Mongolia

Hello Mongolia

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After just a couple of hours sleep it was time to get the bags and take a nightly walk through Irkutsk and to the train station and jump on the train toward Mongolia and Ulanbaator, It might not been our brightest idea to walk alone, as two tourist with all our luggage through the city in the middle of the night but we had no problem what so ever and to be honest, I never felt unsafe here in Russia. On our way to the train station we stopped at a 24/7 open cafe and bought some Russian pasty and while we stood outside and munching our a cop car arrived with the same goal. From this tiny Renault 19 four huge police officers jump out, together with Kalashnikov’s of course. I have no idea how that tony car could fit em all and its quite a difference compared to Sweden there they cops has an huge Volvo for themselves.

The same procedure again to board the train with showing your tickets and passport which is really nice and easy, unfortunately this train had lower standard and you could not open any windows. It hot, stuffy and pretty shitty on the train which may be explained that the train has been running non-stop from Moscow, 6500km away. This time we had a Scandinavian compartment, me and Anton together with two danish guys. Nice but we are bored and the heat make us easily annoyed about more or less everything, it will be nice to arrive to Ulanbaator.

We passed lake Baikal during the night so I couldn’t shoot any picture of it and after that the landscape has opened up with big, wide rivers. If it wasn’t for the pointy mountains you could think we were taking a train ride through the Swedish mountains, The few houses we seen remind of mountain cabins but here its the their permanent residence.I haven’t seen any arable and the few animals we see if groups of 4-5 cows.

The biggest challenge was to cross the border though. I you think that this should be an easy process since the train is passing here on daily basis you thought wrong. First they collected all the passports on the train, then they  passed them over to the soldiers who were checking that you were allowed to leave, had visa and everything. At the same time another group of soldiers boarded the train with dogs  and they really tore downed the whole train is their search for contraband. Once they finally has checked the whole train (which is a long, long train) the soldiers board the train and starts to hand over the passports, of course verifying that its you on your passport. About three hours later we were finally allowed to pass the boarder and we roll away, for about 20km and then the whole process starts over again, this time with Mongolian soldiers and police officers.

Camping in Mongolia – part 1

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We arrived to Ulanbaator and just as we planned we had a driver waiting for us, time to go camping!

According to the pre-information we got we knew it should take around 3 hours to drive to our camp where the first hour would be on tarmac roads and from that, “more exciting roads”. I would say that the tarmac road was exciting and lasted for around 30 minutes, once we came outside of the city no more tarmac but way more adrenalin and what a view. I mean I have been riding downhill tracks on my bike or drove motocross on tracks which were in better conditions than the roads we drove today. Besides driving on cattle tracks we drove on the Mongolian steppe, through mountain passes and yes, over mountains.

Once we arrived at the camp we saw that our camps is five our six gers and the view from here is amazing. You can see high mountains, deep valleys, rivers and untouched nature. Absolutely breathtaking and all the silence, oh my god! The only things that we hear is our own loudly laughs when we miscalculated how warm it will be inside the tent once we light up the fire (wehave around 60C right now) or when we realize that that asian girl is not an escort girl, shes a guide for a big Swedish group.

Everybody except me and Anton has so much gears, it feels like they emptied a outdoor store and everybody is walking around like a commercial somewhere in the wilderness, well except me and Anton. We have regulare jeans, a shirt, sneakers and a big bag of beer with us. The look they gave us is priceless when we open the first bottle of beer and decided to climb the closest peak. That wasn’t any problem and we both climbed to the top and got down again to base camp and after that we were blacklisted by the other swedes. I really don’t care since I don’t travel around the world to meet other swedes anyway.

Camping in Mongolia – part two

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Woke up in the middle of the night that finally the heat started to leave the tent and I could use the blanket, feels good to not have to sleep in a sauna anymore and a few hours later we woke up and got the best breakfast on the whole trip. Even if we are in the middle of nowhere we gets some toast (over open fire so it has that lovely smoke taste), juice, tea, pancakes and you name it, I just love it!

The mission for today was to see Mongolia Genghis Khan style, in other words just get ready and mount the horse and start horseback riding. The horses are much smaller than the horses you see in Sweden but don’t get fooled, they are fast and used to run in the mountains, My horse was probably on speed so if I didn’t actively hold him back he started to run while Antons horse was more…hungry and took any opportunity he had to eat. Our guide solved this issue by simple create a horsewhip from an old tree and after he learned us the Mongolian word for speed up we could suddenly talk to our horses. To bad we didn’t learn the word to stop or slow down because the horse didn’t care how much you tried to hold him back, luckily we were riding in mountains and I simple turned the horse riding uphill to slow him down. A few hours in you started to get a feeling for it and you could really enjoy the views and for a second or two you felt like Genghis Kahn.

After our horseback riding we decided to go river rafting, a long hike later and we are finally gently following the stream. It was nice and even if I wished for some more action it was really nice to follow the stream, see the nature and just enjoy the silence . When the sun started to set our guides started to sing a Mongolian song which made the whole scenery really picturesquely.

The other Swedish gang left today so now its only us, one British, one American and one German here, it feels good and the atmosphere is much better. The locals we kind a havent seen many and in this camp there is only one who speaks English, she is nice thought so I assume they all are.

Ulaanbaatar

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After our camping trip it was time to visit Ulaanbaatar and since we been on the road for a while now we decided to go for a little nicer hotel so we could wash our clothes and really live central and central it was. Our closest neighbors was a coupe of embassies and we had somewhere around five minute walk to Sükbaatar square which must be counted as city center but nicer hotel? Well I’m not sure about that. I woke up this morning that Anton had to take a leak an once he opened the door to our bathroom the whole room was filled with water. Somehow the sink broke during the night and slowly filled the bathroom floor with water, gradient or floor drain is of course missing so even if it didn’t leaked much from the sink it slowly filled our bathroom with water. Lucky for us we had no stuff in the bathroom and we got upgraded to a suite instead so we don’t complain and besides that, we got all newly washed clothes now, whoho!

Ulaanbaatar is a quite boring city though, sure there is people and classic city life, even more than in Irkutsk but I got a weird feeling about the city. In one way it feels like a big city since there is people and they are building everywhere but at the same time all bars and restaurants are closing down at midnight which makes it feels like a small city. The city is also very young and got no real history or tourist attractions. well they have a few museums and plenty of temples but overall it feels like two days is more than enough here.

Mongolia is a country I really recommend to visit but don’t stay here in Ulaanbaatar, go out in the wilderness instead, live in gers, go horseback riding, hiking and enjoy the silence and the nature. Ulaanbaatar is worth a visit but you don’t need more than a day or two here so you can say, checked!

Welcome to China

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We decided to spend our last night in Mongolia partying and checking out the nightlife before we jump on the train towards Beijing. It may sound like a stupid idea because who wants to be hangover on the train but it actually was a really smart thing to do. First of all its really boring to go by train through the Mongolian desert. The nature look all the same and it gets really boring after a while.

We are now going by a Chinese train and this is really modern compared with the old Russian train. We have air condition, power outlet and even a TV in our compartment. The train is much more silent and overall more nice. It kind a felt bad in the beginning, like we were cheating but during on of the longer stops and I took a walk outside the train and almost died because of the heat I change my mind and now I’m really thankful for the air condition.

The border between Mongolia and China went actually really quick, well it took a couple of hours of course but the Chinese custom lady was the first one on this train trip who both was happy and friendly and could speak English with us (in official business) which a nice surprise. However China and Mongolia has different size of the tracks so while we were going through customs they changed the undercarriage on the whole train. This was the part which took forever and even if it was really interesting to see how they manage to do it for the first wagon, you get restless and while they are doing it the air condition/power is offline, the toilets are closed and you are not allowed to leave the train. I tried to shoot some photos of it but it was challenging to get a good one.

The scenery here in China was more or less the same as in Mongolia but now we actually see traces of agricultural and now and then you pass by houses and even trees.

Q&A

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Many people write to me and ask more or less the same questions so my idea with this post is to answer them. The questions are just random so, no sorting order here

  • Did you get happy ending on the Chinese massage?
    No, this was a true massage institute with no intentions of anything except massage. There are however plenty of places which more or less wide open say that you will get happy ending and you cant walk down the street in Beijing without at least some people ask if you want some.
  • Hows the toilets?
    Russia use the same standard as western Europe and that includes the trans-Siberian train too. There was no paper on the train though so bring your own and you will flush everything just straight below the train which means that the toilets are closed while the train has stopped on a station. They were always decent clean though! On our camp in Ulaanbaatar we had a classic toilet chair over a hole, when its time to close the camp you just fill the whole with dirt and move your chair to the new place. In Mongolia and China we have seen all kind of toilets, from just a hole in the ground to regular toilets like the one we are used to.
  • Can you take a shower on the train?
    No, at least not in second or third class. Third class which is the cheapest means its more or less just a lot of beds in a wagon. You will more or less be sitting  and sleeping at your neighbor and this is the hard core class. In second class you have 4-bed compartments and if you want to sleep or relax you can easily close your door. Of course you might share your compartment with some other people but at least its a limited number of people. First class might have a shower but I doubt it and I assume its kind a luxury.  I went by second class and even if that means that I didn’t took a shower during those four days it took to get to Irkutskt it wasn’t that bad and everybody on the train were the same. I did enjoy the shower once I took it in Irkutsk though.
  • Hows the food?
    The food is far away from the “Swedish Chinese food” you can find and it taste really, really good. Every dish is like an explosion of flavors and its cheap. Normally you order a couple of different dishes to the table and then you eat from the one you like most. I must however give the advice to learn to eat with chopsticks before you go, Anton didn’t and he struggled before he learned how to eat. I must confess that neither the Russian cabbage or Chinese rice breakfast is a favorite but you can always eat something else.
  • Does English work??
    Sometimes but in Russia mostly no. In Mongolia and China many signs are in English and you can actually speak with people however there is many typos and you may not get answer on the question you asked. With some sign language and good will you will manage anyway.
  • Do you recommend the trip?
    Oh yea but do not expect an all inclusive trip. You will be confused, live like a bum and meet a lot of different people and different culture