Jeep Jenga & the road to the Gobi

So the morning of our departure & the stack of gear (tents, food, kitchen equipment, backpacks) waiting to be packed for the journey looks much smaller than our Russian Military Jeep. After a fair bit of head scratching and with every available space filled (under seats, sharing my seat with our water butt) we finally roll out toward the Gobi.

We have 2 staff on our trip - Tuul our guide/translator/cook and our driver the irrepressibly good humoured Ochiro .... about 3 hours into our journey a herd of antelope ran right in front of the Jeep and almost instantaneously he had us in hot pursuit across open countryside ....


Apparently later in the year when they are a bit fatter, you can chase them like this for about 10km and then as they slow down, exhausted, you hit them over the head with a stick out of the drivers window. Nice.

We also got a brief instructional on hunting marmot, just wave your arm up and down and they'll stand there mesmerised while you shoot them. Equally pleasant. Both Tuul & Ochiro insist blowtorched marmot is delicious, while our copy of Lonely Planet says it's responsible for regular outbreaks of bubonic plague. Thankfully it's out of season so we didn't have to put it to the test.

Our first destination was the old monastery at Baga Gazrin Chuluu - undiscovered during the soviet purge, mainly I guess because it's the size of a gnat and competely hidden within the considerably more spectacular rock formations surrounding it.

We stayed with a herdsman family on the first evening. Upon entering their Ger we were immediately provided with gifts of a bowl of their dinner (dried meat, noodle and veg soup), and several shots of Chinggis Vodka. We then spent the next hour helping to bring their herd in for the night - you can see me helping here.

I won't say what they were using as fuel in the burner that cooked dinner and kept us warm, suffice to say it's brown and sounds like a bell. Oh yeah, and it comes out of a goats backside .....

A spot of Cak-Bum

No, not a comment on the state of our personal hygeine after the expedition - rather the curious name of a fizzy orange drink here in Mongolia.

We arrived back in UB (Ulan Bator) on Monday night after an exhausting 3 weeks covering 3500km of surely the worst roads on the planet, and we have a welcome few days rest before we hit the road again bound for Japan.

Thanks for all your comments on the blog, they've kept Mel & I amused over the last 5 weeks of travelling. The posts from our expedition should be published over the next couple of weeks, and following a marathon uploading session over the last couple of days (thank god for 35p an hour internet access) there are loads more photos on flickr.

Join the Mongolei Millionaires Club ...

Just a quick post from Ulan Bator - we were met from the train by our charming hosts from the Khongor Guest House who will also be our logisitics partners for the forthcoming 3 week expedition. The money here is simply crazy .. I've just exchanged a perfectly reasonable amount of dollars into a cool 3 million togrig in a wad several inches thick. But don't worry, you too can be a millmionaire in Mongolia ... for the princely sum of just 450 English pounds! Already we love this place, the people are fantastically welcoming and although UB is a city the size of Leeds it's pretty laid back and we're enjoying re-acquainting ourselves with real food, laundry and stocking up on supplies before our expedition proper. So see you later ... it's off to the Gobi Desert in the morning!


___________________________
Sent by Mark Fretwell via the free Email Scheduler service.
Register now at http://www.emailschedule.com

Life on the rails .... part 3

Finally the Ural mountains and some scenery. Or at least it would be if it wasn't dark - for about 30 minutes we had pine clad valleys before the lights went out and another night of gently rocking along trying to get some sleep.

Another 24 hours and we arrive in Krasnyorsk, beyond which we cross into more picturesque Eastern Siberia. Finally some decent platform food - we took on supplies of hot sausage rolls and Siberian dumplings at Llanskaya. By this stage our body clocks are all over the place - as well as gaining an hour or two each day, the train and everything in it continues to run on Moscow time right up to the border. Breakfast today was served at 3am. Another semi-interesting train fact is the toliets - press flush and you get a nice view of the tracks, it just deposits it there for nature to do the rest. Of course if you're really lucky and the wind is right you get blowback ... a little like the winners challenge on the Crystal Maze. Nice.

After a pictureseque climb through logging country we settled in for our fourth night aboard. We set our alarm early & awoke to the scenic highlight of the journey - Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake on the planet and we had great views for around 3 hours as our train followed its shores for 180km before heading South for Ulan Ude, our last major stop before the Mongolian border.

After Ulan Ude we left the mountains and a dramatic change of scenery and weather as we hit sunshine and the rolling plains that would lead us to Mongolia, as we followed the course of the Selenge Gol river.

The Russian border crossing was a hellish 4 hour, full toilet lockdown, culminating in us clearing immigration only to roll out of the station straight into a floodlit pen, where once again the undercarraige was inspected at length. Seriously, someone should tell these guys the cold war ended a long time ago. So at last we made it over the border, and arrived 21km later at the far more relaxed Mongolian border - we're liking this place already. Next stop Ulan Bator ...

___________________________
Sent by Mark Fretwell via the free Email Scheduler service.
Register now at http://www.emailschedule.com

Life on the rails .... part 2

With the weather very firmly now changed from bloody freezing to warm and humid, it's time to head back to Yaroslavki Station for the beginning of our epic train journey across Siberia to Mongolia. In and around the station is definitely the worst part of Moscow we saw, "full of crazies" is no understatement. I drew the marginally shorter of the 2 straws and left Mel in the waiting room, surrounded by drunks and rough sleepers (occassionally being beaten awake by the police - nice) and headed out into the surrounding night market to stock up on supplies. As with everywhere in Russia so far, if you make the effort then people are genuinely warm and helpful. So I was soon performing a series of mimes to describe which goods I wanted to buy from the people staffing each kiosk (no self service here) - much to their amusment. I got a bit delayed, because the pot-noodle seller decided he needed to practice speaking French to me. Only in Russia ..... So after 2 hours of what is possibly the most intimidating train station on the planet ... we finally boarded the legendary train 4, bound for Beijing. Not all the way in one hit, but we'd be spending the next 5 nights aboard so decided to go for the luxury 2-berth Kupe compartment. As it was a night departure, we missed the picturesque spires of the golden ring cities completely, waking up to scenes of Western Siberia. Bascially 2 days of this... And occasionally one of these ... And that kind of sums it up really. Our guidebook had assured us of plenty of opportunities for taking on supplies at stations, sadly we found this to be a slight exaggeration and were almost immediately on emergency rations -apart from a very occasional visit to the awful and ludicrously priced Russian restaurant car (even GNER could learn how to profiteer from these guy's). Without a doubt the most fun I had in the first 2 days was watching Mel trying to eat her pot-pasta with a drinking straw - someone had forgotten to pack a fork ..... although exacty who it was is still a matter for debate ....


___________________________
Sent by Mark Fretwell via the free Email Scheduler service.
Register now at http://www.emailschedule.com