Why ?! Why?!

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Travelblog (3)

18/8/11

Ok so I have been a little delayed getting blog out. My initial plans of 1 per week didn't bode with how hectic our post trans-Sib travel plans turned out to be. From the craziness that ensured, a complete 180 turnaround has been achieved.  We are now in Sihanoukville in SW Cambodia. It's a beach town about 250km from the capital Phnom Penh. We are the the epitome of a backpacker accommodation called " the big easy ". I am in the open-plan reception where there are fans on the wall periodically swinging my direction. Acoustic versions of pop songs play in the background. Sun is beating down peppered by shadows cast from bamboo. Dee has gone for a nap after breakfast ( I'm under orders to get this done, "or else !"). It's 11am and I'm wondering when is the earliest time I can get a $1 can of tiger beer without being judged, or meeting CAGE criteria. We arrived here yesterday and yes I'm sunburned, another indication to be inside for a few hours in this otherwise idyllic oasis. So Irkutsk Russia to SW Cambodia ? How did that happen ? Oh and I'm back on Facebook ! So yes quite a bit has happened.

So last day at lake Baikal Russia we caught a pleasant 3 hour transfer back to Irkutsk to catch the train to Ulaanbataar Mongolia's Capitol. By pleasant I mean death defying. I have failed my driving test twice. The first time yeah I deserved to fail even my instructor was like call me for round 2 but I was cheated on the second. I really was. These drivers are nuts. You haven't lived ( or nearly died) until you are being overtaken on the inside and outside all while you are overtaking a truck you are staring squarely into the hungover eyes of the lorry headed towards you. Or when you quite seriously are clutching your backpack bracing for impact from the car that has "merged lane" with yours. I think I may be the first to describe this, so I copyright this hypothesis, driving skills get worse the further east you get. Russia scared us, we didn't know what China would bring. Ignorance was necessary to continue in that sense. Regardless my next test will be in Russia post a shoulder of Smirnoff. 

The train boarding was the next day, so as to give us a day to mooch around Irkutsk, because on arrival there 3 days previous, we had left immediately for lake Baikal. This blog is honest to the core, I'm sure Irkutsk is a nice place, really , there are supposed to be amazing museums (no natural history, that I checked) and galleries. But for the rest of that day we drank vodka, read, napped & watched MTV Russia. It was pouring torrential rain outside, we did try to head down-town to aforementioned museums but after the 4th wave of water broke on us by unrelenting Russia traffic coupled with leaping over 2 metre puddles either side of the road. We had had enough. I went to the currency exchange to buy dollars and dee went on a vodka run. Besides we had to be up at 3am for our train to Ulaanbataar.  The same driver that dropped us off, was also getting us to the station. Lucky dee didn't  give him a rollicking about his driving when we arrived or at 3 am in a dark Russian town, " peoplez goez mizzing alz zi times"!  By the way Russian MTV = hilarious like J Wow and snooki got nothing on these birds ( future mail brides).

Getting on the train now for a mere 2 days was nothing to experienced rail travellers like us. Stocked with pot noodle, vodka, mixer, iPod and books we were all good. We were headed to Ulanbataar. We boarded our train at 3:30am  onto a 4 berth that had already 1 occupant. We woke up late, well into afternoon, and began the ritual of brushing teeth giving an impression of hygiene. It's a funny thing that when one backpacks, dental hygiene soars as a compensatory reflex to all the other aspects of personal grooming that are robbed. At 4pm our roommate was still asleep, I beckoned to Dee was she ok, but dee had already been watchful of respiratory arrest and assured me she was fine. She added I had looked worse our first morning on the train. Hours passed she awakened and whilst we read she doodled. Initial conversation was not fruitful she had no English and was shite at charades. I noticed she had doodled my right arm and the bands. She saw I saw it and smiled. We were on the bottom 2 berths of the 4 berth cabin and dee was in the berth directly above her. Fuelled by vodka I decided to try and pursue this. Through heated hand gestures and slow shouting of simplified English words I had ascertained she was 19 years old Mongolian girl from outside Ulaanbataar and studying graphic design in Irkutsk. It is a well established linguistic fact that regardless of ones native tongue, universal comprehension is achieved by shouting the words, slowly accentuating various syllables whilst performing elaborate hand gestures. It looked like the people of a screaming united colours of benneton ad were having an epileptic seizure. I was quick to point out that dee was not by any means my wife, girlfriend or that we were in any way attached. I settled on sister. This was met by dee sitting bolt upright, I thought she was listening to her iPod but clearly me trying to improve Irish Mongolian relations was much more entertaining. Dee decided to have some fun at this point. Evil bitch. She mouthed:  Why?  Am I not good enough ? My mother was right ! I went on a train for 4 days for you !! All the while writhing in her berth repeatedly pointing to her ring finger whimpering why ?! Why?! Why ?! Mongolian girl was unaware on the goings on above her bunk. Only looking at me looking up above her making funny threatening gestures to  dee to stay where she was. She could not come down ! Dee smirked as she mouthed who is this little tramp! What do you mean im your sister !! Let me down ! I'll f€&k her up! Complete with finger snap and neck toss!

Train pulled into station, and Mongolian girl got off. In addition the the gentle rocking of the train, dees berth rocked with her doubled over broke up in tears off laughter at her performance. It was pretty good. What's that rule again half your age plus 7 ?!

Russian Mongolian border crossing was pretty uneventful, nice sunny evening for about 4 hours. I sunbathed but who dee was social got talking to this Dutch woman who was the archetypical biker hippy. She also got talking to ( I seriously kid you not, I only found out about this much later) a 86 year old practically blind French man with limited english who was doing the entire trans sib alone. No tour group , no friends no family awaiting him at stations. Respect and good luck with that. He was fumbling about the main entrance to the immigration office looking for the toilets, dee steering him in the right direction. It was here that we first got used to the idea of handing over our passports to a uniformed official shouting at us in a foreign tongue for an untold number of hours. Like I said shouting is synonymous with comprehension.

We arrived in Ulaanbataar and we were met by our guide. It was early morning and we were joined by a couple ( who would become good friends) named s & j.  Its a known fact that pre midday although I might look awake, I'm not. Especially if I haven't had coffee. Now don't get me wrong gross motor functions and rudimentary speech in the form of various grunts are intact but no more. In the time we walked from the platform to our van, the lady (j) with us had her phone pick-pocketed out of her zipped and closed handbag. Better still our guide had witnessed the event ( apparently it was also in my line of sight ) grabbed the phone back and told off the guy. I was totally oblivious. 
We went to a local hotel to shower and have the most eclectic breakfast I have ever had. Rice, pancakes, sweet and sour chicken, bacon, sausage, cereal, fruit and salad. All while listening to Mariah Carey's all I want for Christmas is you, in July.

After we went on a city walking tour with our guide and our 2 new buddies to a famous local Buddhist monastery. Not before seeing government buildings at Sükhbaatar square. Of course.

Dee was about to have a rough day. A really rough day. We started walking towards to monastery which was about 2k downtown. It was a hot dry day in Mongolia. Sun was beating down. I didn't have a bag and dee had her ever present red shoulder bag. The only valuable in it was my wallet. Even that I had modified, only 1 ATM card and no more that $20. From the get-go we were all getting looks and attracting attention. Particularly dee. Young blonde Caucasian in Mongolia is rare. The sidewalk was not so much a sidewalk as a dirt track. Thud ! I look about and dees left leg is halfway down a manhole. The only thing that stopped her going fully Alice in wonderland was the fact that the cover turned like a coin and whilst rasping her shin it also stopped her fall. That was gonna bruise. Dee was a few steps ahead of me and we were walking past some questionable characters when one in particular started walking just right behind her in between the two of us. I quickened my pace but dee and turned around  and the guy had backed off. Shouting something as he went. Unnerving at best. We reached the temple but the visit had been spoiled. 

That day we were travelling to a local ger camp in a yurt. We both fell asleep we were wrecked, but we woke up as the van pulled up at a kid, no more than 6 yrs old holding this massive eagle. I was enthralled. This bird was the size of him and her talons were coal black but gleaming in the sunlight. He beckoned me forward to hold it. His older buddy having seen the white foreigners pull up had himself come over no doubt to assist in the sale of the novelty of being close to such a beast. He placed a hardened cloth glove on my arm and before I knew it this bird was on my forearm. Dam she was heavy. The guy beckoned me to move my arm and step forwards and backwards no doubt to make her stance unstable and induce wing beating. S was an avid photographer and captured all this. It was serene. Next thing the guy put her on my shoulder I was like, no way hold up her talons, like 5 inch curved black marble nails , I thought would go through my shoulder joint itself, but she curled them up and balanced herself on them. With a sharp movement on my arm and the rest on me floored almost, she took off towards her perch beside the kid and his younger sister who was no in attendance. The younger sister was no more than 3 and perched up right beside this awesome eagle. My heart was literally in my mouth at what ensued. The little girl caught the back of the eagles neck and tugged at it like she would grab a teddy by one arm and pull it after her. The eagle went with it and simply shrugged her off like a lazy labrador dog that couldn't be fussed to move. She then had an empty cola bottle and started whacking the bird! At any moment with one swoop this bird could have been metres in the air with her. But she perched there with the tolerance of a household pet. Awesome. 

Half of Mongolia's population still lives in these things outside that hellhole that is Ulaanbataar. They are rudimentary camps that can be easily dismantled and moved to fit with the nomadic lifestyle of the Mongol people as they follow their horses, cattle & sheep onto various pastures.  The transfer from Ulaanbataar to our camp was about 4 hours and we were going via the newly completed Chiingis Kaan monument. Chiingis holds a very special plane in the hearts of mongols as he came from an ordinary rural background and united the warring tribes of an otherwise disorganised land and led invasions throughout Eurasia setting up important trade communications. He is not thought of as a hero everywhere however. His history is fascinating and after you read my blog read his history hah!  The steel monument looks strange in the Mongol scenery. Their are plans to build a surrounding ger camp with lodges, bars and restaurants. Essentially turning it into a Disneyland. Double edged sword I guess.

The landscape is Mongolia is awe inspiring. As far as the eye can see flat expanse of wasteland scrub. Not entirely desert but relatively barren. Although the gobi does occupy a lot of western Mongolia. I have never seen so much sky, clear overhead with black, dark foreboding on the horizon occasionally sliced by lightning. Our yurt was more than comfy. 3 beds and a power socket with surrounds as the above. We were in heaven. After dinner and a few drinks we just crashed.  The camp had lit a fire in our yurt whilst we were necking beers with s and j. It was the best nights sleep since I left home.

Next day we went horse-riding. Dee had really wanted to do it, I must admit I was somewhat more dubious. I don't like being at the whim of an animal 6 feet up and with no boundaries in sight I wanted to get to China by train not atop some crazy galloping horse. To add weight to this we had to let our guide know the night before whether we wanted to go or not. One half of our couple friend bowed out so it was just the 3 of us. I assumed they needed to know the night before to sort gear. No it was to catch the horses. WTF. They were wild. I named my horse coco. The only instruction we were given was shou-shou means go. No sudden movements. No stop instructions. Coco was a slut on automatic. Not once in the 2 hours was her head out of another's horses ass. She didn't even stick to one horse. At one point she was sniffing the guides horse, and the guide blasted off on a gallop to stretch her legs from the tourists. No coco, bad coco, stoooooop coco. Dee was inconsolable.

That night we necked beer, dee necked wine and we looked at the stars and philosophised about life. We slept sound.

The following day was our last at the ger camp so we mooched around savouring every last moment. We read, ate and tried archery. I would be a very very thin Mongol given my aim. That afternoon we walked to visit a family at a nearby ger camp. It was sobering to see what life for some people is. Not that our way of life is superior , maybe it's inferior but one thing it definitely is is different. Different values, different morals, different expectations, to imagine ones twin in this culture is something I thought about all the way back to Ulaanbataar. Very deep I know maybe I was delirious from the fermented goats milk we drank at the camp.

We had just one day in Ulaanbataar before we got back on the train for the final time to Beijing. This time we spent it in the shopping centres looking at crap that seemed even more like crap given the previous days experience. We did go to the supermarket for supplies for the upcoming train journey. Never go shopping if your hungry. I was testy, to save money we had decided that we wouldn't eat out and just eat from supplies we would buy for the train. That assumption was based on the incorrect presumption that I could make a sandwich from the supermarket. I couldn't. Between balancing our remaining Mongol dosh, the supermarkets crap range of total shite, the prospect of ingesting nothing but bloody pot noodle for 2 days and my plummeting blood glucose I lost my temper. To those that already know me, there is a very linear relationship between my mood and my blood sugar. Dee in the food stakes was actually fortunate, she had been craving cereal and wanted that for dinner. I couldn't make a sandwich, cereal for dinner was against moral code but I wouldn't relent unnecessary dosh on eating out just because I was hungry. Finances for the year are tight as they are, the new wing of the RCPI I'm building is going over budget as it is. We payed for our noodle & cereal, in 2 trips, as we weren't sure we had enough the first time. I felt like I was 5 standing in a sweet shop with money in my hand looking at the sweets and giving them a look that said, I'm a kid I have no idea how much I have, just give me as much as I can buy with whatever I have. On the way out a homeless guy asked us for money, he was drinking sprite. Dee retorted we can't even afford sprite.

I really do shudder at what pot noodle is actually made of. When the ingredient list reads like acronyms of alphabet spaghetti, one needs to be concerned. One of my 5 a day ? Vowels, maybe.

We got back to the hotel and as I was fidgeting with my pot noodle disaster struck, I lost my camera dee exclaimed. We had solely used dees camera to date as she was a budding photographer and it was better than mine. All those photos lost. Dee is one of the most organised travellers I had ever seen. I came on this with 19kg of clothes , no adaptor nor cups or spoons. Things that were exceedingly useful on board the train. I had given her my wallet to do the money for us because she was so organised. We had located the cameras last known whereabouts at the transfer from ger camp to hotel. It never left the hotel room as we had "left " it in the room deliberately. Unaware that it was as of then missing. I called our guide to please search frantically the van. Dee had later exclaimed it was time for a vodka free day, I agreed. At this point dee started running towards our 17th floor balcony screaming the in-joke of the trip why , why , why !!! She had a knack for amateur dramatics. I poured a heavy glass of vodka. Phone rings. It was the guide. No joy. We went to bed pretty somber. Somber but not sober. Next morning our last chance of hope, the van itself we would do a second search, if we got the same one. We did. Dee armed her way to be in first, she got second. We had told the news of our loss to our buddies. They empathised. As dee climbed on board she searched all the various nooks and crannies, no joy. Then she unfolded the seat for herself. Success !!!!! There is was, woohooo! Now all my BS the night before about materialism and the impossibility of objectification of memories seemed irrelevant. I would be overjoyed later. It was still morning.

On the train, this time we were actually bunking with another English couple (n+h) we had met at the ger lodge. Our other buddies (s +j) were in first class. Well for some. The journey itself was unremarkable enough apart from the border crossing. Rail border crossings involve 2 stops one in the last town of the country your leaving and another in the first town of the country your entering. They tend to be exceptionally tedious and mainly test your bodies homeostasis mechanisms rather than the validity of your passport. Uniformed officials flood the carriage shouting at us to lift all seats exposing luggage and before eventually  taking your passport giving you a good stare. You can't help but look guilty. Worse you can't leave the train for the majority of it and the toilets on board are locked. The whole procedure can take up to 9 hours. There was in fairness more than bureaucracy was taking place. For some reason the rail tracks in China are narrower than those in Russia and Mongolia. It's too expensive to update them so instead a rather laborious task of changing the boogeys must take place. It involves lifting each individual carriage up and tweaking with it's wheels. Cool? Not if your stuck inside with no water 6 hours later and it's 30 degrees. It really is no wonder people drink in this bloody train. I reasoned that dee should have the last gulp of water as because she was a girl she had more body fat. I hastened to add that increased physical activity in the form of bludgeoning me to death would increase insensible water loss. Oooch! I'll take my chances she snarled. We eventually were let off, got water and entered China. The next morning the scenery although hazy was stunning. It had changes dramatically from the barren expanse of the Gobi the evening before. Huge columns of exposed sand coloured rock, crowned with green trees intermittently clouded by haze. Literally like the backdrop of a Kung Fu panda.

We had arrived in Beijing bruised, lighter, dehydrated, dirty, with a better taste of vodka, with new friends, new in-jokes, invites to new countries and with whiter teeth. I still needed to pee.

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Comments

[Broken patriotic SpR]

Magnolia palace - prison or sanctuary?
It's nice to see that while you're seeing the world, I'm imprisoned in a magnolia palace. Of course lack of money is not a problem here. I was a bit worried when the social welfare dept wrote to me and informed me that I was only entitled to 123 euro per week - hello???? I sold my soul and my youth for a bit more than that! Also, i'm now on first name terms with the guy who drives the courier van who delivers all my online purchases. It's the only outside contact I have at the moment. Some day, I will be up at showered before he comes as I only have one hoody with me and that's the only thing I can through on to decently answer the door but alas, I'm not sure that day will ever dawn. Anyway, I have since found out that the hse pays the rest of my pay so the spending has continued:) I finally broke and bought an ipad. Unfortunately, it was not the dream I'd anticipated. I connected it to my macbook and .......absolutely nothing. It refused to acknowledge it. I was like a child on christmas morning who had gotten the toy they wanted, but didn't have the batteries to operate it. Unfortunately I didn't have the correct operating system to operate it because I am an old person who bought their macbook 4 years ago and therefore has a tiger operating system. i never upgraded to leopard or snow-leopard or lion as it was working fine (until now) Of course they couldn't tell what the problem was in the shop as they are retarded so wikipedia came to my rescue. Unfortunately, the shop no longer sells upgrades because lion can now be downloaded directly from the site. Very sensible - except that you can't go directly from tiger to lion. So I have my brother snowleopard hunting in the apple shop in London this weekend. Hopefully I will have a functional ipad at some stage. I am taking a fourth week off next week as I'm still trying to wean myself off the solpadol. I don't think I should be prescribing chemo until I'm clean;) Tonight I'm escaping the shackles of my prison to go to my cousins going away party. I'll will be drugging up and I will be drinking. I am however, leaving off the high heals as when I powered through with the 4 inch heals at the galway races, I ended up in UCHG A&E 48hrs later. Looking forward to your next blog. M