Sent on May 23, 2004 from Chinggis Hostel in Ulan Bator.
Leaving on a 5-day excursion to the Gobi Desert and the
sand dunes tomorrow morning, returning Friday or Saturday.
Dollar = 1160 Turigs
Train Irkutsk to Ulan Bator. The train left on time at
8:27 pm from Track 3/Platform 2. The destination was
marked as NAYUSKI, the Russian town at the border with
Mongolia. This is a mountainous area, much like driving on
Interstate 77 over the Blue Ridge mountains in West
Virginia. After going directly south to the tip of Lake
Baikal, the track traces the Eastern shore of the lake
Northeast to a river delta, then follows that river East
and South to Mongolia. The slow train we took stopped at
every village, but for 2 minutes only. At the 10th stop
there was a 10-min stop; ULAN UDE in Russia is the 32nd
stop, for 42 min, where we discarded 8 cars going to that
city. Nayuski was the 57th stop, supposedly for 281
minutes. We discarded 5 more cars there leaving only our
car going to Mongolia. Indeed, we waited 5 hours on the
Russian side, for both passport and customs formalities,
but after 3 hours of idle waiting. A km or 2 later we
repeated this at the Mongolian side, waiting only 4 hours
and 20 minutes this time. By then there were other cars
attached to ours.
Going to Mongolia there was a Mongolian family and 2 guys
from there, 5 Americans, a couple from Finland, 2 girls
from Australia. 3 cabins next to us were empty. I should
add that homes in Russian villages are shacks mostly. They
do look different in their gray weathered wood shells.
However the window frames, sometimes a door is painted in
white or powder blue to add color. All roofs are of
corrugated metal sheets. Each home had next to it a place
for collecting fire wood for the winter and a small family
plot for a garden.
We arrived in Ulan Bator 8 hours after we left the
Mongolian border, at 6:30 in the morning of May 23--left
Irkutsk 8:27 pm on May 21. Northern Mongolia is
mountainous, the central areas are highlands. Even bigger
and steeper mountains are found in the Western and
Southwestern parts. The carpeted look of everything around
us captured my attention. That is, for some reason the
green grass in Siberia and here do not grow longer than
about 5 inches, giving it the looks of a freshly cut (huge)
lawn. So we passed thru this countryside with rolling
hills and mountains all in green, not a single tree in
sight, i.e., the steppes. This time we did see several cow
herds.
A second characteristic of Mongolian villages is the
fort-like appearance of the homes. That is each property
is walled off by 6 to 7-feet boards planted vertically next
to each other along the entire perimeter of that home.
This seemed a very wasteful way of marking the boundaries,
and it explained the many train cars loaded with lumber on
the Russian side.
Aside from a few official buildings and hotels, Ulan Bator
seems a collection of boxy housing projects we see in
poorer sections of American cities. However, there does
not seem to be any of the danger associated with such
places in our cities. And city Mongolians are dressed as
casually and comfortably as Americans, giving the place a
look as if it is the Mongolian section of a US city.
Dont worry about where to stay when you arrive in Ulan
Bator. You will be overwhelmed by at least a dozen people
representing various hostels. We took the CHINGGIS Hostel
near the BAYONGOL Hotel, a good location near the square at
the center, for $6 a night (each) for double (spotless)
room, and breakfast. The lady there is quite capable. She
arranged for us the Gobi tour at $50 per day per person
(for 2 of us), including everything but alcoholic drinks,
even a 2-hour camel ride, wild horse ride. I'll write
about this in my next email. Meanwhile we visited the
GANDAN Monastery and the MUSEUM of Natural History in the
city, including huge dinosaur, mammoth tasks, all wildlife
and minerals of Mongolia. Be sure to visit the latter if
you come here.
===============================================================================
Began typing this from the Telecom. building in the town of
DALANZADGAD, 553 km south of Ulan Bator, at the end of our
3rd day of 5-day Gobi excursion.
All roads in Mongolia except 2 are tracks, cow/sheep/goat/camel
paths, dry stream beds, or something the driver marks on the spot.
So the ride feels as if we have been bronco breaking for 12 hours
a day. Now, back in Ulan Bator (or Ulaan Bataar, as the
natives spell it, which means Red Hero) in the eve of May
28, we will take the 2-day train back to Irkutsk, arriving
there on May 31, wait 24 hours at the station to early morn,
and then embark on the 2nd leg of our Trans-Siberian train
to Vladivostok on June 1, which will take another 3 days.
So next report will come from there or from Moscow on our
way back to the USA.
As for currency: $= 28.90 to 29.10 Rubles, 1160 Mongolian
Turigs. A correction: I meant all roofs (not rooms) are of
corrugated steel sheets in my last email. (Sorry, I dont
have time to go over what I type quickly in an hour or so.)
Also a suggestion if you plan to take the TS Train. Bring
along several books with you to read on the train. I just
finished my 3rd book, the last one an intricate nonsense by
Robert Ludlum. I started Prize Stories, O. Henry Awards,
1987.
1. Mongolia. Population is about 2.5 million, people very
Americanized in appearance, dress, manners and very warm,
hospitable, earthy, and natural. The Mongolians use the
Russian alphabet with their own unique language, adding o
and u to the Russian characters to accommodate their
sounds. Russian is required in grades 4 thru 10; English
is by choice at the university level, and some private
schools offer it as second language. The economy is tight
and there is joblessness and underemployment. So many
Mongolians migrate or try to. We met some Western men who
are married to Mongolian women and living here. Many young
city females are tall, slender and pretty. The population
of Ulan Bator is about 700,000. One can purchase the
latest of everything from the State Department store--owned
privately. All religions are represented, including the
SHAMAN up north.
2. Our hired vehicle. For $50 each per day, our landlady
at Chinggis Guest House hired for us a 4-wheel van, a
Russian Furgon--looks like VW van but higher off the
ground--with superb Medved (also Russian) desert tires, our
GPS-minded driver Suhe with the van, who--we
witnessed--knew Mongolian tracks as if he made all of them
himself, cook Anka (who could put many restaurant chefs to
shame), and Oyuna, our charming (female) interpreter. This
vehicle impressed me. It sells for $10,000 new and while
its cosmetic trimming and detailing may not up to our
standards, it has the genes of a mountain goat. As basic
jeep/van it is an amazing machine, the trip was cozy yet
professional.
3. The Steppes (High Plains) to Gobi (High Desert). We
drove about 1,000 miles round trip, heading southwest to
the dunes, east to the town of Dalangadzad, then back,
stopping frequently for photos, parks, sights, and at ger
camps for the night, except for one night at a very basic
but neat hotel in Dalangadzad.
The 1st day we drove 400, covering that distance on in 12
hours on jolting dirt tracks without a single sign as to
directions, destination, gas stations, anything, meandering
thru the steppes initially and then the Gobi. The
transition from the steppes to Gobi is not clear. In the
steppes, the earth is more fertile, grass greener; more
south, the earth becomes more sandy, more gravel and rocks,
etc., with corresponding changes in vegetation, the grass
less green at first, then olive-colored, more sparse, then
yellow... The Gobi (Govi means desert in Mongolian), 2nd
largest desert, is not like the Sahara. The dunes are a
minor component of this very living desert alive with
vegetation, herds of domesticated sheep, goats, camels,
cattle mixed with wild antelopes, mountain sheep, other
animals, and flocks of all kinds of birds. The big dunes
are at HONGORYN ELS (Sand). (Actually even bigger dunes are
in Chinese Gobi in the province of ALASHAN, just below the
border.)
4. Unique Landscape. The plains and Gobi are a series of
endless valleys and rolling hills in a high plateau, where
you often can see 50 miles in every direction. There are
no fences around. Like some parts of American Northwest,
this is open range. And there are no roads as such, just
tracks. One very unique feature of the land is the lack of
trees, or even bushes, for 1000 miles. The only trees were
3 gnarled old trees at a stream bed near where we camped
the 1st night, and some small trees in a canyon near we
camped the 4th night. So all vegetation is of
ground-hugging species, so enhancing the vastness of the
landscape. You could add all the open plains of Montana,
Texas, Kansas, and they might fit into just one endless
valley in Mongolia, it seems. The view is not static. We
saw nomadic gers, a dozen or so separate herds of 100s of
sheep, 2-hump camels, horses, goats, and cattle, lone
Mongols adorned in their native (usually) purple robe,
yellow sash, black boots, and a hat with horn-like things
protruding on both sides, or a scarf tied around the head
of a woman rider, on horseback (or on a motorcycle). These
individual components, each in itself a complete scene,
several miles distant from each other, framed by the
silhouettes of distant mountains, are composed into one
whole scene in Mongolian vastness. Yet, one element stands
out and dominates every such scene: the vastness of space,
spaciousness, not unlike stars attempting to capture
attention in an endless night sky. Then a rise and "all
those moment are lost like tears in rain" ("Bladerunner"),
replaced by a new endless vista. I have never seen such a
vast landscape before.
5. What we saw. We stayed at a ger camp at ONGIYN HIYD
Monastary, in a very scenic ravine and valley the 1st
night. The 2nd day, the roads were even worse. We passed
thru BAYANZAG, where the dinosaur bones were found, and
headed for the HONGORYN ELS (giant dunes). The ger at the
camp where we were supposed to stay smelled so bad of goats
and camels that we refused. (As we were leaving, some
goats indeed went inside the ger we almost slept in.)
Instead we drove just a few km to a neat ger camp by one of
the foremost travel agencies in Mongolia: JUULCHIN,
overlooking the dunes, which rise about as high as the
Great Sand Dunes in Southeastern Colorado but are several
miles long. The 3rd day we visited the Wildlife Preserve
and canyon at YOLYN AM and spent the night in Dalanzadgad,
the 4th night at a ger camp at BAGA GAZRYN CHULUU, a
beautiful valley surrounded by rock formations. You should
include these places in your tour. The drivers know them.
6. Ger. Is the circular Mongolian tent/home. Although ger
is also referred to as Yurt, GER is the word used in
Mongolia. (Yurt is a Turkic word that can also mean
country, as in "my country," motherland, dormitory, or just
home.) It is an elaborate contraption. A team of 5 to 6
people can erect one in 30 minutes; it may take 2 hours for
the same by only 2 people. Google GER and read about it
for more details.
===============================================================================
Sent on May 23, 2004 from Ulan Bator, from Chinggis Hostel.
I am typing this at a hostel in Ulan Bator, Mongolia,
leaving on a 5-day excursion to the Gobi Desert and the
sand dunes tomorrow morning, returning Friday or Saturday.
1. Addendum to Russia & Siberia.
a) Irkutsk is 5 hours later than Moscow, 13 than USA EDT, 6
hours Turkey.
b) Hotels in Russia are expensive. For example, the Angara
Hotel charges $128 for simple twin room for 2, double that
for deluxe room. Hotel Baikal, where we stayed is even
more expensive. It does have a desk for train and another
desk for airline tickets.
c) For Internet in Irkutsk 2 places, both quick connection:
one, facing Hotel Baikal, go 3 blocks on the 1st street to
the right of the hotel, pass the bank on your right, turn
right at the end of that block, reach the door about 10
yards away and walk down the steps; this one charges 36 R
($1.20) per hour; two, at the intersection of Karl Marx and
Lenin Streets, across the street from the statue on Lenin,
walk down the steps; this one charges 60 R ($2) per hour.
d) Again, Russia is difficult to travel on your own, also
because seemingly only tour guides speak English, and
almost nothing (except in St. Petersburg) is in English or
Latin alphabet. Familiarize yourself with the Cyrillic
Alphabet, as you will need them in the Metro and to confirm
where you are before you commit yourself to a
destination--(Remember P=R).
e) Fashions. The environment is Eastern Europe in that the
dress code, while casual, is stylish. Their casualness
never reaches the sloppy casual often found in USA and
occasionally in Western Europe. Jeans are rare, as also
short shorts, minis, flag-like color combinations; I did
not see guys in baggy pants. Women, as perhaps women
everywhere, are much more colorful and fashion-conscious.
One odd moda they have is wearing high heels with elongated
narrow toes--like cowboy boots times 2--some curling
upward. All men seemingly adhere to one fashion only: dark
slacks, black/dark T-shirt, and black (leather common)
jackets--and also a favorite among women. All men wear
their hair short. I did not see very obese people, though
some Russians are short and stocky.
f) Drinking, Manners, etc. Russian are not particularly
warm people, but they are mannerly in their stoic and
subdued ways. Almost everyone smokes, though smoking is
not allowed in restaurants and other enclosed spaces. The
attitude is one of "give and take" OR "live and let live"
common to the world except the USA. There are large flower
pots, for cigarette disposal, scattered around the public
squares and parks, and people use them. As for drinking,
beer consumption here must be at least equal to that in
Belgium and Germany. In Moscow--less so in Irkutsk--almost
every man and almost as many women walk with beer bottle or
can in their hands and another stashed away on their
person, this at the Red Square, parks, train station, on
the street, all very openly as if drinking soda, as if all
public places are open cafes. However, unlike the college
kids in USA, especially during the spring break, we saw no
loud, rowdy, or obnoxious behavior, none of "judge our
happiness by the noise we are making" attitude. This is
social drinking to relax, for leisure. And by this basic
yardstick the Russians are freer--and more civilized--than
we are in USA, perhaps also because they can seemingly
better tolerate their even stronger beer. I do not want to
extend this to the consequences of Vodka consumption, but
we did not see any drunks--nor homeless people for that
matter.
g) Especially as we traveled into Siberia, one things
becomes clear. Empty space and Russia's enormous
resources. They have some ways to go before they reach the
"quality of life" measures of Western Europe, but once they
do get going, they will be also an economic power to be
reckoned with. Even Irkutsk, in the middle of nowhere, is
more pleasant as a city, and a place to live, than many of
our own. And as populations world-wide do after work
hours, parks and the river front in Irkutsk are full of
young people and couples enjoying their city in some way to
late hours, even on week days. Thus, we may be discounting
or overlooking some measures of "quality of life" in our
comparative analyses. There is only one supermarket and a
central market inside the city that is blended well to the
rest (i.e., they do not stick out as unseemly monstrous
boxes); we did not see gas stations and such at the center.
===============================================================================
Sent on June 4, 2004 from Vladivostok, from BBC Cafe,
down the hill from Hotel Vladivostok.
Addendum Mongolia. Like Irkutsk, Mongolia is 13 hours
ahead (later) than USA EDT--Moscow 8 hours. The lady owner
of Chinggis Guest House arranges tours for 1/2 the price of
major tour agencies here, like Juulchin and Nature Tours.
One group we met on the road was on a 28-day tour, a Dutch
couple were arranging one for 10 days, including the
mountains. Having seen almost all major mountain chains
around the world, I was more interested in the steppes and
the Gobi, which also accommodated the days Tom and I
allocated to Mongolia. The URL for the guest house is:
http://chinggisguest.com
(2 g, currently not com but mn),
email chingisguest@magicnet.mn
(1 g).
Her name is Saykhna.
If you intend a visit here, by all means bring along a
windbreaker with a lining and hood, for there are high
winds in the steppes, mornings and evenings it gets cold,
nights are freezing cold, typical to high desert. (Yet, at
the 1st Ger we slept, a young girl of 16 to 18, probably
the owner's daughter, came out in jeans and a short-sleeve
blouse, with her belly showing. I wondered what she wears
in summer . . .) On the way back to Irkutsk, the train
waited for 11.5 hours at the border this time, just our car
on the tracks. In the morn (31st), the skies were all
clear as we approached Irkutsk, with wonderful views of
Lake Baikal for more than an hour, as we circled its
southern tip, sometimes right next to the water, other
times glancing at it from the mountains.