First off, I have to say that it's been quite long time for my fan(s) to wait for this update but now the tedious waiting is over. Reasons for the delay were as follows: on the train I had plenty of time but no real motivation to write other than some scribblings in Finnish, in Irkutsk I noticed my laptop's wlan is broken so thought I'd come up with something, at Ulan Ude the combination of both. Now at Ulan Bator, laptop is in the same condition but think it's the last reasonable moment to write something before heading off to the desert. So here we go!
Wake up in the morning feeling like traveller, I grab my bags and hat I know this will take forever. Time is ticking on and on, everybody is rushing, got to get down to the train stop, I see no friends. Sergei at the front seat, Nikolai at the back seat, somebody made up my mind to take the back seat. Sergei, Nikolai and half of the cart's other 60 3rd class fellow passengers were doing their time in the Russian army. I had quite mixed feelings about that since only one (this was very surprising) of the 19-year-olds could speak english okish, and he wasn't on my group, but at least they weren't smelly angry drunks. Infact, they gave me army food, which was nice, and I gave them vodka. They were on their way to the border of Mongolia for 7 months not being able to go home every weekend, like us in the Finnish army, since one way train trip already takes a week.
Every cart had two toilets and one boiler where you could get hot water. Beds were bit too short but otherwise the conditions were perfect for the price of 80e. Days went and came, longer breaks were kept on bigger stations where you could buy beer, noodles and items of sort. I spent most of my time eating, reading Oliver Twist, listening to audiobooks and Dylan songs. Towards the end it started to get a little bit less exciting but it was a cool feeling jumping out of the train with your backpack in some strange Russian city called Irkutsk.
This brings us to Irkutsk where lots of happy things took place. First major thing was that the sun was shining which had not happened for more than 10mins in the last four days. First impressions of the hostel were very good and they changed only towards better during the stay. And to continue with the first theme, first night was the first time after Moscow that I could really talk to people when a group of exchange students spent the evening at the hostel. I also have to mention a very nice British couple who were on a charity mission from London to Ulan Bator. Goal was to donate the ambulance they were driving to the hospital in Ulan Bator. Irkutsk was one of the last stops before Mongolia after crossing 14 countries including Iran and Pakistan. The next day my great goal was to find charger for my camera since I had misplaced a bag with all of my chargers. After asking around ended up in a place which sold me an "universal charger" (which would be classified as death trap at home) for 4 euros, and it worked! For the night, we were invited to a local halloween party in a bar. It was mostly a basic dance bar with half of the people dressed in costumes. My costume as a Finnish tourist was very succesful!
Before we could leave Irkutsk with my newly made Finnish friend and 'old' friend from earlier in St. Petersburg we had to visit Baikal (deepest lake in the world). In the bus we met a Russian gentleman who, not only spoke english, had played DAoC on Excalibur. When we arrived an idea was thrown out to go for a swim since according to the belief it gives 25 extra years of life. I was the last one to jump into the freezish waters (above freezing point, air temp. about +5c) of Baikal, took a couple of strokes and got back up. Since we were so well prepared we decided to sacrifice my hoodie as a towel. Feeling afterwards was quite rad! Sprits were lifted even higher after consumption of hot smoked fish fresh from the lake. Having walked around and drank some beer our fellowship headed back to the hostel.
Better picture might follow from other guys' cameras as mine is shit
Following day was the day of departure which was greeted with 8cm of snowfall and strong winds. A snowman had to be made with a cost of half-breaking camera. When construction was done we headed to the city to see some sights and buy equipment but we saw no sights and got no equipment. It was time to pack up things and go. On our way we were talking how everything had went just perfect but after finishing that sentence everything started not to go perfect. We missed our tram and walked 20mins to the next stop where we barely missed the next tram and after 15mins of waiting finally got on our way. At the train station queues for the tickets were long and we didn't have much time but we managed to get tickets right on time only to see that they were written for Moscow time (all of the train stations in Russia follow that) and not local time. This only not made us wait for 5 hours for the train but also separated us from rest of the group and the plan for Ulan Bator. Having admitted defeat, we headed towards a cafe which was our base from 10pm to 3am. We had food, warmth and Monkey Island on iPhone so it was not too bad. God bless iPhone! In the end we got to the train, got some sleep and woke up at Ulan Ude.
In UB, there's lots of great food to be had 1. Modern Nomad: this is a high-end-ish Mongolian restaurant chain, and it serves really good Mongolian food. 2. Monet: on top of their tallest building in Sukhbaatar Square, very solid French food by any standard. I kept on going back here despite the high prices because I was really craving something that wasn't Mongolian by the end of my stay. 3. Sakura/Sakura-Teppanyaki: authentic Japanese restaurants inside the Kenpenski Hotel. Great if you wanted to have something different.
While in UB, I suggest checking out some night clubs. Mongolian night clubs are really fun, and I think you would be popular as a white man. The Brix is the one I visited, and it was a lot of fun. There is also a lounge outside of Monet, and it's very popular as well.
Outside of UB, I think it's best if you travel with a tour, as it's nearly impossible to go anywhere without a translator and a hired driver, and all the fun stuff is miles and miles of deserts away from UB.
This is the tour I did: Baga gazriin chuluu (Rock formation) Yoliin am (Ice valley) Hongoriin els (Sand Dune) Bayanzag (Flaming cliff) Ongiin hiid (Ongi Temple) Biggest waterfall in Mongolia Kharhorin, ancient capital
Yoliin am, Hongoriin els and Bayanzag were amazing sights and I definitely recommend them. The problem is that the Gobi desert is very far away from UB, and you will be spending a lot of time in the car just to get there.
Thanks for the information Cambium. I've been couple of days in Mongolia now and it's been quite amazing starting from the landscape, constant sunshine and crazy traffic in Finnish standards (heard its crazier along my future places).
Definately will be doing an organized tour, hopefully for more than a week in a good crowd. Have to look into the nightlife as well, it was fun in Russia already heh.
On October 18 2011 00:47 endy wrote: You're lucky, 5 months is a fucking long holiday :o You can let me know if you wanna hang out in Shanghai.
Also I agree with Ciryandor, skip the Philippines :/
That sounds great, I'll send you a PM when I know when I'll be there exactly
I live in Shanghai too, I'd be down to snag a beer with you guys when you're around. I'm also a tour guide in the city so I'll take you to a nice scenic spot which you shouldn't miss!
On October 18 2011 00:47 endy wrote: You're lucky, 5 months is a fucking long holiday :o You can let me know if you wanna hang out in Shanghai.
Also I agree with Ciryandor, skip the Philippines :/
That sounds great, I'll send you a PM when I know when I'll be there exactly
I live in Shanghai too, I'd be down to snag a beer with you guys when you're around. I'm also a tour guide in the city so I'll take you to a nice scenic spot which you shouldn't miss!
Sure, sounds great! Think at the moment I'm aiming to Shanghai around first weeks of 2012 (if the world doesn't get destroyed by then). Is the Chinese new year amazing enough to stay a bit longer in China? Think I'm going to spend the traditional new year at Korea.
On November 06 2011 21:05 Kiett wrote: When will you be in Korea? If you want to attend any SC events together, let me know :D
Hell yeah! Gonna head to Beijing in some days and staying there and nearabouts around a month if it 'feels good man'. After that, to Korea! So if I'd say around mid December I wouldn't be lying too much. See you soon!
Avoid stay in China/Korea/Vietnam on the lunar new year(they are on the same day, if you must I think Korea is your best bet on Lunar new year), since most places will be closed, there is nothing to be seen actually.
When you go to Vietnam, remember to visit HaLong bay. Also avoid Shanghai if possible(nothing to be seen here but a massive city with lots of people, Beijing is way better for tourist), but if you like to experience some of the best night club China, then Shanghai is your place.
Train arrived on time once again after speding an ok night on the 3rd class. We hop off and head along with the crowd towards streets of Ulan Ude. All we had as a map for finding the hostel was a small card which said you have to cross the bridge across the tracks and make few turns. And so we crossed the bridge, walked some and made turns as the picture told us. We should have found the hostel by now but we had made a small mistake of crossing the bridge to the wrong side of the tracks so we were not so close the hostel now. Once again, swallowing our defeat we headed back and instead of walking, took a taxi for 200 roubles (5e). At the hostel it came to our attention that with the right path it would have taken 5 minutes of walking from the station to get there. Oh well, can't win them all. Plan was to get a bus from Ulan Ude to Ulan Bator as it was three times cheaper and took the same time. Sadly, bus for the next day was fully booked so we had to spend an extra night in Ulan Ude which wasn't the worst thing ever. At the hostel we met a German and a Hong Kongese, latter joining the two man group for trip to Ulan Bator. I learned how to play Chinese chess, watched Tree of Life (didn't get it too much) and heard a story of the german almost dieing at mountains in China. The city of Ulan Ude consisted of big Lenin head and a splurgeous small supermarket. Rather mundane. But there was a tank!
Morning came and bags were once again packed tight. Destination was none other than Republic of Mongolia. Means of transport was a bus and expected time of travel around 10 hours. Judging by the coloring of the hair, we were clearly the only tourists on the bus. Landscape quickly turned into arid wasteland surrounded by mountains, cool. Border formalities went smoothly, after about an hour hanging around inbetween countries we were officially in Mongolia. Bus stopped for a lunch break to a nearby hotel/market. The sight brought back memories of Klamath.
As the sun was going down we were getting closer to the capitol city. Most striking feature from the bat was crazy traffic. There seemed to be no lanes nor rules involved. Somehow we made it to the bus station without crashing into something/somebody. From there on our Hong Kongese friend led the way to the hostel he had been before, making it easy for us. Hostel was situated in Junktown kind of area with wooden shacks and fences. For our surprise, we found out that there were gers, aka. Mongolian tents, on roof of the building which was extremely cool. As the tent was a tent, you had to warm it up by fire. That was fun and all before you went to sleep with the fire burning out in 30 mins which followed you waking up very cool in the morning. The following day our small pack of tourists went to explore the city of Ulan Bator (Ulaanbataar, Red Hero). The capitol looked like a proper city which is not probably the first thing that comes in to mind from words 'city' and 'Mongolia'. The next few days we saw some dinosaurs, ate some Korean and Chinese food, saw a huge Buddha statue in the only temple which Soviets didn't bulldoze, Central Asia's largest market and met familiar faces from way back in St. Petersburg and Irkutsk. After three nights our small expedition split up and I was left in UB to find a long tour around Gobi desert.
Before I took onto this task I switched hostels since I didn't want to stay cold and alone in a tent so I came to a hostel which was more up to basic hostel standards also full with nice people. But before I could get on the task of finding a tour some drinks had to be had. Nice folks, traditional puzzle game made out of sheep bone and piece of string mixed with vodka ensured a fun night. Following day I headed to complete my task (even no gold or items were to be gained). It turns out not so many tourists wander around the country during this time of year so getting on a Gobi tour was quite impossible. Having accepted this fact, I got into a tour headed into north-eastern parts for seven nights. Walking around, I met Mr. Predator.
Day 1: On the day of departure, I had my alarm clock set up like you should but being the lazy person as I am, I hit some button to quiet it down. It ended up being some button which didn't put the alarm into snooze so I ended up, luckily, waking 9 minutes before the supposed departure. After scooping up my stuff I headed out and started walking towards the designated departure zone which was 15mins walk away. Gladly the van was still parked outside so an unlikely disaster was avoided. Our tour group for the week consisted of a couple from UK, a couple from Thailand and a local driver who knew 10 words of english. Being the soloer as I am, I got to take the front seat with best views. Experiencing UB's traffic from almost the drivers seat was quite something. As we left the polluted city behind the landscape and scenery turned out to be very beautiful. Scrublands turned into plains turned into desert turned into mountains. Cows and horses occupied the fields and ditches sometimes trying to cross the road just to be honked off the road by the driver. The road was paved and in reasonably good condition with potholes here and there. Before reaching our first day's destination at Karakorum we stopped at small sand dune area which was for some reason middle of the scrublands. This was a glorious moment as I got to experience the dunes (even though small) without going to Gobi. To make the event even more delightful, ESPORTS were represented. As the sun was going down we arrived at the ancient area of Karakorum which was the capitol of Chinggis Khan's era. Sadly, the old city was buried somewhere deep in the sand. What was left from those days were 4 stone turtles (Turtle Rock) marking the area of the city. Oh, also a stone penis, vagina valley and a monastery (not so old I think). After taking a look at these fabulous sights it was time to head to our ger, have our dinner and sleep.
Day 2: 7am was to be the time of departure since a lot of ground were meant to be covered. Landscape kept on changing as we headed down to the countryside. Snow covered mountains, polluted towns, frozen river, forests, plains and a volcano crater were on our route to the frozen lake. Dirt roads turned into real offroad rally. Instead of describing the wonderous sights with my lacking vocabulary I will let the pictures do the talking. When we arrived to the lake a surprising, but not so surprising, person was walking around. She was a girl who I'v met month ago in St. Petersburg, then in Irkutsk, then in UB and finally middle of nowhere. She is heading to Bejing so no doubt that I'll bump into her on Tianamen Square. Other tourists on the camp were four engineers from Switzerland who showed how to make big flames with lighter gas and Pringles can. I also experienced one of the most disgusting culinary experiences when our driver, from my own initiative, shoved a ball of raw yak's fat into my mouth. Blech and spit. We also had an hour of horse 'riding' included in the price. After 20 minutes it got really boring so I decided to walk back on the icy lake. This was a good choice since weird sounds were to be heard and sunsetty pictures to be taken.
Day 3: We had an early departure once again leaving the other tour group behind. Sun was rising casting it's rays on the snow covered mountains as we drove to the other side of the frozen lake. Roads were just tracks left behind by other drivers, sometimes as many as 6 tracks were headed to the same way creating the sight of a Mongolian highway. When we arrived to a village where lunch was going to be had, I was facing two problems. First, my body was aching. Second, I had an urge to squat on two separated, frozen of yellow stuff, wood planks which created a gap in the middle. Due to the graphic nature, longer descriptions won't follow. After having finished the lunch in a cantina with local teachers back to the van we went. Scenery changed into more snowy, mountainous and foresty as we headed to north. Our destination for the day was about 6 hours drive away, all that being on 'roads'. When we were finally closing on our destination, Mörön, it was already getting dark. Also I have never been so happy to see paved roads, even only for a few kilometers. I barely managed to jump off the van since every joint was hurting like hell. After having done some shopping our driver informed that because of impeding snowstorm we will continue driving to the next place, for another 3 hours. Quite humorous. Full Moon was accompanying us through pitch black fields. Gladly about half of the way was paved or dirt road. Finally seeing something which looked like lights of a town we arrived at the intented location. It was a family's house with a ger outside which was supposed to be for us. Since other tourist group had taken the tent, we had to stay in the house. Not bad. Lieing on the floor had never been so great. All in all, 12+ hours of driving and feeling destroyed was interesting.
Day 4: The only day with no driving planned, nice. As we were next to a huge lage, we were supposed to go see the huge lake. That in our minds, we started walking towards the water. Sadly, the water wasn't completely frozen so we couldn't take a shortcut. For some reason I wanted to try how thick the ice was by stomping on it to finding out the result as my leg dived into the water through the ice. Great, now I have to go back and dry my sock and shoe. This wasn't too bad as I could relax a bit and concentrate on Breaking Bad. Eventually I got back out and headed to the lake through the desolated tourist town. All shops and cabins were boarded up and covered in snow. I had a nice solo walk along the shore while listening to audiobook about modern China. As snow started to fall, visibility dropped to 50 meters. That didn't help appreciate the size of the lake. So I headed back, learning about modern Chinese culture. Finding the right house ended up being challenging as every house looked the same and visibility was very low. I was ready to call it a day.
Day 6: Early start once again. Headed back towards Ulan Bator, plan to spend the night at some random village. Landscape was about the same as before so not many great sights were to be seen. When we arrived to the village and the right house it was obvious that the place was closed. Some phone calls were made which followed the decision to continue driving to some city. Sure. Dusk settled in before we reached the city, 2nd largest in Mongolia, and it was quite confusing that we were heading straight to the centrum. Whats this? We are going to stay at a hotel? No. We were going to spend the night at the floor of the driver's son's apartment. That is cool. Such luxuries as central heating and running water were provided.
Day 7: Having spent the night sleeping on the floor of an apartment, like a night after drunk house party except there was no party and everyone was sober, we headed out to the sunny weather. The day's destination was going to be a monastery (one of the few which have survived 1940s purges) middle of nowhere. Finally there was some paved roads as the city was Mongolias 2nd largest but that fun didn't last for too long as the offroad rally began to the monastery. On the way there were few surprises. Herd of camels! standing in snow and fenced fields to protect the crop from the animals. Usually fences blocks animals for not running away but here it seemed to be reversed. Driver also stopped at some random encounter, again using fallout reference, a hut with lots of crap outside and couple of horses. The monastery was very nice Chinese style building and no other tourists were in sight. The area also had couple of buddha monuments which looked like they had been built in haste couple of years ago. Interesting experience was a local girl <3 (not <3, <3) years who had an excellent football kick. In the night there was incredibly amazing starry sky with several shooting stars to be observed just with naked eye.
Day 8: Final stretch. Not much happened as we rolled down to UB the same road as we came from Russia weeks ago. From a distance, Ulan Bator looks like it is bathing in a brown haze. From close up, Ulan Bator has too many cars and not enough roads. We said goodbyes, exchanged infos and I headed to a new hostel.
Sadly the hostel was quite desolated so I catched up on SC2 the nights I was there then switching hostels. Plan was to stay for couple of more days to see rest of the city but that got prolonged by two more days as train to the Chinese border was sold out so I had to take the next train in three days. That ended up being ok since I met some nice Finnish people, went to see Mongolian wrestling, big concert of traditional music, DotA, a night out, cool monument, freezing weather and a horse steak. Thanks Cambium for recommendations!
Wrestling was odd as they were doing swan-like moves before and after a fight. Also the first hour the pairs were quite unevenly matched, 40kg+ and 30cm differences. In the end it was the heavyweights battling for Tögröks. Half of the audience were the wrestlers and it was free entry. I heard from a guy sitting close to me that next day there would be big concert in the hall. That's what I decided to do. When I got to the concert, a 'symphony' orchestra of 50 strong were playing. That was nice but the music was spoiled by shit mix/audio systems for the singer so it sadly sounded quite bad. More performers followed and crowd was singing along. Couple of comedians also entertained the crowd doing silly walks. The concert was not over too quick as it lasted over four hours but I enjoyed it. The next day I wandered around and found basement with plenty of guys dressed in black and computers. Game of choise seemed to be CS1.6 or DotA so I decided to take a seat. As I left the place having went 2-1 matches with CM, Abba and Dazzle, I headed down to Modern Nomads, a restaurant chain, to eat some Mongolian dishes. My pick of horse fillet fell under "Western cousine" but I thought it was exotic enough. Next night at the another hostel I met some Dutch and Belgians who were going to go clubbing, I decided to join up. Instead of clubbing we drove around in taxi just to see that all the 'night'clubs had closed down at 1:30am Friday. Even the strip club and 24h massage place were closed. Vodka bottle was empty and we came back to the hostel. Weather was getting quite intolerable reaching -15c during nights so it was a good time to change scenery. I had an 5e hard seat ticket on a loacal train to the border, takes 16 hours. Train was packed of people who go to China to buy cheap stuff which they can sell back home. Quite interesting logistics. Sitting in a crowded train with no place to sleep wasn't too great but luckily the top shelf, which is used for luggage, was empty and I could climb there to sleep. Also not too pleasant. Nevertheless, morning came with great aches and we arrived to Zamin Uud. From there people rushed into jeeps and buses which were to cross the border. So did I. Couple of hours and couple of euros poorer I found myself at the People's Republic of China. + Show Spoiler +
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