Week 12 - To Moscow

We stagger onto the Ulaan Battar to Moscow train laden down with the weight of five days of provisions. Five days later we stagger off the train in Moscow not much lighter and with two lean children having become alarmingly skinny. Within hours, Jon Jon is vomiting and diarrhea follows shortly after and becomes a permanent companion, shifting to San San on day four. Our cabin fills with plastic bags of foulness as the bouts of illness synchronies with the regular station stops, when the toilets are tightly bolted shut. We end up washing the sheets to avoid a hefty fine and leave the whole situation behind us with a big sigh of relief.

During the periods when the sick children are asleep, the ride is quiet and relaxed as the train drifts through an endless forest of silver birch, dotted with villages of oval roofed wooden cottages. It's mid April but the trees are bare, there is snow in the air and the rivers are still partially frozen hinting at the long and frigid winter still drawing to an end.

The train is packed with Mongolian traders with cabins full of jeans, jackets, coats, scarves, bags, trainers, shoes, blankets, thermos flasks.... even half body mannequins for displaying trousers and tops. Ten minutes prior to each stop this army of commerce begins to mobilize, queuing down the train with arms full of stuff. The doors pop open and they spill onto the platform and launch into a frenzy of trade with the crowds of Russian bargain seekers who seem to be at every station regardless of the hour. The Mongolian train timetable must be committed to memory across the whole of southern Russia. With only 20 minutes in hand no time is wasted, deals are fast and furious for cash or barter. I note that a thick Chinese blanket is worth two bags of dried fish on the Russian/ Mongolian border... Then the train slowly jerks forward and they all jump back on board - some still selling from the open door as the train gathers speed, customers jogging along side passing cash and grabbing their goods.

At last we are in Moscow and safely ensconsted in a bright and airy four bed dorm only thirty minutes walk from Red Square. Having been cooped up for so long, I'm up at dawn and out for a run, exploring this ancient capital. With the sun coming up over the Kremlin, I head north from the square and smile to see two huge advertisements, the most prominent by far, are for our old friends Hyndai and Samsung...


- Posted by Dave using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Moscow, Russia

Week 11 - Mongolian Ger

Three in the morning and the call of nature has me pushing open the brightly painted wooden door of our Mongolian Ger and wandering out into the vast open plain of the Terelj National Park. The full moon gently filtered by high light cloud casts a magical silver glow over the silent grassland. The air is cold and clear and my gentle clouds of breath seem to issue in a roar against the deafening silence and the crunch of my boots on the sandy ground echoes off the broad slopes of the surrounding hills. I think this is quite possibly as far from civilization I have ventured and still been comfortable and the sense of calm is tangible.

Back in the Ger, I throw another log on the small metal stove and climb back under the sleeping back. The bags are designed for sub zero temperature but this roomy felt walled tent is beautifully warm and I can see from the light of the sputtering candle that Michelle and the kids are fast asleep, comfortably sprawled on the single wooden beds. Blowing out the candle, this warm space plunges into semi darkness and I drift off to sleep, watching the dancing shadows from the glow of the fire.

When I wake up, the sun is illuminating the sky to the east behind the bolder strewn hills, our fire is dead and the morning chill has taken the room. I quickly set the fire, get a fresh brew of shou cha into the flask and quietly get on with my morning puja. By the time the family stirs the Ger is hot once more and the farmers son is cheerfully banging on our door with a big plate of bread and jam. Jon Jon complains of sore legs and we remind him of his two hours on the brown Mongolian gelding with the farmers son the previous evening - most of which at full gallop. The bread is soon devoured and as always too soon we are back on our way to Ulaan Bataar. I reserve comment on Mongolia's capital and feel our stay there was a little too long but I will remember Mongolia fondly for our stay in an ancient and simple rural abode that sits so well in this land of rugged beauty.

- Posted by Dave using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia

Chinese/ Mongolia Border Crossing

An interesting interlude on the train from Beijing to Ulaan Bataar was a 1.5 hour stop in the middle of the night at the Chinese border town of Erlian. With no idea what was going on, we sit confused as some people get off the train and head into the station while others stay on board.  We decide that the latter would be a safer bet as at least we are still 'on' the train.  

And so we sit puzzled by the crashing clunks that jerk us off our seats as we go slowly back and forth into a huge maintenance shed. Once in the shed we look across at a train that has been dismantled into single carriages on the track next to us. Each carriage is slowly being lifted off it's wheels by four huge orange hydraulic jacks and the bogies are being drawn out on long steel cables. There are people sat in the carriages and on the side it says "Beijing to Ulaan Bataar" - how can we be sat parallel to our own dismantled train? Racing Jon to the end of our carriage, we find it has been uncoupled from it's neighbors and is similarly being lifted off it's wheels. Not being the brightest family on the trans-mongolian rail system, we try to work out what is going on.  

Jon suggests that maybe there was a nail on the track and it burst all the tires so they have to fix them all. We double check and discover that trains have metal wheels and no tires... Michelle wonders if the sandstorm we went through earlier in the day has damaged the axels... Finally it starts to dawn on us that maybe the Chinese and Mongolian tracks are different sizes and they need to change the bogies.

Sure enough, once connected to the internet at Ulaan Bataar, we discover the well documented phenomena of the Erlian bogie change where the 1,435 mm standard gauge used by China is changed to the Russian 1,520 mm gauge used by Mongolia.  It seems that this is in all the guidebooks and everyone knows about it. Having dumped our guide book in Laos, to us it was a fantastic mystery!  We resolve never to bother with a guidebook again - it takes all the fun out of things. 

Apparently the gauge is changed back on the Belarus/ Polish border - something to look forward to but unfortunately this time we will know exactly what's going on. 

- Posted by Dave using BlogPress from my iPad

Ulan Bataar's countryside

30 hours on the Trans-Mongolian, we went through customs and immigrations for both China and Mongolia, watched the train checked and changed it's rails, passed through the Gobi desert in the night and arrived at Ulan Bataar. UB Guesthouse has timely and kindly picked us up from the train station.

The city of UB resembles Russian, European small town with a few tall buildings. The signs are in Cyrillic but there are enough English around to be understood. There are still many signs of it's ex-communist status. But the country has been a democratic country since 1992.

UB Guesthouse is what I imagine a proper hostel is. Rooms with bunk-beds, good services for backpackers. Interesting enough, it is run by a Korean, Mr Kim and his Mongolian partner. Lots of backpackers. Tiny kitchen packed with people to get breakfast.

Very quickly, we jumped on the opportunity of a trek to the nearby country side, to stay a night in a farm in a ger.

So an hour car ride in the early Monday morning, we arrived in Terelj.

Surrounded in rocky mountains, the nomadic farm is located in the sandy plain where their cows and horses grazed. They put us in a ger- the Mongolian round tent. It is surprising comfortable and warm. Dave and Jon had a lot of fun sticking woods and papers in the iron cast burner.

Big Tibetan dogs sat around our tent, waiting for us to throw bits of food to them. It is amazing how dogs can eat a lot and eat everything. San was not pleased when the dogs raided our tent and ate the chocolate.

In the evening, we had a go at horse riding. Dave was unsure. I enjoyed it. San was trying to talk to the horse. But Jon had the most fun as he was riding with the farmer's son who showed him all the tricks.

In the middle of the night, i woke to take leak in nature. Was surprised by how bright it was outside the ger. I could not see any stars as it was almost a full moon, it shone like a lamp in dark room, giving light to the plain. Everything else was quiet. It was a serene moment for me until I realised I really have to go. Nature call!

The children had a fabulous time with horse riding, helping the farmer boy with little chores, watching the farmer chainsawed firewood, staying in a tent, and simply just rolling around in nature and making lots of noise.

So much to learn, the world is so big...



- Posted by Mich using BlogPress from my iPhone

Leaving the Middle Kingdom

1.4 billion people, 56 ethnic groups, weathers that range from desert heat to mediterranean coolness to Siberian freeze... ... The Middle Kingdom has so much to offer.

For the last 7 weeks, we have seen many parts of China, from walking amid the hundreds years old Pu'er tea, dancing with the colourful Tibetan in the highland, chatting with smiling charismatic coast people, sleeping in ancient Hakka fortified mansion, mesmerized in memory of Old Shanghai, standing in aw in presence of the terricota warriors, and finally falling in love with the mandarin language. All in all, there is still so much to learn and see from a nation so big.

As we sit on the Trans-Mongolian train, looking out as it journeys toward the north, I am thinking I have only seen a little of this middle kingdom and resolve to come back again another day.








- Posted by Mich using BlogPress from my iPhone

Week 10 - Putonghua

Beijing is bursting with spring as we make our way through the blossoming streets to our hostel to the north of the station. The cool breeze warms in the sun on a bright and cloudless day that repeats itself for the full week of our stay in the north capital.

" 'Bei' is 'north' - 'jing' is 'capital'. 'Dong' is 'east' - 'nan' is 'south' and 'xi' is 'west'. You can remember by Dongjing or Tokyo - east capital, Nanjing - south capital and Xian - west capital. Very simple..." Thus starts five days of intensive drilling on Chinese tones and pinyin pronunciation and my first real appreciation for the fascinating nature of putonghua, the 'common language'.

This is a language of thousands of one syllable words, each with four tones rendering unrelated different meanings. These are strung together to weave longer words the meanings of which are abstracted from the originals with a beautiful soft logic.

Put dong (east) with xi (west) and you get 'dongxi' - meaning things. When looking for things we move our head from side to side, from east to west. Long (second tone) is dragon. Xia (first tone) is shrimp. So - 'longxia' is lobster. Dragons are big and powerful with many good qualities. Project these good qualities onto a shrimp and it transforms it into a lobster. You know it makes sense...

So by learning two or three words you are actually learning four, five or more new words and quickly building vocabulary. However, unless the tone of every word is pronounced precisely, that vocabulary is useless. You find yourself uttering unadulterated gibberish, drawing quizzical looks or blank stares as reward for the effort of committing hundreds of these little alien sounds to memory.

Thirty hours of 'zh ch sh r z c s....' and 400 new words later and I'm starting to realize how long, hard and fascinating this journey into Mandarin is going to be. But perhaps the main battle is won. After years of closed minded dogged resistance to my better half's language, I surprised myself by looking forward to class, eagerly writing up notes and actually enjoying the effort of memorizing vocab. Perhaps our week amongst the blossoms of the north capital will mark my gradual emergence from the shadows into the bright light of Asia...

- Posted by Dave using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Beijing, China

Week 9 - Xian

Perhaps having united the Middle Kingdom, Emperor Qin's monumental effort to bury 6,000 full sized pottery soldiers was based on his clairvoyant vision of the river of money that would issue forth 2,500 years later... If so, he was most certainly a visionary as the slick commercial venture of the Terra-cotta Warriors is a sight to behold, both in terms of this undoubtedly remarkable ancient historical wonder and the way it is sold.

Some fifteen years ago, I recall being dropped off by taxi pretty well outside the gate of Pit 1, pushing my way through a throng of trinket sellers to buy my ticket and wandering directly into the main exhibit (Pit 2 being under construction). Having casually wandered around for half an hour, I remember grabbing a corn on the cob from a street stall and hopping back into a cab back to town.

Now it's a case of walking half a kilometer through a vast car park full of coaches and cars, pushing your way through a gaggling throng of smartly dressed official guides to a Disneyland style ticketing office. Ticket in hand you then have to work your way through row upon row of neat souvenir shops, coffee shops, restaurants, book stalls and a multitude of street vendors for a good 20 minutes before reaching the bag scan machines manned by armed security and a battery of ticket turnstiles. For RMB5 per person you can bypass the whole fiasco by golf buggy that runs through a newly built park behind the shops - but only on the way in. There is no avoiding it on the way back. And needless to say the place is packed!

Eves dropping on a bunch of foreigners on the bus back to town discussing the possibility of the whole thing being an elaborate Chinese government scam, made us smile. There was a serious edge to their conversation and if I hadn't seen it back in the '90s, I could have found myself wondering.

All in all, an interesting day trip - the historical value of which is indeed huge but the overall experience a little tiresome. I personally found the 14 km walk around Xian's ancient city wall far more enjoyable, dispute the constant, "Are we there yet?" that seems to be following me around. Next stop - Beijing and a week of intensive Mandarin lessons... roll on Mongolia.



- Posted by Dave using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Xian, China

Week 8 - Hakka Tuluo

Seven hours sat bolt upright on a hard seater train puts us into Yongding in Fujian at 4:30 am in surprisingly good spirits. There is only one reason to be here and the early hour does not perturb the touts from crowding the disembarking passengers offering rides to the areas many Tulou. We are soon whisked off by minivan deep into a countryside which slowly reveals a startling beauty as a watery sun emerges from the pre dawn sky.

The scene that opens before us could not be any further from the sprawling industrial city we have just left behind. The ancient villages in this misty valley are separated by rice paddi and fields of vegetables and made up of perfectly round light brown smooth walled buildings called Tuluo. Built by Hakka migrants 300 to 500 years ago to provide protection to whole clans, some of these four storey buildings have up to 500 rooms laid out in concentric rings radiating from a central open courtyard. I can quite honestly say that I have never seen anything like it.

We are met at the entrance to Liulia village by a small, bespectacled, energetic Chinese fellow intent on carrying my 27 kg rucksack into the Tuolo where we are to stay. He tells us in pretty good English that this sprawling mansion has been in his family for generations leading us through open courtyards, along a narrow corridor and up a flight of rickety wooden steps to our meter thick walled and stone floored room. Clean, simple but a tad cold we all drop into the snuggly beds to catch up on the nights lost sleep.

We spend the afternoon exploring this delightful village - crisscrossing the little bridges across its bubbling stream, taking photos of the water wheels and of course diving in and out of the many Tuluo. Strangely, the cool breeze, gently flowing water, sleepy gift shops and rustic colors put me in mind of Broadway in the Cotswalds, one of my parents' favorite spots, invoking fond childhood memories.

Too soon we are on the road once again this time by minivan, heading north east back to Xiamen where we pick up the train to Shanghai. Brief though it was, I suspect the memory of our trip to Liulia village will endure.


- Posted by Dave using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Yongding, Fujian, China

Capitals of China

We have been to the 3 major stops of China.

Shanghai - the modern civilization of China. In 1800s, the city went from a sleepy town to the modern trading city ahead of the rest of Asia. In 1920s, Shanghai had been the pearl of asia, leading the trade, fashion, crime of the chinese of Asia. It is interesting to see the contrast between the new and the old. The banking institution buildings built in the early days still stand today. Today, it is still leading the rest of China in term of modernization. Comparing Shanghai to the other places we have visited, I don't think Shanghai is a good representation of China, just like the way London does not represents the rest of it's country.

From Shanghai, the finance capital in china, we crossed over to Xi-an, the ancient capital of China. This was the beginning and end of the Silk Road. It is also here where small kingdoms were unified by Emperor Qin and found China. I believe the common written chinese language were also developed here. Today, what was left was the 600 years old city wall. The rest of the city did not stand still. It is hard to imagine what it was. What brought us here was the 'BinMaYong'. The human size earth-made soldiers buried to accompanied Emperor Qin to the underworld to continue to conquer. Question is if all is created by mind, did emperor Qin conquered the underworld in the end?

Finally, we arrived in Beijing, the capital of china. We got a week here and we have been here many times. Last night, we went to our favorite restaurant, Afunti, a silk road Muslim restaurant that provides food, drink, and
Entertainment. The children really enjoyed it and that begins the last lag of our journey in china.



- Posted by Mich using BlogPress from my iPhone