Greetings from Mongolia.
Although it has only been a
brief sojourn here, I have got to know the country a little and enjoyed myself a
lot.
The train from Beijing to Ulaan Bator (UB) was very comfortable. The carriage I
was in was to be dropped off in UB so all the passengers were only going that
far. Half of them were Japanese, including my compartment mate and they got off
just after we crossed the Chinese Mongolian border so there was only a few left,
I had my compartment to myself, next door were a couple of girls, Alice and
Arabella who were off to teach English at an orphanage in UB for six months
before going to University. There were also a couple of decent Dutch blokes
Micha and Mark who were just going to Mongolia for a short time to see a bit of
the country. Other than these four were an Austrian couple who we only saw just
before arriving in UB and a Korean bloke who kept to himself. Still not a bad
little group and we chatted and drank beer happily together. The scenery out the
window was generally nice and there was even some snow in the lower Gobi, as we
passed through Inner Mongolia.
As Russia and Mongolia have a
peculiar gauge railway network, when the trains get to the border from China
there is what I am led to believe is a unique process whereby the bogies of all
the carriages must be exchanged for ones with this unusual width gauge. So after
passing through Chinese immigration, leaving the country one can either
disembark and relax in a waiting room or stay on an watch the whole bizarre
process. All in my compartment stayed on board as we had picked up some beer at
a previous stop so there was no reason to get off. The train then pulled into a
large shed and the carriages are all separated from one another and put on jacks
and lifted up, the Chinese bogies are disengaged and shunted away, it is then
strange looking around the shed to see all carriages just suspended in mid air
bogieless. Then the Russian/Mongolian bogies are brought along and attached to
the carriages, the carriages are lowered, they are all checked, then they are
all shunted back together again. We then went to a station a couple of minutes
up the line, where the duty free shop refused to serve anyone. A woman selling
grapes went past so I asked her to get us some beer, she returned a couple of
minutes later with a case which we dutifully bought and then I changed the last
of my Chinese money into US dollars with the same helpful fruit seller. Whilst
waiting to move on a few of us enjoyed a game of train Frisbee with a metal
dish, much trickier due to the narrowness of the corridors and also pretty
noisy. About two in the morning we moved just a short way up the tracks where we
came to the Mongolian immigration, they were all much friendlier than their
Chinese counterparts and the soldiers outside were very cheery with great big
cheesy smiles despite the arctic weather. They particularly appreciated the
bottle of Baijo (Chinese spirit) I gave them which they necked in one gulp each
and threw into the snow and gave even cheesier grins. Shortly after they even
came aboard and made a point of shaking hands to say thanks. Much nicer than
most of the border guards I have previously encountered.
The rest of the journey was
pretty uneventful, but the views of the desert and then the steppe going past
were nice. We arrived in UB about two in the afternoon and Nassan, the owner of
the guest house I had previously contacted was there to meet me off the train
and take me to her place. There I met Robert, a Swedish bloke I had met a few
weeks earlier in Xi An. We went for a wander round town together and when we saw
a Mongolian Fried Chicken restaurant we couldn’t help ourselves but try. When
we returned to the guest house, Mark and Micha were there putting plans together
for a jeep trip, so I invited myself along and we worked out an itinerary for a
week long trip through the Mongolian hinterlands starting the next day. With
that business out of the way we went off to have a few beers and some food.
The next morning Seren our
driver came to pick me up from Nassan”s and then we picked up the other two
from their hotel before going to stock up on provisions for the next days. Then
we took off into the great wide open under a sky of blue. Mongolia is
alternately known as the Land of Blue Sky and the Land Without Fences. It is
what the Americans call big sky country, with absolutely clear blue skies and
most of the time uninterrupted panoramas. It is also somewhere where there is
almost no private land ownership, therefore almost no fences outside of the
towns, which adds to the pristine appearance of the place. There was even a
proposal at one point to turn the entire country into a national park, but
instead they settled for about thirty percent of the land, still very
impressive. Considering the population is less than three million people spread
over a country three times the size of France there is a general feeling of
space and at times even isolation.
Heading off into the wilderness
that makes up most of the country Seren and I attempted communication, but his
English is limited to say the least and my Mongolian is almost non-existent. He
then started saying odd kind of words to me which after a while I worked out was
his version of French, with a fair twinge of Mongolian involved. At least now we
had a way to communicate and over the next few days my proficiency in this
strange Mongolian derivative of French became near fluent. When we drove across
the steppe and saw white foxes, eagles, buzzards, hawks, vultures, swifts and
thousands and thousands of voles. A couple of times we even saw marmots which
were supposed to be hibernating as well as a few ermine and ferrets. From time
to time we would also see a Ger, the traditional home of the nomads in this part
of the world. Essentially the same as a Kazakh Yurt, with only subtle
differences. These were to be where we stayed for most of the week, a circular
felt tent with a peaked centre where the chimney from the dung fired stove pops
out. One would also see guys on horseback wandering through what looked like the
middle of nowhere.
That evening we stayed the night
by a small lake called Ogii Nuur, where Seren found a Ger with an old couple
living in it where we could stay. They made us dinner and we attempted some
basic communication. In a Ger there are a number of rules and types of
Etiquette, from the way one offers and takes things, to what and where a guest
can go within the thing. Our hosts made us some mutton Goulash with macaroni, a
meal we were to have repeatedly over the following days. These people go to bed
early, which means we do to so, at nine o’clock it was bedtime and we made
sure we wrapped up warm for the subzero night time temperatures. Next day we
headed onto Terkhin Tsagaan Nuur, another lake. This one however is formed by a
number of interlocking craters that gives it a very special look. A bit before
we got there we picked up a mother and son hitch-hiking who’s family we stayed
the night with. The mode of finding accommodation in this part of the world
simply being finding people, they welcome guests, particularly if they come as
we did bearing gifts. Once again we had Goulash for dinner and another early
night.
In the morning Seren showed us
some of the craters and fissures from the local tectonic jiggling. We went past
a couple of canyons and climbed a small mountain for nice views of the area. As
much of the day-time involved long off road drives cross country it gave a lot
of time for conversation, not all of it entirely sensible. On the way to
Tsetserleg, the next stop we (Mark, Micha and I) decided to found the republic
of Xanadu (Xanadu because it’s Kublai Khan’s place and we were in his
country or at least his great granddad Chinggis Khan’s country. Also because
there is no country beginning with X, something that should be rectified). I was
elected Prime Minister, over the next years to progress to President, King then
Emperor. Mark and Micha were to be ministers. As you can tell we had quite a bit
of time to kill. This little conversation ended up having repercussions that
lasted until the guys left the country as will become clear later.
In Tsetserleg we visited a nice
monastery and museum had a slightly different goulash for dinner and checked in
at a hotel in order to have showers etc. We also made good use of the bar and
then later went upstairs and played several games of pool, when the Mongolian
Olympic Wrestling team turned up, who I was to find out later were in town for a
wrestling championship the next day. Their training regimen differed somewhat
from that of other athletes. They were drinking and smoking quite heavily and
they also had a room with a prostitute in that after the team manager had
sampled the team all took in turns to have a ride. It made for quite an amusing
spectacle to see these guys when I was playing pool with them and they were
taking it in turns to go into the room and bang the whore. One would come out
and take the cue from the one I was playing pool with like they were passing the
baton in a relay race. They were mostly fun guys and we had a good laugh despite
the lack of a common language, they found it particularly amusing when I would
launch myself at them trying to
|