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Into Mongolia

21/5/2010

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Hohhot, regardless of its many spellings was cold and wet, but also a very relaxing option for us. From here we were to secure a train ride to Mongolia.
Ticketing options were limited to $250 each for a bed in a 4 bed compartment or $165 in a 6 bed compartment, all the way through to Ulaan Bataar.  So time to take the tough option - $15 each to the border at Erlian and try to pick up a local train to UB for between $20-$30 with a possible border crossing by Jeep adding another $15.  Worst case we were hoping to get to UB for about $60 each vs $250.  In the back of my mind I couldn't help but think we could be in the same trains.
From Hohhot to Erlian we were in a 4 bed compartment overnight with very thick doona’s.  We got off in Erlian and had a 3 hour wait to find out about our next options.

We went to a Chinese restaurant to have some tea to warm up – Erlian was bitterly cold.  Somehow “tea”, “chai” and/or “lipton” translated to red bean and barley gruel with mutton dumplings and pickled turnip.  Nothing to wash it down with but when they saw that Molly wasn’t enjoying this fine fare some deep fried flat breads, a bit like donuts without the hole were brought out.  We then spent 2 hours getting info and sitting in the lounge of a nearby hotel.
By 10:30 we had onward tickets on a train crossing the border in the evening - $11 for a brief run through customs and immigration, arriving at Zamyn Ude a couple of hours later. I was told it was cheaper and more convenient then a road crossing by Russian Jeep. Plus I was further assured by several Mongolian ladies and the ticket office that once on the train I could buy tickets for the onward journey to Ulaan Bataar on the train – in fact we would not need to leave the train.
And so it was true! We paid $36 each for tickets to UB, with Molly getting a discount and only having to pay $26. We were very happy with our savings although the train ride was our worst yet…….
The day waiting in Erlian was pleasant but cold. We walked around town for about 5 hours, visiting the park, dinosaur sculptures, markets and a couple of Chinese fast food joints and coffee houses to warm up. There were a lot of Russian made jeeps zooming around with Mongolian plates, seriously overloaded with bad body work, sagging suspension and asthmatic motors. The train option looked the better choice.
So boarding was simple. Being an international train (our first!) we arrived over an hour early, cleared Chinese immigration at the border and jumped straight on the train. Good to be early as we left 10 minutes before scheduled departure time!
A short delay at the border proper and then onto Zamyn Ude where we surrendered our passports, filled out some forms and bought our tickets to UB. Within a couple of hours all was done…….and then we were told we could do what ever we wanted as the train would not leave for another two hours! So I wandered aimlessly around the station and town square whilst the girls patiently waited on the train, less than impressed with our Chinese cabin buddy who sang and mumbled to himself non-stop and had a crazed look with wild hair, a bit like Wilhem Dafoe in some movie where he was really spaced out.
It was cool outside but entertaining and not at all unpleasant. We are in Mongolia!

From Ulaan Bataar we are heading straight out to the Steppes for some relaxation............Molly wants to catch a fish.


 
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It's all gone Da-Tong

21/5/2010

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A camel with a rain coat - 2 humps, not 1, thanks.
Well, rhyming slang would appropriately allow the substitution of the word wrong with Datong both in sound and meaning.  The town really does have a “wrong” feel about it.
We stayed in the city centre but had we arrived blindfolded we’d have thought we were on the Birdsville Track - in 1932.  This is a city with seriously bad roads.
It is also a city with gaping holes where (and I’m guessing here) residential city blocks used to be.  Based on construction projects around the city I would guess they are building another power station – or maybe a coal loading rail head?
We had a great time in Datong, visiting places we had never heard of that turned out to be spectacular – which kind of made up for our Terracotta Warriors mis-adventure (or should that be “missed-adventure”).

You see leaving ourselves 4 hours to get to the Warriors and see them before closing was apparently insufficient – I think our timing clashed with taxi driver shift changes and these poor hard worked souls weren’t interested in a bit of profit from us at the expense of missing a game of Mahjong and the first 2 Tsing Tao’s of the night.
Anyway the only option was going to cost the equivalent of 2 days car hire in Australia (seriously, for a 4 hour trip, only 2 hours driving).  So we passed on the Warriors and wondered why people weren’t more interested in earning some easy money.
Meanwhile, back in Datong, the daily challenge for me was organizing train tickets.  A visit to the station, some conversations in the business centre and some clear referrals by me to the internet in the presence of several staff failed to achieve anything.  Their best advice “go to Beijing”!  I explained that if a train stops at a station, it is likely that you can buy tickets for that train at the station – no, and worse still, apparently the trains I wanted ‘didn’t exist’.  The detail is boring but basically, just to prove myself correct, we went to Hohhot (also spelt Hohaote, Ho He Hote and Huhhot), got the information we wanted and then made the decision and booked the tickets ourselves.  Why the people in Datong couldn’t ring Hohhot station to get me the info I don’t know.  But they were going out of their way to be helpful – they just don’t understand the concept of either independant travel or impromptu decision making.
We also remember Datong for not having a single ATM working that could handle international cards – iit is just a little town of only 3 million…..
So by bus to Hohhot 50km of empty freeway followed by 200km of freeway clogged with trucks of all types, all being pushed aside by our juggernaut express.

And then into Inner Mongolia, destination Mongolia.
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Dear Mr. President.........uh, Mr. PM

21/5/2010

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I particularly like the guy grabbing a nap in the shade.....I mean, why not, eh?
Mr Rudd, as an internationally renowned Sino-Phobe I figure you to be the national authority on all things China.

Therefore I respectfully ask for an explanation for the following:
-          Why don’t Chinese toddlers have a seat in their pants?  Bare bums regardless of cuteness are an eyesore.
-          As part of your cultural awareness training is there advice on where to look when the kid in front of you on a bus gets his willy out, stands in the aisle and places said willy into an empty coke bottle held by his Dad?  Looking down doesn’t work because you look like you’re frowning at all of the wee dancing out of the bottle and onto the floor.
-          Does the saying “Chinese Bladder” have a medical background?  Are 2 toilet stops really necessary on a 3.5 hour bus ride (and note that small boy still used the coke bottle receptical twice on the same journey)
-          If public toilets aren’t close is the street gutter the next best, most hygienic option?
-          Why do people assume we know Mandarin – and when they discover we don’t, why do they continue to talk to us in Mandarin…….really fast and loud?
-          Why are there so many Hummers, Mercedes’ and Range Rovers in a rural based, Communist society?
-          Which smells worst: rotting cabbage or rotting turnip?  (The answer to this will likely assist in answering the next question).
-          What gives the drain in my hotel room(s) the distinctly unpleasant odour?
-          Are there plans in Canberra to fill the fountains with goldfish and then allow people (for a small fee) to catch them?
-          If sat closer than 5 metres from a stranger, what is an acceptable length of time to stare at them for -  would 4 minutes be excessive?
-          Would it be appropriate for AusAid to sponsor a Chinese web-site correction facility? Yes it would be incredibly manpower intensive but it may go some way to helping me understand what this means: “your world in the bed will take prestigious harmony of love for this food and room is ten and better then you can travel wait. Only staff on clouds of day can they lift down your shoulder.”??
-          When on a freeway and confronted with a truck overtaking another truck in the 2 lanes ahead, is it appropriate to move off the freeway and up the gutter in order to maintain momentum – noting that momentum is a healthy 100km/h – or should brakes be applied?
-          Which of  the following are not spittoons – tiled floors, footpaths, bus aisles or ash trays?  Yeah I know it is a trick question, I just put it in to check you’re doing this yourself and not relying on your staff to help me out!
-          Is it still classed as a sunny day if there are no clouds but you can’t see the sun (or across the street for that matter) due to "other" air particulates? 

I  respectfully thank you for your time and I appreciate your candid commentary.  Most importantly thank you for visiting our Everyday Hero page and donating so generously to C.M.R.I.  Make sure you twitter your good deed and maybe remind people that donations are tax deductible – the end of the Financial Year is fast approaching.
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A very cool sculpture being put to good use
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Xian - 8.4 million People Can't All Be Wrong

10/5/2010

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My personal Computer Salespersons - the guy had the best English of anyone I met over two and a half days looking at computers. The lady spoke none but has a great smile - thus they got my custom!
Well, we have been in Xian for about 6 days now, maybe 7??! It is well lai out, has a good mix of the modern with a great depth of history and local food that tastes good, is cheap and generally doesn't need too much explanation. Plus Xian has several huge IT malls which has enabled us to reclaim our place in the technological world - we are firmly back on the solid ground of cyber space and on the web at our own pace.
Not too soon either I might add - researching computers was no easy task and our Hotel only starts up it's internet lounge at 1300 (yep, I have no idea why either!)  so I had to find one of the mystical internet cafes.
Like the Goodies view of the Boy Scouts clandestine meetings and Catherine Tates concept of a hidden "safe place" for 'Ranga's (or Ginga's - depends where you are from), internet cafes are not well advertised, not easy to spot and when you do find them, not exactly pleasant places to spend much time.
After walking up blacked out stair wells, entering bars through canvas drapes and finding that NO, this is a respectable business peddling just booze and women, the sordid business you seek lies further up those dark, dirty stairs......oh, OK. Another set of canvas drapes and there it was, the world's biggest internet cafe, complete with gamers who no longer need a home, smokers who can't remember what air tastes like, and where a spittoon looks remarkably like the tiled floor. And of course there were some people there who were looking a little shy, a little bit lost and well, I expect they were just....um, well, I think they were just curious...............honest!
Anyway, no more of that for me - like a liberated Strawberry Blonde with a good rinse of Grecian 2000, I need not hang with the likes of them any more!
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Not satisfied with the biggest, bestest wall since.....well, since the 'Great' wall, Xian also has a moat!
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Modified South Gate, allowing for the 80's and 90's road re-development
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When not doing their early morning 'Aerobics Xian Style', the older generations enjoy watching the world go by
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Kunming to Xian by Train

10/5/2010

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1900km between where we were and where we wanted to be, the best solution was to take a train (although Julia was still dreaming of a sleeper bus). A little wary of petty theft and keen to sleep right through the two nights ahead of us on the train, we decided to book 4 beds and get a cabin to ourselves. Good call!! We had the best time, completely relaxed about where our gear was, knowing that no-one would appear at 3am trying to get into one of our beds and still able to interact with other people by leaving our cabin door open by day.

As with Kunming the people we met were generally very friendly, although quite shy. Children seem to be able to break the ice easily and we met one young Chuck Norris wannabe (actually, he didn’t know Chuck, Jackie Chan or Jet Li but no doubt he has his own idols!) who happened to always be there when we needed assistance with translation (or even when we didn’t). It turned out that his Mum was our carriage conductor so it wasn’t surprising that he was always on hand.

We awoke on our first morning as the train followed a river through a steep sided gorge. I think it was the Dadu River – quite impressive scenery. In fact over the course of the train ride we saw what was some of the most spectacular natural scenery since arriving in Asia.

The other very spectacular part of the journey was the engineering that has gone into establishing the train line and that is now going into expressway construction in the area. It is difficult to tell how major the links are within the region but there are expressways being built seemingly everywhere. At one point we followed a river gorge for over half an hour, us on one side and new viaduct piers on the other, lifting the future road above the river banks and thus avoiding further tunneling like on the rail line. We took to timing how long we were in tunnels for – over 3 minutes was the longest, over 1 minute was regular and most of the time the train was maintaining a good speed.

Unfortunately the engineering and construction brings with it some fairly grim scenes as well. We are now in Xian, 10 days in China and so far only 1 afternoon where there was clear blue sky – and I am afraid that it is not clouds blocking out the view of the sky. And when you arrive into the outskirts of cities by train it really does seem so bleak - but then no city can be judged by the beauty of it's switching yards and perhaps the natural beauty makes it stand out even more so.

Two stereotypes of China that have lived up to expectation – everyone spits (noisily, without care for others and wherever they choose) and pollution is thick and heavy.
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Near Chengdu -
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Lacy frills and a red rose - it is the little things that make a difference
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Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

10/5/2010

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Well arriving in Kunming we took a local bus into the city with no idea where we were – at least we knew we were heading toward the train station. I had seen a couple of maps of Kunming city centre and had a fair idea of where the station was so once there we were planning on taking a few hours to find somewhere to stay.

As a provincial capital, Kunming is a sizable city by any countries standards – in fact with a population of close to 6 million, of which 3 million are within the city proper, Kunming has a larger population than New Zealand and has about the same number of inhabitants as Laos. It is little wonder that we felt a little overwhelmed and lost in the first few hours of wandering around.

We arrived on the eave of May Day celebrations so we don’t know if it was quieter than a normal business day but we did find the city to be reasonably orderly. The first real difference between South East Asia and China is the absence of motorcycles….well, the absence of petrol powered motorcycles. In China it is all about electricity – just plug into your nearest coal fired power station and re-charge for another couple of days cruising around the city – silently. Sounds too good be true – well it is! There is nothing wrong with silent modes of transport – as long as they follow road rules and stay where they belong. But boy it gets scary when they start coming at you from behind like silent assassins patrolling the footpaths!

The city has some nice parks and very impressive street malls. Most noticeable in this communist country is the number of High Street, Western designer stores with European luxury cars parked in the streets. It is difficult to fathom how so much wealth can be accumulated by individuals as part of Communist state. Maybe they can easily save money due to the incredibly cheap meals or perhaps it is simple economics -even a tiny percentage of wealthy people in a country of 1.4 billion people equals lots of German cars and Italian handbags.

Of course we will also remember Kunming as the place that we had our laptop stolen. Annoying, frustrating, maddening and disaapointing – and that is just from dealing with the police! Unfortunately we were polite in announcing our loss and thus we were careful not to point to closely at the Hotel staff where we were staying. That was then used by the Hotel security staff, management and the police as a reason to move the blame elsewhere. In fact we were advised on 3 occasions to simply say that another Hotel had lost our computer – again, that was the police advice, not the Hotel staff. Ultimately, I did get a ride in an electric police car that looked like a cross between a golf cart, a Hollywood take on a police car in a futuristic, Utopian society and the Wiggles big Red Car. It was very quiet, even with lights flashing!
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Fresh Pineapple - on a stick
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Chinese Sleeper Bus

9/5/2010

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Bed with a view
To get a 7am bus to Kunming, China, we were out of our hotel in Luang Prabang and in a tuk-tuk by 6am.  10 minutes later we were on the side of the road in front of a Chinese restaurant, where we would wait 45 minutes for our bus to arrive.

Sleeper buses are new to us, although Vietnam is full of them so we had seen them before.  All that I knew about them was that the beds are short, the top bunks sway around more than bottam bunks and that depending on the bus, the beds may be single or double configuration.  So what a joy to find myself in a top bunk, double configuration!  The beds on our side were about 5 feet long with the head end inclined for about a foot - however only the flat area was mattress so the incline was only a goood place to put your pillow.  That leaves 4 feet for shoulders to feet.  Well, no worries because when checking off his manifest I noted the conductor had no scribble (writing) against the bed number next to me.  Hooray!

The girls were pretty happy beneath me and the bed sharing wasn't too big an issue for a mother and daughter team.

The first 2 hours North retraced the route we had taken at dusk into Luang Prabang 4 days earlier - only it seemed twistier.  This was a concern because I had worked out from maps that this was the flattest and most straight forward part of the route out of Laos.

We stopped for a toilet stop after 2 hours which was a good sign.  I had heard that the bus barely stopped until China to make sure it clears the border posts before 4.30pm.  Evidently we were making good time - or the border posts no longer close in the evening.

The toilet stop at a roadside restaurant had its own little surprise,  I walked in to the squat toilet, noting what looked like poo on the dimly lit floor.  I was about to turn back and wait for another when I realised I could walk to the toilet itself avoiding the deposits on the floor,...oh, and I made a quick mental note not to step on the tortoise....um, yep that's right....oh, no, wrong not 1 but 3.  Ah, it was probably their poo (or food?) lying around on the floor.  Mmmm I wonder if I could get for take away - can you really cook the taste of Asian squat toilet floor out of tortoise flesh?

Anyway, back on the bus and time to tackle some mountains.  In fact 5 hours of mountain bends with a 20 minute lunch stop in Udomxai.  I have to mention my lunch - a very Western "Asian" favourite of mine - baguette, cream cheese, coriander, carrot and onion.  Sure it's not traditional Laos fare but it's easy, cheap, a sure thing (no hidden cicadas or pig intestine) and best of all it leaves a fresh taste of conriander for hours to come.

So back on the bus, 3 violent, sexy, Chinese Kung-Fu and machine gun movies later, we arrived at the Laos -China border.  The buildings were ugly, all writing was in Chinese and there were trucks everywhere, from as far afield as Cambodia and Thailand - and this was still several Km's inside Laos.  Molly and Julia had enjoyed the movies, one of the flip down screens was actually under my bed - therefore it was a foot from their faces.  Fortunately Molly was caught up in her own i-pod by the time the female Kung-Fu assassins had proven themselves by beheading their lesser rivals, only to be drugged and pack raped by a bunch of body builders - good family matinee that one!

Leaving Laos was easy and to be honest, entering China was much the same - we did have our luggage searched for the first time this trip (in fact it was the first time since Singapore we even had to have our luggage with us at customs/immigration) but overall it was as the military officer searching suggested - "just a formality".  The guy that had tried to outwit the Chinese customs by leaving his chickens under a bed (not his) on the bus was told to let them go free, presumably with the hope that they would run back to Laos and not go for a holiday into China.

So we were in China.  Time for bus formalities to be dropped.  People appeared from nowhere and soon I had a bosom buddy.  My short, wide bed was now short and narrow.  Suddenly confined to my own side of the bed, next to the window, I had a chance to see how close the air con vents were - no place for claustrophobics.  Fortunately my bosom buddy had a friend on the top bunk across the aisle - they were able to talk (loudly) for hours - well,  when his mates mobile phone wasn't going off.

BB had obviously come straight from a busy and hard days work, there really is no other way to get that musty, sweaty smell.  Ah, it wasn't that bad ........ well, until he took his shoes off.  Down below Julia and Molly had quickly identified him as "smelliest feet on the bus guy" as he climbed up to bunk with me.

We stopped in Mengla at 7pm for dinner.  We went vegetarian and so they prepared enough greens and corn to offset the lack of iron we should have been getting from the various offal on offer.  The food was delicious but we really held back and left a lot- we had between 12 and 15 hours left on the bus, depending on who you believed, so 4kgs of sauteed cabbage for dinner would have been downright inhospitable of us!

By 4am I had managed 2 hours sleep and was more than a little uncomfortable - not just physically either.  I mean spooning with a stranger is no fun unless you just turned up at the Playboy Mansion for a slumber party.  But it wasn't just the spooning - at the point that BB broke wind on my hip I felt dirty, unwanted and ready for 36 hours of economy class on Garuda Air - at least then I would have an armrest for protection.

Meanwhile Julia woke up at around 3am and was cursing that the trip was almost over!
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Mohan, China - customs check in fron of the immigration building
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A Slight Technical Problem - Service Will Be Resumed Shortly

2/5/2010

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Well, we had a great time in Luang Prabang - recommended - and then had a wonderful 24+ hours in a sleeper bus - not recommended by me but the girls loved it - to Kunming, China.
Within 7 hours of getting here our laptop got stolen so all draft blogs from Laos as well as photos prepared for uploading have been lost.  It  just means that with us about to get on a train for 36 hours, it will be 2-4 days before we get updated - apologies but there is little we can do.
Thanks to the faithful who keep checking in and I assure you all will be rosy pretty soon.
Oh, and just quietly, make sure you by Issue 21 of the Take 5 magazine (out around 20 May)...........but spare me the embarassment and don't keep me a copy!
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