In the early summer this season suitable for wandering, I set off to visit Hulunbeier again. The grasslands are my friends like old friends, last year's short three-day encounter, the scenery and memories are still fresh, attracting me to come here again - I want to spend more time to walk around and recognize this piece of land.
I did not expect to see a year, today's grassland makes me both surprised and sigh of regret.
Overhead blue sky and white clouds are still the same color, the grassland in front of me is dying: many days of drought in the world's first curved water Moergrad River are obviously thin, the earth is not clothed - dried up grass has been unable to cover the feet of the sandy soil, there is no rain watering, the grass continues to be stagnant. The face of the grassland is yellow and gaunt, I can't bear to see, but I can't do anything about it.
Grass is ultimately weak ah, wait not a year, a continuous drought can make the soul of the disappearance.
The sky seems to be too much for this scene is not bleak enough, I stumbled in the sun sinking on the grass slope, suddenly far from seeing a dark white cotton wool prostrate in the grass. A few steps closer, I recognized it as a lamb. It was lying softly and so innocently beside a clump of peonies. How had it left in such a hurry? Where was its mother? Such a small a living creature, originally should be carefree to spread the time ah, but ignorantly lying in the yellow grassland ......
Trauma so that the two hearts of flesh and blood, scars are a person's true face;
Mutual sadness is considered to be a true understanding of a friend, perhaps, look at the front of these I can't really understand the grassland until I've seen all the pain and wilting in front of me.
Besides the torture of nature, manpower is also adding to it. There are many new scratches on the grassland - new, gravel roads under repair, thin, deep blades slicing through the ground that was still rolling grass last year, bringing up billows of smoke and dust.
Our car ran on these concrete roads, a symbol of modern civilization, and we arrived in Erguna in a cloud of dust.
Erguna is a tiny city of less than 100,000 people in the densely populated south of the Yangtze River, but it is already an important transit city on the vast steppe. The city's main road to four lanes of Hassal Street and Ergunna Street across the two main, the daytime streets of the people on the desolate, to eight o'clock in the evening ten, the setting sun, Hassal Square only lively, leaning on the horse holding a bow Hassal solemn convergence, looking at the foot of the crowd at ease with the square dance.
I walked back from the shoulder-to-shoulder Hazar Square, away from the main road, on both sides of the road are low-rise cottages, it seems that the people here do not live in good conditions.
Dark red brick walls, hobbled wooden fences, rough tin roofs, and crude signboards were silent in the setting sun, most house doors were closed, no one was in front of their houses, and there were few pedestrians on the road, except for three or five tiny stray dogs that wandered around the street corners and watched confusedly as I walked past.
I stopped at the door of a small store across from the wetland park and lifted the purple beaded curtain. The owner's wife had a high nose and thick eyebrows, and her face was reddish-black and covered with coarse lines. She expresses praise for my skin in a cheerful, booming voice, certain I'm from the south: "We can't do it over here, it's so windy, your skin is blown out."
"But your side has beautiful scenery!" I return the compliment courtesy.
"That's true! I just love looking at the flowers in the grasslands, gosh they're beautiful!" She tsked and sighed, then turned her head and lamented, "Girl why did you come at this time! This drought has been going on for a long time, the grass has dried up! I'm not going to be able to do that."
I also accompany the sigh, but what can I do, I can not pick just want to see the grassland fresh beauty. I have enjoyed her beauty, now have to see her hidden pain, counted as a real acquaintance and companionship?
(2) the sea of forests and pines
The next morning, we set off from Erguna, leaving the grassland, heading to the Daxinganling. Before entering the forest area, you also need to go to the city's "Forest Fire Prevention Command" for the "Forest and Prairie Fire Prevention Pass", a car with a license. According to the guide, in the forest area will be checked at the main road crossing.
Not long after we left the city, the plains on both sides of the highway began to rise and fall -- we were getting closer to the Daxingan Mountains.
At around 12 noon, we arrived at the reindeer park of the Ewenki Ooluguya tribe in Genhe city.
What I know of the Ooluguya Ewenki exists in the wall paintings and antiquities of the Ewenki Museum in Hailar, as well as in the writing of Chi Zijian's Mao Dun Literature Prize-winning work, The Right Bank of the Ergun River, which I'm finally going to see in person when I get here today. I guess, Chi Zijian in the "right bank of the Erguna River" for the wind, perhaps also came here.
The reindeer park was built in the pine forest by the roadside, the forest winding wooden trestle led us to a clearing, where the Ewenki people erected a tent made of birch bark "handful of Luozi" (generally about three meters high, the middle of the fireplace is placed in the stove, around the stove to put three beds), and the trunk of the tree made of the warehouse! "rely on the old treasure", a hundred years ago, Ooluguya Ewenki last chief's wife - the protagonist of the "right bank of the Ergunai River", is in the bear after hiding in such a warehouse, and her husband fell in love at first sight ah.
Words and stories always have a kind of magic, so that dead things instantly radiate a fascinating light.
What about the reindeer? They sit or lie as they please, their big round eyes flashing innocently as they make their way through the crowds of shrieking, frolicking tourists. Since the last batch of Ooluguya Ewenki left the forest and were placed under the mountain, there is no one to ride them, and now they are so captive life, they are used to it?
I think of the Wenchuan earthquake was from the mountains to the mountains outside the resettlement of the Qiang people in Wenchuan Xigue village, after leaving the countryside, the habits of life in the mountains and the priests and beliefs together, and slowly abandoned, by the town's "economic benefits", "peer pressure" replaced. The modernization has been replaced by the "economic benefits" and "peer pressure" of the towns. This kind of modernization, I am afraid that not many people benefit from it, but it is not easy to keep the tradition.
At 2:00 pm, we headed to Morduga, entering the embrace of the Daxinganling forests and pines.
The densely packed pine trees stood straight up with open branches and trunks, spewing majestic green into the sky.
White clouds like bas-relief lingering between heaven and earth, sometimes sighing out of the gauze curtain, sometimes blowing out curls of white smoke; sometimes solemn as if blowing a rallying cry, and sometimes idle as if playing a song of clouds and water.
Is there a team of people on the clouds, like us in the Mercedes sightseeing?
If there is, will they envy us for traveling deep in the dense forest, green within reach?
The small town of Morduga in the forest hinterland is our destination today.
Slanting sun, grass and trees, people say that Temujin was once stationed. Morduga is the meaning of the Mongolian horse, legend has it that the name of Temujin in the unification of the Mongolian ministries before a trip to the ancestors, Temujin passed through the Morduga to the birthplace of the Mongolian people on the way to the room Wei, to see the mountains here winding, green forests, can not help but be majestic, yell a "Morduga", determined to unify the Mongolian ministries.
Today, this town of more than 20,000 people is quiet and peaceful, and the main buildings are related to forestry and fire prevention. The road is infrequently traveled by car, and we can't help but run up and down as we wander through the town. The hotel where we rested tonight is at the end of the town, next to the dense forest. A night with the forest *** breathing, ears, eyes, mind and spirit are silent, not realize that the sun is up.
The morning fresh, so go to stroll local guide recommended free attractions Longshan Park. The park is actually a mountain in the Daxingan Mountains, circling up the wooden trestle in the pine forest through, red pine needles like the falling colorful at the foot, cuckoo cuckoo chirping in the forest jumping. We three five less than half an hour to climb to the top of the mountain, look around, the Daxing'anling is covered by a furry green carpet, the blue town of Morduga snuggled up to the rolling green hills.
The forest is also insufficient line, 10:30 we came to the main attraction of Morduga - Morduga National Forest Park, a different angle to continue to see the forest.
The park is recently under repair, free of admission, but we have not had the opportunity to see many of the attractions described in the guide, but the forest train is unimpeded.
The train was built in 2014 specifically for sightseeing, and runs for 80 minutes, with four small stops for sightseeing.
The soil here is only 15-20 centimeters, with a sandy, frozen layer underneath, so only cold- and drought-resistant and barren tree species can grow in this mountain forest.
The railroad tracks are flanked by the Xing'an larch, a characteristic tree of the Daxing'anling Mountains, which grows in the bitterly cold weather with only up to 80 frost-free days in a year. In the fall, they discharge the stored water in the trunk, the pine needles yellow and fall off, and begin to enter a dormant period, growth stagnation. In this way, over the past twenty years, the larch can only be considered young, the trunk is only the thickness of a mineral water bottle. However, larch wood is hard, forest train track sleepers, is made of larch wood.
The first stop on the train is the larch forest. Zhangzi pine grows in 500-800 meters on the mountain slopes, because the trunk contains more fat, more resistant to cold, so do not have to fall leaves, year-round growth. The important difference between Sphagnum and Larch is that the trunks of Sphagnum trees over three meters have a yellowish brown color instead of the dark brown color of Larch. Sphagnum wood is softer and can be used for furniture and train interiors.
The second stop is the Garden Forest, where the slopes are interspersed with a sea of larch and birch trees, locally known as "eight pine and two birches" - eight larch trees next to the two birches will certainly be found. The larch's natural enemy, the pine caterpillar, just afraid of the special odor emitted by the birch, the presence of birch, to avoid the occurrence of pests and diseases of the larch, the two species as mother and child depend on each other.
However, while the birch grows up to 25 meters, the larch can grow up to 35 meters. After growing up, the larch blocked the sunlight of the birch tree, so that the "mother" decayed and died. Without the shelter of the birch tree, the larch will die of insect pests. The mountains have become depressed and lonely again.
But, after the larch fell, the vast world, so that the birch tree grows again. A new cycle of life begins again. Larch maximum life expectancy of about 150 years, birch is 80 years, such a life and death intertwined, every three hundred years will be repeated.
The third stop is the waterfront of Linxi. The quiet Morduga River flows through here and flows from east to west into the Erguna River.
The fourth stop is the forest pasture. Here still retains the real Ewenki people used in the year handful of Luozi, the people gone house empty, the tarpaulin made of birch bark is worn out, the path in front of the door falling pine needles has gradually been softened by the water in the forest.
Leaving the Morduga Forest Park, we continued north along the border, passing several ethnic Russian border villages and towns on the next leg of our journey.
(3) Northern border towns
We passed through Taiping Village at one o'clock in the middle of the day, a small village with only a dozen or so inhabitants. It is said that the inhabitants are former employees and family members of the Taiping Forestry Farm, who, unwilling to follow the forestry department to move to Mordaoga, continue to hold on to the small village in which their grandparents lived.
The wooden bungalow we stopped at is a century-old house built in 1908, and is a typical wooden building of the local Russian descendants who are used to living in the "Mukulan".
The owner of the restaurant, who has a high nose and deep eyes, greets his customers with a simple smile. I scrutinize the old family photos hanging on the wall, and the old man in the photos looks exactly like him, which makes people wonder what else can be inherited with this old house except the magical power of the bloodline.
While we were eating, black clouds came over us and a gale started, and in a few minutes, the roof was crackling - it was raining! I was jumping for joy, the thirsty meadow was saved!
When I got out of the hotel and put up my umbrella, I realized that it was hail. It hit the car glass like grains of stone, bouncing one after the other.
We continue to run along the Sino-Russian Border River in a shower of hail, and only had time to scribble a look at the roadside attraction "eagle's beak", and arrived at three o'clock at today's resting place in Linjiangtun.
Linjiang Tun, like Taiping Village, is a small village under the jurisdiction of Erguna City and inhabited by Russians. This small village is named after the Erguna River.
Hundreds of years ago, the Treaty of Nerchinsk agreed that the border between the two countries would be bounded by the Erguna River, which is a river of flowing water, surrounded by green shrubs and mountains on both sides, and the landscape is not different because of the artificial division of the river. Barbed wire and fences do little more than keep out us clumsy humans.
We stood on the right bank of the Erguna River and waited to see the sun set, and as we watched the sun set closer and closer to the mountains, it suddenly shone brightly, and the fallen birch trunks looked like gilded gold, and the evening sun on the surface of the river was fluttering, and the color of the sky was brightly reflecting the sun. The people on the riverbank were enveloped in such beauty, gazing and holding their breath for what felt like only two or three minutes, when suddenly the light disappeared -- the setting sun was out of sight.
(D) Grassland at Night
At 9am the next morning we set off for the town of Heishantou, with the Daxingan Mountains receding rapidly behind us and the grassland gradually coming up to meet us.
The clouds are the peonies in the sky, the petals condensed white and pure.
Thousands of clouds are majestic and solemn in array as they wait for the call of the dragon when passing through the birthplace of the Mongolian race, Mangyu Murovai. Although it is only a small village of less than 2,000 people, the name Muriwai implies an immovable heroism.
The people of Muwei, who have been nomads here since the Sui and Tang dynasties, could not have imagined that their descendants, the Mongols, would dominate the Eurasian continent. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Russians moved across the Ergun River, making this the only Russian township in the country.
At one o'clock in the afternoon, we arrived at Montenegro, our destination for the day. The mountain that gave Montenegro its name stands out among the green hills, and one cannot help but wonder why the mountain's head is black. The locals can't explain it, so it seems to be a case of what you see is what you get.
In 1689, after the signing of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk, the Qing government set up kalen (outposts) along the Erguna River, of which three kalen, four kalen, five kalen and six kalen are all in the territory of Hexiantou. We grabbed a shot of one of the posts from our speeding car (no parking by rule), the red roof standing out against the blue sky and green fields.
Sunsets at Heiltou are a major attraction on the northern travel itinerary. We climbed the "Sunset Mountain", which is dedicated to watching the sunset, and looked down at the distant land below the mountain, and the bushes, crowded along the river bank, just like the Erguna wetland scenery. The sunset here is not as good as the sunset on the Erguna River in Linjiang Tun, full of tenderness and splendor.
With the crowd of sunset watchers, we sent the sun away with determination, sitting in the car down the mountain, suddenly realized that the sun left us a surprise! From the sunset hill drifted out a ray of golden ochre-colored haze, woven into a light warm tent, close to the mountain, close to the clouds, close to the ground, longer and longer weaving, and keep drifting to our way. It was then that I realized the unsaid fondness and tenderness of the setting sun at Black Mountain Head.
To nine o'clock in the evening, the evening sun gradually faded, the sky slowly turned blue, dark blue, black ...... night shrouded down, the wilderness in the arms, like to the earth covered with a thick quilt, yurt accommodation and three or two folk houses in the light, like hiding in the nest peeping at the story of the children, in addition to that we I can't see anything else.
This is the real night.
I don't know when the night was hollowed out -
The stars were like grains of diamonds, flickering thinly.
Like the eyes of an innocent child, innocent. The ones that are particularly bright must be lively and cheerful sportsmen, and the ones that are silent for a long time should be calm and early geniuses.
Like the fairy tale of the forest in the elves, that one jumping flashing, should be lively hare it, or it is the ambition of the newly crowned lion king, that one carefully delicate and timid it, must be timid and sensitive roe deer.
Looking at them, let the heart become pure and peaceful in an instant.
These stars are so close, so close that they will fall into my arms.
These stars are so close, so close that they will fall into my arms soon.
But local friends tell me that the deeper the night, the more fascinating the starry sky. The stars at 1:00 a.m. will only bloom for the night owls who have been waiting patiently to see what happens.
The night is deep, the yurt's felt cloths are in a row, and the wind sends mooing and snorting from far and near, weaving lullabies for the children of the steppe.
(E) sandy winds
At 8:30 a.m., we set off from Montenegro, closer and closer to the end of the journey to Manchuria.
The highway was like a winding, undulating dragon carrying us into the sky, and the wilderness on either side of us retreated in vain. Their faces were withered and shriveled, and it seemed that the torrential rains of yesterday in Taiping village had not saturated the land.
"Watch out, we're going to see the desert later!" Our guide warned us.
I was about to ask how there could be a desert in the grasslands, when suddenly the sky was covered in a rush of smoke and dust, and streams of sand swept across the ground like spirit snakes. Gray dust curtains danced even in the sky, a few low houses in the wind and sand against the wind and sand, this place seems to be abandoned in the Gobi ancient city.
It is said that this area is a sandy land just formed in the last two decades. In the face of this scene, we were all silent as we were just now scrambling to take photos.
Fortunately, one kilometer away from each other, we saw the grassland again, that piece of sand but in the memory of extraordinarily deep, it turned out that they are one of the three major sandy belt of the left flag of New Balkhoo, their existence, is just an example of Hulunbeier land sandy, in 2004 on the sandy area of more than a million hectares has made Hulunbeier rose to the fourth largest sandy land in China.
The growth of human and animal populations, and the arid and windy highland climate, are all part of the reason for the sanding of the grasslands. There are also those who cut the grassland into a piece of fixed pasture barbed wire, also not help this. The true nomadic, rotational pastoralism has been brought to a close by this system of dividing the pastures into households. The grassland is not rested, the poor quality grassland is degraded into sand, and the high quality grassland is also in danger.
And how easy is it to achieve the "grass-animal balance" that the government preaches? The lack of long-term planning and organization of the traditional herdsmen's lives, the "man-made disasters" can never be truly solved.
With millions of square kilometers of grassland, if we can't gather as much civil power as possible, we can't save the day with the limited attention of the government.
These sands have been raging for two decades, will they expand? Will they shrink? The herdsmen are hoping for a good rain, even if it's artificial rain, or a well to dig for thirst. Who says this has nothing to do with us outsiders? If the wind blowing grass low see cattle and sheep of the heavenly beauty no longer exists, our soul can still where to roam?
(F) lake glimpses
Deep in the prairie, is China's fifth largest freshwater lake, the Northeast's first big lake - Hulun Lake. In Mongolian, she is called Dalai Nuor, and in Mongolian legend, she and Lake Belle are a pair of infatuated children, the origin of the name Hulunbeier.
The rectangular Hulun Lake has a circumference of nearly 500 kilometers and a maximum area of more than two thousand square kilometers. Outer Mongolia's Kulun River brings running water melting in Hulun Lake, along with the lake, flowing into the Ergun River. We stopped to watch the place should be the west bank of the lake, withered grass on the barren slopes, sandy eyes, fortunately, Hulun Lake is still sparkling, stars. The lake is a deep blue, in the gale also breathe smoothly, undulating gentle, just like a goddess full of motherhood.
Less than an hour's drive from Hulun Lake is China's largest land port city of Manzhouli.
Manzhouli, whose name comes from a Russian term used in the late Qing Dynasty, is already the busiest city on the Northeast border, with a population of only 300,000 people at the sub-office level. Due to its close proximity to Russia, the city has a strong Russian flavor. Olive green steel towers, red and white castles, lake blue triangular spires, rainbow-colored egg cone ice cream like round roofs ... in the Northeast Asian plateau within reach of the blue sky and white clouds, these high-low buildings seem to grow between the clouds.
Dark blue night chased the setting sun down toward the city, the majestic Russian clock tower on the square was brilliant, and the skyscrapers, streets and bridges were as clear as goose-yellow crystal.
Manzhouli is a world of children's fun.
(VII) food and drink
Prairie towns and cities are often seen in the local people called "Mongolian food", that is, Mongolian food and drink.
Among them, the famous pot of tea is the grassland herders like water to drink the daily drink. Milk, brick tea mixed with water to simmer, and then poured into a small amount of millet, beef jerky, milk skin in the copper pot heated to boiling, you can drink. The fire under the pot continues to simmer, and the milk tea in the pot gets thicker and thicker. With a solid wooden bowl, no need to add sugar, light milk flavor, tea flavor with grain flavor and a little meat savory, not greasy. A table of dishes around this pot of milk tea, we eat a large piece of meat, drink a large mouthful of tea, luxury suddenly born.
The nomadic grassland produces the most meat and milk, and the table is full of fancy beef and mutton. When ordering, we are directly facing a whole table of raw and cooked meat of various colors to select raw materials, weighed on the spot into the kitchen.
Lamb is the main character. The grassland lamb is not stinky, and can withstand the test of boiling. The restaurant owner said, eat while hot is best, do not put cold, cold, the stink gradually, and the meat becomes dry and hard, not fresh and tender.
The freshness of the beef is no less delicious. It's chewy, but not too chewy, and it's got a nice flavor.
Milk products are particularly dazzling, with herders utilizing milk to its fullest potential.
Milk tea in the milk skin is boiled milk when floating to the surface of the "milk coat" made of sun-dried, like baked bran or large hole cheese taste; dried milk is milk to remove the milk skin after continuing to boil dry, sun-dried cut into various shapes, the original flavor of the unsweetened dried milk than the specialty store sold packaged "milk shells "The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on some of the most popular products in the world, and you'll be able to do that.
My favorite is the milk tofu, which is rarely eaten even by locals and is only found in the most authentic Mongolian restaurants. Milk tofu looks like tofu, but the production process is more complex, slightly sour flavor, like mung bean cake, dense and soft texture, a bite, full of milk, thick but not greasy, fragrant aftertaste, eating intoxicated.
After a taste from Hailar, I've been hanging on to the guide to help me along the way to find, even the general herdsmen home are not often there. Later, I learned that in the 301 National Highway 216 kilometers of pasture herdsman Bartel home with homemade milk tofu, we ran to follow the path.
The Batlle has a local common black strong physique, triangular eagle eyes are rare in the Mainland greenish gray - suggesting that his Mongolian blood.
Batlle first scooped up two bowls of milk tea and gulped it down, greeted his daughter-in-law and opened a large feed bag, brown, curved thin strips exposed - it is dried milk, not milk tofu. I feel lost in my heart, but I can't help but be proud of my own taste - even the native Mongolian herdsmen don't often eat dairy products, I'm a southern stomach can taste its wonderful.
Later, I finally had milk tofu. For our last lunch before saying goodbye to the grasslands, we sat down at the Nomintala milk tea store in Manzhouli, which means "green grassland" in Mongolian.
Fellow traveler Isa raved about the milk tea, and the experience and energy she has had flying solo around the world from Taiwan for years now, well past her prime. We met by chance in the morning light in Linjiangtun and talked all the way.
I was fortunate to hear so many of her travels and stories, thanks to the generosity of my full-time playmate, Xiaoman, who graciously accepted Isa as our ride. We hitchhiked from Hailar, and he was sharp and deep, sharing photos of views with great angles and light without moving a muscle.
A parting meal made me sad, and even the guide Xiaoquer, who is the best at making fun of people, kept his head down and didn't say a word. I met the children of the grassland, some passionate and straightforward, some calm and few words, but all have a rare **** sex - all-out kindness, do everything in their power to think what people think.
You and I met on the green sea,
You have your, I have my direction,
You remember or not, it is best that you forget,
in this rendezvous mutual light.
Farewell, my Hulunbeier.
I would like to dedicate this article to my Hulunbeier;
Heartfelt thanks to the Hulunbeier Wing Travel Agency for the arrangements and help, interested in the ant bee nest on the search for their home page;
First visit to Hulunbeier travel journal "I come from the grassland" (including travel tips).