Travel Notes | Integrating into the grassland

blend into the grass

The smoke from the white tent rises/ I was born in a shepherd’s house/ The vast grassland/ Is the cradle that nurtured me to grow/ The land that raised me/ Cherish my body as much as I do/ The river water that bathes me/ As my mother’s milk Sweet/This is Mongolian/People who love their hometown

——Tenger's "The Mongols"

The wind in the grassland has been teasing me from spring to summer. Liu said, if I don't go to Inner Mongolia, he won't wait any longer. Sixth is the Chifeng City Manager of a famous milk company. I know what he means. He is about to be promoted to the headquarters. So, I called Brother Five: Let’s get on our way as soon as possible!

1/ Although the N162 bus from Shenyang to Chifeng is marked as express, it still takes more than ten hours to arrive. In other words, we get on the bus at 7pm and have to wait until 5pm the next day. It takes more than a few seconds to arrive at the station. In the era of maglev light rails with a prefix D, it was really fast. The fifth brother said, let's make do with it, we'll be there after a short sleep. Maybe Liu will arrange a wealth tour for us this time.

Sure enough, Liu sent a text message asking us to have a good rest on the road, and he took care of everything when we got there.

This is my third trip to Chifeng. The first time was from here to Linxi in July 1989, and the second time was to Bashang in September 2005. It should be said that neither time left a deep impression on me. For example, it was unclear whether Chifeng Railway Station looked like it did back then. The taxi driver told us that a yurt-style building will be added to the station square in the coming year. When outsiders come again, they will feel the grassland style when they get off the train.

I laughed and thought: How many yurts can we build to become a grassland? The grassland in my dream is one where the wind blows the grass, and cattle and sheep appear!

At 6 o'clock, after having breakfast on the street, Liu took us to meet his Mongolian brother Bai Ge, and of course Bai Ge's horse Honda. Brother Bai said: Where do you want to go? I said it can go anywhere except Linxi and Bashang. Brother Bai said: OK, get in the car!

2/ The car drove along Highway 205 to Keshiketeng Banner in the northwest direction. This is a highway under construction until The border of Linxi County is connected with National Highway 303. Brother Bai's horse is flying fast, and outside the window is the slowly flowing Xilamulun River. I don't know if I walked here during my trip to Linxi more than ten years ago.

At 12 noon, we arrived at Qingshan Global Geopark. There were not many people. After buying tickets, Brother Bai took us to the Mongolian restaurant at the foot of the mountain to eat native chicken, fresh mushrooms, mutton and a kind of dumplings called hamihaishan vegetable filling. . Because Brother Wu and I have to climb a mountain in the afternoon, we can only taste the aromatic highland barley wine briefly.

Qingshan Mountain is 1,574 meters above sea level and covers a total area of ​​9,200 hectares. It is the main peak on the southeast edge of the Greater Khingan Mountains. Hundreds of glaciers are scattered on the gently undulating granite rock surfaces on both sides of the south side of the peak, such as cups, buckets, basins, plates, pots and bowls. The larger ones are more than ten steps in diameter, and the small ones are no bigger than a finger, or They only have the same button, but both have small mouths and big bellies, and the surrounding walls are smooth. Some mortars have nothing left in them, and are open to the bottom; some have only accumulated water, reflecting the blue sky; some are more than half dusty, with flowers and birches growing on them, like a natural bonsai, or like a wreath on a mountain.

The local proverb goes: Nine tanks and eighteen pots, not on the front slope but on the back slope. That's it. The tour guide told us that this is the result of the Quaternary glacial movement. As early as millions of years ago in the Quaternary Ice Age, the green mountains were covered with thick ice. Where the ice and the stone met, the vortex of water carried the stone and rotated and polished it on the stone, forming this large and small stone. A smooth and moist stone mortar, also called an ice mortar.

The fifth boy said that he was more willing to believe that these were the footprints left by dinosaurs. Hundreds of millions of years ago, this place was still a desert, where many dinosaurs had sex. Suddenly, strong winds came, ice and snow came together, the sky collapsed and the earth shattered, and all life was wiped out. After the disaster, due to sudden changes in temperature, these dinosaur footprints became mortars of different sizes. Of course, this is his imagination, or a joke.

Coming down from Shijiu Peak, I saw Brother Liuhe and Bai chatting with a local. The man said, this is a geomantic treasure land. If you don’t believe it, doesn’t the mountain in front of you look like a Buddha statue? Maybe my eyesight is poor and I can't see much of the lifelike appearance, but I know that this is a beautiful wish shared by human beings, simple and sincere.

3/ Say goodbye to Qingshan and drive to Jingpeng Town, which is the tourist center of Heshiketeng Banner. Brother Bai said he would stay here tonight and go to Dali Lake tomorrow.

I drank too much this night. On this day, the fifth brother and I climbed mountains and ridges, from the northern route to the southern route, without stopping for even a step. It was supposed to be a full day of fun, but we only spent 4 hours on it. We were exhausted when we returned to the hotel. Looking at a table of fresh mutton and mutton intestines, milk tea and fried rice, I didn’t have any appetite. Bai Ge’s local friends were even more hospitable. rule. Finally, after finishing several large bowls of white wine, I rushed out the door.

——Of course I vomited. But when he vomited, the other party gave him a thumbs up.

4／ When I woke up in the morning and looked at the tourist information stored in the hotel, I realized that Dali Lake is located in the westernmost part of Keshiketeng Banner, adjacent to Xilingol League. It is the third largest swan lake in my country and the national It is a national nature reserve and one of the important wetlands in Asia, with a total area of ​​258 square kilometers and an average water depth of 10 meters. It is composed of basin plateau, lake plain, grassland vegetation, low wetland vegetation and sandy sparse forest grassland vegetation. There are currently 152 species of birds in 16 orders, 33 families, and 21 species under Class II protection. There are more than 20 species of amphibians. 18 species of rodents. 21 species of fish.

Numbers are boring. When we walked toward her step by step facing the rising sun, we felt the urge to get closer to the sea. Her broadness, blur, and charm made me unable to believe that this was the grassland of Inner Mongolia. Although there are still some viewing platforms built on her shore, there are still mineral water bottles and film boxes left by tourists. Like many scenic spots in China, although it is not the best season, tens of thousands of white swans can’t be seen gathering here from afar. , rising like snow on a sunny day and falling like plain brocade on the ground, as well as groups of red-crowned cranes, jade sea eagles, swan geese and other rare birds playing with the water and dancing with the waves, but I still picked up the camera and pointed it they. I long to catch a feather!

There are several wooden signs erected on the shore of Dali Lake, which read: 1.8 kilograms of gypsum, Leymus chinensis, Elymus elegans, Lai grass, grass and tree habitat, and alkaline grass. I don’t know what it means, but it’s probably a vegetation cultivation base. Liu said, never mind it! The fish of Dali Lake are famous both at home and abroad. Some people say that they can’t taste the fish from all over the world after eating the fish from Dali Lake. Come on, let's go eat fish. So, we came to Dalinori Town and had a delicious fish feast to wash away the alcohol from last night.

5／At 1 pm, we drove through Shuishui Town and Huangganliang, and headed straight to the Ashatu Stone Forest. Ashatu is Mongolian, meaning steep mountain peak. It is 380 kilometers away from the urban area of ​​Chifeng. It is a relic of the Quaternary glaciers. It has been rated as a World Geopark together with Qingshan Shijiu. Brother Bai said that the stone forest here has similarities with the Lunan Stone Forest in Yunnan, the Yuanmou Earth Forest, the Yadan landform in Xinjiang, and the ice forest on modern glaciers, but it has its own unique style. Most of the exterior scenes of the movie "The Promise" were taken from here.

The temptation is not small! But it is not easy to catch a glimpse of her: she seemed to be in the distant horizon, and it took us more than 3 hours to walk.

July is the season when the grass is abundant and the water is beautiful. We seemed to be walking through a green corridor, submerged in large expanses of alfalfa. The white daisies swaying in the wind and the faint blue line on the horizon are tempting. Those groups of red bulls, black horses and white sheep scattered leisurely in the wilderness, floating in the green, giving people various associations with freedom.

Green is the background color of the summer grassland, and it is also the heart of the herdsmen, peaceful and magnanimous. Although I rarely see the yurt as white as snow and the smoke rising from the top - more of the red tile brick walls, the winding barbed wire fences that separate the areas, and it is rare to see the heroic riders riding their horses from The mountains were rushing down, but I was still deeply moved by this vast grassland.

6/Wonder and beauty appear instantaneously. When I jumped out of the car and strolled leisurely on Beida Mountain, which is more than 1,700 meters above sea level, my camera was only aimed at the blooming flowers on the high ridge, and kept clicking until the fifth brother shouted: Don’t take pictures of those There are flowers and grass, look at this mountain!

Run over. I raised my camera, but couldn't press the shutter button.

——Is this a mountain? This is not a mountain, this is clearly a castle, a castle built by ancient ancestors! The boulders protruding from the flat ground are either shoulder to shoulder or connected end to end. The city walls, gates, pillars, watchtowers and cannon holes are all there. The sphinxes look like cows, horses, pigs and sheep, all lifelike. The square tower has a towering spire, reaching into the sky; the pages of the book are thick and uneven; the lonely figures scattered everywhere are like silent guards, looking at the green mountains and green fields in the distance. There are endless golden hairpins, mountain dandelions, peonies, malans, and flowers that I can’t name. They are golden, red, and purple, and they are so beautiful. There are also continuous white birch trees that rustle in the breeze. The sound is like sympathy words.

Writer Zhang Kangkang said: Ashatu is a history book of giants. So, what did I read in it? The history books are full of romance without writing a single word. I read the tolerance of the sky and the infinity of time. However, I heard the solemn turning of the wind, and the tragic chanting of the gravel. At that moment, I knew that I still couldn't understand it, and I still couldn't understand it.

In fact, there are no giants and no kingdom of giants, only these stones left by the movement of the earth's crust. Looking at these stones, the fifth brother and I were speechless for a moment. We found the one that was similar to our own zodiac signs, kept it in our hearts, and then left.

7／It was already sunset when we walked back from Ashatu Stone Forest. Liu suggested not going to a hotel, but finding a yurt to stay on the grassland so that you could watch the stars at night. Everyone agrees. So we came to a place called Baiyin Aobao, which is said to be a nature reserve. The natural sandy spruce forest here covers an area of ​​36,000 acres. It stands like a green barrier on a 20-kilometer-long strip of sand from Baiyin Aobao to the west of Huanggangliang. It is the only original sandy land found in the world. Spruce is also the spruce mother tree breeding base in my country.

Local friends told us: Baiyin Aobao Mountain rising from the spruce forest is a holy place in the hearts of the Mongolian people. Every year on the 13th day of the fifth lunar month, herdsmen from hundreds of kilometers around come here to hold traditional sacrificial ceremonies. At that time, Banner Zasak would put on his national costumes, personally lead the villagers to the sea to Rihan, kneel down and worship in front of Aobao, and hold a whole-sheep banquet.

Obviously we arrived too late to appreciate the grand occasion. And because I had a few too many glasses of wine, I hurriedly got into the yurt and fell asleep before the stars in the sky on the grassland in Liu said.

8／The next morning, we went to Hot Water from Baiyin Aobao, washed in the hot spring, and went straight to Wengniute Banner on Highway 204, which meant that we had begun to bid farewell to Heshiketeng Banner. Advance to Chifeng. A three-day trip to the grassland, covering more than a thousand kilometers, with no cars and hotels, eating hand-chopped mutton and drinking highland barley wine. In the words of the fifth brother, this is indeed a trip of wealth or luxury. However, Brother Bai was still not satisfied, so he took us into another scenic spot: Yulongsha Lake.

Yulongsha Lake is the sixth most popular attraction in Chifeng Grassland. More than 5,000 years ago, the Hongshan Culture originated here. The large jade dragon we saw in textbooks, known as the first dragon in China, was unearthed here. There is not only a lake in the sand, an island in the lake, and grass on the island, the blue sky and clear water complement each other, and the sand and sea oases face each other harmoniously. What is even more amazing are the various strange rocks in the desert, the lifelike Yin stones, and Yang stones. The stone attracts countless tourists to climb, jump, touch and enjoy.

Zhang Chengzhi said: In addition to using maps, traveling relies on people’s enthusiasm and ability. It's true. On this trip, if it weren’t for Liu’s hospitality and Brother Bai’s help, how could those rock mortars, lakes, spruce trees, stone forests and this soft sand hidden deep in the vast grassland come rushing towards us, allowing us to wander and linger? ! When we suddenly fell into this silvery world from the green mountains and plains, I couldn't help but throw off my shoes and rush away barefoot. The fifth brother even lay on the sand and refused to get up.

However, the setting sun finally receded, and the vast white desert gradually merged into the night. The car drove out of Yulongsha Lake. Brother Bai turned on the player and hummed "Night on the Prairie" along with the beautiful melody——

The beautiful night is so quiet

Only the sound of my piano is left on the grassland

I want to write a letter to a girl far away

It's a pity that there is no postman to convey my love

…

We stayed in Wengniute Banner Town that night. Of course, we ended our trip to the grassland after drinking Shaolang wine from three Mongolian girls and eating their newly slaughtered fat sheep.