There must be something invisible about this blog that indicates that I can read a second language, because I’ve just deleted over 160 spam entries all in Italian. Good thing I don’t know too many of the naughty words!
There must be something invisible about this blog that indicates that I can read a second language, because I’ve just deleted over 160 spam entries all in Italian. Good thing I don’t know too many of the naughty words!
Things I missed:
Family, friends & chocolate …
Tea (hadn’t realised this until I consumed gallons of it Saturday and Sunday whilst enjoying my last days on holiday at home)
Flushing my loo paper …
Driving (hadn’t realised this until the drive home from work on Monday evening)
Slippers …
Things I didn’t miss:
Radio ads about e r e c t i l e d i s f u n c t i o n …
Television invading more hours of my life than pleases me …
Domestic duties, like dishes and washing …
We’re home!
And glad to be home, as well…
My mind had started to prepare itself for home when we were in Xi’an (after I’d successfully crossed “See the terracotta warriors” off my life’s to-do list), and from that state of mind, I was ready to be coming home more than I was sad that my holiday was ending …
After arriving back in Beijing after our short stay in Xi’an, we paid another visit to the Yashow markets. I haven’t really mentioned specifics of our previous two trips to the markets (when we were in Beijing the first and second times, before and after Mongolia…), but let me just say that anything you want you can get at these markets (Yashow has five floors of stuff, the main Silk street market has seven!). Mind you, whatever you buy, it’ll be a fake … ‘Nike’ and ‘Adidas’ are at least spelt correctly on the shoes that I’ve purchased! (But the jacket “Made in Canada” was a source of amusement between myself and the girl that I bought it from!)
Just because I sensed that there would be a smidge more room in my bag than was actually sensible to carry home, I bought a few more bits and pieces - souvineers and treats for friends, and the tea set that I had long ago decided to buy for myself, in China rather than in Chinatown (the easier option), and carry home as carry-on luggage on the plane. I thought, at first, that I actually was far too indecisive to actually buy the tea set (so many options to choose from!), but then looked up on to a high shelf and spied the one for me. A black design with pale green and yellw and white oriental-style flowers. A large tea pot and 6 Chinese tea cups (ie. no handles). I had considered buying the type of set as used in the tea houses (a small jar on a saucer with a lid, which the tea is placed into, and a small jug, which the strained tea is poured into, and 6 miniscule cups … but I decided I’d use it far less than the sort I have actually bought. Maybe I’ll get my hands on a digital camera and post a photo for interested people … maybe.) It was a bit of a pain in the bum to carry - from the market back to the hostel (in a cab); from the hostel to the airport bus whilst weighed down with large pack/small pack/camera bag/handbag/bike helmet; after check-in around the airport at Beijing; when doing the quick dash between gates at Singapore (more on the reason for the quick dash momentarily); and from landing to the point of collecting a luggage trolley when we arrived in Melbourne; oh, and from the car to the house when we got home. The air hostesses were also really helpful about stowing it in the overhead lockers for me, so overall, it was no hassle at all and I happily have my tea set from China. Now I just have to buy some Chinese tea (I quite like Oolong tea) and invite people over to have tea with me. Otherwise, it will live in the box under my bed because I am not putting it out for general use in a shared house when I went to such effort to purchase it. The other best bit? That I bargained the sales assistant down from something close to $AUD100, to approx $AUD18 (and probably could have gone lower if I’d had more energy to stick at my original price, which was closer to $AUD10), and swapped the cups around from this set and another so that none of them have any noticable imperfections.
We left the markets at about quarter to six, and the taxi driver seemed unimpressed that we wanted to go near Beijing train station in the peak of peak hour. Still, we were a fare and he seemed to indicate that he’d charge us three times the regular rate because of the inconvenience before we’d comprehended it. Anyway, he didn’t drop us off at the door, and because we had to walk a decent distance still to get to the hostel from where he dropped us, Leanne only handed over two thirds of what he requested. He seemed to snatch it up without hesitation, so maybe we should have been less generous … still, we figured it was the only way to get back to the hostel, and that it was still less than the equivalent to$AUD10 …
We freshened up and headed out to meet our Irish travelling companions, P.J. and Leighann, for dinner on what was both theirs and our last night in China. We took what little information we had, a match book from their hotel, to the taxi rank and asked drivers if they knew where it was. Half a dozen shook their heads in response to our pointing at the match book, and we went back into the hostel in the hope that staff in there might know where the Park Plaza was located. We asked the girl who had helped us with our domestic flights to Guilin and Xi’an, and she googled the hotel for us. After watching her click here and there for a minute or two, we then realised that she had found the hotel chain’s site, and I asked if I could take a look, as the site was in English and she didn’t seem confident on using it to get the address. A few clicks and type “Beijing” and, voila!, we have the address. The reason the cab drivers were shaking their head? Because it was within walking distance of our hotel! The girl gave us directions and we set off to 97 Wanfujing jie [street], which we knew of because we had wandered down part of it on the first or second night in China when we had visited the night markets and food stalls (when one girl had eaten crickets off a stick, and we’d paid too much for Haagen Daaz ice-cream…). We walked confidently for a while, and then even more confidently when we saw #99. Then, we became confused because the hotel we walked up to was not the Park Plaza and was not #97. It was another hotel and something closer to #56 or something … We asked the door staff if they knew where the Park Plaza was located (once again by employing the pointing method) and they directed us back down the street on the other side of the road. We hadn’t noticed passing anything that looked like the Park Plaza, but set off in the direction advised… Our hopes were sinking as we walked further, and then we were approached by a Chinese guy who said that he and his sister were learning English, and would we like to talk. My reply was that we were in a rush, but Leanne intelligently asked him if he knew the whereabouts of this hotel that we were trying to find because we were meeting our friends there for dinner. Extra-fortunately, the girl at the hostel had written additional information in Chinese on the paper, and this guy noticed that it said the Chinese words for “Lee Garden” in Chinese script. Lee Garden is a street off Wanfujing street, and he directed us to another hotel called “The Peninsula” [I stifled a juvenile giggle at hearing a Chinese person trying to say peninsula], a large red building. We wandered down this street, by now about 40 minutes late, and saw a red building in the distance. When we were opposite The Peninsula we could see no Park Plaza hotel. We kept walking, silently and briskly, with no idea of whether we were going in the right direction or not, only knowing that we were heading in the direction of our own hostel, and spying a building with blue lights on a corner ahead of us (the logo of the Park Plaza being blue…). We were disappointed when we realised that it was a large, new, unfinished hotel called the Regent. I think I asked Leanne if she thought it was further down the street, and her reply was that she didn’t know, but that this was the direction back to the hostel. I think at that point I officially gave up on the idea that we would find P.J. and Leighann and have drinks and dinner with them on our last night in Beijing. We took a few more steps in that direction and I glanced up at the driveway next to the soon-to-be-opened Regent. “There it is! Park Plaza!” It was situated off the street, slightly behind the new Regent building and the building on the other side of it. We walked into the foyer with smiles on our faces, to be greeted by the equally smily faces of Leighann and P.J. and the instant offer of a glass of wine. We later laughed about the fact that it had taken us an hour and a half to find them, and that we had only found them once we’d actually given up on finding them. Obviously, along with the strange coincidence of each pair having the same names, another sign that we were meant to meet them and spend time with them on this holiday!
We drank some lovely sauvignon blanc and chatted a bit, before deciding upon the restaurant at The Peninsula based upon the recommendations of the staff at the Park Plaza and the blurb in the Lonely Planet. We sat down to divine Chinese food and more great wine, in beautiful and surreal surroundings. We could have been in a restaurant in any large city, rather than knowing for sure that we were in Beijing. The food was exquisite and quite “exy” [expensive] at Chinese standards. That is, a noodle dish in a local restaurant might be 5 or 7 yuan per serve, but here it was 45 or 50 yuan… The toilets were some of the nicest I’ve been to, and the whole meal, company and wine also factored, was certainly in the top ten in my life. We took a few photos on Leighann’s camera (both Leanne and I had left ours at the hostel in our haste to meet the others after our market spree), and I’m looking forward to the email with them attached. We finished the evening with a couple more bottles of good sauvignon blanc upstairs at the Peninsula’s bar (not before checking out, yet declining, the downstairs private karaoke rooms!). Meeting Leighann and P.J. in Yangshuo and clicking with them as we did was certainly a highlight of the trip. They are lovely and generous people, with great stories to tell about travel and life in general. I really enjoyed their company when we were riding around Yangshuo, and rafting along the Yu Long, and dining and drinking to excess, and believe that their offer of hospitality, should we ever find ourselves in Dublin, is a sincere one.
The last morning in Beijing was a sunny one, so after packing (a.k.a. cramming all the crap I’d purchased into my bags) I wandered for a bit and took a few photos of the mammoth buildings and other things that caught my eye. We weighted up for the walk to the airport shuttle (with the hiking pack on my back, and the extra backpack purchased on my front, I think I was four times my usual width!) and I made it only by the thought that it was the only time we would be required to actually carry all of our stuff at once (because once at the airport we would grab a trolley first thing). The ride to the airport was without incident or excitement, as was checking-in with over-weight luggage … However, as per my previous experiences on last day in a country (ie. the story of my Dad’s camera and passport being stolen in our last hours in London!), it was not to be completely without event or disruption …
After we’d spent the last of our yuan (Leanne bought Pringles; I had enough to buy chewing gum…!) we went to the toilet on land once more before being in the air and then returned to the gate area to hear an annoucement that our gate was being changed. We went to the new gate - downstairs in an area where, clearly, passengers wait for the shuttle buses to get to the planes that are waiting a greater distance from the terminal. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 4pm. At 4pm we were still sitting in the terminal, I think… When we finally boarded the plane shortly after that, we continued to sit there for another two and a half hours while the pilot waited for word from the control tower that there was space for us to take off… The wait was made more pleasant by the cabin staff providing refreshment in the form of ‘Singapore Sling’ cocktails (or other beverages of passengers’ choice) and we had more than just one at the encouragement of the passenger sitting next to Leanne, who is a seasoned traveller who knows what he wants in service from the airline and always ensures that he gets it. He has priority seating rights and I got the impression that he would rather be in business or first class and begrudges his company for only paying for him to fly economy… He was nice, but a bit of a flying snob really (and was slightly amused by our awe at the different location of the tray table and the television screen, because we were in the first row behind business class and had never been seated there before. He was also amused when I shared that this was only my second international trip…) There was momentary worry on my part, and more prolonged worry on Leanne’s part, about the connecting flight to Melbourne in Singapore, as we knew that we only had a one and a half hour stop-over (which we had planned to fill with buying perfume and alcomohol), which had just been eroded, plus some! Fortunately, Singapore Airlines will wait for a delayed Singapore Airlines flight, and when we finally exited the plane at just after midnight, we were quickly directed the the gate of our waiting connecting flight. The flight to Melbourne that was originally scheduled to depart at 23:40, took off from Singapore at sometime around 1am. Our arrival into Melbourne was only approx 30 minutes later than the originally scheduled landing time. We had no hassles coming through immigration or customs (Customs official: “How are you today?”, me: “Glad to be home!”) and wonderful Lizzy was the smiling face waiting for us as we pushed our carts out into the throng of people waiting for family and friends (and the people holding up signs for people unknown to them). My thoughts at that time were relief at being home to the tune of Ani Difranco’s song, the arrivals gate:
gonna go out to the arrivals gate at the airport and sit there all day watch people reuniting public affection is so exciting it even makes airports ok watching children run with their arms outstretched just to throw those arms around their grandpas’ necks watching lovers plant kisses old men to their misses at the arrivals gate
watching a mother with a mother’s smile don’t tell me to move i just wanna sit here for a while i have determined it’s a sure cure for cancer watching excitment turn family dogs into dancers
at the arrivals gate i got me a white bread sandwich with some shredded lettuce and i got me a ringside view for my quaint little fetish i just wanna drain my little pink heart of all its malice and kick back for the afternoon in this flourescent palace everybody’s in a hurry here in purgatory except for me i’m where i need to be at the arrivals gate …
Ahhh … home!
This is quite a surreal experience … writing from an internet cafe/gaming place in Xi’an. There are just rows and rows and rows of computers with red armchairs, loads of neon lights and far too much stale cigarette smoke - and the fresh second-hand smoke wafting over from the computer opposite me, mixed with the slight scent of stale sweat and urine - ick! Best not to focus on it …
Today we went to one of the places that had been top of my list of things to do in China - the terracotta army of Qin Shihuang, the first Emperor of China. These were built in something like 200BC (it’s hot and my brain is much and it was earlier this morning that we saw them, so apologies for incorrect dates. I’ll check it all when I get home and write a much more in-depth account of the whole trip…) and discovered by farmers digging a well in 197…4? It first opened as a museum in 1979, and is now a UNESCO World heritage site and they (maybe just the Chinese ..?) call it the eighth wonder of the world.
Rather than do the typical thing of joining an organised tour from our hostel or one of the local hotels, we were confident with advice given by people we’d met in Yangshuo that we’d be able to travel there by public bus by ourselves. We invited our new friend Angelique, the young Canadian girl we’d met on the way to the hostel and had dinner with last night, to join us, and set off at 7:30am after advice that the best time to arrive was first thing when the gates opened so as to avoid the crowds of tour groups with their bright yellow and orange “Here I am; Follow me” leaders’ flags. We had to catch the #611 to the train station, and then the #306 to the warriors. We caught the #611 no trouble, and then had only momentary confusion with the #306, because tour operators set up signs near the stop and we weren’t entirely sure which bus to get on at first. By travelling by public bus, we were trying to avoid being ripped off again like we were when we travelled from Guilin to Yangshuo and subsidised the fares of the locals by paying double the price they did …
The bus stopped at what we thought was the place to get off, but a quick scan of the “Price list of Xi’an tourist attractions” led me to dash back on the bus and ask “Terracotta?” while pointing outside, to which the bus ticket girl shook her head. The doors closed to me saying “My friends!!” because Leanne & Angelique were still standing near the ticket booth of whatever pagoda or temple the bus had stopped at. Fortunately, there is no scary story of the bus driving off with me on my own destined for who knows where to tell - the bus doors opened and I yelled to the others to jump on and we continued to the terracotta warriors (unmistakable because of the large replica warrior in the car park!).
We’d be advised to take the shuttle bus from the gate to the buildings, but when we learned that it was a choice of walking a kilometre or paying 5 yuan, we happily walked. The Chinese seem to avoid walking in such circumstances, and every opportunity for someone else to make a few yuan by a shuttle bus service is seized by them. In fact, every opportunity for another job to be created in seized by them. Understandable really when there are so many of them! We chose not to hire a local guide to show us around - partly because we had already learned that it is easy enought to get around yourself because signs are in Chinese and English, but partly also because we have had enough of listening to guides droning on and on for this trip.
We went into pit hall #1 first, which is the one that is familiar from seeing it on travel shows etc. It really is quite a sight to behold - thousands of warriors (with different faces and poses and armour and hand positions) lined up ready for battle. There is a lot of the pit still to be excavated, and pit three (of three) is still largely to be excavated as well. Pit two is smaller, and the building darker, and it has been damaged or destroyed deliberately at some point in history, and only a couple of hundred warriors and horses have been found there (compared to 2,000 of an estimated 6,000 in pit one … I think… from memory.) Flash photography was not allowed in any of the pits, so I have crossed my fingers and said a prayer that I adjusted the exposure on my camera correctly (I also chastised myself for having become so lazy with it; always having it on auto and becoming forgetful of how to use it properly …) I took a whole roll - which may not seem like much to some, and may seem like heaps to others - mostly in pit #1 because the light was best in there …
One of the interesting parts of pit #1 was the jigsaw puzzle of warriors parts assembled at one end of the hall. It is still a working archaeological dig site (and will be for quite some time to come), and you could see where they lay out the different parts of broken warriors and try to reassemble them. One of the other remarkable things that we learned is that the warriors and horses were all once brightly coloured - now they are just the terracotta colour (although, it is not the orange terracotta that we know).
We were able to more through the halls before the masses of crowds were arriving in the middle of the day, which is when we were leaving. The bus ride back to Xi’an city took about an hour, and then we had lunch at a local cafe - using the pointing at food method of ordering! It was tasty, and meat free (I have had a few episodes of mistakenly buying buns and pastries with meat in them. They put pork in everything…)
The three of us are all currently on the internet, and will soon return outside into the sweltering heat (where the sun is covered behind the haze of cloud and smog) to wander Xi’an a bit more. Riding bicycles around on top of the old city walls was an activity recommended to us by other travellers, but it may still be too uncomfortably hot for such energy use …
Leanne and I fly to Beijing tomorrow morning, and plan to pay another visit to the silk markets before meeting our Irish travelling pals, PJ and Leighann, for dinner (meeting at their fancy hotel, the Park Plaza) to celebrate both theirs and our last night in Beijing. Our flight back to Australia leaves Friday afternoon, so we have only three more sleeps before we’ll be touching down in Melbourne.
The trip has been amazing, but I am starting to be quite ready to return home … I’m looking forward to seeing all my loved ones again and being surrounded by my creature comforts. However, that being said, I must remember to make the most of it all while I am still in China and soak up as much of the atmosphere as I can, rather than stepping into “going home” mode too soon.
… I’ve asked my blogmaster extraordinaire to fix the problem that I have just noticed about the inability to post comments… If you want to comment & can’t, please email me your comment (missfishytrish at that common email address that isn’t gmail or yahoo…) and I’ll stick it in later as a comment … Because my ego would love more emails telling me how much you miss me in my last days of being in China, of course!
We started with breakfast in the guest house and then separated to spend the morning and early afternoon doing our own thing … I wandered down by the river, along many market stalls which were just starting to set up for the day. It was interesting to see the hustle and bustle of the stall holders arranging their wares. I wandered further along past where the stalls ended, and enjoyed the scenery for a bit (minus the rubbish washed into clumps by the downpour from the higher ground) and was passed by a guy on a bike who shouted “Hello! Welcome to China! I hope you enjoy your stay!”, which was quite amusing … I later found myself a small cafe to escape from the rain, and sat in there for a few hours catching up on writing in my travel journal (which is still behind, and from which I will probably draw inspiration to write posts once we’ve returned home). I waited for a long time for the “garden burger” that I ordered, but it was sooooo fresh and tasty that I didn’t mind …
Weather is an issue at the moment - we learned last night that, apparently, we’re right on the cusp of a tropical storm in Southern China (it has a name even, but I don’t know what it is…) and the past two days in Yangshuo have been very wet. Yesterday was wetter than the day before. Fortunately, we’d chosen the dryer day to ride bikes with Peggy and take a bamboo river cruise, as yesterday or today would see us washed down the river on those bamboo rafts!
We are continuing to eat and drink well … always seems to be a reason to have another drink (eg. someone’s first night here, their last night here, etc…). We went to a Chinese cooking school last night, where we learned how to do stir-fried eggplant, stuffed mushrooms/tofu puffs/pumpkin flowers, chicken and cashew nut (although I cooked lotus root and cashew nut for the vegetarian option), and garlic water spinach. It was really enjoyable, and we learned some things that seem basic, but which are really helpful, especially with regard to when to add garlic and ginger etc., and how to keep the flavours simple and tasty. I think we tend to try to put too many different vegies and flavours into our cooking at home. There will definitely be some Chinese banquet dinner invitations in the coming months! (Though I can’t guarantee any dish that is a deviation from the menu learned yesterday!)
Tomorrow we fly to Xi’an, which is where the terracotta warriors are. We’ve met a number of people who’ve already been there, so have the low-down on what time to go and what else to see in town, which is handy to have in addition to the Lonely Planet (because sometimes the LP can be completely off the mark).
Go to Leanne’s travel blog: http://www.getjealous.com/clarklm
I’m using the guest house free internet [thoroughly recommend Bamboo House to anyone who plans to travel to Yangshou!] after a day where the humidity has absolutely tired me out… This may be slightly vague and incomprehensible in parts, and I apologise in advance for anything missing from my story-telling … It is really hard to remember everything and to capture the experience in a way that does it justice. And I’m typing quickly and my brain goes at a thousand miles a minute with things to write, so it is a bit tricky …
Yesterday afternoon we arrived in Yangshou after a flight from Beijing to Guilin. Our group trip had ended the day before (the last day that I blogged), and our last night in Beijing was spent having dinner with two other girls (sisters) who have also extended their trip and our off-duty Intrepid tour guide, Eric and a friend of his. We had Hong Kong style cuisine, and finished the evening with cheap cocktails and 12-for-the-price-of-10 tequila shots… Our last night in Beijing was a drinking one (whoops!).
The flight to Guilin was very turbulent, but not so much that it was uncomfortable or alarming. It was certainly odd to no longer be travelling as a group, and to have to find the airport shuttle bus etc. ourselves. When we arrived in Guilin city, we must have had the look of Western tourists travelling to Yangshou, because we had “Yangshou bus” shouted at us and didn’t have to work hard to find our next form of transport at all. The bus is a funny experience - as it drives out of town, the ticket woman calls out “Yangshou bus” in Chinese to people standing on the street. The bus stops when necessary, and eventually is full before leaving town. We noted that the price of our tickets subsidised those of the locals, because we paid 20 yuan to their 10 yuan. Still, 20 yuan equates to $AUD3.40, so their scamming of us didn’t break the bank.
When we arrived in Yangshou we invited two other travellers to join us in finding this guest house recommended to us. In a weird twist of the universe, they are father and daughter from Ireland called P.J. (Patrick Joseph) and Leighann. We’ve become a group of four - P.J., P.J., Leighann and Leanne! We went out to dinner last night together, and ended the night at the bar owned by our Intrepid-contracted tour leader Scott. Scott owns a bar in Yangshou called ‘Bar 98″ and we were told by both he and Eric when we were in Mongolia that we had to pay it a visit.
Today the four of us hired a local guide called Peggy and jumped on bikes to ride around the local area. Peggy’s English is pretty good, even if at times you really have to concentrate on what she is saying because she changes topic quickly. We rode what she said was 30kms, but which was probably only 10kms with a bamboo raft trip down the Yu Lang river to break it. It is still very humid and the rain is coming down outside. I suppose that might mean that the mossies are kept away?!
We’re meeting our travelling friends for dinner again tonight, and will probably doa boat cruise on the Li river tomorrow, followed by the cooking school also recommended to us by our Intrepid guides. It is run by an Aussie ex-pat named Pam, and we’re being collected at 3:20pm to go to the market and then to a farm out of town to learn to cook our Chinese dinner. I’m looking forward to it, and may have to invite people over to try what I learn when we return to Australia.
Yangshou is quite Westernised, and also seems to be a favourite holiday destination for young Chinese people. Their are so many beautiful things in the shops and market stalls that I really don’t need, and I willdo my best to resist the urge to buy too much of it, as my large pack is currently back in Beijing already full of souvineers (and smelly cycling clothes!). There is only so many backpacks a girl can manage to carry on her body, and if I buy anything more I’ll have to get a wheelie suitcase … It’s all fake crap really - “KNIE” shoes have been a personal favourite, spotted earlier today.
Time to go and rest up before dinner … keep the emails and the comments coming - I love it and will be checking email far more frequently in the next week before we return home.
Sorry for the lack of contact … Here’s a quick update so far in the limited internet time I have remaining. Thanks to those who have emailed to my hotmail address - sorry for not personally replying to all of you, but I figure this is a better, more efficient use of time.
Highlights aplenty … where to start …?
Culture shock when arriving at Beijing was high. Exhausted after the mammoth flights (though not so mammoth as flying to the UK), and strange to meet the rest of the group whilst smelly and bleary-eyed. Our tour guide, Eric from Canada, was perky and had a spring in his step - we later learned that he was exhausted and summoned all his energy to greet the group. The 40min bus ride into smoggy Beijing was interesting, and the first shower in the hotel very welcome. We hit the groundf running and went to a project called “Beijing Huiling” which is a kind of shelter for mentally handicapped youth. We also had a tour of the old Hutongs (streets) of Beijing on rickshaws. Leanne & I gave the man who pedalled ours a big tip because we were a bit heavier when combined in the back of his bike. Tian’anmen square and the Forbidden city - very interesting and mind-blowing to stand in the square and look at the picture of Mao that I have seen so much of when studying the Chinese Revolution etc.
The next day was a bus ride to the section of the Great Wall of China that we would climb. An interesting bus ride. The Great Wall walk was exhausting - temperature was over 40 degrees! I had a little woman called Shiao Hung follow me and help me in difficult parts - the expectation is that then the tourist will purchase a souvineer from the local. I purchased my China postcards from her (the other items, like a Great Wall book, were too large to carry). Trippy moment: when our tour guide got a sattelite call on the Great Wall. Also, a woman standing in the middle of peak hour traffic selling newspapers.
We went to the evening markets, and one of the girls in our group ate the crickets and scorpions on kebab sticks. It was a absolute sensory experience - so many colours and smells and sounds. Our first experience of the pushy market sellers and an introduction to bargaining… Had VERY expensive Haagen Daaz icecream on the way back to the hotel - green tea flavoured, but equivalent to $AUD9.
We had an exhausting trip from Beijing to Ulaan Bataar - over 40 hours in transit with many delays and laughable moments … Getting off the hard sleeper train (three bunks high) in a town that I still don’t know the name of at about 4am… getting onto a mini bus and driving to the border town of Erlian Hot with a bus driver who couldn’t seem to find any diesel to his liking (we kept driving in and out of petrol stations perplexingly). We had one attempt at crossing the China-Mongolia border, but that failed because of the driver’s nationality. We then had a big delay as our leaders made attempts to get a bus and driver that could take us all the way across the border into Mongolia to the train station. It was absolute chaos of cars and people and crazy runs to the border control lines and learning about how Chinese and Mongolians queue (they don’t!) and learning to stand our guard in lines so as not to loose our spots… very hillarious when I think back on it! For a moment as we missed our train to UB whilst still standing in the passport line, we thought we’d be stranded for a night, but our local guide was quick thinking and had pre-empted a need for tickets for the later train. Overnight trains exhausting, but definitely a memorable experience… A highlight: playing hacky-sack and soccer with local boys and men in the main square of the Mongolian town where we waited for the train. Who needs a common language when kicking a ball is involved?!
Didn’t see much of the Gobi desert - it was night - but we did get to see the beautiful Mongolian landscape as we approached UB. Mongolia is AMAZING!!! Vast, complex, quirky, beautiful … So many memories! Unreliable russian vans across hundreds of kms - drivers who stop unpredictably for ‘arag’ (fermented mare’s milk) at remote gers and run over big rocks in the road and can them re-attach the muffler with bits of string! I got to go into a ger on two separate occassions, trying ‘arag’ and the dried curd, and also donning a ‘del’ (traditional Mongolian dress). All very authentically, as these were not planned stops. The Mongolian people are very friendly and hospitable, and we had a local guide with us to do some translating on our first ger visit. On our second ger visit we managed alone (group of about 6 of us) and perservered beyond the language problem.
By the time we got the the bikes we were all itching to ride… And I did it! I rode over 320kms of the group total of about 350kms. Only missed 33kms due to injury - I fell of in the first hour and my knees are now technicolour. The second time I fell, I slightly twisted my ankle. I gained so much confidence, and am now somewhat of a mountain-biker! Highlights: conquering the bloody rocks (kms and kms of them!), getting to the point where I could do the hills without stopping, and riding alongside a herd of wild gallopping horse in the lead of the group singing U2 (song pertinent to the moment …) to myself! Had to pinch myself many times to remember that it wasn’t a dream. It already seems so long ago … No major injuries or problems in the group, and we all had a great time. I confided my MS to people as appropriate, and will write more about that when I return home and can reflect and do it justice.
Our group, in typical Aussie style, has renamed Mongolia “Mongers”, and our local guide Masha became knick-named “Marcia Hines” by one of the group. He’s now suitably versed on Aussie slang, and says “No worries” in response to things.
I think my time is up, so I’ll click post …
… we’ll be in the air, en route to Beijing via Singapore! How exciting!
I can’t believe that the time is so close; the trip finally so real; the adventure just ahead of us … It is a little bit surreal, a little bit twilight-zone and a little bit stressful, but mostly is a whole lot of excitement!
Last big training ride today: from our house in Fairfield over to Brimbank Park in Keilor. A 56km round trip (we came back a quicker way). Not too shabby a distance, and we rode under the Western Ring Road! Though, today was supposed to be the second day in back-to-back 70km rides, and that didn’t happen …
I rode to work yesterday after being stood up by a riding companion, did a bit of work and rode home = just short of 20kms. I’ll ride to work tomorrow = just short of 20kms. That plus today’s effort will have me the closest to the 100km mark in three days’ riding that I’ve ever been. I’m a bit disappointed that the back-to-back 70km rides didn’t happen, but, let’s face it, I’d probably be absolutely cactus right now and not able to write a post if I had ridden them!
In the next week, I will try to upload the detailed itinerary here for people to read, and also perhaps get rid of the map of Sri Lanka that has been lingering on another page since the time when that trip got cancelled … We’ll also be trying to post herer while we’re away - even if only once! [UPDATE: Itinerary done (see “What this all about then?” link on right). Map deleted. Map of Mongolia causing trouble … stay tuned]