Blog o'travel: Hailar (Part two)

So the plan was to go to an Ewenke people's town and see how things look over there. I heard that there was a town about 26km from Hailar called Bayantala

I am on the right track...... I think.

I took a bus to go there but the bus did not go the whole way out there. So I walked quite a few kilometers. On my way , I passed by workers building new houses , some animals and the usual (both in China and many other places) unsold houses.

It is not THAT cold outside!

Looks like a 藏族 setup but over here there are 蒙族

I think more houses are called for!

Just here to look around. Please continue whatever it is you are doing, Mr. cow.

I am not here to steal your water or grass.

Is the such a thing as a guard cow?

An interesting alternative to online selling of houses.

When I finally arrived in the town , I just saw a lot of yellow houses (It felt more like home than China). It kind of reminded me of the countryside back home but with a few less sheep.

picket fence - check , nice road - check.

As I reached the center of the village I had to agree with the guy who was working on the roads. There is not a hell of a lot to see here. So, I took a rest for about 2 hours and I decided to walk back along the highway.
As I was walking back along the highway , a guy pulled over in his car and offered me a lift back into town. While he was driving me back he mentioned that he was taking part in a play on the grasslands and I would be welcome to join if I wanted to go. As I had nothing planned I took 丹巴 up on his offer and he collected his family in his car. He took a turnoff into a field and then he drove maybe 12 km in one monster sized field to the area in question. I was wondering how he was able to find the place itself as all I could see was fields in every direction. Someone had put flags in the ground though so Danba was able to follow the flags in the general direction and he had no problem finding the top of the hill.

Then I watched 4 hours of Ewenke and Daur people (Mongolian people) singing and dancing.It was quite different to see people enjoying themselves in the middle of nowhere (From my perspective.) It was nice to not get stared at and the people seemed very approachable and friendly. Danba was telling me that his family had come over from Russia and settled here but they did not see places such as Russia and China as places per se. Everyone lives on the land and the land is the most important part. The country is a bit irrelevent.

Open land everywhere

Where do you park?

In the field.

Yurts in the distance.

Follow the crowd to the main event.

The presenters.

Boys and girls

Flowing with the breeze

The setup was nice.

There was a speaker setup somewhere.

I need to get a bit closer to the action.

Ewenke people and Daur people

Western clothes

He had a strong pair of lungs.

I was not the only one taking photos

I need one of those hats.

Getting the horse to stay still amongst a crowd is some feat

Line dancing , Mongolian style

Closing time

It must have been some effort to get the horses to this location.

The event finished around 7 and Danba drove us back to his place. I got the feeling that this place is very family orientated. That evening everyone was invited back to have some food back at the house. There was a football event on the morning of the event so all those guys went to a yurt to relax. I decided to have a quick look around. I couldn't get over the vast amount of land not separated by anything.