That Peter's a pretty cool dude

We took the night train from Moscow to St. Petersburg which was by far the nicest train we had ridden on so far. It had hotel like beds in comfort and velvet curtains. We checked into the Nord hostel which has the absolute best location, a stone’s throw from the hermitage, and a really cute receptionist. We were in dire need of laundry so we headed to a Laundromat/bar (what a great idea!) But before that we went to a cafeteria by the canal for lunch. After we left Jon got robbed. Some asshole opened up his bag while he was walking and snatched his portable media player (cowon, like an ipod video but with 35% more techno-cool). This kind of bummed him out so what do we do when we’re down? That’s right! Drinks!
The next day we went to the Hermitage. We stopped outside it to sit and have a smoke, looking around the courtyard and then on our way in stopped again to haggle with a scalper selling tickets to the ballet. All of a sudden we hear, “hey!” and there’s John from Mongolia, the one we never ended up finding in Irkutsk. What a freak coincidence. If we hadn’t stopped for the smoke or to talk to the scalper, we would have been wandering in the Hermitage the rest of the day with him there too and probably never seen each other (the place is huge, with hundreds of rooms, you could spend one minute in front of each piece in the Hermitage and not see everything in your lifetime) Makes you wonder how many people you happen to know that pass you without either one of you knowing the other was there. It was also his last day in Russia too after a week which made the whole thing doubly weird since the Hermitage is one of the first thing everyone does in St. Petersburg. Afterwards we met up with his friend Keith that was studying there and after a quick bite Jon and I went to watch Don Quixote at the Marinsky Theatre.
Next day was the Nabokov museum, free entry that day (score). We bought bus tickets to Tallinn and went to the fortress and the Church of Spilled Blood, which by the way is what I’m going to name my first home, best name ever. We had planned to meet up with Keith but he couldn’t make it so we went to Jagerhouse and Fidels with some people from the hostel, Adrienne (French Canadian), Chris (regular Canadian ehy), Dan (regular dude), and Ed (very very Irish). We had a rowdy time and when we left, Dan and Ed stayed behind since they apparently loved dancing so much. We found out later that Dan got robbed by a taxi driver which involved a headlock and an ass grab. (If you’re gonna get mugged, you might as well do it right)
Got a call from Keith the next day and he invited me to his dorm and to go out with a bunch of his buddies from the University. I rebooked my bus ticket and went over to the dorm to meet a whole bunch of Finns. They were a funny bunch, two had been robbed by the police, another had been mugged and gotten his ass kicked by a bunch of Russians, and the other, who looked a lot like Tom Hastain from law school, could open a beer bottle with anything, including a piece of paper ( I shit you not, I have it on video). We went out to eat some delicious swarma and then to Marstall club which had a pretty steep cover unless you had a foreign passport (check). It was a dance club with rotating strippers up on platforms interrupted by stage shows where the MC gets the audience to do funny things to each other, like draw on other people’s asses. Afterwards everyone went home and Keith and I checked out the Ice bar, a bar were everything is made of ice, chairs, table, cups, everything, and a stock market bar where the prices of drinks on the board changes as demand dictates (if you order a drink demand has gone up and the price goes up while others go down) but they weren’t very hopping so we ended up at an Indonesian bar/restaurant for mojitos. Keith was a really cool dude. He speaks English, Russian, Finnish, Indonesian, and a bit of Esperanto. We parted ways and I said goodbye to Russia.

So I’m on an overnight bus from St. Petersburg to Tallinn, Estonia. We get to the border on the Estonian side and we hand over our passports. My brother and I are the only Americans so of course we have to get out in the middle of the freezing cold at 3am and pull out our bags from the bottom of the bus so it can be searched. The border guard motions for me to open my bag and as I unzip it, a misc white pill falls out and bounces on the floor and bounces a few times before coming to a stop right between me and the border patrol. We both just stare at it. I think…. Well….. do I pick it up? Then he asks me in German (? No idea why in German, we’re in Estonia) “Vas is dat?”
“Uh…. I don’t know…”
“Vas is dat?”
“I don’t understand you?”
“Vas is dat?”
I look through my bag trying to find out where the hell the pill came from and the border guard calls over his buddies, all the while it’s freezing cold at 3am and all the people on the bus have their heads and hands pushed up against the glass to stare at us, same thing from the other bus on the other side of the street.
Finally I find in the bottom of the top pouch, a crushed box. Ah! The parasite pills that Jay bought for me in Mongolia! I forgot I had them. I try to explain to the guard that they are anti-parasite pills. He doesn’t get it so I start rubbing my stomach like an idiot, fully expecting a full body cavity search in my not so distant future.
Luckily, he just sighs and gives up and let’s me go back inside the bus. Whew, next time I’ll bring coke and if I get caught just pretend like I have a stomach ache.

Well, that gets me out of Russia finally. I’m still not caught up in this blog, but I’ve finally entered a country that is entirely in Europe, so this is where I deem the Europe part of the trip to have begun.

End of the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian/Ural/ / / ///// also sidenote: moscow

We got the Moscow and checked into the Hotel Gamma, largest hotel in Europe. It was built for the Olympics and had something like 8000 rooms! We kicked back for a bit and hit the nearby market in the evening where Jon got his Malboro racing jacket after a frightening negotiation with the evil Turkish stall merchant. Picked up a couple of pirated dvds and watched them in our sky high rooms.

Next day we went out to the city center by 12:30 and missed Lenin. You have to queue up for him and they close off the line around 12:30. So we went to the Kremlin and with the misty rain and the armory mix up which had us waiting in line forever only to not be let in, it was a sorry affair until we realized all the stuff we thought was closed was actually open from the not so apparent entrance around the sides. We finally got into the armory which had an amazing collection of…. Well, everything, including lots of gold…. Lots and lots of gold.

Afterwards we went to a bar/club called Woodstock and turned in for the night. Next day we got up late for Lenin again and had to pay off some guy to let us in. Lenin was pretty cool, it’s a very somber atmosphere and the guards are very no nonsense. (word of advice, don’t do anything stupid in the mausoleum like try streaking unless you want to do our trip to Siberia in reverse, and only one way for good.) Lenin was a bit wax like and pretty short and slight.
We went along the kremlin walls and saw a bunch of tombs and graves for people like stalin and yuri gregorin (first man in space, take that Glen!) We hung out in Red Square after they opened it (it stays closed in the mornings while Lenin is out to check out) which was amazing, it’s crazy to think about what was going on here two decades ago. The highlight of the area being of course St. Basil’s cathedral. It’s impossible to look at it without humming the tetris theme song. We went inside and then went to Arbat street, a really cool artisan pedestrian street. After some sushi (yup,
very Russian) we headed to the circus to see all the crazy Russians doing the same crazy stunts as the Chinese in China but without the safety wires for the particularly insane tricks. Oh yeah, and a bear riding a motorcycle. Oh god jes.
We wound down the day at a 5 story bar/club/eating area called B-2 with some pool and a few drinks.

Tarter: bad for the teeth, good for the traveler

On the train we met Alex and Max from Kazan. They were headed home and were insistent on pointing out every landmark you could see from the train as we approached Kazan at least 6 times. They were a bit excited to be going home and I couldn’t blame them.

We stopped at McDonald’s for a bite before getting to our room. Before you start saying how sacriligous it is to eat at McDonald’s while out backpacking let me just say #1 we don’t do it often #2 what the hell do you know? #3 We tried to get doner kabab but were unsuccessful as the place in lonely planet either no longer served it, had no idea what the hell we were talking about, or both. We had Greek Macs and hoofed it up to Fatima where we got a room. It was 900 roubles for a twin room with shared bath, very plain, clean, and had a small tv. We registered our visas and headed to the Capital Coffeehouse that had wifi. Next door we had some beer and sausages for dinner and headed back.

The next day we went to the Kazan Kremlin, a Unesco world heritage site which had an incredible mosque. I really liked Kazan, it was a small quiet city/town with a great vibe and beautiful atmosphere. We checked out the rest of the area and got ready for the final leg of the Trans-Siberian (which from here was actually the Ural railroad but who cares)

Rapid fire!

Got into Yekaterinburg in the morning and checked into Hotel Scerdlovsk across the street from the train station. Next day took a tour to where they dumped the Romanovs after they were murdered. It was just me, my brother, the driver, and our guide Mariana. We went out to the memorial for all the political prisoners executed and dumped outside the town and headed to the Europe/Asia border. I realized that it hadn’t been that long since Russia was under the old regime and I asked Mariana what differences she noticed in her life from before and after. She immediately said that of course change was both good and bad, some things were better and some things were worse but then she hesitated and thought for a moment. “For me it’s the colors. Everything seems a little bit brighter in color”

We hit the post office and then the hotel to reschedule our train tickets. My brother was getting a bit tired of the fast constantly stopping for small towns pace (not that I didn’t agree) and so we decided to skip a few and move up our schedule a bit. We went to the Afgan war memorial, had a bit to eat at a mall food court and took off for Kazan.

Tomsk

Arrived in Tomsk by train. My brother wasn't feeling very well and it was cold so we opted to stay at the Tomsk hotel which was a stone's throw from the station. It wasn't as cheap as a hostel but wasn't too bad. We checked into the old semi-renovated soviet style room complete with soviet showers and chilled out for the rest of the day. The view from our room was pretty nice, good sight of the station obsucred by trees+snow. (Funny enough, it seemed like a more clear view than the picutre recorded) Went out for pizza for dinner and made use of the no megabit restriction pay internet service in the business center.

Next day my brother still wasn't feeling up so I went out to walk around the city on my own. Took the trolley up to an open air market where it had started to snow pretty heavily. Bought a pair of leather gloves for Jon and looked for the Lenin statue. I got lost again of course, traveling in the opposite direction then the one that I was SURE that was the right way.

Finally made it up to the street that the book mentioned was great for examples of the wooden latice work that made Tomsk famous. Tomsk used to be on the Trans-Siberian railroad but when they re-laid the tracks, the new course passed by south of Tomsk and it kind of became less popular for Trans-Siberian travelers and reverted back to just a university town.

It was quiet and a bit uneventful, just some nice sights. Got back to the room and prepared to move on my way.

Don't be so Kras-noyarsk, yuk yuk yuk

Took the train from Irkutsk to Krasnoyarsk. When we arrived, we got off the train which was going all the way to Moscow and ran into no less than 5 people we had been on the train with so far. They were all apparently streching their legs and headed to Moscow on the same train!

We walked around the city for a bit until we found one of the hostels in the lonely planet (hereinafter "the book") which took a while due to my brillant navigational skills getting off over a kilometer from the correct stop. (I swear, if I was a 15th century explorer looking for India, I'd probably run in to the bahamas or something).

We checked in, but it seemed a little dodgy, there were no lights on and was lit by candles. We checked in using the now usual sign language pidgin english and we were informed that the electricity was out but would be back on shortly. We checked in and went out to explore the city. Lunch was at a cafeteria which was pretty good and cheap. After we looked for the telephone office to make a call home and were stopped by the Russian police.
"blah blah russian words blah blah vladimir putin putin vodka?"
"what?"
"blah blah stalin kremlin tetris fur hat."
"what?"
"documenns"
*shit.... the hostel has our passports and our russian "must get a stamp" papers.... time to play dumb so they dont fine us.* (Russian police often hassle foreigners for not having their documents in order so they can fine us and pocket the money to supplement their income)
"I don't know what you're saying"
"DOCUMENNS"
"I like flowers and hostel kept eating semi-truck"
"DOCUMENNS!"
"We can go and dance or go over there and find them"
[english equivalent] - never mind, forget it...

and we went on our merry way.



Found the museum where apparently the cossak warriors were bombed by a complex attack of fighter planes and goldeneye. We went to the boat that Lenin took into exile where we met some locals that thought it was funny to talk to us in mock chinese and say hello in japanese. I responded in japanese and korean and then spanish, german, french, and I made up a few languages too. With an asian bow, hands together, and a smile, I silently cursed their reproductive organs and their future spawn.

We cruised around for the rest of the day and went back to the hostel only to find there was still no electricity. After another strained conversation, they told us it would be on at 5pm. After waiting around, it still didn't turn on. We sat in the dark for a while, haven't had a shower for a couple days since we were on the train and the bathroom in the hostel having no windows so it was pitch dark. Finally we got fed up and confronted the staff again. They told us another dely and we went up to our room. After a little bit we went to ask for our money back, we would move. We packed our stuff and I told my brother to hurry up. He didn't understand so I explained the way my luck goes. We packed and with great effort got a refund. As soon as we stepped out into the bitter cold Krasnoyarsk night, the electricity switched on and the hostel was brighter than a witches teak (whatever that means). We looked at each other and then ran down the street into an ally.

After walking around in the cold and snow and stopping at several hotels trying to find a reasonably priced room, then just a room, we both simultaneously sighed and walked back to the hostel where we handed back our money and collapsed back into our room (which was actually pretty nice) and watched some "House" on my laptop.

Thus was Krasnoyarsk.

Irkutsk with fotos

We left Ulaanbaatar for Irkutsk. Crossed the Mongolian/Russian border which was a bit exciting. The Russian soldiers marching in and checking passports with humorless eyes and gaunt faces was a little unnerving… until I looked outside and saw a bunch of them outside the train building a snowman.

We started to see snow which was strange. I didn’t expect any for quite a while. Luckily it died down to a trickle and we arrived in Irkutsk.

The travel company I arranged a good number of our tickets through had send the remaining tickets to an Irkutsk travel agency called the Baikal Complex. I had just an address and I had planned to meet with John, a guy we had met in the Terelj camp who had taken a faster train the day after we left. We got into a cab and negotiated a price, which turned out to be way way too much since the hotel we were going to so we could withdraw cash and change dollars was only about 2 kilometers away. We found another cab after that and found out that the Baikal complex was about 15 kilometers outside of town and outside of our ability to take public transportation so we negotiated a price to have a cab driver take us there and then to the train station to meet John. After much difficulty we found the complex, which was just an apartment. No one was there. It was the weekend so we figured it might just be closed. After heading back we thought we might have missed John so we went into the city to find an internet connection (the backup plan with John was to email each other if there was a change) There the cab driver recommended the Baikaler hostel as a place to stay. Since it was in lonely planet with good reviews we said ok and he called them but they were booked. After checking the internet, John said he was actually arriving much much later since the tickets were in Moscow time, not the local time. We walked uptown to the Downtown hostel who only had a double bed to share. We thought we’d need 3 so they called someone else who showed up and walked us across town to his house.

The house was a bit suspect. It had a big bowl of some decomposing bread/soup/mess on a pedestal and no electricity. There was also no one else there. They were charging the same as the Downtown hostel (500 rubles) so I made up an allergy to his dog and we left just as another couple showed up to stay there.

After walking back to the Downtown hostel we were told the bed had been taken. We continued to walk around in the freezing cold, doing circles around the city with our giant backpacks strapped to us trying to find a place to sleep. We stopped at a couple more hostels/hotels until finally we decided to bite the bullet and go back to the original hotel, hotel Irkutsk that we exchanged money at. The hotel was a bit pricey so it was a last resort, but after a couple hours or wandering around, we had had it.

We checked in and decided we had seen enough of Irkutsk for now and hung out at the hotel for the rest of the day.

The next day we packed up and got onto a bus headed for Listvyanka, the closet port town to Irkutsk bordering Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world. After the 1.5 hour bus trip we got off to see the lake which looked more like an ocean.

We walked past an open air market that sold smoked omul, a native fish to Lake Baikal, and hiked up into the main valley about a kilometer to find a place that was listed in the Trans-Siberian handbook. It turns out that the guesthouse, which was more like a hotel, was run by the Baikal complex that had my tickets. We asked if they had room and they asked us for our reservation coupon which of course we did not have. They discussed for a while and then said ok. 500 rubles times 2 later, we climbed up the hill a bit more and went into this 3/4 story brand new wooden house. The rooms were all new, all wood, and all welcoming. Private bathroom, new shower, toilet, and an awesome view of the valley and Lake Baikal were an unexpected treat. After some hot tea and biscuits, we headed back down to grab some omul and check out the village.

We were able to make a phone call home from the main hotel for the bargain price of about 4 bucks a minute =(. Afterwards, we had dinner and went back to our room to relax and watch a movie on my laptop.

The next day, we wandered around the village a bit more and caught the mini-bus back to Irkutsk (60 rubles). We called ahead and made a reservation with Baikaler hostel and checked in. After checking my email again at the local internet café (which charged by the megabyte) and I found out that John and I had been exchanging emails from the same internet café but we were never able to meet (see the St. Petersburg entry). We wandered around the city a bit more and went to go pick up our tickets for the rest of our trip, after which we got ready to move on to Krasnoyarsk.

I don't smell that bad

I hope to update really soon. On the whole trans-siberian portion as well as an edit on Tokyo with a little more detail.... actually since there isn't any.... what I actually did in Tokyo. But first, I must take time out to make a clarification. It has come to my attention from several people that there is potentially erroneous information being given from my pictures. I do not, I repeat, do not smell that bad.

People might think this since it has been pointed out that I am wearing the same shirt in all my pictures (which I am not by the way! I had to check, there are lots of me without that shirt) The reason for this is that I have 5500 cubic inches of space in my main bag and I was going to be traveling through Siberia and northern Europe in the winter so I had to pack accordingly (cold weather clothes are big), so I only brought 2 t-shirts or so. Now Japan and China were really expletive hot and humid. Having only 2 t-shirts, I had to wear them. Since Mongolia, I haven't worn "that" t-shirt almost at all. And so the internet knows.... I did wash the shirt as often as I could (which was either every time or every second time I wore it) So there is no mistake I tell you all: I do not smell that bad.

I also point you to Matt Harding's page (the dancing all over the world guy), he was asked and answered:

Why are you always wearing the same clothes?
Ever travel for an extended period?...I didn't think so.


But the thing is while several of the people haven't.... several of the people have, so this doesn't help me much. This conludes the PSA on Michael not stinking. (insert French joke here)

The Mongols are coming!

We got out at UB to be met by Bobby, a Mongolian woman who ran the UB Guesthouse with her Korean husband, Mr. Kim. Jay has known Mr. Kim for 6 years and had arranged for us to all take lodging with him. UB Guesthouse was one of the recommended Lonely Planet (LP) spots so it sounded perfect.

We arrived at the UB Guesthouse and got to our little aprt housing. Mr. Kim is a stocky guy with a penchant for adding “You know?” at the end of most of his sentences. He treated us all out to the Korean restaurant near the guesthouse which turned out to be really good. It was quite a coincidence since Kmobo had just the day before on the train wished and wished for Sang gyup sal which is exactly what we had (in addition to a bunch of other Korean goodies). Afterwards Jay took us to see some traditional Mongolian dancing and throat singing.

We all walked back and everyone was tired. I was the only one that wanted to go out so I packed my backpack and headed out for Ikh Mongol, a bar with live music. I hopped in a taxi and said “Ikh Mongol”; he looked at me like I was a one armed midget in a wrestling costume licking my own feet…… exactly like that. I repeated and showed him a map and the name. He said, “ah, ok” and proceeded to take me to a random bar out on the outskirt of the city and overcharging me (but only about 200 togrogs, approx 20 cents). I saw some foreign languages written on the bar so I went in and found a German couple who spoke English. They wrote down the info in Mongolian and I jumped in another cab which took me there. I walked into the large beer hall/restaurant and with great difficulty, ordered a beer. I found the manager who happened to speak English and since amongst a sea of parties I didn’t want to sit in a separate room alone, I went outside to the outdoor seating even though it was near freezing. I took out my laptop and found they had a wireless connection. After a phone call home, I went inside and found a table near the band. They were playing a pop rock Mongolian throat singing fusion style to which all the foreigners politely clapped and cheered. After another beer they started to close up and I headed back, eased into my sleep sheet on the top bunk while everyone else snored and went to sleep.

Let me introduce a new character. I almost forgot about him (with much effort). Let’s just call him…. Dick. After a day I realized I really didn’t like Dick. Dick was for lack of a better word…… a real annoying son of a bitch. He had missed the train with Jay and his crew and had flown the UB, getting there before us. We all got up and packed into Mr. Kim’s minibus. After braving the streets of UB, we made it out Terelj National Park where we were to stay with a Mongolian family in their ger camp for 3 days/2nights. The spot was really picturesque and appealing. The outhouse made me realize immediately that I would not be bombing Toliet-istan anytime in the next 3 days. We met a group of 4 English speakers at the camp already there. 2 were Americans teaching in China, one was a Berkeley student (and quite a stereotype if I don’t say so myself), and there was John, an Australian out on month 7 of his trip.

We rode around on a camel for a bit, very soft, fluffy, and with an amazingly painful spine that felt like a karate chop to the nether regions with each trot. Afterwards came dinner prep. Jay had asked us all before if we wanted to have the guy kill a sheep for dinner. One at a time everyone expressed distaste at the idea, except for me. They sheep was to be killed in a traditional Mongolian fashion and I wanted to see it. Dick basically said I was a barbarian, even though he eats meat (but not pork!). Luckily, the ger camp guy decided to do it anyway. And surprise! Not only did Dick watch, but he videotaped it to show others (So did I but I wasn’t the hypocrite). The ger guy brought out the sheep, held it down and made a small incision in the belly. He reached in and snapped the artery to the heart inside the sheep. The sheep got dizzy and he hit the sheep’s head on the ground to knock it out. It is a form of bloodless killing that apparently dates back to Chingis Kahn. He said, “finished” to which the sheep let out a couple of weak bleats. He grabbed its head and hit it on the ground a couple of times and it was dead. Kmobo went over as he was doing this with a pained look on his face. He patted the guy on the shoulder and said, “It’s ok”. It’s ok? Then he went and talked to the sheep and said, “It’s ok” (for the sheep it was decidedly not ok). As a side note, both Dick and Kmobo ate heartily, in fact, after Dick had been kicking back in his ger while the rest of us carried stuff up to set up for dinner, he came out and demanded a lion’s portion of the food). Ger guy built a fire in a big metal tin with fire wood cut from giant trebuchets and siege towers that they had used for some anniversary re-enactment of a Chinghis Kahn battle and put the freshly skinned and butchered sheep in with some tea, an onion, and some salt into a big metal milk container like jug. This whole thing went on the fire and stewed.

After dinner, an old Scandinavian guy built us a fire around which we talked until bedtime. The next day we had a 6 hour horse ride on Mongolian mini horses. We went out to Turtle rock and a monastery that the Dahlia Lama had recently visited. After we got back we had dinner after which I built a fire, the Norwegian guy having left the camp earlier that day. I went down to get some more wood only to find Dick had come and taken my spot at the fire. There were no more spaces so I told him, “hey, that was my seat”
“So? Does it have your name on it?”
“Yup, it’s under your ass”
“Well too bad”
“Dude, I built this fire, you took my seat and by the way, you’re extremely rude”
“What did you just say?” (in a very ‘ghetto’ tone)
That’s when Kmobo butts in, “Dude, don’t be passive aggressive, be a man and if you have a problem say so.”

Realizing this was a useless battle I stood until the Tsinghua crew went to their tents. The rest of the people were really cool and swapped stories which turned into a discussion on Japan’s attempt to colonize sections of eastern Asia when from the darkness….

“I DIDN’T COME OUT TO FUCKING MONGOLIA TO HEAR YOU GUYS GIVE A FUCKING HISTORY DISERTATION. IF YOU WANT TO DO THIS SHIT TAKE IT TO YOUR OWN GER!”
Which by the way is really cool, where else do you get to tell someone, “take it to your own Ger”
Everyone looked in disbelief at each other, it was around 10pm. One of the group said, “Um, yea well maybe we would if you asked us nicely.”
“LIKE I FUCKING CARE”
Gotta love the Tsinghua crew. Only thing was I was sleeping in the same ger as the guy. It was freezing cold at night so I snuck into the ger and struck up a fire in the furnace that heated the whole tent and got into my bunk as quietly as possible.

I got up in the middle of the night thanks to a full bladder and the cold since the fire in the stove had gone out. I went outside in the middle of the night and as soon as I stepped out into the freezing cold night I froze…. figuratively. The sky was peppered with a million stars, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life… and that was without my glasses. I went back inside and grabbed my glasses and still in a t-shirt went out again and stood motionless for 10 minutes (all I could stand in my t-shirt in negative something degree temp) in awe. I’ve never seen so many stars, it looked like someone had their finger on a coke bottle full of blue white paint, shook it up and let it fly onto a black canvas. Everything was crystal clear. I could see shooting stars and satellites moving across the sky. The major stars were ultra bright and stood out more than I’d ever seen and I finally understood how people back in the day were able to say that constellations looked like bears and people grabbing snakes, they stood out so clearly amongst all the other scattered stars. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.

The next day we were off, back to the UB Guesthouse. John had made plans with my brother and I to meet up in Irkutsk, our next destination, and after a quick trip up to a monument up on a hill from which we could see all of UB and a stop at Mr. Kim’s tank locker right passed the Black market (an old Soviet tank repair warehouse Mr. Kim had bought and stored his vehicles in), my brother and I headed out with a bunch of backpackers we met at the guesthouse for a night out. (We’d had just about enough of the Tsinghua group for above mentioned and other things which I’ve tried to forget). The backpackers were more our speed, nice, interesting, non judgmental, and out to have a good time. We grabbed some pizza/pasta (having already tried boatz, or however you spell it, and a couple other must have Mongolian foods) and went back to Ikh Mongol this time with a big group of people and had a blast. A couple of the gals and girls got a little tanked and we swapped pictures and emails. The next day Mr. Kim gave us a lift to the train station and we said peace off to UB.

Thus starteth the Trans-Mongolian Railroad portion

We left on the number X train from the station in Beijing for Ulaanbaator. I knew that my friend from the ’05 Tokyo program would be on same train. I’d emailed Jay for tips on UB since he had served in the Peace Corps there a couple years back, as coincidence would have it, he was studying at Tsinghua for his LLM and was headed to UB the same day. We left the station and I went car to car looking for Jay until I found him with a fellow classmate, Richard, in first class no less! Since he booked in Beijing directly, it turns out he paid less than I did for his cabin which was the exact same as ours but without the two top bunks.

Our cabin had four bunks. My brother and I top a top and bottom and the only other person was a German lady…… for now. After catching up with Jay for a bit, I met the other two people on the train with him, the Mormon brothers (hereinafter “Mobos”), one of them fluent in Korean (“K-mobo”) and one in Japanese (“J-mobo”), both married to Korean and Japanese women respectively (more on them later). There was a dining car that served Chinese food and we hung out there for a while playing cards with an Australian couple and ate diner until we were forced out by a mini sandstorm in the dining car, the Gobi’s creeping advance on Beijing added sand sauce on our tomato and egg with rice dish as well as filled the air in a sepia haze. We headed back to our bunks in time for customs for China. After the China guards collected our visa info we moved a few hundred meters or so for the Mongolian portion. They collected our passports and we were permitted to get out at the station. We knew that China had different gauge tracks and so we needed to change the undercarriages of the cars before moving on. We got out and after a little while we heard a whistle. Jay said something to the carriage lady (he speaks Mongolian quite a bit) and we rushed back to our cars. Then it started moving very slowly but I thought it strange that everyone else was still on the tracks. We moved into a train depot and my brother and I went a car over to where the Mobos were. They separated the cars, locked us in (with the bathrooms locked too) and lifted the cars in the air 3-4 meters one at a time to change the wheels. It took a good 1.5 hours and was a bit rocky. After silently thanking Jay for our predicament (though we were more ignorant than he was) we all started talking about Korea and various other things we shouldn’t have started a dialogue over. Kmobo was very very patronizing, and very effective at it too I’ll admit. In retrospect, very much the stereotype from the South Park episode. After the 2nd “That’s a really really good point” I started getting a bit annoyed by the Fulbright scholars holier than thou attitude. He made it a point to say a couple times that, “yea we’re Mormon but don’t worry you can drink and stuff, we don’t judge”.

Everyone got back on and about this time a pot bellied Mongolian with beer on his breath tried to move into our car. He had a large package in a trash bag taped up real tight. We all looked at each other and asked if he had a ticket. He said he did and not to worry about it in broken English. He said he worked for the consulate so don’t worry about it. We asked when he got on, he said Beijing.
“Where have you been the whole time” The German lady asked.
“I have a ticket”
“Can we see it?”
“I have it, don’t worry about it” pointing at our stuff and then pointing up on the deck.
The German lady left to ask her new friend, the English speaking Mongol in the next cabin about what was going on. To be honest, I just didn’t want another dude in our cabin, especially since he was a bit boozed up.
“Fine, you don’t want me, I go, but I need leave package”
Now this sounded familiar. I saw the movie in my head where Claire Danes goes to prison when the package she’s holding has drugs in it and gets seized by customs and she has to eat poisoned fish heads and sticky rice. Then I saw the movie but instead of Claire Danes it was a guy that looked a lot like me. That’s when I had to speak up
“I don’t think so”
(This is where in the movie version of my trip I kick him in the jewels and throw him out.)
He stared at me and I pointed to the German lady.
“Ok. You speak English and?”
“Um….. Korean”
“You speak German?”
“No”
“I speak German!” -the German lady
“Ok”
He left and brought back another plump Mongolian, this one with glasses and well dressed, dress shirt and slacks. He spoke passable English and fluent German. They went back and forth for a while and it was agreed that he’d stay there. The package would stay with him.
We started talking to the German speaking Mongolian (the name coined by the German lady) and he seemed like a pretty decent guy, and made us people that judge books by covers much more at ease. He left and a bit later they came back and took the package and left. It turns out the carriage attendants run a side business, besides charging to use the what should be free samovar (hot water dispenser at the front of each car), they sell empty beds at discount prices to people they pick up. (Even turned out that the original guy did work for the Mongolian consulate.) and the package was clothing that Mongolians like to bring back when they go to China since things are much cheaper there. The guy in the next cabin that befriended German lady even had a bunch of people hold pairs of shoes he had for customs so they wouldn’t charge him.
They switched out the dining car to a Mongolian style one with a bad 80s diner motif and we went to sleep. We slept through most of the Gobi desert and woke to our arrival in UB and to realize when I opened my eyes that after all the ordeal with the Mongolian 4th in our cabin, they had put some lady there in their place in the middle of the night while I slept.