One Good Eye

I woke up at 2am chilled to the bone with a full bladder and managed to throw on some clothes and run to the toilet, in the nick of time. Happily someone else with an out of control fire hose for a penis and the concentration span of a newt had left me an El Banana de Chocolate. I blame mister Mongolian Police, it seemed he lived in the toilet for pretty much the entire journey.

We were both cold as the only blankets available for our use looked like they had not been washed since Perastroika and they released so much dust into the cabin after a mere jab with an index finger that we decided that we’d rather remain cold, then catch fleas or whatever else may have been living in said blankets.

Just after both getting comfortable, there was a knock at our door and we were told by the Providnitsa of limitied altitude and patience, that Irkutsk would be coming up in five minutes. Both of us were still in our PJs, but managed to get it together and pack in eleven minutes flat, and then waited a further 30 minutes until we pulled into Irkutsk. Had we agreed to smuggle the polar fleeces, she probably would have greeted us with a cup of tea.

Much like the Russian welcome we received on the Irkutsk platform, the weather was also grey and cold. It turned out that the Americans next door, Steve and Carol, would also be sharing a car with us to Listvyanka, These guys are well into their 70s and still going strong, but there are quite a lot of stairs in the Irkutsk train station and it came down to me, already carrying two backpacks to help them down the stairs with their things, whilst our Russian guides stood by and watched. Unbelievable!

Once outside we were all deposited into a van with darkened windows, loud Russian techno music and a driver that was surliness epitomised. After being asked to turn down the music, he simply switched it off with an angry flick of the wrist and we rode the rest of the way with zero conversation between us and the Russians. However it was great talking chatting with Steve and Carol. Steve is a competitive swimmer in the Masters Games and spends his time traveling and swimming all over the world. We also heard about the womens 100 metres that is totally dominated by a 94 year old Japanese woman, that needs a zimmer frame on dry land, but is a super-fish, a thorpedo once in the water.

We dropped Steve and Carol at a quaint looking hotel and continued on to our homestay.

We stopped about 500 metres down the road, we’d arrived at Olga’s house in Listvyanka. Olga’s house is a cute 300 year old traditional wooden Siberian cottage, with a 3 year old, half finished upstairs and two new rooms out the front. We ate a breakfast of what I will call fat arse pikelets with slabs of cheese and homemade rhubarb and orange marmalade. Olga seemed very nice and hospitable, but we were to learn later that this persona only appeared when the guides were visiting.

Now, traditional wooden Siberian houses, have traditional outside plumbing and toilets. The traditional way of washing is in the banya, which is basically a small wooden room, much like a sauna where you dump tubs of hot water over yourself and wash. After some discussion, we finally made it clear that there was going to be no Tanya in a banya, because saunas, spas or anything else hot can cause “issues” with the baby. Happily through the money they are making from tourists, they have managed to put in a shower that we could both use. I was not allowed to banya on the first night, as it would obviously eat too much into their profit margin.

Tanya, Lena our guide and I trooped down the road to the Lake Baical Museum. Incidentally, the museum, had just been visited by James Cameron that very morning, but we missed him. We looked at rocks, stuffed animals, old diving suits and the MIR 1 submarine used in the opening scenes of Titanic. Lake Biacal, 1.6 kilometres deep, 40 kilometres wide and holding 20% of the entire worlds fresh water was the reason we had come to Listvyanka.

The museum also held live lake creatures and we saw Sturgeon, Omul, shrimps, numerous other fish and two cute Lake Baical seals. After this we stopped in at a cozy cafe for lunch, where I had a plate of fried omul, with potatoes and Tans had beef goulash with potatoes. The meals were great and as it was chucking it down with rain and only 7 degrees it was a nice place to sit. Owing to the weather, we spent about 2 hours using the Internet place next door.

The weather had begun to clear, and we went for a walk to the end of the main road in Listvyanka, around 1.5 kms. I washed my face in the lake, apparently adding 12 years to my life. We had a brief look around the market, which sold a variety of tat, shasliks and smoked fish.

We figured a good way of breaking the ice would be to appear at around tea time with a bottle of vodka, but it seemed that Olga was not into it. Tanya said hello in Russian to Olga’s adult son and was rudely ignored. However dinner was great, we had mutton dumpling soup, coleslaw and bread. After this we showered and went to bed, where it would seem, we were sleeping on children’s beds with mattresses that were probably still second hand during the Stalinist era.

Our homestay had turned out to be more like a half arsed B&B, with crappy beds, worse plumbing, but great food. Usually I am happy to suck up all of the discomforts for a bit of warm foreign hospitality, but in this case there was no warm hospitality at Olga’s.

At around 9pm, the entire family buggered off to parts unknown and we both had showers. The shower was like a relic from the Soviet space program, plastic, incredibly lighweight and not bolted down or fixed in place. During my shower I could feel it moving and had visions of it tipping over, trapping me inside, while a bunch of angry Russians yelled at me for wrecking their first bathroom renovation. I made it out of the shower, which moved when I got out and I also managed to avoid the handbasin, also not fixed in place and got into my child sized bed and fell into a fitful sleep.

Today we were determined to strip back the layers of Irish Pubs and American chain “family” restaurants and see if we could get to the core of Ulaanbataar.

We began with a mediocre breakfast at the Bayangol hotel, they had a bunch of bain-maries full of some pretty unappetising fare, happily there was a choose your own omelet station and plenty of tea with lemon.

We left the hotel around 11:00am and headed off for the Ulaanbataar square. Ulaanbataar is a pretty scruffy place and feels a bit wild for a major city of one million people. There are cars, usually large 4×4′s driving all over the road, horseman in town to do a little business, yuppies, business people, quaint little Mongolian Nannas in traditional dress and scummy backpackers like ourselves. We had been told to visit the National Museum, but instead decided to go for a bit of a wander and see where that found us.

Up behind the square we chanced upon a very stately looking building that is the Mongolian National Academy of Sciences, which houses IT, Mathematics, Physics and other sciences studied at the University. From here we ended up strolling to the embassy district and popped into a great antique shop that had everything from accordions to flintlock rifles and everything in between. We also walked through what I think is Ulaanbataars and possibly the worlds only park dedicated to Plastica Integrafolia, plastic flowers and yellow polystyrene mushrooms!!!

After a spot of administration and money changing at the bank, it was time for lunch. Just as we were about to go into a likely looking place we ran into a friendly Mongolian chap who could speak English and after telling him that all we wanted to eat was REAL Mongolian food, in a place that real live Mongolians would be seen in, he told us that unfortunately most of Ulaanbataar’s restaurants were in fact western or consisted of Mongolian food that was so dumbed down it may as well of been western. After a brief chat he directed us to a place about 200 metres down the road, which served the Mongolian national dish of mutton dumpling soup and had mutton pies called Khuushurs. Service was slow, we were the only foreigners sat in amongst a lot of chain smoking Mongolians and no one spoke English. It seemed we were in the right place.

Once our meals came we were not disappointed, we were each served with a huge bowl of mutton dumplings in soup, totally devoid of any vegetables except a whisper of shallots. After the soup came the Khuushurs, which were like flattened meat pies filled with mutton and mutton fat; absolutely delicious. Some enterprising Mongolian needs to set up a van or a cart selling Khuushurs out the front of the many Irish pubs, they’d be a great after drinking snack for the long stumble home.

After lunch, we headed off to the ominously named State Department Store, on the way we chatted with some kids selling Shaslicks in the middle of a street that appeared to be not only a full on main road choked with the latest in offroad technology, but also a bustling market selling sunglasses, icecream, cigarettes and calls on mobile telephone cafes.

The State Department Store is in complete contrast to the streets of Ulaanbataar. Six floors of western capitalism, the latest fashions from Milan, electronics, TVs and gadgets from Japan and a very tacky, but reasonably priced souvenir shop, where one can pick up a full leather Ghengis armour ensemble, bows, arrows, goat skin stubby coolers and a big bag of knuckles, which was our chosen Mongolian souvenir. We also loaded up on food and snacks for the upcoming train journey and thought that a gunman had let off a shot inside the store, but no matter one of the tyres on a stock trolley had simply exploded. Many people hit the deck and the poor girl weighing our fruit was in tears and pretty shaken. We were all OK.

After picking up our laundry and a quick beer in the Grand Khan Irish Pub, no visit to Ulaanbataar is complete without a beer in this joint, we went back to the hotel for a re-pack and headed over to the Tumen Ekh traditional Mongolian show, put on by one of the best national song and dance ensembles in Mongolia, as hapless western tourists we can neither confirm or deny this claim.

We waited amongst a throng of Japanese pensioners from 5:20pm to 6:10pm, when the doors opened 10 minutes late it was like being in the middle of a UN food drop at a refugee camp. We all surged forward, I took a few little pointy Japanese elbows to the midsection, enough was enough so in my loudest, deepest and most western voice I yelled “JUST STOP PUSHING” which made everyone shut up and stop for about 1 minute while their guide tried to explain why they were all going in first. Of course we were having none of it, and our pushing in skills are honed to a razor sharp edge after a year or so in China, we managed to push our way in and end up with some pretty decent seats, although all of the best seats had been taken by the Japanese pensioners. May I suggest a separate entrance for tour groups, or an earlier arrival time.

Usually, in my experience “cultural” shows and tour groups spell disaster, but this was actually pretty good and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Ulaanbataar. They had great dancing, most if it all horse themed, there was music, also horse themed and the number one drawcard for me, throat singing. Personally I think throat singing is amazing, but Tan’s just could not stop silently shaking with laughter during each of the throat singing numbers. According to her it was the “weirdness” of it, and I have to say it is a pretty weird sound, but I think, also an amazing skill. Plus the show had a totally hot contortionist, this alone is worth the price of admission.

With around 45 minutes to spare we popped in for a Nomad burger, a mutton patty cooked on the barbie and served with special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun, it was pretty damn good. For those of you paying attention you’ll have noticed that we have pretty much given up finding Mongolian food in Ulaanbataar. Someone needs to capitalise on this and setup Yakdonalds, before our favorite hangover cure arrives in the capital.

We boarded the train with the help of our guide and new friend Oogi and sped off into the darkness of the Steppe, bound for Siberia.

Today was a day of transit from Elstai back to Ulaanbataar. They tell me that Ulaanbataar means “Red Heroes”, but thats just propaganda. During Soviet times the city was the world centre for the cruel production of “Oil of Ulan”, that saw the small fury Ulans wiped out from the steppe and the name changed to “Oil of Olay” once communism fell and western scientists were able to figure out a way to chemically synthesise the formula.

During the drive back we had another quick stop at the Ghengis statue so that Tans didn’t miss out. There were about 10 – 15 cars, that I suppose are in the SUV category that were on a test drive from Irkutsk to Ulaanbataar all parked in the Ghengis statue car park. Having saw that, we then bounced along the East Highway arriving into Ulaanbataar at around lunchtime, the highway is one of the countries main thoroughfares and feels no different to offroad. We saw a couple of Yaks grazing in a field

We went for a look around the city, we saw the main square where a monument to Ghengis was erected in 2006, the 800 year anniversary of the Mongol Empire. We then drove up to a hill overlooking the city, where the grimness of Soviet urban planning is in full view. Atop the hill there is a monument to Soviet and Mongolian Heroes of the revolution, including Mongolia’s first cosmonaut, who blasted into space in 1981. There was also another eagle in the carpark that could be held. The money shot when holding eagles is to get them to expand their wings, to do this you need to roll your arm and put them off balance, unfortunately this saw said eagle fall off of a persons arm and onto the ground below, when a big gust of wind picked it up. We have some great photos of Tans holding it, we figure that the money goes to the birds care and feeding.

Eager to finally sample some Mongolian food we were directed to the Silk Road cafe, but were met with crushing disappointing. Tans had a nice lamb fillet, I had a huge pork steak, the only thing even close to Mongolian were the people working in the restaurant. However, if you are after a good feed, friendly and efficient service, then Silk Road fits the bill nicely, but if you are after an experience and would like to be the only foreigner lost in a menu of incomprehensible cyrilic, experiencing the anticipation of what may arrive after a bout of menu lottery, then this is not the place.

After lunch we had a bit of a rest and then went to the Gandan Temple for a bit of a look. Mongolians follow Tibetan Buddhism, inside the temple is a 10 metre high Buddha and many other high Lamas, the temple was built in 1911 and managed to survive Mongolia’s brief time as a kingdom and then over 70 years of brutal Soviet repression, where the inside of the temple was used as a stable.

We moved to another temple next door where around 20 – 30 Buddhist monks were chanting. This was a general blessing of people and horses who were tethered out the front. this blessing happens 3 times per year and we were very privileged to see it

After this we dropped our smalls into the Metro Laundry, I do hope they can get the horse sweat out of my pants and I also hope that we can find it again tomorrow morning and retrieve our clothes.

After a brief rest we ventured out to dinner and ended up at the Altai Mongolian Grill on the recommendation of locals. This turned out to be the culinary equivalent of a frontal lobotomy, there we sat, next to a ger under garishly bright lights as we ate a Mongolian BBQ, that I could get in Sydney or Melbourne. We both had mutton, mutton fat, noodles, onions, garlic and Khan sauce. Food wise it was pretty good, but it was more like a Mongolian food Disneyland, and again not what we were looking for.

Walking to and from the Altai grill we saw the Grand Khan Irish Pub, it is a bloody nice looking establishment, I may pop in there for a Budweiser and a cheeseburger for lunch.  The joys of Globalisation.

Ah yes, today was the day I had been looking forward to for the longest time, the archery and horse riding day. I did have romantic notions of loosing arrows on the Steppe at far off targets, riding along at full gallop, resplendent in full leather armor, my bow and quiver by my side, but it didn’t quite go as planned, or imagined. Lets face it, my view of Mongolia was basically shaped by form 2 history.

Archery I must say was a bit of a let down. We took a set of traditional woven leather archery targets, stacked them up, and let fly with a few traditional arrows, minus their flights. Tan’s, as with all competitive sports, boardgames and cards was pretty good, her archery skills are second only to my scrabble game.

We then went up to the horses, where I was fitted with a pair of leather chaps (only small ones, so don’t get too excited), a helmet and a Mongolian army saddle. The traditional Mongolian saddle is wooden, which goes a very long way to explaining why the traditional Mongolian way to ride is standing, rather than sitting.

The Mongolian domesticated horse is different, they are smaller, they are broken in very differently, apparently only after being ridden 5 – 6 times. It took us a long time to get set up, as there was a lot of people riding and a small horse shortage, especially for big bastards like myself.

Eventually we were all with horse and were off, or so we thought. My horse would not budge, no matter how many times I said “chu” (Mongolian, for go), no matter how many times I said “chu” and gave the horse a good kick in the ribs, no matter how loose I held the reins, no dice. The only bit of good news was that my horse did have a large erection, so at least our relations were off to a cordial and convivial start.

In the end the horseman, who funnily enough is named Bum-sore (I’m not sure of the correct spelling, but this is the correct pronunciation) grabbed my reins and pretty much dragged my horse and me away. Once my horse realised it had no choice, it was pretty good and did get up to a good trot along with a lot of farting during the journey. Poor Tans was denied horse riding, due to her “condition”.

Both of us had understood from breakfast, that the horse ride was only meant to be for one hour and we would come back, pick her up and head out to the Ghengis Khan statue. As the horse ride continued, well beyond an hour I began wondering what might be the trouble. I could see no other members of our party in sight, I began to wonder where the horseman might be taking me, would he take me out into the middle of the Steppe and leave me for dead, would he refuse to go further unless monetary tribute was provided or was he simply thinking sod this, I’m up for a bit of a ride. It turns out none of these were the case, atop the next rise 250 Tonnes of Mongolia’s finest stainless steel lay gleaming in the sun, there stood Ghengis Khan, mounted on his horse, totally dominating the valley and surrounds, much as he had done in life.

We dismounted and walked over to the carpark, where a couple of Mongolian chaps had their 3 year old pet eagle. For a mere 2,000 Tugruk, I could hold it on my arm and be photographed. I have a fear of birds and this was total immersion therapy, I happened to glance over at the eagle and it’s beak was open and it’s beady little eyes bored deep into my soul, I asked if it was okay to still have my glasses on, everyone agreed it was no problem, I was not so sure so gave the bird back.

Due to the previous mix up, I had no camera or money. However one of the others we were traveling with lent me the money to enter the monument. Inside is a 9 metre high riding boot, restaurant and gift shop. After seeing this, you then ascend a lift, which is inside the horses rump, walk through the belly of the horse to emerge, via Ghengis’s crotch onto the horses neck, where a panoramic view of the Steppe awaits. Whilst Ghengis’s achievements in life are more than impressive, his monument in death will become something like the big banana or big pineapple, which is a real shame, given that the statue is supremely impressive.

We walked back to our trusty steeds and mounted up for the ride back. My horse let out a supremely loud and odoriferous 10 second fart, it had been doing this all day, even though we had forced it forward, and urged it on, it was determined to get me back in some way. We got back into camp at around 3pm, after 3 hours in the saddle. Later I found out I had been given the horse that pulls the wagon, the only one capable of carrying me. This it seems was the trouble.

For lunch, we had a nice chicken fillet, in apricot sauce with rice. Even though we came to see Mongolia, learn about Mongolian culture and eat Mongolian food, it seems that Mongolians are determined to do everything in their power to shield us pampered westerners from the culinary fruits of this country. This has been a bit of a disappointment, 4 days in Mongolia and all the cuisine I have eaten can only be described as “international”, maybe they are doing us a favor, maybe Mongolian food is total crap, whatever the case I would really like to find out for myself.

After lunch, we rode our horses out to a nomadic family for an afternoon visit, as it was only 4 km’s away, Tans walked with one of our guides. We were shown into their ger and served steaming bowls of Mongolian salt tea, mutton blood sausage and cold mutton liver, all freshly butchered. The salt tea was made from fresh cows milk, water, tea and salt, boiled over the fire in the ger. As you can imagine, conversation didn’t last long as no-one spoke English and we didn’t speak Mongolian. Tan’s who basically couldn’t eat or drink anything went outside and played with the kids. There was a 13 year old boy, a 5 year old and a 3 year old. The 3 year old had very long hair, as Mongolians grow the childs hair and shave it when they are around 3.5 years old. He looked like a little Ghengis and the warriors blood ran strong in his veins.

The kids had a poor worn out dog, they would take great delight in pulling it’s tail, riding it around like a horse shouting “chu” and generally giving it a hard time. However the dog took it all in it’s stride. Little Ghengis and I kicked the ball around for a while, but the game soon deteriorated into which Mongolian kid can kick the ball the furthest out into the Steppe and make the new foreigner run after it. Once they got tired of this the little one kicked the ball into a fenced off area and when I went to get it tried to lock me in there! Once I escaped from this, there was more riding of the dog and the bigger boys to be had. Even I got down on the ground but they were a little bit wary of riding me like a horse, so instead they layed into me with badminton raquets, at first it was light taps, to try and get me to move, but we had to stop that game as the tapping was getting a little bit rough. They were great kids and it was lots of fun.

The 13 year old boy Hos-toi, invited us over to meet his family. It turns out that he is quite an experienced and accomplished jockey. He’d been a jockey since he was 6 years old and has come 5th in the Nadam races, he is also a champion bareback rider. We munched on some fried bread and looked through some family photos before making our goodbyes and walking back to camp.

During the walk back one of the camp dogs, came running after us carrying a horses foreleg, still with an attached hoof. He was ever so proud of himself, flinging it around his head and happily munching away on it. Close to camp he threw himself on his back, so we could stroke his belly and then spent the rest of the afternoon with us, nipping our ankles, tugging on our pants legs and on for a big play. From this point on, everytime we saw him, he would race after us for a pat and a play.

After a dinner of mutton soup with a dumpling skin on top, much like a pie crust we packed our things and took a few photos of the sunset and the moon. The temperature had plummeted to around 7 degrees and it was quite chilly, we waited in our ger until around 10pm until it was completely dark so we could go and look at the stars.

All I had wanted to see in Mongolia was a clear night on the steppe and luckily for me we were not let down. We walked away from the lights of the camp, with our new canine friend from the afternoon as our fearless protector, there are wolves and foxes on the steppe, however it was highly unlikely that we would encounter one, which was lucky for us as the dog was scared of it’s own shadow. The dog could see it’s shadow in the beam of the torch, it gave chase, sniffed around to see where this “other” dog might be and also threw in a few menacing growls for good measure. The poor thing couldn’t figure out what was going on and became especially frightened of this new “big black dog” and stayed well away from the torchlight and pretty close to my legs from that point on. As you can imagine the stars were amazing, we could clearly see the milky way, satellites, the big dipper, the north star, Venus, and numerous shooting stars.

We walked back to camp with the dog nipping at our heels, tugging on our pants and nipping at our fingers, again back into play mode once it realised we were going back to camp.

We had a large fire lit in our ger and fell asleep at around 11:30 pm.

Not too much happened today, we left Houstai bound for Elstai via Ulaanbaatar. The rain was still pelting down hard, it had been raining heavily all night and on into the morning. A pretty good effort for a country that has a monthly average rainfall of around 50mm (check this fact).

Again, I’m sure you’re all caught up by now and know that Tans is up the duff. This means that she has to go to the toilet every 30 minutes. After holding on for a record 13 hours, there was no way she was able to get dressed, and get down to the toilets. Times such as these call for desperate measures, so we managed to channel MacGyver and use our bin as a makeshift toilet. I must admit I also needed to go badly and a walk to the toilet block in horizontal rain was not appealing, so I also went via the bin option.

At breakfast we watched as a 3 centimetre tidal wave of water washed through the door of the restaurant. The canvas awning out the back of the restaurant was full of water that the workers were trying to clear.

We spent 3 hours bumping along the offroad tracks, I was hanging out to get back on the bitumen, but once back on it, it wasn’t much different from the offroad tracks.

We stopped along the way at a traditional Mongolian driver reviver centre and picked up a couple of bottles of airag. Airag is fermented mares milk, that has a slight effervescence and is mildly alcoholic, think milk based beer. It was still overcast, but the rains had stopped.

As soon as we arrived at Elstai and exited the vehicle the heavens opened and we trudged to the ger in yet more rain.

After a lunch of apricot chicken, not a traditional Mongolian staple, we waited in our ger until the rains cleared and then went for a walk around Elstai. We met the gardner and the lady that looks after the camp, we went for a short stroll and looked at the horses. Tans went to sleep. I sat out the front of the ger, read my book, watched the clouds roll across the Steppe and put away half a bottle of airag.

Whilst sitting around outside, I saw two kites fighting and flying all over and around me, so close that I could hear the flapping of their wings. Herds of goats and horses can be seen off in the distance and endless rolling hills.

For dinner, we had a great vegetable soup, with mutton spine, very tasty. We played traditional Mongolian games with knuckle bones and watched a bit of Mongolian TV. Then it was off to bed.

We woke up at the respectable hour of 8 and headed up for a breakfast of pancakes, cucumber, tomato and yak milk cheese. After this we boarded our now fixed car and headed out onto the Steppe.

We stopped frequently looking for Marmotts. Marmotts are a small rodent like creature, not unlike a ferret that lives on the Steppe and eats berries, grasses and other plants. Tan’s and our driver, Gumbolt were the best at spotting them, I managed to see around 2. However I did manage to be crowned official marmott whisperer of our group, as I was able to mimic their calls very well after copying Gumbolt.

Marmotts, were nearly hunted to extinction, and are now protected. Imagine an animal that spends its time munching on sage, thyme and other herbs making itself especially tasty, whilst having fur that is pretty much indistinguishable from sable. It wasn’t looking good for the Marmott due to their great taste and saleable skins, however now with the new ban, it seems their numbers are on the increase.

The Steppe is amazing, from a distance its just rolling green hills, but up close it is many thousands of plants that present an astounding biodiversity. Wild onions, Mongolian Sage, Mongolian Thyme, wild rhubarb, spearmint, medicinal plants that prevent diarrhea and wild garlic. Every step releases a strong smell of herby goodness that just makes you feel good. This combined with beautiful sunshine, an azure blue sky, endless solitude in every direction and a gentle cooling breeze make what is effectively a totally inhospitable landscape feel like a paradise on earth.

We stopped for a lunch of mystery meat and cheese sandwiches, meatballs, rice and cooked vegetables, basic, but good and tasty. Numerous Kites (a bird of prey) were circling overhead, attracted by the scent of our lunch.

We saw some gravesites from the Bronze Age in 300 AD and also saw the gravesite of a Turkish Noble that was erected circa 600 AD. This grave had hundreds of stone carvings stretching off into the distance, as if they were all queued up waiting to pay tribute to a great warrior or elder statesman.

We drove on and spotted deer, more marmott, numerous kites and big ugly vultures feasting on carrion. Aside from the animals, the Steppe is in bloom this time of year, with yellow, vivid white, purple, orange and red flowers sprinkled like hundreds and thousands across the entire landscape.

We returned home for a dinner of “beef” stew, vegetables and rice. After dinner we drove off into a rainstorm to look at the wild horses, Tahkis. We saw about 8 Takhis and gave up, as we were all pretty soaked. The rain was being relentlessly driven into us by huge gusts of wind, its strength unchecked by trees, buildings or any other kind of wind break. There was also a fair bit of lightning. Lightning is a big problem in Mongolia as there are no tall buildings or trees to conduct it, it usually zaps a number of people, usually children on horseback, each year.

I was also given my Mongolian name this evening, I am Bat-erdene, named after the 10 time traditional Mongolian wrestling champion and national hero. Apparently this is due to my cool temperament, but mostly due to my size. I don’t think I’m getting out of Mongolia without wrestling someone.

The rainstorm I mentioned before is still going, but our Ger is warm and cozy, parts of it are a little damp, as rain is getting in through the skylight, but it is pouring outside, if we were in a normal tent, we’d be soaked through, cold and miserable.

I think we woke up at around 7am. The train was stopped in a featureless, flat and dusty landscape. It was dusty and hot, our compartment was stuffy, we still couldn’t open the window due to the dust.

The armpits of hell and his mates were chowing down on raw onion, raw garlic and possibly even carrion. At least thats how it smelt. Yes all of this managed to seep through into our compartment.

The train remained stopped here, again with locked toilets for around 2 hours. At 9am we got moving, but it was still pretty uncomfortable, as our compartment was hot, dusty and smelt like super concentrated garlic.

We stopped again about 1.5 hours later. I don’t know where, somewhere between Zamyn Uud and Ulaanbaatar. We were able to get off the train and have a wander. People on the platform were selling ice cream, soup noodles, dumplings and some nice young lads gave us some amethyst. We politely said no and gave it back, but they said “no money” and ran off, big smiles all round.

In case you are wondering, the reason why train toilets are locked at the station are because their contents are vented directly onto the tracks, but it seems that someone forgot to lock the toilets at this station and I was able to watch a couple of large turds drop out of a train carriage, all before breakfast and my morning ablutions.

We made our way down to the dining car. During the bogey exchange the Chinese dining car had been replaced with a Mongolian one. The Mongolian car was far far superior in terms of service, quality of food and decor. We sat at carved wooden tables, with carved wooden backdrops under the watchful eye of golden Elk heads stuck to the bulkhead between each window. We breakfasted on schnitzel with cheese, rice, onions cooked in beetroot juice and chips. The food was very good, but bloody expensive.

Given the stench in our carriage we spent a good deal of time in the dining car and returned to our cabin about two hours later.

By this time the landscape had changed again and we were now on the rolling green hills of the Mongolian Steppe, so we could open our window, keep our door closed and when the train was moving really really fast, no smell from the armpits of hell. Tan fell asleep, I read.

We got into Ulaanbaatar around 1 hour late, met our guide, stopped for a quick beer, got some water at the Supermarket and hit the road.

Ulaanbaatar traffic gives Beijing traffic a run for it’s money. There are lots of old Soviet era trucks, vans and a couple of UAV jeeps thrown in for good measure. The wealthy drive fully pimped out Landcruisers, resplendent with graphics, most of which say LANDCRUISER, just so you are sure it’s a Landcruiser and about 12 rally spotlights on the roof and bull bar. There are new buildings and old Soviet era “workers” apartments, factories making biscuits and woolen garments are on the outskirts of town.

Around 30 minutes outside Ulaanbaatar we promptly broke down, so we decided to go for a walk on the Steppe, we watched horses whilst our guide pointed out Mongolian Sage and Mongolian Adel-vise, there were 3 Gers off in the distance.

After our walk we went back to our van, and Humbolt our driver had off his shirt and was under the car, after changing out the now busted alternator. Without an alternator, we were going nowhere, on the spur of the moment we decided to visit the nomads.

After a warm welcome, with men sitting on the man side of the Ger and the women on the woman side, close to the kitchen and cooking pots, just in case any man needs something,

The inside of the Ger was filled with saddles, silks, horse numbers, comfy cushions and carpets on the mens side. On the womens side was the furniture and cooking utensils. We were seated around a low table, and began our introductions. We met Gantulga and his wife Enkhjarjal.

We had a tin of biscuits that we gave to the family, in return we were given sweets, bread and homemade Mongolian moonshine. The moonshine which is named shimiin arkhi, is made from cows milk, which is made into yoghurt, then distilled to yield something that tastes a lot like Korean soju, with a horsey aftertaste. It was actually pretty good. I drank two bowls, as it is bad form to refuse things given to you in Mongolia and Tanya could only have a sip out of hers.

The family were horse trainers and had come 3rd in the 2009 Nadam festival horse racing. Quite a big achievement given that the field consisted of 310 horses, in a race of over 8 kilometers. We took photos of the family in their traditional Mongolian clothes and then it was dress up time, where I posed for photos in the traditional hat, coat and sash.

The cousins dropped by and it turned out that they had been to Australia for a convention on horseracing and breeding, that was held at Royal Randwick.

After around 1 hour spent with the family a replacement van had arrived with a new alternator and we were off. Driving down the road we saw a mob of horses, around 20 or 30 racing along at full gallop, kicking up dust, as they raced off into the sunset, a truly amazing sight.

We left the road and drove on the steppe, all the way to houstei arriving at the Ger camp at around 9pm, where we had a dinner of chicken caccitore and pasta. We sat around chatting with our guide, we listened to some traditional Mongolian singing, which set the restaurant dog howling and growling.

I had another Ghengis lager, after narrowly managing an invite to go and drink vodka with the Mongolian blokes, I managed to politely disengage and we finally got to have a shower after around 40 hours of traveling.

We are staying in a traditional Ger, it smells like horse, but the interior is very nice. We have a cozy wood burning stove, traditional orange Mongolian furniture, consisting of a low table, little stools and relatively comfy beds, it’s pretty windy outside and the rustling of the Ger is noisy, but it’s warm inside and comfortable.

Coming to you live from a Ger at Houstai on the Mongolian Steppe. Today, is day one of our roughly 4 week adventure through a bit of China, Mongolia, Siberia and finally Russia.

Even though China is now a free market economic powerhouse, they can still make the trains run on time…….well at least leave on time, we left precisely at 7:47am, it seems some vestiges of Communism still remain.

About 3 hours into the journey I was getting pretty worried, sure, we were traveling through an amazing landscape of high limestone cliffs and rock formations, watching ancient Chinese villages with ancient Chinese stone houses whizzing past our windows, but nothing funny or noteworthy had happened to us. It seemed that we were stuck on one side of a massive sarchasm. The trip pretty much went along this way, for the next 12 or so hours.

We did go to the dining car, and we did have a meal of “serviceable” Chinese food (sweet and sour pork, crispy chicken and rice), the Hienekens were cold, the table cloth was dirty, someone had left a filthy jar of tea on our table and even though we were only one of two people eating, they still managed to forget our order. But I’m used to such high levels of service and pride in ones work in China. Towards the end of our meal the chef, the chief conductor and one of the waiters in said dining car decided to light up, in clear view of Tan’s, who is very clearly up the duff.

Merely blogging about the ineptitude of a couple of China Railways employees is not enough for the epic journey, that is the Trans Siberian. When we stopped at Erlian, I was not going to be disappointed.

At Erlian, they have to have a bogey exchange, and no this is not a common form of Chinese greeting, that involves your nostril being probed by a strangers finger. The trains wheels are changed from the Chinese gauge to the Mongolian / Russian gauge, which involves being shunted into a large shed, having your train carriage jacked up, lifted off of it’s old wheels and having new wheels attached. A pretty interesting thing to watch. Based on the excited talking, numerous picture taking and lots of gesticulating the German anoraks in our carriage were getting a lot more out of it than we were.

This is where things get really interesting. A couple of Chinese guys get on the train. One is carrying a couple of sheaves of wheat, the other about 5 or 6 massive sacks of god only knows what, both smell like the armpits of hell. They set up in the compartment next to ours. We have to close our door to keep out the smell, but it is so strong it still manages to faintly permeat our compartment.

Now I’ve traveled to many parts of the world and nearly all of Asia and I’ve never smelt something like this. I would dry reach, every time I had to go past their compartment. Their mates also liked to spend lots of time smoking and dropping lit cigarettes next to the sheaves of wheat and standing around in the corridor, not getting out of peoples way, even when spoken to in comprehensible Chinese.

To top all of this off, we’ve basically been going nowhere fast since about 8:30pm, when we arrived into Erlian. We had to go through Chinese border formalities, the bogey exchange and Mongolian border formalities. The whole process took around 6 hours, for most of this time the train toilets are locked, the train isn’t moving fast enough to get rid of the stench and we can’t really open our windows because the cabin fills with a fog of fine desert dust when we do. Strangely enough the armpits of hell next door keeps opening the windows to look out into the darkened night, even when the conductor in our carriage is running around shutting them.

After having my passport collected and returned by a Mongolian woman with gold eyeshadow and gold nail polish, you may laugh, but she was totally pulling it off, we fell into a fitful, sweaty and grimy sleep.