Blogs from Mongolia, Asia - page 77

Lovely Mongolia. I am here at last! Our train ride from Beijing was the most pleasurable I have ever had. The Trans-Mongolian route is famed for its many traders and the large amounts of smuggling that goes on between boarders. I had mentally prepared myself for the worst and expected our cabin to be filled with some Mongolian guy's boxes of lord-knows-what. But Gerry and I were lucky this time and ended up with a cabin to ourselves where we could stretch out and relax. In fact, the whole train was half empty and I spotted not one shady smuggler type. The scenery was once again spectacular. I used my trusty Trans-Siberian Railway Handbook that I purchased 6 months ago and finally got a chance to see all of the little things I highlighted so long ... read more

Things have been a'happening and the sun is shining. Thursday, despite severe exhaustion, we hauled ourselves out to quiz night at Dave's place (the weeny English pub with decent Ale), to meet up with our knowledgable French friend Andre, who sports a magnificent bouffant and the gesticulations to match. We came first, or at least we would've if we'd known what year Bruce Lee was born. Our ineptitude for dates (John Lennon's birthyear...anyone?) also put us out of the running for lots of free beer. Bugger! Probably just as well, as too much beer would've rendered us incapable of getting through the madness that was Friday....TEACHERS' DAY!!!! (Russian or International, we never quite worked out which, but either way, we fared well). It all began as we headed up the steps into school and spotted a ... read more

Llegamos muy temprano a Ulaan Bataar (UB) y desidimos andar a la calle central para encontrar un hostal,solopara darnos cuenta de que el mapa en la guia esta mal y muestra unas distancias muy incorrectas,trescientos metros para ellos es alrededor de un kilometro para nosotros. Nos recogieron a mitad de camino los duenyos de un hostal al que teniemos echado el ojo,o sea, que nos ahorramos parte de la caminata. UB es una ciudad muy pintoresca, pero no por la arquitectura ni nada visible,si no por el hecho de que solo ha sido la capital de Mongolia alrededor de 150 anyos y planean cambiar la capital en otros 50 anyos,esdecir, que se convertira mas o menos en una ciudad fantasma, ya que todos los trabajadores del Gobierno se tendran que trasladar a la nueva capital. Ulaan ... read more

Sain bain uu Well, it's amazing what a little communist vigour can do for one's spirit! We've had a very interesting few days, and despite the total lack of hot water for almost a week, we're doing better.School began last Thursday with quite the fanfare...two opening ceremonies, complete with a matronly, portly-bottomed Russian MC, cute kids doing Russian song and dance routines, balloons floating off into the sky (pollute the city a bit more, kids!) and some pretty serious uniforms (suits and stilettos), set off by the hundreds of bunches of flowers held by the kids for their new teachers. (We got none, as we're not class teachers, and felt suffieciently hard-done-by). Although the Russian songs were undeniably cute, our favourite part was incidentally the only Mongolian performance. A girl performed the national dance, which was ... read more

We went on a little adventure into the countryside yesterday chauffered by our kamikaze director. Tagging along was our colleague-cum-interpreter and some dude who we still don't know anything about. Once we negotiated the city streets to plenty of bravado horn blowing we were into the spectacular surrounding mountainside and grassy fields. First stop was a stone cairn to pay respect to the mountain. In true Mongolian tradition we walked 3 laps and threw stones onto the pile. On the way to the next stop we enjoyed the antics of a number of local fauna, including camels, eagles, horses, goats, cows, sheep, chipmonks, dinosaurs, and of course YAKS!!! Lunch was via Turtle rock which is a massive conglomerate of stone which looks remarkably like (you guessed it) a turtle. Then a few more kilometres over gut-wrenching ... read more