Day 46

5 June 4 2013

Erlian (Mongolian border)- Ulaan Bataar Mongolia

Someone tapped me on the hand. I woke up and was greeted by a young woman in an impeccable blue uniform who said: "May I have you passport sir?" The train had stopped at Dzamyn Ude, about 2 hours inside Mongolia. Dzamyn Ude is the first town after crossing the border from China and is the place where passports are checked. I had read that they only checked the luggage of Chinese or Mongolian passengers as they did on the Chinese side, so there was no need to get up.

I handed over my passport and filled out a luggage declaration indicating that I didn't have any nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction on me and went back to sleep. At some time the girl must have come back as my passport was lying on my little table and the train was moving again, meanwhile I had been fast asleep.

The cabins are comfortable and roomy as I share my four person compartment only with a 20 year old French student who has been studying in Hong Kong and decided to travel back to Paris by train. Most people on the train are travelers from foreign countries. One such traveler is a remarkable man called Mack. Mack is not only taller than me but also older. Eighty years old to be precise. Mack comes from Nashville Tennessee and proudly wears his own design T-shirt “Around the world @ 80”. Very nice man, we swapped some travel stories and some of our food. Great guy. I hope I am like him at 80 as well and will meet him again no doubt.

The morning greeted me with bright sunshine and with great long distance views very much like Australia but without the red colours The train rambled on at a steady 75-80 km per hour through the sparsely vegetated steppe. The landscape changes colors at times. From light green, from the very light grass like vegetation, to grey brown form the sandy dessert. Occasionally a circular nomads tent (Gers)doom up , surrounded by goats and the stocky Mongolian horses they breed in these places. I spotted several groups of camels and wondered if they are a wild variety or if the belong to someone. The towns we pass through look unorganized. I guess these people are basically nomads and if they live in a Ger they just put it up anywhere. The towns are like that too. No straight paved streets but just randomly placed houses with sandy streets. It must be a hard place to live. Most of the country is steppes or dessert. In winter the temperature goes down to minus 45 degrees C and the summer temperatures can hit plus 38 degrees C for days on end. Makes me appreciate where I live; Brisbane is never really too cold nor really hot.

Rolling into Ulan Bataar was a delight and unforgettable. The two diesel locomotives had to work hard to pull the train up the inclines and around dozens of sharp bends; not a tunnel in sight; the tracks go around and then over all the tree less hills. Interesting to note that this country of just 2.5 million people of whom maybe 50% are still nomads adhere to their lifestyle as on the outskirts of the capital there are hundreds of small plots with a circular Ger tent and a car. I read that the horse to human ratio is 13 to 1, so there must be over 30 million horses in this country. I believe that hands down as I have seen 1000’s of horses just roaming the country side. On arrival In Ulan Bataar I spotted a man holding a sign with my name on it. The ticket I had purchased in Australia was included accommodation in Ulan Bataar, Moscow and St Petersburg. Knowing what I know now I would have purchased train tickets on the go and book my own accommodation as well, but what is done is done. The standard of accommodation is ok but is in and austere concrete building built no doubt in the communist era as everything looks cheap and just done to fit a purpose. I am staying at a so-called home stay which I have enjoyed before In Vietnam but was of a totally different caliber. This time I am staying will an old couple, the lady is in her mid seventies and her husband in the low 80’s. Nothing wrong with that as it feel being at home with my mum again, but all is very basic. Judging by the looks of it this concrete block, it must have been built in the 50’s. The kitchen, bathroom, and toilets are close to museum pieces; all the floors squeak as the parquetry is loose and all is topped off by the broken tiles in the toilet and bathroom, but it all works and I love it. The only problem is that the lady hardly speaks any English at all but does speak some German, so we get by with using a mix of two languages.

The Mongolians are the descendants of the Mongols who ruled the world for a short time. Their Empire stretched from China all the way into Europe. Tribes who lived here in the past were the Huns, the Turks and the Mongols. The Huns were a tribe the Mongolians now call: “The Children of the Sun” One of its leaders is still the well known “Attila the Hun”. Turks were another tribe who later swept south all the way into what is now known as Turkey. This is the reason that if you speak Turkish you can get by with that language all the way from Turkey through Uzbekistan, Kyrzigistan, and northern Iran and all the other “*Stan’s” like Turkmenistan, Turkistan etc. in a long line from Turkey almost to the border of China. The Turks were called “Children of the wolf mother” a symbol still used in resent day Turkey. Then there were the Mongols of which the Mongolians are the descendants. Their leader is also well known. Chenggis Kahn, whose portrait appears on every Mongolian bank note and can be seen in many statues around the city.

The capital Ulan Bataar centers along a very long road right the middle of town. I wondered through town all afternoon and visited parliament house. The building is right on the main square and is dominated by a enormous statue of Chenggis Kahn seated on a chair and flanked by his son Ogeddie Kahn and his grandson Kublai Kahn. Inside the building were many archeological exhibits but all in the Mongolian language. Although for the Mongolians the Russian occupation of their country has had series detrimental effects, like the disappearance and persecution of 37.000 people in 1937 alone, one thing has been a positive input and that is that the old Mongolian script was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet.

After China I am happy I can read the signs again although with some difficulty at times as the spelling differentiates a bit from the Russian spelling (as can be seen on the trains destination signs) The original written language looks a bit like Arabic but is written vertically instead of horizontally.

And what did I have for dinner last night? Yes… of course Mongolian Lamb.