Aershan
The
drive
to AerShan from JahQi (JaQi) is about 8 hours allowing (only)
for lunch. So it is about 5 hours from WuLanHot only driving. The
drive is one of the nicest I have seen. From JahQi you drive to a
bypass of WuLanHot (UlanHot). Essentially to WuLanHot. Farming all the
way.
Then you turn right for the slow climb up. You go through untouched grassland, more farms, but the topography changes. More hilly and mountainous.
Then spectacular beauty. Park-like fields with trees. Rocks.
Then Heavy Pine, Fir, and Beach forest. Very dense.
You pass Japanese round underground bunkers of reinforced concrete, rivers, the railroad the japanese made, and you enter AetShan. It is beautiful.
The round underground bunkers made by the Japanese protected their airplanes. There was a Japanese airfield close.
As you know, the Japanese first invaded Manchuria and set up a puppet state. They then built military bunkers as they came South into China proper. Here you will see this history.
AerShan is very famous. The Japanese used the area as a staging area for their invasion of China from Manchuria. There is a railroad built by forced Chinese labor only 30 minutes from the "city". The Chinese were later killed, a Japanese tunnel built the same way, plus a reinforced concrete bunker used by the Japanese to protect the railroad.
A BBC documentary I saw said the Japanese felt the Chinese were only animals, definately not human, and could be killed without reservation.
The railway here was crucial for Japan. Japan was running out of nstural resources, partially accounting for their bombing of Pearl Harbor. The railroad transported, among other things, wood. Trees. The trees were transported to another city, then the trees were put in a river for further transport to Japan. The Japanese thought China had an inexaustable supply of wood. There was a fortified bunker at each end of the tunnel to protect the tunnel from attack. You can see the hot water containers that held boiling water to force the Chinese to work for the Japanese under penalty of pain, sometimes death in boiling water. The bunkers were built in June, 1937. I reallly liked the history, surrounded by heavy forest.
AerShan has a population of 56,000. It has an altitude 1,100 m, about 3500 feet but very far North. It is in the Xing'an Mountains. AerShan derives from the Mongolian word which means 'Hot Holy Water'. It has many mountain trails and a ski area for winter skiing.
Hot Holy Water refers to the myriad healing hot springs. Once, mounted Mongolians rode to the healing hot springs in the grasslands, but now developers have built expensive hot spring spas. However, if you know where to look, sometimes you can see and talk to Mongolians who bring sick relatives here to hot springs still on the grasslands to heal their illness. There is a hot spring only for the heart, another for the liver, another for the intestines, etc. All differ in mineral content, temperature, etc.
A tiny town. You can see the end of the city easily. It was built only in 1992. It is very clean as it is a tourist town. A sister town is about 30 minutes drive away, YiErSi. A typical non-tourist Chinese city. Dominated by an expensive mega-hotel where the showers have piped in healing spring water, AerShan is compact. There are Mongolian tents to stay in if you want.
AerShan is a tourist town. Beautiful yes, but more expensive as it is a magnet. The mega-hotel can easily set you back US$150.00 per night. There is a huge forest park you can visit if you pay the Rmb 180 entrance fee. Here you may see lakes, bear, deer, forests, and the like.
Mongolians felt the place was special for the numerous healing springs. There is a special spring for each body organ. Mongolians used to ride horses here from many miles distant.
Now that is gone. Enterprising businessmen from Beijing have bought up the prime places, and the Mongolians have "lost" their healing springs. Too expensive now.
But they still come. Faithful. I spoke with them.
AerShan is small but beautiful. It is a place to relax, walk around in the "town" or mountains, or drive in the mountains. A day or two here is more than enough although you will not want to
leave.
There is nothing to do here. If you want, there is a small KTV, a live performance of acrobats, and many hot pot restaurants. There are stores with the basics, but remember this is a Chinese tourist place. There is an upscale 'SPA' that uses the hot springs. There is a small hospital staffed by doctors who prescribe the hot springs. But the best part is shrouded in overgrown grass. The original hot springs for each organ. You can still see the faithful sitting on rocks with their feet in the clear spring water to heal rheumatism. But here is changing very fast. This is a major "get away" destination. People fly to UlanHot, then drive to AerShan. A new 5 star hotel is being built in UlanHot to hold tourists, finished in a year or two.
There are numerous hot springs lying along a fault line. The springs have differing temperatures, Ph, and ion contents. You can see the various ion concentrations listed.
"Down the road" is the main hot spring protected by a small structure. The water is piped to some hotels. One can also fill water bottles and have healing water to drink.
Some of the rock formations are worth a stop and a photograph.
Be sure to bring a jacket for the evenings.You will need it.
You can walk in the mountains for hours. The town is too small to walk more than a few hours.
Early morning at 4:00 AM is the best time. Cool. You must have a jacket. Nara likes to run in the mountains with the mountain wildflowers at this time. She likes to run with Sky, a young Mongolian girl who is learning English and guiding here.
Yes, the Sun and the Sky like to run st 4:00 AM. Nara means Sun in Mongolian. You know the sky.
Nara's sister's name means the moon. Another sister has a name whicg means the stars.
Yes, you can be with the sun, the moon, the stars, and the sky.
We are working on the clouds. We can tell you stories, if you like, about all these things. Mongolians are truly as free as the clouds, moon, and sun in the sky. Cultures that have solid permanent buildings do not understand their freedom. Just ride a fast horse on the vast grasslands and return in the late evening to a fire by a Mongolian tent and you will understand what freedom is.
About hours from AerShan is a place one can go. This is the site of a major railway tunnel the Japanese made and a thick reinforced concrete bunker. You can see where the guns were. see the watch tower, and the surrounding forest. The area is surounded by thick pine and fir forest. The forest is home to innumerable mushrooms.
The GPS coordinates are:
N.: 47 deg., 10 min., 09.43 sec.
E: 119 deg., 56 min., 18.97 sec.
You can see how far North it is.
For comparison:
Beijing is 39 deg. N. latitude.
So. China is 21 deg. N. latitude.
There is a forest park about 1 1/2 hours by car from AerShan.
The drive is nice, but the park is
expensive at Rmb 180 entrance fee. Just inside the park is a plethora of restaurants and small log cabin type hotels. My opinion is that if you pay the Rmb 180 entrance fee, you should make it a full day. The restaurants are about 20% more expensive than AerShan proper, but cheap by Western standards. A big lunch is about Rmb 30 for wild mushrooms with chicken, potatoes and chilli with eggplant, rice, and maybe a beer.
The park is beautiful. High mountain measows like Yellowstone park. Lots of wild f
owers andgoney vendors. If you come from New York City, you will love it, but if you come from Montana, it will be like home.
Because AerShan is far North, it has a short season. Frost in the mornings is the norm in August. Expect snow in September and certainly in October. True summer may only be a month in June. Now it is late July, and rains occur. The monsoons are starting in India. Although monsoons do not occur here, there is a rainy season.
From here you can drive to WuLanHot or Hailar. WuLanHot will be around a 5 hour drive. Hailar a little shorter.
From AerShan a 1 1/2 hour drive twords WuLanHot brings you to the old Japanese war plane hangers. Very impressive. Reinforced concrete plane hangers in the middle of a potsto field.
In my opinion, although the mountain scenery of AerShan is georgeous wirh its wildflowers, the true importance of this place is that it was a staging area for the invasion of China. Reminders are all around, from the bunkers, to the airplane hangers, to the railroad station. As you know, Japan looked to Germany For modernizatuon with its meoji restoration. It is thus not by accident that the railroad station, to this day, looks like an old German train terminal.
This is a place of profound history surrounded by amazingly beautiful forests and mountains.
In AerShan you can stay in a 5 star lodge or in family run smaller hotels. Hotels are expensive as there is only a short tourist season. All money must be made in 3 or 4 months.
The rest of the 3 1/2 hour drive to WuLanHot passes in the reverse to coming here.
Updated: 08/06/2011
Then you turn right for the slow climb up. You go through untouched grassland, more farms, but the topography changes. More hilly and mountainous.
Then spectacular beauty. Park-like fields with trees. Rocks.
Then Heavy Pine, Fir, and Beach forest. Very dense.
You pass Japanese round underground bunkers of reinforced concrete, rivers, the railroad the japanese made, and you enter AetShan. It is beautiful.
The round underground bunkers made by the Japanese protected their airplanes. There was a Japanese airfield close.
As you know, the Japanese first invaded Manchuria and set up a puppet state. They then built military bunkers as they came South into China proper. Here you will see this history.
AerShan is very famous. The Japanese used the area as a staging area for their invasion of China from Manchuria. There is a railroad built by forced Chinese labor only 30 minutes from the "city". The Chinese were later killed, a Japanese tunnel built the same way, plus a reinforced concrete bunker used by the Japanese to protect the railroad.
A BBC documentary I saw said the Japanese felt the Chinese were only animals, definately not human, and could be killed without reservation.
The railway here was crucial for Japan. Japan was running out of nstural resources, partially accounting for their bombing of Pearl Harbor. The railroad transported, among other things, wood. Trees. The trees were transported to another city, then the trees were put in a river for further transport to Japan. The Japanese thought China had an inexaustable supply of wood. There was a fortified bunker at each end of the tunnel to protect the tunnel from attack. You can see the hot water containers that held boiling water to force the Chinese to work for the Japanese under penalty of pain, sometimes death in boiling water. The bunkers were built in June, 1937. I reallly liked the history, surrounded by heavy forest.
AerShan has a population of 56,000. It has an altitude 1,100 m, about 3500 feet but very far North. It is in the Xing'an Mountains. AerShan derives from the Mongolian word which means 'Hot Holy Water'. It has many mountain trails and a ski area for winter skiing.
Hot Holy Water refers to the myriad healing hot springs. Once, mounted Mongolians rode to the healing hot springs in the grasslands, but now developers have built expensive hot spring spas. However, if you know where to look, sometimes you can see and talk to Mongolians who bring sick relatives here to hot springs still on the grasslands to heal their illness. There is a hot spring only for the heart, another for the liver, another for the intestines, etc. All differ in mineral content, temperature, etc.
A tiny town. You can see the end of the city easily. It was built only in 1992. It is very clean as it is a tourist town. A sister town is about 30 minutes drive away, YiErSi. A typical non-tourist Chinese city. Dominated by an expensive mega-hotel where the showers have piped in healing spring water, AerShan is compact. There are Mongolian tents to stay in if you want.
AerShan is a tourist town. Beautiful yes, but more expensive as it is a magnet. The mega-hotel can easily set you back US$150.00 per night. There is a huge forest park you can visit if you pay the Rmb 180 entrance fee. Here you may see lakes, bear, deer, forests, and the like.
Mongolians felt the place was special for the numerous healing springs. There is a special spring for each body organ. Mongolians used to ride horses here from many miles distant.
Now that is gone. Enterprising businessmen from Beijing have bought up the prime places, and the Mongolians have "lost" their healing springs. Too expensive now.
But they still come. Faithful. I spoke with them.
AerShan is small but beautiful. It is a place to relax, walk around in the "town" or mountains, or drive in the mountains. A day or two here is more than enough although you will not want to
leave.
There is nothing to do here. If you want, there is a small KTV, a live performance of acrobats, and many hot pot restaurants. There are stores with the basics, but remember this is a Chinese tourist place. There is an upscale 'SPA' that uses the hot springs. There is a small hospital staffed by doctors who prescribe the hot springs. But the best part is shrouded in overgrown grass. The original hot springs for each organ. You can still see the faithful sitting on rocks with their feet in the clear spring water to heal rheumatism. But here is changing very fast. This is a major "get away" destination. People fly to UlanHot, then drive to AerShan. A new 5 star hotel is being built in UlanHot to hold tourists, finished in a year or two.
There are numerous hot springs lying along a fault line. The springs have differing temperatures, Ph, and ion contents. You can see the various ion concentrations listed.
"Down the road" is the main hot spring protected by a small structure. The water is piped to some hotels. One can also fill water bottles and have healing water to drink.
Some of the rock formations are worth a stop and a photograph.
Be sure to bring a jacket for the evenings.You will need it.
You can walk in the mountains for hours. The town is too small to walk more than a few hours.
Early morning at 4:00 AM is the best time. Cool. You must have a jacket. Nara likes to run in the mountains with the mountain wildflowers at this time. She likes to run with Sky, a young Mongolian girl who is learning English and guiding here.
Yes, the Sun and the Sky like to run st 4:00 AM. Nara means Sun in Mongolian. You know the sky.
Nara's sister's name means the moon. Another sister has a name whicg means the stars.
Yes, you can be with the sun, the moon, the stars, and the sky.
We are working on the clouds. We can tell you stories, if you like, about all these things. Mongolians are truly as free as the clouds, moon, and sun in the sky. Cultures that have solid permanent buildings do not understand their freedom. Just ride a fast horse on the vast grasslands and return in the late evening to a fire by a Mongolian tent and you will understand what freedom is.
About hours from AerShan is a place one can go. This is the site of a major railway tunnel the Japanese made and a thick reinforced concrete bunker. You can see where the guns were. see the watch tower, and the surrounding forest. The area is surounded by thick pine and fir forest. The forest is home to innumerable mushrooms.
The GPS coordinates are:
N.: 47 deg., 10 min., 09.43 sec.
E: 119 deg., 56 min., 18.97 sec.
You can see how far North it is.
For comparison:
Beijing is 39 deg. N. latitude.
So. China is 21 deg. N. latitude.
There is a forest park about 1 1/2 hours by car from AerShan.
The drive is nice, but the park is
expensive at Rmb 180 entrance fee. Just inside the park is a plethora of restaurants and small log cabin type hotels. My opinion is that if you pay the Rmb 180 entrance fee, you should make it a full day. The restaurants are about 20% more expensive than AerShan proper, but cheap by Western standards. A big lunch is about Rmb 30 for wild mushrooms with chicken, potatoes and chilli with eggplant, rice, and maybe a beer.
The park is beautiful. High mountain measows like Yellowstone park. Lots of wild f
owers andgoney vendors. If you come from New York City, you will love it, but if you come from Montana, it will be like home.
Because AerShan is far North, it has a short season. Frost in the mornings is the norm in August. Expect snow in September and certainly in October. True summer may only be a month in June. Now it is late July, and rains occur. The monsoons are starting in India. Although monsoons do not occur here, there is a rainy season.
From here you can drive to WuLanHot or Hailar. WuLanHot will be around a 5 hour drive. Hailar a little shorter.
From AerShan a 1 1/2 hour drive twords WuLanHot brings you to the old Japanese war plane hangers. Very impressive. Reinforced concrete plane hangers in the middle of a potsto field.
In my opinion, although the mountain scenery of AerShan is georgeous wirh its wildflowers, the true importance of this place is that it was a staging area for the invasion of China. Reminders are all around, from the bunkers, to the airplane hangers, to the railroad station. As you know, Japan looked to Germany For modernizatuon with its meoji restoration. It is thus not by accident that the railroad station, to this day, looks like an old German train terminal.
This is a place of profound history surrounded by amazingly beautiful forests and mountains.
In AerShan you can stay in a 5 star lodge or in family run smaller hotels. Hotels are expensive as there is only a short tourist season. All money must be made in 3 or 4 months.
The rest of the 3 1/2 hour drive to WuLanHot passes in the reverse to coming here.
Updated: 08/06/2011
