4 Days On A Russian Train

Thursday, July 28, 2011 Eva 0 Comments

Our home for 4 days
Relief!  Space!  After 4 days and 3 nights cooped up on the Trans-Siberian, in a cabin the size of a closet, we’ve arrived in Moscow feeling like crusty hermit crabs crawling out of their cramped shells.  We were dying for a hot shower ……. ok, just a shower would do ……… alright, a sponge bath, anything!  If we were the unwashed masses in first class it made me wonder what 2nd and 3rd class was like.  No, on second thoughts, I’d rather not give it a thought.

The providnitsa (each carriage is appointed a Russian attendant for the duration of the journey) showed us to a different compartment to what was allocated on our ticket. She reassured us in Russian and hand gestures that it was okay.  Not okay, however, with an angry belligerent Russian man whose cabin we’d filled and who was being led by the providnitsa to another compartment.  A verbal attack by him followed as he stuck his head into our cabin several minutes later and sneered and snarled at us in Russian before we could finally give him the flick and slam the door shut after him.  The providnitsa, meanwhile, was staying out of it.  We got out of it shaken, but unharmed!
Sleeping on the job
Throughout the journey from Irkutsk in the east, through the vast Siberian region, and to the western end of Russia our train’s display clock and all station timetables ran on Moscow time even though there was a 5 hour time difference for much of the way.  To adjust to the many time zones, Max and I gradually set our watches forward an hour or two each day and tried to eat, sleep and recreate according to our personal times rather than by the official time.
There was certainly plenty of time to kill.  Just like the cook in the dining car must have assumed he had.  We had miscalculated the length of the train journey, thinking it was for 3 days and we had 3 days’ worth of instant noodle meals as well as various snacks and fruit.  By the last evening, the decision was made that we’d splash out on a proper sit-down meal in the restaurant car and save our leftover Snickers bars, crackers and a cucumber for lunch the next day.  A simple steak for Max and a chicken fillet for myself.  Now, how long would you think would be a reasonable amount of time it would take a cook to prepare 2 simple dishes whilst the meals carriage was almost empty? (Pause, think) Wrong! One and a half hours or 1 hour, 40 minutes to be precise.  And that was after a 20 minute finger-strumming wait for the under-worked waiter to bring us menus.

Our body clocks were working overtime as peckishness turned to ravenous, murderous hunger.  We chatted, we sipped our drinks as slowly as possible, we took in the detail of the old art deco-style dining cart, we people-watched the 3, 4 or 5 passengers….tick, tick, tick.  When living in Dubai, we learnt that when someone says 'I'll have it ready for Tuesday"' you ask pretty smartly which Tuesday?'   Did Cookie realise the meals were meant for today, not tomorrow?  Like now time not Moscow time?  That hadn’t been made obvious.  Maybe we should have sent a message to the kitchen “appetites lost…..gone walkabout…..can’t find them……kaput”, but we politely (or stupidly) sat there waiting.  Is this the kind of Russian service to expect from now on, a throwback from Communist times perhaps, with a compulsory 30 minute cigarette break in between?

The 'busy' dining car
Finally, the dishes arrived – a teensy-weensy ungarnished steak with 3 slices of fresh tomato and 3 slices of cucumber, and several slices of tinned mushrooms in sauce sitting atop a small chicken fillet with 3 slices of tomato, 3 slices of cucumber and….wait for it…. a sprig of parsley on dish number two!!  Wow, very underimpressive talent.  We chewed slowly to maximise cost versus time versus value – time taken, 10 minutes.  A Mastercard moment…..not!

The scenery out of the windows rarely changed – kilometres upon kilometres of lush green forests and fields, farmlands, rivers, small villages and towns many with wooden houses and ornately decorated windows and doors, and a few small unattractive industrial cities.  The sheer scale of Siberia, which is only one region of Russia, is so huge – it’s like training it across Australia and still having room left over for more. Unfortunately, main cities such as Ekaterinburg were passed in the dark of night.  Stops at various stations were listed on the rail timetable and usually were for anywhere between 10 or 25 minutes.  Our strict providnitsa, however, would tell us “pyat minutae” and hold up 5 fingers.  That gave Max little time to line up at station kiosks for water or snacks, and often she signalled us back into the train before Max had reached the front of the queue.  We would then sit in the carriage waiting for many minutes later, emptyhanded of Rusky snacks. Uurrrggghhhh, not fair, Claire!
Siberian countryside
In Moscow, we can flush toilet paper down the toilet bowl instead of folding it neatly and placing it in the wastepaper basket like we’ve been doing on and off for weeks. Max checked with hotel reception if it was OK, he received a strange look.  The first day on the train that I flushed the paper down the toilet and onto the train tracks doesn’t count as I didn’t see the sign that said in Russian Cyrillic script “no paper in bowl” (I knew because it had a picture with a hand holding paper and the universal ‘no’ sign through it).  Oops!  

So, we’ve made it to the end of the line (or the beginning depending on where you start) for the great Trans-Siberian rail journey.  We’ve accomplished one of our aspirations to rail across from China to Russia.  Are we glad we did it?  Certainly.  The mystery of NOT traversing it would have hounded us until we did.  Would we do it again?  No, once was enough.  There are too many other spaces and places in the world waiting to be explored and I don’t think we’d gain any more insight by doing it all over again, unless we wanted to see the countryside blanketed in winter snow. The rail journey itself was not as much a highlight as I’d anticipated, but the stopovers made it very worthwhile.  We’ve now experienced Chinese, Mongolian and Russian carriages all in “first class” (relaxed terminology meaning a 2-berth cabin where the seats are meant to convert to “soft” beds, but they’re actually harder than chiropractic) and the Chinese compartments we felt were the best, even coming with a tiny ensuite with basin and handheld cold shower shared with the adjoining cabin. Their food in the dining car was also cheaper and tastier.  A tip for those considering doing the journey – you’d save a bundle of money if you bought your own rail tickets yourself (each sector is not that expensive) or got local agents or your accommodation at each stopover to do it for you.

Now the longest hot shower in history awaits us as we wash 4 days of crustiness down the drain.
Tank shipment heading east

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Mongolia to Siberia

Saturday, July 23, 2011 Eva 1 Comments

Privyet from over the Russian border in Siberia!  Contrary to what some people think, Siberia is not under permanent snow and winter climes.  They do actually experience summer, sometimes quite hot, and we have arrived at the start of the summer season. 
Trans-Mongolian route "Ulaanbaatar-Sukhbaatar"
Still brushing our teeth in bottled water and placing the toilet paper into the waste basket.  I don’t think that will change for a while yet.

The Trans-Mongolian train trip from Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia to Irkutsk in Russia, a distance of just over 800 km, took close to 35 hours, or 2 nights and 1 full day. Train 263 stopped frequently whether at stations or in the middle of nowhere waiting for oncoming trains to pass and did not seem to go very fast. The journey requires a degree of patience as you go through 10 hours of border crossings between Mongolia and Russia (around 20 km apart), passport and customs checks, and generally sitting around for several hours on railway platforms as engines and carriages are exchanged. Luckily the weather was fine for catching up on some sun and strolling around the dismal little border town of Naushki on the Russian side.
Our Trans-Mongolian cabin
From Ulaanbaatar station, we shared the carriage with a bunch of friendly Aussies on tour together led by a young Russian tour guide from St Petersburg. A local Mongolian man immediately attracted our suspicions as we boarded the train at UB, as he provided unwanted help with our luggage. Max blocked his entry into our compartment. We could see him communicating with his mobile phone to an accomplice on the platform. Afterwards we found out he’d been caught in the act trying to steal from one of the Aussies in the group. Not a pleasant farewell from Mongolia, but we didn’t let it detract from our wonderful countryside excursions.

Time in our compartment was spent catching up on reading, journaling, snoozing, sorting out trip photos on the laptop and snacking out of our bag of food supplies picked up from local supermarkets along the route. I couldn’t believe how hungry I felt just lounging around……more hungry than when we put in hours of hiking or sightseeing. 
View from our guesthouse balcony
When we arrived in Irkutsk, eastern Siberia's regional capital, we were whisked directly to our guesthouse, Baikal Chalet, 65 km away in the Lake Baikal township of Listvyanka.  Listvyanka is a tiny place situated between the narrow space of the lakeside and the mountainside with many wooden houses decorated with colourful shutters.  Green and sky blue seem to be the most favoured colour schemes. As it was explained to us, blue symbolises hope and green is for life and living. A surprise bonus with our pick-up was that it was accompanied by someone from Baikal Complex who gave the occupants of our coaster bus an entertaining commentary during the 90 minute transfer. The guesthouse where we spent the night is a four-storey high log chalet set against a hillside with views of Lake Baikal through a valley.  
Lake Baikal - bl##&y  freezing!
Seeing Lake Baikal for the first time it is hard to make out the land on the opposite side. The water stretches so far into the horizon, making it appear as if it is a sea.  It is more than 600 km long, over 35 km wide and 1.6 km at its deepest point. All that apparently equates to about 20% of the world’s fresh water. Max needed encouragement to peel off his boots and socks to dip his feet into the lake’s icy cold waters for a photo moment – a tradition of ours whenever we travel to new shores.


Ormul fish market

Wooden houses in Listvyanka

Listvyanka is easily explored on foot in one day as we discovered walking the 5 km one way along the lakeside to the unimpressive Baikal Museum and then the 5 km back. It’s a nice little settlement in which to chill out. If we had more time available it would have been interesting taking a boat trip out across the lake.  Souvenir stalls about town sell stuffed toys of the Nerpa seal from Lake Baikal as well as wooden carved ornaments and jewellery made from Baikal agate and charoit, a purple semi-precious stone.

The local fish from this lake is the ormul fish (related to salmon) which we could smell being smoked and dried.  Fillets of it hung on display around little fish stalls in the main street which also sell it out of insulated plastic eskies (coolers) that have been converted into mini smokehouses. Ormul features on just about every eating establishment’s menu here.  The guesthouse’s cook and housekeeper, Tatiana, prepared us a beautiful dinner of it that night – very flavoursome. 
The following morning we were again accompanied on our transfer back to Irkutsk by a young staff member who provided us with a map of the city and lots of helpful advice.  We spent time exploring the city centre on foot and photographing intricately carved historic timber houses before boarding our early evening Trans-Siberian train to Moscow.


Irkutsk's main square celebrating 350 years


Beautiful filigree woodwork, Irkutsk

After our short but relaxing respite, we now board the train for the longest haul – the Trans-Siberian leg from Irkutsk to Moscow.

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Steppe-ing It Out In Mongolia - Part 2

Sunday, July 17, 2011 Eva 0 Comments

Yaks by the roadside in Terelj
Our first overnight country escape out of town was south-east from Ulaanbaatar to our ger camp in Ghorki-Terelj National Park, a UNESCO heritage area.  All along the route from the outskirts of UB and through the National Park we saw goats (for cashmere), yaks with shaggy moulting fleece, cows, horses and sheep grazing.  Our 25-year old driver, Toogii, skillfully handled the rough driving conditions out of the city. Saruul, our constantly smiling and happy tour guide, a 20-year old Uni student who is studying English, accompanied us for the length of the overnight excursion whilst earning some money during her summer vacation.  This was her first tour by herself, and whilst limited in factual knowledge and fluent English, between the three of us we had stimulating conversations ranging from Mongolian culture and politics to Justin Bieber (yes, he’s hugely popular here), Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Nicole Kidman (yes, even Mongolians recognise her) and Cosmopolitan magazine which recently launched here. The world, indeed, is a small place.

I asked Saruul to teach us some basic Mongolian words which had her in stitches whenever we posed for photos – “neg, khoyer, gurav ….BIASLAG” (1,2 3, Mongolian cheese)!!  It sounds more like “nik,hoyer, goroov….BIZLEK” when spoken.

Our ger camp, one of many tourist campsites, was at the base of a hilly range and being the start of the summer season we were the only western tourists there.  These round tents are felt lined and then covered and tied in canvas.  Inside are thin colourful posts that support the roof that’s crowned by something that looks like a wagon-wheel. The bottom half of the ger is lined in fabric and in the centre is a metal firebox with chimney flue.   A “hotpot” with hot water and some teabags were waiting for us on the little colourfully painted table in the ger.  These Chinese-made hotpots are large thermos flasks that keep water hot for teamaking for an incredibly long time. Lovely homecooked meals were had in a building nearby that also housed very basic bathroom facilities. A couple of Mongolian families arrived by early evening and we could hear one of them chopping and preparing food for dinner on their ger stovetop.   


Terelj National Park



Terelj Park was just glorious in the spring sunshine.  The air still had a little bite to it but it made for refreshing hiking.  With Saruul joining us, we hiked up and down the steep slopes and through forested valleys around our ger camp photographing the landscape and many flowers – wild iris, pasque flower and others we didn’t recognise.  It was too early in the season to spot any edelweiss which grows in the wild through Mongolia. All through the reserve, even on the narrowest or steepest of trails, we weaved around dried animal dung – horse, yak, cattle. These animals roam freely throughout the area. Hawks could be seen gliding in the sky, and in the distance  cuckoo birds sing out. I think we exhausted our young tour guide by the end of the day.
At 6.30 am the next morning (after our early morning cuckoo bird wakeup call), one of the male staff entered our ger to light the fire.  The air temperature was arctic and whilst we shivered under our thick doonas we watched this elderly man in just a thin t-shirt and sandals quickly get a warming fire going. When I pointed to his t-shirt and gestured if he was cold he shook his head.  Mongolians, Saruul explained afterwards, are used to living in these cold temperatures. After all, in winter the temperatures drop to minus 30 and more. Brutal temperatures – from extreme heat to extreme cold! 
Geez, then whilst our teeth were chattering uncontrollably and our bodies convulsing with cold it must have felt like a heat wave to this man! Our driver, Toogii, spent the night sleeping in the car and told us it was fine – another hero in our eyes!  Even the hotpot managed to retain some of its warmth by the following day – everything and everyone but us were coping with the cold. I’d love one of those hotpots, just imagine how much power it could save. They build ’em tough over here! 
Turtle Rock

On our return to UB we stopped off at Turtle Rock for a wander.  No points for guessing why this massive rock is named thus.
From Turtle Rock we hiked part way to a Buddhist monastery several kilometres away on a mountain slope overlooking the Rock and the valley below.  A caretaker at the temple was eager to point out to Max the many paintings under the temple eaves of man’s tortures in hell and took great delight at seeing Max’s expression change to pale horror. Graphic depictions of genital and anal mutilation of men by animals and other means would make any man wince. These were to ward humans off the path of evil.  Max promised the Mongolian caretaker to be good.
Playing Mongolian dress-ups
Chinggis (Ghengis) Khan Monument
From here we took a sidetrip to view and climb the Ghengis Khan monument. In the middle of nowhere, this massive gleaming silver monument of Ghengis astride his horse rises up 40 metres from the flat plains.  An elevator inside this polished steel sculpture whizzed us up to the 3rd floor where we climbed up flights of stairs and exited onto the viewing platform through Ghengis’ crotch.  There are plans to turn this site into an even bigger drawcard with a tourist resort of ger camps, swimming pool, hotels and the like overlooked by the big man himself.

Our second overnight excursion, this time heading out west of UB, was with the guesthouse manager, Tsegii, as tour guide and the same quiet, calm driver Toogii to a ger camp in the Hustain Nuruu Nature Reserve. A mother of 2 young children, Tsegii’s friendliness and ease with the English language made it another memorable trip for us.  Tsegii’s background is as an English-language teacher who also speaks Japanese but switched over to working for this hostel and travel company. She pointed out that she and her husband like to listen to Lady Gaga’s music (of course, as you do in Mongolia). Whilst we didn’t hear it on our tour what we did listen to was very evocative, almost haunting Mongolian melodies, traditional longsongs, throat singing and Mongolian pop music as our 4-wheel drive vehicle bounced us along bone-crunching roads through the steppe landscape studded with livestock and nomadic families living in gers. Thank goodness we didn’t choose the Russian minivan!  The journey was to take 2 hours and it did – 1 hour to navigate roads and traffic out of the city and 1 hour of country driving.

There was one very smooth, nicely sealed road leading out of town and that one, our driver explained through Tsegii’s translation, has been laid for the benefit of VIP’s and officials when the Naadam Festival happens. This is a huge Mongolian festival of horse riding, archery and wrestling held at the height of summer and attracts a worldwide crowd.  Just outside UB on the steppes is where the kilometres–long horse races are run - hence the great condition of the road.  Ahh, self-serving officialdom …..don’t you love it.
Hustain Reserve, another UNESCO heritage site, is the place where Mongolia has recently reintroduced the native Przewalski wild horses bringing them from captivity in Holland after they became extinct here. Domestic horses are supposed to have descended from these animals. The number of horses on the reserve has reached about 250.
Our ger tent
The tag ‘campsite’ at Hustain is a loose term as the ger tents come equipped with modern beds and carpet, shower and toilet facilities are in a building nearby and I think the ‘luxury ger’ was the one that came with transportable ensuite attached to the tent (!?!).


The top-of-the-range ger
Our Landcruiser took us over very rough dirt tracks as we travelled a huge circuit to see the horses. It was a requirement by the Park that a guide from the Reserve had to accompany us (English-speaking of course - cough, cough, pardon?) but he remained completely indifferent, disinterested and almost mute for most of the journey, even though he appeared to understand and respond in English.  Between Tsegii and ourselves we managed to keep ourselves entertained with our own commentary.
Grazing horses at Hustain Nurru Reserve

The landscape varied from steppe grasslands as far as the eye could see to craggy peaks, stony outcrops, lush valleys and small dry river beds studded with wildflowers.  Along the way we stopped at a Neolithic gravesite where horses grazed amongst the ancient stones. 
It took our untrained eyes a little time to adjust to spying the quick moving marmots scurrying into their burrows. Tsegii and Toogii would point them out but the camouflaged critters were hard to spot at first. What were we meant to be seeing?  We had no idea what they were, let alone what to look for. Ahhh, then we saw them - chubby furry-tailed creatures which look like over-fed, oversized mutant squirrels.  A tasty Mongolian delicacy (apparently), Toogii replied in Mongolian licking his lips, and quite fatty to eat. Okaaaaaaaay, we’ll take your word for it, Toogii.

We also caught sight of deer from our vehicle but missed out on seeing any gazelle that graze through the area.  Small families of Przewalski horses were finally spotted towards the end of the route. They certainly have a different-shaped head to a domestic horse, a white underbelly and short mane. As we passed over each turn in the road more collections of horses were seen. Being a protected species, regulations state that vehicles have to maintain a certain distance away from the horses. We had to remain very quiet so as not to frighten them away.  I was kicking myself that I didn’t have a stronger zoom lens on my camera. On the digital screen the horses looked the size of ants! The mute Reserve guide suddenly produced a pair of binoculars which were passed around the group. How beautiful it was seeing these wild horses.
What we had come to see - Przewalski horses!
Our camera safari complete, we bounced back to our campsite and back to UB the next day satisfied that we had seen our brief fill of Mongolian wildlife and wild landscapes in the short time that we had. 

‘Bayartai’ from Mongolia as we board the next leg of our Trans-Mongolian train to Irkutsk in Siberia, Russia.

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Steppe-ing Into Mongolia - Part 1

Wednesday, July 06, 2011 Eva 0 Comments

Chinese border stop
Sainuu from Mongolia!  We’ve moved on from China on the early morning Trans-Mongolian train.  This was an overnighter from Beijing. 
Passing time on the train











Mongolian steppe landscapes
Leaving the verdant landscape behind as we wound up through the mountains of China, we awoke the next morning to desert scenery. Oooooh, we were excited to be traversing through part of the Gobi Desert. There’s something quite mysterious and exotic about the harsh, dryness of deserts and the ability of man’s survival skills in living in such an unforgiving environment.  Deserts not only conjure up images of sandstorms, mirages and camels for me, but also of the soft formations of ripples of sand along the dunes and the subtle colour changes in light and shadow at different times of day. Dusk on desert dunes is an unforgettable experience.
There were few dunes here, however, it was mostly flat - dry grassy steppes dotted with the occasional double-hairy-humped Bactrian camel, groups of sheep, horses or cattle and the occasional little encampment of gers (round nomadic tents). In the far distance the purpley haze of mountain ranges.







We had reached the Chinese border the previous evening where we filled out customs and immigration forms. Chinese officials then boarded our train, sized up our passport photos against our current appearance (yes, that really is a photo of Max minus the beard 8 years ago) and took everyone’s passports away. We all spilled out onto the platform, hoping to see the changing of the bogies.  Mongolian and Chinese rail lines differ in width, so the carriages are hoisted up and the framework changed.
 Unfortunately, the majority of us who chose to get off the train were literally padlocked into the immigration hall at the station for the next 3 – 4 hours as the train was shunted off to the sheds.  We saw nothing of the bogie changing but it was a good opportunity, however, to meet and chat with other passengers and spend our last remaining Chinese yuan at the tax-free supermarket stocking up on snacks. 

This, we knew, was the first of a number of long, slow border crossings.  Being the first border crossing made it all rather exciting and new.  Finally, just before midnight, we were allowed to board the train where it slowly made its way across to the Mongolian border.  More guards and officials in different uniforms boarded the train early the next morning, more formalities and once again passports taken away.  Yippee, we get another stamp in the passport. What is it about the pleasure of seeing that official rubberstamp in the passport? 
Our Mongolian coal-powered train

The overnight Trans-Mongolian train slowly chugged us into Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, past the dry dusty outskirts of town dotted with traditional gers set amongst wooden houses, wooden fences and concrete Soviet-style apartment buildings. Over the fences of small plots of dirt we could see tiny animal barns whose roofs were thickly coated with drying animal dung – for insulation and for fuel.    

On our train we had befriended a Mongolian man returning home with his wife and young son from a year’s contract in Kuwait.  When I asked him if he was happy to be back home he said no and that they were keen to leave soon for another job (they were both investment bankers) in Holland and maybe south-east Asia after that.  He labelled UB as an ugly city and as we were to find out for ourselves ……………he was right!

Outskirts of UB as viewed from train window
UB train station














UB is a dusty, unkempt and uncared-for city. It could certainly vie for the ugliest capital city awards. Its people have to put up with unfinished pavements, poorly surfaced and badly pitted roads, piles of rubble and very little greenery or landscaping. For us it was dislike at first sight.  With its huge mineral resources you’d expect to see some flow-on benefits into the city.  But then again we’re from mineral-rich West Australia where we’re experiencing a similar lack of flow-on effect.  Who are we to judge or complain!  

UB's main street
LG Guesthouse, the hostel that we had booked on the internet, arranged to pick us up from the train station and it was a couple of minutes’ drive to get there, in a not so nice area of rundown apartment buildings overlooking a very sad and dusty grey children’s playground on one side and a view across to the railway lines on the other.  However, walking the streets of UB it was not much better elsewhere. Staff at this hostel are always busy cleaning and scrubbing, so it was evident that even though it didn’t look its best the place was very clean.

The family-run restaurant downstairs prepares cheap wholesome Mongolian dishes, which saved us a long walk into the town centre at dinnertime.  After nearly a month of eating with chopsticks it felt a little odd reverting back to using cutlery.  Mongolian cuisine includes lots of fatty mutton and a delicious kind of flat noodle that tastes very similar to home-made pasta.  Meat was, as we were to find out in the 4 days that we were in Mongolia, on our menu twice daily. Meatlovers rejoice!  It washes down well with either a Chinggis or Borgio beer or black tea.

Well, its location wasn’t great but one of the best things about our hostel was the helpful staff who organised to pick up our Trans-Mongolian train tickets for us for the next sector, and arranged private tours just for the two of us with guide and a driver in their Toyota Landcruiser.  I think the owner took stock of our ages as she steered us away from their budget tours in a Russian minivan, and stressed that the private tour would be “more comfortable”.  We read between the lines and took her advice.


Mother's & Children's Day in main square
The day we arrived into UB coincided with Mother's and Children’s Day, a public holiday, and the city centre was filled with families.  With so many babies and young children it was instantly evident that Mongolia has a young population. Going against worldwide trends, Mongolia is experiencing baby booms and women are having babies younger.  This can only be a good thing for a country with such a small population.  We were immediately targeted by a very young pickpocket who patiently waited for us to finish our outdoor café meal before following us around.  We were very aware of him as we pushed past the throngs of people and kept a tight hand over our belongings. Shouting at him to go away did nothing to deter him. I eventually scared him off by saying to Max, loudly enough for the boy to hear, the word "police" then walked towards a traffic cop.  You should have seen him bolt.


Weather was mostly sunny, cold and very dry. Terrible for the skin!  We noticed that Mongolians drive on the right-hand side of the road, but peculiarly, they drive cars that can be either left- or right-hand drive. It’s your choice!  Luxury cars are a waste here as the roads would mince their suspension to shreds.  You need a workhorse such as a Toyota, but the 4-wheel drive vehicle reigns supreme here – the new camel in the desert.

You meet the most incredible people when travelling and, for us, one of these was a Dutch chap staying at the hostel.  Striking up a conversation with him, he explained his amazing journey and challenges that he and a mate had just completed by motorcycling from Holland, through Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia in 2 months. He had stories to tell about the Aral Sea which has now almost disappeared, the rough roads and dirt tracks, the long drawn-out formalities with language barriers at border crossings, the hospitality of Mongolian rural villagers, and arrangements to donate their motorbikes to save on bureaucratic paperwork before flying back home. Truly courageous. This man was a legend in our eyes.
Our journey was tame in comparison as we prepared for some rural respite away from the city surrounds. 

Traditional Mongolian dress 
Road out of UB
 



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