Our caravan consisting of two cars and a lorry was to start off next morning at four o’clock, just about dawn.  Plessen woke Müller and myself before four o’clock.  (The Baron was just like an alarm clock).  He shaved, whistling and put on his shorts.  We dressed, drank tea without milk or sugar; the effect of the sunrise over the hills was fine; our caravan rattled out of the fortress.  Two cars were leading and one had a trunk with all kinds of goods for the Mongolians.

The evening before a Chinese Foreign Office representative asked us to sign the following: -

We, the undersigned herewith certify that we are going to visit Inner Mongolia on our own risk for any eventualities, which may happen during our travelling.

 

We carefully considered all warnings of the local Chinese officials who will take no responsibilities should anything happen to the undersigned:

 

Von Plessen

Herbert Müller

Gareth Jones.

Kalgan, 11th July 1935.

Next to me in my car was a tremendous Cossack, he had a head like a melon - only square, shaved bald; he was terrifically strong and fat; he had bandy legs from being so much in the saddle.  He laughed and joked all the time.  He was very much of a child.  His name was Vishnevitch and after the Revolution he walked 800 miles in winter across Mongolia, from Urga to Kalgan!  There were three Russians and myself in the car and the driver said:  “don’t be disappointed if we don’t get further than twelve miles, for floods may have blocked the road”.  When we left the town boundary, the day gradually getting lighter, we had to show our special visas for Chahar and Suiyuan (as the Inner Mongolian province is called) while blue uniformed soldiers, formerly of General Sung, stood there with fixed bayonets.  And so we rattled on along horrible tracks into Inner Mongolia.  We left the last Chinese town behind, gradually cultivated fields disappeared; we entered the Steppes and were in real Mongolia by afternoon.