Blogs from Mongolia, Asia - page 15

On the road again. Dromen, organiseren en doen - reizen, ik ben er gek op. Wat wordt onze volgende bestemming? Hoe komen we daar en waar slapen we? Wat is jullie goedkoopste wodka? Dat meen je toch niet? Dat zijn de vragen die we onszelf het meest stellen tussen de bestemmingen door. De gekozen vervoersmiddelen zijn al talrijk: te voet, met de tandem, trein, bus, taxi, liftend in een bus(je) of auto, roeiboot, metro, tram, kano en niet te vergeten de waterfiets. Zowel doelmatig naar bestemming als recreatief op plaats van bestemming. Ik zat even te twijfelen over welke van deze ik wat verder uit zou wijden – en hoewel ik boeken vol kan schrijven over de voor- en nadelen van het verplaatsen per waterfiets (inclusief zijn historische betekenis) – lijkt de trein me ook wel ... read more

Day 57 – Sunday 12th August 2012 to Day 62 Friday 17th August 2012 The Wild Wild West of Asia – Welcome to Mongolia Wild horses, rivers, mountains and deserts. Day 57 to Day 62 takes us through Mongolia and the halfway point of our adventure. We left Irkutsk on the 10pm train to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The taxi ride from the hotel was an adventure alone. The trick must be to go as fast as you can weaving through the traffic. Well that’s how they drive in Russia. The biggest difference is the number of backpackers/travellers on this leg of the Trans-Mongolian. From Moscow to Irkutsk, apart from the 50 odd Germans, we were the only non-Russians on the train. Now, it feels like a Contiki Tour. Our carriage is full of travellers. Swedes, Norwegians, English, ... read more

Day 9 We used the internet and went to a couple of supermarkets before leaving Arvaikheer. Never knowing what kind of places we will be going to we stocked up while we had decent shops. We didn't leave until midday and stopped an hour down the road for lunch. After that we stopped briefly in a small town to stretch our legs, it was scorching so we were happy to get going again. Somewhere around this point we swopped camels for yaks. We also saw our first trees. After some very rough roads we entered the National Park and after hours more of very rough road we reached our destination, Orkhon Khurkhree. We had come to see a waterfall, the guidebook says it's one of the best sights in Mongolia our only thoughts were that it ... read more

Day 4 We packed up and refilled the water container from the well in the settlement that was ringed by a tyre with a bucket made from a recycled tyre on the end of a rope with a ladle made of wood. As luck would have it a local man went to the well at the same time as us and showed us what the deal was. Water supplies in the desert are often communal, locals rock up with thier 20L containers on all manner of transport, motorbikes, trolleys, horses etc. Toilets in towns and settlements are often communal too, people can't have them in their homes/gers and there is no such thing as town plumbing. Men of course don't use them unless they have to. The young guy turned up in his jeep (the one ... read more

Flight 9: Yangon to Bangkok was a bit rough. We were slightly delayed as the plane was late arriving, then they got us all on, we were just waiting for cargo to be loaded and said sorry because they have been on the ground for 25 minutes they have to complete some immigration thing. All up we were about an hour late and then took off and went straight into a monsoon storm. It was dark but from the lights on the wings we could see the rain pounding the plane. We shook, rolled and dropped consoling ourselves by the fact that we are flying AIr Asia and they must be used to this weather. It was fine once we were through it but it's not an experience we're keen to repeat and we were happy ... read more