Mongolia

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1-10 November

What can I say about Mongolia? Well, let's start at the beginning. We took a short bus from the Chinese border town to the Mongolian town, a trip of about 15 kilometers that took almost five hours because of customs and inspections on both sides of the border. On the bus we met a Mongolian woman who was coming back from a massive shoe-buying binge in China, where she had bought hundreds of shoes (she owned a shoe store in Ulaanbataar). She approached us in order to practice her English, which could really use some practice. Plus she was kind of...strange. Not in a bad way, but keeping the conversation going and feeling completely comfortable eventually became mutually exclusive tasks. But, in her defense, I was very impressed that she was brave enough to approach three westerners and strike up a conversation and I always hated to discourage people who made such an effort to improve their English skills, so I primarily ended up talking with her. Which turned out to be a good thing, because when we got to the train station inside Mongolia it soon became apparent that catching a train that day to Ulaanbataar was going to be rather difficult, if not impossible.

So our English-improving good samaritan helped us out in the best way she could, which was to sneak us on to her train. Well, not sneak exactly, but it turns out that even when local Mongolian trains are full there's always room for a few more people and you just have to get on the train and buy your tickets from the personnel on the train. If you know the lingo, that is, which out friend obviously did, and after several attempts to explain to us what was going on, we eventually understood and agreed to this arrangement, as it was our only shot at not being stuck in this tiny town for another day. Plus, she said "Mongolians are always willing to share their space" and she herself was willing to give up her berth for the three of us. So we wait on the platform while every legitimate passenger crowds on the train, along with hundreds and hundreds of packages and baggage - all heavily taped with clear tape. It turns out that Mongolian traders routinely go into China and buy lots of stuff and then cram it all onto the train on the way back to Ulaanbataar and two other cities along the way (remember our samaritan was bringing back all those shoes). One reason we could use this arrangement was that many traders got off at the first two cities, which opens up extra space on the train. But all those packages flowing into the train should have been a warning sign...

We finally get permission to board the train and it is literally a hive of activity, with people arranging themselves and their taped packages, spreading out food for the trip, shouting greetings to each other and all the other normal things that happen in the last few minutes before the train departs. But mostly it's all those packages. So we finally find our friend and her berth and figure out where to stash our bags and ourselves. It's definitely tight but it looks like it might actually work when...she comes. She is a grandmotherly woman of about 60 who just flies into our compartment like a force of nature - talking, yelling, taking off her coat and placing things down. And then come her packages. A few at first that we all manage to accomodate here and there. And then, in Mongolian, the voices and the tempo of conversation starts to ratchet up, and a few more taped packages come in. No room for these so they start piling up on the floor in the middle of the compartment. Not small packages either; these are boxes that require both hands and arms, a little gut to rest them on would help too. Now there is rushed talk and grandma starts shooting rather frequent looks in our direction. And more boxes come in, and grandma is getting more excited and is now pointing at us as well as talking fast and loud. Dalila, being from the south of Italy and rather excitable herself, soon can't take it any longer and walks away saying "I can't take this any longer". Sarah follows right behind her, leaving me to practice my meditative calmness, which I try to do with detached wonder as the last of her 14 boxes is pushed into the space. Besides, I learned long ago that if you abandon your spot on public transport it is gone for good, so I wasn't going to leave until it was absolutely necessary. It absolutely became necessary about 10 minutes later when boxes were flying, tongues were looser yet and it was obvious that that space wasn't going to fit her 14 boxes, our additional baggage and eight or nine people. So I headed out to find Sarah and Dalila only to have Dalila find me saying that Sarah had found a space for us all. This "space" was the small area between the last compartment in the car and the connecting door to the next car. It was tiny, alternately cold and hot and always filled with Mongolians walking through from car to car or on their way to smoke between cars. And the bathroom was there. But it was better than suffering grandma's tirades and we settled in the best we could, pulling out the food we had bought at a restaurant before the train had left and eating for the first time in many hours. It turned out that every other corresponding space on the train was filled with ticketless passengers like ourselves and we eventually came to be quite proud defensive and grateful for our spot. In the meantime our good samaritan and a few other people repeatedly reminded us to be careful because there were always dangerous people on the train, especially after everybody started drinking to pass the time. A few times someone came by and said that they had space for us to sit and I would go to have a look at it. It would be such a pitifully small area and it would obviously be such an inconvenience for them that I turned them down as politley as I could without offending them. And all the while we still hadn't bought any tickets and really had nothing but faith to insure that we wouldn't be thrown off the train as soon as the train conductor swept through. When he arrived though, our good samaritan came to the rescue again and we were able to pay for tickets with no problem - I think it was about 10 dollars for the overnight journey.

Five hours later, at about 10:30 pm, we finally came to the first main stop and several people and hundreds of boxes disembarked. Soon after somebody came up to me and in pantomime and broken English said that they had space in their compartment for us all. So I went to look and sure enough, they had cleared out one complete berth, which at that point looked like a luxury suite. So I went bounding back to our squat, reassuring the girls that this time it would work and we hauled our bags to our new home. After buying more provisions at a subsequent stop we all collapsed into sleep on that berth for the rest of the night. The remainder of the journey the next morning was smooth, with an absolutely stunning sunrise over the cold Mongolian countryside and once again it all worked out perfectly - we got out of the border town, managed to buy tickets on the train like locals, avoided all the dangerous people, and truly enjoyed the train hospitality and etiquette of the Mongolian people. For a while there though...

When we arrived at the Ulaanbataar train station the first order of business was to buy tickets for the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow, which would be necessary to show at the Russian Embassy in order to get a transit visa. Everything we had heard and read about the Russian embassies was that each was its own little fiefdom with mean, spiteful, sadistic staff who just lived for the possibility of denying a request for a visa. It was a little unsettling then to spend $150 for train tickets that we might not be able to use if we couldn't get visas. It was even more unsettling for me when I spent an additional $650 for airplane tickets to JFK airport in order to show the embassy staff that I had a way out of Moscow once I got off the Trans-Siberian. So in we march to the Russian Embassy to get transit visas, only to find that I can't stay in Moscow for two full days after the train and will need to get another plane ticket and to learn that Sarah and Dalila with transit visas can't continue on to St. Petersburg from Moscow like they had planned. So out we march from the first trip to the Russian Embassy - emptyhanded. But encouragingly the staff was quite nice with excellent English skills except for one grumpy woman (not sadistic, not spiteful, just plain old grumpy). So I change my ticket and Sarah and Dalila get "proof" for onward train tickets to Riga and we march back in to the Russian Embassy the next day. All of my paperwork is in order and I leave my passport for processing. There is a problem with the "proof" of the Riga tickets, however, and out march Sarah and Dalila - emptyhanded again. But there's a bigger problem. Sarah's passport has massive irregularities with her photo - it literally looks more like a drunk high school student sloppily cut a photo out of the yearbook and glued it in leaving the overlying plastic cover in tatters, rather than an official passport prepared by the Italian government, which it really was. So they now have to find out what to do about this and there is no Italian Embassy in Mongolia. They go to the German Embassy instead, which handles problems for most Europeans in Mongolia. The guy there is really nice and helpful and starts communication with the Italian Embassy in Beijing. He says that he would have big problems issuing a visa for that passport too and he doesn't sound too hopeful. The strange thing is that about a month earlier the Chinese Embassy had issued Sarah a visa in Kathmandu and you would think that, if any thing, the Chinese would be more strict about these things than even the Russians. The Italian Embassy in Beijing turns out to be almost no hope at all (combative even) but they will try to write a letter vouching for the authenticity of the passport. So we've been in Mongolia for almost a week now and all we've managed to see is a dusty border town, a crazy train and Ulaanbataar - and most of UB has been repeated embassy trips and mad dashes to internet cafes. It's now the weekend and they have to get their visa stuff straightened out before Tuesday at 1:00, which is when the weekly Trans-Siberian pulls out of the station for Moscow. In addition, Sarah and Dalila only have Mongolian visas for 10 days and those expire on Wednesday.

Since nothing can be done with the embassies over the weekend and since we've seen none of Mongolia I suggest we get out of town for the weekend to see something and to try to reduce the stress. So we quickly arrange a short weekend visit to nearby Terelj National Park with an overnight stay in a ger (or yurt). The park is beautiful with nobody else there but locals but it's not the traditional Mongolian scenario of wide-open grasslands and huge herds of horses. Rather it's narrow valleys defined by curving ridgelines and isolated forests. It's really quite nice but definitely not what you picture when you think Mongolia. The ger was very homey however, with some Mongolians there to cook meals and keep us up to our eyeballs in tea. It seemed pretty obvious that when when tourists don't stay there it is somebody's full-time home (look at the decorations, for God's sake).

At the end of the weekend we come back to UB on Sunday night and on Monday the news is not good. There is still no word from the Italian Embassy and when I stop at the Russian Embassy they say that it is impossible to process their visas for the next day, even if all their paperwork is perfect and in order. They have officially missed the Trans-Siberian train. On the good news front, though, they successfully extend their Mongolian visas and can now stay in Mongolia until they get the passport situation worked out. They don't want to risk going back to China in case they aren't so lucky with Sarah's passport this time and there is no overland route from Mongolia other than Russia and China. If they can't get out of Mongolia by land the only other option is a direct weekly flight from Ulaanbataar to Berlin where, as a citizen of the EU, Sarah would only need her identity card and not her passport, and from there they could carry on to somewhere else. So, on Tuesday at 1:00 I say goodbye to the girls - my constant traveling companions for the last two months - and step on to the Trans-Siberian train alone into a big open compartment I have all to myself since their tickets remain unused in their pockets.

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