Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China

I get to sleep in a ger! That will be 2 nights from now. That will be one night less we are in this god-forsaken hotel, with condoms available in the bathroom, and men's underwear for sale on the shelf above the tea pot.
We rushed to the airport in Beijing this morning, somehow we thought the plane left an hour later than it did. It took forever to get our tickets, then all but 1 of the guys, and several of the women, got extra searches at security. I was the last person to board the plane before they shut the door. After a one hour flight we had a rough, bumpy, fast landing in Hohhot, and so here we are at the "very nicest hotel" in town, according to our guide. I've really been transported to Matamoros or Reynosa.
This is the bleakest looking place I've been in a long time. I imagine its what Beijing was like before the Olympics. Street-front stores, everyone on bicycles or electric scooters, torn-up roads, just very poor. Block after block of Soviet style apartments going up. Block after block of rubble where the old hutong-type housing was. And still more of the traditional housing, crumbling into piles. Garbage piled everywhere - along fences, behind gates, in rooms that open to the street.
At the same time there is some beauty - parks full of trees and flowers, the old Muslim Mosque, and the Da Zhao Buddhist temple.
No captions yet on the pics - too tired. More tomorrow.

Update: pics are done.

Hohhot, China, June 10