Transmongolia
well, it´s been a while since I last posted, which is mostly due to the lack of internet access and even electricity that I´ve experienced in the last month.
my friend Teresa came to Beijing in the last week of June, which at the same time as my last week in Beijing, so there was still loads to do: packing for the upcoming trip, sending stuff home (I accumulated over 40 kilos of books and other "lightweights" in the 5 months in Beijing), farewell dinners, soccer matches etc....
I was really sad to leave Beijing, say good bye to the wonderful people I´ve met and the city I had become really attached to. the farewell night was great, but lasted almost too long - we almost missed our train to Ulaan Baator! my friend Karin just managed to wake us up 45 minutes before the train left!!! so the first 30 hour train ride went by really fast, as we spent most of it sleeping.
upon arrival in UB, we met our now friend Tom, whom I had met on the Thorn Tree and who also wanted to do a Gobi-trip. in the hostel, we also found Park, who also came to the Gobi with us.
I think Tom already regretted his decision to come with us when we went grocery shopping for the trip and we bought baby food ;)
The Gobi is a wonderful place! Mongolia is such a vast country, the landscape just doesn´t seem to end, we drove, drove, drove without seeing a single human being. I was surprised how varied a desert can be, the Gobi isn´t like the Sahara (well, what I´ve seen of it in pictures), just a very small part of it is actually sand dunes.
there is even ice! in the middle of the desert!
we spent our nights in gers, the traditional mongolian house and had our dinners cooked by the families who run the places. well, I ate mostly instant noodles and couldn´t survive very long in Mongolia, as it´s all mutton, even the deep fried breadsticks we got for breakfast tasted like mutton. but once, in the middle of nowhere, we were served soya meat! seriously! fortunately they showed me the package, as I wouldn´t have believed them otherwise. Teresa says this was the best meal we got in Mongolia.
Park, our Korean friend, was so funny: being Asian, he was totally scared of the sun and put a blanket around himself while we were having lunch - and looked like ET. and he cooked instant noodles and rice anytime of the day
when we were not being driven around by Khan, we rode horses and camels (Park with his umbrella), usually we were just trotting behind a guide and couldn´t ride ourselves - and aparenly, there is a reason for that: on a ride at the waterfalls, Teresa´s horse got mad or something and she jumped off and hurt her hip quite badly. we still don´t know what´s wrong with it - she´ll get it x-rayed next week and we will know whether she walked around Siberia and Mongolia with a broken hip or something.
albeit Mongolia´s size, we managed to meet some people, as there were usually others staying at the ger camp as well - which ended in long discussions and games lasting the whole night or until the vodka was finished.
but Tom wasn´t the only Thorn Tree-person we met on this trip! another guy, Christian, that I had been emailing with for a while, also did the transmongolian, but we thought that we wouldn´t meet up, as he was leaving a bit later. thanks to blogs and websites, I had an idea what he looked like. so, while riding our horses at the waterfalls, we see a guy walking around, who looked like the guy I had seen on the pics. so I tried and shouted "Christian" and he turned around, then I said "Bisch du da Christian?"(are you Christian)he said yes and I told him that I am Verena - it´s a small world after all! it´s really funny to met a person you´ve never met but still think you know somehow in the middle of nowhere! Christian pretty much "followed" us all the way to Moscow, we met again (then planned) in Irkutsk (where we almost missed the train again due to too much beerdrinking) and St. Petersburg (where we again just made it to the train, with a bit more time left this time).
but back to the Gobi trip: we climed sand dunes, slept outside under the stars, tried airag aka mongolian vodka (which must be one of the most disguisting things drinkable), used public showers (every mongolian town has one: you (thinking you´re tanned) line for ages but then you get into a clean, albeit old, shower room with hot water, shower and come out all pale (washed off all the sand and dust)), almost got stuck more than once (it was raining very hard and a lot of the "roads" were flooded,managed to finish a whole book while driving on bumpy roads...great!
back in UB, we boarded our second train this time to Irkutsk, the closest city to lake Baikal in Russia. 36 hours. there is another train which takes only 26 and now we know there the 10 hours go: you spend them at the border! waiting, waiting, waiting: the worst: they don´t let you pee for ages. I had to go sooo badly and we begged the provodnista, but nothing! then, after along, painful time (I was close to saying that I´m pregnant, maybe she would have felt sorry for me then)she finally let me out of the train, where a russian coustoms authority was waiting for me. "follow me!" he said, like I had commited a crime or something. so I did, in pain and the walk seemed so far...then, once we arrived at the toilet, he said "Russian style". I have seen loads of distgusting toilet, but this one must have been the worst. plus, there was a woman sleeping in the room, but I didn´t care too much. of course the door couldn´t be closed, but there was none anyways. at least that´s what I thought, until this woman opens the door! she looked like out of a horror movie and I almost fell in that dirty squatting toilet. the authority-man escorted me back to my compartment, and I could sit down without pain again.
in Russia, they close the toilets ages before every stop,so make sure you pee in advance.
my friend Teresa came to Beijing in the last week of June, which at the same time as my last week in Beijing, so there was still loads to do: packing for the upcoming trip, sending stuff home (I accumulated over 40 kilos of books and other "lightweights" in the 5 months in Beijing), farewell dinners, soccer matches etc....
I was really sad to leave Beijing, say good bye to the wonderful people I´ve met and the city I had become really attached to. the farewell night was great, but lasted almost too long - we almost missed our train to Ulaan Baator! my friend Karin just managed to wake us up 45 minutes before the train left!!! so the first 30 hour train ride went by really fast, as we spent most of it sleeping.
upon arrival in UB, we met our now friend Tom, whom I had met on the Thorn Tree and who also wanted to do a Gobi-trip. in the hostel, we also found Park, who also came to the Gobi with us.
I think Tom already regretted his decision to come with us when we went grocery shopping for the trip and we bought baby food ;)
The Gobi is a wonderful place! Mongolia is such a vast country, the landscape just doesn´t seem to end, we drove, drove, drove without seeing a single human being. I was surprised how varied a desert can be, the Gobi isn´t like the Sahara (well, what I´ve seen of it in pictures), just a very small part of it is actually sand dunes.
there is even ice! in the middle of the desert!
we spent our nights in gers, the traditional mongolian house and had our dinners cooked by the families who run the places. well, I ate mostly instant noodles and couldn´t survive very long in Mongolia, as it´s all mutton, even the deep fried breadsticks we got for breakfast tasted like mutton. but once, in the middle of nowhere, we were served soya meat! seriously! fortunately they showed me the package, as I wouldn´t have believed them otherwise. Teresa says this was the best meal we got in Mongolia.
Park, our Korean friend, was so funny: being Asian, he was totally scared of the sun and put a blanket around himself while we were having lunch - and looked like ET. and he cooked instant noodles and rice anytime of the day
when we were not being driven around by Khan, we rode horses and camels (Park with his umbrella), usually we were just trotting behind a guide and couldn´t ride ourselves - and aparenly, there is a reason for that: on a ride at the waterfalls, Teresa´s horse got mad or something and she jumped off and hurt her hip quite badly. we still don´t know what´s wrong with it - she´ll get it x-rayed next week and we will know whether she walked around Siberia and Mongolia with a broken hip or something.
albeit Mongolia´s size, we managed to meet some people, as there were usually others staying at the ger camp as well - which ended in long discussions and games lasting the whole night or until the vodka was finished.
but Tom wasn´t the only Thorn Tree-person we met on this trip! another guy, Christian, that I had been emailing with for a while, also did the transmongolian, but we thought that we wouldn´t meet up, as he was leaving a bit later. thanks to blogs and websites, I had an idea what he looked like. so, while riding our horses at the waterfalls, we see a guy walking around, who looked like the guy I had seen on the pics. so I tried and shouted "Christian" and he turned around, then I said "Bisch du da Christian?"(are you Christian)he said yes and I told him that I am Verena - it´s a small world after all! it´s really funny to met a person you´ve never met but still think you know somehow in the middle of nowhere! Christian pretty much "followed" us all the way to Moscow, we met again (then planned) in Irkutsk (where we almost missed the train again due to too much beerdrinking) and St. Petersburg (where we again just made it to the train, with a bit more time left this time).
but back to the Gobi trip: we climed sand dunes, slept outside under the stars, tried airag aka mongolian vodka (which must be one of the most disguisting things drinkable), used public showers (every mongolian town has one: you (thinking you´re tanned) line for ages but then you get into a clean, albeit old, shower room with hot water, shower and come out all pale (washed off all the sand and dust)), almost got stuck more than once (it was raining very hard and a lot of the "roads" were flooded,managed to finish a whole book while driving on bumpy roads...great!
back in UB, we boarded our second train this time to Irkutsk, the closest city to lake Baikal in Russia. 36 hours. there is another train which takes only 26 and now we know there the 10 hours go: you spend them at the border! waiting, waiting, waiting: the worst: they don´t let you pee for ages. I had to go sooo badly and we begged the provodnista, but nothing! then, after along, painful time (I was close to saying that I´m pregnant, maybe she would have felt sorry for me then)she finally let me out of the train, where a russian coustoms authority was waiting for me. "follow me!" he said, like I had commited a crime or something. so I did, in pain and the walk seemed so far...then, once we arrived at the toilet, he said "Russian style". I have seen loads of distgusting toilet, but this one must have been the worst. plus, there was a woman sleeping in the room, but I didn´t care too much. of course the door couldn´t be closed, but there was none anyways. at least that´s what I thought, until this woman opens the door! she looked like out of a horror movie and I almost fell in that dirty squatting toilet. the authority-man escorted me back to my compartment, and I could sit down without pain again.
in Russia, they close the toilets ages before every stop,so make sure you pee in advance.
posted by verena at 7:45 AM
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