Thursday, September 16, 2004
BEIJING TO ULAAN BAATAR - July 2004
See photos related to this posting at the Yahoo Photo Album. (NB: Will open in a new browser window)
We first became interested in the Trans Siberian when we started to plan our return from our year’s teaching post in Huairou, Beijing, China. We liked the idea of traveling by train after all we are from Canada, a country with a railroad history which was instrumental in bringing far flung parts of the country together. Railways are the ties that bind not only in Canada, China and Mongolia, but in Russia too.
Our web search for information about travelling across Mongolia and Russia on the Trans Siberian led us to the only company which specializes in organizing such ventures – Monkey Business,(http://www.monkeyshrine.com) a name with its own story, which we’ll leave you to discover. Fortunately, one of their main offices was in Beijing, in the Sanlitun district, near the embassies and easy for us to get to. We contacted Chris by email and soon had piles of information. He made it sound so easy, like an everyday excursion. And with that initial contact, we determined to return to Canada by this route. The great thing about Monkey Business is that each traveler can arrange a personalized trip, depending on which options appeal. We found we could get off the train at several points, stay a few nights and explore a certain area, and then catch the next train and continue on. To travel non-stop from BJ to Moscow is a 7-day trip. With our many stopovers, our trip ran 20 days, with stops in Ulaan Baatar (2 days), Irkutsk/Lake Bailkal (2 days), Ekaterinburg (2 days), Moscow (4 days) and St. Petersburg (4 days). In terms of distance, we traveled 6734 kms from Beijing to Moscow. Add the 700+ kms to St. Petersburg and the flights from SP to Frankfurt and then on to Toronto - a staggering total of kms beyond our calculations. If you consider our 2003 trip from Canada to Beijing as the first lap, then you will discover, as we did, that we have made a global circuit. Wow!
Our 20-day trip began on July 17,2004 when 21 of us, all Monkey Business adherents, many with back packs, others with suitcases, traveled by bus to the always very busy Beijing Zhan (station), where we boarded our train and were underway sharply at 6:40 am. We had spent the previous night at the very fancy Zaolong (Dragon) Hotel, situated on the edge of the Chaoyang embassy district. A fitting final night in the city we had spent so much time exploring during our year in China. The day was hot.
The first reality check came when we realized that the train wasn’t air-conditioned - why ever did we think a Chinese train would be? Spoiled by the hotel, no doubt! Fortunately we had a very noisy fan which circulated the hot, humid, gritty air which lay over BJ and in fact, for the first 6 hours of our trip north. All train windows were open, with the hope that the air would be cooler and fresher as we moved north. The haziness did clear, but the temperatures remained hot, hot, hot.
We had first class accommodation on the train – a two-bunk compartment to ourselves. Others slept in 4 and 6 bunk compartments, bulging with people and luggage. No one closed their cabin doors -- we all needed the cross breeze which came from the open corridor windows on the opposite side of the train. When not walking from car to car, visiting with fellow travelers, or hanging out in the dining car, people sprawled on their bunks, catching up on sleep or reading, all of us enduring the heat.
We soon realized that all the Monkey Business travelers were in the same carriages, depending upon whether we were traveling first class (for us old guys) or not (for the many back packers among us). Many of our companions were native English speakers, teaching English in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and China. There were several Australians, two Americans, one Irishman, one Englishman and three Canadians, ourselves and Ernie from Scarborough, Ontario, only a few hours drive from where we live. We were also the oldest of our group. We spent the first 24 hours comparing our teaching experiences and one-upping each other about the many difficult but interesting situations we’d faced. No one could beat our record of 750 students each a week, although Thomas (the Irishman) had bigger classes than we did - he had classes of 65 students! We talked and talked, glad to be speaking to other native English speakers.
The train stopped every few hours, and some stops were long enough for us to get out to stretch our legs, and stock up on water, fruit and food available from stalls on the platforms. The longest stop on this first leg of the trip was at the China/Mongolia border, where the entire train received new wheels for the different Mongolian track. This was a 5 hour job, and most of us got off, at about 8:00 pm, just as the sun was setting. As it grew darker, we could see forks of lightning in the distance, and soon light rain began to fall. Everyone moved to the train station to wait out the shower, returning to the outdoors as soon as we could - the station was hot, close and oppressive. Once back on the train, around 1:00 am, we had our passports checked by the Mongolian officials, and then, exhausted, we fell asleep fully clothed. We had no energy to undress, and felt more open to public scrutiny - remember the open doors - with our clothes on.
The next morning, before we arrived in UB, we walked the few cars forward to have a look at the Mongolian dining car, which had replaced the Chinese one at the Mongolian border. What a marvelously ornate decor - very intricately carved wooden screens and dividers which made an elegant atmosphere for meals on wheels. Unfortunately we were pulling into the station and therefore unable to have a meal there.
There were two spectacular sites on this first leg. A northern section of the Great Wall - Badaling – loomed above us through the ground fog a few hours north of BJ. A much-restored section, it was crowded with visitors at 9:00 am. We could see a crowd of yellow robed monks ascending a steep set of stairs in the distance, making a colourful accent to the grey-brown stone.
The second spectacular was the Gobi Desert, which we entered an hour before our stop at the Mongolian border. When we awoke the next morning, the desert was still with us, and remained so until we arrived in Ulaan Baatar at 1:30 that afternoon. The Gobi we saw was more green than brown, with standing water evidence of recent rain. Flat, marked with the occasional vehicle track and dotted with fenced in hamlets every 10 kms or so, the desert stretched to the horizon in every direction. Herds of camels, horses and sheep came and went by our window. People on motorcycles, bikes, in farm trucks or battered cars travelled near the hamlets we passed. Children waved as we went by. Twice we stopped at the train stations of small towns, where we got out for a walk along the platform. We’re sure these towns mark their days by the passing of trains like ours.
Just south of Ulaan Baatar we entered a mountainous region of velvet green hills rising from the plain where we were. Again, vast rolling hills all around us, accented by billowy white clouds in a bright blue sky. Ulaan Baatar sits in a shallow dish, with the suburbs rising on the hills to the northeast. The mountain to the west is sacred and in fact, a natural sanctuary of lush green and darker green pines. Buddhism is the major religion here, although shamanism is widely practised. Ulaan Baatar is home to 1M Mongolians; the other 1.5M Mongolians live in the vast wildernesses of the countryside.
After a city tour by bus with a guide, we travelled 50 kms south to a “ger” camp for the afternoon and overnight. A ger is a round, felt covered house, the traditional Mongolian nomad house. Another name for this structure is a yurt, a term more familiar to us. We had a ger to ourselves. We entered through a low (we both suffered bruises on our scalps from misgauging the height!) bright orange decorated door to an interior tastefully decorated in orange painted furniture - two single beds, table and stools, two arm chairs, a couple of cupboards, and several brightly decorated rugs on the floor. The ridgepoles leading to the hole in the middle of the roof were also painted orange and decorated with folk motifs. Very pleasant accommodation, indeed! Dinner was served in a central building with a large windowed bay giving us the long view across the steppes to the green mountains beyond. We could see several small ger communities and large herds of horses and cattle there. After dinner, we were given a lovely music concert by performers dressed in Mongolian costumes - singers, several musical instruments, and even a contortionist! They used a sand dune as their stage, and we sat on small stools below them, feeling the cool sand between our toes. That night, we were cool for the first time in months - we actually enjoyed the cotton comforters. We slept soundly, having had liberal pours of Scotch with newly made Australian friends, both teachers posted presently in Hong Kong.
The next morning we set out with our guide, for one of the nearby communities, encountering a couple of very hairy black yaks on the way. We visited a young Mom and Dad with their 4-month-old son. We were served fermented mare’s milk and supermarket cookies by way of a welcome. There we met a Japanese medical technician who was staying with this family for a week so that she could go horse riding, a mania among the Japanese, we were told. Along with our Australian friends, we then tackled one of the green hills, a steady half hour climb. At the top, we were greeted by 4 horses who had made the climb to reach the cool breezes …or perhaps to admire the panoramic view of the central Asian steppes, as we did!
We left after lunch for UB, where we transferred to a 5 star hotel in the centre of the city. We were a block from the large central square which is the site of the parliament buildings, opera house, museums, post office, and in the centre is a commemorative equestrian statue of Suhbaatar, the national hero of present day Mongolia. We easily negotiated stamps at the post office, dinner at a small bistro and an Internet connection at a local cafe (700 Mongolian Tugrits per hour- 1165 Tugrit s = 1 US$). The prices here are shocking when you look at the numbers, which are always in the thousands, even for the smallest items! Especially after China, where a 100 yuan note could buy a large variety of goods.
The next day was sight seeing in UB…the day entirely for ourselves. We began with great energy, enjoying our freedom from the confines of the train. However, as the day went on, we felt the intense heat pressing down on us, and the day got longer and longer. We were scheduled to connect with the next train around 9:00 pm, and we’d checked out of our hotel room at noon, leaving our luggage with the front desk. With no place to hang our hat, we were indeed on our own.
UB is a city which has seen better days. There are many beautiful buildings of classical grandeur, in red, cream, ochre and orange with tall white columned facades topped with huge Corinthian capitals in the downtown area -- theatres, post office, school of dance, opera house -- but all are showing signs of neglect. Clearly there have been past glories, but these lovely buildings seem not to be the priority of the present government. Parks are overgrown with weeds, the boulevards of the main streets are thick with more weeds. Sculptures are covered with graffiti, sidewalks are cracked, roads are potholed; public buses emit clouds of black exhaust. Creaking, dusty Ladas take off from stoplights, quickly overtaken by nifty Ford Expeditions, Toyota, Lexus, Kia and Jeep SUVs, many sporting the logos of tour agencies specializing in rugged Mongolian adventures in the Gobi and surrounding mountains.
We were joined in our quest for interesting sites by tourists of all nationalities, Europeans and Japanese predominating, but also many youthful pack packers, tanned, fair haired and oozing vitality and youth. We spent our day at the State Department Store (dowdy, overpriced merchandise), the Museum of Art (seriously dusty and without resources, although we enjoyed the genre paintings of a well-known Mongolian artist responsible for the renaissance of Mongolian art -- the Cyrillic alphabet defeated our attempts to put a name to this man!), the Museum of Natural History (stuffed birds losing feathers but dinosaurs from the Gobi Desert were a plus), the Museum of Mongolian History (tall stone markers from the desert resembling menhirs found in other early cultures; echoes of Chinese influence in sculpture, pots and costumes). The fact that we were able to visit all of these museums in a 6-hour period, as well as another trip to the post office, reflects the fact that there just isn’t enough to do here!
Vignettes:
-> On the sidewalk of the main street, a man or woman sitting on a chair beside a small table on which is a single telephone. People come by to rent the phone to make a call.
-> Also on the sidewalk a small boy standing in front of a bathroom scale. You can weigh yourself for a small price.
-> Both left hand and right hand drive cars, vans and trucks.
-> Ger camps set up in special compounds on the edge of the city. Perhaps the owners keep them here for winter life.
-> At the huge central square, which is surrounded by the opera house, theatre, government parliament and buildings, no people. After Tian An Men, we found this a great surprise!
So many Europeans that we felt at home, rather than standing out as we have for the past year!
About ten of us congregated back at the hotel during the late afternoon thunderstorm for our transfer to the next train, #263, boarding promptly at 9:00 pm, quickly settling in to our compartment. We were ready for the next leg of our trip, through the Mongolian countryside, across the border with Russia, and on to the city of Irkutsk, capital of eastern Siberia.
We were somewhat anxious on board because we knew this train didn’t have a dining car! ... More episodes of this journey to follow.
See photos related to this posting at the Yahoo Photo Album. (NB: Will open in a new browser window)
We first became interested in the Trans Siberian when we started to plan our return from our year’s teaching post in Huairou, Beijing, China. We liked the idea of traveling by train after all we are from Canada, a country with a railroad history which was instrumental in bringing far flung parts of the country together. Railways are the ties that bind not only in Canada, China and Mongolia, but in Russia too.
Our web search for information about travelling across Mongolia and Russia on the Trans Siberian led us to the only company which specializes in organizing such ventures – Monkey Business,(http://www.monkeyshrine.com) a name with its own story, which we’ll leave you to discover. Fortunately, one of their main offices was in Beijing, in the Sanlitun district, near the embassies and easy for us to get to. We contacted Chris by email and soon had piles of information. He made it sound so easy, like an everyday excursion. And with that initial contact, we determined to return to Canada by this route. The great thing about Monkey Business is that each traveler can arrange a personalized trip, depending on which options appeal. We found we could get off the train at several points, stay a few nights and explore a certain area, and then catch the next train and continue on. To travel non-stop from BJ to Moscow is a 7-day trip. With our many stopovers, our trip ran 20 days, with stops in Ulaan Baatar (2 days), Irkutsk/Lake Bailkal (2 days), Ekaterinburg (2 days), Moscow (4 days) and St. Petersburg (4 days). In terms of distance, we traveled 6734 kms from Beijing to Moscow. Add the 700+ kms to St. Petersburg and the flights from SP to Frankfurt and then on to Toronto - a staggering total of kms beyond our calculations. If you consider our 2003 trip from Canada to Beijing as the first lap, then you will discover, as we did, that we have made a global circuit. Wow!
Our 20-day trip began on July 17,2004 when 21 of us, all Monkey Business adherents, many with back packs, others with suitcases, traveled by bus to the always very busy Beijing Zhan (station), where we boarded our train and were underway sharply at 6:40 am. We had spent the previous night at the very fancy Zaolong (Dragon) Hotel, situated on the edge of the Chaoyang embassy district. A fitting final night in the city we had spent so much time exploring during our year in China. The day was hot.
The first reality check came when we realized that the train wasn’t air-conditioned - why ever did we think a Chinese train would be? Spoiled by the hotel, no doubt! Fortunately we had a very noisy fan which circulated the hot, humid, gritty air which lay over BJ and in fact, for the first 6 hours of our trip north. All train windows were open, with the hope that the air would be cooler and fresher as we moved north. The haziness did clear, but the temperatures remained hot, hot, hot.
We had first class accommodation on the train – a two-bunk compartment to ourselves. Others slept in 4 and 6 bunk compartments, bulging with people and luggage. No one closed their cabin doors -- we all needed the cross breeze which came from the open corridor windows on the opposite side of the train. When not walking from car to car, visiting with fellow travelers, or hanging out in the dining car, people sprawled on their bunks, catching up on sleep or reading, all of us enduring the heat.
We soon realized that all the Monkey Business travelers were in the same carriages, depending upon whether we were traveling first class (for us old guys) or not (for the many back packers among us). Many of our companions were native English speakers, teaching English in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and China. There were several Australians, two Americans, one Irishman, one Englishman and three Canadians, ourselves and Ernie from Scarborough, Ontario, only a few hours drive from where we live. We were also the oldest of our group. We spent the first 24 hours comparing our teaching experiences and one-upping each other about the many difficult but interesting situations we’d faced. No one could beat our record of 750 students each a week, although Thomas (the Irishman) had bigger classes than we did - he had classes of 65 students! We talked and talked, glad to be speaking to other native English speakers.
The train stopped every few hours, and some stops were long enough for us to get out to stretch our legs, and stock up on water, fruit and food available from stalls on the platforms. The longest stop on this first leg of the trip was at the China/Mongolia border, where the entire train received new wheels for the different Mongolian track. This was a 5 hour job, and most of us got off, at about 8:00 pm, just as the sun was setting. As it grew darker, we could see forks of lightning in the distance, and soon light rain began to fall. Everyone moved to the train station to wait out the shower, returning to the outdoors as soon as we could - the station was hot, close and oppressive. Once back on the train, around 1:00 am, we had our passports checked by the Mongolian officials, and then, exhausted, we fell asleep fully clothed. We had no energy to undress, and felt more open to public scrutiny - remember the open doors - with our clothes on.
The next morning, before we arrived in UB, we walked the few cars forward to have a look at the Mongolian dining car, which had replaced the Chinese one at the Mongolian border. What a marvelously ornate decor - very intricately carved wooden screens and dividers which made an elegant atmosphere for meals on wheels. Unfortunately we were pulling into the station and therefore unable to have a meal there.
There were two spectacular sites on this first leg. A northern section of the Great Wall - Badaling – loomed above us through the ground fog a few hours north of BJ. A much-restored section, it was crowded with visitors at 9:00 am. We could see a crowd of yellow robed monks ascending a steep set of stairs in the distance, making a colourful accent to the grey-brown stone.
The second spectacular was the Gobi Desert, which we entered an hour before our stop at the Mongolian border. When we awoke the next morning, the desert was still with us, and remained so until we arrived in Ulaan Baatar at 1:30 that afternoon. The Gobi we saw was more green than brown, with standing water evidence of recent rain. Flat, marked with the occasional vehicle track and dotted with fenced in hamlets every 10 kms or so, the desert stretched to the horizon in every direction. Herds of camels, horses and sheep came and went by our window. People on motorcycles, bikes, in farm trucks or battered cars travelled near the hamlets we passed. Children waved as we went by. Twice we stopped at the train stations of small towns, where we got out for a walk along the platform. We’re sure these towns mark their days by the passing of trains like ours.
Just south of Ulaan Baatar we entered a mountainous region of velvet green hills rising from the plain where we were. Again, vast rolling hills all around us, accented by billowy white clouds in a bright blue sky. Ulaan Baatar sits in a shallow dish, with the suburbs rising on the hills to the northeast. The mountain to the west is sacred and in fact, a natural sanctuary of lush green and darker green pines. Buddhism is the major religion here, although shamanism is widely practised. Ulaan Baatar is home to 1M Mongolians; the other 1.5M Mongolians live in the vast wildernesses of the countryside.
After a city tour by bus with a guide, we travelled 50 kms south to a “ger” camp for the afternoon and overnight. A ger is a round, felt covered house, the traditional Mongolian nomad house. Another name for this structure is a yurt, a term more familiar to us. We had a ger to ourselves. We entered through a low (we both suffered bruises on our scalps from misgauging the height!) bright orange decorated door to an interior tastefully decorated in orange painted furniture - two single beds, table and stools, two arm chairs, a couple of cupboards, and several brightly decorated rugs on the floor. The ridgepoles leading to the hole in the middle of the roof were also painted orange and decorated with folk motifs. Very pleasant accommodation, indeed! Dinner was served in a central building with a large windowed bay giving us the long view across the steppes to the green mountains beyond. We could see several small ger communities and large herds of horses and cattle there. After dinner, we were given a lovely music concert by performers dressed in Mongolian costumes - singers, several musical instruments, and even a contortionist! They used a sand dune as their stage, and we sat on small stools below them, feeling the cool sand between our toes. That night, we were cool for the first time in months - we actually enjoyed the cotton comforters. We slept soundly, having had liberal pours of Scotch with newly made Australian friends, both teachers posted presently in Hong Kong.
The next morning we set out with our guide, for one of the nearby communities, encountering a couple of very hairy black yaks on the way. We visited a young Mom and Dad with their 4-month-old son. We were served fermented mare’s milk and supermarket cookies by way of a welcome. There we met a Japanese medical technician who was staying with this family for a week so that she could go horse riding, a mania among the Japanese, we were told. Along with our Australian friends, we then tackled one of the green hills, a steady half hour climb. At the top, we were greeted by 4 horses who had made the climb to reach the cool breezes …or perhaps to admire the panoramic view of the central Asian steppes, as we did!
We left after lunch for UB, where we transferred to a 5 star hotel in the centre of the city. We were a block from the large central square which is the site of the parliament buildings, opera house, museums, post office, and in the centre is a commemorative equestrian statue of Suhbaatar, the national hero of present day Mongolia. We easily negotiated stamps at the post office, dinner at a small bistro and an Internet connection at a local cafe (700 Mongolian Tugrits per hour- 1165 Tugrit s = 1 US$). The prices here are shocking when you look at the numbers, which are always in the thousands, even for the smallest items! Especially after China, where a 100 yuan note could buy a large variety of goods.
The next day was sight seeing in UB…the day entirely for ourselves. We began with great energy, enjoying our freedom from the confines of the train. However, as the day went on, we felt the intense heat pressing down on us, and the day got longer and longer. We were scheduled to connect with the next train around 9:00 pm, and we’d checked out of our hotel room at noon, leaving our luggage with the front desk. With no place to hang our hat, we were indeed on our own.
UB is a city which has seen better days. There are many beautiful buildings of classical grandeur, in red, cream, ochre and orange with tall white columned facades topped with huge Corinthian capitals in the downtown area -- theatres, post office, school of dance, opera house -- but all are showing signs of neglect. Clearly there have been past glories, but these lovely buildings seem not to be the priority of the present government. Parks are overgrown with weeds, the boulevards of the main streets are thick with more weeds. Sculptures are covered with graffiti, sidewalks are cracked, roads are potholed; public buses emit clouds of black exhaust. Creaking, dusty Ladas take off from stoplights, quickly overtaken by nifty Ford Expeditions, Toyota, Lexus, Kia and Jeep SUVs, many sporting the logos of tour agencies specializing in rugged Mongolian adventures in the Gobi and surrounding mountains.
We were joined in our quest for interesting sites by tourists of all nationalities, Europeans and Japanese predominating, but also many youthful pack packers, tanned, fair haired and oozing vitality and youth. We spent our day at the State Department Store (dowdy, overpriced merchandise), the Museum of Art (seriously dusty and without resources, although we enjoyed the genre paintings of a well-known Mongolian artist responsible for the renaissance of Mongolian art -- the Cyrillic alphabet defeated our attempts to put a name to this man!), the Museum of Natural History (stuffed birds losing feathers but dinosaurs from the Gobi Desert were a plus), the Museum of Mongolian History (tall stone markers from the desert resembling menhirs found in other early cultures; echoes of Chinese influence in sculpture, pots and costumes). The fact that we were able to visit all of these museums in a 6-hour period, as well as another trip to the post office, reflects the fact that there just isn’t enough to do here!
Vignettes:
-> On the sidewalk of the main street, a man or woman sitting on a chair beside a small table on which is a single telephone. People come by to rent the phone to make a call.
-> Also on the sidewalk a small boy standing in front of a bathroom scale. You can weigh yourself for a small price.
-> Both left hand and right hand drive cars, vans and trucks.
-> Ger camps set up in special compounds on the edge of the city. Perhaps the owners keep them here for winter life.
-> At the huge central square, which is surrounded by the opera house, theatre, government parliament and buildings, no people. After Tian An Men, we found this a great surprise!
So many Europeans that we felt at home, rather than standing out as we have for the past year!
About ten of us congregated back at the hotel during the late afternoon thunderstorm for our transfer to the next train, #263, boarding promptly at 9:00 pm, quickly settling in to our compartment. We were ready for the next leg of our trip, through the Mongolian countryside, across the border with Russia, and on to the city of Irkutsk, capital of eastern Siberia.
We were somewhat anxious on board because we knew this train didn’t have a dining car! ... More episodes of this journey to follow.
All text and photography © copyright Harkaway, 2003 - 2004
