| Jason and Carolyn's World-Wide-Website | home |
| | Wedding | Photo Album | The Trip | |
| Mongolia |
| August 29 | Arrive Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia |
| Aug 30-Sep 9 | |
| Sep 9 | Depart Ulaanbaatar |
 |
|
|
29
August Train to Ulaanbaatar The border crossing occurred in the middle of the night. We'd been told to expect 4 or five hours stopped- with the toilets locked, but instead we were treated to 9 hours at the border. I'm sure the little old man next door peed in our shared shower unit. I had considered it myself at one point. The border crossing began with a lengthy change of wheel gauge and dining car switch out. The car shook and bumped and the clanging was very loud. This went on from about 11 AM 'til 2 Am. At 2 the Chinese border officials came by to check our passports. 15 minutes later customs officials came by to take away our forms and search for stow aways in our cabin.The corridors of the train were very chaotic with people moving back and forth. Each time the officials opened our compartment door it looked like a small one act play was going on out there. One time we saw a man with a basket of eggs going by; another time they stopped a kid walking by who looked Chinese but said he was Israeli. He was carrying a big bag. The customs officer asked him what was in it. "Umm,Clothes?" He answered unconvincingly. I'd have searched him , no question, but the Chinese didn't seem interested. 3 hours later after more clanging immigration and passport control came through to check one more time for stow aways-this involved making us get up and looking under our beds and in our overhead compartments. All the while we were not allowed to pee or really sleep. Finally at 6:30 Am we started moving. I took advantage of this brief respite to pee-luckily-because in about 10 minutes they stopped the train again for 2 hours on the Mongolian side of the border and we went through the whole rigamarole again. The customs officials here barely let us finish filling out our forms before they'd stamped them in triplicate and moved on. Unfortunately the train was not as swift moving. We seemed to enter a twilight zone of switches. We went back and forth on the small section of track for another 2 hours or so. Altogether we ended up being 8 hours behind our schedule. Once we started moving again we were treated to views of the pristine Mongolian steppe and complete with majestic eagles circling under rainbows and landing on telephone poles which line the tracks. When we arrived at the station at 9 PM (instead of 1 PM) our guide for the next 10 days,Ganz, found us quickly and took us to our Russian Jeep (there will be much more on this and Ganz later) and our Mongolian driver Talkha(more about him too). The hotel wasn't far from the train station. When we got there we discovered that due to daylight savings time UB is actually one hour ahead of Beijing-so it was 10PM and all restaurants were closed. Ganz said he could get us some pizza and bring it to the hotel. We were thrilled. As the porter was helping us carry our bags up the steps he asked, "So, what do you think of Mongolia?" Just then the electricity went out. We climbed 2 flights of stairs in the pitch black instead of answering. Once inside our room, we made the mistake of opening the balcony door and letting in a bout 1000 flying bugs. Soon enough the power came back and we saw that we had a very comfortable little room-except for the bugs- complete with Chinese standard single beds. (How did there get to be a billion of them if they all sleep in single beds all the time?) Anyway, we settled in and then went downstairs to wait for our pizza. Ganz arrived shortly carrying two boxes which looked suspiciously more like sandwich boxes than pizza boxes, but low and behold when we opened them up, they had a bunch of slices of pizza all stacked on top of one another. The toppings were also slightly mysterious- more so for being stuck to the bottom of the piece on top of them. We think one had mushrooms and salami and one had assorted peppers and other veg. Well we were starving and the Khan Brau beer washed it all down easily. Before bed we took out our bug killing spray- which Jason had been complaining about lugging around since the ship- and we enjoyed a bug massacre before bed. 30 August Jeep trip to Bayan Gobi Breakfast was an odd little buffet. I had a hard boiled egg and bread. Jay had a roll. We weren't ready to eat lots of weird mayonnaise salads or cold luncheon meats for breakfast yet.The hotel was out of local currency for some reason, so we couldn't change money. Ganz came to get us at 10 and we loaded up our trusty jeep and hit the road. First stop was a bank. They give you a better rate the newer your US dollars are. No pre 1990 bills are accepted at all. We only changed a small amount of money because everything should be included in the jeep trip. Next stop was the central department store where we stocked up on road food(for ourselves) and cigarettes to give out to nomads whom we 'd meet along the way and possibly want some favors from. About 11am we hit the bumpy bumpy road to the Bayan Gobi camp. We talked to our guide, Gans, and learned about Mongolia. There are about 2.4 million people in Mongolia; about 1/3 in Ulaan Baatar, 1/3 in the small towns,and 1/3 nomadic. Most are Buddhist, but many people still have shamanistic beliefs. We passed (and stopped) at many "Owo"s along the way, which are piles on stones placed in auspicious places by shaman priests. When we stopped, we would walk around it and throw 3 stones on the pile for luck. At lunch (we had a picnic in the middle of nowhere-well really in the middle of a field of sage which smelled very nice) Gans told us he had a serious girlfriend who would like to get married in 2 years. He would like to wait 4 years. They're in negotiations. We began to listen to Mongolian rock music on the tape deck in the jeep. We listened to a lot of it because we didn't bring any tapes of our own. That was OK, because we liked it a lot. After a long, rough ride we reached the camp. All through Mongolia we stayed at tourist Ger camps, which are quite nice. This camp was no exception. The gers we stayed in were completely authentic except that most nomads don't have as much furniture as a tourist ger. Also we didn't have a bag of fermented mare's milk in our ger. I should probably explain what a ger is, exactly. a Ger is a felt-covered,wooden frame tent. There is sometimes a wood floor. The shape is circular, the top is conical. There is a wood door. There are two or more posts in the center holding up the roof beams. The door and beams and, well, all the wood including the furniture is painted bright orange with decorative patterns in other colors. The painting is usually done by the owners of the ger. The felt covering is white, and extra layers are added as the weather cools. A stove is usually placed in the center of the ger, and the felt can be pulled back to allow a chimney to poke out. All in all, a very comfortable place to live.And since most nomadic families move 4 times a year, a whole ger can be packed up and be carried by ONE camel! After dinner, we climbed up a nearby hill. We then had a panoramic view of the countryside for miles. We sat and watched the sun go down and listened to the silence punctuated occasionally by the neighing of horses in the valley far below. After climbing down, we thought we might visit some sand dunes about 1 km from the camp. We were sidetracked by the a series of blue lights that led to a KARAOKE ger! Even in the middle of the desert you can sing the night away. Unfortunately it was closed, but it just made the scene even more surreal. That was enough culture for one day, so we headed back to our tent to sleep. 31 August Bayan Gobi camp- Kharkhorum Breakfast at the ger camp was good and hearty, sausage and fried egg and bread and sardines. Jay and I passed on the sardines, but everything else was very nice. Right outside of the camp we stopped to visit a family of nomads, whom Gans stays with sometimes. They invited us into their Ger. As is traditional they offered us fermented mare's milk out of a leather sack- this is called Ay-gar. It is an acquired taste. As it is rude to refuse, we actually tried quite a bit during our stay in Mongolia and grew to have some small appreciation for it. They also served us yak butter and dried curd. The dried curd tasted a lot like parmesan cheese. This family had wind and solar power for their Ger. We passed one on the side of the road which had a satellite dish next to it.The nomads live a very simple timeless agrarian lifestyle,but they don't shun the modern world. The traditional Ger has four areas. The entrance is always on the south side- this is optimal because of the direction of wind currents in Mongolia. The rest of the traditional set up is not followed as strictly anymore. Loosely, there should be a men's area, a women's area and a personal shrine in the Northern section. We did see a lot of Northern shrines, but the women's and men's areas haven't really been separated like that for about 500 years according to Gans. Gans has some strong feelings about the very badly written stupid guide pages the trans Siberian train company,The Russia Experience, gives to all their clients. They imply that all you can eat in Mongolia is mutton- untrue.They say that no one eats vegetables- untrue since 1950, and a lot of other clap trap designed to make Mongolia seem even more exotic than it really is. Gans does not approve and makes fun of the Russia Experience. Most of the extended family is around during the day. One person has to be out with the livestock, the rest of the men women and children are busy around the camp. We gave our host a pack of cigarettes- this is set up in such a way that you offer him one, which he takes,then you leave the pack on the table and conveniently forget to take it with you. We also gave the family an I love NY key chain. Shortly we were on our way again. We went to the Khara-korum monastery- the site of the ancient capital of Mongolia. On the way there we discussed the epic story of Chingis (Ghengis) Khan and Gans desire that Hollywood come and make an epic movie about it. He would like to bolster tourism in his homeland. Most of the ancient monastery was destroyed by those ever popular Soviets. The Mongols have no love of the communist era. They were forced to convert their written language into Cyrillic; almost all religious sites were destroyed; families livestock and possessions were seized etc. A few temples remained at Khara-korum. The Mongols practice Lama-ism- a form of Buddhism related to the Tibetan variety. They had a Tibetan king for a while.The temples still standing were very different from other Buddhist temples we'd been in. They were smaller inside and filled with drawings and silk paintings. The monks all sit in a room and chant together from ancient manuscripts. Outside the temple are big wheels with prayers on them and you can spin the wheels instead of actually saying the prayers. We walked out the back gate of the complex to see the famous stone turtle which supposedly prevents flooding. There was also an archeological dig going on back there, but not too much actually out of the ground to see. Jay was invited to drive the jeep off-road to our next camp. He agreed with pleasure and headed into the grassy steppe over hills and gullies. There was no road.The driver, his wife (who'd come to visit) and Gans sat in the back and directed. JJ was very pleased. We had lunch at the Ger camp. They tried to give us a different soup from the Mongolians, but we insisted we could take a little mutton soup- and it was delicious. After lunch we stayed at the camp and played around with a bow and arrow a little bit- Mongolian sports seem to be alot of the junior high requirement variety (wrestling, archery.) We also played games with Ganz in the afternoon. He taught us how to play with sheep ankle bones 2 different games. The more fun one involved flicking the bones at each other. Each side of the bone is named after a different animal (camel, horse, goat and sheep).You have to flick a sheep to hit another sheep then if you're successful you can take one of them with the hand you didn't flick with-the goal is to get the most bones. Next we played poker using the bones as chips. In this way we whiled away the afternoon until dinner. After dinner Jay and I took a nice long hike out to a nearby river. The sun doesn't set until after so it's very nice to take an evening stroll. September 1 We were late for breakfast. Its cold in the morning and hard to get out of bed. We made it there by 8:30- more fried eggs and hot-dog. The driver was back, he'd gone to see his family yesterday afternoon. By 8:50 we were on the road, so to speak. We stopped at a market center outside of town- composed entirely of cargo containers arranged into a market square. There we purchased some supplies and nearby we got some gas. People wandered around in traditional costume- with a touch of the present- like sweatpants under the traditional tunic- a lot of kids wore baseball caps. Today we were visiting the waterfall. Its a very odd landscape in which to find a waterfall- because its a desert. There were mountains surrounding us, but we always seemed to be in the plain in the middle. There were little ger camps and groups of livestock- yaks and cattle grazing. We also saw some vultures. We stopped to take a lot of pictures. The road deteriorates quite quickly here. Its really a rocky path through volcanic earth. The last eruption was 15,000 years ago, but it was a biggie because there is porous lava rock everywhere. We drove over many river beds. The experience of off-road driving in a Russian jeep is alternatively exhilarating, hilarious and a real pain. I've never been jostled so much in my life. We would repeatedly drive up to the edge of what looked like a little cliff and then go on over and down and then up another steep slope. We stopped briefly at a bronze age cemetery (3-4,000 years old). Its been remarkably well preserved. Rock markers and burial mounds just sit there in the middle of nowhere. We got to the waterfall area around noon. We hiked a little way along the steppe and then suddenly in front of you the ground opens up, a deep chasm filled with a hidden lush oasis- complete with raging waterfall. We hiked down into the chasm and found some picnicking Mongolians there. Mongolians have large families and they're not afraid to smush them all into the car together. We saw one jeep on the side of the road and there were at least 8 people standing next to it. Inside the valley we did a little stream hiking before climbing out the other side where the driver was waiting for us with our picnic lunch. We walked on a little further until the small waterfall/fishing hole- where we saw another large family all traveling in one car, who were spending the day fishing at the falls. There were 7 of them and they only had 1 fishing pole. 3 little boys waited on a rock near the bank while the 3 grown men waded out into the river, dragging their wives/sisters along with them- although only one guy had the actual pole. When they caught a fish they'd pass it back along the line until the last one threw it up on the rocks near us. Eventually they came and collected the fish which the little boys gutted and washed in the river. While we enjoyed our lunch at this spot,a bald eagle came swooping by. Gans was also trying to fish,but all the fish were going to the big family. Eventually he gave up and we walked back to the car and woke up Talkha- who'd been taking a face down nap in the grass. I've noticed drivers all like to sleep when they're not driving. I guess it is a life of waiting.! Talkha could even sleep in the Jeep if Gans was driving.This is pretty amazing. Even Jay couldn't sleep in the jeep- which is why I'm thinking of getting one for our new car. At one point along the 80 km trail to the Ger camp we spotted a huge collection of vultures. As we crept up on them,cameras at the ready, Ganz spotted the traditional blue burial silks of the nomads and we realized the vultures were feasting on a man. We decided to venture no further. It was pretty macabre. There were so many of these hunchbacked birds hopping around. We returned to the jeep somewhat subdued, for another hour and half of bumping along to the camp. |
 |
|
|
|