Mongolia

17 August 2008
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
                It was after midnight and the Mongolian border crossing was a blur.  Lying in our beds, eventually an official would tap us on the leg, and then we would groggily hand over our passports before falling back asleep.  Then another tap to wake us up as they handed us back the passports.  Eventually the train left the station sometime in the early hours of the next day.
                Early in the morning Doug woke up to see the Gobi desert.  It looked (not surprisingly) like Iraq.  Back to sleep.
                Later in the morning we had both woken up to enjoy deserted plains.  We would see the occasional horse and rider out and about.  The thing we were really keeping our eyes peeled for though, was the two hump camels.  We’ve heard that the two hump camels are only found in Mongolia.  After some time we saw some off in the distance.  Then on a few more occasions we saw some more.
                Around one in the afternoon our train arrived in Ulaanbaatar.  We planned on joining up with our lady friends from Switzerland.  They had a friend that owned a guest house a bit outside of town that had “Gers” (traditional tents used by the Mongolian nomads).  Outside our Swiss friends decided to use one of the guys outside offering to help us get to our destination (something we only do if we arrive late at night).  They accepted the first price offered and the man ran around to find a taxi to get us there (never accept the first price, never use a middleman, go direct to the source).  We couldn’t all fit in a single taxi, so we split into two (the Swiss in the first, us in the second).  Our taxi didn’t have a functional trunk so Doug sat in the back with the luggage while Anna sat up front with the driver.  Before the driver pulled out Anna noticed a meter.  Trying to save a couple bucks and avoid getting overcharged she told the driver to put on the meter.  The fare started at 400 Mongolia bucks (about $0.33 USD) and was increasing in 40 Mongolian buck increments.  Maybe we would save some money.  As the taxi went along Doug looked at the meter and was surprised to see that the meter was over 3000 Mongolian bucks.  Doug kept looking back at the meter and started to notice that it was increasing a lot at odd intervals.  Doug clued Anna in and we both were watching and were very surprised to see it jump about 2000 suddenly.  We discussed what to do because we were going to go over our negotiated price.  We decided to pay what was negotiated at the beginning.
                We arrived at the guest house and unloaded our stuff.  Doug wanted to pay the middle man direct because we didn’t have exact change for the negotiated price.  The middle man was busy with the Swiss and the cab driver appeared and was anxious to get paid.  Doug decided to have a little faith in humanity and handed over the 10,000 Mongolian bill (well over the negotiated price).  The driver practically ran into the cab and then shut the door.  He did not come out to give change.  Doug went to the window to ask for change, but the driver pointed at the meter and Doug protested (the man did not speak English {or chose not to}).  The middle man came over and spoke with the driver and said that we asked that the meter be used and that was the new tab.  We protested some more and the middle man and driver talked some more and then the middle man said that because the meter was used he had to bring that amount back to the station.  Doug explained that the meter was rigged and increased in massive amounts.  They didn’t care.  And well things got a little out of hand.  Eventually the cab driver left, and we checked in.
                Once we let the driver leave and were shown the Gers we selected one for the evening.  Inside were four single beds, a small stove and a sink that had a small water reservoir.  We got settled and split off from our Swiss friends to check out the town.
                Our walk to the center business district (CBD) was pretty far.  On the way we met a guy who had a Red Sox hat on and he helped keep us on the right track to find town.  After an hour of walking we finally reached the center.  We headed down a street and saw a German restaurant and decided to have a bite to eat.  We sat down next to a guy with a Penn State hat on.  He said his name was Dave; he had just come from Russia and was working his way to China.  We had a beer and ate some hot dogs that were supposed to be German sausages.  We made arrangements to leave our China guidebook behind for him so he didn’t have to spend $30 on one.  We were glad to dump the extra weight.
                On Dave’s suggestion, we went to the UB Guesthouse to arrange a camping tour.  They had a tour leaving the next day for one night out in “Terelj,” a beautiful country location just outside the city.  We booked it.  We had also decided to stay at a different location when we came back from this little trip, unfortunately they said they didn’t have room for us when we got back. 
                UB Guesthouse recommended another place to stay but we couldn’t find it.  Eventually we just pulled into an internet café and pulled up a hostel search webpage and reserved a place.
                On the way back we found a supermarket and we stocked up on a few items before catching a bus most of the way back.  Unfortunately we saw where we needed to get off at, but the bus just kept going and going past it. 
                Back at the camp we hung our laundry outside and then took showers.  Our Swiss friends had a little table set up by our “ger” and eventually out came some wine, chocolate and other snacks.  Anna even broke out the computer to show them pictures of other places we’d been.  Before we went to bed we said our goodbyes and promised to try to make it see them in November up in Switzerland.

18 August 2008
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
                In the middle of the night Anna woke up to Doug going outside to get the laundry off the line.  It had begun to rain a little, and the last thing we needed was wet laundry to sit in our bags while we went camping.  We soon went back to sleep.
                The alarm went off at 6:00.  We got up, and slowly gathered our things together, packing them up once again.  At 7:00 we were ready to go.  One of the women from Switzerland was outside reading a book.  We said our goodbyes once again, and said we would most likely see her in November. 
                In front of the guesthouse we thought we would attempt to take a bus into town.  Doug tried to ask a girl which bus to use or the best way to get into town.  She had no idea what we were trying to say.  Eventually we negotiated with a cab driver to take us into town for 2000 Mongolian bucks.  This sounded reasonable.  He took us right where we asked him to.  Arriving at the UB guesthouse, we put our large bags into the storage room, and waited for our ride.  While we waited we met two Germans (brother and sister) who were going overnight with us. 
                The van soon showed up, and we all pilled in.  Along with the four of us two girls from South Korea joined us, and a couple from Sweden.  During the ride we all chatted, and got to know one another.  It was nice to know we were with good company for the night.
                The van arrived to where we were staying around 10:30am.  Everyone unloaded their things, and then we all sat for a bit.  The two Korean girls (Hanna, and Jamie) decided they were not going to do anything but sleep and eat while they were there.  They were going back to Korea the next day, and back to work.  The rest of us began exploring for a while around the hillsides.  It was quite beautiful.
                Around 2 pm we were gathered up for lunch.  Two boys arrived with plates of food.  The first boy said, “Meat no.”  We all looked confused at each other.  Then he repeated himself, “Meat no.”  Then it dawned on us that he had a vegetarian dish, but nobody was raising their hand to take it.  This frustrated the kid who then looked at the first person on the bench and said, “You!  Meat no?!”  At this point we were on the border of hysterics.  We joked if there was a menu it would simply say, “Meat no” or “Meat yes.”
                At 5:00, Jamie, Doug, and Anna went for a horse ride which was included in the price.  We were a little excited; neither of us had been on a horse in a really long time.  Well about 5 minutes in Anna knew she was going to have a rough time.  The saddle on her horse was NOT comfortable at all.  The good news was the ride was quite stunning around the green fields and around rocky mountains.
                Once the hour was over Anna was ecstatic.  Her bum was not feeling very good.  All three of us got off the horses, and immediately began walking very stiffly.  Next the Swedish couple went along with Jamie.  The Germans didn’t want to ride; Hanna thinks she is allergic to horses. 
                After everyone got back we ate the dinner included.  It was overcooked rice with a vegetable meat stir fry the same as lunch.  Thankfully we had purchased a bottle of inexpensive Australian wine and we were able to share it with everyone.  We all sat and talked for about an hour before retiring to our gers, and then to bed.

19 August 2008
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
                Doug was the first to wake up out of our ger.  He wandered around outside, and then came back to get Anna.  The day before we were all told Mongolians don’t really eat breakfast, so if we wanted something other than biscuits, butter, and tea then to bring our own food. 
                We all decided to bring out the food we had brought.  Doug and Anna contributed peanut butter, and jelly; The Germans contributed fruit and breads; The Swedish couple provided bread, and coffee.  It was nice to chat and eat once again. 
                 The family had a couple dogs and one of them always came to visit us while we ate, mostly to get any leftovers.  Linus started to feed the dog bread and butter.  The dog loved it.  Linus kept giving the dog biscuits with more and more butter that the dog loved.  Time after time the dog kept coming back for more slower and slower.  It was quite funny. 
                After breakfast we all loaded ourselves into the van and left.  Arriving at the UB guesthouse it turned out they did have room for us to stay there.  This was really nice, and convenient.  We still had some extra bags and we didn’t want to haul them around attempting to find the place we had made a reservation at.  Once we checked into our room, we took much needed showers.  Next there were errands to do.  Anna went to the post office to mail a few things, and Doug went to get the train tickets to Moscow.
                Anna mailed a package to Australia by air being it was pretty light.  Doug then soon arrived.  But when she went to mail a package to her brother, they would only let her mail it by air, no surface.  This didn’t make any sense.  The postman showed slip after slip, none of the packages went by surface.  There was no way she was going to spend $60 on a package which costs $30.  With the package in hand, we left. 
                One the way back to the guesthouse we decided to get some food.  The camping food was not the best, and by now it was around 3:30.  The both of us needed food.  We went to a café called Chez Bernard, it was recommended in our book.  The menu looked good, and the prices were high (no surprise).  Doug ordered a chicken pasta dish, and Anna ordered a chicken sandwich.  Both of the dishes were quite good.  Before going back to the room we left a note at the Swedish couple room to possibly meet for dinner.  We had gotten to know them a lot over the last 24 hours, and wanted to hang out with them more.
                At the room we watched a movie, and relaxed a bit.  It had been a long couple of days with not much sleep.  7:00 pm rolled around we went outside to see if our Swedish friends had gotten our note.  Sure enough they were outside waiting with their new roommates (a couple of British guys).  We all headed to an Irish restaurant a few blocks away. 
                At the restaurant we all ordered food, and beers.  It was nice to be clean, have good food, good beer, and good company.  We stayed there until after 11:00 before headed back to the guesthouse.  There we said our goodbyes, and agreed to meet up the next day to do some sightseeing.

20 August 2008
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
                The day began a little later.  This was one of the first days in a while where there was no alarm, and no where really to be anytime soon.  We were meeting up with the Swedish couple at 1:00.  We eventually got ourselves up, and went to the internet café.  After checking internet we went to Café Amsterdam for a little breakfast.  Anna got coffee and toast.  Doug ordered a hot chocolate, and a salami sandwich.  Our food again was expensive but good. 
                After breakfast we went to pick up our train tickets.  Doug was told to come back the next day the day before.  They hadn’t picked up our tickets yet.  This didn’t make sense.  We had ordered the tickets a month earlier, as well as paid for them the week before.  It had begun to rain.  We walked around for over an hour.  Walking in a complete circle we arrived where we had almost begun.   Doug then decided we must have walked right by it.  The both of us were very wet at this point, and Anna was not too happy.
                Arriving at the ticket office the girl said we would have to come back tomorrow.  Anna said “No, we can’t, we leave tomorrow.”  This was not going to work.  She had us sit down.  After making a phone call, and waiting for 15 minutes, she handed Doug the phone.  They were picking the tickets up right then, and would drop them off at the UB guesthouse.  We said, “Thank you,” and left.
                Arriving back at the guesthouse Doug went up to the reception to let them know our train tickets would be arriving soon.  Doug also gave them our voucher for the tickets.  Then we met up with our Swedish friends.  The rain had come to a lull.  They had not eaten yet so we found a restaurant for lunch.  We shared a basket of fries, and a bowl of soup.  After lunch we walked to one of the temples.  It had begun to rain pretty hard by now.  After checking out the first temple we walked to another temple.  This temple was much bigger, but there was a fee, and it was still raining pretty hard.  We decided against paying the fee, and caught a taxi.
                The taxi dropped us off back in the CBD at a knock off North Face clothing store.  Our friends did a little shopping.  Across the street we did a little souvenir shopping, and some grocery shopping.  Once everyone was done spending money we headed back to the room, and agreed to meet later that evening.  One of the British guys we had met wrote, directed, filmed, and pretty much created a movie over the last five years.  His friend was an actor in the movie.  We were going to have a movie premier night at 8:00.
                It was now around 5:30.  Doug took the laundry over to the next building to be washed.  We had some snacks, and took showers.  We were both a little cold from the rain.
                At 8:00 we met up with everyone.  The movie was really good.  He explained what programs he used to Doug, and how he went about creating a lot of the scenes.  It was all really interesting.  After the movie we hung out for a short while before saying goodnight.  We agreed to meet up with the Swedish couple the next morning for coffee, and to say goodbye.

21 August 2008
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
                Checking our emails was a big priority for us in the morning because we were going to be out of touch for the next 4 days while we were on the train to Moscow.  We packed up and headed to our usual internet place and unfortunately it wasn’t open yet.
                Back at the hotel we checked out and dragged all our stuff (which was heavier than usual due to the packages we couldn’t mail plus food and drink for 4 days on the train) to the café Amsterdam.  We found a table and Doug sat with the stuff while Anna went back to the internet place.  When she returned we switched.  When Doug returned Linus and Nadia had arrived.  We spent the next hour or so talking with them and then said our goodbyes.
                On the side of the street we hailed a car to take us to the train station.  Once we were loaded up the driver got about 10 feet and the police came up, and waved him over.  We didn’t know why he got pulled over.  It could have been because he isn’t allowed to take passengers for money, but the cop never motioned anything to us and allowed us to stay in the car.  It could also have been because he was slightly blocking the intersection where we were picked up at.  The driver went over to the cops and paid a fine and then took us to the train station.  At the train station Doug gave the guy an extra 1000 Mongolian bucks (which is a little less than a dollar).
                At the station we were able to exchange our Mongolian bucks for Rubles.  We waited for about an hour and the train finally arrived.  This train station was much different than the Chinese ones.  There was zero security before we boarded.  All they cared about was if we had a ticket.
                On the train we were pointed to a cabin and it appeared as if we were on the only ones in it.  Then a lady came by with a couple jackets and tried to talk to us.  We couldn’t understand her, but she finally put one jacket on a hangar and then left…odd.
                We meet our new carriage neighbors, Matt from Oregon, Holly from the UK, Cass from Australia and Jill from the States.  They started their journey from Beijing.  We settled in and took a nap.  It appeared we had the cabin all to ourselves!  When we woke up we found another jacket in our room.
                Once we were up we got to talking to our neighbors for a bit and we discovered the lady with the jackets was stashing them all throughout the train.  Doug pointed out that it probably wasn’t a good idea to have something that wasn’t ours in our cabin when we went through a border checkpoint…especially Russia’s.  Anna and Holly took the jackets and put them in the corridor.  Eventually the jacket lady saw them and tried to put them back in our room.  The four of us (Matt and Holly were with us) yelled, “NO!”  The jacket lady was a bit flustered but started to come back in our room grabbing at the hangar.  Anna finally realized she was just trying to return the hangar.  The lady backed into the hall and tried to throw the hangar into the room but it bounced off the door and down the hall.
                At the border the Mongolian guards took our passports and returned them in about an hour or so.  The train then rolled into Russian.

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