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Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia
Exit one poor nation with angry cold people; enter a poorer nation with beautiful happy people. Ulaan Baatar is a post communist city with many similarities to Moscow: Sukhbataar Square just like Red Square, Sukhbataar’s tomb (Sukhbataar lead the revolt from China in the 1920’s with Russia’s help) just like Lenin’s tomb and large monolithic communist era buildings everywhere. However the Chinese and Buddhist influences have left many Chinese-styled pagodas and temples all around town.

From the train we immediately went out to our ger camp in the Terelj National Park, exchanging the dusty concrete city for the rolling green hills and mountains. My words can’t begin to improve the pictures of the countryside, so I’ll just give the link.

We rode horses in the mountains for two days and imagined what it was like to be a real cowboy back in the Wild West. Mongolians are notoriously excellent horsemen, learning to ride at three or four years. Their national festival (The Nadaam Fesitval) features these little tykes (closer to eight years old now) racing over a course of about 20km. Can you imagine an 8yo in America doing that? Though the tiny saddle did get a little uncomfortable after hours of riding, we had an immensely great time.

The city itself wasn’t spectacular but the people were very kind (even though I was nearly pick-pocketed twice by different groups of kids) and eager to practice their meager English. Ulaan Baatar is the staging area for expeditions to the Gobi. I don’t know how many bulletin board postings I saw from people putting together trips and needing an extra person or two to share the costs (like $10/day for everything on a 20-day trip).

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This is really long, so grab a cup of coffee if you really plan to finish it… (if not skip over the middle section)

Departure from Moscow at 20:30 10/1. I was happy to see this city behind us. It’s hard for me to even verbalize Russia and Russians. In hindsight they take almost no pride in themselves, their country, culture or their surroundings. I guess going from a world superpower to a stepchild with your hand out does have some effect on you. I’ve been in lots poorer countries recently (very recently in fact) where they really cared about the way they looked to outsiders (and more importantly themselves). Sweeping the dirt (some had no proper sidewalk or even street to sweep) in front of your house to remove the daily rubbish every morning says something about how you feel about yourself.

We made it to the train just as it is pulling in so we were the first to get on our carriage. I was thankful as our accumulations were starting to make our bags even more heavy and the gifts we had brought for the provanistas (the Russian ladies who run each carriage, cleaning and making sure you don’t get left etc.) were filling up extra plastic bags. We had read that gifts was a good way to get on their good sides early on, maybe secure some extra towels or whatnot. Michael was a little disappointed that the conductors checking our tickets turned out to be Chinese and most of the writings inside the car were in Chinese as well, meaning this was probably a Chinese train. One Chinese and one Russian train a week run from Moscow to Beijing. It turned out to be a stroke of luck that we had a Chinese carriage. Contrary to all we had read this train had Russian cars and Chinese cars. Throughout the entire journey to Ulaan Baatar Michael and I had a whole four-person berth to ourselves. We ended up being the compartment where everyone seemed to congregate (probably because we had so much candy, tea and miscellaneous crap to give away, all the stuff we brought for the provanistas). The Chinese conductors ended up being quite friendly even though they spoke little English. Several times they saved someone from getting left at a station as the train pulled off (of course I was one, but that story is not worth telling).

Later in the journey we walked through some of the Russian cars just looking around and were basically run off by the provanistas who were none too friendly and all looked fat old maids with cigarettes hanging from their lips with a worn and tattered work dress and worn house shoes (I’m not being judgmental here… I didn’t say they were fat old maids, I only said they looked that way. They could be happily married back home, wherever that is, but I seriously doubt it). The restaurant car also happened to be Russian and aside from an egg and ham omelet every morning was pretty useless (they had a relatively extensive menu but only prices on about 12 things and as the journey wore on, this was cut down to about two, beer and vodka by the last day, as they ran out of everything else). Having never been on a real train before, I thought this was normal. When we entered Mongolia, this was proved greatly wrong. The Mongolian restaurant car was like a five star restaurant compared to the worst roadside greasy spoon you would find in some place like Nevada. It had proper place settings and linen table clothes and actual food. The one meal I had right after crossing in to Mongolia was the best thing I ate on the train thus far.

Most of our food consisted of what was available at the stations. Every two or three hours the train would stop in a station for 10 – 15 minutes (there were many other stops but only lasting a couple of minutes) some (usually local) people would board the train with their bags to go a few stops (several hundred km). At each stop their were kiosks set up right on the platform selling drinks, sausages, milk etc. (kind of like a 7-11 in a four foot square box). Many of the stations there would also be local women walking around selling things out of baskets. Michael and Barnaby (18 year old, New Zealander, going overland by train from London to Bangkok where his dad is stationed by his company and he went to high school for the last three years) bought a chicken quarter and boiled potatoes, they swore was excellent, for 30 rubles ($1). I stuck mainly to homemade sausage and cheese and big loaves of bread. I whole meal of this could be bought for about 45 rubles ($1.50) with plenty to spare for another meal or a large snack.

At some of the stations near Lake Baikal they sold whole smoked fish, which they carried around the station on long coat hanger like contraptions, several dozen to a hanger. No one was adventurous enough to try these. I tried one pancake looking thing that ended up being some type of cornmeal pancake mixed with fish flakes. Needless to say I didn’t eat more than a bite and couldn’t give the rest away. Mostly we ate in small groups in our berths sharing whatever we had (usually Michael, Barnaby, Will (a just graduated aerospace engineer (small world?) from England) and I). It was fun trying a little of everything. With the samovar of boiling water in each carriage, package soup (everyone had the same idea and seemed to have stocked up at the market before boarding the train) was also a big tide-me-over snack, if I never see a Lipton’s soup envelope again, I will have lived a full life. The samovar’s actually burned coal to heat the water. Talk about doing it the old way, I guess the things were original to the trains and they work (mostly, ours was out of whack early two mornings when I was dying for some caffeine) so why mess with them. I probably had eight or ten cups of tea a day; to keep warm and for something to do, an excuse to walk to the samovar and stop to talk with everyone along the way.

A little aside about Lake Baikal… It is the deepest lake in the world at over 1600m (right at one mile), holds 20% of the worlds fresh water, could provide the entire population of the world with water for 40 years and is larger than all of our ‘Great’ Lakes together. They say that in the dry season (when there is little runoff to stir it up) you can see 40m (120 feet) deep.

The rest of our group consisted of five Swedish medical students on a 6-month break from school Sara, Linda, Eric, Andreas and Ina. There was another group of middle-aged Swedes, two couples (I never got their names straight) and an Aussie, Bannister who had traveled this train several times (something about a Russian girlfriend and teaching English in Shanghai, although I never really understood why you would take such a slow boat to visit your girlfriend, something you would do every few months).

If you’re reading this waiting for more stories of my troubles, this is one without me screwing up at all. There was quite a bit of hassle crossing the border from Russian into Mongolia, although Michael and I had all of our ducks in a row for once (ok, nearly).

Remember those customs declarations forms when we entered Russian and how important our travel agent said they were to get filled out and properly stamped by the customs officer upon entry? We found out firsthand just how important they were. At the border stop we were all given customs declaration forms just like when we entered. I filled mine out, guestimating that I had about $150 less than when we entered Russia. I presented it to the woman customs agent who was working our carriage (they came straight onto the train with gun toting guards in tow). She took my first form (properly stamped I was praying) and the new one, looked at them several times turned the first over (for some reason had to be stamped in two places), looked me up and down once really good and finally took out her stamp and proceeded to stamp my exit form. Hallelujah! Barring any major screw ups, I’m home free. I hadn’t been too worried, but as I said before, border crossings always make me quite nervous, you know the guys with guns and barbed wire and doors that go whump!

Michael is still filling out his form and she is waiting for him to finish just outside the door to our cabin. He starts trying to ask me how I filled mine out. How much money did you declare? Did you actually count it? My heart starts skipping several beats at a time just then. I don’t have the guts to look up and see if she has heard him. I hesitate, hoping he will go away. He doesn’t. He asks again. This time I’m sure she’s heard us plotting to defraud the Russian Government! I look at her but her face is just out of view behind the door. She speaks English obviously (she’s been talking to me just fine thus far), French might be a good try, but my meager French escapes me. The only thing I can think to whisper, not taking my eyes off the doorway is, “I’m not answering that question.” He looks up at me (he told me later, I never took my eyes off of the doorway to see if she was coming to get us), sees my wide eyes staring out in the hallway and he remembers the guys with guns somewhere in the corridor. He removes every bit of cash he has on him, counts it (luckily it comes to well below what he brought in), and fills out the form completely truthfully. Evidently, she heard nothing as his inspection goes smoothly. We felt like high-fiving, but figured it might arouse some unwanted suspicion.

Some of our friends (many in fact) were not so lucky. Bannister had miscalculated his visa by one day, so was overstaying his visa by about 22 hours. After much arguing with the passport control guys, he finds out that the fine is only $35 payable only in rubles (by law everything in Russia has to be paid in Russian currency, but they price everything in US dollars). He has only about $20 in rubles and everyone else has just rid themselves of their last Russian currency knowing that as soon as we crossed the border, they would be kindling to the Mongols (I bought three packs of cards just to dump my last bit). It’s Saturday night, about 11pm, no exchange open anywhere in the less than one horse town. Luckily, he finds a Russian couple on the train who are willing to part with their remaining rubles, being saved for their return, for some US dollars (to help a foreigner? maybe they’re not all bad). Bannister pays the fine, the Russians laugh and let him go. (Unfortunately, he’s not done with them though.)

Our next-door neighbor, Barnaby, received no declarations form when he entered Russia via train Belarus (which is still a Russian state). Can you imagine our customs forgetting to give someone a form upon entering the US? He declares something like $55 and Euro 45. Which technically is over the limit. He happens to come in right after the pressure has lifted from our cabin and I am breathing easier, to tell us they are telling him he has to get off the train here and change money to rubles. For some reason, you can take out as much in rubles as you want but not over $50 of undeclared money. He hands me his address and email and starts to tell me something to tell his parents, when the kindly customs guard tells him to return to his room and pack. Poor guy, he was devastated. Feeling a little stronger after having been cleared by customs and having my passport handed back to me; I push my way through the corridor to his room to let him finish giving me his information. I enquire from her what the maximum you can take out is, and she doesn’t answer me while staring me in the face. Barnaby continues to explain to me that he was never given a form or told one was need upon entry to Russia and that he is going to have to stay and change the money tomorrow, buy another ticket and catch the train tomorrow. I offer that he could just forfeit the $95 some odd dollars he had. I’m sure they would accept it and let him stay on the train.

I again ask her what the maximum is that you can export and ask if he really is going to have to stay behind for $95. She shakes her head and winks at me out of his view. They are just scaring him! A barely 18 year old kid and they are trying to scare him over $95 when they screwed up to begin with (from my point of view, their point of view is they don’t have to give you the form, it’s your responsibility, what a racket!). Anyway, she leaves him alone other than to tell him to sit down a few more times. He gets his passport back and is never pushed off the train. He is lucky I guess and he feels bad considering what happens to our other friends who are not so lucky…

The Swedish quintet somehow had mixed results from their customs entry forms. They all entered together via airport in Moscow. Coming through customs, the first two had their forms stamped properly, while the latter three had no stamp. Ina, said she waited for the officer to stamp her form and then he left. The remainder of the people in the line were just waived through. Sara, Eric and Linda all had no stamp on their entry declaration form, at the sole fault of the Russians customs officers that just waived them through. When they declared a couple of hundred Euros each at the exit customs checkpoint they all got flagged. They had to get off of the train, spend the night in the station, change all the money to rubles the next day when the bank opened again (at a very bad government exchange rate), re-declare they were taking out rubles and buy another train ticket to Ulaan Baatar! I just hope there was another train the next day, or they may have had to wait several days.

I know they finally made if, because we have left notes for each other around town, but we’re not sure when or of any other hassles they had to go through. They’re supposed to catch up to us in Beijing next week, so I’m sure we’ll get the rest of the story.

Bannister had more problems as his form had been stamped in the official box on the back, while the actual written declarations on the front of the form were not stamped. On the train, the Friendly Customs Lady throws the form back at him saying it’s trash because it’s invalid since it doesn’t have both stamps. Now why would a customs officer incorrectly stamp a form? It wouldn’t be because he doesn’t know how to do his job. I’m telling you they are perpetuating a scam on tourists!

Anyway, Bannister was declaring several currencies, some US$, Euros, Rubles, Hong Kong Dollars and Chinese Yuan. The most was the HKD, a 500 HKD note (about $65). Somehow during his negotiations, it comes out that if he will tear up one form, fill out another without the HKD and leave it with them, they will let the rest slide. What would that be? A straight out request for a bribe? From a government employee? Probably ten years ago, in communist times, they would have just been shot had they been caught. Now, it’s commonplace to grease the wheels of bureaucracy. Twice in Moscow, I saw one businessman hand a thick envelope over to another one in a coffee shop. Guess whose portrait was shining through the little address window. Benjamin Franklin! In many ways the ‘little things’ were much better back then. He agrees to this solution just to be done with them. Fills a new form out, and hands over the 500 HKD note. Friendly Customs Lady gets quite angry at the note. It is ripped about a third of the way down the middle. From personal experience, changing torn or old notes outside of their issuing country is always a problem. Nobody wants a torn or washed note from another country, it’s too hard to tell if it is real or counterfeit. She throws the bill back at him, tears up all of his forms and tells him to get out of her face. He makes it through customs and without paying a bribe!

The best comment to describe what I think all of us that were left was feeling was from Barnaby. You really would have had to have been there to understand, but once we were in Mongolia and had passed customs there as well, we were all feeling seriously bummed about losing some that we had spent so much time with and feeling bad and worried about those left behind. We were all sitting in our cabin mumbling around about the time we had all spent in Russia and our experiences even before the train trip, when Barnaby chipped in almost without thinking, “I feel like we’re back in civilization!” We had a laugh and then realized how true it was.

Up to this point we have traveled 6300km on the train and have another 1500km to make Beijing. We left Tuesday night at 10.30 and arrived in Ulaan Baatar at 8.30 Sunday morning. I imagine this is the only trip left that comes close to what traveling was like back at the turn of the century and up until the widespread use of the airplane. Crossing the Atlantic on a steamship taking weeks of travel, I’m sure you made many friends in the time you had to kill and many experiences to share with others back home.

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Well, we finally made it to Russia, if you can believe it. After everything I wasn’t sure if we were going to get in. As usual (trouble seems to be following me lately doesn’t it?), there were a few problems getting in, but more on that in a minute.

Istanbul was wonderful, by far my favorite place this trip so far. The city was beautiful, the people were very friendly and eager to talk to travelers and share their culture. Turkey is a Muslim country, but they are respectful and accepting of everyone else’s ideas as well.

Michael and I spent a whole night trying to figure out what it was about Istanbul that was so attractive. We finally decided it was that their indigenous culture is still very much intact, albeit probably not for a whole lot longer. Most of Europe was westernized starting several decades ago. Turkey is becoming westernized today. I saw only two McDonalds and one Burger King in Istanbul (and one was in the airport). Sometimes you would see a whole family together where the mother and father were in traditional dress and their teenage kids were wearing Nikes and Levis.

Amsterdam and Helsinki were a blur. Spending only two nights in each gave me barely enough time to run through the downtown areas once or twice. I caught the flu and ate some bad pizza in Helsinki (on the same day!) so I spent one whole day in bed. Still recovering from the flu, much sleep is indicated.

We booked a seven-hour night bus from Helsinki to St. Petersburg last Sunday night. Easy enough, sleep on the bus, arrive in Russia with nearly a whole day extra. That would have been great, had I been able to sleep on the bus. We thought we booked an express bus (the ticket said express!). To me that means no stops (ok, maybe one or two). We stopped in every little town on the way, a la Greyhound. Every time I dosed off, we seem to be pulling into another town, and I was woken up so un-nicely by the driver turning on the interior lights. The one time I did get some sleep turned out to create many more problems.

The driver comes on in Finnish saying something, of which I only caught ‘passport’. Everyone is getting off the bus with their bags. I turn to look at Michael behind me, and he has his sweater over his head so the lights don’t bother him (smart I think). I wake him up and we get off to test out our oh so expensive and caused us much trouble, Russian Visas!

Border crossings always make me a little nervous. I know being from Texas I should be used to guns, but this is Russia. Two lines later, a little nervous chatter with passport control guys and whump! He stamps it and hands it back. I guess the friendly girl at the Russian Consulate in Athens didn’t put any disparaging remarks in the comments section of the visa. Michael and I had joked about it several times, but I secretly was a little worried.

Now off to customs to declare our US greenbacks. Evidently Russians are very sticky about the amount of US money you bring in. Anything over $50 has to be declared, or if they stop you on exit, they can confiscate it. Customs lady starts speaking to us in some foreign language (obviously, this is not the States). Michael pulls out our information documents from the Russian travel agency that arranged this whole Russian detour. He starts pointing to Russian words that mean, customs declaration form. She becomes agitated and starts speaking very fast in this foreign language, Russian we are assuming. I become agitated, as everything I have read says in big bold letters that this form is very important and can only be done by customs upon entry. Michael points some more, and tries his freshly-learned-from-audio-cassette Russian. This only enrages her more. Finally, in perfect lightly accented English, she says, “This is not Russia! This is Finland!”

That would make a great punchline if that was the end of the story, but it’s not unfortunately.

I try to apologize. Michael tries to explain we have been asleep and didn’t realize we were at Finnish exit passport control, but she won’t hear any of it. She says again, “This is not Russia, this has never been Russia.” Oh no! I’m getting irritated, it’s three in the morning, I’ve just had a crash course in Finnish history (back in Helsinki) and as you know, my brain and my mouth are sometimes disjointed. I corrected her!

“Actually, this was Russia up until 1917, when you guys basically seceded and declared yourselves independent. Don’t you know your own history?” As soon as I said it, I remembered the guys with guns and the locks on the doors and all the movies you see with the guy running to the safety of a border only steps away. She stands up and starts to let me have it, and Michael hastily apologizes for me and drags me out the door three feet away. Good thing we had already been through passport control and the door was only steps away and no one was in between!

That whole incident made the actual border crossing into Russia, two miles down the road, anti-climatic. No problems, stamped our passports, asked no questions, filled out the Russian customs declaration paper and we were back on the bus in ten minutes.

If that weren’t enough for one trip, we found out the hard way that St. Petersburg doesn’t have one bus terminal. Each bus line basically has an office where the bus drops some people off at (I found this out later obviously), and the rest get dropped off around town as the bus passes through, depending on where they are going. I did see the first stop at the bus line office, but was still waiting for the big bus station like we departed from. After eight or ten drop offs at different places in town, the bus finally pulls up to a large hotel parking lot and the driver gets on the loudspeaker in Russian (I assumed) and says something and turns the bus off.

To our credit, there was also a woman from New Zealand on board still as well. As the driver comes back checking the seats as he goes, he starts shooing us off. Through broken English and much hand signals, we deduce that this is it. The bus goes no further for several hours, and even then, it starts back to Helsinki. Oh no again! But this isn’t our hotel, it’s 30 degrees outside, 6 am and we’re at a hotel somewhere on the edge of St. Petersburg (but it was a very nice hotel).

We get our bags and get off looking at each other wondering what to do. He goes outside the hotel lobby and parks his bags and is content to wait to see if the driver who was to pick us up at the bus station is about to show up here. I don’t buy that one. This is a hotel in the middle of nowhere, how would they know we were here. I go park my bags in the warmth of the lobby. What are they going to do throw me out? Worse has happened in the last several hours.

No rubles (Russian $) and no phone card, what to do? I go to the desk and with my best ‘I’m staying here look’ ask to borrow the phone. He kindly does, and even calls me sir and wishes me good morning, like I said this was a nice hotel. Long story short, I called our St. Petersburg contact and told her where we were and she had the driver come pick us up there to take us to our hotel on the other side of town. It was 8am when we got there; so of course we couldn’t check in yet, wait till noon. I was too tired and not too sure of my karma after all the recent happenings, so we stayed in the lobby all morning, snacking on coffee and toast sandwiches made out of salmon until we could check in.

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Well, we finally made it to Turkey and have become millionaires here. I changed $100 and with the exchange rate got back 160,000,000 Turkish lira. A coffee costs 1,500,000 TL. I’d hate to see what a car costs. That money should cover everything for a week here, everything is pretty cheap.

Kusadasi is pretty touristy, but it was the quickest way in after we lost all of that time messing with the visa’s. From here we went to Ephesus for the day. It was cool to see the things left from the first century. I took a ton of pictures but haven’t had time to prepare them. I’ll send
along when I can.

Tomorrow we take a bus 8 hours to Gallipoli and Troy and then into Istanbul for the last few days before we fly back to Amsterdam. So far I haven’t been utterly impressed with Turkey. Everyone said it was similar to Greece, but to me, it’s several steps below that. We’ve met some
seemingly nice locals, but I still get the impression that they would take us for what they could should they get the chance.

Oh yeah… the Russian visa’s… That one almost didn’t happen. We got a ferry all the way back to Athens, just to try to get them there. First they gave us the address for the embassy. After an hour bus ride to that address, the guard out front explained through broken English and Greek and Russian that we had to go to another address where the consulate was. Thirty minutes of wandering around later, we found a cab that took us the rest of the way. He dropped us off at where the address should have been but it was a construction site (read big hole in the ground). The consulate had been torn down.

After much trepidation and fretting we finally found a small building left on the site that housed the visa office. Security guard let us in and helped us find a woman who spoke English to explain what we needed there and how much (1 photo and 130 euro). Security guard points the general direction of a photo shop. Twenty minute (each way) hike and four photos later we are back. It’s now 11.00 am and the office closes at noon (we started this fiasco at 8am). Security guard smiles and lets us back in. Forgot the $$$. No credit card, US$ no good obviously and only 100 euro between us I have to leave and hike 10 minutes the other way to hit the cash machine. This time the guard openly laughs at us when we return for the fourth time.

Now hurry up and wait in line to get paperwork, then another queue to wait to speak to the only guy in the office that grants visas. Wait for the one woman who speaks English to be available to help translate. Finally, everything ok, you can pick up your visas September 17. Oh no! We fly from Istanbul September 18. Once again, our now not so friendly translator returns, so we can explain we talked to someone on the phone who said we could do it in two hours. Finally…. yes that’s possible for some extra $$, but we only accept same day paperwork until 12 noon (it’s 12:30). Please come back tomorrow at 9am to pick up. Oh no! Please, please, please (we are trying to make a 5pm boat to Samos near Kusadasi so we don’t have to stay another day in Greece). I have no idea why she finally did it but she made the paperwork right there, although she was thoroughly unhappy (probably just to get us out of her hair). We have Russian Visas now! US Postal Service is wonderful! With all the trouble we caused there, she may have put something in Russian in the comments section of the visa, so we get arrested upon entry (keep your fingers crossed).

PS Michael shaved his head

PPS and bought a rather expensive Turkish rug (being shipped home). I wouldn’t have believed either had I not seen it with my own eyes, too out of character!

Related Link: Turkey Holidays Discover the cheap turkey holidays. Holidays in turkey for less than half price. number one site for turkey travel and holidays.

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Richard took us to the top of the island today. After showing us around a little, he pointed out several roads and landmarks from which to navigate and then we were off. We chose the steepest path down, but it appeared to intersect one of the main roads quicker than a more circuitous route. The first 500m were pretty rough, practically climbing down the rocks, avoiding prickly cactus-like plants and loose rocks. We had thought we would primarily walk down roads so hadn’t prepared properly with normal shoes and long pants. This made the going mucho more fun.

Several wrong turns, heated discussions and observances of cars making wrong turns and having to backtrack later, we came within sight of a paved road (2.5 hrs). It still took quite a bit of navigating to make it to the road. We found these old paths running down in between the car roads, which cut some of the distances down. No telling when some of the paths were built, but the paths themselves were primarily made of marble worn smooth by years of foot traffic.

All in all, the trip was nearly four hours of hiking, and covered 15km or more. We got to the edge of town just as the sun was nearing the horizon for a pretty spectacular sunset and great happiness at being back in civilization (or at least what passes in Greece for civilization).

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