Advertisement
Published: August 8th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Mongolian Friends
L to R: Uugi, Me, Erika and Adam Having arrived back from Khatgal, after a torturous 24 hour journey, the first thing I did was shower. Having not had the opportunity to ablute for 6 days, this was a welcome relief and made me feel almost human again. In the evening we went out for a few beers with the new recruits from the hostel.
The follwoing day I was up again at 06:00 to call home and then spent the morning laying on the super-comfy sofas in the Golden Gobi. the staff here have all made us feel so welcome and when we found out that, due to our visas expiring, we could either leave today or extend them which would mean another 7 days in UB, the decision was an easy one. Uugi's brother Bob treated us to lunch and I went to the shop with him to buy all the ingredients for a club sandwich marathon. In the afternoon I went to the station with Uugi and Soko to meet the Beijing train and find some new recruits for the guesthouse. We returned to the hostel to find a group of Mongolian kids having a kickabout outside with a football and obviously I joined in.
Mongolian Friends
Adam, Me and Baggy The Mongolians don't have a great tradition of football and it was easy to see why with the ball being hoofed from one end of the pitch to the other, it was more like pinball. After sweating my balls off for the best part of an hour, I went back inside for the birthday party of one of the younger guests - an Israeli kid was celebrating his 2nd birthday with his family and all the other hostel guests and we were all treated to a slice of cake.
The next few days all involved doing very little in the daytime and going out at night for some beers. Highlights include watching Newcastle-based movie Goal, a strange feeling seeing my home town on the big screen when I am so far away, coming 5th in the pub quiz at Dave's place, another great night out at String's nightclub and then meeting the tallest man in Mongolia who threatened to beat Adam up unless he paid him 20,000 Togrog (10 pounds), spending a whole day watching movies in the hostel, cooking dinner for everyone with Baysaa (chicken with corriander and white wine) and then sorting out various bit and pieces like photos and sending a package home.
On our final evening, Adam and I took Uugi, her sister Erika and two of the other hostel staff Tchimba (a different one) and Baggi out to the Silk Road Grill Restaurant for a nice meal and a lot of wine. we wanted to thank them for their hospitality and show them that they would be sorely missed. We enjoyed delicious food, 4 bottles of wine and then an impromptu sing-song of boyband songs before we headed back to Strings for a bit of dancing and some more wine.
Our last day in UB was very sad. We did think about extending our visas again but decided this really was not feasible. We packed our bags, having had all our stuff just lying on the floor in the dorm since we returned from Khovsgul, had a final fry-up at Chez Bernard and then said our sad farewells, promising that should anyone ever be in the UK, they would always have somewhere to stay. I think there may be a few Mongolians knocking on my door in the coming years! We were very sad to leave and felt like we had made some really good friends. Uugi, Soko, Baysaa, Erika, Tchimba, Baggi and Bob, if you are reading this, Thank you for everything - we really miss you guys!
We took a taxi to the train station and boarded the 16:30 train to Zamiin-Uud on the Mongolian side of the border. As we pulled out of UB I felt a lump accumulate in my throat. I swore to myself I will return one day. Due to a mix-up in ticketing arrangements, Adam and I ended up in different compartments on the train. This proved to be a real downer, as when we were packing up in preparation for our arrival into Zamiin-Uud, Adam realised that his wallet had been taken from his bag during the night while he was sleeping. We spent an hour at Zamiin-Uud station filling in a police report before we met Uuganbat, an off-duty border guard who offered to drive us to the crossing. We drove up to the border, past a long line of cars waiting, and then walked straight to the front of the queue - the advantage of having an off-duty border guard as your new best friend! The departure from Mongolia was swift but sad and the arrival into China was equally non-taxing barring the passport stamper who nearly forgot to stamp my passport! Luckily I realised in time and got her to correct her mistake.
We arrived into Ereenhot on the Chinese side of the border and I spent a good hour in a taxi driving round the numerous banks in the city attempting to withdraw some Yuan - to no avail. In the end I managed to get some dollars changed and that sorted us out for a bus ticket and some lunch - our final meal of Buuz and Kuushuur in a Mongolian restaurant. At 14:00, we boarded the sleeper bus - a strangely furnished vehicle with no seats but three vertical columns with two stories of beds. Unfortunately these beds are about 5 feet long by 1.5 feet wide and, although probably very comfortable for a Chinaman, for a 6 foot plus beer-swilling English gentleman such as myself, they really don't afford much space and comfort is very hard to obtain. After 12 hours with no sleep and having tweaked a previous injury in my back trying to get comfortable, we finally pulled in to one of Beijing's 173 bus stations. (Thats a joke by the way!)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.06s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0397s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb