Day 4 to: Xianghaungyi, 160km, 440km to date, 559m up, end elev 1396m

Day 2 of 6 in a row.  A fairly long day, 160km.  Fairly strong wind, however mostly from the side or back, although there was 20k that was uphill straight into the wind.

A couple shots from yesterday that connection problems wouldn’t let me post:

yes, a farmer plowing a field with a mule and plow.  What a contrast to the large “factory” farms

Today the scenery changed from the hilly country typically associated with the great wall, to the open flat grasslands, very similar to our prairie, complete with bareback horseback rider.

Also saw my first yurt, what I believe will become very commonplace.

We are getting away from areas where foreign, white haired, round-eyes are seen, so we are now the tourist attraction.  Twice today people simply stopped their vehicles to greet us and take pictures.  As is the case everywhere, the vast majority of people are very friendly.

We had stopped to take a picture and this guy stopped, didn’t seem to be concerned that his front end loader was blocking one lane of the road.  Big smile and wave.  First thing he did was offer us two cigarettes - this was an offer of friendliness.  Then another car stopped - we were the tourist attraction.  I have our cycling route on my phone (in maps.me) - it is quite good at communicating where we started and where we are going.  Also where home is.  This morning the three of us that stopped at a small store in a village were from South Africa, New Zealand and Canada - made for a fun “conversation” with the shop owner.

A couple other pics from the day:

First yurts:

The road signs here feature a bit of English, Chinese and old Mongolian.  I say old Mongolian because this area of China (Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region) still uses it, however Mongolia itself has moved to Cyrillic (Russian).

I believe every square cm in China has been farmed, built on, dug or whatever.