An update in three acts

Act 1

Naadam and UB

Naadam. This is the reason why I tried to get to Mongolia early in the first place. It's the national festival and involves three events: Wrestling:

This guy's wearing the traditional wrestling gear. He's pretty small for a wrestler, I think he probably lost.

Archery:

The lineup

And horse racing, which I didn't see. 

Tickets for tourists were going for about $35 and were all sold out by the time I got here. I decided to head to the stadium anyway and managed to get some for about $20 from a guy near the gate. I thought this was a pretty good deal, until I heard from another traveler who got hers for about $6. Oh well. I got in:

The event itself wasn't bad. A neat opening ceremony that I didn't quite understand, then a generally festive atmosphere throughout the day, culminating in a concert and fireworks on the square:

Kaboom

Act 2

Darkhan

Once the opening day of Naadam was finished, my mind was set on getting out of UB. I had been in touch with Zoloo, the Mongolian girl who helped us cross the border, and she had invited all of us to come visit her in Darkhan. Darkhan is an old soviet city built in the "bread basket" of Mongolia, so lots of open fields and creepy crumbling apartment complexes:

One view from the hotel

The other view from the hotel

Luckily, the first day up there I met Zoloo and her family and we all went down to the river for a Mongolian picnic. Before anything else happened, her brother insisted that we go swimming, so we stripped down and dove into the chocolate-milk-hued stream. At some point while I felt the mud squeezing between my toes and watched the horses drinking from the riverside, I started to question the prudence of my decision. Then, I looked up at Munguunuu's smiling face, the sunset over the fields, the naked kids swimming next to us and Zoloo's family sitting by the bbq and though: health be damned, this is worth it.

I'm sure it's clean...

Once I got out of the water and dried off, I joined her family at the bbq and even got taught (sort of) to make khuushuur from Zoloo's mother (who started calling herself my Mongolian Mother).

Sampling my wares

 We spent the rest of the evening enjoying the bbq and trying many Mongolian tasty treats. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of most of them. In addition to the khuushuurs, we had airag (fermented mare's milk, which I'm holding in the picture above), vodka (of course), stewed mutton, potato salad (or something very much like it), and to top it all off: gummies for dessert. For some reason gummies are huge in Mongolia, every store has them and they're even sold on the streets.

the fields by the river

Once we got back to town, Munguunuu and I left the family's house to go to his & Zoloo's dad's office, where there is a matress and we would be spending the night. He wasn't quite ready for sleep and wanted to practice his English, however, so it was another few hours and few beers later that we finally slept. During that time the discussion ranged from his job (security guard at an army jail, maybe?), his feelings towards other groups (he doesn't like gay people, but he's not sure why; he doesn't like chinese people because they take Mongolian land and girls; he does like Russians, but again, he doesn't really know why. I think it's partly because of military alliances...; he does like Korean girls, I didn't ask for an explanation of that one).

In the morning, he left for work and I hung out at the office until Zoloo and her father came to pick me up at 11:30ish. The plan had been for 9am, but hey, it's Mongolia. Her dad took a shot of vodka and a cup of tea, then we went to their house for breakfast, since they had all just woken up within the past hour or so.

lunch. Kind of like lamb stew with rice

 The entire day we spent just hanging out and relaxing. Some other friends came over to join in the TV watching, chatting, or toplay chess:

The champion (right) poses

 I might have been bored, but I realized it was exactly what i was looking for: real Mongolian life. Plus, I enjoyed having a little time to relax.

Intermission

By request: Street dogs of Mongolia

In my past travels, I've seen all sorts of street dogs. For a while, I just assumed that they were all the same. Especially in southeast Asia where there seems to be a breed of short-haired "street dog" that exists all over the place. Hong Kong had a little more variety, but nothing like what I saw in Beijing:

Watch out, he's vicious

These little guys were everywhere. And if it wasn't a shit-tzu, it was a Corgie. Apparently if you're a street dog in China, your legs have to be shorter than four inches.

Coming to Mongolia, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had heard that Mongolians used dogs to guard their gers (yurts), and that they weren't exactly petting dogs. But after seeing the wee pups in China I started to wonder if Mongolia would also have tiny canines guarding their streets. I was wrong:

Princess fluffybutt?

I think she must have some burnese in her

 The dogs here are crazy. Many of them are huge, like the big girl above. Then others are chained up and seem quite vicious, like these guys:

Scottie's pissed

Then others just were:

Looks like mumbles (the sled dog)

Awoowoowoo

Happy pup with a boot

Then there are the dog gangs:

Team awesome

Team awesomer

I'll have to see what the countryside pups looks like

Act 3

Shit happens

Traveling is all about ups and downs. Naadam was an up, food is always an up, hanging out with Zoloo's family was an up, even just moving around is an up. Most of the downs are little things like accidentally buying a train ticket when I meant to buy a bus ticket (that actually happened), less-than-solid bowel movements (of course), getting overcharged (yep), or lost (why not?). Then, just as I'm starting to get frustrated as these little things add up, shit happens. Quite literally, actually. I got pooped on. It was only by a bird, so I guess it could be worse, but there it was: poop on my head.

At that point, all I could do was laugh. I wish I had taken a picture to show you all here.

Epilogue

I almost wasn't able to share any of these photos with y'all, as I had another exciting moment this afternoon. While I was out in UB looking for the post office, I got bumped by a couple guys and one grabbed my camera from my pocket. Luckily, they weren't too subtle about it and I was able to grab the guy and get the camera back before he got away. I yelled some obscenities at him as the adrenaline coursed through me and he laughed and walked away, probably to do the same thing to some other tourist a few minutes later. I was left seething about the fact that there was almost nothing other than my grumpiness deterring him from doing this again. The police were nowhere in sight, and even if they had been I'm skeptical as to what they might have done. All I can do is take it as a lesson learned for myself and I'll be more vigilant with my things.

Just for fun:

In case there is confusion about its purpose...

Oh yeah, and for those who are wondering: I'm on my way to Khovd tomorrow by bus. I've heard between 40 and 48 hours of bus, it's basically crossing all of Mongolia. I'm expecting it'll be 50+. I'll let you know how it goes...

I was so hungry...

...that I actually ate a horse. Well, maybe not a whole horse. It was more like two bites of my friend Lucky's horse, but was still my first taste of horsemeat. It tasted a bit like beef mixed with tuna. No joke.

So clearly, I'm in Mongolia, as you probably gathered from my last post. But before I get too ahead of myself, let's go back to the beginning: Beijing.

Those aren't clouds. That's just smog.

I landed on Wednesday night and actually got picked up by my couchsurfing host, Xuehua, at the airport. This was amazing since it was already nearly midnights and public transportation had stopped running. Her apartment was super swanky, as were her tastes, but that worked out well for me since she ended up taking me out to some delicious chinese restaurants. I forgot to take pictures of the good stuff, unfortunately, but I do have this picture of my meat-on-a-stick and soy milk cup lunch to hold you foodies over:

Om nom

 In my two days in Beijing I only really got to see two sights: Tienanmen square (top) and the 798 art exhibition. Other than that I just wandered around and tried to figure out how to get to Mongolia. The wandering let me practice my fledgling Chinese when eventually I started asking people how to get to the subway station, which happened to be about a 10km bus ride away (my host had dropped me off without telling me where I was).

The getting to Mongolia bit actually ended up being easier than I expected. Xuehua picked me up along with another couchsurfer from Spain/France, Jean. He didn't stay with us, but he was also heading up to UB taking the slow route and had met some other travelers at the Mongolian embassy who had helped him out. It turned out that all of the buses to Erlian, the border town, were sold out. Luckily, one of the travelers, Miao, is Chinese and found a guy on the black market who was selling bus tickets. I had to bump my departure date up by a day to go along with them, but it was totally worth it. Our posse now consisted of myself, Jean, Miao, Miao's boyfriend Aaron (from Kent, WA, actually), and Roberto, a Panamanian.

The bus to Erlian was a 12-hour sleeper bus. I've never been on a sleeper bus before, and my first assumption was that I would definitely not fit. I am significantly larger than the average Chinese person. As you can see:

Tall man in a little bed

 The bed actually ended up being surprisingly comfortable, or maybe it was just me, but I slept soundly through the night. Then I woke up to dinosaurs:

Welcome to Jurassic Park (Inner Mongolia)

The Gobi desert is where some of the first dinosaur fossils were found. As we approached Erlian, it became apparent that someone is really proud of this. After the brontosaurus archway we drove for another several kilometers flanked by life-size statues of dinosaurs roaming the desert.

While on the bus, we met Zoloo, Helle and Helle's mother and younger brother, all Mongolians. Zoloo spoke English and was more than happy to teach us some Mongolian and to help us cross the border. This friendship proved invaluable as Miao's Chinese became less and less useful the further north we went and we started relying more and more on our Mongolian friends' help. Our posse thus grew to 9. Then we arrived at the station in Erlian and the girl sleeping behind me introduced herself as a Korean traveling alone named Heijin. Now we are 10.

The plan was to get train tickets in Erlian, then to cross the border to Zamin-Uud via minibus to catch the train that would take us 15 hours north to Ulaan Baatar. The problem was that we were not the only ones with the same plan. The Nadaam festival is happening this week in Mongolia and everyone is on summer vacation, so there is a surge towards UB and nearly everything is sold out. We decided to try our luck anyway and wait in line for tickets in Erlian.

And wait we did. We arrived at 6am, but the ticket counter didn't open until 9am. we were a good ways back in the line by the time we got there, but "lines" are a fairly loose social construct here, so there was a lot of jostling for position for the next three hours. When the gate finally opened, they let us know that there were no tickets left, so all of our waiting was in vain anyway. Here's a picture of a couple Israelis getting pulled out of line by the police because they cut everyone off:

The "line" for tickets

Not to be deterred by a lack of tickets, we made our way for the border anyway. At this point, it was already too late to cross in the morning. Obviously the border guards have to take a lunch break from 11-1:30 every day, so we waited some more. Luckily I could do it in style in our super official minibus:

I'm sure it's official. Just ask that lady

Then we crossed the happiest border in the world:

Nothing says "welcome to the chinese exit" like a rainbow

 And then we got to the train station:

Zamin-Uud station

But, we still didn't have tickets. Despite arming our Mongolian savior, Zoloo, with all of our passports and some well-trained elbows, they still wouldn't sell her any tickets, much less 10 of them. On to plan B: Jumping the train, bribing the ticket-checker until later when we could buy a ticket from the conductor. We had heard that it was possible and had been done the week before, so we were hopeful.Once tre train arrived, though, we saw that there were two officers posted at every door checking tickets and passports. Wah wah.

On to plan C: The black market. This worked well for us in Beijing, so maybe it would work here? We were down to under an hour until the train arrived and several of us ran around trying to find scalpers to sell us tickets. The Mongolians were having better luck, as the scalpers would triple the price for us foreigners or just walk away when we drew attention to them. Even then, they only had a few tickets and wouldn't be able to get all of us on the train. It was looking like we were going to have to spend the night in Zamin-Uud and hope for the best the next day.

But then there's Plan D: The blacker market. Miao met a Chinese guy somehow who knew the conductor on the train. He talked to the conductor and got her to sneak us on to the train, into a locked cabin that was set aside for just such a purpose, to then pay her 150% of the original price later on. Mission accomplished:

Me, Jean, Roberto, Heijin, Miao and Aaron in our reserved cabin

6 people in a 4-bunk cabin for 15 hours actually ended up being quite comfortable (our Mongolian friends had their own cabin). Another pleasant surprise from Mongolian transport, which I had been led to believe was absolutely terrible. They even had a restaurant car with Mongolian food:

Lamb, fat, egg, rice, potatoes, mmm

Then we went a long, long way across the desert and steppe:

 

Choo choo

Until we finally arrived in UB:

Roberto, Aaron, Me, Miao, Jean, Heijin, Zoloo, Helle, Helle's Mom

 I was hoping to stay with a family in a homestay in UB, but that fell through. Apparently there was some miscommunication. What I was thinking would be more like a couchsurfing setup with me covering some food costs was what they were thinking would be more like a rich American comes to town and throws money everywhere. After speaking with Batka, my connection in the city, I declined and opted to stay in the guest house for a couple of nights until I figured out my next plans.

I was worried that the guest house would separate me from interacting with locals, but I actually was able to luck out again. Although I'm still seeing the posse from Beijing quite a bit, Aaron has some students of his who are from UB who have been showing us around and teaching us Mongolian. Their names are Snake, Tsogol and something I can't pronounce that means "Lucky". Yesterday we settled in and had a birthday party for Helle, today I wandered around the city before we went to the gigantic statue of Chinggis Khaan and ate some delicious Khoshuur (fried lamb dumplings), horsemeat, and fermented horse milk.

Lucky, my Mongolian teacher. It helps that he doesn't speak English

On the way to the Chinggis Khaan statue, we saw police officers lining the road every half kilometer or so for miles and miles. The only explanation I got from our Mongolian friends was "something for Government". I shrugged it off as Mongolian weirdness until a policecar with lights blaring came driving down the middle of the road the opposite direction demanding that all cars pull over and stop indefinitely. So we did.

Waiting for the motorcade

And we saw a truck full of Camels and goats:

Transport in Mongolia isn't uncomfortable just for people

And then a motorcade drove by. The Mongolians I asked said that it was "president" or "ambassador" or "government something", so I felt pretty excited to be seeing what I thought would be the Mongolian president's motorcade. Upon reading the news just now, it turns out it was Hilary Clinton coming to visit. I've never seen her in the US, so of course I should run across our Secretary of State in Outer Mongolia.

By the time we got to the statue I was tired of paying for things, so I opted not to go inside the museum and just to watch my companions wave from atop the great Khaan's noble steed:

Man, with a horse that big no wonder he took over the world.

So that's what life is like on my end. I'll try to keep the updates coming! I'll leave you with this to drool over until next time:

Khoshuur. Delicious.

alive in mongolia!

Bye bye

Packing 

If I've learned anything from asking other travelers for advice on what to bring while traveling, it's that everyone has a best way of doing it, and nobody's "best way" is the same as anyone else. I've spent the last two months piecing together my collection of gear through my own experience and advice given to me by friends, guidebooks, travel forums and advertisements. Here's what it looks like, unpacked:

An explosion of gear. See detailed list at the end of the entry.

Feel free to judge my list all you want. I am sure yours would look quite different. The fact is, every traveler has their own style and their own purpose for traveling. My parents told me a story of a traveler they met on the beach in Hawaii in the 70s. He had one small bag with him that he said had "everything I need." While he was out surfing, they took a peek inside to find: a lightweight jacket, sunglasses, a toothbrush and a hairdryer. On the other hand, some people show up for a week's vacation with several suitcases and a horde of porters to help carry it. Needless to say, my packing list falls somewhere between the two.

I haven't yet weighed my pack, but it's heavy enough that my mother refuses to lift it and light enough that I wouldn't mind walking with it for a long while. I expect that over the next several weeks I will lose some weight here and there (clif bars, books, underwear), and probably gain some elsewhere (street food, local clothing, pets). I plan to take a similar photo and inventory near the end of my trip, as well as at least once along the way to see how my gear evolves over time.

Some of these things may seem ridiculous or superfluous (Two sleeping bag liners? Down booties? Passport?), but I have my own reason for bringing each item. I am running on the assumption that I have at least everything I need, and that some of this will be dropped or gifted along the way.  I am also trying to remember a philosophy I have for this trip: In the end, all decisions in the next several months are up to me. Some I will make well, some I will make poorly. Either way, I will enjoy the consequences.

So that's it for the US. I have a few more hours this side of the date line, then it's off to Beijing! I'll keep you posted.

-Shawn


Gear:

- Large backpack - 65L  (1)

- Small backpack – 30L (1)

- light sleeping bag (1)

- sleeping bag liners (2)

- bivy sac (1)

- extra plastic bags (lots)

- stuff sacks (4)

- bars/snacks/other food (plenty)

- sunglasses w/ case (1 pair)

- aqua mira water treatment (1 set)

- iodine water treatment (1 bottle)

- soap (1 bottle)

- bug spray (1 bottle)

- hand sanitizer (2 small bottles)

- pack towel (1)

- repair kit (sewing, patching, etc.) (1)

- sunscreen (1 bottle)

- earplugs (20 pairs)

- star chart (1)

- mini carabiners (6)

- multi-tool (1)

- headlamp (1)

- pocket knives for gifts (4)

- headlamps for gifts (2)

- AAA batteries (6)

- ipod shuffle (1)

- camera (1)

- extra SD cards (2)

- extra camera battery (1)

- smartphone (1)

- dumbphone (1)

- chargers for electronics

- toothbrush (1)

- floss (1)

- toothpaste (1 tube)

- scissors (1)

- deoderant (1)

- nightguard (1)

- eye mask (1)

- spork (1)

- foldable plate (1)

- wristwatch (1)

- compass (1)

- lighter (1)

- outlet adapters (1 set)

- playing cards (1 deck)

- postcards of Seattle (20)

- other postcards from the US (6)

- journals of varying size (5)

- address book (1)

- fun books (3 – Life of Pi, Siddhartha and Geography of Bliss)

- guidebooks (2 ½ - Mongolia, Xinjiang chapter, and Central Asia)

- phrasebooks (3 – Mandarin, Mongolian, Russian)

- water bottles (2)

- pens and pencils (plenty)

- sharpies (2)

- zip ties (bunches)

- passport (1, unfortunately)

- credit cards (3)

- debit cards (1)

- insurance card (1)

- copies of the above 4 items (at least 3)

- yellow fever vaccination card (1)

- international driver’s permit (1)

Medical supplies

- First aid kit

- multi-vitamins (100)

- doxycycline (320)

- azithromycin (42 – 7 courses)

- hydrocortisone (1 tube)

- Neosporin (1 tube)

- Aloe vera (1 small bottle)

- Emergen-C packets (10)

- Ibuprofin (50)

- Tylenol (50)

- diphenhydramine (12)

- loperamide (24)

- Pepto bismol (~30)

- motion sickness pills (8) and gum (24)

- rehydration electrolyte packets (5)

- band-aids (12)

- gauze (1 pad, 1 roll)

- tape (~3 rolls)

- antiseptic wipes (4)

Clothing:

- quick-dry khakhi pants (1 pair)

- jeans (1 pair)

- quick-dry cargo shorts (1 pair)

- quick-dry underwear (2 pairs)

- wool socks (3 pairs)

- cotton socks (2 pairs)

- flip flops (1 pair)

- light hiking shoes (1 pair)

- down booties (1 pair)

- wool gloves (1 pair)

- wool hat (1 pair)

- long underwear set (1)

- t-shirt (2)

- undershirt (1)

- collared long-sleeve shirts (3)

- fleece vest (1)

- light fleece (1)

- down jacket (1)

- mosquito head net (1)

- visor (1)

- bandana (2)

- light scarf (1)
- rain jacket (1)
- rain pants (1)

Final stretch of planning

I am calling this the official start to my travel blog! Sure, I had it going over a month ago, but at that point I was still just testing things out, now I'm committed.

Speaking of commitment, today also marks two weeks until my departure date of July 3. As I mentioned before, the past couple of months have been a lot of figuring out details and trying to set up homestays and things to do, and lay out a general travel outline. I've also realized that there is NO WAY I'm going to have it all planned before I go, so I'll definitely be doing a bit of the "ok, now what?" type of travel as well.

What I do know now is that once I land in Beijing on the 4th I'll be staying with a couchsurfer for a couple of days while I try to figure out how to get up to Mongolia. I'm opting for the cheaper, slower and less direct route north (instead of the $300+ trans-mongolian railway), but apparently it's also a hard route to find for foreigners. Good thing I'm fluent in Mandarin. I figure as long as I learn "train" "mongolia" and "no problem", I should be fine, right?

Another update on the itinerary (although all plans are still written in jell-o): I've added Morocco to the list. I need to get a Cameroonian visa before I get there, and it turns out there is no Cameroonian embassy in Kazakhstan. Weird. Turns out, there are relatively few Cameroonian embassies in the world. I almost was stuck going to Paris (lame) to find one, but then I found that there is an embassy in Morocco, flights are cheap-ish to Morocco, I don't need a visa for Morocco, and I know a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, so that's been added in as a transition country between Asia and Central Africa around New Years'. Here is the slightly modified map that I drew which sort of includes Morocco. Just imagine that the little plane goes all the way to Morocco, THEN to Cameroon.

I swear the seamonster's there.

So, I'll stop writing about what might happen and pick this up again once things start actually happening. I still have plenty of details to figure out in the next couple of weeks. As will probably always be true, I have a couple of requests from you all:

1) Do you know anyone in these countries that you can set me up with? I'd love some places to crash or things to do.
2) Have you ever been to any of these countries and know of some must-see/do things?
3) WHAT IS YOUR ADDRESS?? Thanks to all of you who wrote in my little red book on Saturday. I'd love to collect everyone's addresses so I can send some postcards

Alright, I'm done.