We have gotten a chance to see multiple deserts in the last couple of days. That has been a new experience but something that leaves you in awe as you go from trees to shrubs to huge desert sands. We did get to ride our camels, which was quite the experience. We named our camels, from camcam, baibai (white/white), sprout (Patty's), and mine which we named Rebel. Mongolian camels are different from other camels as they have two humps instead of one. The camels were tied together with Patty and I in the back. My camel did not like to stay in line and got itself untied so that it could go up two places to steal the water bottle out of our friends backpack. He chewed on it until he got all of the water out and then spit out the bottle. The desert is an exciting place to be as you can take dune buggies around (we did not), go sliding down the mountains of sand (quite the experience), climb up huge dunes (sometimes harder than others).

We made our way to Wuhai another city nearby, Patty saw it online and it looked interesting so we got train tickets and went there. Everyone kept saying why are you going to Wuhai and we found out that yes it is interesting but its tourism industry is not quite as good as the internet said. They have really neat stone carvings of the ancient letters and symbols from 5000 years ago that very few people know where they are and they are illegal to photograph (we got some after the lady left--she said it was okay as long as she did not see and we did not develop the pictures nearby), we tried to go visit a temple but found out it was impossible because of dangerous roads and went out to the desert to see it mostly deserted. Maybe in a couple of years Wuhai will be much better, but they do have the best night life in their square. We have been enjoying Chinese squares with activities at night like Musical Fountains that spray water to music with lights and lots of fun, but this place had all kinds of games for the kids, teenagers and even adults. My favorites were the kids catching goldfish in a huge pool with little nets (1-4 year olds), huge balls where they the kids try to run in while, and lots of the impossible to win carnival games. Tonight we will take a night train to Huhehaote (Hohhot) and then we will travel to Mongolia for the next couple weeks. Hope your summer is going well...we are getting lots of sun here.