MONGOLIA – LAND OF THE BLUE SKY

WEATHER: Tops 10C – Lows -3C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY : 5 star dinner for $25

BUYS OF THE DAY:  Bag of washing done for $4.23, package sent home $12.54

WORD OF THE DAY: - Man how cold do you think it is?

Welcome to Monglia!  After  disembarking off the train at 1pm in Ulaan Baatar ( also know as UB ) we headed straight to a money exchange so we could grab some local currency, which is called the Tugrug!  1 USD = 1200 tugs….  Yes I am going to leave that well alone.  So we aren’t quite millionaires, but for $100 USD I got $120,000.00 tugs!!!  I am RICH!!!  Woo Hoo.  Also a confusing currency as a post card is 349 tugs and an alcoholic drink is 3000 tugs, but I am sure we will get the hang of it just as we board our train for Russia in 3 days time!

UB has a great feel about the place and not what I really expected.  The people are well dressesd in a cool and funky way, we could be in any western city with the clothes that they are wearing.   Apparently Mongul women love fashion and it shows – not only do they look good, they are beautiful aswell.  It is funny what your pre-conceived ideas are and then what the reality actually is of a destination.  I love that when a place does that to me ( for the positive ). 

Dinner – well when in Mongolia do as the Mongolians do – and yes it is a Mongolian BBQ.  If you have been to one before ( in Mongolia or not ) then it is the same set up. You fill your bowl with what vegetables you want, you add in the meat that you want ( normally 6-8 different types to choose ) and then you add in your sauce and you take it to the HUGE BBQ plate they have and the dude cooks it right in front of you with these large cooking sticks.  There is just nothing better than meat cooked on a BBQ right? D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S.  Our final bill for the 6 of us was 123,400 tugs!!!  Now how impressive does that look!!!  Yep I have kept the bill as proof!!

It is cold here, and I think it is going to be the coldest place I get to on my trip, barr of course Antarctica.  I was not able to bring a big fluffy warm jacket and hiking boots – I just don’t have the room, so I am layered up to the hilt, but it seems to be working okay.  I look like a mish mash of clothes, but as long as I am warm, then if I don’t look as funky as the Monguls, then too bad.  We stand out anyways, there are not a lot of Western people floating around.  The temperature last night as we walked home was -8 degrees.  Yes MINUS  8!!! UB claims to have 250 sunny days a year, as long as the next 4 of them are sunny, then that will make the cold during the day that much more bearable.

As a land locked country with China and Russia, Mongolia has a population of approx. 3 million people and 1 million of them live in UB.  They have made money in the mining industry and are finding that UB is attracting the country young folk and the city is finding it a little hard to keep up with the demand.  Traffic is a major issue here.  It is quicker to walk most times than sit in the crazy traffic in town.  The cars are also another point of conversation, as they import their cars from Korea and Japan there is an even mix of left and right hand drive cars on the roads.  It is weird to see a driver on the left side and the car next to him is a right hand drive.  You can also see building cranes everywhere and I think in 10 years time the place will look very different to what it looks like now.  Progress has it’s casualties.

The Monguls are also partial to a bit of drinking, so there is a Government law that on the first day of each month alcohol cannot be sold or consumed, to try and stem the flow of the drinking.  For one day – I wonder how that is working out for them?  Needless to say that today is the 1^st of April and we went to the poshest restaurant in town for our second dinner, and after asking discreetly about alcoholic beverages, we got served our glasses of wine – but in a coffee cup for disguise and Jesse and Chrissy that ordered a bottle got served theirs out of a teapot.  Where there is a will – there is a way!!!  Just for the record, for a glass of wine and a main meal at a 5 star restaurant it cost me 30,000 tugs which is like $25!  That has to be the bargain of Mongolia so far!

We are off to a Mongolian Ger tomorrow.  You know, those round looking homes that the Mongolian’s live in.  We have archery and horse riding all tee’d up and a few vodka’s around the Ger fire tomorrow night.  I’ll leave you with the words from the official visitors guide, which states – and I quote:

A few fortunate travellers will have the opportunity to discover Mongolia for themselves.  To ride the horses of Genghis Khan once trod, to walk in the footsteps of dinosaurs, to sleep in Gers where the Mongul army assembled and to smell the eternally pure wind of the Mongolian steppe.

Now if that doesn’t sound exciting / intriguing to people – what planet do you live on?

30 HOURS - THE TRANS MONGOLIAN HAS BEGUN

WEATHER: Inside carriages a freezing 10C - heater wasn't working / Outside 2C

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Leaving my jewellery ( 2 rings and a pair of earrings ) at the hotel in Beijing.

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY : Jewellery getting found and they are going to hold it till Julia returns in May

BUYS OF THE DAY: 6RMB dumplings for breakfast. That’s .92 cents for 10 – they are the BOMB.

WORD OF THE DAY: - ‘Don’t go Russian on me’ ( having a go at the Russians cheerful demeanor  - NOT )

Another early start. 6.30 am departure for our walk to Beijing Railway Station, which was only a 10 minute walk away.  After shuffling and getting barged through a security check point we headed for our platform and our first look at the Trans Mongolian train standing there waiting for us!  Our first section is a 30 hour stint from Beijing to Ulan Bator – with our train leaving at 7.47am and arriving in the next afternoon at 1.30pm.

As there are 7 of us we have split into 2 sleeper cabins.  The ‘noisy’ cabin is next to us consisting of Mel, Chrissy, Eric and Jesse – we are calling ours the ‘sanctuary’ cabin with Julia, Bill and myself.  So far we don’t have our forth roomie, which will be a local random, but that is fine by us as we have extra room to spread all our ‘stuff’.   The cabins, if you have traveled on European sleeper trains, are very comparable if not a little better to them.  There is plenty of room for our large backpacks under the beds, which fit with room to spare and also the large ledge above the doorway, which we haven’t even had to use!  This is a Chinese train we are on now, into the border of Mongolia we stay on the same train and then when we leave on the next train a few days later, we will be on a Mongolian train and then the last of the great train journey will be completed on Russian trains.  We have been toId that the  Chinese trains are the best out of them all, which have a dining car and our meals included, but we lose the dining car on the Mongolian trains all together but get it back for the Russian trains.

By the time we got all settled, lunch was served at 11.30am.  It was basic but tasty meal consisting of a chicken dish with onion and capsicum and a plate of cooked celery ( sounds ordinary ) but was quite tasty served with a bowl of fresh rice.  Chopsticks only, so you will need to BYO fork if you wish.  I have one packed, but as the meals progress I am getting better at using my chopsticks.  Poor Bill was struggling just about eating one rice grain at a time – needless to say he is going to take his fork to dinner!!!    Dinner was also a simple affair at 5.30pm served with 2 meat balls, a plate of cabbage ( once again very tasty for a non cabbage eater ) and rice.  Sometimes simple meals can be the best meals of all.  We were told to stock up on snacks, but they have been readily available at the stations where we have stopped twice in China.  We really didn’t need to bring too much as it has been surprisingly good. 

We stopped at a place called Datong for 25 minutes where we have noticed the elevation is going up as out ears are popping and our snack packets look like they are just about to burst. We also stopped at Zhining for 15 minutes.  Our next stop was the border of China and Mongolia for 3 hours at 8.30pm.

As we are traversing the Gobi desert the air is so dry, which was fine for the first few hours, but as the journey went on the small sand / dust particles got into the cabin and you can now smell the dust in the carriages.  Julia said this is the first time it has been this bad and now there is a lot of sneezing and sniffling in the group.  You just feel like there is a fine layer of dust on your body.  It is bad enough being on a train for 30 hours but add in the mix of the dust and it just pushes the limits a little. This is travelling – so we just add that to the experience!

Each carriage has an attendant.  So he takes care of the linen, tickets, questions ( not in English-so don’t bother ), looks after the cleanliness of the toilets etc.  Speaking of which the toilets are pretty stock standard for a train.  All aluminium with a small tap to wash your hands, not too smelly considering they are unisex and yes your bi-product goes straight onto the tracks when you use the foot pedal to flush.  But they are western toilets, so you will hear no complaints from me.  And just for the record, the toilets are closed when in stations, so there are no do-do’s or smells to be left behind when the train departs.  The attendant is also the man to watch at the stations.  He stands at your carriage door the whole time we are there, so the second he disappears, you know you have to be back on the train ASAP.  We have joked, but can you imagine being stranded on a Chinese platform in the middle of the Gobi desert as your train pulled out with the rest of your group on board – yep – don’t see the funny side to that but would make a good story one day I spose – just not with this duck let me tell you.

Boarder Formalities are just like anywhere else in the world when crossing by land.  We reached the Chinese boarder at 8.30pm.  Not only do we go through customs and passport control here, they also change the wheels on all the carriages, as Mongolia has a different railway track to China. So we have 16 carriages, each carrying approximately 42 people, give or take as they have a few VIP carriages that’s approx. 672 people to process, let alone the changing of the wheels process added to this it is no wonder that it took 3.5 hours to complete the Chinese formalities.  The authorities are quite thorough, checking each carriage and under our beds and the local also get their bags and boxes checked.  The airconditioning vents also got checked!  We then moved through no mans land – the space between China and Mongolia that doesn’t belong to anyone.  There is 35 minutes of no mans before getting to the Mongolian boarder and the same process again occurs.  It seems to be an organized well oiled machine, with very serious looking officials swarming all over the train.  The formalities were finished within 90 minutes and at 1.30am with passports back in hand we entered into Mongolia.

MADE IN CHINA

WEATHER: Tops 20C - Lows 1C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY : The GREAT WALL of China 

BUMMER OF THE DAY: May have Shingles back – medication needed

BUYS OF THE DAY:  Gloves 70 RMB – Bear Hat 20 RMB – Panda Hat for Bill 15 RMB

WORD OF THE DAY:

Day 2 dawns and the day looks like it is going to be a beautiful day.  Cold but beautiful.

I have been to China before.  I did a 2 week Travel Indochina tour 10 years ago but was looking forward to seeing the Great Wall again.  There are just some monuments in the world you can do once and be happy not to go back to again, but I think the Great Wall is like Ayers Rock – it can look different each time you go.  It can be the time of day or the weather conditions that make it look a little different from the last time you saw it.

I missed the first day of the tour, as I was still on my booze cruise with my gal pals from Sydney to Brisbane.  But the first day compromised of the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven and they are some of the sights that I just mentioned – happy to do once and glad I went – but wouldn’t do twice, so I was okay on missing out on that part of the day.

The GREAT WALL – truly is just that.  What an amazing experience that I think everyone should see once.  It is one of those amazing feats like the pyramids of Egypt – how the hell did they do it?  

We departed our hotel at 6am in the morning for the 90 minute drive to the Mutyanyu section of the wall.  There are other sections,  but this is supposed to be the best part of the wall.  When we arrived we were the only people there, the stalls and food vendors were not even set up yet! 

There are 3 ways to get up to the wall.  You can catch a cable car, a chair lift or the good old fashioned way and walk.  We chose the later and decided it would be a great claim to fame to say we climbed the great wall of China.  So off we set for the 30 minute stair master work out of walking the 989 steps ( yes I counted them ) to get us to the top of tower number 5 of The Great Wall of China!!!! 

I cannot tell you how amazing it was to be walking on this structure.  Because we had set out so early we were the only people on the whole wall for pretty much the 2 hours we spent walking on it.  We walked to tower 20 and then caught the cable car back to the bottom.  Needless to say I have a lot of photos and these can all be found on Facebook, please look at them as they are just amazing.  But what a great way to spend my first full day in China.

The Great Wall is a single, continuous wall built all at once is a myth. In reality, the wall is a discontinuous network of wall segments built by various dynasties to protect China’s northern boundary.

During its construction, the Great Wall was called “the longest cemetery on earth” because so many people died building it. Reportedly, it cost the lives of more than one million people.

The Great Wall is truly a remarkable feat.

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED – IN CHINA

WEATHER: Tops 15C - Low 1C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY : Kung-fu Show

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Knackerd at 7pm at night – early start the next day

BUYS OF THE DAY:  Dumplings bought at the food market 6RMB – toothbrush 4 RMB – Dinner 25 RMB

WORD OF THE DAY: - always written phonetically - Che Che ( Thank-you ) Nee How ( Hello )

Welcome to China.  The land of where everything is made and it is cheap cheap cheap, as you would expect when it is made in the same country right!

After arriving into Beijing, 15 hours later after leaving home, my little transfer guy Marvin was there in the throng of little Asian faces waiting for me after customs.  My private transfer took me from the airport to the hotel ( 30 minute drive ) which was located right near Beijing Railway Station.  I did have a moment after my drop off if tipping is required in China.  Apparently it is not expected, but if you get good service you should leave a few dollars.  Sorry Marvin – you missed out – but it is always an awkward moment when the bags are unloaded and everyone seems to pause for what seems like an eternity on whether money will be exchanged or not.  I just delivered the biggest smile I could muster and loaded all my bags onto my shoulders and headed into the hotel – sorry buddy.

My roomie was already off for the day on the included tour of the day, so I rang my guide Julia to let her know I had arrived and we met in the lobby an hour later to go over our trip notes that I missed out on the day before.  Julia is Russian, a non- vodka drinking Russian at that ( she had her vodka days when she was younger so I guess that conter acts the non-ness now right? ) , but she is just awesome all the same.   We are going to visit the Vodka Museum in St Petersburg together and she has promised she will have a shot with me there.  Julia has done this tour for 6 months last year and in total was 9 times, crossing back and forth across the continent – what a life!  New career move for me maybe ???

As we still had the afternoon free, Julia and I walked to Waifunging Food Market , located off the famous Waifunging shopping street, about 30 minutes from the hotel.  I tell you I think if it can be deep fried or BBQ’ed the Chinese will eat it!  Just to name a few things on show they had: Sea horses, snake, cat, scorpions ( that were still alive till they went into the vat ), centipedes, monkey meat, sparrows, pigeons, crabs still in shells, silk worms, cockroach looking bugs, taranchulas, crickets – and they were staked like satay sticks just waiting for the customer to come along and get purchased.  I was not as adventurous as Julia who had a snake kebab and a also a scorpion kebab – for me I had a BBQ’ed corn and also some dim sum and dumplings that were just delicious.  It was an interesting introduction into the local foods and there weren’t too many tourists, a lot more locals.  It was a great way to blow off the jetlag cob webs.

That evening I met the rest of the group.  We have a great couple from LA – Chrissy and Eric, a computer expert from Holland - Jesse, a grand young man of 72 from Canada – Bill, a ticketing agent from Melbourne – Melissa, plus myself and our guide Julia from Russia.  We headed to a Kung Fu show at the Red Theater for the evening and it was an amazing show.  A lot of visual effects on the history of Kungfu viewed from the eyes of a young boy as he masters and moves through his lifes journey.  

No photos or status updates via Facebook from China.  It is currently prohibited in China to use Facebook, due to some riots that happned in Xinjing, with the Government citing that there was alot of Western input beforehand and the consensus was the riots were instigated by outside agitators.  I tried to trick the system by going in several different ways, google, email links etc…. but it was just to damn smart.  Get me to Mongolia – I hate to say I maybe having just a slight Facebook withdrawal……

Welcome to China – this place is amazing!!! 

A Poem For Bernie - Love Ya ShellBell

There once was a girl, her name is Ber-nie,

Who’s about to embark on a lifetime journey

Across our seven continents she will explore,

And the number of countries she’ll visit will be 54!

With six months of planning, the time has now come,

For you to be a “flashpacker” and officially a BUM

With the house almost sold and everything in place,

Your journey will be better than the Amazing Race!

So flashpacking around the world Bernie will go,

Adding friends to Facebook and loads of pictures to show

Tagging and loading and blogging her way,

Watch out for the “Bernstar” jump each and everyday

Can’t believe she’s leaving Discover Travel and Cruise

For Contiki tours, drinking lots of booze.

It’s been a great ten years with Cheify and the crew,

Conferences, famils and lots of laughs too…

You’ll party hard with both Gen X and Gen Y,

Just be sure to bring home a wealthy foreign guy!

You’ll teach those Contiki kids a thing or two

Just remember to tell them you were born in 1982.

Our memories of Bernie, we all have lots,

Fancy hats, crazy glasses and loads of camera shots.

Days at the races and nights at the Caxton Hotel,

The next day, we had so many stories to tell.

So, who’ll take our photos when we now go out,

And buy us jam donuts, when it’s their shout.

Who’ll ask the DJ for our favourite song,

Please Bern, don’t stay away for too long.

Zoe and Tess will miss their Godmun Ber-nie,

Her love, her gadgets and playing memory

Who will now feed Tessie at night?

And turn on Zoe’s bedroom light?

Just remember, no matter where in the world you roam

You’ll be missed by all of us here at home.

We love you Bern, you’re the best of friends,

It’s “goodbye” for now, until your journey ends.

Love and will miss you heaps

Shelly Belly xoxoxoxoxo

Medical Emergency 14 days from Departure

My last full week in the lead up to my trip has not been the most well planned.  It was totally out of my control in my defence but if your interested in the medical week from hell read on as it will give you a good laugh if nothing else.  I can now see the funny side as I am hopefully out of the woods but this is the my last week in review.

I had my going away party last week and a great night was had by all.  Lynda and I stumbled home at 5.23am – not much memory of the taxi ride home or getting to bed – but that has been the usual Saturday / Sunday morning routine for the last 3 months.  We woke at around 10am and I had 3 spots on my cheek and they were itchy as hell.  So I assumed that I had been bitten by a mozzie in my sleep.

Monday the itch turned into a rash.  No big deal – I don’t get sick and I normally don’t get allergic reactions – so was happy to run the course of my ‘mozzie’ bites.  People were asking me what I had been bitten by and was a topic that people in shops were happy to ask me about.  In the meantime I had also been to the dentist twice for a barnacle clean and 3 fillings. I also had to drop my passport to the Chinese Consulate and the finalizing my trip continued.

Tuesday the rash started to swell.  Still no pain at this stage, but it was starting to look a little ‘unusual’.  Back to the dentist for another 2 fillings ( yes it has been a while between visits ).  Even the dentist mentioned it looked like a spiders bite and I should get it seen too.  I still had people offering advice and asking me what had attacked my face.  A visit to work and seeing their faces drop when I walked in the door told me that I was staring to look a little ‘kooky’.  There were 2 theories we had for the bite.  One was that getting home on Sunday morning I had walked into a spiders web and was attacked.  The other which is totally not to my liking is that a spider sat on my face and had a nibble while I was in my drunk induced sleep.  Need less to say I was sticking to part one of the theory.

Wednesday was the first official day I looked like elephant woman.  My face felt like it was the size of a balloon and it was quite obvious that I needed to see a doctor.  I got an appointment in the afternoon and at this point we were still dealing with a bite, which we had deduced was a spider.  The doctor was quite nice and gave me some drugs that I was expecting miracles from and thought that I would be back to normal as soon as I started to take them. Oh how I wish that was true.

Thursday morning when I opened my eyes I just knew that things were no better.  I had to head into the city to pick up my passport and do a few other things and not one person asked me about the ‘bite’ on my face, as It had gone past the point of people asking what had happened as you could see in their faces that they did not know if it was heriditaty, a disease or an abusive husband.  Back to work for lunch and the 4 hours I was there it just degenerated so much I headed upstairs to another doctor.  It was getting to sheer desperation.  I needed this thing to start clearing up as the first portion of my trip was starting to look shakey.  This doctor was really nice and this was the first time that shingles was mentioned.  Shingles is a viral disease produced by the chicken pox virus. It is characterised by pain and a blistering rash that occurs along the nerves that have housed the dormant chicken pox virus since its last effects on an individual ( I was 10 when I had chicken pox ) When an individual's immune system can no longer fight the chicken pox virus, they develop shingles.  As we didn’t know which one I actually had, we decided to continue treating me for a spider bite and now also shingles.

Friday for me was the most confronting.  I woke and my face looked like something from a horror movie. This is no exageration.  Today was quite upsetting with the realisation that I would probably have to cancel my Trans Mongolian portion of my trip, as my face had not only NOT improved was getting worse as the days wore on.  I had Zoe’s school cross country that I promised I would go to, but my face would have just scared all the kiddies the way it was.  Luckily when I was at the chemist I bought an eye patch, so I decided to don this and head down to the oval to watch my oldest god-daughter run her little heart out – and it was definetly worth looking like Blackbeard for the morning.  I made my third appointment at the doctors for the third day in a row.  I just wanted to make sure there was nothing else I could be doing over the week-end to help in my recovery.  This male doctor was not only hot but also really nice and also said he thinks it is shingles.  With all the medication I was on there was really not much more they could do for me.  If shingles is not diagnosed within the first 72 hours then you have to run the whole course of the infection – which is where I found myself.

Saturday and Sunday I found the mornings were the worst times with the swelling, but the drugs started to kick in and by mid morning – lunch time I was starting to resemble the old Bernie once again.  This was a massive releif for me and to know I had turned the corner and was coming through the otherside was something I won’t forget.  I am glad I persisted with the doctors and paid the money for the drugs and the visits ( all $400 worth ) to make sure I was in the best condition possible for the start of my trip.

The upside – as there is always one is that I had an alcohol free week for the first time since before christmas.  So we are talking quite a few weeks in total and it made a nice change to wake up on a Sunday morning refreshed and not hung over and feeling like I had swallowed a hairball and drunk 50 litres of vodka.

So that was my medical emergency the leading up to my last week.  I am hoping that I have got all my ailments done and dusted BEFORE I go and will now have a medical free trip!

Shingles or Spider Bite?
We will never know!!!!! 

Days Are - Tick – Tick - Ticking

I really am not sure where the time has gone. 

The only way I know how many days I have left is from the countdown clock I have added to my blog.  I remember telling my best friend when I was nearly into double digit days that that’s when the real countdown would start.  The timing from 101 days to 22 has been, to say the least, a whirlwind.  My week-ends since Christmas have been manic ( my liver is silently agreeing of this point ) and the reality of the ‘no home’, ‘no job’ and ‘no familiar faces’ starts to set in.

Well with only 22 days till I leave ( according to my countdown clock ) it is still hard to believe that I am so close.  The ‘real’ countdown is now on. 

My second last Saturday that I will have to work

My last staff meeting on Monday

14 walking days

8 working days  

3 more weekends

3 more episodes of Farmer Wants a Wife and My Kitchen Rules

2 more visits to The Caxton

2 more pay days and the list goes on…………….

I know it may sound insignificant – but the familiarity will also disappear in 22 days.  Don’t get me wrong – I can’t wait to meet new and ‘different’ people, discover cultures, experience other countries and taste different food – but I will miss the familiarity.

So what goes into the last few weeks’ preparation of a long travel Odyssey?

Arranging money matters for 12 months – this is not as such a mammoth task as it sounds – Travelex is my friend.  With internet banking and BPay – it really is just a matter of being organized – and if you hadn’t guessed – I have no trouble in that department.

Power of Attorney – this is a pretty important one. As I now am husbandless, aside from the financial matters, who will look after my affairs ( touchwood ) should something go wrong.  It is a reality, and I have appointed the most important person in my world for this job.  It comes right down to if I’m in an accident and on life support – what to do, to know whether I would like to donate my organs, and down to being buried or cremated.  Trip or no trip, these things should be discussed with loved ones anyway.

Personal belongings – this has been partially taken care of when I moved out of the family home 5 months ago.  I am now down to the nitty gritty of where personal documents go, family jewelry to be stored and my basic day to day life will need to be boxed and stored until my return.

Working out what will actually come with me on my trip - I have dedicated a post to this already, so you know what is involved.  But doing a pre-pack 4 weeks ago, to actually deciding what will make the cut and what will be culled makes the decision more of a reality. I know that what ever I decide to take / leave something will be the wrong thing – good old Murphy’s Law!

Last and probably the most important is the preparation and the starting of ‘the final’ good-byes.  I hate them at the best of times and just this week I have started to say the ‘G’ word to people whom I won’t see again for at least 12-14 months.   

I hate to think what I will be like at the airport – I can see it now, I will be a blubbering mess – you know the people you see at the international airport – crying like babies – and waving all the way down the escalators and they are still waving as they pass the liquids bag inspection and boarding pass check before heading into customs.  I guess you never really think too much about those people as you generally are only gone for 2 weeks or so, so what is the big deal and tears for?  Well I apologize now – because that will be ME.  So next time you see some-one crying at the airport, have a bit of compassion in your eyes as it is a pretty BIG transition with all those happy and sad feelings running around all at the same time.

Days Are - Tick – Tick - Ticking