Saturday morning 5.20am wake up call that was literally me picking up the phone to 'Hello Wake Up!!' from an abrupt Chinese woman. What a wake up call! The tour group of 14 were piled into an awaiting minibus at 6.30am Saturday morning, and dropped at the train station to be loaded onto the train. We were greeted by a Gastapo style train attendant who was to be our keeper for the next two days. We found a berth to jam our backpacks and selves in, and the berth was rather appealing. Well it was for those who like hot pink floral with bright gold trimming on bed covers and pillow case, with a lime green number used as a tablecloth. The trains we are riding for this trip are sleeper trains which have four single beds in each berth, two are pull down that sit above the two below, and there's also a small table. Not much room to move but what can one expect.
By 7.40am the train departed the station for what we thought was to be a 13 hour trip. No, no Aussies! 30 hours on the train, not 13!! We found this out about 4 hours into the trip but although it was a set back we weren't surprised. Two days before, we were all under the impression the trip was 30 hours, but the tour guide (which are called 'honchos' and we get a new one in each city) kept saying 13 hours...thirdeen, thirdee...almost the same when said with a Chinese accent..but not! Well the THIRTY hour train ride was probably as we had expected - cramped but comfortable, time taken up with cross stitching, reading, listening to music, eating, sleeping, taking photos out of the train window and busting for the toilet when the loos were closed down for hours. Literally. We had to wait 2 hours for the trains wheels to be changed due to different train track guage sizes between China and Mongolia and in this time the toilets weren't to be used. Once that was over the train then went for another half an hour before we stopped at the Mongolian border where everyone was to submit their Mongolian visas, documents and passports to the officials who took them away to check and stamp. The train was stopped at this point for approximately 6 hours - still no use of the toilet allowed. Aarrrgghhh! The officials who took our passports were two Chinese woman dressed in blue official uniforms but also long knee high boots and bright red lipstick - I was wondering if they had other jobs to perform on the train?? We really wanted to take a photo but obviously it was really inappropriate.
All of the tour group had taken bags of food for the train ride as we were all warned the food available in the restaurant may not be of the best quality/reconisable. So noodles, soup and bread it was. There was hot water available but the entrepenarial train attendants tried to make everyone pay for it. No, no. Because we'd bought only enough food for 13 hours, not 30, at one train stop Dom and I jumped off to buy some fruit and bread from one of the local vendors. No sooner had we jumped off and were paying the vendor, we had everyone hanging out the windows of the train watching the action, within a minute the train attendant was screaming at us to get back on the train as it was leaving. I had visions of us chasing a moving train and running along side it to jump back into the carriage but luckily we made it on just in the nick of time.
Finally we arrived in Ulaanbaatar (Capital of Mongolia) at 2pm today, and met our honcho. As all the tour members got off the train to congregate, a Mongolian gentlement who spoke very good English was pushing us to stay at his hotel. He was very persistant and one of the girls told him we had a hotel arranged. He kept persisting so she said 'we don't need it, bye bye'. He put his face in hers and told her not to be so rude in his country and she was lucky she was a woman because if she was a man, he would kill her. Welcome to Mongolia. Don't worry though, apart from that situation we have found that Mongolia has a much better feel to it than Beijing. Much more inviting even though there is rubbish everywhere and communist style accomodation.
We checked into our hotel which was much cleaner than the second hotel in Beijing, and had much needed showers and food. We all met up again in the lobby at 5 to go to a traditional Mongolian performance. We walked for 25 minutes through wide streets and fresh chilly air to a random building in a parking lot. We climbed some stairs, and entered into a beautiful small opera hall, with velvet booths. We ordered a beer and were presented with a bunch of acts including some Mongolian Folk Dancing, singing, drum beating, orchestral pieces and vocal and instrumental solos. It was all brilliant, though the female singers go a little too high and their voices sounded more like they were strangling a cat.
After the performance we crossed the parking lot to a restaurant for dinner. We ordered another beer and Dom, Rani and myself decided to gorge oursevles on meat. We asked for a meat grill and some rolled lamb balls with bacon. All the others in our tour and our two tour guides received their meals and then our plate of balls arrived, then so did our rice, and our potatoes, and our salad and then out came this massive plate of meats. Everyone had pretty much stopped eating to watch our food be carted out and delivered to the three salivating Aussie girls in the corner of the room. Hilarious. The balls were okay, the meats and meat on a stick were great, and then there was this deep fried red sausage which no one (on the entire table) touched. It looked like a sausage meat octopus. Yuk.
Anyway we're off to the Mongolian country tomorrow morning, to a Ger camp surrounded by mountains. We will be returning to Ulaanbaatar on Thursday at which time I will be on air again.
Some of you have said you have text me, but unfortunately my phone hasn't been working since I left Sydney, and is still not working. Please email me instead and I will let you know when it's working again. Love to everyone.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
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