PHOTOS TO FOLLOW!! We are working on catching up. Enjoy
Day 81 continued
After a morning of blog writing on the truck we pull into Irkust in late afternoon. The hostel, called the Art Hostel, is really modern looking and has beautiful paintings everywhere. The staff are really nice and the only downside is that there is only one shower and our room is a little tight for space.
After a bit of a wait for the shower we all head out to the Liverpool bar. Don’t worry Dad it didn’t convert us we are still Man Utd. orientated. The only Liverpool football thing in the bar was the crest over the door, the rest of the bar was covered in old music posters, LPs and antique cameras and typewriters. It is very cool. After burgers and chips we head off to find the others in another bar. I can’t read the cydilic language or Russian for that matter but the pub we end up in must be called the drunken policeman because there are pictures and statues of drunken policemen everywhere. The music is a bit doggie so we decide to head back to the Liverpool bar for one more and then head for bed.
Day 82
After coffee in the trendy WIFI café down the road we head to subway for breakfast. (I know we aren’t heading to all the local places on our trip but we usually have all the local cuisine on our drive days when we stop at roadside cafes so we stick to places we know and that are in the lonely planet map when we are in towns and cities.) On our way to subway we pass a camping shop so we head for that when we are finished. Our most valuable possession on drive days is a spork (a spoon knife and fork all in one). This allows us to tuck into last night’s left overs but if you haven’t got one you have to wait and borrow one. One of the girl’s spork snapped in half so we head back to look for them in the camping shop, with no luck. She does get some nice walking sandals though. Strolling around the city we get a great feel for it and I must say it has a great atmosphere with a mix of old and new buildings. There is one street which is almost like an open air museum, all of the houses are the lovely old wooden houses painted in the bright colours.
(The lady we bought the dye from had a good giggle at us when we bought it. She first produced lovely chestnut brown colours for us when we walked into the shop. We contemplated the colours for all of about two seconds and tried to decide what mad colour we could go this time. Brenda settled for a vibrant red while I chose a dark colour with a purple shine.)
Day 83
We reopen our salon this morning with Brenda’s hair turning out a fabulous deep red colour. The rest of the day became a computer day, uploading the blog and pictures and chatting to people at home.
It is nearly dinner time by the time we head out and we make our way to the British bar. On the way we spy a really cute little park with loads of bronze statues.
The British pub is a bit pricy but after a day of snacking on the computer we don’t order too much. It is really nice bar with pictures of famous Brits everywhere and also of Madonna and Fergie (from the black eyed peas) for some bizarre reason. (They are both American if you don’t know)
We stock up in the supermarket on the way home for the next stint of bush camping.
Day 84
We leave Irkust early this morning and make our way to Lake Baikal. I’m really looking forward tp seeing this as it is meant to be the most beautiful part of Russia and Will has being saying how much he is looking forward to seeing it.
Camp is set up and dinner is being prepared, we are cooking a roast chicken dinner tonight. As the chickens go into the oven we are visited by a lovely Russian family, a nice couple and their grandkids all of whom have great English, even the youngest who is about ten. He is very excited as Will is the first foreigner he has met before. They stay, have some tea and chat for a bit and then head off as the dinner is nearly ready. Well to be honest we had a little trouble regulating the fire so the roast potatoes were a bit burned and then the chickens weren’t cooking so we had to heat it up again but we got there in the end.
The sunset is amazing tonight.
Day 85
We decide to leave Lake Baikal today and visit another town, Ulan Ude, for a few hours. It is known for the massive statue of Lennon’s head. Today however the main attraction is the kick boxing and power lifting competitions going on in front of the statue. We hang around waiting for the action to start for a bit, spying the competitors but it soon realise that we will be waiting all day for it to get going so head for some food before going back to the truck. As we pass the square on the way out of the town the kickboxing has started with the kids competition so we aren’t too disappointed that we didn’t wait around. Our position on the truck is great though and we all get a great view of the powerlifting course. The competitors have to move tractor tyres and big metal pipes. It looks pretty tough!
Tonight is our last night in Russia before we head for Mongolia and the Gobi desert so we fill up the wood lockers when we set up camp in the heart of a forest. This is tough work but tonight no one seems to mind. We are having a MOVIE NIGHT tonight! Popcorn and all!!!!
After dinner we all to pile back into the truck, hook the laptop up to the sound system and watch Rocky 4!!! In Siberia!! (If you don’t know this movie, a Siberian boxer goes to America and kills Rocky’s friend in a fight so Rocky decides he is going to go to Siberia and fight him on his own territory) It was a bit cheesy (as with all 80’s movies) but is a great night.
Day 86
We hit the road early and head straight for Mongolia, country number 20 on our trip! We don’t get very far before we are stopping again to switch off the electrics as the batteries are overheating. This takes a while, so we light a little fire and have a cuppa while we wait. We get friendly beeps of car horns as they pass us by. This is another thing I’ve noticed since we passed from Bulgaria to Turkey. They all use the car horn all the time! Beep I’m behind you, beep I’m beside you, beep I’m passing you, beep I’ve passed you! It is crazy; they even beep when they pass you on the other side of the road. It is hard to get used to but it isn’t meant in the angry way it is in Europe.
We reach the border around lunchtime. Leaving a country is usually very easy, just a matter of getting a stamp in your passport and on you go but Russia, which was surprisingly easy to get in to, is turning out to be difficult to get out of. The border guards want the truck emptied and for all of us to get our luggage together and bring it in to be scanned. They settle for our rucksacks and the truck to be x-rayed.
Out the other side about 2 hours later and on to the Mongolia side. Here we have a bit of a wait. The border guards don’t recognise our visa’s and ring four of five different people to see is it possible to get a 6month visa. 3 hours later and new visa’s all round and we finally make it into Mongolia. It is a startling change. The people have changed dramatically from the hard faced Russians to the friendly round faced smiling Mongolians.
We have swapped the forests for rolling hills of grasslands with bush camp sites as far as the eye can see. We camp early just off the road and enjoy dinner and off to bed early.
Brenda
Day 87
We woke the next morning to frost covered tents. We are heading for Ulaanbaatar and on the outskirts there are yurt suburbs of thousands of little plots with yurts built in them. We arrived at the hostel in the early afternoon and got settled in with the basic accommodation. The family who ran the hostel were really nice and gave us advise on while we were in the city. That night we headed out to the advised Irish bar “The Grand Kahn”, there were no taxies so we got the plan of the city that night, you could give directions by Irish bars, they were everywhere. We eventually got to the bar to find out it was more of a large restaurant than a bar, we sat and had delicious food then headed to the Dublin bar, it felt much more like home there.
Day 88
We headed out for the day to go see the Natural History Museum via the main square. After a stop off at the souvenir shop we got to the square which had the biggest statue to Chingis (Geingus) Khan sitting on the throne in front of the parliament building. The parliament building had a museum to the past governments and rulers, it was quite interesting with flags, seals and coat of arms. From there we headed to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs’ fossils found in the Gobi Dessert. They were amazing and in the centre of the exhibit was a huge carnivore like a Tyrannosaurus Rex it was huge and they had pieced together other bones that were almost complete and they had entire nests of eggs which were also incredible. I found it hard to believe that they were from so long ago.
We went to dinner and ended the evening with Karaoke, very funny!
Day 89
Another jam packed day of sightseeing with two temples and a museum on the plans. We started with the temple closest to the hostel. It was an amazing complex that included a buddest college and a number of small temples with the traditional roofs that curved outwards and ended in a narrow point at the top. The artwork below these roofs was beautiful and must have taken months to complete. The centre piece was a huge 25 meter high Budda made of gold and his two demi gods that were 10 meters high. They were so tall it was impossible to take a picture of them as they were too big and too close.
From there we went to the next temple after lunch, it had four guardians of the temple at the entrance and a number of different deities and masks with incredible detail. In each of the outer chamber corners was a small carved town of their image of heaven which included each of their deities, it was about 2 meters tall. We were told we were staying for an additional night so we left the museum for the next day and headed home for an early night.
Day 90
Yvonne
With our extra day in Ulaanbaatar, we decide to visit the museums and temples that we hadn’t squeezed in the past two days with a bit of souvenir shopping too. First stop is the art museum to see the famous painting “One day in Monglia”, that is after a quick stop to a cashmere shop on the way. The art museum is fantastic. Well worth the visit, they have all sorts of paintings, tapestries, sculptures and even ritual budist masks.
We leave the art museum for the National History Museum. Everyone has been telling us that this is the best museum and that we have to go. We are not disappointed. They have everything from stone-age tools and implements to traditional dress from all the different area is Mongolia. Hats are the big thing here. They have different hats for each region/tribe and each has different hat for each season and special occasions. It is amazing to see the diversity between the people even though they are all from the same area.
There is a massive exhibition on Gengus Kahn or Chengus Kahn as he is known here. The ruler of the Mongolian region was known as the Kahn with Chengus being the best known and the one that brought the most notoriety and glory to the country. At the height of his rule the Mongolian empire stretched from Europe to Korea and down well into China.
The exhibit that gave me the tingles was the modern history. It is hard to take in how far the country has come since the 1980’s. When leaving for this trip I thought that Irelands troubled history was recent but a lot of the countries we have and are travelling through are only 30 years old if even that.
It is hard to comprehend at times.
A quick lunch later and we are off to the Winter Palace. This is outside town so we attempt to get a taxi. What pulls over is two young men in a car, after about five minutes looking at the map they figure out where we want to go and off we go. We aren’t sure if they were a taxi and didn’t understand our accents or if they were just chancing their arm when they saw us standing on the roadside. After some small talk with the guys we arrive at the palace.
The palace is a fabulous complex with decoration from the floor boards to the roof times. We visit all the older buildings first with the many Buda statues hat are displayed and then make our way to the newer and most recently used building. Here we are treated to an insight into the life of the last king and queen of Mongolia. It is a modern enough building with all the usual things of early 20th century royalty with fabulous bed chambers, and beautiful furnishings. I found the musical chair very interesting, it was a gift from Russia and when the king sat in it the chair played music. The king had a huge collection of stuffed exotic animals, fish and birds, this was a little creepy! The main exhibition was a Yurt (or Gur as it is known here) covered entirely in Snow leopard skins. The information says that it 150 animals were used to make it. It is amazing to look at, but also a little sad considering how endangered the animal is now.
Burger and chips for dinner and back to the hostel to catch up with home on skype.
Day 91
After some minor truck work we leave Ulaanbaatar and make our way to the giant statue of Gengus Kahn. The site is fabled to be the site where he found his golden whip. It is very impressive!
The rest of the day is spent on good roads heading for the Chinese border. We bush camp in the heart of the Gobi desert. The part of the Gobi we are in is not the sandy desert you see in movies. It has short tufts of strong grass, not unlike the grass found by the see but it is sparse and very short. The ground is dusty and gravely. The part that is like the movies is the sky at night. We can see almost every star and the milky-way so clearly. It is breath taking!
Day 92
We pass lots of little yurt communities, many advertising yurt stays and golden eagle experiences. We do stop just before lunchtime to take pictures of a herd of two humped camels. They are very happy to have their picture taken and some even seem to posing for the cameras.
They roads turn into sandy tracks today and things get a bit bumpy in the truck but we have the opertunity to stand out on the balcony as we are “off roading” now. It is great with the wind in your face and the fabulous scenery all around you.
Just before we camp we pass toilets on the side of the road. This doesn’t sound very remarkable but they were white ceramic toilets just sitting on the side of the road. They must have fallen off a truck. It provided a giggle at the end of a long drive day.
Day 93
Today is D-Day, China Border Day. We are all prepared for the worst. We’ve been hearing horror stories about the Chinese borders for a bit now and are all convinced that we are going to have to empty the truck completely and have the last of our food taken off us. It is just before lunch when we reach the border and after a bit of a delay on the Mongolian side we get to the Chinese side. The truck goes through a disinfectant spray and it is into the border control, where we meet our guide Goerge. His job is to talk to all the officials and sort out any difficulties we have during our time in China.
To our amazement we are out of border control in half an hour. We all sit on the steps of border control looking at the welcome rainbow hoping we don’t get called back.
Will arrives with good news and bad news. We have to stay and get some paperwork tomorrow but we can go and stay in a hotel tonight. After two nights bush-camp we are delighted to hear the word hotel.
The hotel is nothing fancy but it has a hot shower so we are all happy. We get our first feel for China that evening: Electric bicycles, mopeds and scooters everywhere and all the shop signs in red Chinese writing that light up at night time. Feng (she is a Chinese girl on our trip) is in her element, she orders dinner for everyone and adds a few surprises for us. The food is amazing!! Not too spicy and really fresh with lots of vegetables, yum.
Another good thing today is that Lana and Dima were able to stay with us today. We are all registered to the truck so we thought that we would have to say goodbye at the border but fortunately they could stay for a bit anyway.
Day 94
The first destination this morning is to the bank to change money, which turnout to be a little more complicated than normal. Two forms later and a fair amount of sign language with Fengs help we get out of the bank. To the pharmacy next for cough syrup etc. for my head cold and we all meet up to see what is the plan of action for today. The paperwork is going to take a bit of time so we have some free time in the border town. The time is passed just wandering around, food shopping and lunch.
The paperwork comes through at 5pm and Will decides that he wants to drive into the night to make up for the time lost waiting. Leaving the border town we pass lots of statues of dinosaurs on the side of the road. They look great! We stop just after midnight and camp on the side of a field.
Brenda
Day 95
We were all up early again and there are a few truck chores done while Brenda and I make breakfast and we were on the road again. It turned out to be a day for truck chores, at our first stop around 10am one of the wheels is off and we are surrounded by locals having a good look at what we are up to.
By late lunch we arrived at top destination no.1 in China, The Great Wall! There was hundreds of people milling about. It had busy stalls and restaurants with loads of Chinese tourists on their holidays enjoying the sights. There was a cable car that you could take up and down if you were interested and a sliding car down for the more adventurous. We decided to walk up and down the wall. I think we picked the busiest time of the day and joined the crowds and worked our way through the watch houses and up to a the highest point we could see and back down. It was a long trek and Brenda was manhandled on the way down by a group of middle aged Chinese men demanding a photo and that was the start of the staring and sneaking photos of us because we were western.
We had some Chinese noodles on the way to the back to the bus and headed to find the hostel and meet up with the people who had left the truck along the way. We spent hours in the traffic on the way into Beijing with eyes glued on us and the truck. We got into the hotel eventually and checked in and we headed out to get something to eat other than the McDonalds and KFC and Pizza Hut that was on every corner. After food it was off to bed early for a long days sightseeing the next day.
Day 96
We were up early for breakfast and made our plans for the day to go and see the Forbidden City and the park behind it. We walked from the hostel to Tiananmen Square to the entrance for the Forbidden City. The square is heavily policed with barriers on each area and a security check getting in to it. We stayed close to each other in order not to get split up by all the Chinese tour groups.
We went in through the big red doors and headed through to the main square and were stunned by the huge scale of the city and of the detail put into all the different areas of it. The garden was beautiful with walkways through it and the army training in one quiet corner. The different thrones were incredible with loads of side areas and smaller palaces within the city. It is said that once you entered your city you couldn’t leave. It was really ornate and you could spend hours there just looking at all the different areas and details in each area.
After the Forbidden City we went into the park behind which was really nice and quiet after the madness of the tourist in the city. We chilled out by the temple and enjoyed the slow pace of the park before heading back to the hostel before heading out for dinner. We didn’t go very far for dinner as Beijing is so big that it is pretty easy to get lost. Dinner was nice pizza as Peiking Duck had finished early. The Chinese people tend to eat early.
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