Week 7 - Mongolia

A typical Airmag capital - This one is Arvaikheer
Enjoying the green grass and a mountain stream

Us just arriving at the waterfall - time for a dip!

One of the rivers we crossed on our journey - note the truck to the right which didn't make it!

The hunting eagles in Kharakorum

Disappointed about fishing, but enjoying the view next to Tsagaan Nuur Lake.
A typical Mongolian bridge... Not typical, but we crossed this in our van on the way to Moron. The bridges in movies which collapse are in better condition.


Sainta sainbai nauu!

Welcome to the 7th week of our trip and the 2nd completed week in Mongolia. When I say 2nd completed week in Mongolia, I mean 2nd completed week! It has been a tough trip, but full of beauty and adventure!

When I last wrote you I detailed the tough times in the Gobi. Now as we have headed north, the conditions have vastly changed. The contract of landscape from north to south can be compared like Arizona to Minnesota. We are now surrounded by forests, green pastures, rivers, lakes and more lots of wild life.

One of my favourite topics - food. Wow, Mongolian food is NOT good.... But we have maintained our agreement of only eating local food. To describe Mongolian food - you either get meat and rice or meat and noodles. And its alway a great suprise when you get a soup with meat and most of it is fat - very common :D For anyone looking to lose weight, Mongolia is not your place!

I've really enjoyed the language in Mongolia, firstly because they use the Russian Cyrillic alphabet its easy for us to read everything. However, the Mongolian language is far from Russian. The Mongolian language almost makes Russian seem like French - soft and beautful. I've heard it described that Mongolian sounds like horses grunting and coughing and then hacking up something from its throat.

Our past week: Arvaikheer > Orkhon Kurkhree > Tsetserleg > Tsagaan Nuur > Moron (yes, its really called Moron although pronounced Mooroon - however has been the subject of many jokes, Yes, I know I'm 32.. :D

Saturday - Mongolian Disco: We stayed in the town of Arvaikheer. Being in an Airmag capital on a Saturday night, Marina and I thought we would go and meet the locals. After a late dinner we found a night club and went in for about 2130. It was decent music, Western music and a little bit of Russian. The place started filling up and it was impressive to see the Mongols get dressed up and some could have fit-in in London. Being the only foreign people in the bar we had a lot of attention and it was cool enjoying a $1.50 beer in a club a vast change from London.....

Sunday -Waterfall. This was nice change to see after leaving the Gobi. When we arrived at the camp with the Waterfall and we changed to our swimming suits and climbed down a 20 meter gorge (you can guess how tall the waterfall was) and had a nice swim below! The water was very cold given we were in the mountains with the altitude at about 2000 meters (6600 feet), but was absolutely refreshing - and a pretty good place to cool off our beer. After this we had a nice horse ride and my horse loved to gallop. This gave Marina good training for our upcoming horse trek in a week.

Monday - Shower: We stopped off in the afternoon to see the Erdene Zuu Khid monastery in Kharakorum - the most famous in all of Mongolia. The communists banned religion during the Soviet reign and all religious places were closed. Erdene Zuu Khid had reopened in 1990, however, I expect some of its former glory is lost. Despite this it was an interesting place. Even more interesting is the two eagles outside which we were able to play with. In Mongolia Eagle hunting is very popular - before you get all up on human rights; the Eagles actually do the hunting and return the prey to the owner. The hunting is mostly done in the winter so we were able to see these great eagles and hold them. They were incredible! Later on when we arrived in Tsetersleg we were able to have a much needed shower...

Tuesday - Another Volcano: We went to Tsagaan Nuur or the Great White Lake in English. On the way we stopped off at a volcano that we were able to climb (erupted about 7500 years ago, so pretty safe) and then climbed into a cave a few miles away.

Wednesday - Fishing: We woke up at 0520 to begin our fishing. Marina and I had arranged this without the group and had a row boat waiting for us. Unfortunately the fishing didn't go so well with the windy conditions and that we didn't have a bobber to use with our crickets. The crickets were everywhere so it was pretty easy to catch our bait. So far the weather had been perfect so it was a shame to get the wind. We didn't let this get us down so after having some breakfast at camp we went out and climbed a mountain we saw in the distance. Kind of like your eyes being bigger than your stomach - our eyes were indeed bigger than our feet. This was far and very steep. It took about 2.5 hours to scale and descend and after we took a much needed nap. Later that day we took horses out to have a look at another part of the lake. Unfortunately these were very lazy and unlike the previous horses at the waterfall. We bailed after about an hour to go to the tourist camp and enjoy a cold beer.

Thursday - Hell: They called our journey this day Hell. Its known through Mongolia as one of the worst drives. I'm sure there are much worse ones, but this is in a main area. We were driving from Tsagaan Nuur to Moron. An 11.5 hour trip (counting the lunch stop) - when we got to Moron we were dead. Now all of you back home are thinking.. hmmm, 11.5 hours, that's like driving from St. Louis to Denver - no problem, but this isn't so. Given Mongolia really doesn't have roads and up north there is water, the paths are terrible. We drove through about 10 rivers on the way and it was mostly like a roller coaster ride, not the fast part, just the slow bouncing ride where you hurt your arm or head in the car.. Basically it sucked!

We are now in Katgal near Khovsgal lake. We have just arranged for a guide to take Marina and I up north around the lake. The trip will have fishing most mornings and evenings and we will be riding on horse back to the different places. We are told about 5 hours of riding per day. The trip will be 3 days and then we will be starting the trip back to Ulaan Bataar with two others in the group. Our trip was longest so the other people have gone back to UB or another place.

Wish us luck with the fishing. I've forecasted 12 fish and I hate missing my target!

Bayaerta!

Dan and Marina

Week 6 - Mongolia

The Goat!


our group along with the drivers and guide

A typical view from the Gobi
Our first day on the trip - goat city..
Horses grazing outside the sand dunes. It had a spring nearby which is why there is actually green grass.
Camel riding outside the sand dunes
SongBennu!

Greetings from the land of the Yak! The homeland of Chinggas Khan is strangely different to every other country in the world - that I've seen. If time machines exist, our Air China flight from Seoul took us through time - Mongolia is ancient. Marina thinks its like Russia 20 years ago which pretty much means America in the 1700's. Not really about Russia being that far behind, but this place is just like the wild wild west, without the roughness. There are 10's of thousands of miles of roads and probably only a few hundred miles of paved road. So are trip thus far has been off road!

Most of you will have heard the term nomad.. Well Mongolia is also the land of the nomad. About half of Mongolia's 2.5 million people are nomadic. The live in Ger tents - a round large tend for the whole family and move around the country typically to find better grazing areas for their animals.

Marina and I have chosen a trip with about 7 other travellers and we are going in two small old Russian vans from the 1950's called the Waz. Our trip will be about 2000 miles over 18 days. We will be staying with the nomadic families in a ger tent and eating what they eat.

The Gobi desert - this place is very strange. Being a desert people expect sand everywhere. Its quite the opposite. Not much sand except for in the dunes. Its just a very barren land where water is gold and conditions are tough. You can look in ever direction for miles and not see a thing, but this is just raw beauty - absolute nothingness! The conditions are so tough that the round is littered.. littered with bones.. Camel bones, goat bones, and the occasional cow bones or horse bones, but these two are not so common in the Gobi as they are not good with small quantities of water or food. You will even see animals who may have just died that day, keeled over and being fed on by buzzards or the occasional wild dog - probably not so wild and from a ger camp nearby.

The Sky - I've never seen anything in the world like it. The sky over the Gobi at night is probably one of the most beautiful things to see on this planet; other than seeing Mark McGwire hit the 70th home run of the year! Visit this place and you can expect to see about 100 times as many stars as the brightest night in a rural Missouri farm or sitting on an island in the Seychelles. You will even clearly see the milky way along with about every satellite hovering above. Its purely magical!

The trip...
Ulaanbatar > Baga Gazryn > Tsagaan Suvarga (Gobi Desert) > Bayanzag (Gobi) > Erdene Zuu Khidd (Gobi)

Saturday - UB - Our arrival to UlaanBaatar was pretty simple and easy. I'm still in awe that I'm in Mongolia and its a week later so imagine what I was like this day; giddy in an understatement! We settled in to our guesthouse and started planning our trip around the Gobi. Different to our usual do it yourself travel mentality we opted for a trip via the hostel as its very difficult to do the Gobi without your own transport. Imagine the biggest land of nothing you have ever seen with no roads, no signs obviously and not being able to speak the language.. Its quite a challenge, plus, we wouldn't have been able to stay with the nomadic families as easily... so we opted for the easy choice of a tour.

Sunday - After paying our respect to the great Chinggas Khan's statue in Sukbahtar square, we hit the market. You have to really watch your money in this place. Both because they sell about everything you would want or need, but also due to the petty thiefs who though Marina's backpack actually had something in it... We are not that thick... Being the strong Russian girl she is, nothing happened and she noticed immediately.. That night we saw a traditional folk concert which featured Mongolian throat singers.. Very strange, you may find an example on youtube.com.

Monday - The start of our adventure - Marina and I have chosen a trip with about 7 other travellers and we are going in two small old Russian vans from the 1950's called the Waz. Our trip will be about 2000 miles over 18 days. We will be staying with the nomadic families in a ger tent and eating what they eat. Our first day was a long drive and we then camped in our first ger.

Tuesday - The coolest thing this day was entering the Gobi desert, but you would have read about this above. Let me tell you about a ger camp... There is no running water in these places and no water to drink. Occasionally they will have a well about half a mile away, we found this a good way to cool our beer :D The ger camps have electricity, not for us, but for the family. This is used to boil water for tea, or to watch television.. funny huh. These nomads often even have satellite dishes. The kids work harder than the parents - probably the way it should be, but often the father just hangs about smoking or watching tv. Typically people do not eat veggies, unless from a can; the ground is considered sacred so planting anything is a no no. The people live on rice - imported from China and meat (goat, camel, horse, or beef) - probably in that order. Also they always use the milk; so far we have only seen goat and camel milk - not quite as good as the stuff from Wal-Mart, but it can be tolerated.

Wednesday - T Rex - This day we stayed in Bayanzag. This place is famous due to the American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews who made a major find of dinosaur bones. The main reason this is famous besides finding a lot of dinosaurs and discovering a few different species, is that they found lots of whole eggs. This led the scientists to conclude in 1922 that dinosaurs were born from eggs. It is commonly known in Mongolia that Indiana Jones' character is based on Roy Chapman.

Thursday - Sand Dunes - We hadn't seen a whole lot of sand thus far despite being in one of the worlds biggest deserts. Finally we had some. The sand dunes at Erdene Zuu Khidd are very beautiful - kind of like that wallpaper option on microsoft windows. It looks very similar! We spent the evening hiking the dunes to the top and enjoying the sunset!

Friday - BBQ party - Today was one of our fellow travelers birthday so we adhered to Mongolian tradition and bought him a goat. Not sure how many people in Spain had been given a goat for their birthday.. This was going to be cooked the Mongolian way. I'll spare you the details, but it was a bit gross especially when they burned the hair off with a blow torch. After cutting it into pieces they tossed it into a pot with hot flaming rocks, some potatoes and carrots (these were very hard to get) along with some vodka and water. After about 2 hours we had the feast. Not too bad I must say!

We are now sitting in an airmag capital (like a state capital) and are going north to the lake area. I should be able to post in a week so talk with you then.

Baryahtai

Dan and Marina

Week 5 - South Korea

Aneyonhaseo,

Tonight is our last night in the fun and wild city of Seoul and our last night in Korea! This country has been a very cool and interesting place. Korea would be a great place to visit! Besides English teachers and the US military, not too many people come to Korea which means all the more reason to visit! Just a few tid bits about what we think of this place.

The Koreans have had a very rough past and its incredable to see them with great national pride. Many think it was bad for the French, Dutch, Poles, etc with German occupation, but Korea was occupied by the Japanese for about 35 years in the 1900's - until the end of world war 2 - and this was just the more recent time. Learing about the struggles and how they are now Asia's 3rd biggest economy is just remarkable and one could say is a good represtation of capitalism and democracy when compared to the poor north. - Marina wrote this part ;)

There is a lot to see in Korea, and anyone who loves the outdoors should come on their next trip!

Our favourite things about Korea - The progress and national price, Bulgogi BBQ, the National Parks, and the DMZ! Plus Kimchee, how could I not mention this. Its served at every meal - even breakfast so you grow to love this spicy fermented cabbage dish!

Cheongju > Daechean Beach > Suwan > Seoul

Sunday - The Presidential Palace; A great thing about Korea is the people are free to visit the presidential palace which is no longer used by the president. For whatever reason, maybe because he didn't like it (its a bit small by American standards). On Sunday morning we toured the palace which hosted many of the worlds leaders. On the way we met a guy who works there who got us in for free and another person who allowed us to take pictures in the restricted areas - a good example of the hospitality of the Koreans!

Monday - BEACH TIME - we arrived in Daechean Beach late Sunday afternoon and really enjoyed the chilling out time! Daechean is known for its annual mud festival which we missed by a month - however Marina enjoyed the mud spa treatments, not exactly roughing it :D

Tuesday - Flaming Dr Peppers - Tuesday morning we went to Suwan (just south of Seoul) to see the famous castle and Korean folk village. As I needed my hair cut, I figured I would try my luck in Korea rather than Mongolia... very funny, No matter how I explained it the guy wanted to shave my head, finally I finally showed him the 5th time which clip to use and he managed to surprisingly give a good hair cut! Later that night we had a great beef BBQ - as mentioned before Koreans love to BBQ on the table in the restaurant. We then found a wicked bar called the Bull Dog which specialised in shots! And I showed him how to properly make a flaming Dr Pepper - he then pulled out his tricks making shots looking like the Mexican flag, Russian Flag and then the grand finale a Japanese flag!

Wednesday - BASEBALL - The folk villiage was interesting, but the most cool was the tight rope walker - this guy was jumping and probably couldn't be pushed off. We then made our way to the big city of Seoul for our final destination in Seoul. When we arrived I was very happy to know that we were in the party area - Sinchon! We quickly headed to the baseball match between the Seoul Heros and the Seoul Bears. We chose the Bears to support as it was their home match. Korean baseball is fun to watch, but its worst than triple A. The Heros made about 7 errors, they dropped infield pop ups! The best thing was the beer is cheap! $2.50 for a nice cold Hite beer! However these are not presented by cute girls in cheerleading outfits... Old ladies or guys selling the beer.. :( The main snack at Korean baseball games is dried squid!

Baseball cheerleaders - awesome!!

Thursday - DMZ - This day was dedicated to war history. The DMZ is the demarcation line between South and North Korea, also called the 38th parallel. It is absolutely the most heavily guarded boarder of any place in the world! The really scary thing is how the North is repeatedly digging huge tunnels (one of which we got to go in) into the South to invade! The last one was 1990 and there are possibly some that are unknown! So the threat of invasion is every present and with the US military spread in Iraq and Afganistan - its probably a good time if any for Kim Jung Ill - hopefully he will be preoccupied with all his porn collection. Later that day we went to the War Memorial Museum which is probably the coolest anywhere - most wouldn't say cool when describing war, but to be able to climb in planes - I mean it seemed like every war plane the US has ever had, all the helicopoters, and go in the tanks! Very cool and a must see for anyone seeing Seoul!

Friday - Being our last day we ensured it was full to see everything we could. However having woke up with a serious hangover from partying hard with our new friend Tom from Belgium who was studying here. Far too many soju! The coolest thing today was the Olympic village, must have been amazing to see the olympics here! They seemed to go all out! The best thing about Seoul getting the olympics was this was a time when it was moving out a tough past to the modern world!

Tomorrow morning we will be flying to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. We will be taking an 18 day excursion to the Gobi desert so may not be able to get to a computer until we get back to UB. Dont worry and expect a VERY cool update next time. I have high expectations for Mongolia and think it could be the highlight of our Asian trip!

take care,

Dan and Marina

Week 4 - South Korea

Anneong Haseyo,

The past week in South Korea has been very cool and surprising in many ways. When travelling here we expected Korea would be very advanced, possibly like a junior-japan; this was far from the truth! The country is very very cheap - besides accommodation which is high compared to everything else - some examples, a 2 hour bus costs about $6, our dinner tonight with a large beer to share was about $9. Most museums are free, if they aren't they usually are about $1 to enter.

I guess when you go from the cleanest country in the world, the next normal place seems very dirty - its probably on par with Thailand as far as cleanliness.

Generally the standard of living doesn't seem too high, probably again, pretty similar to Thailand.

Crime- There is a freakishly low crime rate, I think the cultural part of not shaming your family goes a long way. Given this is the case, we tried our luck hitchhiking - its hilarious, if you stop a car (many will stop to help give a ride) and they are going a different way, you will likely have another car before that one leaves - this happened to us. In Korea the buses in rural areas are about every hour so its pretty simple, safe and easy to hitchhike. We did so many times so far and some people even feed you when you get in the car. They are always trying to feed you - even if you are a stranger - so much for losing pounds in Korea...

Whilst on the topic of food - Korean food isn't anything to write home about. KimChee is decent, but you get it at every meal, I mean every meal -even breakfast. The best food we have had so far is Korean BBQ - where you cook the meat on the table in front of you - usually pork. Very good especially with a Hite Beer.

The trip so far: Busan -Gyeongju - Andong - Danyang - Cheongju

Sunday (Busan) - We arrived into Busan at 8pm from Japan and were looking forward to tackling our next country. Instantly we were very excited to know that Korea has a bar scene - well at least Busan does. And we were staying in a great area to go out. Its easy to tell there is a strong American influence in Korea. We went out to an American style bar (expect this is normal for Koreans and was void of any westerners). So nice to have a few beers and play darts.

Monday (Hae-undae Beach) - We started the day seeing temples with our new friend Lucas that we met on the way to Busan. Later in the day we stopped by Korea's most famous beach. Within 60 seconds I knew this was the worst beach I had ever seen in my life. Now I don't mind the crowds, having lived in London and New York, I enjoy being around a lot of people, but not this. It was lined with umbrellas which are 1 inch apart and the water was so packed that you can't even extend your arms - besides being able to swim (oh, and you can only go about 25 feet off shore). There were probably 200,000-300,000 people on this beach which was about a mile long. And this was not some big cool party with beach volleyball, this was just not cool. So we left and decided to save beach time for another location in Korea. Funny, this was 5pm on a Monday - on the weekends I hear there is up to 500,000 people.

Hae-undae Beach - no thanks!!

Tuesday (Korean Pyramids) - Tuesday morning we made our way to Gyeongju which is dubbed the cultural centre of Korea. The place was very amazing - we started by seeing the tombs of the ancient kings which are in parks and are huge mounds of ground and covered in grass - they buried them underground in order to hide them and they are massive. Not as big as Egypt's, but big ones are probably 20 meters tall and 30 meters wide. That night was watched a free concerts with some famous Korean bands playing. It was pretty funny, but we enjoyed it with a few beers.

Wednesday - (Hitchhiking between temples) - Marina was the brave one and we quickly learned that Koreans are very friends to foreigners when they need a lift. It rarely took long if we needed a ride. We ended the day at the beach where the sea tomb or King Munmu who united Korea. We ran into some Korean Marines and they forced us to eat lots of food and drink with them. Great hospitality and a lot of fun.

Thursday - (Soju museum) There is one famous drink in Korea - Soju! They love it and drink it religiously at dinner. You will always see a few bottles at each table. Soju is kind of like vodka and comes in a 375ml bottle (about half a wine bottle). They have a very civilised tradition - you never pour your own drink. So that day we went to the Soju museum in Andong. This was a stop over city on our way to Danyang.

Friday - (Rafting) Danyang is a great place for outdoor activities and is centered between a few national parks. During our 3 days in Danyang we did not see one westerner so we were off the beaten path. As it was raining we bailed on climbing and went rafting. During August the rains come and go. We rafted with a bunch of Koreans and had a great time going down the river - pushing Marina in the river every time she wasn't looking. :D

Saturday (Mt Birobong). In Sobaeksan national park, the biggest mountain is Mt Birobong standing 1439meters (approx 5,000 feet). We woke early Saturday morning after a heavy night of Soju drinking to go climb the mountain. What a great climb, but the legs are aching now! We hiked about 7km up the mountain and another 7km back (about 9 miles total and completed it in 4 hours and 45 minutes) at the end we were running down as we wanted to get the bus... (an hour to the next one)... We then made our way to Cheongju where we are now....

Next is the Presidential palace outside Cheongju and then to Dachean Beach for some sun and possibly scuba diving.

Anneong Guyseyo,

Dan and Marina