Mongolia pics

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Team Mongolia takes on the Gobi

After the horse trekking trip, Team Mongolia returned to UB to shower (hot this time - woohooo!), do laundry, and eat some good food. (Have I mentioned fermented mare's milk and cheese curds? Actually, by the third time I drank the mare's milk I kind of started to like it, and we did have some excellent homemade yoghurt in one of the yurts.) In general Mongolian food wasn't that good, but restaruants in UB offered a few decent options such as mutton kebabs. Half of the team also left the country at that point; we saw Pete off at Genghis Khan International Airport (I'm not making that name up!), and later that day brought Team China to the UB train station for their train/bus/train trip back to Wuhan.

The next morning Eric, Glynnis and I were off with a driver and a guide for a six-day tour of the Gobi Desert. Little did we know that most of those six days would be spent bouncing around on bone-jarring "roads" in a rugged Russian jeep. Jaghka, our driver, should probably be given an honorary spot on the team for a) his impressive driving skills and b) doubling as a mechanic. If he hadn't been able to replace ball bearings and flat tires, or to tape battery wires and do all sorts of other mysterious tinkering under the hood, we'd probably still be in the Gobi.

The Gobi is not your prototypical desert; there is some sand, but the landscape varies a lot and some parts of it are actually quite full of life. The first night we set up our tents in a vast area of low scrubby ground cover under one of the biggest skies I've ever seen; Mongolia has got to be nearly unrivaled as a place for star gazing. The second night we camped in a desert "forest" of shrubs; we spent night three at the base of some massive sand dunes, night four near an impressive canyon, and the final night on what looked like a rocky moon-scape.

Although we spent lots of time in the jeep, we also got to scamper around on the rocks, ride camels (albeit a rather lame ride), climb giant sand dunes, hike in a canyon, and lick dinosaur fossils. The licking is a test of authenticity: supposedly your tongue will stick if it's a fossil and not just an ordinary rock. My tongue did stick, and we were in the part of the Gobi where the American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews discovered dinosaur fossils in the 1920s - but I'm still a bit skeptical about the true nature of what my tongue was touching. We also saw some great wildlife including falcons and giant vultures, a fox, and a couple of snakes - and best of all had an extended sighting of three ibex. (Three what, you say? I didn't know what an ibex was either until this trip; I'll put some pictures up soon.)

We were a bit stir-crazy after all that time in the jeep, but it did give us a real appreciation for how vast and desolate the Gobi is. A quote from our guidebook took on new meaning out there in the desert; it went something like, "Only a fool crosses the Gobi without serious misgivings." Or without plenty of water and a talented driver/mechanic!

Team Mongolia - China Edition

Two Chinese and four Americans take a trip to Mongolia. Kind of sounds like the opening of a joke, doesn't it? Before the trip I was thinking that it sounded like a recipe for travel disaster; six is a lot for a travel group since people always seem to have different ideas about what to see, where to eat, and how much money to spend. I was also a bit worried because Glynnis and the other four had never met and I didn't know how the personalities would mesh. Mostly, though, I was concerned because Eva and Lucy had only been outside China once (and they say that Vietnam doesn't really count since they didn't need passports to get there) and because they'd never traveled anywhere without a tour group. But I'm back from Mongolia now and I'm happy to say that disaster was averted; people compromised and got along, and Eva and Lucy both rolled well with the punches of independent budget travel in Mongolia.

The first punch: cold showers. Thirty hours on any train would leave the passengers feeling grimy, but we felt especially dirty when we arrived in Ulaan Baatar because we'd passed through two dust storms during the trip from Beijing. The dust clouds that filled the train cars started us coughing and wheezing, and then once everyone managed to close their windows the dust settled on our sleeper bunks and our bags, coated our skin, and stuck in our hair. When we got to our cheap guesthouse in UB, none of us was happy to hear that there was no hot water. Pete and Eric and I got over it quickly, hopped in the showers, and came out feeling fresh and clean. Lucy and Eva had never experienced a cold shower and they hesitated for a while, but they eventually decided that they were dirty enough to try it; they both said afterwards that it wasn't as bad as they'd expected.

Punch #2: No Chinese. Eva and Lucy are both English instructors at Wuhan University, so of course they speak good English. They seemed quite taken aback, though, when they discovered that most Mongolians don't speak any Chinese. ("But they're our neighbors!") We tried to tactfully point out that Mongolians are still somewhat bitter about their historical treatment by China and none too fond of their former sovereigns. Of course back in the day their own Ghengis Khan didn't treat the Chinese very well either, but I digress.

Punch #3: Horse trekking - sort of a must-do in Mongolia, but certainly not a luxurious way to travel. Actually, this was a punch for Pete too; he'd said all along that he wasn't thrilled with the idea of riding horses, and he doesn't camp and he'd never gone four days without a shower. Thank goodness he had cigarettes, a French press and a bag of Starbucks Sumatra to get him through. In fact, the coffee and nicotene kept him in such high spirits that along the way he christened our group Team Mongolia, with sub-teams China and America, and cheered us on throughout the trip. He even kept a smile on his face all five times that his horse decided to sit down for a break with Pete still on his back. (Pete was the only smoker in the group, but I should note that the coffee was also good for my spirits, and for Eric's. Thanks, Pete!)

Team China didn't complain, but I think they were especially in need of Pete's encouragement as they dealt with cold nights, bad sunburn, upset stomachs (caused, perhaps, by the fermented mare's milk and dried cheese curds we ate in the yurts we visited), and the lack of facilities. On day one they asked our guide, Handaa, where the bathroom was; I guess they were expecting an outhouse, because they seemed momentarily stunned when she responded with a sweep of her arm toward the treeless hills behind our camping spot.

Actually, Team China did more than just roll with the punches; they seemed to really enjoy the trip despite the rough bits. Eva and Lucy both e-mailed after they got back to China to say how much fun they'd had and how glad they were they'd come along - and that they wished they could have stayed on for Team Mongolia's second week in the country. I believe them, but I suspect that they were also secretly relieved to return to beds and hot showers and familiar food, and to a place where people speak Chinese.