Jingxiang Travel Notes 014 | "Travel to the Northeast" Chapter 14: Solitary travelers enjoy the desert scenery, and people in the city like the prairie

Jingxiang's Travel Notes Chapter 14 丨 "Travel to the Northeast" Chapter 14

Solo travelers enjoy the desert scenery, while people in the city love the prairie.

It is only 186 kilometers from Hailar to Manzhouli. It is also a train starting with "K", but the running time is only 1 hour and 58 minutes, which is about the same as taking a bus. However, buses are more flexible and run every half hour. However, I still chose the train and even bought the return train ticket – returning to Hailar at 15:53. In other words, I have set myself a stay of 6 hours in Manzhouli.

There are three main scenic spots in Manzhouli: Guomen, Matryoshka Square and Dalai Lake.

2013 June 3 At 10 am, I walked out of Manzhouli Railway Station. The temperature was close to 20 degrees. There were only a few white clouds in the blue sky. The sun was shining brightly. The clean sky allowed the strong sunlight to hit the ground without any shielding. I quickly took out the sun hat from my bag. I didn't have to drag the suitcase today. The room in Hailar was still rented.

"Want a car?" A young taxi driver walked towards me.

"How much does it cost to visit Guomen and Matryoshka Square?" I don't know where these two places are, but they are definitely not far from the city.

" Round trip, 100 yuan." This guy treated me like a fish out of water.

" Rent your car for 5 hours for 200 yuan!" I knew he would definitely accept this price.

Sure enough, the driver smiled happily and said, "Okay, I'll deliver the car at four o'clock, just in time." In fact, he was just satisfied with the business.

Now I have the car at my disposal, but I have to ask him how to go: "First find a fast food restaurant for me to fill my stomach, and then you can arrange the route to the three scenic spots: Guomen, Matryoshka Square, and Dalai Lake. At 3 o'clock Just come back."

I filled my stomach casually and set off. The first stop was Guomen. The scenic spot was only 9 kilometers away from the city, and it was only 18 kilometers away from the Matryoshka Square. He actually asked for 100 yuan! This is the first driver who ripped off customers I encountered in the Northeast.

However, the driver was very conscientious and kept introducing the buildings along the way: this is Yiwu Trade City, this is a residential area, this is a university in Manzhouli, this is a gymnasium, this is a highway port, etc. Come to think of it, hiring a tour guide costs a hundred yuan, which seems like a good deal.

The architectural style here is full of Russian flavor, and the garlic-shaped roofs are reminiscent of the tower-shaped buildings of the Moscow Kremlin. I don't know the origin of this architectural style, but at least it's a good way to get rid of the snow.

This is where China and Russia border, and the local architectural style is inevitably influenced by that side. If he hadn't said it, I really wouldn't have known that the Russian-style building was a residential complex.

In the National Gate Scenic Area, in addition to seeing the fifth-generation National Gate, you can also visit attractions related to Sino-Russian relations, such as the early secret border passage of the Communist Party of China to the Soviet Union, the special steam engine locomotive that Mao Zedong used to visit the Soviet Union, and the locomotive used in the Korean battlefield The past "Mig" 15 fighter jets, etc. These modern histories are too familiar, so it is just a "tour here".

I passed by the Russian Matryoshka Square just now, and now I turned back to take a closer look. This matryoshka doll square, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, is the only tourist, leisure and entertainment plaza in the country with the theme of the traditional Russian handicraft - matryoshka dolls. The exterior of the matryoshka dolls is painted with beautiful girls representing China, Russia and Mongolia. It embodies the regional characteristics of the border between China, Russia and Mongolia in Manzhouli and the blending of the customs of the three countries.

However, building such a square has neither architectural difficulty nor cultural characteristics, but it is included in the Guinness World Records because it resembles a matryoshka doll. I'm thinking about when we will set a world record for the most flies in a toilet or a world record for the most smelly feet. I think the Guinness judges will seriously include it, because Guinness Records originally started from discussing the world. It started with the boring topic of which bird flies the fastest.

Since none of these are to my liking, I can only hope to visit the Dalai Lake Scenic Area, because it is also called Hulun Lake.

The car was driving on the highway in Hulunbuir Grassland, with palm-high grass growing on both sides. Now is the beginning of June of the New Calendar, which is not the most beautiful time for the grassland, because the grass has not grown high enough yet. In another month, you will be able to experience what it means to see the cows and sheep when the wind blows through the grass.

From time to time, I saw cattle and sheep grazing on the grassland under the blue sky and white clouds. This made me ecstatic when I came to the grassland for the first time. I wanted the driver to stop the car several times and go for a walk, but I thought that this was my return after visiting Dalai Lake. It was the only way to go, so he suppressed his impulse and asked the driver to go straight to Dalai Lake.

The so-called travel is just going from a place where you are tired of staying to a place where others are tired of staying for a while. Herdsmen living on the grassland love this land. This land that only grows grass but not trees is the resource on which they depend for their survival. However, they are also troubled by the inconvenience of transportation, just like we hate the traffic jams and exhaust gas in the city, both because we have to face them every day. Perhaps the herdsmen would be as ecstatic to see crowded cities with tall buildings as I was to see the savannah.

Finally we arrived at Dalai Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the north. In the eyes of Northeastern people, it is the same as Erhai Lake in the eyes of Yunnan people. Yunnan does not border the ocean. When you see a lake with a water storage capacity of only 2.8 billion cubic meters, you call it the sea. Can the herdsmen on the grassland not be surprised to see Dalai Lake with a water storage capacity of 13.85 billion cubic meters? What is even more rare is such a large lake formed on the vast grassland.

Dalai Lake has the same water storage capacity as Wanlv Lake (Xinfengjiang Reservoir in Heyuan, Guangdong) with 13.9 billion cubic meters, but it is not as beautiful as Wanlv Lake dotted with islands. Compared with Poyang Lake with 27.6 billion cubic meters, Dalai Lake has even less water. Not only have I seen these three lakes, but more importantly, my hometown is right on the edge of the South China Sea. This time, I went from a place where I was tired of staying to a place that was not as boring as I was tired of staying. Perhaps other tourists will experience the pleasure that I cannot express from visiting other attractions. Otherwise, how could there be a constant stream of tourists? Or maybe this is why I like traveling alone.

The fierce sunshine made me feel the heat of the sun. The outdoor temperature was estimated to be 28 degrees, so I simply went to the lakeside resort to take a rest.

When I entered, I was surprised, not by the decoration and furnishings inside, but by the feeling. No matter how strong the sun is outside, you will only feel cool when sitting inside. This coolness is completely different from the coolness in Guangdong summer. It is more comfortable than air conditioning. The coolness of Guangdong always has a sticky feeling. The dry climate in the Northeast will not let your sweat stay on the skin, but will dissipate with the cool breeze, so there will be no sticky feeling. I remember that summer in Xi'an, the temperature was 38 degrees, but we walked on the street without a trace of sweat. The dryness in Xi'an is not the same as the dryness in the Northeast. The wind is not cool, which makes me feel like my sweat glands are blocked, which is very uncomfortable.

It's time to go back. Along the way, there are still grasslands that cannot be seen in hilly areas and blue skies and white clouds that residents in big cities dream of but are difficult to see.

I have seen clouds with strange shapes, horses, fish scales, and mountain peaks. These are too common. Unless the sky above the city you live in is always gray, and unless the local newspaper reports the sight of blue sky and white clouds as news, you will always You can see Xianyun doing tricks.

However, what I saw at this moment was so incredible - the white clouds formed a long and thin straight line in the blue sky, as if a straight line drawn by an artist with a ruler running through the left and right sides of the scroll. It’s hard to imagine how long it is, dozens of kilometers or hundreds of kilometers?

It's so beautiful, it's much more beautiful than fireworks. Because it is a masterpiece of nature without pollution.

Since I was not interested in the previous attractions, I had plenty of time. So I asked the driver to stop and go, getting out of the car from time to time to take pictures.

"Can I drive in along the path?" I really wanted to walk into the grassland.

"This road is not accessible. It is private property." The driver said, "Look, the entrance is not on the side of the road."

"Then choose a highway." It seems that I will not give up until I reach the Yellow River.

The driver found a main road and turned in. We don't know where this road leads, but one thing is certain, that is, it extends deep into the grassland.

The two car marks are very obvious. This is the road on the grassland. It is a road formed by the repeated rolling of cars on the tender green grass. There are no fences on city roads, nor are they as flat as highways, nor are they like rural dirt roads lined with sun-blocking trees. It's the car mark on the grass!

"There was no road in the world, but more people walked, so there was a road." Of course, this is thinking in the original state, but now? Bulldozers can easily carve a path where no one has gone before.

In this wilderness unpolluted by modern civilization, the weeds that are crushed by the occasional passing vehicles survive tenaciously.

I got out of the car and stepped onto this vast green field. Here, you don't have to worry about the sign "The grass is alive, please be gentle under your feet" because there is only grass here, and you will definitely step on the grass when you step on the land.

I sat on the grass and felt the fragrance of green grass and earth from the carpet of vegetation. And in this sea of ​​green, I saw the boundary surrounded by wooden piles and wires.

Just like farmers' private land, herders also have their own private land. They build fences on their own land, which is equivalent to building a natural pasture that belongs only to them. Their sheep can graze freely in the fence, greatly The land reduces labor costs for grazing. Therefore, I only saw cattle and sheep grazing but no herders.

When I tried to get close to the sheep, they could recognize at a glance that I was not their owner and stayed away in fear.

We haven’t had enough fun on the grassland, but we couldn’t stand the strong sunshine, so we finally returned to Manzhouli Railway Station one hour earlier than scheduled.

To predict what will happen next, please read Chapter 15: Discussing the prejudice of Mongolian and Han drivers and seeing that the two ethnic groups share the same ancestral home.