Back home safe and sound. As usual all the plans changed at the last minute and Instead of going where ever we where supposed to go we drove back home. Ming Zhi's cousins wife's mother（I was never good with stuff like that) was taken into hospital for minor knee surgery so the family all rallied round and our side trip was cancelled.
For our final night in Xilinghot we went to the opening of a new restaurant, well it was actually a run through for the staff ahead of it's official opening. The owner a very jovial man comes from Sichuan and his wife is Naimen. The food was the best I've ever eaten in China a fusion of traditional Mongolian dish's with the heat of Sichuan cooking. The duck cooked in mushrooms was better than anything out of Beijing. We will defiantly go back there on our next visit.
I found out that Xilinhot has an airport and it's only a 2 hour flight from Beijing. That makes it an easy long weekend destination for us. I would really like to live there and my wife cousin has several houses and has offered us one, but my wife is none to fond of the cold and to tell you the truth I have no idea how severe a winter there could be.That leaves only one answer fly there and see!
The drive home was eventful. We have my wife's cousins son with us. He's 19 and was one of the off road drivers for us on our trip. He needs help with his English so he's staying with us for a month or so, it was the least I could do to help repay all the kindness that has been shown to us. He drove the 10 hours back to Baoding and it was interesting to see his preparation for the trip. We own a Nissan Tillda and first thing he did was to lift the bonnet and check all the levels and the the condition and pressure of all the tires including the spare. You just knew that he was used to the idea that your life could depend on small thing like that out here. The high spot or the low spot was driving through a 5 mile tunnel with no visible means of extracting the exhaust fumes. The tunnel was 2.5 lanes full with lorries and cars weaving in and out. The lighting was one dim yellow bulb every 100ft. The fumes where so dense it looked like fog and the blasting of horns was deafening,if there had been an accident I would not like to think about the consequences. We got though ok but a couple of miles further on 2 lorries had hit head on, one guy was dead in a ditch and at least 4 others where in bad shape. The time it would take to get help there I doubt they would have made it. I will never drive that road again so I was pleased to hear about the local airport.
So now it's back to that comfortable urban Chinese lifestyle, well until next time that is!
