Xanadu , China, by Thomas Carter

In the summer it is a scalding expanse of desert, in the spring verdant grassland; but in the winter, Inner Mongolia is a white kingdom few travelers, beyong the occasional Mongol nomad, brave to enter.

Indeed, the traditionally nomadic lifestyle of the native Mongolian reflects the region’s unforgiving climate. To quote the usually intrepid Lonely Planet guidebook chapter on Inner Mongolia, “…from December to March – forget it!”

Occupying 12% of China’s landmass in a majestic arching slope of over one million kilometers, Inner Mongolia borders 8 other Chinese provinces in addition to the colossal countries of Mongolia and Russia to the north.

Today, Mongolians make up only 17% of the provincial population. And while leather-skinned warriors on armored horseback may no longer pose a threat to the Chinese, the mainland is now seeing a second Mongolian invasion, this time in the form of sand.

The vast Gobi Desert, which already consumes Inner Mongolia’s northwestern border, is dramatically expanding at a rate of 10,000 square kilometers per year and is calculated to turn 40% of the People’s Republic into a veritable wasteland, evinced by the apocalyptic sandstorms from the north that assault Beijing during the summer months

But vacationers to Inner Mongolia (Nei Menggu in Putonghua) need not concern themselves with such things as environmental catastrophes, for in winter the gold sands of the Gobi slowly give way to white as frost slowly veils first the north and then the entire province.

Arriving in the Inner Mongolian capital of Hohhot (pronounced Ho huh ha ta), one finds that it truly is a “Blue City,” as its Mongolian name implies, but with a comparatively modern ambiance nonetheless.

The urban skyline falls behind the horizon as our journey via steam train progresses across the frozen plateau to the more rustic northeast. Following electrical lines from village to village, the train’s ice-trimmed windows reveal an otherwise barren countryside dotted with red brick homes stacked with chimneys continuously exhaling their coal smoke.

This is the pastoral life of Mongolian miners, farmers and shepherds hibernating for the winter, nary a sole outside save the occasional caravan of camels led through the snowy waste by men as furry and indistinguishable as their charge.

The flatlands give way to hills of white birch and sinuous rivers of blue ice. Veering north, the train then burrows into the Greater Khingan mountain range, which forms a natural provincial border separating Inner Mongolia from the plains of Manchuria to the east.

Passing frozen Hulan Hu, China’s fifth largest lake, and the Hulunbuir grasslands (now blanketed in snow), it comes as a pleasant shock to discover that the busiest land port of entry in the mainland is located here in the far reaches of Inner Mongolia. The Manzhouli crossroads, situated directly on the borders of China, Mongolia and Russia and the Trans-Siberian Railway, is a fascinating fusion of northeastern cultures.

Shops, hotels and restaurants are of distinct Russian personality and advertise in both Chinese and Russian script while the streets teem with rugged import-exporters and big blonde Russian tourists extravagantly attired in plush fur coats, pelt scarves and omnipresent ushanka hats.

But the final and most remote destination comes during the return trip south through tundra as vast as the sky above, the snowscape spotted with resilient brush, wind-swept fences and adobe villages of ice-glazed rooftops until…Xanadu, Kublai Khan’s summer palace.

While the name Xanadu invokes an air of mystery to those who have never been, there is in fact no “snow-white mares with sacred milk, rich and beautiful meadows” as observed by Marco Polo, nor Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s oft-cited “stately pleasure dome.”

Xanadu, otherwise known as Yuanshangdu, today is less an eternal world than a set of dilapidated stone walls and towers buried in centuries of dirt and weeds, leaving the fantasies of a romantic Mongolian city to be written by the opium-addled. China’s tourism bureau has all but deserted the ancient area for (literally) greener pastures, and, according to locals, it is a rare day when even one visitor can be found walking the venerable grounds during the winter months.

But the sheer desolation of Xanadu is exactly its attraction. Walking among 11th-century ruins mantled in dazzling whiteness, one is left completely alone to enjoy an untouched history and uncorrupted serenity that is otherwise not found in today’s China.

In the immortal words of disco queen Olivia Newton John, “Now we are in Xanadu!”

Tom Carter, a freelance writer and photographer from San Francisco, has lived in P.R.China the past two and a half years. He is currently backpacking through all 32 Chinese provinces.

Getting there

Daily flights from Hong Kong to Hohhot (connecting in Beijing), via Air China, Cathay Pacific and Dragon Air, 6 hours, 7000 HKD, round trip.

Daily trains from Hong Kong to Beijing, 24 hours, 800 HKD. From Beijing to Hohhot, 12 hours, 300 HKD

To reach the bordertown of Manzhouli, daily trains from Hohhot to Hailaer, approx 40 hours, 270 HKD for a sleeper. From Halaer to Manzhouli, via shuttle bus or express train, 3 hours.

There are no official tours or direct routes to Xanadu. From Hohhot or Hailaer, get off at Sangandali, and then take a shuttle bus to Zhenglanqi (simply called Lanqi by the locals). From Lanqi, a private taxi can be retained for approx. 100 HKD for a round trip to Yuanshangdu, 30 minutes away.

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Travel China Expert Tom Carter spent 2 years backpacking across the 33 provinces of China . He is the author of CHINA: Portrait of a People.

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Hainan Island, China, by Tom Carter

It is interesting to note that while the island of Hainan in southwest China is the country’s number two holiday ravel destination (in between Jiuzhaigou National Park in Sichuan and Yunnan’s Lijiang), most foreign tourists and expats living in the People’s Republic have never even heard of Hainan Dao, let alone been there I used to be one of the guilty parties. Despite residing in China for an extended period of time, it was not until I began my epic travels across the country that I was introduced to what is in fact its smallest yet most exotic province.

Hainan’s most popular season is, of course, Spring Festival, when legions of mainlanders shuddering from sub-zero winter temperatures spend Chinese New Year on the invitingly temperate beaches of the tropica island.

Conversely, sweltering summers turn Hainan into a veritable Hades (reclusive sun worshipers take note: you will literally have the beach to yourselves). It is not surprising, then, that Hang Dynasty exiles were once banished to ‘The Edge of the Earth’ as fatal punishmentHainan island has made significant progress over the centuries, from remote settlement to popular tourist attraction by way of repeatedly falling in and out of control of neighboring provinces until at last being granted provincial status in 1988 (disputably along with some 200 surrounding South China Sea islands) and declared a Special Economic Zone to spur investment.

Resultingly, the colonial capital city of Haikou on the north end of the island has become its commercial center, brimming with transportation hubs, department stores and enough hotels to accommodate all of China (which it literally does during the holidays).

Those wishing to remove themselves from the urban commotion will find rustic serenity on the central coastline around Xiangshui Bay, the only traffic being farmers in coned hats and grazing cattle. There, crystal waters lap at the shores of a brilliant expanse of sugary sand, where one may sip on coconuts, feast on fresh seafood and lay undisturbed beneath the whispering palm trees.

For a more cultural experience, the lush Limuling mountain range in interior Hainan is home to the island’s reclusive indigenous peoples, most notably the Miao and the majority Li minority, a colorful ethnicity whose proud elders contine to embrace their traditional customs, native dress and intricate body and facial tattooing.

But it is Sanya, ‘the Hawaii of the Orient’that is the island’s headlining attraction. Developed along Hainan’s southerniphery, the bustling port city is framed by attractive beaches, a lively city center teaming with tourists gaudily attired in matching florescent beach wear, and a harbor congested with fishing vessels, the docks a blur of tangled netting, malodorous hauls of fish and salty dogs preparing for their next seafaring voyage.

Beyond the Sanya peninsula, Yalong Bay is a remarkable 7km stretch of white beach edged by a citadel of luxury hotels glowing in varying shades of pastel, their well-tended guests lounging poolside to the soothing sounds of Kenny G (on repeat), cocktail in hand.

No matter what your tastes - ridiculously overpriced or beach bum 1.5 billion people agree, Hainan Dao is the tropical escape everyone shohuld treat themselves to at least once during their stay in China.

Tom Carter, a freelance writer and photographer from San Francisco, has lived in PR China the past two and a half years. He is currently backpacking through all 32 Chinese provinces.

Transportation

Flights from Beijing to Haikou Airport, four times daily (four hours, 1,800 yuan)

Accommodation

The Treasure Island Hotel chain in Haikou, Xinglong and Sanya are popular with budget travelers desiring resort-style comfort at economy prices (Prices for a double range from 200 yuan in the off-season, up to 1,000 yuan during Spring Festival)

www.treasureisland-hotel.com

Regional cuisine

Seafood on Hainan is plentiful, so prices are some of China’s cheapest. roves of street vendors come out at dusk to grill a bounty of fresh fare, including various species of fish, clam, lobster, crab, squid and kelp. For desert, locals enjoy gnawing on sugarcane stalks or any of the abundant fruit. And, of course, coconut milk is an islander’s beverage of choice, chopped and chilled for only one yuan.

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Tom Carter is the author of ‘CHINA: Portrait of a People’ coming soon from Hong Kong publisher Blacksmith Books.

Purchase CHINA: Portrait of a People online
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Longji Titian , Guangxi, by Tom Carter

It is hard to imagine anywhere in the People’s Republic untouched by civil engineers, the levelers of history. But truly nowhere else in China has life remained perfectly intact - culturally and naturally - as on the Dragon’s Backbone in the rural villages of Longsheng county is southwest China.

While Guangxi Autonomous Region’s one-two punch of geological wonders are provincial sites that should not be missed - Guilin for the red hat-wearing Chinese tour groups and Yangshuo for Western backpackers - Longji Titian is an ideal place for those who cherish rural tranquility and solitude.

Indeed, to get to the Dragon’s Backbone one must ascend dizzying heights (the highest in southern China), and enter a mystical fog that removes everything travelers know about modern China, placing you in a time when people were one with the good earth.

No white tile buildings in sight, the pastoral villages, namely Dazai and Ping’an, are constructed entirely of two and three story wood cabins hugging the vertical mountainside, with spring water coursing through the town’s canals. It is here travelers will find accommodations at the simple family-run inns that make up the two settlements.

While one may consider Dazai and Ping’an, located respectively at the northern and southern ends of the peak, as lodging paradises, they are but mere entrances to the wonders ahead. Most visitors are content with the designated “viewpoints” around the towns’ terraced fields, but for the nimble hiker, continue on into the lush hillside. Follow a narrow path of mud and stone through a misty forest of venerable trees, dewy ferns and, yes, bubbling brooks.

The rice terraces, with sloping grades reaching 50 degrees, have been sculpted by generations of farmers beginning in the Yuan dynasty to shape the hillsides into grand agricultural pyramids not unlike those found in Guatemala or Mexico. The slopes are infinite in scope and, at an altitude of 1,100 meters, seem to have no bottom or peak. It is simply breathtaking.
The hillsides that have been left uncultivated are threaded with trickling water, channeled from nearby springs to saturate the plots below, and are dotted with tombs of generations upon generations of agrarians, like those you’ll see still working on the terraces.

Among them are the dark-skinned Zhaung, Bai and Yao minorities who, not unlike the Mayan Indians of Guatemala, are identifiable by the resplendence of their hand-woven traditional attire. While their men trudge through the muddy terraces sowing rice, the small women roam the paths like little florescent pink armies selling crafts and textiles kept in wicker baskets strapped on their backs. Their pierced earlobes hang with hoops of silver, and their hair, grown long since birth, is kept swathed on their heads. For a small sum though, they will happily undo their knot to show their hair cascading to the soil.

About 10 kilometers between Ping’an and Dazai is Zhongliu, a rustic village of arched stone bridges, dilapidated stables and stilted cottages symmetrically enclosed by terraces, crags and waterfalls. Hikers are approached by cheerful natives who do not hesitate to stop their plowing and ask “Chifan ma?” Their persistence to dine in their homes notwithstanding, what could be more refreshing after an exhausting morning navigating the mountain terrain than a spread of scented sticky rice baked in bamboo over an open fire, greens, salted meat and Longji tea or watery rice wine?

The undulating path continues on, with each bend revealing agricultural grandeurs and vistas of incomparable beauty. Late in the day, when the golden light of dusk illuminates the ribbon-like terraces, travelers encounter Longji’s rush hour traffic; farmers descending into the outlying villages with bushels of reeds and firewood slung over their shoulders, alongside the occasional oxen grazing in the path. That’s life on the misty mountaintop, where time has stood still for the past 700 hundred years.

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Tom Carter is the author of ‘CHINA: Portrait of a People’ coming soon from Hong Kong publisher Blacksmith Books.

Purchase CHINA: Portrait of a People online
View the China portraits video on YouTube
Also check out Tom Carter's super-cool China postcards

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