Take Me to China, Trans Siberian Railroad!

Our ride to the train station was right on time.  No need to worry like we did.  And the trip to the train station that early in the morning wasn't bad.  Hardly any traffic on the road.  Something we hadn't seen in Ulaanbaatar.  So, we loaded everything up, rode to the train station, and tried to go in through the front doors.  All front doors were locked.  We tried them all.  Then we noticed that some people were going behind the building, so like lemmings, we joined the pack.  It paid off.  That's how you get in the Ulaanbaatar train station, at least in the morning.  They have a little coffee shop and a waiting room, but really nothing that tells you what the train is that's coming up.  When a local train came in, I asked a man with his son, and he told me that that wasn't our train to Beijing.  While waiting, we met a guy from Australia who was also taking the Trans Siberian Railroad to Beijing.  He was on his way home to Sicily when the war with Iran broke out and his travels were disrupted because his flight (and all flights going that way) was cancelled.  So, he was making the best of it and slow traveling by land, trying to go around the danger areas.

Once the train pulled in, the porters helped us get settled into our car.  It was clearly our train.

We got the soft sleeper, which sleeps two.  It reminded me of the trains I rode in Europe in the 1980s.  Little rooms, not just rows upon rows of seats. 

The room was a little different, too.  Instead of having two seats across from each other that would pull out for the bed, it was bunk beds with a table and a comfy chair on the other side.

Our bathroom had a toilet and sink and even had an open shower in case we wanted to wash up.  We stored our luggage in there, though.

After taking my meds and eating some of the left-over KFC, we wandered the train and went to the dining car for some tea and coffee.  The dining car is interesting.  In Mongolia, you get the Mongolian dining car.  Once we hit the Chinese border, the dining car will be detached and replaced with a Chinese dining car.  The Mongolian dining car was very ornate!  It even had a horsehead fiddle hanging on the wall.

The scenery was nice with housing appearing to be more permanent buildings than gers.

We entered the Gobi Desert around 3:00 or 3:30 in the afternoon.  It had more vegetation than I had seen anywhere else in Mongolia!

I missed the "Welcome to the Gobi Desert" sign, but I did get this one warning of the scorpions with a scorpion statue.

There are some stops where you have time to get off, and we took advantage of that.  Of course, I didn't want to take the time to put my shoes on in case I would run out of time.  Our longest stop was here, at Sahn-Shand, which means Good Spring in English.

Me in my sock feet outside the station

It's a long train.

Our last stop in Mongolia was Zamyn Uud, where immigration came in to make sure I had a visa for China before letting me continue.  Mongolian customs also boarded and checked out our car to make sure we weren't taking out anything that shouldn't be taken out.  Zamyn Uud means "road's gate" or "gateway", which is very appropriate because this is the crossing where people going the other direction enter Mongolia.  They have the letters in both English letters and Mongolian cyrillics on the station.

And there is the "Welcome to Mongolia" sign over the arched doorway.

Next stop, China.  So, I packed up all cameras because the first stop in China (Erenhot - Erlian in Mongolian), we have to get off and go through immigration and customs.  Our porter told us we could leave our snacks on the train.  We pulled into the station around 9:00 p.m.  We took all our bags except the ones with snacks and headed for the immigration room.  There was a guy separating US citizens from all others, so I went to a little room and told him what my itinerary was and showed him my visa.  I obviously was mispronouncing Xi'an because he didn't have a clue where I was going after leaving Beijing until I showed him my itinerary in my phone.  Then he let me skip the line and put me right in immigration.  Immigration looked at my visa, asked the same questions the other guy did, and then asked for another form of ID, so I gave him my drivers license, which is an enhanced drivers license.  He went back and forth a few times and finally had me put my fingerprints on the pad and took my picture.  Nobody had any concern about my China visa being in an expired passport, so everything I read that said so long as the name, birthdate, and other vitals were the same on both passports, the visa is still good even though the passport it's in is expired was right.  Immediately after the immigration section, customs has their x-ray machines for all bags, so I put my camera bag, CPAP, and my carryon through the machine and went out to the room where they said to have a seat.  I thought once all of the people made it through, we would get back on the train and be on our merry way.  How wrong I was!

We all sat in this little room with bathrooms in the back, a room we weren't allowed in to the right, a little shop in the front, and desks in the center front.  A guy came in and opened the shop for a while and people bought noodles and ice cream.  I kept thinking we would get back on the train soon, and I'd have the noodles I had in my bag.  By the time I actually got hungry, the shop was closed.  Little kids were running around the room, being well-behaved, but active - having races and other things.  One of the Chinese authorities kept telling them to sit.  You can't expect toddlers to sit in a room full of people and be quite for a few hours, lady!  It's just not going to happen!  Thankfully, she left after a bit and the other babysitters that remained let the kids be kids.  

We never did find out why we had to stay in the train station at Erenhot for three hours, but I looked it up for this blog.  Apparently, we came in on wide, Russian-sized rails used in Russia and Mongolia.  China uses standard-sized rails.  So, the during time we were sitting in the room, the train was raised and the wheels were switched to the smaller, standard-sized wheels that fit the smaller, standard-sized rails.  This would have been a sight to see!  Apparently, the train goes into a shed and hydraulic lifts lift the train about two meters off the ground so the wheelbases (or bogies) can be removed.  These are then rolled away and the new wheelbases are rolled in and attached to the car before the train is lowered back to the track and a safety check is conducted.  Apparently this can be done while passengers are on the train.  I can't find anything to tell me why we weren't allowed to be on it while it happened.  The best I can figure is that they maybe started the process while we were clearing immigration and customs.  I guess I'm just going to have to take it backward to see if they let us stay on going the other direction. 

They finally let us back on the train around 1:30 a.m.  I promptly fell asleep without dinner.  Fortunately for my companion, there was electricity in the room, so I was able to plug in my CPAP.

I woke up early and took my meds and dumped pictures.  When my companion got up, we headed to the dining car, which was now the Chinese car.  It's a bit more simple than the Mongolian one.

The breakfast was fairly decent.  I don't remember what it was, just that I ate it and paid with WeChat Pay.  The scenery was beautiful.  Very dramatic mountains.  I believe these would be the Jundu Mountains.  I asked the porter, but I guess he was tired of me asking questions.  I wrote down his answer, which sounded like "shandoma".  Looking it up phonetically, it appears he told me they were just f((*ing mountains.  (Shan meaning mountain, and doma being the F bomb.) I knew I liked our porter!  Though he could have been referring to the mountain we were on as Mother Mountain.  There are apparently several of those in China in various ranges, and the translation would still likely be accurate.  Anyway, the scenery was lovely, even those f*))ing mountains!

We ultimately pulled into Beijing and disembarked at the main train station.

I couldn't get my Didi app to work right, though I tried.  Didi is the Chinese equivalent of Uber.  Anyway, we caught a taxi to the hotel.  When we got there, my WeChat Pay didn't work.  Thankfully, my companion had some yuan left over from when she paid for her breakfast on the train in Mongolian tugrik and got Chinese yuan for change.  We walked down the little side street in the hutong and found our hotel, which didn't look at all like the picture online and didn't have the ground floor room that I asked for, but it's okay.  It did have a cat on the front steps, looking like a younger Grandkitty.

We almost weren't able to stay there because they didn't take credit cards and yet again, my WeChat Pay didn't work.  This time, though, it told me I needed a Chinese credit card and that it wouldn't accept the US credit card that I had already attached.  Well, bully you!  Luckily, I had also downloaded and set up AliPay, and I was able to make that one work.  It just had to be authenticated while in country.  It took me about an hour to get it all set up and get us in.

 

After we checked in, we took a walk down part of the hutong.  A hutong is a traditional neighborhood where cars may not drive.  There are many artisans and shops in the area.  Lots of statuary in this one.

Many of the streets were barely wide enough for a scooter to go through.

We watched a vendor make this corn cob out of sugar for this little boy.  I thought about getting one, but my sugar level would have gone through the roof!

We had some dumplings and got some kind of meat on a stick.  They were delicious, but didn't sit well, so I didn't eat much.  We did stop on the way and picked up some fruit and a soda pop.  We had some options for going to the wall the next day, but decided grabbing a Didi would be our best option, so up to bed we went and slept fairly well.

A Day in Ulaanbaatar

Up this morning.  We were anticipating Khosoo to be here at 1:00, so I slept in and just spent the morning sitting around and resting.  My companion went out for a walk.  I anticipated that we'd see everything on our walking tour.  In retrospect, I wish I had gone with her, but I was feeling some twinges in my foot and was trying to prevent a flare while traveling, so an extra couple of pills (as allowed by my neurologist) and a morning of rest was in order.

Khosoo arrived early, so off we went.  Apparently there was a miscommunication.  He thought we were driving and we thought we were walking.  We had to move his car from where it was improperly parked, so we rode with him for about an hour before we found long-term parking by the post office, our first stop and about two blocks from our hotel.  While he was parking. my companion and I got out and headed to the post office.  Surely we could manage that.  We have postcards to mail! So we headed into the first door of the building that said post office. 

It looked pretty empty inside, not at all like a functioning post office, but we followed people who seemed to know where they were going.  We went upstairs and were confronted by a locked door, so what did we do?  We waited until somebody came out and we went in the door while it was opened.  We found ourselves in a room with a pool table and some other things that indicated it was a break room.  Deciding we were probably in an employee area, we tried to get out, but the door was locked that way, too!  We had to wait until somebody came in so we could, again, take advantage of the opened door.  I finally decided to ask somebody.  I typed my question out in the translation app and asked, and she (thankfully) answered in very good English.  She took us back outside and to the big window area with a ramp and door on the right side just to the right of us.  This looked more like it!

She led us over to the number generator, and we got number 26.  They were on number 9!  Thankfully, Khosoo got there about that time.  After just a few minutes, he talked to a lady at one of the windows, and she agreed to stop what she was doing and sell us some stamps.  I still had the postcards from South Korea, where the post office was closed and I couldn't get stamps, so I got four stamps.  They are so unique, I almost got four more just for me to keep!  But, I decided the lady had been so nice, I wouldn't bother her again.

I just put them on my postcards and dropped them in the international mail box.  Pretty ornate, huh?

As we left the post office, Khosoo started to get the car.  Our next stop was Chinggis Square.  He said it was maybe 1/2 km, so we chose to walk.  It was really just a couple of blocks, counting crossing streets.  Google Maps says it was about 400 meters.  There was a market going on and a band playing, so we boogied along and looked at the things for sale.  I got some shots of the government offices, but nothing really spoke to us in the market stalls.

I love how there are modern buildings right beside traditional, older buildings in Ulaanbaatar.

There's a big statue of Chinggis Khan in the center of this Capital building.

We stopped to see the Peace Bell on the way out.  It has a lot of graffiti on it.

Have I indicated to you just how bad traffic is in Ulaanbaatar?  We wanted to go to the State Department Store, where we were told we could find souvenirs and stuff.  Khosoo said it was about a km, which was about right, and we walked.  We passed the post office and stopped in several souvenir shops, but nothing really spoke to us.  Turns out that the State Department Store is just another mall with stores like Michael Kors and lots of cashmere product stores and kitchen wares, and you get the drift.  We finally were able to communicate to somebody what we were actually looking for, and they sent us to the top floor in the very back.  We got that information just before we gave up.

The souvenir part had everything, souvenirs, saddles, T-shirts, even wedding clothes with Kazakh displays.

 

Khosoo said he would get the car, but the theater was only about 1.5 km, so we continued to walk.  He was concerned about my inability to walk (he helped me multiple times in the snow leopard camp), and I explained to him that on flat, even ground, I'm good.  It's my balance that makes me unable to walk on uneven ground without taking extra care, and uphill causes me to lose my breath quickly, so he stopped worrying about me, and we walked.  When he got us settled into seats in the theater for the show, Khosoo went back to get the car.  He took the bus back to the post office parking lot and drove back.  He got back with just a few acts before the end.

The show was amazing.  It was called "The Legend of Nomads" and went through a lot of cultural and historical items through music, interpretive dance, and other things.  I got lots of photos and videos.  If you're ever in Ulaanbaatar, I highly suggest seeing this show.  The narrative between acts was in English, so tourists could understand the significance of everything.

There was regular singing

The horsehead fiddle is the most culturally significant instrument in the country.  There are a few legends about how it came about, but it is a symbol of peace and happiness and can be found in many places.  It's fretless with four strings and a square soundbox.  This guy played it so well.  The part where he showcased his talents, I was too busy with my jaw dropped to get a good video of it, but you can get the sound from this one.

There was throat singing

And the contortionist was really amazing

They had great costumes.  I don't know how they danced in some of these!

The flautist showcased his awesome breath support.  If you've ever played a wind instrument (and even if you haven't), you can appreciate this!

After the show, Khosoo started driving us back to the hotel.  It was about 2.5 km from the theater.  It took us over an hour, and it was getting dark, so he eventually parked so we could walk the rest of the way.  We should have walked all the way.  Have I mentioned how bad the traffic is in Ulaanbaatar?  I've been a lot of places, but this is, hands down, the worst traffic I've been in when it's not rush hour!  At least the ice sculptures hadn't melted all the way yet!  This was just on the sidewalk.

After we got back to the hotel, we went to the KFC to get some food for dinner and the train and the Nice to CU store for drinks and got all packed up.  Confirmed the early morning taxi to the train station, and got packed up for the train to Beijing.

Going to See a Giant Man on a Giant Horse

Today is the day to see Chinggis Khaan.  English translation for those who must translate names is Gengis Khan.  This is the guy who famously united the Mongolian tribes and conquered the Chinese, becoming the Father of Mongolia.  (Very abbreviated history lesson)  We slept in because the drive from our lodging to the statue isn't very far, and when we got close, our driver pulled over so I could take a picture of the entrance.

Kind of a nice shot of the complex from there, too.

It's a pretty imposing statue on top of a 3-story building that houses a museum, some shops, and a cafe.  The statue itself stands 40 meters (130 ft) tall and is made of stainless steel.  It is erected at the site where legend says Chinggis found the golden whip.  Legend has it that before he was known as Chinggis Khan and was just lowly little ol' Temujin, his wife was kidnapped by a rival tribe.  While he was riding to a different tribal leader to ask for help rescuing his wife, he stopped at this location and found a golden whip.  Finding a whip was a sign of fortune and great leadership, and the one he found was golden, so...  Legend has it that finding this golden whip was an omen that was used to help him unite the tribes to fight off the Chinese, Russians, and others to develop the largest contiguous land empire in all of history, approximately 9 million square miles (23-24 million sq km).  From what I can tell, the original golden whip no longer exists and there are no historical accounts that factually back this up, but it is clearly part of the oral history of the time.  You can see the golden whip in his right hand, resting under his knee.

When we entered the complex, before even entering the building, you could see the people who were on the statue, walking around his horse's head.

After climbing the steps to the building, we entered to see the largest traditional Mongolian boot.  It is an inflatable, but it's also huge.

Then, we went to the museum and saw lots of things.  Coins and dishes from Chinggis Khan's time and battle clothing,

and formal wear

and weapons

Finally, we took the elevator up to the top and a short flight of steps up to Chenggis Khan's crotch, which is how you exit onto the horse's neck.  You can see the golden whip on the left (Khan's right) and his sword holstered on the right (Khan's left), and I'm right between his legs at the bottom of the stairs.

For 250 tons of brushed steel, it has a surprising amount of detail!

This is the statue from the grounds on the side that he is facing, and the statue faces the Onon River, where he was born, which also is an easterly direction, so he is also facing the rising sun.

We drove by Turtle Rock on the way to lunch at the Resort World Terelj Hotel.  I guess the girl at the sales talk in Pigeon Forge was right when she said they had a hotel in Mongolia.  But I was also right, it wasn't where I needed it to be to see snow leopards!

I also thought it was very interesting how the Mongolians raise their power poles.  Look closely.  They just lashed the existing posts (darker) to new posts (lighter) that were put in the ground!  Talk about ingenuity! 

We went to the Aryabal Meditation Temple with 108 stairs meant to symbolize an elephant's trunk.  Looking at the path and those steps made me question some of my life's choices, the choice to go to the Tibetan style temple being the most recent.  After all of the things we had done this trip, I just didn't think I could make those steps.  I would have been happy to let them go up while I waited, but they stayed down, too.  I would love to see a Tibetan style monastery, but why do they all have to be so hard to get into?

There are multiple paintings on the cliff walls above the monastery.  They symbolize different dieties.

We decided to make it a short day and just use the rest of the time to get packed for the trip back to Ulaanbaatar.  On the way back to the lodge, we saw this Cinerous vulture.  You know what I say about a bad picture being better than no picture at all.

We got up the next morning and had breakfast and headed out.  We were the last guests at the lodge, so we gave the chef a ride to town, too.  It's a great lodge.  We stayed inside the building, but they also had a ger camp

and these pods that were like tiny homes, but not really so tiny

This ruddy shelduck came out to bid us a fond farewell after the last workers at the lodge sent us off with a milk blessing before locking up behind us and heading out themselves.

Just outside of Ulaanbaatar, we had to change cars because the city has pollution control measures that include only allowing cars to drive on certain days based on their tag numbers, and our driver had the car with tags that couldn't drive.  As we got into Ulaanbaatar, we saw that there are lots of statuary, and you know how much I like statuary.  There was also lots of pollution, so I had to clean these up a lot to take the haze out of them.

We did stop for yarn.  Ariuna was awesome finding us a place we could purchase yarn instead of finished products.  And timing was right so I was able to Facebook call Chrissy so she could pick her yarn.  It was surprisingly cheap.  I got her 4 skeins: 2 cashmere, 1 yak, and 1 camel for the equivalent of about $25 total.  I might have gotten her more if I had more room in my suitcase!  Then, Ariuna got us deposited in our hotel room for the rest of our stay in Mongolia.  It was a nice place.  Since this would be the last time we saw her, I gave her the other pair of hand warmers for the snow leopard camp, and hugs.  It's been a great time with her, both at the snow leopard camp and in Terelj.  Tomorrow will be exploring Ulaanbaatar with Khos.