Irkustk to Ulaan Baatar

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IRKUSKT TO ULAN BAATAR
After returning from Lake Baikal we had an afternoon in Irkutsk (population 600,000) before boarding the train for Ulaan Baatar. Irkutsk has the atmosphere of a frontier town - pretty dusty, lots of traditional wooden houses although these are being gradually replaced by more modern buildings, very basic flowerless parks and old infrastructure - but very friendly people.
While sitting in the park, admiring an enormous statue of Lenin with coat tails flying with revolutionary zeal , we were joined by two young Irkuskt women - Marsha and Oola. Marsha is learning English at University and keen to practice at every opportunity and we appeared to be just some of the many foreigners she’s approached for this purpose. She was very confident and told us lots about the people and activities in the town - in particular the number of young people, whose parents did not have the opportunity, who study at university level. It was a very pleasant way to spend part of our last afternoon in Russia. We caught a tram from the centre of the city back to the railway station with directional assistance from an elderly non-English speaking Russian who did an excellent job in getting us to the right stop. The tram itself was very old - paying the fare (10 roubles, 50c) involved passing money through the carriage until it reached the driver and the change came back the same way. We were hot, dusty and tired so hired a private rest room at the station - not the first time we’ve done this and it’s an excellent service.
The train trip to Ulaan Baatar was great - our corridor was abuzz with NZ, Oz, Irish, Dutch, French and Mongolian accents (couldn’t understand the Mongolian). After leaving Irkutsk we followed the shoreline of Lake Baikal again - it was night time and looked lovely in the moonlight. The landscape beyond that has made us homesick, as it looks so like the Flinders (but more water in wide rivers here). The highlight of the trip was crossing from Russia into Mongolia - a saga in three acts. First of all the train was dismembered, leaving just our carriage on the rails without an engine - a bit unnerving! Each cabin was searched thoroughly by Russian border guards with a range of implements of destruction - under beds, in lockers, in the ceiling - they were very thorough, apparently looking for stowaways rather than anything in our possession. Our passports were collected and checked by Rita whose uniform made her look a little like a military man - a moment of worry that we had registered our passports correctly at the hotels we’d been staying at - but no problems for us or anyone else in our carriage. Completing customs forms was fun - there was much discussion up and down the carriage about what the questions meant, and whether prescription drugs for example could be classed as a threat to Soviet power. We were asked whether we had radioactive material in our luggage - interesting, given that the area in which we stopped was close-ish to nuclear fuel dumps! This process took six hours and was a very formal military exercise. So - on to the Mongolian border next - to a repeat of the same process with equally smartly uniformed guards - but fortunately only a two hour saga.
We love Mongolia. We arrived in Ulaan Baatar (UB for short) early in the morning to a much hustle and bustle to be met by our gorgeous guide, appropriately named Sunny, her gentlemanly driver, Oggi and his Mercedes. We drove 70km to Terelj National Park, home to about 15 ger camps. Ours was in a valley - similar to Wilpena Pound only with smoother hills and rock faces (granite), and pine trees similar to the native pine (are we homesick? - nyet or not yet!!) Our ger was ready for us - central wood stove going and three wooden couches that double as beds. The internal wood structure was bright orange decorated with intricate designs - all symbolic of Mongolian values and social structures - later in the afternoon we called in on a Mongolian family at their home and realised that ours was just like theirs, except all of our worldly possessions would not fit in ours!
Calling in on people in their gers, even if you do not know them, is accepted practice, apparently. We simply drove up to a small settlement of about a dozen and walked in. The woman of the ger took this in her stride, served us warm spicy milk tea, small deep fried yeast biscuits, and other nibbles made from extruded pieces of dried milk curd. All yummy - but an acquired taste, particularly the milk curd. The whole family (dad, four children, some cousins and another adult woman) came in to have a look and say hello. The children were gorgeous - lovely golden olive skin, rosy cheeks and dark, dark brown almond eyes. During the visit, Sunny translated for us and explained in detail the symbolism of the ger - everything has a place within the ger and within the social structure, and involves considerable protocol (how to enter, where to sit, where clothing is kept, the direction it should face (south so invading Chinese will be spotted) etc. ) If you’ve seen the movie The Weeping Camel- it was just like that.
Sunny was incredibly well informed about all things Mongolian:
• the democratic revolution of 1991 and progress since then
• the popularity of Christianity in the last two decades as a result of missionary zeal among young people in particular (their parents are atheist and grandparents Buddhist)
• economic development (mainly copper mining and cashmere)
• dependence on Russia for goods and China for food - and the fine balance given Mongolia’s geographical location between two great powers
• aspects of national character - honesty and fairness - and concern about whether these are being lost as urbanisation continues apace (50% of population of well over 1m) - about 38% still live in gers
• roles of men, women, young people, old people etc.
Her knowledge was from her own upbringing as well as study - a great combination for a guide.
Mongolia overall seems more organised and cleaner than the parts of Russia that we experienced. The countryside, towns and railway stations reflect greater pride in country and environment. The “farms” we saw from the train were often enclosed in wooden fences, with the ger in the middle, car parked nearby. Rural Mongolians are nomadic and in a few weeks will be packing up their gers and possessions and driving their sheep, goats, cows and horses to their summer pastures, where they will re-erect the ger. (They keep goats and sheep in one herd - the goats find the best pastures for the sheep, and the sheep keep the goats warm in winter - minus 35 degrees is common!) Sunny and other travellers have described various camping tours into other parts of Mongolia, including the Gobi, lake district and mountain districts - all sound incredibly enticing - what this space!!
Last night we went to a performance of the Moonstone Folksong and Dance Ensemble - stunning. They were amazingly energetic dancers, beautiful beaded and embroidered silk costumes, a 24 piece orchestra with traditional instruments - and deep throat singing. It was terrific.
Now we’re back on the train - UB to Beijing. This is a Chinese train - for some reason we are in a four berth cabin this time, sharing with two Mongolian women who have no English at all. Like some others in our carriage, they have made up the beds, changed into sleeping gear and are now in bed (it’s 10am). Hopefully by the time we leave the train at 2pm tomorrow we’ll have had a little more communication.
Later - we are now off the train and settled in our hotel in Beijing - and I can report that our two Mongolian cabin companions were terrific. They have as much English as we have Mongolian, so communication was via the Lonely Planet’s Mongolian vocab section and much miming. It turns out that they run/work in a chain of bakeries that make products from German brot to Italian pizzas and cakes and were on their way to Shanghai to do something - not sure if it’s learn more or set up a shop there. One of them had travelled a bit - eg to Germany to learn brot making. We compared photos of grandchildren and shared food - and when it came to filling out the customs forms between Mongolia and China, and they could understand neither the English nor Chinese on the forms, we assisted them to complete theirs - that required very creative miming!! They returned the favour this morning by tidying the cabin and making our beds while we were in the restaurant car having coffee. We parted when we got to Beijing with lots of hugs and kisses and good lucks.
Also on the train were about ten people we had already met on previous trains or during previous stops - so it was a great reunion. The special characteristic of crossing from Mongolia to China in a train is that the track gauge changes (sound familiar?) but instead of changing trains, the whole train went into an enormous shed where we were jacked up, the Mongolian-sized bogies were removed and replaced with sets appropriate for Chinese rail tracks. Apart from being fascinating, and a little disconcerting, this was a very noisy process, including lots of crashing together of carriages as they got them lined up correctly, and it did not finish until 1am (we arrived at the border late afternoon) - so we were all a little short on sleep.
The countryside for this segment of the journey ranged from Gobi Desert - endless sand with very little vegetation, but still occasional gers and their accompanying flocks of sheep etc. From time to time we passed through small railway settlements with brightly painted stations, and usually with the station manager standing outside waving a flag. On several occasions there wasn’t even a station - just a man in the middle of nowhere waving his flag, and his horse tied to a post nearby. By daylight today we were travelling through flat valleys with mountains in the distance - the valleys have all been quite heavily planted with trees (presumably for environmental reasons and the Olympics) and we passed acres of market gardens, usually being tended by several people with their bikes or horses nearby, and some being ploughed by horse drawn ploughs. There was very little rubbish around (unlike Russia) and villages and towns consisted of houses and courtyards made from brick - some older ones being demolished and modern versions of the same thing being built. At this point we had our first glimpse of the Great Wall. This scenery gradually gave way to mountainous country - and we made our way into Beijing through a beautiful gorge, along the Yong Ding River (I think).
And there ends the Trans Mongolian part of our travels - it was wonderful!

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