At the end of June, over a weekend, I went with family and friends to Fengning’s Bashang Grassland. We left Beijing in steady rain, and the weather stayed the same all the way until we reached the grassland. It was only after lunch, when the rain finally let up, that we settled into a farmhouse inn and then wandered up a small hill outside the village. I had simply wanted to climb a little higher for the view, but what I got instead was an unexpected scene of the grassland clearing after rain, with the sky stretching wide and bright above it.
This was taken during a break at a scenic spot along the road in Huairou. The place was quiet, almost secluded, and the greenery was especially striking. In the rain, everything looked fresher than usual.
A child from one of my classmate’s family came along for the trip, and it was obvious this was his first time on the grassland. He was full of excitement from the beginning.
These are two casual shots from the grassland. The view was so open that it gave me the same feeling I get when standing by the sea: as if all the clutter and noise of daily life had been pushed somewhere beyond the edge of the sky.
Here are the sheep on the grassland. The grass was still a little short, so the classic image of “the wind blows and the grass bends low to reveal cattle and sheep” never quite appeared. Even so, Bashang in June was still pleasantly cool, and grazing at this time of year must be a comfortable thing.
On the way up the hill, the rain had stopped, but the sky was still far from clear. It stayed a little gray and hazy, not completely transparent.
These are the photos we took at the top of the hill, with my parents and my classmate’s family. The hill itself wasn’t high, but once we stood on it, it felt as if we were up among the clouds.
As we walked down, the sky opened up even more, and the clouds became especially beautiful.
By sunset, the grassland had gone quiet. In the distance, the farmhouse inn sent up thin threads of smoke from its chimneys, which made the whole scene feel even calmer.
It was already getting dark, but there was still a group of people climbing up the mountain. They were probably going to catch the sunset. By then I had already reached the foot of the hill and didn’t feel like climbing back up.
The village was now in sight.
By the time I reached the village, the sky had completely cleared. A single shaft of sunlight pierced through the clouds. It would have been even more striking if I had still been on the hilltop to see it.
The sky and the buildings both looked lovely, but the trash carelessly thrown around was painfully obvious. Like many rural places in China, this area was not spared from white pollution, even though it sat in such clean, green grassland country. It seems that in today’s world, no matter how far you are from the city, pollution follows wherever people are.
Looking back toward the nearby hill from the village, the sun had landed exactly on the top of the slope.
The farmhouse courtyard in the village looked fairly neat. Still, because horses were being kept there, the air carried a strong smell of manure. Maybe that was part of the grassland’s own character.
We got up at four in the morning to watch the sunrise. Sunrises on the grassland are magnificent, but that day there were too many clouds, and the sun kept hiding behind them. In the last panoramic shot, the clouds looked like a large bird in flight, though no photo could really capture the depth and scale of that moment.
The horses on the grassland were another interesting sight. The herders would let them out onto the hill at night and drive them back at dawn, and in one night the horses would eat their fill. I had always assumed raising horses must be as hard as raising cattle, but after talking with the herders, I realized it seemed much easier. The horses just needed water; they took care of grazing themselves. City people like to come to the grassland to ride horses, while the herders themselves prefer motorcycles.
At dawn, the grassland was especially beautiful. With the sun just up, everything turned golden. It may have been the most beautiful moment of the whole trip, but we had to hurry off for a ride, so there wasn’t much time to sit and enjoy it. The light was still soft, leaving dark shadows behind trees, earth mounds, and other shapes in the distance.
Maybe these two were a mare and her foal.
A horse on the meadow.
A horse drinking water.
Dandelions on the meadow.
This panoramic view of the grassland was taken in the afternoon.
Although the trip lasted only two short days, we still experienced the grassland in rain, in overcast weather, and in clear sunshine. On the drive from Fengning to Bashang, the mountains were wrapped in clouds the whole way. Peaks disappeared into mist, mist settled in the mountains, and the clouds changed from one moment to the next. It was a pity we were driving and couldn’t stop to photograph that scenery.
If you live in Beijing, Hebei, or Tianjin, Bashang is absolutely worth a visit. There is something healing about opening up your mind in that vast sweep of grassland, and it is certainly worth doing.