Sep 06

Two things strike you as you come into Beijing by train. Firstly the scenery around the city is spectacular - mountains tower up above the tracks with lakes and trees emerging in between them. Secondly you hit the high rise. Rows and rows of tower blocks block the view some of them old looking, some new, some still being built. All of them huge. There are 13 million people in Beijing (I think, although I haven't counted them) and I reckon they all live in tower blocks.

We arrived to Beijing station at about 9.30 am and there were people everywhere. We said goodbye to our travelling companions and went off to find a taxi. The trouble with being in a taxi in Beijing when you can't speak any Mandarin is that the driver certainly can't speak English. He seemed not to know where he was going at first and made several calls on his mobile but for all I know he could have been ordering a pizza. Ruth and I sat nervously wondering whether he had a clue and we weaved in an out of the rush hour traffic before he turned into a side street, 'Harmony Hotel!' It felt as though he had stumbled across it almost by accident but we were there.

The hotel was great - big room with en suite right in the thick of things so we got sorted and went off the day. We walked maybe twenty minutes to Tiananmen Square which, like everything in Beijing, is huge. On the way we were constantly stopped by Chinese guys saying, 'You wanna buy Mao watch, Mao book, 2008 hat, best prices', I hadn't expected it but there were hawkers everywhere trying to sell tat, mostly related to the upcoming Olympics or the omnipresent Chairman Mao who everybody seems to be in awe of despite the fact that he's been dead for thirty years. The square itself is impressive and has several gates and official buildings in it. The two days we were there, especially the second as it was Saturday, it was teeming with people - mostly Chinese queuing to see Mao's Tomb. In the square we were stopped by quite a lot of Chinese people asking us where we were from and lots of questions about where we were going, generally people were very friendly and seemed to have a genuine interest in talking to you and telling you something about China. We went with a student called Jun that we met in the square to see an exhibition of his college's art work which was all very good. At the end he was trying to sell us all the art he could but we ended up just buying a caligraphy scroll that he wrote for us for a few pounds. For the record and so that I don't forget, the message said 'For my English fiends, Ruth and Mark, Wishing you always luck and happiness'. At least that what he told us although it may say, 'For the stingy English who wouldn't buy my paintings, up yours!'

Tiananmen Square Gate

That evening we went for a meal and as Ruth could not wait any longer for the infamous Peking Duck we tried to find a restaurant that was recommended in our guide. We were not aided by the fact that the follwing day I realised the hotel wasn't where I thought it was on the map and so we ended up walking around for about an hour until finally a trishaw driver picked us up. He had a card with the name of the restaurant on it in English! We should have done that in the first place I guess. The Duck was great, cooked on an open fire and brought to your table whole for inspection before being whipped off to the kitchen to be sliced up for you, it was the best we've ever had.

The next day we visited the Forbidden City which is a complex of palaces, buildings and gardens that was originally home to the Emperors of China and it was forbidden for the rest of the population, hence, the forbidden city. It is difficult to describe how big this place is but suffice to say there are over 9,000 different buildings. Ruth and I spent about 3 hours there looking at various exhibits and wandering across courtyards and gardens before we decided we had seen just about all we could bear and went for some tea. On leaving we bumped into two guys from Xian in northern China who were keen to talk to us, they asked us all about where we were from and were telling us about Tiananmen square as we walked with them, it transpired that were so keen to talk because they wanted to be volunteers for the Olympics in 2008 and were brushing up on their foreign speak. They invited us to go to a tea ceremony with them but we already had plans to go to the Temple of Heaven so we politely declined and made our way there, encouraged by the absolute friendliness of the ordinary chinese people.

A Lion Guards one of the Palaces in the Forbidden City

The Temple of Heaven was a good walk away so we took our time. On the way a funny thing happened when a guy stopped Ruth in the street. He was quite a flamboyant looking character and at first we couldn't understand what he was saying but eventually he said in broken English, "I am hairdresser - you need haircut." I, of course, thought this was hilarious but I think Ruth was a bit perturbed after her initial amusement and we didn't stop. The temple of Heaven was OK but, much the same as the forbidden city, it somehow lacked character most of it having been heavily restored and because the original features that were there did not permit entrance and you had to kind of peer through windows at them in the middle of the baying crowds. We stayed a couple of hours and sat for a while in the park that surrounded the temple which, we agreed, was the nicest part about it.

Temple Of Heaven

In the evening we were pretty cream crackered after our long day so we decided to eat near to the hotel. I had scouted the road for restaurants and we went to one only a few yards away. The food was fantastic and cheap but there was loads, Ruth ate too much and then sat white as a sheet in front of me at the table looking rather ill. I waited a while for her to come round out of her 'food trance' but it wasn't happening so we went back to the hotel and Ruth passed out asleep in about 0.005 seconds. I had two beers.

The next day, our last in Beijing, we travelled to The Great Wall. We had wanted to see some of the less visited parts but time was not on our side so we decided that a tour to the tourist site at Badaling (which is where all the pictures that you see of the great wall are taken) was the best we could manage. We took a Chinese tour as this was the most economical way - almost four or five times cheaper than the Western ones advertised at our hotel. We drove for about an hour on the bus from the centre of Beijing and stopped first at a Jade factory where Ruth bought a bracelet. I was trying to convince her that buying a Jade tea pot and cups for a little less than 150 pounds was a shrewd investment, however, as usual my sharp business acumen was thwarted by Ruth's prudency and I got some sweets instead. We had lunch in a restaurant next to this which was quite a funny experience. We were on a big round table of about ten people, all Chinese, various dishes were brought out and a huge pot of rice. We all started tucking in and it was intriguing to see the different ways that the Chinese ate - some of them scooping it in with their bowls about an inch from their face like a machine and some of them picking ever so daintily at it. I am right handed, Ruth is left handed so eating with chopsticks next to each other is sometimes not such an easy task, at one point Ruth flicked my chopsticks with her elbow just as I had piled some rice on to them and it flew all over me, much to our amusement.

Elephant chair in the garden of the Ming Tombs

After lunch we visited the Ming tombs which were wholly unimpressive basically comprising of some steps down to a chamber with some replica wooden boxes on a plinth and some stairs back out, although to its credit the gardens were beautiful and shaded with juniper trees. Then back to the bus for the main event. We arrived to Badaling about half an hour later and walked up to where we took a chain operated car up to the Wall. Once on the Wall itself it was a magnificent sight, from any point on it you can see it snaking off in both directions and there are lots of different walkways and steps leading from it which you don't really see in photographs. It is truly huge and the views are stunning. We took lots of pictures. All around where we were people were trying to sell us things. Mostly completely and utterly unusable shite that you wouldn't buy in a million years. At one point a woman threw a T-shirt over my shoulder and follwed me saying 50 yen, 40 yen, 30 yen, 20 yen, 10 yen. I couldn't work out whether she was giving me prices for different shirts or whether this particular shirt was falling in price so quickly that she placed almost no value on it at all. I didn't buy it, mainly because it said, 'I CLIMBED THE GREAT WALL' on it which I presumed was written in an American accent and was worn by fat kids with ice creams the world over.

The Great Wall snakes off into the distance

The wall had been good but it was hot and we had walked up and down the steep slopes for quite a while so we decided to have a rest we went back down the cable car and through the bear enclosure which is at the foot of the site. Just as we were getting near to where the tour bus was a voice called out offering us the only completely and utterly useable thing that was for sale, 'Cold Beer' We had one each.

Getting back to Beijing was tough, traffic had jammed the highway into the city and it was gridlocked, it took us the best part of three hours. As we came to the drop off point we passed loads of stuff that we hadn't noticed before such as bars restaurants and shops that weren't even far from our hotel. You only seem to be just discovering a place when you have to leave the next day. We wished we could have stayed longer. That night we ate simply and extremely cheaply at a tiny restaurant near our hotel. It was the kind of place where everyone shouts and people spit on the floor (although spitting seems to be the national sport in China) but the food was delicious and we were stuffed. We had a 0730 flight so we went to bed early after booking a disgustingly early wake up call.

Me in Red Square, Moscow

Ruth in Lake Baikal

Mongolian Landscape

Sunrise in the desert

Super high fashion in China

The Pearl Hotel Huehot

Our train departed from Ulan Bataar at about 8pm. We settled down for a night on the rails. The train was noisy this time and I didn't sleep so well so I woke up a bit groggy the next morning. We arrived at the Chinese border about 10am which was at a place called Erlian. We were headed for Huehot which is in Inner Mongolia. Strangely Inner Mongolia is inside China, it is supposedly an autonomous region but even from that first stop at the border things seemed markedly different to Mongolia. We got off the train for a couple of hours whilst they changed the train bogeys. This basically involves them hoisting up the train, removing the wheels and replacing them with another set, becasue the rails in China aren't as wide as those on the rest of the line. It seemed like a strange system to me but there you go. The train rattled on for the rest of that day and we played cards to pass the time.

We finally arrived to Huehot about 9pm and lugged our bags off, we were met by our guide and about 6 of her friends who had come to meet us becasue they had never seen a westerner before!! This was a continuing theme throughout our time in Huehot and we seemed quite the celebrities, people would stop and stare in the street as you walked past and continually said 'hello!' to us. Huehot itself was amazing at night - neon lit the city to the point of saturation and we wandered around being dazzled.

On our first full day there we visited some temples and the old town and then went for Mongolian hotpot for lunch. This is a dish you must not miss. A huge pot in the middle of the table had two different kinds of soup - one ginger and spring onion, the other so spicy it took your breath away. Then you are given all sorts of meat and vegetables and noodles too that you drop into the soup to cook. It was one of the best meals I have ever eaten and washed down with Chinese jasmine tea. After lunch we went to a factory shop where they were selling all kinds of leather and stone, cashmere and food products. One of the more interesting things there was a dried mushroom which was about 3 feet long in a mahogany presentation case. Quite who buys these things I'm not sure but it was certainly impressive as mushrooms go. We passed up the opportunity to buy stuffed deer, tigers and weird mushrooms and got an ice cream instead but even that was a bit weird - purple ice cream what's all that about???

Our final stop of the day was at the history museum - this was a mixture of the natural and national history of Inner Mongolia and whilst the natural was impressive with several full size dinosaur skeletons the national seemed a little contrived, most of the narrative seemed to have been written by the Chinese government itself and was always praising 'the party' as the communists like to call themsleves. Incidentally I have disovered a new phenomenon called 'museum fatigue' it is simply defined by the fact that when you are in a museum you will start yawning after 30 minutes at the very most, no matter how interested you are by the exhibits. It is an involuntary response which is caused, I think, by slowly walking around large rooms full of stuff and which can only be cured by 'museum fatigue antidote' which is a nice sit down and any drink containing booze. Presumably if you do not consume the antidote quickly enough you will sucumb to the advanced form of the fatigue and fall into a coma - at least that is an excuse I have found works most effectively.

That night we went for a meal at a local restaurant that our guide had recommended. This was the most food for the least money I have ever seen and it tasted great, 6 dishes with all the tea you could drink came to about 10 quid. There were, by the way, 4 of us eating! We went for a walk to aid the old digestion as we were all stuffed and on our way back to the hotel happened upon what I thought was a bar. It looked like it from the outside and there was music blaring so I suggested that we go for a drink. The hostess on the door led us up some stairs and into a little room with a big television at which point I realised we were in a Karaoke bar. God I hate karaoke. It has to be the single most embarassing passtime known to man. There was the most dire selection of songs in English but there was nowhere to hide and somebody had to sing, noone else seemed very forthcoming so I ended up singing the bloody backstreet boys. Mortified. It ended up costing us more than dinner for one drink and a large dose of humiliation.

The following day we had a great dim sum breakfast in the hotel and checked out. Our train wasn't until 8pm so we left our bags and went to explore a little on our own. Ruth and I ended up in a huge department store as I wanted to buy a bag. We wandered around for maybe an hour and a half but when we went to go somewhere else a storm had rolled in and it was lashing with rain. When we got up it had been sunny so we were dressed in shorts and t-shirts with no raincoats. Idiots. We sat and had some tea for a while but the rain still hadn't stopped. It took us a further 45 minutes to find a place in the shopping centre that sold umbrellas and by the time we got outside it had stopped raining. Idiots. We went back to the hotel and had a couple of drinks to pass the time before the train. When we boarded the train we were pleasantly surprised it was much cleaner and modern than the other trains we had been on and it was nice to have a bit of luxury in the cabin for our last train journey. Beijing was the next stop.

The Mongolians are friendly folks. After stepping off the train in Ulan Bataar our guide met us and helped us into the waiting van. Once we set off she turned round and said, "Why you all look so sad, you in Mongolia now!" At this point we relaxed.

It was 0730 in the morning and we had been up since about 0600 getting packed. The scenery through the far east of Russia and the far West of Mongolia had been incredible, with the trees opening up into a mass expanse of rolling hills and endless skies. The border crossing was unneccessarily awkward, long and pointless, mainly the fault of the Russians who appear incapable of doing anything efficiently or with any manners. Firstly they kept us waiting on the train or platform (as you wished) for four hours before anyone turned up. Then they came on the train, took your passport off to the office and the relevant customs and departure forms had to be filled in and collected. After a further two hours of them walking around smoking fags they let you go. To add insulty to injury whilst waiting for the border police Ruth and I had got off the train to soak up some sun and have a few beers. When we got back on for the checks our carriage attendant had sat two Mongolians in our cabin, with a big grin on her face. We weren't quite sure what was going on but a minute later one of them tried to offer me money. I soon realised that they were trying to smuggle them over the border and went to complain, however just as I did so the border police got on the train. There was nothing for it. I sat down in the cabin and hoped for the best with two random Mongolians. Luckily the police soon cottoned on and the guy who seemed to be in charge spent three minutes shouting at them for tickets before throwing them off. The Mongolian border was better only taking about two hours in total and the officials were generally friendlier, even calling you by your first name when you got your passport back.

We checked into our hotel as we had a night in the capital before heading off into the wilds. The Bayangol Hotel was a positive palace with our own balcony, the premiership on the telly, huge beds, power shower. No problems. Our guide met us about an hour after checking in. She took us for some breakfast at Chez Bernard which is a European place - they had English breakfast, at which I was amazed. It's the least visted country on Earth and you can get bacon, eggs, toast and a cup of tea.

Our guide was very keen for us to eat up and get away so that we could go and see morning prayer at a temple in the city so we darted off about 0945 to Gandan. We were in for a suprise as when we arrived we were told that the Dalai Lama was taking morning prayer. We listened to his chanting and then watched as he came out into the crowd. At the front of the square all the children had gathered and the Dalai Lama proceeded to talk to them about the importance of being kind and honest and working hard, our guide translated for us. It was clearly a very spiritual experience for many people there and you could see on their faces that it meant a great deal to them to be in the presence of the man. Soon he was whisked off in his black limo, which incidentally had alloy wheels, is that where our temple donations are going or is that a bit cynical?? We looked round the rest of the temple which was very interesting and span some prayer wheels. At the wishing stick which was by one of the outer walls I wished for a safe and happy trip which is maybe a bit wet but you would have done the same.

The temple trip was over and our guide gave us a map of the city before saying, "Oh well, nice to meet you, you know the way back........." and swiftly buggering off. The map was crap but we found our way to the Mongolian Museum of National History. This is a great museum. If you are ever in Ulan Bataar go there. It has a comprehensive history with new looking exhibits and English narrative. The highlight of the museum was the hall of traditional dress that showed all the fantastic costumes that each Mongolian tribe wore. There are over 100 traditional hatrs that Mongolians wear and it unlucky to give your hat to anyone else. I bet they have some great hat parties.

We were all museumed out after a couple of hours so went for a walk in Sukhbataar square. Sukhbataar was a Mongolian hero from the early 1900's - he was head of the Mongolian army at one stage. Originally his name was just Sukh but we was given the title bataar (which means hero - if you're interested Ulan Bataar means 'Red Hero')and the square was named in his honour. It has a big statue of him on a horse in the middle of the square with stone Lions guarding it. There was a basketball tournament going on in the square and lots of people were milling around - with not many westerners around we got some pretty funny looks from people and just about managed to get away without buying any pictures that were 'apparently' by the people selling them, but they weren't. After some lunch we went back to the hotel and chilled out, in fact I totally fell asleep. Dinner that evening was good in the hotel but we decided to have an early one as we had an early start the next day to catch a van into the desert.............

0900 a new guide, Ho, picked us up. She was with our driver Aggii who was a joker. We started to drive. It took seven hours with a 30 minute stop for lunch to get to the camp. At first through the outskirts of Ulan Bataar the roads seemed to be fairly resonable with the odd rough patch. After about two hours it had pretty much decayed into huge holes and rocky sections that we had to constantly swerve around. Another two hours and we had to use dirt tracks on the side of the road as the road itself was unpassable. The track we eventually took to the camp snaked for about 10 miles away from the nearest road. It was a truly great journey as arduous as it may sound, Michael Palin eat your heart out!

We arrived at the camp of the nomad family we were staying with about 5pm and were shown into our Ger (they live in round tents with a pointed roof - Ruth and I had one to oursleves), where they proceeded to dish out airag, or fermented mare's milk. Don't be mistaken, that is milk, from a horse, that's alcoholic, and tastes like spew. It's the single most disgusting drink I have ever had, and I've had a few. I don't think I'll have a worse one either. This is not a drink to be underestimated in it's horribleness, I think I've made my point. The only consolation was that there were some biscuits which didn't taste too bad so if you stuffed your mouth with them and took a small sip you couldn't taste it so much. Not drinking it, of course, would have been extremely rude and they didn't leave the room so unfortunately I didn't get a chance to pour it back into the huge vat they had dished it out from - which is what I was secretly planning. The Mongolians were lapping it up - one guy must have had about three pints of it in the half hour we were sat there and I felt rather inadequate at this point as I couldn't drink it without heaving.

We walked twenty minutes to some sand dunes and the view was magnificent, it was also so quiet. If you stopped and listened there was just nothing, it's a strange phenomenon coming from a city and not being able to hear anything, I don't really have any words for it apart from to say that it's not what you would call quiet anywhere else. We had dinner about seven o'clock and talked outside among the sheep and goats, horses and cows that were laying around the camp until the sun went down, the stove was lit and we went to sleep.

Some of you reading this may be aware that I do not like moths. I hate moths. It was, therefore not a pleasant surprise when I realised, shortly after turning out my torch, that one was in my bed. I threw off my covers and had what one could only describe as some sort of small fit. I then of course proceeded to have moth paranoia for the next two hours of tossing and turning with no sleep. Thought you may like to know that.

The following day was great. We were up early to the cow alarm - need I say more. We breakfasted and then went to a place called Kharkoram. This was the original capital of the Mongolian empire when Chinngis Khan ruled most of the world and it is said that he lived there. We visted a temple there which had 400 year old buildings and artwork. A lot of it had been destroyed in communist purges of Mongolia in the 1930's however it is still a working monastery today and we saw about 30 monks chanting in one of the temples. We had a pretty comprehensive guide to the temples with detailed explanation of all the gods, but to be honest I couldn't tell you what any of them were now. Heading back to camp took about an hour. Ruth and I went for a walk on the sand dunes, after about 30 minutes the van came speeding towards us. The nomads were in the back. We were off to see a horse race. The driver was a maniac. He teared off across the plain about 60MPH dodging streams and holes and bushes, after a while we saw some horses in the distance, they were ridden by kids. The race had apparently been 25km but we just saw the end of it so we stayed around to watch them warm down and after a while went back to camp.

We played cards for a few hours whilst we took it in turns to ride on a camel, this was a great experience and one I had not been expecting. It was quite comfortable and the camel seemed to enjoy the walk as it stopped every 10 paces to munch on the nearest bush. Quite embarrasingly, when we reached the point where we were to turn around and head back, the lady of the family who was leading the camel for me met a friend who was with another tourist, as they chatted briefly the camel decided to take a piss that must have lasted a full five minutes and I was stuck on this thing with the other three laughing. A camel's gotta do what a camel's gotta do I guess. The game of cards seemed to bring us closer as a group as before this I don't think we had really connected with the family. It is strange how playing a game with someone can give you an idea of the person's personality even if you can't really speak to one another.

That night after dinner we sat round with the family in the Ger. We gave them presents of a bottle of Vodka (which we drank), some postcards from Newcastle with the Tyne bridge and the Angel of the North and some sweets for the children. We talked about where we were from and asked them questions. They said that their biggest problem was when there was no water as they couldn't feed the animals. When we asked them about holidays they said that every day was a holiday for them and the celebrated their holidays in their tents every night. It struck me that the more stressful your life becomes the more you feel you have to get away from it. Their attitude was much simpler - if you have a simple rural life and you sustain yourself then why would you want to go anywhere else. However you do have to live with a load of goats for company and crap in a hole in the ground!

The next day I got up at 0600 and watched the sun rise, it was worth it. We departed for Elstei which is a tourist camp nearer to Ulan Bataar. We had some photos with the family before we left and bought a leather camel from them as a souvenir. It took about 8 hours back over the dusty road to get to our new camp but when we got there it was worth the drive. In the missle of a huge plain surrounded by mountains the camp was about 30 Gers of which Ruth and I had our own. There was a stove lit for you every night and hot water brought three times a day for tea. They also had a shower block and proper toilets which was the first stop upon arrival. The food was great with lots of Mongolian favourites, however after eating mutton for every meal for six days you kind of get sick of it. The highlight of our stay at the camp was seeing a complete rainbow in a field in front of me which I swear was only 15 feet away and horseriding which suprisingly I am not too bad at - maybe my new nickname should be 'the lone yamma'. Unfortunately I discovered that yamma actually means goat in Mongolian so 'the loan goat' may be more appropriate. There weren't masny people staying at the camp as it was the end of ther season and as a rersult the bar was pretty quiet so rather than booze it up we pretty much took it easy, did some reading and realaxed.

After three nbights at Elstei we went back to Ulan Bataar for one night. Ruth and I visited ther Natural History Museum which was pretty lame with lots of stuffed birds, bears and other animals that looked as though they had been there for a hundred years. They did have one dinosaur skeleton that was fairly impressive but it wasn't enough to keep you entertained for long. We laughed rather than marvelled at the exhibits. That night we went to see a show called The Moonstone Ensemble. It was basically a traditional Mongolian orchestra with dance acts and throat singing. The horse head fiddle was most impressive, it sounds a bit like a violin on speed and the guy who did a solo made it rip. After that we had a dinner of Pizza, sweet pizza and went to bed.

The next day was spent sending email, buying food for the train and in the Museum of Fine Art, another must for any visitors, it had some fantastic work. We caught the train about eight o'clock and said goodbye to our stay in Mongolia. Generally our experience in Mongolia was amazing, the people are very friendly and hospitable, the scenery is fantastic and the beer is not too bad either (I tried four differnt ones, Chinngis being the best, Khan Brau the worst).