Ordos/Kangbashi - The Ghost Town

i After having slept not as long as I had intented – travelling in a compartment with a family with two very young children reduces ones chances to do so quite a bit – I reached Ordos at 4 am in the morning. Never heard of it before? Well, it‘s not even mentioned in the more than one thousand pages of my guidebook for China. Ordos is a city in Inner Mongolia, one of China‘s provinces and among the Chinese it – or more specifcally Kangbashi, a new housing district – is commonly known as just the Ghost Town. While the city is not completely uninhabited, it was planned for a much larger population.

Walking through the streets in the early morning was a stark contrast to the last few crowded days in Běijīng. Of course, at 5 am you don‘t exactly expect too much traffic jam anywhere on the world, but being able to walk in the middle of a three lane road with only the very occasional car disturbing you is maybe a bit extreme.

I decided to enjoy the sunrise walking on the river promenade shortly afterwards. Every window in the many building high rises scattered on the other side of the river was completely dark and only the street lights illuminated the area a bit. It was almost spooky to see these artifacts of human construction while the only sounds that pierced the night were those of some birds.

After walking for some time I arrived at a fair. It was eerie to see those bumper cars and the small ferris wheel so silent, ready to be used at any moment. But finally, after just looking around for some minutes, I started to see humans more frequently, having so far only met one jogger. Still, even now as the city slowly awoke, it felt somewhat empty, like a big castle only inhabited by a single person.

You might expect that such a city may soon start to decay, leaving only ruins behind. But the Chinese apparently still try to give the area a chance, keeping it in perfect condition and sometimes you may have the impression, that a large part of the population here is involved in cleaning the streets, reparing the traffic lights or even building new appartments.

It was a very nice and also relaxing change to be so far off the beaten path. And, while apart from photographing, there was not that much to do in the Ghost Town, I had at least some time for planning the further steps of my route.