Saturday August 30th - Sunday August 31st 2014
This is a peaceful and authentic retreat compared to Huitengxile or Xilamuren resort tour. CCC has a special connection with one local Mongol horseman. So you can spend a weekend with a real Mongol family, without any other tourists nor entertainment facilities. You will stay in their spare yurts, which are clean but they do have some lingering smell of mutton and oil.
You can watch and even participate in their farm and housework such as milking a cow. You will share the meal with the family. You can ride their horses to roam on the grassland, no other tourists there, it is very peaceful.
Don't expect entertainment there like other popular grassland resorts, such as ATV driving, horse-racing, wrestling, fireworks, hiking in the Yellow Blossom Valley. It is a 3-day retreat of quiet relaxation, reading or sleeping on the grassland.
Xilinguole provides similar landscapes and grass (even a bit more lush and green) to Huitengxile, without any of the distractions such as other tourists to disturb you. There is no direct train from Beijing so you can only fly to Xilinhot and then drive to the place.
Xilinguole National Nature Reserve lies in the boundaries of Xilinguole City, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Covering a total area of 10,786 square kilometers, Xilinguole National Nature Reserve was established in 1985, the first grassland nature reserve in China, and joined the International Man and Biosphere Reserve Network in 1987. As a matter of fact, with its typicality, Xilinguole Grassland attracted great attention from botanists at home and abroad as early as 1930s.
Suggested itinerary:
Day 1 Fly into Xilinhot / Grassland
Beijing Capital Airport - Xilinhot Airport: 07:55 - 09:10
No direct flight from Shanghai. So Shanghai travellers have to travel to Beijing and then to Xilinhot.
Drive to view awesome scenery of the grasslands, and settle down in yurts of a local herdsman family.
Have Mongolian lunch - milk tea, horse milk alchohol, finger lambs, and wild vegetables.
Enjoy peace and serene grassland, learn daily life and activities of the hurdlers. Ride horses, visit the rock piles or search odd stones in the gully.
Appreciate sunset and then count stars.
Day 2 Grasslands / Xilinhot / Fly out
In the morning, follow the herdsmen to milk a cow and shear a sheep （only available in June).
Learn to herd horses.
Visit pastures nearby and see how people farm the horses for military uses.
Return to Xilinhot in the evening. Fly out
Xilinhot - Nanyuan Airport, south of Downtown Beijing (23:05-23:55)
Note: if the night flight were cancelled due to bad weather, then we have to stay overnight (in a 5-star hotel) in Xinlinhot and fly out in the morning
Xilinhot - Beijing Capital Airport 10:10 - 11:10.
For prices, to customize this tour and to book click here.
