The Escape. 25 July - 28 July
The bus ride back into Ulaanbaatar was uneventful enough, although, at the small rest stop at the halfway point I believe PB managed to accidentally order the flavourless 'barely soup' broth that he'd first experienced on the day we failed to get permits, for possibly the 3rd time. In other respects the rest stop was quite pleasant, save the lime-dusted outdoor pit toilets, which, possibly because you were meant to squat over them in the typical non-European fashion, had only half doors on them for privacy.
Once we got back into the capital, our first stop was our previous hostel. No luck - they were sold out. So we headed to one of the many internet cafes to find a new home for the night (we were hoping to be able to buy tickets back to China the next day). Despite my being distracted by the graphic pornography I could see playing on some screens in the cafe, we managed to find a hostel advertised as 'home-like' and run by a mixed Iraqi-Mongolian couple. After a bit of a struggle actually finding the address, we eventually stumbled upon it. It was indeed home-like, as it was, in fact, the couples home. But it was clean and cheerful and indoors and devoid of guests other than ourselves, so it seemed a marked improvement over our previous situation. Sadly it was also devoid of food, so, entirely famished at this point and with the sky beginning to go dark, we headed out into the streets in search of food.
Normally, this would be a fairly unexciting prospect; most cities that are capable of supporting more than one travellers hostel can generally be counted on to offer a decent array of late-evening food choices. However, we had reached saturation point on Mongolian food, particularly PB, as he had been disappointed so many times by the arrival of the thin, bland, miserly broth he kept unintentionally ordering. He no longer trusted his luck or his memory and was adamantly opposed to heading to anything even resembling traditional Mongolian fare. For myself, although I hadn't had the same repetitive experience as PB had, I, too, was feeling the monotony; the steppes of Mongolia are a wild and beautiful thing, but they do not and cannot grow the vegetables and spices necessary to make the more flavourful and varied dishes of their southern neighbour. Now, due to the political climate, it was unlikely that we would be able to find a Chinese restaurant very easily (although we'd managed to find a good tandoori-mexican fusion restaurant during our previous, longer stay in the capital), so we settled for a fried chicken outlet, Chicken Queen. It was small, it was fluorescent, it was cheap, the menu had pictures, and the food had an abundance of sauces available. It was perfect.
Chicken consumed, we headed back to the hostel and slept soundly on real beds. The next morning we braced ourselves and headed to the train station, girding our loins for the anticipated battle to purchase tickets to the border. To our absolute surprise the process was entirely painless. The line was short, there was no queue-barging, we managed to get cots together on the train that left that night. The whole thing was smooth enough that I wondered whether we might be leaving right when we were starting to get the hang of the country.
We spent the rest of that day checking out of our Mongolian hostel and arranging beds for ourselves back in Beijing, for 3 nights in advance. Remembering that Zamiin Uud, which we again would need to stop in, had had no produce available whatsoever, we went hunting through every grocery store we could find for some fruit for the long journey. After several attempts, we found not only a small basket of sweet plums but a discarded x-ray sheet. We kept, and enjoyed, both.
Once we got on the train that evening, my earlier worries that we were perhaps giving up on Mongolia too soon were dashed. We had to fight for our bunks, even though the number was printed on our tickets; they'd apparently been 'claimed' by a group that decided they wanted to stick together. The only problem was that the seats they were supposed to have been in had also been claimed; in fact, there were no free seats in the house, and it appeared, from the fact that 3 of them didn't even bother to show us, or the conductor, their tickets, that a few of them weren't supposed to be on the train at all. So we were squeezed onto the seats beside them, and crammed together into one single narrow bunk (the floor not being fit to sleep on because the group kept throwing garbage and peanut shells onto it), feet to head. Or, at first we were. After a few hours of lying so precariously, PB gave up and climbed to the upper storage shelf and slept there; although it creaked ominously under even his slight weight, it was at least clean and, he reported in the morning, fairly comfortable.
From the train station in Zamiin Uud we immediately went and caught another jeep ride back into Er Lian, this time with no border complications; now that Nadaam was over, the cross border traffic seemed much decreased. We headed to the train station in Er Lian only to find that no train was leaving that day. However, one of the joys of China is that someone is always willing to sell you something, so we found our from the ticket lady that there was an overnight bus we could take that was leaving tonight for Beijing. We caught a taxi from the train station and, after a miscommunication or two (the driver was wonderfully patient, it must be said), we found ourselves at a large bus station on the outskirts of town.
Tickets were purchased fairly easily thanks to Chinese commercialism and my smattering of mandarin, but we were about 4 hours too early to actually get on the bus. We decided to kill time at what looked like (and was) a nearby restaurant, and ran into a fellow foreigner on the way over. Tentative courtesies were exchanged and we decided to all eat lunch together.
His name was Guillaume; French, obviously, with good English and a self-effacing manner. He had been travelling for some weeks already and regaled us with anecdotes. His English name, he explained, was William the Lucky. He always had tremendous luck when travelling and in life in general, and he was very very grateful for it, as otherwise he would often have been stranded. Unfortunately he was heading in a different direction, on a different bus, so our goodbyes (after a wonderfully Chinese luncheon full of peppers and onion and spices) was the last we ever saw or heard of him.
The type of bus we took from Er Lian to Beijing is often called a Bed Bus, or a Sleeper Bus. Unlike the Greyhound buses of North America which are filled with single seats that partially recline, these buses are have no seats whatsoever. Instead, they have stacks of beds in rows along the sides and down the middle of the bus. The beds are like hospital beds in that the back is capable of raising slightly so the occupant can sit up. It felt a little precarious hurtling down the highway with nothing but a coverlet for protection, but it was wonderfully comfortable. I stayed awake for a little while, wondering at the tight, shiny rows of blue lamp posts on a highway that seemed, like so many Chinese highways, to be almost entirely deserted. But soon enough night fell and I slept soundly, only waking to the bright lights of the city of Beijing sometime in the very, very early morning.
2015/10/02
2015/09/25
a Frustrated Cat. Asia 2011
Ondorkhaan, the breaking point. - 21 July - 25 July.
Journal Entry for 22 July, 2011:
Out of Ulaanbataar, now stuck in Ondorkhaan in Khentii aimag. We got in yesterday at 13:00; unfortunately the bus for Batshireet left at 8 that morning. The next bus is on Monday, again at 8; we tried a bit yesterday afternoon and evening to get a ride, but after several hours of effort got only 2 offers, neither of which we were willing to pay, the charges being exorbitant. So, we wait till Monday, and camp till then. A few things of note about yesterday, though: we met an American woman whose name we never learned, who’s working as a photographer with an NGO working with the American Military, who in their turn are working with Mongolian doctors in capacity building. So there’s quite a few American soldiers about town, though they mostly keep to themselves.
Also, at one point while searching for a radio station to put an ad out to hire a jeep to Batshireet, I was put on luggage-guard duty and PB went a-wandering; but, while I was waiting, I met an elderly scientist named Dolmaa, who spoke some English and was very interesting and helpful. She studies fish and fish ecology and works at the Academy in Ulaanbataar. She told me about the Mongolian trout which can vary greatly in size and tastes very good. She also helped translate while we were trying to figure out a ride to Batshireet provided by a friend of a friend of a very trashy lady in a see-through turquoise lace top barely able to contain her bulk, with a lady in green with a young son with delicate blonde hair who were also apparently from Batshireet. But Dolmaa had to leave before the deal was concluded, so she didn’t see it fall through due to outrageous pricing. She did seem to think it might be dangerous for us to camp, but we had no problems last night. If we are lucky we will be left alone tonight as well, but we’re in a different place and it seems much busier so we’ll see.
Also yesterday we met two lovely little girls in the Post Office / Telecom Office / Bus Station, named as near as I can remember and translate, Naimiin (7) and Namiinjiin (8). I played ‘catch-the-bottlecap’ with them with my hat (also: PB & I bought hats) for some time and we had great fun, the younger definitely being the more outgoing. Oh, and one last story: at dinner yesterday a young girl, maybe 3 or 4, who’d been playing quite cheerfully in the main eating area disappeared into the kitchen and started screaming terribly; it turns out she’d somehow hurt her foot, burned it, actually. PB and I felt very bad and rummaged around for something that would help her in our first aid kits. All we could find was an anti-septic wipe with painkillers and aloe in it, but we gave them that, at least. Poor kid, she was too young to really know what had happened or why it hurt so much. And then, as we were walking away, the older girl who’d been in there ran after us and forced 300 mnt (Editor’s Note: MNT = tgr = Tugrik) into my hand. Strange day.
Today has been much lazier and less eventful, resigned as we are now to staying here the next few days. In the morning we lazed around the tent; in the afternoon we lazed around an internet cafe ( well, I lazed; PB taught himself some Korean) and this evening we lazed around in the river, which is generally shallow but quite swift. Anyway, as can probably be guessed from my penmanship now, it is too dark to easily write. I hope we will be generally left along this night, or, failing that, unharmed, and I will write again when writing is worth it.
Goodnight.
Storytime!
Writing would not prove worth it for some few days. Although we had met the photojournalist on our first unwilling afternoon in Ondorkhaan (which was apparently renamed Chinggis City in 2013, although the Mongolian Cyrillic on Google Maps still clearly spells Ondorkhaan), we never saw her again, and, despite catching the odd glimpse of American fatigues over the next few days, our time in Ondorkhaan was spent glorying in what can most kindly be called the Authentic Mongolian Experience.
We were camping as there was not a hostel to be seen, but also because the land was flat and grassy all about the town, with only the Kherlen River to the South interrupting with its short sandy banks and muddy burbling. The weather, it must be said, was beautiful: sunny and mild and unfailingly pleasant. Given all these, then, it should be no wonder that, after the first night spent not far from the bus terminal, we set up camp near a bend in the river, the easier to leave the tent and go swimming. Well, paddling, anyway; the Kherlen, though swift, is too shallow at that point for an adult to swim properly.
For children, though, it is apparently the precise right depth. On the day before we were to buy tickets and catch our bus (as we had been assured by the counter attendant that tickets were never sold in advance), PB had gone again to the town's internet cafe and I had stayed in the tent to alternate between napping and paddling in the river. Suddenly, around midday, in the middle of one of my river paddling sessions, I was stumbled upon by a group of 4 young boys, about 8 or 9 years of age, the same age group I had taught when I lived in Hong Kong.
Now, one thing that I have found to hold true almost everywhere in the world is that kids are always kids. There's not a huge amount of regional variation on the the nature of childhood, particularly of childhoods spent without much money. It seems to take either a huge amount of unconscious wealth or the horrors of puberty to really change or disguise the natural fecklessness and curiousity of the average child. So, with my own childhood spent by the Mackenzie and Liard Rivers of Northern Canada on top of my year of teaching in Hong Kong to help me bridge the adult-child gap, I hit it off with the kids right away.
None of them spoke much English, of course, and my Mongolian was limited to a scarce handful of words, but they didn't seem to mind and we made do with miming and facial expressions. Always appreciative of a fresh audience, the boys insisted I sit and watch as they took turns jumping off the small bank into the river, or sliding down the bank, or semi-swimming in the muddy water. I kept up my end of the bargain by clapping when appropriate and keeping up a steady stream of smiles, laughter, and commiseration at failed attempts at different stunts.
Even without understanding the language, different personalities soon became clear. There was a quiet, confident one who seemed the understood leader of the pack. Not the tallest or the loudest, still whenever there seemed to be a discussion going on, it was his statements that turned it into action. The others all looked at him whenever he spoke.
There was a noticeably smaller one, perhaps a younger brother, who the others treated with a rough affection and thoughtlessness. He mostly seemed to be overjoyed at his inclusion in the group, and could be counted on to vehemently support whatever was going on, be it laughter or jumping in the water or what have you; but during discussions and arguments would fall silent and hang back, not daring to venture an opinion.
The third was the tallest, with a round head and small eyes that, for some reason, made me think he likely wore glasses when they were available and his parents could force him into them. He was chatty enough with the other boys but shy and deferential with me. He had a ready laugh and seemed good natured; it also turned out he had a decent memory for his classroom English lessons and was called upon by the leader to translate the odd words or phrase. In these instances the leader seemed to trust his answers, acknowledging them with a curt nod that would bring a small smile of pride to the boy's face.
The fourth was the clown. Wild and unpredictable, keen for attention, he laughed the most and spoke the loudest. He attempted for brashness and bravado, but nearly fawned on the leader of the pack. Something about him, I'm not sure what, made me think back to my experiences in Canada; I could not banish the assumption that he came from a poorer or otherwise different family in the town. Something about him screamed that he was seen as different by the other boys, by himself, but that he had been included in this afternoon's activities because of this comparable age, and now he was desperately enjoying himself and wildly grateful to be given the chance to be among them. I sympathised, and I wondered what his home was like, but I didn't quite trust him.
After an hour or so, the boys tired of the water, and, through the leaders presumptuous miming, I was given to understand that they wanted to see where I slept. I obediently took them back to the tent, which was just large enough to house one adult and 4 kids if the door was open. Rather complacently I let them rummage around my few belongings, keeping PB's clothes and precious camera equipment safely tucked into the corner behind my back. This is when the little academic proved his worth. While his leader was flinging imperious questions at me via mimes and the help of our small pocket dictionary, it was the academic that was given the task of filling in the gaps. He acted as a translator for both the leader's questions and my answers, while the wild child and the younger brother contented themselves with murmurs of astonishment or agreement while going through my few mementos... and my multivitamins, which they immediately assumed were candy. I decided it probably wouldn't hurt them to not be corrected on that front, and so they were each treated to a multivitamin. They were apparently unimpressed with the quality of my "sweets" as there were no requests for seconds.
The questions were largely about where we had been, what China was like, and where we were from. They seemed interested in Canada, and I was able to show them a small map and point out the city I lived in. They commiserated with me about the cold, apparently their winters were cold, too. They tried to tell me how cold, but I couldn't understand the numbers. They were horrified by this, and the next 15 minutes were spent in me dutifully repeating the numbers 1-10 in Mongolian until they were satisfied. They had significantly less trouble in learning the English numbers. This knowledge established, they insisted on exchanging phone numbers. I tried to ignore my flashback to The Simpsons episode where Bart calls Australia, and dutifully recorded their phone numbers on a little scrap of paper.
Eventually the stream of questions ebbed, though, and, as the day was growing long, they soon turned for home. They had only walked about 20 or 30 feet away though, when, waist deep in the tall grass, they stopped and huddled around the wild child. I saw the face of the academic glance at me, his expression troubled and unhappy. Sensing trouble was afoot, I stood up and faced them with the pretence of waving them goodbye. The little group abruptly broke apart and, after a moments hissed excitement from the wild child to the leader, the wild child was shoved forward while the other three shamefacedly hung their heads and peeked out at me from the corners of their eyes.
"Hey - Kiss?" yelled the wild child.
Ah, I thought. So that's what this is about. I raised a wry and slightly disapproving eyebrow and shook my head, no.
More hissed excitement, but this time the wild child shoved himself forward and yelled,
"Hey - Sex?"
followed by gales of shocked laughter. I figured I didn't want to know where he had learned that word, and just shook my head again, trying to look more disapproving. Finally they moved off, and I lounged in the tent until PB came back, overall feeling pretty pleased with the afternoon.
The next morning we awoke before dawn with the intention of being at the bus depot at the earliest possible moment in order to assure being able to purchase bus tickets to Batshireet. It was only while I was packing up that I realised that I was missing 10 mnt and several Chinese jiao (cents, essentially) notes, as well as the wristwatch I had bought in the Temple Street Night Market in Hong Kong, which had broken within days. The little shits had stolen from me.
Strangely, it's the only time I've ever been robbed. Period.
Anyway, warmed by my outrage, we finished packing up and headed to the bus station. PB was the first one inside. I sat outside with our bags, waiting for the sun to fully rise. After nearly 45 minutes, he came back outside, tight with anger. The tickets were sold out, he said. Somehow, despite OUR not being able to purchase advance tickets, all the tickets had been sold in advance. The next bus was on Thursday, which would give us no time at all to be able to explore as we had planned and still get back to China before our Mongolian visas expired. With PB frustrated to no end with the infrastructure and my upset at having my things stolen, and no real other option anyway, it did not take us long to give up on our Mongolian venture and decide to head back to the capital and from there continue immediately to China.
For that bus, at least, there were still tickets. We left that afternoon.
Journal Entry for 22 July, 2011:
Out of Ulaanbataar, now stuck in Ondorkhaan in Khentii aimag. We got in yesterday at 13:00; unfortunately the bus for Batshireet left at 8 that morning. The next bus is on Monday, again at 8; we tried a bit yesterday afternoon and evening to get a ride, but after several hours of effort got only 2 offers, neither of which we were willing to pay, the charges being exorbitant. So, we wait till Monday, and camp till then. A few things of note about yesterday, though: we met an American woman whose name we never learned, who’s working as a photographer with an NGO working with the American Military, who in their turn are working with Mongolian doctors in capacity building. So there’s quite a few American soldiers about town, though they mostly keep to themselves.
Also, at one point while searching for a radio station to put an ad out to hire a jeep to Batshireet, I was put on luggage-guard duty and PB went a-wandering; but, while I was waiting, I met an elderly scientist named Dolmaa, who spoke some English and was very interesting and helpful. She studies fish and fish ecology and works at the Academy in Ulaanbataar. She told me about the Mongolian trout which can vary greatly in size and tastes very good. She also helped translate while we were trying to figure out a ride to Batshireet provided by a friend of a friend of a very trashy lady in a see-through turquoise lace top barely able to contain her bulk, with a lady in green with a young son with delicate blonde hair who were also apparently from Batshireet. But Dolmaa had to leave before the deal was concluded, so she didn’t see it fall through due to outrageous pricing. She did seem to think it might be dangerous for us to camp, but we had no problems last night. If we are lucky we will be left alone tonight as well, but we’re in a different place and it seems much busier so we’ll see.
Also yesterday we met two lovely little girls in the Post Office / Telecom Office / Bus Station, named as near as I can remember and translate, Naimiin (7) and Namiinjiin (8). I played ‘catch-the-bottlecap’ with them with my hat (also: PB & I bought hats) for some time and we had great fun, the younger definitely being the more outgoing. Oh, and one last story: at dinner yesterday a young girl, maybe 3 or 4, who’d been playing quite cheerfully in the main eating area disappeared into the kitchen and started screaming terribly; it turns out she’d somehow hurt her foot, burned it, actually. PB and I felt very bad and rummaged around for something that would help her in our first aid kits. All we could find was an anti-septic wipe with painkillers and aloe in it, but we gave them that, at least. Poor kid, she was too young to really know what had happened or why it hurt so much. And then, as we were walking away, the older girl who’d been in there ran after us and forced 300 mnt (Editor’s Note: MNT = tgr = Tugrik) into my hand. Strange day.
Today has been much lazier and less eventful, resigned as we are now to staying here the next few days. In the morning we lazed around the tent; in the afternoon we lazed around an internet cafe ( well, I lazed; PB taught himself some Korean) and this evening we lazed around in the river, which is generally shallow but quite swift. Anyway, as can probably be guessed from my penmanship now, it is too dark to easily write. I hope we will be generally left along this night, or, failing that, unharmed, and I will write again when writing is worth it.
Goodnight.
Storytime!
Writing would not prove worth it for some few days. Although we had met the photojournalist on our first unwilling afternoon in Ondorkhaan (which was apparently renamed Chinggis City in 2013, although the Mongolian Cyrillic on Google Maps still clearly spells Ondorkhaan), we never saw her again, and, despite catching the odd glimpse of American fatigues over the next few days, our time in Ondorkhaan was spent glorying in what can most kindly be called the Authentic Mongolian Experience.
We were camping as there was not a hostel to be seen, but also because the land was flat and grassy all about the town, with only the Kherlen River to the South interrupting with its short sandy banks and muddy burbling. The weather, it must be said, was beautiful: sunny and mild and unfailingly pleasant. Given all these, then, it should be no wonder that, after the first night spent not far from the bus terminal, we set up camp near a bend in the river, the easier to leave the tent and go swimming. Well, paddling, anyway; the Kherlen, though swift, is too shallow at that point for an adult to swim properly.
For children, though, it is apparently the precise right depth. On the day before we were to buy tickets and catch our bus (as we had been assured by the counter attendant that tickets were never sold in advance), PB had gone again to the town's internet cafe and I had stayed in the tent to alternate between napping and paddling in the river. Suddenly, around midday, in the middle of one of my river paddling sessions, I was stumbled upon by a group of 4 young boys, about 8 or 9 years of age, the same age group I had taught when I lived in Hong Kong.
Now, one thing that I have found to hold true almost everywhere in the world is that kids are always kids. There's not a huge amount of regional variation on the the nature of childhood, particularly of childhoods spent without much money. It seems to take either a huge amount of unconscious wealth or the horrors of puberty to really change or disguise the natural fecklessness and curiousity of the average child. So, with my own childhood spent by the Mackenzie and Liard Rivers of Northern Canada on top of my year of teaching in Hong Kong to help me bridge the adult-child gap, I hit it off with the kids right away.
None of them spoke much English, of course, and my Mongolian was limited to a scarce handful of words, but they didn't seem to mind and we made do with miming and facial expressions. Always appreciative of a fresh audience, the boys insisted I sit and watch as they took turns jumping off the small bank into the river, or sliding down the bank, or semi-swimming in the muddy water. I kept up my end of the bargain by clapping when appropriate and keeping up a steady stream of smiles, laughter, and commiseration at failed attempts at different stunts.
Even without understanding the language, different personalities soon became clear. There was a quiet, confident one who seemed the understood leader of the pack. Not the tallest or the loudest, still whenever there seemed to be a discussion going on, it was his statements that turned it into action. The others all looked at him whenever he spoke.
There was a noticeably smaller one, perhaps a younger brother, who the others treated with a rough affection and thoughtlessness. He mostly seemed to be overjoyed at his inclusion in the group, and could be counted on to vehemently support whatever was going on, be it laughter or jumping in the water or what have you; but during discussions and arguments would fall silent and hang back, not daring to venture an opinion.
The third was the tallest, with a round head and small eyes that, for some reason, made me think he likely wore glasses when they were available and his parents could force him into them. He was chatty enough with the other boys but shy and deferential with me. He had a ready laugh and seemed good natured; it also turned out he had a decent memory for his classroom English lessons and was called upon by the leader to translate the odd words or phrase. In these instances the leader seemed to trust his answers, acknowledging them with a curt nod that would bring a small smile of pride to the boy's face.
The fourth was the clown. Wild and unpredictable, keen for attention, he laughed the most and spoke the loudest. He attempted for brashness and bravado, but nearly fawned on the leader of the pack. Something about him, I'm not sure what, made me think back to my experiences in Canada; I could not banish the assumption that he came from a poorer or otherwise different family in the town. Something about him screamed that he was seen as different by the other boys, by himself, but that he had been included in this afternoon's activities because of this comparable age, and now he was desperately enjoying himself and wildly grateful to be given the chance to be among them. I sympathised, and I wondered what his home was like, but I didn't quite trust him.
After an hour or so, the boys tired of the water, and, through the leaders presumptuous miming, I was given to understand that they wanted to see where I slept. I obediently took them back to the tent, which was just large enough to house one adult and 4 kids if the door was open. Rather complacently I let them rummage around my few belongings, keeping PB's clothes and precious camera equipment safely tucked into the corner behind my back. This is when the little academic proved his worth. While his leader was flinging imperious questions at me via mimes and the help of our small pocket dictionary, it was the academic that was given the task of filling in the gaps. He acted as a translator for both the leader's questions and my answers, while the wild child and the younger brother contented themselves with murmurs of astonishment or agreement while going through my few mementos... and my multivitamins, which they immediately assumed were candy. I decided it probably wouldn't hurt them to not be corrected on that front, and so they were each treated to a multivitamin. They were apparently unimpressed with the quality of my "sweets" as there were no requests for seconds.
The questions were largely about where we had been, what China was like, and where we were from. They seemed interested in Canada, and I was able to show them a small map and point out the city I lived in. They commiserated with me about the cold, apparently their winters were cold, too. They tried to tell me how cold, but I couldn't understand the numbers. They were horrified by this, and the next 15 minutes were spent in me dutifully repeating the numbers 1-10 in Mongolian until they were satisfied. They had significantly less trouble in learning the English numbers. This knowledge established, they insisted on exchanging phone numbers. I tried to ignore my flashback to The Simpsons episode where Bart calls Australia, and dutifully recorded their phone numbers on a little scrap of paper.
Eventually the stream of questions ebbed, though, and, as the day was growing long, they soon turned for home. They had only walked about 20 or 30 feet away though, when, waist deep in the tall grass, they stopped and huddled around the wild child. I saw the face of the academic glance at me, his expression troubled and unhappy. Sensing trouble was afoot, I stood up and faced them with the pretence of waving them goodbye. The little group abruptly broke apart and, after a moments hissed excitement from the wild child to the leader, the wild child was shoved forward while the other three shamefacedly hung their heads and peeked out at me from the corners of their eyes.
"Hey - Kiss?" yelled the wild child.
Ah, I thought. So that's what this is about. I raised a wry and slightly disapproving eyebrow and shook my head, no.
More hissed excitement, but this time the wild child shoved himself forward and yelled,
"Hey - Sex?"
followed by gales of shocked laughter. I figured I didn't want to know where he had learned that word, and just shook my head again, trying to look more disapproving. Finally they moved off, and I lounged in the tent until PB came back, overall feeling pretty pleased with the afternoon.
The next morning we awoke before dawn with the intention of being at the bus depot at the earliest possible moment in order to assure being able to purchase bus tickets to Batshireet. It was only while I was packing up that I realised that I was missing 10 mnt and several Chinese jiao (cents, essentially) notes, as well as the wristwatch I had bought in the Temple Street Night Market in Hong Kong, which had broken within days. The little shits had stolen from me.
Strangely, it's the only time I've ever been robbed. Period.
Anyway, warmed by my outrage, we finished packing up and headed to the bus station. PB was the first one inside. I sat outside with our bags, waiting for the sun to fully rise. After nearly 45 minutes, he came back outside, tight with anger. The tickets were sold out, he said. Somehow, despite OUR not being able to purchase advance tickets, all the tickets had been sold in advance. The next bus was on Thursday, which would give us no time at all to be able to explore as we had planned and still get back to China before our Mongolian visas expired. With PB frustrated to no end with the infrastructure and my upset at having my things stolen, and no real other option anyway, it did not take us long to give up on our Mongolian venture and decide to head back to the capital and from there continue immediately to China.
For that bus, at least, there were still tickets. We left that afternoon.
2015/09/18
an Ecdemic Cat. Asia 2011.
Mongol Uls 14 July - 20 July, 2011
Director's Cut for 20/07/2011:
Been a while since I last wrote. We’re still in Ulaanbataar. We’re staying in a hostel that’s nice enough, though there’s only one bathroom for 2 floors. The day we got in we met up with a bunch of people from Stepperiders and had really nice Indian food. Unfortunately I threw it all up a few hours later; all that night and the next day I was terrifically sick. I was still weak the next couple days, but am better now. I suspect it was the marmot.
Despite all this, we at least now have a good idea where we want to go, and will (hopefully) be on our way tomorrow. We will go East, first to Ondorkhaan, then north to Batshireet near the Russian border. From there we will trek to Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area, in the hopes of seeing the insides of some of the bathhouses apparently in the area. We hope the trek will take about a week, all told, and then we will make our way back to Ulaanbataar, and from there to Beijing, Shanghai, and, eventually, Korea, where PB will stay and I will leave.
Storytime:
Getting out of Ulaanbataar was not, in itself, particularly difficult. Certainly it was not the ordeal that getting into it from China had been; however, because we had decided to go to the Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area, we thought we needed some sort of authorisation. The guide books and tour resources we found had conflicting information, and no one in the various hostels we talked to seemed to know much about it either. But, one rainy morning after I had recovered sufficient strength, we ventured out to the building we hoped would contain both information about the adventure we had planned as well as permission to do it.
At the time, as I stated above, the plan was to go east to a decent sized town called Ondorkhaan by bus (that being the only way to get there), then north to a smallish town called Batshireet on the Russian border, again by bus. From Batshireet we hoped to hire horses or a car to the Strictly Protected Area. At the time, however, the information we had indicated that a permit was needed to both get into the protected area, and, potentially, even to stay in a town so close to the Russian border. But reliable information on either subject was sparse and contradictory with next to no information available online (I'm told it's different now), so at last we figured the most efficient method was to head to the government office responsible for such permits and get it sorted out there.
It took at least one urban bus and a fair bit of walking to get to the government office, and so we were treated to the spectacle of Ulaanbataar without its habitual cloak of blue skies and brilliant sunshine. The city is built in a sort of valley-like hollow around the junction of two rivers, the Selbe, which flows into the city from the direct north, and the much larger Tuul, which flows through the southern edge of the city from east to west. The geography means that the centre of the city is fairly flat, but if you head to the south you run into the city's most recognizable geographic feature, the mountain Bogd Khan Uul, and if you head to the north you hit the edge of the hollow and face a steep climb upwards until you find the lip of the plateau again. Our destination was to the north of the city centre, and so we found ourselves slogging a fair way uphill over sporadically incomplete sidewalks. The rain was steady but not torrential, and did nothing to improve the look of the several grimy-looking gers (again, the Mongolian yurt) that huddled within the edges of the city limits. Still after much walking, and much walking around construction that had spilled over onto sidewalks, we found the building.
It was a sleek glass and metallic affair, low to the ground and dark blue in colour. The parking lot in front of it was in disarray, of course, but the vehicles parked on the soggy, uneven dirt patch were modern and shiny and dark. Overall, the building gave the distinct impression of having money and being very serious indeed... As did the guardbox and 10 foot high, razor-wire topped, chainlink fence surrounding the entire affair. Daunted but unwilling to be put off, we approached the guardbox.
A good hour and a half later, we walked away. Not only did we not have permits, we hadn't even been let inside. No information was available - at least, no information in English - and the greatest achievement of our quest had been to serve as entertainment for some bemused looking army officials as they walked through the yard of the building, cozily on the other side of the fence.
Frustrated and soggy, we wandered away, eventually finding a main street to take us back to the city centre. As we wandered south and downwards, dodging around loose paving stones and open pits now cheerily lit by fresh sunlight, we wondered how to proceed. The address we had been given was pretty unambiguous, and matched exactly the numbers on the unreachable blue steel building we'd been barred from entering. On the other hand, the book that gave the address was about 4 years old; perhaps it was out of date? Did that mean there was a different office we needed to go to, or simply that permits were no longer required? Were we willing to take that risk? If Mongolia deported us, would we be sent back to China or to Canada?
Pondering these and other questions, we wandered into a two-level restaurant for lunch. Decorated exclusively in unrelieved dark wood panelling, it was dimly lit and offered traditional Mongolian fare. The lower level was occupied by smoking Mongolians who looked askance at us as we entered. Being already mentally exhausted with the days efforts and unwilling to face further scrutiny without at least a hot meal to lift our low spirits, we retreated to the unoccupied benches upstairs. The obviously startled waitress handed us menus that were low on pictures (a Chinese affectation we agreed made food purchase exponentially easier) and had English transcriptions, rather than translations, of the menu items, although each section (Entrees, Vegetables, Soup, Meat, etc) was labelled in several different languages. We both decided on soup as the best remedy for the chill of the day and ordered at random.
Waiting for our mystery soups, we huddled over the ubiquitous Mongolian tea, heavy with the traditional milk and salt. As the warmth seeped into us, we began to draw a sort of stubborn courage. If the address had changed, and no new one supplied, wasn't it possible that the policy had been changed as well, we argued? Surely if the policy was still in affect, someone at the hostel, either staff or fellow guest, would have known about it, and none had. Besides, we were not going for very long; besides that, if we found out at the entrance that permits were necessary, we could turn back, or perhaps even purchase them at some office there. We mullishly decided that if we were unable to apply for permits, we would assume none were necessary and would depart, as planned, for Ondorkhaan in 4 days time. Bolstered by these arguments, not even the lackluster nature of the soup could bring us low again, despite the fact that PB's consisted literally of 2 tablespoons worth of shredded mutton in what appeared to be unseasoned water, rather than broth. Mine, at least, had some shreds of noodle and onion.
The rest of our time in the capital was spent pursuing traditionally tourist excursions. We visited the Museum of Natural History, which was ok, the National Museum of Mongolia, which was very good, and the Winter Palace of the Bogd Khan, which was small and somehow sad but also very enjoyable in its slight dilapidation and faded glory. We also went to the Chojin Lama Temple Museum and caught a performance of Tuvan throat singing, which I would absolutely recommend. And, 4 days later, we packed our bags and headed to the eastern bus terminus of the city, where, despite the delay caused while disputing the fare of an unscrupulous "taxi" driver, we caught a simple long haul bus east to Ondorkhaan.
Director's Cut for 20/07/2011:
Been a while since I last wrote. We’re still in Ulaanbataar. We’re staying in a hostel that’s nice enough, though there’s only one bathroom for 2 floors. The day we got in we met up with a bunch of people from Stepperiders and had really nice Indian food. Unfortunately I threw it all up a few hours later; all that night and the next day I was terrifically sick. I was still weak the next couple days, but am better now. I suspect it was the marmot.
Despite all this, we at least now have a good idea where we want to go, and will (hopefully) be on our way tomorrow. We will go East, first to Ondorkhaan, then north to Batshireet near the Russian border. From there we will trek to Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area, in the hopes of seeing the insides of some of the bathhouses apparently in the area. We hope the trek will take about a week, all told, and then we will make our way back to Ulaanbataar, and from there to Beijing, Shanghai, and, eventually, Korea, where PB will stay and I will leave.
Storytime:
Getting out of Ulaanbataar was not, in itself, particularly difficult. Certainly it was not the ordeal that getting into it from China had been; however, because we had decided to go to the Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area, we thought we needed some sort of authorisation. The guide books and tour resources we found had conflicting information, and no one in the various hostels we talked to seemed to know much about it either. But, one rainy morning after I had recovered sufficient strength, we ventured out to the building we hoped would contain both information about the adventure we had planned as well as permission to do it.
At the time, as I stated above, the plan was to go east to a decent sized town called Ondorkhaan by bus (that being the only way to get there), then north to a smallish town called Batshireet on the Russian border, again by bus. From Batshireet we hoped to hire horses or a car to the Strictly Protected Area. At the time, however, the information we had indicated that a permit was needed to both get into the protected area, and, potentially, even to stay in a town so close to the Russian border. But reliable information on either subject was sparse and contradictory with next to no information available online (I'm told it's different now), so at last we figured the most efficient method was to head to the government office responsible for such permits and get it sorted out there.
It took at least one urban bus and a fair bit of walking to get to the government office, and so we were treated to the spectacle of Ulaanbataar without its habitual cloak of blue skies and brilliant sunshine. The city is built in a sort of valley-like hollow around the junction of two rivers, the Selbe, which flows into the city from the direct north, and the much larger Tuul, which flows through the southern edge of the city from east to west. The geography means that the centre of the city is fairly flat, but if you head to the south you run into the city's most recognizable geographic feature, the mountain Bogd Khan Uul, and if you head to the north you hit the edge of the hollow and face a steep climb upwards until you find the lip of the plateau again. Our destination was to the north of the city centre, and so we found ourselves slogging a fair way uphill over sporadically incomplete sidewalks. The rain was steady but not torrential, and did nothing to improve the look of the several grimy-looking gers (again, the Mongolian yurt) that huddled within the edges of the city limits. Still after much walking, and much walking around construction that had spilled over onto sidewalks, we found the building.
It was a sleek glass and metallic affair, low to the ground and dark blue in colour. The parking lot in front of it was in disarray, of course, but the vehicles parked on the soggy, uneven dirt patch were modern and shiny and dark. Overall, the building gave the distinct impression of having money and being very serious indeed... As did the guardbox and 10 foot high, razor-wire topped, chainlink fence surrounding the entire affair. Daunted but unwilling to be put off, we approached the guardbox.
A good hour and a half later, we walked away. Not only did we not have permits, we hadn't even been let inside. No information was available - at least, no information in English - and the greatest achievement of our quest had been to serve as entertainment for some bemused looking army officials as they walked through the yard of the building, cozily on the other side of the fence.
Frustrated and soggy, we wandered away, eventually finding a main street to take us back to the city centre. As we wandered south and downwards, dodging around loose paving stones and open pits now cheerily lit by fresh sunlight, we wondered how to proceed. The address we had been given was pretty unambiguous, and matched exactly the numbers on the unreachable blue steel building we'd been barred from entering. On the other hand, the book that gave the address was about 4 years old; perhaps it was out of date? Did that mean there was a different office we needed to go to, or simply that permits were no longer required? Were we willing to take that risk? If Mongolia deported us, would we be sent back to China or to Canada?
Pondering these and other questions, we wandered into a two-level restaurant for lunch. Decorated exclusively in unrelieved dark wood panelling, it was dimly lit and offered traditional Mongolian fare. The lower level was occupied by smoking Mongolians who looked askance at us as we entered. Being already mentally exhausted with the days efforts and unwilling to face further scrutiny without at least a hot meal to lift our low spirits, we retreated to the unoccupied benches upstairs. The obviously startled waitress handed us menus that were low on pictures (a Chinese affectation we agreed made food purchase exponentially easier) and had English transcriptions, rather than translations, of the menu items, although each section (Entrees, Vegetables, Soup, Meat, etc) was labelled in several different languages. We both decided on soup as the best remedy for the chill of the day and ordered at random.
Waiting for our mystery soups, we huddled over the ubiquitous Mongolian tea, heavy with the traditional milk and salt. As the warmth seeped into us, we began to draw a sort of stubborn courage. If the address had changed, and no new one supplied, wasn't it possible that the policy had been changed as well, we argued? Surely if the policy was still in affect, someone at the hostel, either staff or fellow guest, would have known about it, and none had. Besides, we were not going for very long; besides that, if we found out at the entrance that permits were necessary, we could turn back, or perhaps even purchase them at some office there. We mullishly decided that if we were unable to apply for permits, we would assume none were necessary and would depart, as planned, for Ondorkhaan in 4 days time. Bolstered by these arguments, not even the lackluster nature of the soup could bring us low again, despite the fact that PB's consisted literally of 2 tablespoons worth of shredded mutton in what appeared to be unseasoned water, rather than broth. Mine, at least, had some shreds of noodle and onion.
The rest of our time in the capital was spent pursuing traditionally tourist excursions. We visited the Museum of Natural History, which was ok, the National Museum of Mongolia, which was very good, and the Winter Palace of the Bogd Khan, which was small and somehow sad but also very enjoyable in its slight dilapidation and faded glory. We also went to the Chojin Lama Temple Museum and caught a performance of Tuvan throat singing, which I would absolutely recommend. And, 4 days later, we packed our bags and headed to the eastern bus terminus of the city, where, despite the delay caused while disputing the fare of an unscrupulous "taxi" driver, we caught a simple long haul bus east to Ondorkhaan.
2015/09/11
a Dziggetai Cat. Asia 2011
Horsepower 09/July - 13/July
As we stepped off the train in Ulaanbataar we were swallowed by the crowd of jostling, over-burdened Mongolians all come to the capital for the Nadaam national holiday. We few bewildered foreigners floated through the surge, bobbing through the press like pale, befuddled icebergs. PB and I were rescued by our San Franciscan friend yet again, as she convinced her hostel shuttle driver to drop us off near the Irish pub where we were to meet our tour guide. Why is there an Irish pub in the middle of Ulaanbataar? That's a great question. We were told it was due to the Mongol Rally, although apparently the rally departs from England, not Ireland.
At any rate, we arrived at the pub around 11 am, having completed our journey with about 3 hours to spare. Our ride was actually an hour late and begged the excuse of traffic when they did arrive; once we got into the car and underway we understood why. Driving in the capital city of Mongolia is an exercise in patience, problem solving, and sheer bloody-mindedness. The city, which at the time of our visit had recently celebrated reaching a population of a million, was caught in an intense bout of growing pains as the burgeoning mining economy demanded more infrastructure, mobility, culinary choice, and corporate luxury than the traditionally livestock-centric, recently post-Soviet culture was gracefully able to provide.
The result of the tension between these 2 forces was a city fabric unevenly woven, with some parts bulging and robust, and others fraying, stretched thin, and snarled. Roads were well laid out and intuitive in 4-block radius's that didn't align with one another, accompanied by sidewalks that appeared and disappeared at random in an astonishing spectrum of building materials and states of repair. The road itself showcased all possible levels of being, varying from asphalt to gravel and all evolutionary stops in between. Traffic lights and street signs were like shooting stars - rare, valuable, and sporadically catastrophic for those affected by them. Still, after a couple hours we managed to escape the city and made it to the Stepperiders camp.
Actual journal entry for that day:
~Later~ So, yeah, as planned got picked up by Stepperiders in Ulaanbataar and were taken to their camp. I was still mildly sick by that point, though luckily the brunt of it had passed. Good thing, too; the next day saw us on a 40 km ride across the steppe to where the Nadaam camp is, a total of 7 hours in the saddle, with maybe one cumulative hour's worth of breaks thrown in. (Editor’s Note: There was almost definitely far more breaks than that, but if certainly didn’t feel like it at the time.) I originally named my horse, a dark male, "Curmudgeon", as it seemed he mostly wanted to stand still. I later shortened this to Curmy, after he’d proven his worth by trotting, cantering, galloping, and even jumping (twice!) with seemingly great pleasure. It was the first time in my life I’d ever been above a trot. At first it was glorious. Even being, as I know I am, basically a jouncing sack of potatoes in the saddle, the feeling you get in a full gallop across the open steppe is truly wonderful. By the end of the day, however, I was so exhausted, and in so much pain, I was almost crying out in disappointment every time we saw a ger (a Mongolian yurt) that turned out to not be ours.
Eventually we reached camp, however, and were well fed. With the aid of hot food and a mixture of vodka and airag - neither of which, if truth be told, I particularly enjoy - I slept both soundly and well, despite our ger’s floor being drenched by the rain that followed us in. The next morning (this morning) we again rode out, this time to see a Nadaam race. These are done by children on young horses and are anywhere from 10 to 20 km. The ride to and from the race track is no more than about 45 minutes, which was nice as we trekked out again in the afternoon. The weather has thankfully been clear, I am dreadfully sore but not as much as I was yesterday, our companions are pleasant and the food has proved palatable. PB and I have just hiked to the top of the nearby hill, where I am writing now; the sun is setting over the steppe and it is time for dinner. So far, so good.
13/07/2011 (I think) It’s been a good couple days. After last writing we had a day which was much the same, but livened in the evening by a game one of the other guests, Julian [french; with Irish Penn], brought called Jungle Fever. This was played, originally, by Julian, Max [American; WHO; hipster], Andreas [Norwegian; with Janet], Erika [American - Japanese; translator; funny], PB, and myself. It’s a brilliant game, I will try to remember to buy it back in Canada. Eventually Andreas & Janet had to leave to return to Norway after 19 months of travelling; shortly after that Jungle Fever was turned into a drinking game and we included Niumka, our smiling Mongolian guide, and Ryan, a bearded, kerchiefed American, in the mix and drew a small crowd of bemused Mongolians, including Puche, god of horses in a white fedora, and his singing, tough-as-nails wife Ganaa. Eventually the game ended, and after watching some Mongolians wrestle, it was further expanded and moved inside the ger. PB was already out for a walk and night had fallen; the game was less interesting with so many people and I went for a ramble in the hills as well.
The moonlight was stunningly beautiful on the mountains, almost bright enough to read by - which I suppose makes sense, it’s been near a month since the beach at Hong Kong. I rambled around, ostensibly in search of PB, mostly just walking and looking. Although the moonlight drowns out much of the stars, it limns the hills in silver, the light and shadow looking for all the world like gilt and velvet. I was offered a ride by a man in a pickup driving on no road that I could see, but walked on until I’d come half circle around our Nadaam camp and then headed back.
Next morning we rode back from whence we came. I had a different saddle, and my stirrups were much shortened; when we galloped it was all I could do to stay on. Eventually I got off and lengthened the stirrups myself (Editor's Note: This is notable because I did it poorly and inefficiently while dropping far, far, behind the others), which helped somewhat. Unfortunately I was still leaning too far back in the saddle and had a bad time of it for awhile. I smartened up after lunch and leaned more forward and found it much better and easier to keep my seat. We galloped almost all the way home. [Editor's Note: This meant we fulfilled the major goal of the Mongolian excursion, galloping across the steppe into the sunset. Boo-ya]
That evening Ryan apparently missed his guitar and, subsequently, a vocal guitar was created, consisting of Erica, Max, Andre [New York but in HK; with bald Marco], and Cat [British; speaks Russian, head band]. It was pretty excellent. After dinner was wrestling again. I beat Erika twice and Cat once, and was beaten twice by Penn. We also invented horse racing, basically running uphill while carrying someone in piggyback. It was very popular, as was its variation which had the horses and riders switch at a half-way point. Erika, Max, PB & I shared a ger and made fun of Max for a while and went to sleep. When I woke up, I found my lower lip had swollen overnight to about twice its normal size, apparently having been sunburned the day before. I actually napped most of the morning, after seeing the remarkable way Mongolians kill and butcher a goat, and woke up in time to eat it. The killing and butchering were very interesting though; everything was very clean and efficient. What will stay with me the most, however, was how Sina, the slightly sleazy camp helper, was holding the head and forelegs of the dead goat as its insides were being scooped out into a basin, reached out a gnarled hand and very gently stroked the eyes of the goat closed.
It is only mid afternoon now, or perhaps late evening. We have been treated to more wrestling, this time in the traditional uniforms, and got to see competitors of all ages and skill levels duke it out. I smell of grease and apparently we are also having blowtorched marmot. As long as Erika can stop pretending she’s drunk and we can save Cat (not me; other, British, Cat) from sleazy Russian-speaking Mongolians, it promises to be an interesting last night here.
As we stepped off the train in Ulaanbataar we were swallowed by the crowd of jostling, over-burdened Mongolians all come to the capital for the Nadaam national holiday. We few bewildered foreigners floated through the surge, bobbing through the press like pale, befuddled icebergs. PB and I were rescued by our San Franciscan friend yet again, as she convinced her hostel shuttle driver to drop us off near the Irish pub where we were to meet our tour guide. Why is there an Irish pub in the middle of Ulaanbataar? That's a great question. We were told it was due to the Mongol Rally, although apparently the rally departs from England, not Ireland.
At any rate, we arrived at the pub around 11 am, having completed our journey with about 3 hours to spare. Our ride was actually an hour late and begged the excuse of traffic when they did arrive; once we got into the car and underway we understood why. Driving in the capital city of Mongolia is an exercise in patience, problem solving, and sheer bloody-mindedness. The city, which at the time of our visit had recently celebrated reaching a population of a million, was caught in an intense bout of growing pains as the burgeoning mining economy demanded more infrastructure, mobility, culinary choice, and corporate luxury than the traditionally livestock-centric, recently post-Soviet culture was gracefully able to provide.
The result of the tension between these 2 forces was a city fabric unevenly woven, with some parts bulging and robust, and others fraying, stretched thin, and snarled. Roads were well laid out and intuitive in 4-block radius's that didn't align with one another, accompanied by sidewalks that appeared and disappeared at random in an astonishing spectrum of building materials and states of repair. The road itself showcased all possible levels of being, varying from asphalt to gravel and all evolutionary stops in between. Traffic lights and street signs were like shooting stars - rare, valuable, and sporadically catastrophic for those affected by them. Still, after a couple hours we managed to escape the city and made it to the Stepperiders camp.
Actual journal entry for that day:
~Later~ So, yeah, as planned got picked up by Stepperiders in Ulaanbataar and were taken to their camp. I was still mildly sick by that point, though luckily the brunt of it had passed. Good thing, too; the next day saw us on a 40 km ride across the steppe to where the Nadaam camp is, a total of 7 hours in the saddle, with maybe one cumulative hour's worth of breaks thrown in. (Editor’s Note: There was almost definitely far more breaks than that, but if certainly didn’t feel like it at the time.) I originally named my horse, a dark male, "Curmudgeon", as it seemed he mostly wanted to stand still. I later shortened this to Curmy, after he’d proven his worth by trotting, cantering, galloping, and even jumping (twice!) with seemingly great pleasure. It was the first time in my life I’d ever been above a trot. At first it was glorious. Even being, as I know I am, basically a jouncing sack of potatoes in the saddle, the feeling you get in a full gallop across the open steppe is truly wonderful. By the end of the day, however, I was so exhausted, and in so much pain, I was almost crying out in disappointment every time we saw a ger (a Mongolian yurt) that turned out to not be ours.
Eventually we reached camp, however, and were well fed. With the aid of hot food and a mixture of vodka and airag - neither of which, if truth be told, I particularly enjoy - I slept both soundly and well, despite our ger’s floor being drenched by the rain that followed us in. The next morning (this morning) we again rode out, this time to see a Nadaam race. These are done by children on young horses and are anywhere from 10 to 20 km. The ride to and from the race track is no more than about 45 minutes, which was nice as we trekked out again in the afternoon. The weather has thankfully been clear, I am dreadfully sore but not as much as I was yesterday, our companions are pleasant and the food has proved palatable. PB and I have just hiked to the top of the nearby hill, where I am writing now; the sun is setting over the steppe and it is time for dinner. So far, so good.
13/07/2011 (I think) It’s been a good couple days. After last writing we had a day which was much the same, but livened in the evening by a game one of the other guests, Julian [french; with Irish Penn], brought called Jungle Fever. This was played, originally, by Julian, Max [American; WHO; hipster], Andreas [Norwegian; with Janet], Erika [American - Japanese; translator; funny], PB, and myself. It’s a brilliant game, I will try to remember to buy it back in Canada. Eventually Andreas & Janet had to leave to return to Norway after 19 months of travelling; shortly after that Jungle Fever was turned into a drinking game and we included Niumka, our smiling Mongolian guide, and Ryan, a bearded, kerchiefed American, in the mix and drew a small crowd of bemused Mongolians, including Puche, god of horses in a white fedora, and his singing, tough-as-nails wife Ganaa. Eventually the game ended, and after watching some Mongolians wrestle, it was further expanded and moved inside the ger. PB was already out for a walk and night had fallen; the game was less interesting with so many people and I went for a ramble in the hills as well.
The moonlight was stunningly beautiful on the mountains, almost bright enough to read by - which I suppose makes sense, it’s been near a month since the beach at Hong Kong. I rambled around, ostensibly in search of PB, mostly just walking and looking. Although the moonlight drowns out much of the stars, it limns the hills in silver, the light and shadow looking for all the world like gilt and velvet. I was offered a ride by a man in a pickup driving on no road that I could see, but walked on until I’d come half circle around our Nadaam camp and then headed back.
Next morning we rode back from whence we came. I had a different saddle, and my stirrups were much shortened; when we galloped it was all I could do to stay on. Eventually I got off and lengthened the stirrups myself (Editor's Note: This is notable because I did it poorly and inefficiently while dropping far, far, behind the others), which helped somewhat. Unfortunately I was still leaning too far back in the saddle and had a bad time of it for awhile. I smartened up after lunch and leaned more forward and found it much better and easier to keep my seat. We galloped almost all the way home. [Editor's Note: This meant we fulfilled the major goal of the Mongolian excursion, galloping across the steppe into the sunset. Boo-ya]
That evening Ryan apparently missed his guitar and, subsequently, a vocal guitar was created, consisting of Erica, Max, Andre [New York but in HK; with bald Marco], and Cat [British; speaks Russian, head band]. It was pretty excellent. After dinner was wrestling again. I beat Erika twice and Cat once, and was beaten twice by Penn. We also invented horse racing, basically running uphill while carrying someone in piggyback. It was very popular, as was its variation which had the horses and riders switch at a half-way point. Erika, Max, PB & I shared a ger and made fun of Max for a while and went to sleep. When I woke up, I found my lower lip had swollen overnight to about twice its normal size, apparently having been sunburned the day before. I actually napped most of the morning, after seeing the remarkable way Mongolians kill and butcher a goat, and woke up in time to eat it. The killing and butchering were very interesting though; everything was very clean and efficient. What will stay with me the most, however, was how Sina, the slightly sleazy camp helper, was holding the head and forelegs of the dead goat as its insides were being scooped out into a basin, reached out a gnarled hand and very gently stroked the eyes of the goat closed.
It is only mid afternoon now, or perhaps late evening. We have been treated to more wrestling, this time in the traditional uniforms, and got to see competitors of all ages and skill levels duke it out. I smell of grease and apparently we are also having blowtorched marmot. As long as Erika can stop pretending she’s drunk and we can save Cat (not me; other, British, Cat) from sleazy Russian-speaking Mongolians, it promises to be an interesting last night here.
2015/09/04
a Cacotopic Cat. Asia 2011
The Train North 06/July - 07/July
On the seventh of July, 2011, I sat on one of four mattresses in a room where 5 people were staying, my back to the wall, my feet hanging over the side of one of the 4 beds, and wrote the following disgruntled entry in my journal:
"7 July:
So, we’re in Zamiin-Uud. It is a podunk border town with neither charm nor utility.
Here’s what happened after I last wrote.
At around 9pm we arrived in Er Lian. We got off the train in the hopes of buying a ticket to continue on. As we walked out, though, it occurred to us to maybe ask the train attendants whether we could just stay on for a fee and we turned back. As we did we saw another Westerner, a woman of about 5’ 1’’ with freckles and brown-red hair tied back in a ponytail. We decided to ask her if she knew whether we could buy tickets on the train, but it turns out she was going to stay the night there and continue on to Zamiin-Uud by jeep in the morning. We asked if she’d like to share a jeep, as this seemed a good cost-saving idea. We agreed, and left the station.
We’d thought there would be taxis in the station parking lot, and perhaps some hotels, but there was nothing. Instead we decided to double check whether we could buy train tickets and started wandering in search of a ticket counter at the same time a bunch of Isrealis who we’d met on the train, and a bunch of other Westerners, poured out the station doors as well. It turns out that the train we were on was the trans-siberian, and they ditch the hard-sleeper cars when they hit the border; if you want to stay on till Ulaanbataar, you have to pay luxury prices, about 1000 yuan. So we all went into the international ticket hall, and then had to come back out and leave our bags, then go back in through a scanner, to try and buy tickets.
Except none of the ticket counters were open. In fact, nothing was open, and after a flurry of activity caused by the baggage scanner turning back on and us having to scan all our baggage, nothing at all happened for the next 15 minutes except discussion. 'T', the girl we’d met earlier, who turned out to be from San Francisco, and PB & I inspected ticket prices and times and weighed our options. We eventually decided to stick to T’s original plan of staying overnight & taking a jeep in the morning, and left to find a hotel.
The first place we found was something with a sign on the doors which read “The Meat of the Hotel”, which turned out to be not a hotel at all, but a restaurant. One of the ladies there, though, quoted us a price for rooms and then took us around trying to find a hotel. First one we went to was full, but the second one had a common room with 30 yuan beds, which we were happy to take. T had a hurt foot, so we went up to deposit all our bags right away. It turned out to be 2 rooms; the man who showed us up very clearly indicated that PB was to stay in the room (maybe 10 or 12 beds) while T & I stayed in the smaller room (maybe 4 or 5 beds) found through a connecting door. We also had a bathroom, complete with shower. We were the only ones in the rooms.
We unpacked and rested a little before deciding to go in search of groceries for the next day. The plan was to leave bright and early the next day, get a jeep to Zamiin-Uud, and there buy a train ticket to Ulaanbataar for that evening. The train, we’d heard, was something like 15 hours long, so we decided to stock up on food and vegetables and beverages while we could.
[EDIT: Apparently my formatting earlier managed to cut off the majority of this entry. The other half of it is below.]
We went out into Er Lian and found a decent-sized convenience store that we'd passed earlier while hotel-hunting. T looked around for bread, as she didn't eat meat, and PB & I stocked up on noodles, drinks, & snack food. We were greatly helped by a 10 or 11 year-old boy in the shop who helped translate Chinese and Mongolian into English. Right before we left we noticed a felt drinking flask with ink detailing. The front of it had a small holster for chopsticks and a flap which snapped over the rim of a small drinking cup. Paul bought it for the ludicrously low sum of 25 yuan, and we were informed it was full of some sort of strange alcohol. Exciting!
Again we trekked back to our room to deposit our new riches. This time T stayed there and PB & I went out in search of dinner. We found a small restaurant and were shown which were the 'good' dishes on the menu by the pregnant waitress. These turned out to be mutton stewed on the bone with some zucchini and green peppers in a dark peppery sauce, and another dish that consisted of very thin strips of mutton almost lost in a huge mound of lightly fried onions. Both were very tasty and accompanied by small bowls of cold rice and a tea which tasted rather like bland soup stock and was drunk from small bowls (significantly larger and of a different size than the usual Chinese teacup). It was very good, as I said, and we finished nearly all of it. We paid, thanked the waitress, and returned to our room.
T, it turns out, had been travelling for 6 weeks now and will keep travelling for the next year, to a year and a half. She told us stories of some of the things she's seen in China so far, and we told her our story. I showered in the sparse bathroom, and we went to bed on mattresses that were hard and slightly too short, with Chinese (bean or sand filled [Editor's Note: possibly buckwheat]) pillows.
T & I were woken early the next morning by construction going on in the room behind us. The day dawned bright, cool, and windswept; without even stopping for breakfast, we went off at 7 am in search of a jeep across the border, armed with directions given to us by our hotel staff, who communicated with us via a web translator and a swivelling computer monitor.
The cab we got dropped us off in front of a building which was, ostensibly, the town's market, where we were immediately accosted by a local woman acting as a money changer. I changed 100 yuan into Tugriks (MNT), just to be sure to have some local money, and the lady thenceforth appointed herself our negotiator with the jeep drivers. The starting price was 120 yuan each, which we all laughed at and walked away from. It eventually made it down to 80 yuan, but then a different man came up and seemed to want to charge extra money for our bags. The price our "helper" was asking correspondingly shot up again to 100 yuan; we could not get her down past 90 after that. We had just about decided on taking the offered 90 yuan ride when a new man came up and suddenly offered 80 yuan for us and our bags included. We all jumped at it and quickly had our bags stowed in the back and T and I in the front passenger seat, whose previous occupant was relegated to the back storage area. PB got squeezed in the middle and everyone was happy, except for our "helper" who was pitching a fit at being undersold and was yelling at our driver, even walking along beside the jeep so he couldn't close his door as he tried to drive away. He eventually handed her 10 yuan and she left. We were on our way.
About 15 minutes drive later we got to the border, a very soviet structure with a huge artificial rainbow arcing over it for some unknown damn reason. Here it seemed everything was going well until the young Chinese border guard looked in our vehicle and managed to mix both youthful outrage and practiced vindictiveness in denying our driver permission to continue on (it should perhaps be mentioned that, including the driver, we had about 9 people packed into a vehicle meant for 5, and that we'd also had 2 boxes of oranges placed on the hood of the car as freight). He continued his vehemence even in the face of offered bribery from our driver, and, at shift change some minutes later, pointed out to his replacement ourselves and another car that he'd sentenced to the same fate, to be sure that our punishment continued.
Which it did, for some time. As the minutes passed I mostly stayed outside, though there was a brisk wind that tossed sand around. We saw an Irishman on a bike (he'd been on a bike for about 2 years, he told us afterwards) get refused entry because he wasn't in a car. We later saw him holding a jeep door closed against his knees, his bike on the hood of the jeep. We saw a Chinese army higher-up have a photo shoot as he waved cars by. A girl in a yellow shirt who was fuming in our car about the wait eventually got off and into another vehicle. A while after another girl followed suit.
I have to say I had a certain amount of passivity about the situation, but T was obviously getting frustrated and PB eventually got out of the car to go "speak foreign" [Editor's Note: This is a term PB and I came up with to describe the mix of simple nouns, facial expressions, and hand gestures used to communicate with someone with whom you have no language in common. There's a real knack to it!] to the driver, who'd been standing outside smiling and chatting on the cellphone for some time, to ask when, if ever, we were going to get through. We were in the car, T and I, so we couldn't hear what was being said, but at one point it looked as though PB did gangsta-gun-hands and offered to shoot the border guard. So there was some levity to the situation, at least.
Eventually we got waved through; by that time we had only 7 people and the fruit crates had disappeared from the hood of the car. With the exception of a guy with a dirt stash and a sweet scorpion tattoo in front of us at customs, the rest of the ride to Zamiin-Uud passed uneventfully, albeit with T on my lap.
[Journal entry continued on 2011/July/10]
We were dropped off in the town square, right by the train station, and decided to forego food in lieu of buying tickets for that day's train. We saw a group of people outside the station who told us that hard seats were still available, and that the ticket counter was on the second floor. There was an ATM on the first floor that wouldn't recognise PB's card; I went to the bank next door to change my thousand-odd yuan into tugriks. That done, we three headed upstairs to buy tickets.
Okay, honestly, I am in pain from my neck to my ankles right now from a 7-hour, 40 km horse ride we did yesterday. I'm bored writing about Zamiin-Uud. Here's the high lights:
-The ticket lady was a toxic mixture between Dixon the apathetic US border guard and Nurse Ratchett. What a treasure.
-We stood in line from 11:30 to 1 pm with no food or sign of hope (despite an evil line switch perpetrated by the ticket lady)
-Tickets for that day sold out, purportedly. We gave up and sat around, as apparently tickets for the next day would only be sold at some as-yet-undetermined time later that afternoon.
-In the line we met a large American named Eric, a lithe Spanish woman named Mariella and her unendingly patient husband, and a young Brit named Doug
-We were observed by an inquisitive Mongolian in a blue jacket while we played Dou Di Zout with 3 crazy-haired Isrealis, who were also waiting for tickets.
-PB, T, and I went to 5 different hotels in the area; all were booked full or asking 45 000 tugrik, an astronomical amount.
-We were saved by Doug, whose friend of a friend in Ulaan Bataar had a friend in town who got he and Eric (who'd attached himself to Doug as a kindly uncle-type) a room for 5 people for the night for 19 000 tugrik, train ticket for the next day included.
-Doug turns out to be hilarious and VERY upper class but super cool
-Eric is nice but Overly American
-Zamiin-Uud is a hole because:
10: There is no such thing as being helpful.
9: No one understands the concept of waiting in a line.
8: The internet managed to be down for 22 of the 30 hours we were there.
7: The train station announcer is an obnoxious sadist.
6: The statues in its park are ridiculous.
5: Plants cannot grow in the sand and constant wind.
4: There is broken glass booze bottles everywhere, except where there is sand. And under the sand is more glass.
3: The houses look like they belong on one of the more terrible reserves, except the government was never racist against Zamiin-Uud.
2: There are 20 different concenience stores for a "city" of about 1000 people, and none of them sell fruit. Only candy and booze.
1: Because it's Zamiin-Uud.
Anyway, the next day - the 7th of July - we got on the 15-hour train out, and after a bit of fanagling managed to get seats all together. We met a dude name Dorj who played Dou Di Zou with us and zoomed through PB's photos. He also flipped through PB's deck of cards that had all the different Emperor's of China on them, and pointed out the Mongolians in the bunch.
PB and I slept on our air mattresses on the floor between bunks, but drew a small crowd of observers when we shared a bowl of vodka before turning in. We got into Ulaan Bataar around 9:30ish the next morning, exhausted, dirty, baffled, but still essentially on time. We said goodbye to Eric and Doug, and, as is often the way of acquaintances made while travelling, have never yet seen either of them again.
On the seventh of July, 2011, I sat on one of four mattresses in a room where 5 people were staying, my back to the wall, my feet hanging over the side of one of the 4 beds, and wrote the following disgruntled entry in my journal:
"7 July:
So, we’re in Zamiin-Uud. It is a podunk border town with neither charm nor utility.
Here’s what happened after I last wrote.
At around 9pm we arrived in Er Lian. We got off the train in the hopes of buying a ticket to continue on. As we walked out, though, it occurred to us to maybe ask the train attendants whether we could just stay on for a fee and we turned back. As we did we saw another Westerner, a woman of about 5’ 1’’ with freckles and brown-red hair tied back in a ponytail. We decided to ask her if she knew whether we could buy tickets on the train, but it turns out she was going to stay the night there and continue on to Zamiin-Uud by jeep in the morning. We asked if she’d like to share a jeep, as this seemed a good cost-saving idea. We agreed, and left the station.
We’d thought there would be taxis in the station parking lot, and perhaps some hotels, but there was nothing. Instead we decided to double check whether we could buy train tickets and started wandering in search of a ticket counter at the same time a bunch of Isrealis who we’d met on the train, and a bunch of other Westerners, poured out the station doors as well. It turns out that the train we were on was the trans-siberian, and they ditch the hard-sleeper cars when they hit the border; if you want to stay on till Ulaanbataar, you have to pay luxury prices, about 1000 yuan. So we all went into the international ticket hall, and then had to come back out and leave our bags, then go back in through a scanner, to try and buy tickets.
Except none of the ticket counters were open. In fact, nothing was open, and after a flurry of activity caused by the baggage scanner turning back on and us having to scan all our baggage, nothing at all happened for the next 15 minutes except discussion. 'T', the girl we’d met earlier, who turned out to be from San Francisco, and PB & I inspected ticket prices and times and weighed our options. We eventually decided to stick to T’s original plan of staying overnight & taking a jeep in the morning, and left to find a hotel.
The first place we found was something with a sign on the doors which read “The Meat of the Hotel”, which turned out to be not a hotel at all, but a restaurant. One of the ladies there, though, quoted us a price for rooms and then took us around trying to find a hotel. First one we went to was full, but the second one had a common room with 30 yuan beds, which we were happy to take. T had a hurt foot, so we went up to deposit all our bags right away. It turned out to be 2 rooms; the man who showed us up very clearly indicated that PB was to stay in the room (maybe 10 or 12 beds) while T & I stayed in the smaller room (maybe 4 or 5 beds) found through a connecting door. We also had a bathroom, complete with shower. We were the only ones in the rooms.
We unpacked and rested a little before deciding to go in search of groceries for the next day. The plan was to leave bright and early the next day, get a jeep to Zamiin-Uud, and there buy a train ticket to Ulaanbataar for that evening. The train, we’d heard, was something like 15 hours long, so we decided to stock up on food and vegetables and beverages while we could.
[EDIT: Apparently my formatting earlier managed to cut off the majority of this entry. The other half of it is below.]
We went out into Er Lian and found a decent-sized convenience store that we'd passed earlier while hotel-hunting. T looked around for bread, as she didn't eat meat, and PB & I stocked up on noodles, drinks, & snack food. We were greatly helped by a 10 or 11 year-old boy in the shop who helped translate Chinese and Mongolian into English. Right before we left we noticed a felt drinking flask with ink detailing. The front of it had a small holster for chopsticks and a flap which snapped over the rim of a small drinking cup. Paul bought it for the ludicrously low sum of 25 yuan, and we were informed it was full of some sort of strange alcohol. Exciting!
Again we trekked back to our room to deposit our new riches. This time T stayed there and PB & I went out in search of dinner. We found a small restaurant and were shown which were the 'good' dishes on the menu by the pregnant waitress. These turned out to be mutton stewed on the bone with some zucchini and green peppers in a dark peppery sauce, and another dish that consisted of very thin strips of mutton almost lost in a huge mound of lightly fried onions. Both were very tasty and accompanied by small bowls of cold rice and a tea which tasted rather like bland soup stock and was drunk from small bowls (significantly larger and of a different size than the usual Chinese teacup). It was very good, as I said, and we finished nearly all of it. We paid, thanked the waitress, and returned to our room.
T, it turns out, had been travelling for 6 weeks now and will keep travelling for the next year, to a year and a half. She told us stories of some of the things she's seen in China so far, and we told her our story. I showered in the sparse bathroom, and we went to bed on mattresses that were hard and slightly too short, with Chinese (bean or sand filled [Editor's Note: possibly buckwheat]) pillows.
T & I were woken early the next morning by construction going on in the room behind us. The day dawned bright, cool, and windswept; without even stopping for breakfast, we went off at 7 am in search of a jeep across the border, armed with directions given to us by our hotel staff, who communicated with us via a web translator and a swivelling computer monitor.
The cab we got dropped us off in front of a building which was, ostensibly, the town's market, where we were immediately accosted by a local woman acting as a money changer. I changed 100 yuan into Tugriks (MNT), just to be sure to have some local money, and the lady thenceforth appointed herself our negotiator with the jeep drivers. The starting price was 120 yuan each, which we all laughed at and walked away from. It eventually made it down to 80 yuan, but then a different man came up and seemed to want to charge extra money for our bags. The price our "helper" was asking correspondingly shot up again to 100 yuan; we could not get her down past 90 after that. We had just about decided on taking the offered 90 yuan ride when a new man came up and suddenly offered 80 yuan for us and our bags included. We all jumped at it and quickly had our bags stowed in the back and T and I in the front passenger seat, whose previous occupant was relegated to the back storage area. PB got squeezed in the middle and everyone was happy, except for our "helper" who was pitching a fit at being undersold and was yelling at our driver, even walking along beside the jeep so he couldn't close his door as he tried to drive away. He eventually handed her 10 yuan and she left. We were on our way.
About 15 minutes drive later we got to the border, a very soviet structure with a huge artificial rainbow arcing over it for some unknown damn reason. Here it seemed everything was going well until the young Chinese border guard looked in our vehicle and managed to mix both youthful outrage and practiced vindictiveness in denying our driver permission to continue on (it should perhaps be mentioned that, including the driver, we had about 9 people packed into a vehicle meant for 5, and that we'd also had 2 boxes of oranges placed on the hood of the car as freight). He continued his vehemence even in the face of offered bribery from our driver, and, at shift change some minutes later, pointed out to his replacement ourselves and another car that he'd sentenced to the same fate, to be sure that our punishment continued.
Which it did, for some time. As the minutes passed I mostly stayed outside, though there was a brisk wind that tossed sand around. We saw an Irishman on a bike (he'd been on a bike for about 2 years, he told us afterwards) get refused entry because he wasn't in a car. We later saw him holding a jeep door closed against his knees, his bike on the hood of the jeep. We saw a Chinese army higher-up have a photo shoot as he waved cars by. A girl in a yellow shirt who was fuming in our car about the wait eventually got off and into another vehicle. A while after another girl followed suit.
I have to say I had a certain amount of passivity about the situation, but T was obviously getting frustrated and PB eventually got out of the car to go "speak foreign" [Editor's Note: This is a term PB and I came up with to describe the mix of simple nouns, facial expressions, and hand gestures used to communicate with someone with whom you have no language in common. There's a real knack to it!] to the driver, who'd been standing outside smiling and chatting on the cellphone for some time, to ask when, if ever, we were going to get through. We were in the car, T and I, so we couldn't hear what was being said, but at one point it looked as though PB did gangsta-gun-hands and offered to shoot the border guard. So there was some levity to the situation, at least.
Eventually we got waved through; by that time we had only 7 people and the fruit crates had disappeared from the hood of the car. With the exception of a guy with a dirt stash and a sweet scorpion tattoo in front of us at customs, the rest of the ride to Zamiin-Uud passed uneventfully, albeit with T on my lap.
[Journal entry continued on 2011/July/10]
We were dropped off in the town square, right by the train station, and decided to forego food in lieu of buying tickets for that day's train. We saw a group of people outside the station who told us that hard seats were still available, and that the ticket counter was on the second floor. There was an ATM on the first floor that wouldn't recognise PB's card; I went to the bank next door to change my thousand-odd yuan into tugriks. That done, we three headed upstairs to buy tickets.
Okay, honestly, I am in pain from my neck to my ankles right now from a 7-hour, 40 km horse ride we did yesterday. I'm bored writing about Zamiin-Uud. Here's the high lights:
-The ticket lady was a toxic mixture between Dixon the apathetic US border guard and Nurse Ratchett. What a treasure.
-We stood in line from 11:30 to 1 pm with no food or sign of hope (despite an evil line switch perpetrated by the ticket lady)
-Tickets for that day sold out, purportedly. We gave up and sat around, as apparently tickets for the next day would only be sold at some as-yet-undetermined time later that afternoon.
-In the line we met a large American named Eric, a lithe Spanish woman named Mariella and her unendingly patient husband, and a young Brit named Doug
-We were observed by an inquisitive Mongolian in a blue jacket while we played Dou Di Zout with 3 crazy-haired Isrealis, who were also waiting for tickets.
-PB, T, and I went to 5 different hotels in the area; all were booked full or asking 45 000 tugrik, an astronomical amount.
-We were saved by Doug, whose friend of a friend in Ulaan Bataar had a friend in town who got he and Eric (who'd attached himself to Doug as a kindly uncle-type) a room for 5 people for the night for 19 000 tugrik, train ticket for the next day included.
-Doug turns out to be hilarious and VERY upper class but super cool
-Eric is nice but Overly American
-Zamiin-Uud is a hole because:
10: There is no such thing as being helpful.
9: No one understands the concept of waiting in a line.
8: The internet managed to be down for 22 of the 30 hours we were there.
7: The train station announcer is an obnoxious sadist.
6: The statues in its park are ridiculous.
5: Plants cannot grow in the sand and constant wind.
4: There is broken glass booze bottles everywhere, except where there is sand. And under the sand is more glass.
3: The houses look like they belong on one of the more terrible reserves, except the government was never racist against Zamiin-Uud.
2: There are 20 different concenience stores for a "city" of about 1000 people, and none of them sell fruit. Only candy and booze.
1: Because it's Zamiin-Uud.
Anyway, the next day - the 7th of July - we got on the 15-hour train out, and after a bit of fanagling managed to get seats all together. We met a dude name Dorj who played Dou Di Zou with us and zoomed through PB's photos. He also flipped through PB's deck of cards that had all the different Emperor's of China on them, and pointed out the Mongolians in the bunch.
PB and I slept on our air mattresses on the floor between bunks, but drew a small crowd of observers when we shared a bowl of vodka before turning in. We got into Ulaan Bataar around 9:30ish the next morning, exhausted, dirty, baffled, but still essentially on time. We said goodbye to Eric and Doug, and, as is often the way of acquaintances made while travelling, have never yet seen either of them again.
2015/08/28
a Bacchanal Cat. Asia 2011
Beijing Round One: 28/June - 05/July
After an uneventful train ride from Hong Kong, we disembarked at Beijing’s West Railway Station. Beijing in the spring and fall months is a brisk, dry, dusty city of improbably blue skies and sudden playful breezes. Beijing in July is a 20-million-person slum languishing under a sky the colour and density of a rotting leviathan; the incredible pollution permeates every single drop of the intense humidity, coating buildings, bridges, landmarks, and skin in a gritty layer of toxic residue. Nothing is dry. Nothing is clean. Everything is sweating.
We swam through the damp, ugly masses of pollution and people outside the imposing train station and made our way to the subway system, and from there to Chegongzhuang station. Walking down the road to our hostel, we found ourselves behind 3 westerners walking in the same direction. They all three of them were wearing what appeared from the back to be band t-shirts, with long shorts, sandals, and long, long hair completing the uniform. We decided they were either vikings or American. We were sort of hoping for vikings. They were, of course, American (vikings not being known for inland travel - or sandals) and were also staying at our hostel, which, as we ended up there so often, and loved so much, I will attempt to describe here.
INNer City Hostel is [Editing Note: was, actually. Tragically it no longer exists] a small, student run backpacking hostel tucked away in a working class neighbourhood bordered on the east by historic and touristy central Beijing and on the west by the upscale and ‘westerner-friendly’ financial district, between CheGongzhuang and Ping'Anli metro stations. The hostel itself [was] a converted Siheyuan, a traditional Chinese style of home comprised of different buildings organised around a central courtyard, and is situated on a Hutong, a particular kind of small, crooked alley found in neighbourhoods of Siheyuans.
Anyway, the Americans turned out to be from (surprise!) San Francisco; a father, a son, and the son’s friend. Good people. Cannot remember their names.
That evening we went to Hou Hai, one of Beijing’s pub districts. ‘Hai’ is ‘lake’ in putonghua (mandarin), and the area is really just a long circuit of lake-front bars blaring music and neon out onto the waters of two small man-made lakes in a brassy attempt to lure in the crowds of pedestrians who come to people watch and bar-hop. After some wandering and prevaricating we ensconced ourselves on the outdoor sofa-seating of Bar 31, which proudly advertised the fact that it had shisha (true), cheap drinks (debatable), and ‘Hou Hai’s first Uighur Flamenco band’ (amazing). It was a good night, and after the sun sets the heat lets up and the darkness makes it easy to forget the masses of pollution hanging above and all around you. Pleasantly buzzed, energised by the Flamenco, and mildly oxygen-deprived from the shisha, we headed back to the hostel and ended our first night in the largest communist country on earth.
The next day was the Temple of Heaven, a title pleasantly incorrect in a city where you couldn’t see the sky and a country where religion was generally discouraged. Even cloaked in smog, though, it’s an impressive series of structures, and is, besides, surrounded by an expansive park. It was in the park on the way out that we happened upon on an elderly Chinese man with a red accordion, playing unmistakably 1930’s era Parisian songs while seated on a low stone platform. Sitting across from him was another local, younger and chubbier, nodding his head and frowning in agreement as he listened and occasionally tapped his foot in time with the tune. Seated a little way away from them was a girl about our age, probably a university student, judging by her fashionable clothing and high-quality camera. What ensued was one of only two instances in the trip where I truly wished I had my own camera, as there was a moment where PB was taking a photo of the accordion player and the girl was taking a photo of PB. Ships passing in the night, I guess.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in wandering around Beijing, largely in the wrong direction, again due to my terrible map-using skills. However, we accidentally found a bell tower, a restaurant with a very accommodating but overworked waitress, and some spheres and columns with interesting bas reliefs carved on them, so the afternoon wasn’t entirely lost. No, really.
The next day (June 30th, a Thursday) PB went to the Jinshanling Great Wall [Editing Note: He went alone because I'd been to Beijing twice before, and had trekked over Jinshanling on both occasions. Also, if you want to stay friends with the person you're travelling with, it's often a good idea to schedule a day apart here and there], while I tried to track down train tickets to get us to Mongolia in time for Nadaam and getting picked up by the horseback riding / tour company Stepperiders.
I had ballparked the price of these tickets to be somewhere around 500 yuan each one way, and dutifully set out to stand in line somewhere. This was not as easy as I hoped it would be, as the train station from which the train (the Trans-Siberian) actually left was not actually permitted to sell the tickets. I was instead directed to the International Ticket Office, which I eventually found on the ground floor of a large hotel a block or two away from the main station. Unfortunately, and to my dismay, the tickets from Beijing to Ulanbataar were priced at 1300-odd yuan each - one way! I decided to go do some equipment shopping instead, picking up such essentials as multivitamins, flashlights, and an equipment bag to replace one bag which hadn’t entirely survived the trip from Canada to China.
Later, at the hostel, PB and I asked our gracious hosts about how to get to Mongolia, and we were informed that we could probably take a train to the border town of Er Lian for about 400 yuan each, hire a jeep across, and take a Mongolian train up from there. We agreed this was a far more pleasing solution and spent the rest of the evening making dumplings and talking to the other guests, including a lady and her daughter from the state of Georgia, USA, who were heading to the Great Wall the next day, which was, funnily, both Canada Day and Chinese National Day. Either way, it’d be a good idea to wear red.
The next morning we attempted valiantly to enter and explore the Forbidden City. PB had it on good authority that the best and wisest way to go through was to enter through the north, which most people used as an exit. However, owing to a late start, and, I believe, making the rather foolhardy decision of walking from the front (Tiananmen Square metro stop, replete with out-sized screens broadcasting comforting images of stylized nature and happy cultural minorities) all the way around the city to the back, we didn’t actually end up going into the City that day.
I should note here that the Forbidden City is HUGE; calling it a city is not just hubris. Set aside a good 3 or 4 hours to wind your way through, and it's worth it to just gently meander through and take your time instead of going with a tour. There's interesting alcoves to either side of the 'main drag' that are worth visiting in their own right (I really like the bit with the not-quite-finished building. Dunno why, just found it really pleasant), and when it's sunny there's loads of benches in those areas that are perfect for lounging on. There's also a couple decent restaurants on the north side, near the exit. Basically it's worth it to take your time and make a day of it.
So, although we did indeed find the north entrance, complete with ticket counter and sign proclaiming pricing for entrance and audio guides, we opted against entering so late in the day and put it off for the next day. The rest of that afternoon, I think, was spent in Jingshan Park, famous for its hill which provides a good view of the Forbidden City, and a tree where one of the Emperors hanged himself to avoid the consequences of a rebellion brought about by famine and corruption.
We also got in some good loitering to top the day off, in Tiananmen Square of all places. We parked ourselves in front of the series of huge, fantastic TV displays and did some highly amusing people watching, particularly of the casual-looking police officers on segways, and the always popular "naked papa's" [bang ye](1) of Beijing - portly and generally middle aged men who tuck their t-shirts and tank tops up into their collars to expose their stomachs and lower back. Not sure if it made the heat any more bearable, but they're certainly cool in my book.
(1) They're so famous they got mentioned in a news story about Shanghai.
After an uneventful train ride from Hong Kong, we disembarked at Beijing’s West Railway Station. Beijing in the spring and fall months is a brisk, dry, dusty city of improbably blue skies and sudden playful breezes. Beijing in July is a 20-million-person slum languishing under a sky the colour and density of a rotting leviathan; the incredible pollution permeates every single drop of the intense humidity, coating buildings, bridges, landmarks, and skin in a gritty layer of toxic residue. Nothing is dry. Nothing is clean. Everything is sweating.
We swam through the damp, ugly masses of pollution and people outside the imposing train station and made our way to the subway system, and from there to Chegongzhuang station. Walking down the road to our hostel, we found ourselves behind 3 westerners walking in the same direction. They all three of them were wearing what appeared from the back to be band t-shirts, with long shorts, sandals, and long, long hair completing the uniform. We decided they were either vikings or American. We were sort of hoping for vikings. They were, of course, American (vikings not being known for inland travel - or sandals) and were also staying at our hostel, which, as we ended up there so often, and loved so much, I will attempt to describe here.
INNer City Hostel is [Editing Note: was, actually. Tragically it no longer exists] a small, student run backpacking hostel tucked away in a working class neighbourhood bordered on the east by historic and touristy central Beijing and on the west by the upscale and ‘westerner-friendly’ financial district, between CheGongzhuang and Ping'Anli metro stations. The hostel itself [was] a converted Siheyuan, a traditional Chinese style of home comprised of different buildings organised around a central courtyard, and is situated on a Hutong, a particular kind of small, crooked alley found in neighbourhoods of Siheyuans.
Anyway, the Americans turned out to be from (surprise!) San Francisco; a father, a son, and the son’s friend. Good people. Cannot remember their names.
That evening we went to Hou Hai, one of Beijing’s pub districts. ‘Hai’ is ‘lake’ in putonghua (mandarin), and the area is really just a long circuit of lake-front bars blaring music and neon out onto the waters of two small man-made lakes in a brassy attempt to lure in the crowds of pedestrians who come to people watch and bar-hop. After some wandering and prevaricating we ensconced ourselves on the outdoor sofa-seating of Bar 31, which proudly advertised the fact that it had shisha (true), cheap drinks (debatable), and ‘Hou Hai’s first Uighur Flamenco band’ (amazing). It was a good night, and after the sun sets the heat lets up and the darkness makes it easy to forget the masses of pollution hanging above and all around you. Pleasantly buzzed, energised by the Flamenco, and mildly oxygen-deprived from the shisha, we headed back to the hostel and ended our first night in the largest communist country on earth.
The next day was the Temple of Heaven, a title pleasantly incorrect in a city where you couldn’t see the sky and a country where religion was generally discouraged. Even cloaked in smog, though, it’s an impressive series of structures, and is, besides, surrounded by an expansive park. It was in the park on the way out that we happened upon on an elderly Chinese man with a red accordion, playing unmistakably 1930’s era Parisian songs while seated on a low stone platform. Sitting across from him was another local, younger and chubbier, nodding his head and frowning in agreement as he listened and occasionally tapped his foot in time with the tune. Seated a little way away from them was a girl about our age, probably a university student, judging by her fashionable clothing and high-quality camera. What ensued was one of only two instances in the trip where I truly wished I had my own camera, as there was a moment where PB was taking a photo of the accordion player and the girl was taking a photo of PB. Ships passing in the night, I guess.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in wandering around Beijing, largely in the wrong direction, again due to my terrible map-using skills. However, we accidentally found a bell tower, a restaurant with a very accommodating but overworked waitress, and some spheres and columns with interesting bas reliefs carved on them, so the afternoon wasn’t entirely lost. No, really.
The next day (June 30th, a Thursday) PB went to the Jinshanling Great Wall [Editing Note: He went alone because I'd been to Beijing twice before, and had trekked over Jinshanling on both occasions. Also, if you want to stay friends with the person you're travelling with, it's often a good idea to schedule a day apart here and there], while I tried to track down train tickets to get us to Mongolia in time for Nadaam and getting picked up by the horseback riding / tour company Stepperiders.
I had ballparked the price of these tickets to be somewhere around 500 yuan each one way, and dutifully set out to stand in line somewhere. This was not as easy as I hoped it would be, as the train station from which the train (the Trans-Siberian) actually left was not actually permitted to sell the tickets. I was instead directed to the International Ticket Office, which I eventually found on the ground floor of a large hotel a block or two away from the main station. Unfortunately, and to my dismay, the tickets from Beijing to Ulanbataar were priced at 1300-odd yuan each - one way! I decided to go do some equipment shopping instead, picking up such essentials as multivitamins, flashlights, and an equipment bag to replace one bag which hadn’t entirely survived the trip from Canada to China.
Later, at the hostel, PB and I asked our gracious hosts about how to get to Mongolia, and we were informed that we could probably take a train to the border town of Er Lian for about 400 yuan each, hire a jeep across, and take a Mongolian train up from there. We agreed this was a far more pleasing solution and spent the rest of the evening making dumplings and talking to the other guests, including a lady and her daughter from the state of Georgia, USA, who were heading to the Great Wall the next day, which was, funnily, both Canada Day and Chinese National Day. Either way, it’d be a good idea to wear red.
The next morning we attempted valiantly to enter and explore the Forbidden City. PB had it on good authority that the best and wisest way to go through was to enter through the north, which most people used as an exit. However, owing to a late start, and, I believe, making the rather foolhardy decision of walking from the front (Tiananmen Square metro stop, replete with out-sized screens broadcasting comforting images of stylized nature and happy cultural minorities) all the way around the city to the back, we didn’t actually end up going into the City that day.
I should note here that the Forbidden City is HUGE; calling it a city is not just hubris. Set aside a good 3 or 4 hours to wind your way through, and it's worth it to just gently meander through and take your time instead of going with a tour. There's interesting alcoves to either side of the 'main drag' that are worth visiting in their own right (I really like the bit with the not-quite-finished building. Dunno why, just found it really pleasant), and when it's sunny there's loads of benches in those areas that are perfect for lounging on. There's also a couple decent restaurants on the north side, near the exit. Basically it's worth it to take your time and make a day of it.
So, although we did indeed find the north entrance, complete with ticket counter and sign proclaiming pricing for entrance and audio guides, we opted against entering so late in the day and put it off for the next day. The rest of that afternoon, I think, was spent in Jingshan Park, famous for its hill which provides a good view of the Forbidden City, and a tree where one of the Emperors hanged himself to avoid the consequences of a rebellion brought about by famine and corruption.
We also got in some good loitering to top the day off, in Tiananmen Square of all places. We parked ourselves in front of the series of huge, fantastic TV displays and did some highly amusing people watching, particularly of the casual-looking police officers on segways, and the always popular "naked papa's" [bang ye](1) of Beijing - portly and generally middle aged men who tuck their t-shirts and tank tops up into their collars to expose their stomachs and lower back. Not sure if it made the heat any more bearable, but they're certainly cool in my book.
(1) They're so famous they got mentioned in a news story about Shanghai.
2015/08/21
an Absquatulating Cat. Asia 2011
Hong Kong Round One: 19/June - 27/June
Our first night in Hong Kong was mostly one of grogginess and shock. Grogginess after the extended plane ride, shock at the unaccustomed heat and humidity, the lights, the city, the people, and, for me, the return. Having so recently left Hong Kong, it was unreal for me to be back in the city, as though somehow the fact of having returned could erase the time I had been away. I could feel the torn edges of my memory try to mash together, attempting and failing to make the city a linear reality, like trying to blend two songs together unsuccessfully. The effect was discordant and jarring; combined with the physical reality of the city, I felt I was drowning, and very, very happy.
Hong Kong is a city of light and affluence, pockmarked by a variety of dingier and more interesting realities. One of these, and certainly the most notorious, is Chungking Mansions. This complex - and few other institutions so deserve the term - sits in the heart of ritzy Tsim Sha Tsui. Barely 5 blocks away is the groomed and polished Walk of Stars, a tourist trap of the first order complete with photo opportunities and overpriced, over air-conditioned eateries snuggled up between scenic Victoria Harbour and the first class Art Museum and Cultural Centre. A main artery of the vibrant metropolis, Nathan Road, cuts a swath of neon away from the harbour all the way to the gentrified heart of Kowloon Tong; it's awash in chilly, sterile shopping malls and two-storey luxury stores. Farther away from the harbour these eventually peter out and become Internet cafes, hair salons, kung fu academies, and clothing wholesale stores, all stacked one on top of the other in a genius of space utility incomprehensible to someone raised in space-consuming North America. But it’s right in the middle of the shopping malls and Gucci stores that Chungking Mansions unapologetically holds court.
Chungking functions as a locus for something like 80% of all the hostels in the city, at least 70% of the Arabic and Indian hawkers, and, if rumours are true, a significant portion of Hong Kong’s illegal business. Its dilapidated and dirty frame is divided - ‘organised’ being too generous a term - into 6 towers, each served by two tiny and painfully slow elevators, one each for odd and even floors. To get to your hostel you must first survive the first floor, a cell-block labyrinth of food stalls, tiny Internet cafes, and random shops. The dingy linoleum floor is stained with the footsteps and detritus of the hundreds of people who pass through everyday, most of whom seem to be as much a fixture of the place as the inconsistent fluorescent lighting. At night it is a bustling, humming, aggressive obstacle course for the jet-lagged backpacker, thronged with vendors, hawkers, and a hundred other desperate strangers in a part of the city foreign even to the locals.
We got there at peak business time, around 9:30 at night. We first made sure of the tower and floor number of our hostel, dodging restaurant and hostel room vendors to make our way to the appropriate elevator tower, and got in the line for the appropriate elevator (remember, even and odd). From there, it was a simple matter of bullying ourselves and our baggage into the warm steel box, trundling upwards, and falling out at the correct floor. Signage was a bit dodgy, but a brief search revealed a check-in counter. It was here that we received directions to our room, which was, of course, on a different floor in another tower.
The room, once found, proved to be down a narrow hallway that had pretensions of elegance, with dark faux wood panelling and a disconcerting mirror at the end with cleaning supplies and garbage bags stowed in front of it. The door to our room was right next to it, and the room that was revealed upon opening it was brightly lit by fluorescents only activated when a card was inserted into a small receptacle (as was the noisy but utterly ineffectual air conditioner). It was tiny, warm, humid, and clean. It also had a TV, a window opening onto a garbage-littered construction scaffolding, and a private attached bathroom, accessible through a poorly designed glass door and a foot-high step, complete with the Hong Kong standard bathroom of toilet, sink, mirror, and shower stall all rolled into the same tiled space. In short, it was perfect, and far, far better than what either of us had expected.
A note should be made here about Hong Kong hostels. Unlike the rest of the world, hostels in Hong Kong, or at least hostels in Chungking mansions, are geared not towards the ‘traveller’, student or otherwise, but towards the economy-class business man (or men). As such, there are few of the dorm rooms common at other hostels, where you’d rent a bed in the room and share a bathroom with the rest of the floor (though these do exist, they fill up quickly due to their low price and are not always co-ed), and it’s more common to find private rooms that could conceivably serve as a make-shift apartment for a month or two (such as ours), or, even more common, multiple-bed rooms that are meant to be rented out entirely by a single party. We stayed at the Oriental Pearl Hostel, which no longer seems to exist, in a private double-bed room, for something like 20-odd dollars Canadian a night, that being fairly cheap and in a poorly-rated hostel.
That night very little was done except photography by PB. I wandered around with him for a little while after clearing up my confusion about meeting with my friend later, snacked at Hui Lau Shan, and then went back to the hostel to sleep, leaving PB to explore on his own (Hong Kong is stupendously safe).
The next day was mostly taken up at the Chinese Visa office, primarily in the finding of it, and then waiting in line. We spent the rest of the afternoon at The Peak, the highest mountain on Hong Kong Island and an excellent viewpoint from which to capture scenic photos of the city below - for a price. We, of course, cheaped out, and opted for taking advantage of the free-to-access balcony on the lower level of the structure, having decided we’d paid enough to come up by Tram in the first place. The weather had cleared up by then, and despite the wind and my determined incompetency at picture-taking, PB managed to get in a good few photos before we descended. That night we met my friend and her parents for dinner on Ap Lei Chau, one of the outlying islands, though we were a bit late coming due to my poor time management skills and inability to follow simple directional instructions (this was to prove a recurring theme throughout the trip). [Editor’s Note: -and my life]
The next day, the Tuesday, was spent in the finding and exploration of the cemetery for Commonwealth soldiers in the WWII Japanese invasion of the city, called the Sai Wan War Cemetery. PB’s maternal grandfather had lost a friend in the action; we went to find his grave. The cemetery was on a forested hill overlooking the area where the Japanese had broken through the Island’s defences in December, 1941, leading to the surrender of the Commonwealth forces on Christmas Day. It’s a beautiful area, tucked away on the eastern edge of Hong Kong Island. The day was appropriately overcast, but mercifully didn’t rain until we’d climbed the hill and made it to the shelter of the memorial arch at the entrance to the graveyard. It was in one of the booklets considerately kept in a compartment of one of the arch’s pillars that we discovered that, among several hundred others, the remains of PB’s grandfather’s friend had been either un-found or unidentifiable; his death was commemorated by one of the many white granite tombstones marked with a maple leaf and the simple words ‘Known Unto God’.
After descending from the cemetery once more into the city, we decided we still had enough time to take the bus across the island to Stanley, a pretty and upscale seaside-area on the seaward and less commercial side of Hong Kong Island. It’s a pretty and on-purpose-quiet tourist area; anyone who’s ever been to Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island will understand. Possibly the most entertaining part, though, is the double-decker bus ride there, particularly if you manage to get a seat right at the front on the second floor. The drivers on those roads have to be some of the best in the industry, as the roads are narrow and winding, with a forested mountainside on one side and a steep drop on the other, with a moderately busy two-lane highway in between. The daytime views of beaches and mountains on the way in are very pretty and picturesque, but to my mind are outdone by the spectacle of the lit up city on the way back after dark.
The evening was spent in window shopping by some of the furniture stores we’d passed on the bus to and from Stanley, and taking advantage of the city’s relaxed liquor laws to buy TsingTao beer and ice cream at a 7-11 (alcohol and ice-cream would become another definite theme for this trip), and drinking in a rest area outside an apartment building. I think we may have gone to the Temple Street Night Market this night, but I’m not entirely sure.
The next day we breakfasted at one of my old haunts on Temple Street, and were planning to pack up out of the hostel and go camp at one of Hong Kong’s 40 free campgrounds; however, as there was a Typhoon warning (common in late summer) we put those plans on hold until more clement weather and spent most of the day in the Hong Kong Art Gallery, which is as good a place as any to spend a rainy afternoon. In the evening we headed back across the harbour to Hong Kong Island to have dinner with friends, and visit Happy Valley, Hong Kong island’s famous horse-race track. That was Wednesday, June 22nd.
We picked up our passports Thursday afternoon, with double-entry Chinese visa’s inside, after having Dim Sum at my old university and checking out Festival Walk, a shopping mall in Kowloon Tong with an ice rink inside. It seems to me we also made it out to the clothing and bird markets by Prince Edward Station, and made a stop at the Jade Market in Yau Ma Tei, where PB picked up a green Dragon Ball. However, this is mostly because I know that those events transpired and can’t think of any other time that they could have taken place, rather than any definite memory of a linear ordering of events. That evening we headed down to Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong’s nightclub district. At PB’s urging we went into a Lebanese bar with the happiest serving staff I’ve ever seen, and I tried Shisha for the first time. Double apple, double the fun. That was the 24th, still Thursday.
On Friday we left the hustle and bustle of the city to seek refuge in a beachside campground(1) on Lantau Island. Not only was it free, as are all Hong Kong's campgrounds, it was entirely deserted, and we effectively had our very own private tropical beach... with the exception of some little brown cows with a great deal of interest in our groceries and very little fear of humans. Cows are seemingly everywhere in Hong Kong that lacks pavement, and to this day I have no idea who owns them, how they get herded together, or how on earth they manage to avoid both snakes and traffic, but they've always seemed in relentless good health, so I suppose they must manage somehow.
The campground was clean and well maintained, with soft sand tent pads, firepits, picnic tables, and basic pit toilets. The white sand beach and beautiful tropical sea water were an incredibly welcome break from the unrelenting heat of a Hong Kong summer. Even better, at night phosphorescent phytoplankton would light up the water like a starry sky when disturbed by the motion of human limbs through the water. To this day, though, most people I meet who have visited Hong Kong have no idea of the incredible outdoor opportunities offered by the city. It's a shame, because 25% of the metropolitan area is reserved as park land, and between the lush jungle, picturesque mountains, and sparkling soft beaches, the wilderness aspect of 'Asia's World City' is truly worth spending a day or two to check out.
The next day was a busy one of social commitments for me. I was to go to my former place of employment in Hung Hom at lunch for a visit, and then hop back across Victoria Harbour to Central to meet a friend. Both went well, and PB joined me for the visit at Central. That evening we went back across to Kowloon, all the way up to Shatin to have dinner with my ex-co-workers from the English school I used to teach at, before making the trek back once more to our home on the beach on Lantau Island. The day after that, Sunday, June 26th, I spent having brunch with the family of a former tutoring student and then getting my hair strategically dyed dark brown, in anticipation of the upcoming journey through the land of the photo-happy and tourist-targeting.
On Monday the 27th we boarded the train at Hung Hom and left Hong Kong for Beijing.
(1) Yes, you can camp in Hong Kong! Here's the official site.
Our first night in Hong Kong was mostly one of grogginess and shock. Grogginess after the extended plane ride, shock at the unaccustomed heat and humidity, the lights, the city, the people, and, for me, the return. Having so recently left Hong Kong, it was unreal for me to be back in the city, as though somehow the fact of having returned could erase the time I had been away. I could feel the torn edges of my memory try to mash together, attempting and failing to make the city a linear reality, like trying to blend two songs together unsuccessfully. The effect was discordant and jarring; combined with the physical reality of the city, I felt I was drowning, and very, very happy.
Hong Kong is a city of light and affluence, pockmarked by a variety of dingier and more interesting realities. One of these, and certainly the most notorious, is Chungking Mansions. This complex - and few other institutions so deserve the term - sits in the heart of ritzy Tsim Sha Tsui. Barely 5 blocks away is the groomed and polished Walk of Stars, a tourist trap of the first order complete with photo opportunities and overpriced, over air-conditioned eateries snuggled up between scenic Victoria Harbour and the first class Art Museum and Cultural Centre. A main artery of the vibrant metropolis, Nathan Road, cuts a swath of neon away from the harbour all the way to the gentrified heart of Kowloon Tong; it's awash in chilly, sterile shopping malls and two-storey luxury stores. Farther away from the harbour these eventually peter out and become Internet cafes, hair salons, kung fu academies, and clothing wholesale stores, all stacked one on top of the other in a genius of space utility incomprehensible to someone raised in space-consuming North America. But it’s right in the middle of the shopping malls and Gucci stores that Chungking Mansions unapologetically holds court.
Chungking functions as a locus for something like 80% of all the hostels in the city, at least 70% of the Arabic and Indian hawkers, and, if rumours are true, a significant portion of Hong Kong’s illegal business. Its dilapidated and dirty frame is divided - ‘organised’ being too generous a term - into 6 towers, each served by two tiny and painfully slow elevators, one each for odd and even floors. To get to your hostel you must first survive the first floor, a cell-block labyrinth of food stalls, tiny Internet cafes, and random shops. The dingy linoleum floor is stained with the footsteps and detritus of the hundreds of people who pass through everyday, most of whom seem to be as much a fixture of the place as the inconsistent fluorescent lighting. At night it is a bustling, humming, aggressive obstacle course for the jet-lagged backpacker, thronged with vendors, hawkers, and a hundred other desperate strangers in a part of the city foreign even to the locals.
We got there at peak business time, around 9:30 at night. We first made sure of the tower and floor number of our hostel, dodging restaurant and hostel room vendors to make our way to the appropriate elevator tower, and got in the line for the appropriate elevator (remember, even and odd). From there, it was a simple matter of bullying ourselves and our baggage into the warm steel box, trundling upwards, and falling out at the correct floor. Signage was a bit dodgy, but a brief search revealed a check-in counter. It was here that we received directions to our room, which was, of course, on a different floor in another tower.
The room, once found, proved to be down a narrow hallway that had pretensions of elegance, with dark faux wood panelling and a disconcerting mirror at the end with cleaning supplies and garbage bags stowed in front of it. The door to our room was right next to it, and the room that was revealed upon opening it was brightly lit by fluorescents only activated when a card was inserted into a small receptacle (as was the noisy but utterly ineffectual air conditioner). It was tiny, warm, humid, and clean. It also had a TV, a window opening onto a garbage-littered construction scaffolding, and a private attached bathroom, accessible through a poorly designed glass door and a foot-high step, complete with the Hong Kong standard bathroom of toilet, sink, mirror, and shower stall all rolled into the same tiled space. In short, it was perfect, and far, far better than what either of us had expected.
A note should be made here about Hong Kong hostels. Unlike the rest of the world, hostels in Hong Kong, or at least hostels in Chungking mansions, are geared not towards the ‘traveller’, student or otherwise, but towards the economy-class business man (or men). As such, there are few of the dorm rooms common at other hostels, where you’d rent a bed in the room and share a bathroom with the rest of the floor (though these do exist, they fill up quickly due to their low price and are not always co-ed), and it’s more common to find private rooms that could conceivably serve as a make-shift apartment for a month or two (such as ours), or, even more common, multiple-bed rooms that are meant to be rented out entirely by a single party. We stayed at the Oriental Pearl Hostel, which no longer seems to exist, in a private double-bed room, for something like 20-odd dollars Canadian a night, that being fairly cheap and in a poorly-rated hostel.
That night very little was done except photography by PB. I wandered around with him for a little while after clearing up my confusion about meeting with my friend later, snacked at Hui Lau Shan, and then went back to the hostel to sleep, leaving PB to explore on his own (Hong Kong is stupendously safe).
The next day was mostly taken up at the Chinese Visa office, primarily in the finding of it, and then waiting in line. We spent the rest of the afternoon at The Peak, the highest mountain on Hong Kong Island and an excellent viewpoint from which to capture scenic photos of the city below - for a price. We, of course, cheaped out, and opted for taking advantage of the free-to-access balcony on the lower level of the structure, having decided we’d paid enough to come up by Tram in the first place. The weather had cleared up by then, and despite the wind and my determined incompetency at picture-taking, PB managed to get in a good few photos before we descended. That night we met my friend and her parents for dinner on Ap Lei Chau, one of the outlying islands, though we were a bit late coming due to my poor time management skills and inability to follow simple directional instructions (this was to prove a recurring theme throughout the trip). [Editor’s Note: -and my life]
The next day, the Tuesday, was spent in the finding and exploration of the cemetery for Commonwealth soldiers in the WWII Japanese invasion of the city, called the Sai Wan War Cemetery. PB’s maternal grandfather had lost a friend in the action; we went to find his grave. The cemetery was on a forested hill overlooking the area where the Japanese had broken through the Island’s defences in December, 1941, leading to the surrender of the Commonwealth forces on Christmas Day. It’s a beautiful area, tucked away on the eastern edge of Hong Kong Island. The day was appropriately overcast, but mercifully didn’t rain until we’d climbed the hill and made it to the shelter of the memorial arch at the entrance to the graveyard. It was in one of the booklets considerately kept in a compartment of one of the arch’s pillars that we discovered that, among several hundred others, the remains of PB’s grandfather’s friend had been either un-found or unidentifiable; his death was commemorated by one of the many white granite tombstones marked with a maple leaf and the simple words ‘Known Unto God’.
After descending from the cemetery once more into the city, we decided we still had enough time to take the bus across the island to Stanley, a pretty and upscale seaside-area on the seaward and less commercial side of Hong Kong Island. It’s a pretty and on-purpose-quiet tourist area; anyone who’s ever been to Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island will understand. Possibly the most entertaining part, though, is the double-decker bus ride there, particularly if you manage to get a seat right at the front on the second floor. The drivers on those roads have to be some of the best in the industry, as the roads are narrow and winding, with a forested mountainside on one side and a steep drop on the other, with a moderately busy two-lane highway in between. The daytime views of beaches and mountains on the way in are very pretty and picturesque, but to my mind are outdone by the spectacle of the lit up city on the way back after dark.
The evening was spent in window shopping by some of the furniture stores we’d passed on the bus to and from Stanley, and taking advantage of the city’s relaxed liquor laws to buy TsingTao beer and ice cream at a 7-11 (alcohol and ice-cream would become another definite theme for this trip), and drinking in a rest area outside an apartment building. I think we may have gone to the Temple Street Night Market this night, but I’m not entirely sure.
The next day we breakfasted at one of my old haunts on Temple Street, and were planning to pack up out of the hostel and go camp at one of Hong Kong’s 40 free campgrounds; however, as there was a Typhoon warning (common in late summer) we put those plans on hold until more clement weather and spent most of the day in the Hong Kong Art Gallery, which is as good a place as any to spend a rainy afternoon. In the evening we headed back across the harbour to Hong Kong Island to have dinner with friends, and visit Happy Valley, Hong Kong island’s famous horse-race track. That was Wednesday, June 22nd.
We picked up our passports Thursday afternoon, with double-entry Chinese visa’s inside, after having Dim Sum at my old university and checking out Festival Walk, a shopping mall in Kowloon Tong with an ice rink inside. It seems to me we also made it out to the clothing and bird markets by Prince Edward Station, and made a stop at the Jade Market in Yau Ma Tei, where PB picked up a green Dragon Ball. However, this is mostly because I know that those events transpired and can’t think of any other time that they could have taken place, rather than any definite memory of a linear ordering of events. That evening we headed down to Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong’s nightclub district. At PB’s urging we went into a Lebanese bar with the happiest serving staff I’ve ever seen, and I tried Shisha for the first time. Double apple, double the fun. That was the 24th, still Thursday.
On Friday we left the hustle and bustle of the city to seek refuge in a beachside campground(1) on Lantau Island. Not only was it free, as are all Hong Kong's campgrounds, it was entirely deserted, and we effectively had our very own private tropical beach... with the exception of some little brown cows with a great deal of interest in our groceries and very little fear of humans. Cows are seemingly everywhere in Hong Kong that lacks pavement, and to this day I have no idea who owns them, how they get herded together, or how on earth they manage to avoid both snakes and traffic, but they've always seemed in relentless good health, so I suppose they must manage somehow.
The campground was clean and well maintained, with soft sand tent pads, firepits, picnic tables, and basic pit toilets. The white sand beach and beautiful tropical sea water were an incredibly welcome break from the unrelenting heat of a Hong Kong summer. Even better, at night phosphorescent phytoplankton would light up the water like a starry sky when disturbed by the motion of human limbs through the water. To this day, though, most people I meet who have visited Hong Kong have no idea of the incredible outdoor opportunities offered by the city. It's a shame, because 25% of the metropolitan area is reserved as park land, and between the lush jungle, picturesque mountains, and sparkling soft beaches, the wilderness aspect of 'Asia's World City' is truly worth spending a day or two to check out.
The next day was a busy one of social commitments for me. I was to go to my former place of employment in Hung Hom at lunch for a visit, and then hop back across Victoria Harbour to Central to meet a friend. Both went well, and PB joined me for the visit at Central. That evening we went back across to Kowloon, all the way up to Shatin to have dinner with my ex-co-workers from the English school I used to teach at, before making the trek back once more to our home on the beach on Lantau Island. The day after that, Sunday, June 26th, I spent having brunch with the family of a former tutoring student and then getting my hair strategically dyed dark brown, in anticipation of the upcoming journey through the land of the photo-happy and tourist-targeting.
On Monday the 27th we boarded the train at Hung Hom and left Hong Kong for Beijing.
(1) Yes, you can camp in Hong Kong! Here's the official site.
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