Last leg of Trans Siberian journey

Marie woke me at 0630hr for our train in an hour and half time. Had a terrible night as I had to visit the toilet on more than one occasion the moment I got back from the restaurant the night before. Also started to run a temperature and only felt slightly better after a dose of lemsip. The others were also struggling with the early hours as they were out partying till the wee hours and barely had more than 3 hours of sleep.

Bobby of UB Guesthouse had to chase us onto the waiting minibus to the train station as they had to be at the platform to pick up arriving guests as well. Dave wanted to spend more time in the country which meant only Marie and Paul travelled together with me on this journey. We all slumped into our respective berths the moment the train left the station, me with another dosage of lemsip, and slept through most of the day, not helped by the stuffy atmosphere in the compartment as the train slowly made its way south across the searing heat towards the Chinese border at Erlian.

It was quite a close shave at the border as the Chinese authorities have started to screen out any potential case that might have anything to do with the swine flu. Was lucky that my temperature has subsided when he pointed the infra red thermometer on my forehead, although Paul did get a 2nd check of his temperature using a mercury thermometer as they have assumed that he has come from USA where there have been reported cases. Won't be able to face everyone if I end up getting everyone on the train to be quarantined!

The train was held at the border for more than 5 hours as all the carriages were brought into the warehouse for bogie changing, with everyone onboard! I suspect they did not allow anyone to get off the train due to the swine flu checks and just wanted to reduce any chance of human contact. This meant that we were unable to get off to watch the entire bogie changing process as the carriages have to be put on a smaller set of bogies due to the narrower rails in China as compared to the wider ones used in Russia and Mongolia.

By morning, the train was speeding towards Beijing and I was quite disappointed to miss the section of the rail where it cuts through the Great Wall. Was even more disappointed to learn from the attendants that the Chinese have rerouted the train route to Beijing meaning that it no longer climbs up the mountains for a view of the Great Wall, but instead go through countless new holes that the Chinese have tunneled through the mountains.

As the train roll into Beijing Main train station, it also meant that we have come to the end of our Trans Siberian train adventure - all 7755 (thereabouts) kilometres in all (a little bit more for Paul and myself as we started from St Petersburg). I am just about halfway to my journey back home but was rather looking forward to my next adventures through Asia, starting from this huge capital housing 15 million people. Was immediately overwhelmed by the crowds coming off the trains heading for the exit, and Marie was immediately lost in the sea of bobbling heads...

Lost in the beauty of Mongolia

Amid volcanic craters, pine-clad lava fields and the occasional herd of grazing yaks lies the Great White Lake, as it’s known in English, lies the Khorgo-Terkhiin Tsagaan Nuur National Park. According to legend, the lake was formed when an elderly couple forgot to cap a well after fetching water. The valley flooded with water until a local hero shot a nearby mountain top with his arrow; the shorn top covered the well and became an island in the lake (Noriin Dund Tolgoi). In reality, the lake was formed by lava flows from a volcanic eruption from the nearby Khorgo Uul volcano many thousands years ago. When we arrived, the beauty of this place immediately mesmerise the entire group, especially as the Russian beast pull over the peak for a panoramic view of the nature park. We all agreed that it probably has the best toilet view in the world, whilst doing your morning "business". The winds turned into light snow in the night as we huddled together inside the Ger, under the cozy warmth of the burning firewood.

The following day, we jumped onto the horses waiting outside our Ger as the wind howl towards us in a relentless mood. As my jacket was left in the UB Guesthouse back in UlaanBaatar, the host deemed that I was wearing too little with my 4 layers of tops that I have brought along for the trip (for a sense of how cold it was, I had a base layer, 2 t-shirts and wool fleece) and was ill-equipped to ride to the volcano. He came back from his Ger with his traditional Mongolian coat and helped to put it on me. I was also the lucky one to get the only white horse in the group which during the 4 hour ride, kept trotting to the front of the group and refused to be overtaken by anyone else.

Amidst a vast lava field strewn with black lava rocks, we visited 2 lava caves with ice that has not melted for thousands of years before heading towards Khorgo Uul volcano. As it was my first horse riding experience, I did eventually end up with a sore back bone (the piece just at the base of your back bone) and wobbly legs at the end of it as I tried all ways to make my ride more natural and comfortable, especially when the horse went on one of his ego-charge gallops to run away from the group. Paul said his kidneys hurt more than anything (wonder if it was the Russian vodka or the ride) else after the ride although he was in much better shape after a good siesta. The 4 hour ride only costs us £6 additional each! We had more mongolian noodles for dinner and it was starting to get to all of us (was hilarious when Marie took a first bite, said it tasted "AWESOME", but spat it out after I dared her to take another mouth as I suspected she was been polite, being Irish).



I set my camera up to try to take a long exposure shot of the night sky, with the eventual result showing the stars circling around the North Star, with the streaks of white light behind each. Unfortunately the camera on my battery died after 2 tried of 30 minute exposures but it was certainly an encouraging start. Even without the camera, one can only appreciate the beauty of the stars yourself in complete darkness. That was when I understood the meaning of "putting your hands out to reach for the stars...", as it really gave me that illusion.

On day 4, we packed up, thanked our lovely hosts and hop onto the Russian beast again and sped off on the dry landscape under the careful manoeuvre by Baatra. We stopped halfway to chat to another jeep of former Peace Corp volunteers heading to the west before coming across our first herd of camels. It was another 5 hours of probably the toughest off road before we arrived in the flatlands halfway between the Great White Lake and UB. The view was however one of the best of the trip as endless of mountains lined alongside us. I was enjoying the sights of the countless herds of sheeps, yaks and cows by mimicking their sounds on every passing, with Baatra contradicting me with the sound of the other animal every time. He did miss a moment of concentration and hit a sheep as it tried to cross in front of the car but was a step too late.

Our last stop on the flat plains happened to be staying in the Ger of Baatra's mom and brother, who are still living there in the wild, although few modern amenities have supplemented their simple life in the form of solar panels, satellite dish and tv. I had my first experience of a mini sand storm while walking back from the nearby river after a washup with herds of goats and sheep around me. Ended up taking shelter in a depression on the ground for half a minute for it to pass. Was kindly invited by Baatra into his mom's Ger for tea where she proudly displayed his wedding pictures and his 3 month old daughter. As there was not a single tree around, the fire burning in the Ger was fuelled by dried cow dung instead, which burnt pretty well but gives off a smell that, let's just say, not pleasant.

Another 350km drive on the hottest day of our trip on the 5th day back to the capital ended our Mongolian wild adventure. We stopped halfway for lunch and had more Mongolian noodles, this time only Baatra, Paul and I been the only ones eating; Dave has also joined Marie and surrendered to pot noodles instead. We arrived back in UB Guesthouse just before 6pm and immediately took turns for a nice long shower to clean away all the sand and dirt from the last 5 days. Looking back, I was really glad to have done the trip, and experienced the kind and warm people of normadic Mongolians first hand, which was greatly enhanced by a bunch of like-minded and fun travellers. We celebrated our "clean" self again by heading to a Cuba restaurant for some steak and Coca Cola!

Flickr to Mongolian set

Mongolia, a vast land of surprises

The Mongolian capital feels like a huge dustbowl, similar to many of the Russian cities that I passed by. Not helped by the huge Russian influence in the shaping of this city where winters can get as low as minus 50 degrees and up to 40 degrees in the scorching summer heat. Bobby from UB Guesthouse picked me up from the station at the Irkutsk/UlaanBaator train calls to a halt. I had planned to only stay for 2 nights, with most of the time spent out living in a Ger in a nearby Nature Park, and continue my journey into Beijing, only to find out that the only trains to run directly into the chinese capital only service on Thursdays and Sundays. The other alternative is a 3 day journey via a local train to the Mongolian border, followed by mini bus across to the Chinese border and another bus ride from there to the capital. Figured that I can't afford the additional day of travel even though it was half the cost of the train ride, only to be convinced by various in the hostel to take up a 5D/4N trip to the Great White Lake on the west of this vast country. That night, I withdrew 450,000 worth of Togrog, equivalent to about USD$250 to pay for the trip and train ticket ($125), felt like a millionaire at that point in time!

The hostel was almost full that weekend, with Dutch forming the majority of the numbers. A fellow Singaporean, Jo, was also staying in my dorm room, together with a Korean and Japanese. She has been making her way westwards from China into Mongolia, with Russia being her next stop. It was refreshing to find travellers from home with the keen sense of adventure and unafraid to step out of the comfort zones of their jobs and homes to see the world. A group of us headed to a Korean restaurant for a meal of very good and authentic Korean dishes before Jo left to catch her train. I headed to the State Departmental Store with Paul (American from Las Vegas) to stock up on food for the next 5 days.

Next day, our group of 4 got onto a Russian-built 4x4 van and headed west for a 350km drive to Kharakorum, the former capital of the country back in the 13th century. Behind the wheels was a very cheerful Batra, young man who recently have his first daughter of 3 months. Besides Paul, there was Dave, a Brit in his mid twenties who got fed up with the work that he has been doing and decided to go on a road trip round the world, and Marie (I can't spell her real Irish name!), an Irish nurse who has loads of energy and can't seem to stop chatting. We stopped halfway at a place known as mini-Gobi to see the sand dunes that is synonymous with the famous desert, only to find a few small sand peaks reaching barely 10m in height. Paul, been on another 7 days trip south to the Gobi desert prior to this trip, did not even bother to get down the van, or maybe he was just nursing his hangover from the deluge of vodka from the night before. We arrived at Kharakorum just before sunset, a 8 hour back breaking drive on a combination of tarmac and off road. Settled into a Ger, which is a traditional Mongolian tent used by the normadic Mongolians, easy to setup but yet strong enough to withstand the ferocity of the 100 mile winds. We spent the rest of the evening running up the nearby hills, mimicking sheep bahs and enjoying the vast emptiness of the surroundings, before settling back into the Ger to "enjoy" the local Buuz (mongolian dumplings) and burning real firewood to keep warm. We enjoyed our first traditional throat singing performance by a 54 year old local, who entertained us for almost 40 minutes of very traditional mongolian art, frequently rotating his musical instrument. Considering that his is his hobby (he said he started learning it since 17), he is not too bad!

The 300km drive to Terkhiin Tsagaan Nuur National Park was another back breaking ride on some of the most off road, crossing small streams and going over numerous mountains. Some of the scenery along the way were really amazing, as the colours on the mountains start to change from brown to its bright summer glories. We stopped by a small town for lunch and had the first of our many "fried noodles with mutton" dish over the next few days. It's amazing how they can reuse this dish in various different forms - fried, soup, more fried, soup using mongolian tea - tasted great on the 1st day, after which I came to run when I smell of it. Marie did not even want to try and stuck to her beef goulash, which was a mix of rice, some carrots and fried beef/mutton (we can never seem to figure what meat it was, as long as it didn't come from the camel).

...to be continued...

Goodbye Russia, hello Mongolia

The trip out of Russia was a test of anyone's patience;
- Waited 4 hours for train from Irkutsk;
- 7 hours at the Russian border of Naushki;
- Another 3 hours at the Mongolian border of Suhbaatar.

It took an incredible 32 hours to cross 1115km of track, even though parts of the rail around Lake Baikal was once the most difficult bits to build. Was completely exhausted at the end of the day from waiting for the day to pass and my 6th pot noodles on the Trans Siberian trip was getting to me as well - the first taste delicious, the 6th feels like a torture.

On the bright side, the scenery after Ulan Ude towards the border was a refreshing change as the train headed south into the once great steppes of Genghis Khan - rolling mountains, rivers and lakes combine with sparse colourful SIberian log cabins to form a very picturequse sight. There are times when a curious cow comes ever so close to the oncoming train only to stop at the very last moment by the horn.

2 ladies joined my compartment at Naushki heading for a shopping trip across the border in Mongolia. I seem to understand that they were history teacher and architect prior to taking up this current job of a border guard because there are not enough jobs in their former city. Their expressions and language tells the story of how boring this job is, and looking at how tiny the village was when I passed, I really feel sad for them. This is especially when one of them, Natasha, has 2 little kids at home in Volga (very far from here) whom she can't visit till 2 years of her contract is up.

Leaving Russia, I can definitely see and feel the change sweeping across the biggest country in the world, modernisation, westernisation, brand, class, have overtaken the basic needs of survival. It will be a long road ahead, and a tough one, especially for the majority group who are struggling with keeping up with the pace of change. I have met and befriend some of the most amazing and friendly people on my trip, be it their innocence and simple way of life that reflects the world that we hardly see much of in this 21st century of ours. I look forward to Mongolia, to a different land so sparse of human presence, where the great Genghis Khan once ruled much of Asia and Europe, where steppes, mountains, glaciers, desert and sand rules over all.