Tianbian Grasslands and spectacular Circus In Manzhouli |Road trip | Inner Mongolia 2021 | Day 13-14

Today is a busy day. A couple of places on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia and in the evening visiting the Russian circus in Manzhouli

On the road again and stopping by the Tianbian Grassland Youmu Tribe sightseeing spot.

Following road G331, we ended up in the Tianbian tribe sightseeing spot. This is only a few hundred meters from the Russian border, and you could see a small town on the other side. I see the houses in Ergun city the design and even colors are more Russian than Chinese style.

in Tianbian Grasslands and the spectacular Circus In Manzhouli Road Trip, we parked the caravan in the muddy parking lot and start to look for transportation to the sightseeing spot. The ride by minibus from the parking lot was fast-forwarding, and we arrived at the place. The wetlands surround the whole area, and as usual, Inner Mongolia is green and clean. In the distance, you could see a Russian village, maybe some kilometers, and with the phone zooming in, we could see the houses on the “other” side of the border. It would be nice to pay a quick visit, but it is a no-go this time. I spent a couple of hours here and needed to head for Manzhouli for the evening.

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I noticed the towing hitch had been bent!

Since I drove out at the ferry in Dalian, I have followed the towing hitch as it seems lower and lower. Today started to hear some strange noises from the back and checked it out.

The hitch is now touching the spare wheel, and the supporting wheel of the caravan cannot be turned in the correct position unless lifted by the caravan. This is what you get with no-brand equipment. Also, one other thing might be the tow ball weight is too much. In this caravan, the water tank is very close to the front, which is quite significant for the small caravan. The tank size is 145L, and there are very limited places in the rear where you can put the heavier items for balancing the caravan.

Our car’s maximum tow ball weight is 100kg and later, at the end of our trip measured it at around 130kg.

This does not mean the hitch should give up! More about this in my next blog post

CAR TOWING HITCH SUPPORT REPAIR – NEEDED URGENT REPAIR

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Another sightseeing spot at road G331 named 186 Caidaihe

We continued by road G331 and found another spot for activities. There are so many places in Inner Mongolia where you can have horse riding, spectacular views, and other activities.

Here the main thing for the kids was the lamb. Feeding the lamb from the feeding bottle, and I think that was some sort of milk tea. The strange thing is that we have bows and arrows in Finland, but the girls hardly use them. Now when needed to pay, they are eager to shoot every time they see it 🙂

To the farm, we took a tractor that had two yurts installed on it and played local music, which sounded very nice

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Manzhouli, port entry to Russia

We will not go to Russia, but this city is a port of entry to Russian trade. This city was inhabited by Donghu, Xiongnu, Xianbei, Khitan, Jurchen, Mongols, and Manchu.

In 1992, Manzhouli became one of the first land border cities in the People’s Republic of China opened up. It has since experienced a boom as a border trade center between China and Russia.

I checked a little bit in advance where to go in Manzhouli, and the clear winner was the Russian circus at Matryoshka scenic park with many of the famous Matryoshka nesting dolls.

Manzhouli Wikipedia

We even have a children’s song in Finland about these. Song by Nypykät
Russia brought to his children,
old grandmothers, and inside them,
there are new grandmothers and within them,
there are new grannies, and inside them, there are new grannies …

Russian Circus

In Tianbian Grasslands and the spectacular Circus In Manzhouli, I don’t think even the circus in Moscow is as nice as this one. Worth the money with all included shows. Clowns, bears, acrobatics, and even motorcycles in the “Globe of death.” This is a big circus compared to what I have experienced before, and the show was astonishing. I only can warmly recommend it.

Matryoshka Square

All kinds of Matryoshkas and even presidents and rock stars as big dolls. The light in the evening lit the whole area, bathing in different colors and shapes. The brightest one was the doll-shaped hotel. Yes, it was shaped like the Matryoshka doll.

Lager Palace Hotel and Menggenhua Self-Driving Travel Fangche Resort Camp

By the road G301, the Lager Palace hotel (direct translation by Google 拉格夏宫酒店) is the first one I was refused to stay in due to having a Chinese ID. That law does not prohibit foreigners from staying, but I think they did not want to dazzle with the documents that needed to be sent to Public Security Bureau. People want to have as little to do with authorities as possible. Here is a good link to this

I took it with a no-can-do attitude and did not want to negotiate. My wife and kids slept in the hotel, and I had a good night in the caravan in the parking lot.

The next night we managed to get in contact with the nearby camping, and we drove inside there instead. The campground was clean and spacious and could provide us with water and electricity outlets + dumping wastewater. We are often too busy with activities and forget to take pictures. I don’t have any pictures of the camping area, but if you need a camping place in Manzhouli, this is a good one

In Tianbian Grasslands and Circus In Manzhouli, Both the hotel and camping are fairly new. I could not find anything about the hotel on the internet, and it does not even show on Google Maps. They are maybe 200m apart from each other. I could not find this place on Baidu maps, so the map point is very close to the hot spring water world.

I didn’t realize before I closely looked at the map that the campsite was 1.5km from the China-Russian border.