Carrying on from my post about more unusual travel accommodation where I showed a cave in Granada, Spain, here is a Yurt in Inner Mongolia, China.

Being served tea in order of seniority. The oldest gets first and the youngest last. The woman guesses and some people weren’t happy with their position.

Yurts are wooden circular frames, covered in a felt obtained from sheep or yaks.  The home is portable and can be disassembled, moved and reassembled elsewhere.  Building a yurt takes around two hours.  It was surprisingly warm and comfy inside, although I went in July so that probably helped.

The accommodation is quite basic, with no running water.  Toilet facilities consist of a hole in the ground and ‘showering’ is via a vat of water and a little plastic beaker.  It was very cold; I made do with baby wipes.  There are some more ‘deluxe’ Yurts, although I don’t think they’re ever going to be five-star luxury if that’s what you’re looking for.

Hohhot

I travelled to Hohhot, the capital city of the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia.  Hohhot doesn’t have much to make you want to linger; there are a couple of temples and a Mosque.  However there is an abundance of cheap accommodation and it is relatively easy to arrange onward transportation to the grasslands or the desert.  You can go to the bus station and get on a bus by yourself or else many hostels organize trips both to the grasslands and on to the nearby Gobi desert, which is what I did.

The grasslands, living up to their name. There is grass and there are horses

Gobi desert and riding the  Bactrian camels