to warrant a post of it's own, so read on...
My long overnight 5-in-a-bed bus ride across the Inner Mongolian plains brought me to Baotou for 5 in the morning of August 2nd. There isn't really very much to see in Inner Mongolia so I didn't want to hang round much and was on another bus to Yulin, in northern Shaanxi, an hour later. What was interesting at Baotou bus station was that all the signs were dual language - Chinese and Mongolian. China seems to take good care of its minority groups and promotes them well (while still keeping a good firm hand on things) and I've come across many different minority groups and cultures throughout my travels, but up here and throughout my journey to the far west of China this became more and more apparent than it ever had been elsewhere. I think that's what made this part of my trip extra special for me, along with the usual amazing landscapes and monuments...
I arrived in Yulin for midday and after a shower went off to explore. I didn't know very much about this town, except that it's an out-of-the-way northern town with some well-preserved yet not overly restored original features. This was enough for me to add it to my itinerary and was a good decision, I think. It has a fairly modern centre which was quite average but when I branched off the main drag I came across a 'restored' tourist street of completely new old-fashioned shops complete with bell-tower and ornamental wooden gates. These were so new that they were still putting on the final coat of paint as I walked past. The area was pretty dead. Obviously Yulin is not yet on the tour routes, but it intends to be. It was a shame that around this little area you could see that original buildings had been demolished to make way for all this development. This is the problem with rapid tourist development in many areas it seems; knock down the old and build a Disney-version of what used to be there before.
I walked straight through all this and came to the city walls. These made the trip worth it alone. The walls still stand round a good half of the city, mostly still at near-full height and most retain their outer brick layer, even if this is in a pretty poor state of repair. Parts were already being cleared to be rebuilt and I felt extremely lucky to see such a sight in original, untouched condition. I appreciate the need for repair and restoration, and these walls do need it as they really didn't look that safe, but there was something special about the sight that you just didn't get in other restored walled towns like Pingyao and Xi'an.
Also quite cool was the opportunity to take a look around a normal northern town. It was pretty dry and dusty, and all the buildings were a fairly uniform shade of grey, but not in an unattractive way. I walked up a hill to one side of the town following the walls and around this side of the town there was still quite a lot of original low-rise architecture. I was having a great time just walking up and down these little streets, just wandering wherever I fancied. 
It was along one of these streets that an old man and a young lad passed me walking down the hill. They made some comment about foreigners and I gave them a wave to say hi. A few minutes later the young lad came back up the road and asked me where I was going. I told him that I didn't know, so he asked me again, 'where do you want to go?'. I told him 'nowhere' and tried to explain that I was just walking. He didn't quite get it though and ended up following me around for the rest of the day. I was a bit non-plussed by all this but he seemed nice enough so I let him. His name was Gao Xiang, and he was a Senior 2 student. His English wasn't great, but he'd run home to grab his notebook so he could practise with me and that was cool.
After discovering an amazing double gateway surviving in the mudcore wall that was all that was left at the top of town, we walked together back down to the main centre of town to catch a taxi out to Zheng Bai Tai, a restored fortress on the ruins of the Great Wall which runs past Yulin. This was cool enough to warrant a post of it's own, so read on...
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