Mongolian Mishaps

MONGOLIAN MISHAPS

Due to the logistical hurdles, visa red tape and the fact I had only decided to embark on the Trans-Siberian at the last minute, I had been forced to go through a travel agent to arrange all the details. Being also that laziness is my default state of being I declined to do even the most basic research under the mistaken belief that it would be fun to “wing it”.

This is not the case.

A common theme that arose was hence that more often than not, I had very little to no idea of what was going on at any given time. I found myself in a perpetual state of cluelessness, which can be particularly hard to resolve in places such as you encounter along the Trans-Siberian railway. For starters, Beijing Railway station is a nightmare and I narrowly missed a train that would have taken me to Chongdu or some other such unexceptional Chinese city of a million or 12. Thankfully I realized my mistake in time (shouldn’t there be more tourists on this train?) and did eventually find my Trans-Mongolian carriage and settled into a relatively comfortable 4-berth cabin. By this I mean comfortable relative to the battery-hen-like conditions experienced in a fully occupied cabin. Thank God I only had one other occupant as the Orient Express this most definitely is not.

China from the train

Considering you can barely get more than 2 feet away from your fellow inmates for days on end, I was lucky to have very pleasant company and so as we rolled through China with its varying scenery (a rare treat as it turns out on the Trans-Siberian) I was having a great time shooting the breeze with my fellow trainees. The first day hence became a blur of chatting, reading, window gazing, and a lot of snoozing. Something about the rhythmic click-clack of train travel that just sends you to sleep…

The Mongolian steppe

This blissful state of affairs was interrupted when we pulled up abruptly late in the day whilst I was eating my first train meal in the dining car. Incidentally, the kitchen had an elaborate and extensive menu on paper at least, but apparently only one dish is available at any one time.

“Well I guess me and my friend here will have 2 of that then.”

“Ah, sorry, we only have one dish. Of that one dish.”

And so it was that I had just commenced eating my half-serve of fried onion and rice, when on storm seemingly half the Chinese military shouting in broken English “Hurry, hurry, back to rooms, go, go, go.”

Rolling hills in Mongolia

Being that mine was the last skerrick of food on entire train, I didn’t want to waste it, but my stalling tactics were not appreciated by one particular gent, who obviously in a hurry, simply took the bowl from my hands, gave it to his colleague and proceeded to shoosh me all the way back to my room where he demanded my passport. It further aggravated him immensely as I commenced rummaging around my luggage looking for it.

Officer: “Where your form?!?!

Me: “From? I’m from Australia.”

Officer, annoyed: “No, no, your form!! Where your form?!?!”

Me: “Oh you want that little yellow form? I haven’t filled it out yet."

Officer, looking at me as if I had just pissed on his shoe: “WHY NOT! YOUNEED FILL FORM!! HURRY UP! HURRY!”

Me: “Ok, ok, just let me find a pen” (more rummaging…)

Officer, by now disgusted and looking at me as if I had just pissed on my own shoe: “Oh no, no, no, you too slow. Give me now, I do quicker.”

And with that he snatched my passport and was off into the night.

For the next 8 hours it turns out.

8hr process to change the bogeys on every carriage for the different rail gauges.

It’s little disconcerting suddenly finding yourself at night in the depths of communist China, surrounded by military, without your passport, nor any clue as to what is going on. Of course, had I read my handy travel info-pack, I would have known that we had reached the border of Mongolia and the huge delay would be due more so to the lengthy process involved with switching the rail bogeys to suit the country’s different gauges than any immigration control or espionage interrogation.

Despite being a situation where potentially one should keep their wits about them, myself and a few other equally clueless tourists, passed the time getting rather pissed on vodka and by the time we woke up rather dusty the next morning we were rollicking along the vast, beautiful and empty steppes of Mongolia (I had been visited by the passport fairy as there it was under my pillow...). For hours that day, we passed through seemingly endless undulating plains that stretched to a horizon of rolling hills, with barely a mark of civilization to be seen.

Parliament and giant communist square (again) in Ulan Bator.

The tranquil surroundings were broken when we pulled into the capital Ulan Bator for our first official stop in the early afternoon. Ulan Bator with its population of near about 1 million, is the only place you could describe as a “city” in Mongolia. Unlike most desperately poor countries, which Mongolia undoubtedly is, there is actually a significant migration of peoples away from urban areas back to the countryside, with many living a traditional, subsistent lifestyle much the same as their ancestors have done for thousands of years. Some 70% of Mongolians still live in the camel-fur tents, or gers as they are known (pronounced grrr, as in “those pesky communist oppressors, grrr…).

Typical Mongolian ger tents.

The communist oppressors it could be argued constitute the primary reason why so many are forced back to living off the land. Although never officially part of the USSR, it was subservient in all but name. After having lived through 300 years of oppressive Chinese rule, Stalin sent his Red Army under the guise of promoting the Mongolian Socialist revolution against the Chinese. Instead, the Mongolian leaders mysteriously “disappeared” and Stalin had his own puppet regime installed, under which indescribable atrocities (as was in vogue at the time) were committed in the same vein as in Russia itself (if nothing else, Stalin could not be accused of playing favourites). For the next 70 years or so, the USSR plundered much of Mongolia’s natural mineral wealth, and upon the collapse of the union, Mongolia was left with next to nothing, with no smelters or refineries to process their raw mineral wealth. To add insult, the Russians slapped them with a bill dating back to the 1920’s for all the “investment” they had made over that period.So Mongolia has been left in the all-too-common poverty trap of having to sell its assets off cheap, without the means to build the necessary infrastructure to capitalize on their resources. Hence the steady exodus back to the traditional ways of living. Well that, and the fact that the Mongolian countryside is stunningly beautiful and Ulan Bator is a shithole.

I loved the street signs in Mongolia. Permission to fly for the another 3 seconds...

But no fighting...

Watch out for pedophiles??

Although having a few points of interest and some small pockets of grandeur (what is it with communists and huge f***-off squares??), Ulan Bator is not a city you want to hang around for too long. It has the air of a dying city, with old decaying communist-era buildings in a state of total disrepair in the outer suburbs. Despite being desperately poor however, everyone still seemingly has access to huge late model 4WDs. Thus imagine your typical Asian big-city traffic, only here every driver thinks his or her vehicle to be indestructible. Pedestrian crossings are a fanciful myth where you take your life in your own hands playing “frogger” to cross eight lines of traffic on a four-lane road. Adding to the confusion is that there apparently seems to be no official side of the road on which to drive judging by the fact that it’s roughly a 50-50 split between right and left-hand drive cars. Basically you want to get of the city as soon as you can.

Hmmm. Can you pick the potential problem here? Right and left hand drives are pretty much in equal distribution around UB.

Unfortunately this proved a hassle in my case. Due to my pretentious aversion to doing anything with an “organized” tour (how common!), I had rallied against the “organized” add-ons offered by my travel agent by refusing to sign up to any hokey, hackneyed, dare-I-say-it touristy activity. This is dumb for a number of reasons, not the least being that I am a tourist, a giant-Nikon-DSLR-camera-dangling one at that.

It seems every Mongolian wedding has their photos taken in front of the grand Parliament building. There were 3 other parties waiting in line after this one...

Furthermore, it just means you end up spending half your time wandering around the city trying to organize yourself to join a hokey, hackneyed, touristy activity. I don’t know what I was thinking, I mean, I’m hardly going to rent a horse and go galloping solo across the plains. On top of that, it’s usually for twice the price as was offered as part of the larger package, and most often there’s very few options available when you require them to commence in say, half an hour from now…Which leaves you with only one option and the main reason why it’s stupid to think you can organize your own “authentic” Mongolian experience; this being that you have to get the tour operator to “make something up”. In other words, you join part of one tour for a day, then get picked up, join another, and then leave the existing tour early so as to make your own way back in time for your departing train. This plan may work in say, Switzerland but in a place like Mongolia where finding someone who speaks English is like finding an Australian fluent in Inuit, it most decidedly does not work, particularly when only one of the participants knows the plan…

Seemingly endless scenery like this abounds as soon as you leave UB

…Who unfortunately wasn’t there when I returned to commence the patchwork quilt of a tour of which she apparently was the sole mastermind and possessor of any knowledge as to its existence. In her absence another guy (who was unable to find any evidence of my tour) sent me to follow some mute kid halfway across the city to catch one of those buses that departure schedule is based on waiting until it has at least twice the legal limit of passengers squeezed inside.Where am I going? What happens when I get there? What do I need? Who do I meet? All these were seemingly reasonable questions I had attempted to ask only to be consoled and cajoled into believing that everything would be alright; I just needed to “get on the bus” and everything would be ok from there… Ah. Hindsight.Having survived the bus trip out to the countryside (I know why they need 4WDs now), I stepped off the bus scanning the vacant lot for a friendly smiley face who might spark up at the sight of his fare. Hang on, I’m a blonde Caucasian tourist with a fancy camera in Mongolia, a walking dollar sign, wouldn’t every taxi driver’s face spark up at the sight of me? And so it eventuated.

Me: “Hi, I’m Matt. You pick me up for tour?”

Random Mongolian man with a car grins broadly, nods head.

Me: “You here for Matt yes? Me, Matt.”

More nodding and grinning from RMMC. Motions me into car.

Me: “Definitely you here for Matt then, yes?”

RMMC’s Head continues nodding unabated, opens door, pushes me inside.

He was the wrong guy.

"The precious human body is so badly used in mistaken ways as if it were a useless bag of urine." I love Bhuddist wisdom.

20 minutes later I’m in the middle of nowhere, he’s asking me for more money than I have on me, I can’t tell him where I want to go because I don’t know (I don’t even know where I got off the bus), and I don’t know who I’m supposed to meet or what I’m supposed to be doing. Great. On top of that, my driver spoke not a single word of English and let’s just say my Mongolian was primitive. I did gather that he was threatening to leave me there as he attempted to shoosh me out of his car, and I was having thoughts that maybe I would get my “authentic” Mongolian experience after-all. Minus the horse, of course.

I did my best to try and enjoy the comical nature of the situation at the time, but the truth is I’ve rarely felt so completely inept and helpless to change my predicament. Hardly life-threatening but I was in a pretty big shit at the time. No money, no language, no clue, and all in the middle of the Mongolian steppe miles from anywhere.Thank goodness I had kept the business card of the tour “organizer” from the previous day, as I was able to communicate via the international hand signal for phone that I meant to call someone. So off we drive to a little isolated ger, and the taxi man gets his friend to get me a phone. Saved!!

No reception!! Shit.

A two-humped camel!! Bactrian camels are only found in Mongolia and Northwestern China. And Zoos.

The three of us then continued to waltz around the steppe phone held aloft trying to get a single bar… success at last, and the matter was all fairly quickly sorted out. In fact from there on, I experienced nothing but utter kindness and generosity from every Mongolian I met from then. At least I think I did, judging by their smiles.

Another ger...

A bit of horse-riding ensued, a bit of temple visiting (Stalin wiped out the vast majority of them of course, he was nothing if not industrious in his labors), and then I was collected (correctly this time) by a Kazakh herdsman to be whisked away to his ger where I was to spend the night with his family.

Scenes from my host's camero as we tore through the steppe.

Not before driving across some of the most spectacular countryside I’ve ever seen though. Despite again not sharing more than say 5 or 6 commonly understood words, I felt I was bonding with this man as we sped over the grassy fields, a man who was roughly the same age to me, but whose life was could not have been more different. We bonded of course by drinking several litres of warm potent 10% beer on the steppe, so the surreal nature of the situation and my rapidly pissed state may have clouded my judgment. Still, it was awesome.

My host and one of his daughters.

This young man was the patriarch of a family unit that lived in several gers that included his brother’s family. I was treated as an honored guest and served a lovingly prepared feast that basically consisted of every imaginable product squeezed from a tit of some livestock animal. Goat milk yoghurt, sheep milk moldy cheese, horse milk tea… Just swallow and smile Matt…Despite a few misses on the culinary front, I had a great time there, the kids in particular were adorable.

Super cute kids.

Amazing how some kids, despite living a very basic existence that would probably be defined as poverty, are deliriously happy so long as they had some goat knuckles and a beat-up football to kick. I’m always astounded however that despite living such an ancient way of life, they all still have cellphones (they laughed hysterically when they saw my ancient nokia), listen to Jay-Z, and sport Barcelona and Man United gear.

I felt like doing the same with some of my dishes...

The gers are actually really quite comfy and snug, and most have all the basic mod cons such as fridges, electric lighting, and ipod docking stations… you know, the essentials. In fact, after spending the evening feasting on warm milk products, sitting all nice and toasty around the central wood-fire stove whilst the cold wind howled outside, amongst a tightknit and loving family full of laughter, I found myself envious to adopt this uncomplicated life of simple pleasures. Until I went to use their toilet. A potent brew a diet of milk and meat does maketh, and this family wasn’t quite as nomadic as I thought judging by the state of their facilities... Still, it really was an absolute pleasure and privilege to hang out with them even if only for one night.

Inside a typical ger...

The next day continued much the same as the last, i.e. me being chauffeured around to various beautiful and historic Mongolian sites but having absolutely no clue as to their significance or even their name. I think I went to a national park?

One site however that you didn’t need a lonely planet to explain, was a giant statue Mongolia’s favorite son, Chinggis Khan, or as westerners know him, Ghenghis Khan.

GHENGHIS!!

Now this statue is big and holds several interesting records. It is in fact the world’s largest statue of a man on horseback, and I’m pretty sure it is also the largest statue of any dude that comes from Mongolia. But it is most definitely the Guiness book of records holder for the world’s biggest statue in the middle of frickin’ nowhere. Seriously, there is nothing anywhere near it, and you can see it from absolute miles away; a giant silver shimmering beacon in an otherwise completely empty and vast plain that stretches to the mountains on the horizon.Rumors abound as to what he did at this particular site, but as very little is actually known of any of his significant locations (the whereabouts of his birthplace, grave, even his capital city are all unknown) I guess it’s as good a place as any to build a giant shiny equine sculpture.

That little speck above the horse's ear is a person... It's a big statue.

The guy is still revered around these parts and it’s easy to understand why as this simple herdsman (supposedly he raised a ragtag bunch of armed men in response to his mum being kidnapped – classic!) created the second largest empire the world has ever seen (only the British empire beat it for size) stretching from the Pacific all the way to the Danube in central Europe. His name and image were banned under Chinese and Russian rule as his image harks backs to a time when Mongolia, tiny little Mongolia, literally ruled the world, and was not subject to foreign pillagers… so he’s kind of a big deal around here… Having read a little more into him, it really is amazing the influence this guy had on shaping the modern world as we know it, with most of China, India, Eastern Europe and the middle East having all been ruled and shaped by the empire he created. But more of that later…

Middle of nowhere... Pretty much sums up Mongolia.

Alas my time in Mongolia was painfully brief and following the continuation of the theme of general cluelessness, including my driver leaving me on the side of a desolate highway with no explanation in the middle of nowhere (everywhere in Mongolia, it felt to me, is in the middle of nowhere) with only a vague hope that someone else would collect me. Somehow, as it usually does, it all worked out in the end I made it back in time to catch my train, and said goodbye to a truly beautiful, ancient, and fascinating place. At least I think it was, I was never really sure…