Wagon 3, Seat 83 - Train K43 BeiJing to DaTong

At 10:55 on Saturday morning we were leaving from Beijing Railway Station to our next destination, Datong. Getting into the station building through the security screening and to the platform passing the ticket check went surprisingly smooth given the thousands of Chinese travellers heading the same way. 

Apart from two other foreigners, our wagon is cramped with Chinese travellers, sitting in rows of 5 seats, often double occupied by mothers with their children or standing in the aisle. There is at least 150 of them - rounded up guess, given the sign above the door showing a capacity of 118 people in the wagon. 

The tables are full of food and the overhead compartments of large size luggages. When not eating, most Chinese sleep or just sit patiently without saying anything. Some fiddle around with their phones, play cards or smoke at the end of the corridor near the exit. Regularly a vendor is passing through with a narrow cart carefully navigating around people's legs and selling packaged, cooked food, fruits, snacks or soft drinks. (Seeing the ice cream, I am reminded that I have learnt yesterday from reading a book review in The Beijinger magazine: Chinese like to eat everything on sticks. Yes, it seems to be true. Even sausage on a stick.) 

It would be good to know at what time we arrive at our destination. (Unfortunately, we did not ask when purchasing the ticket. I guess we were so surprised about the super cheap price of 54 RMB per ticket.) The train schedule on the wall, where only the word "time table" in the header is translated into English, shows the route of 20-25 trains. Though knowing the train number and comparing the Chinese characters of our destination on the ticket, helps to identify that the arrival is planned for 17:09. 

Finally, arrived. On time. 

Beijing

Beijing, a set on Flickr.

Central Mongolia and Gobi Desert

Leaving the Eastern European style capital, we have glimpsed some of the vast and open lands of Central Mongolia and the Gobi Desert. The overwhelming impression was of space, scarcity and nomadic life. The latter, I  think, being the most unique feature of the country. 

Over 10 days, driving mostly on bumpy dirt roads with a Russian minivan (but without the usually unevitable break down) and averaging 30-50 km/h, good progress given the road conditions, we were driving about 1,900 km. We went from green landscapes towards browner and dustier lands. 

Life is rough outside the capital and especially in the desert. It requires experience to manage around so much land, livestock and sky and so few people, water and infrastructure. 

Each day, our routine was breakfast, driving, lunch, driving, visiting a site, arrive at ger camp and have dinner. On our tour we have visited Nomad families, monasteries, spectacular landscapes and small, soviet-built towns. We also rode a horse, a camel and climbed the highest sand dune in Mongolia (200 m).

Staying with Nomad families in their gers, we have had the chance to experience a little of their life:

• Watching the nomadic life around us
• Drinking  fermented horse or camel milk (airag) and salty milk tea
• Tasting dried yoghurt and soft or dried cheese
• Baking fresh bread in a pot
• Passing around the sniff box in the welcome ritual and drinking vodka
• Milking the goats
• Dividing a slaughtered goat and family dinner
• Building a ger
• Calling the owner of the petrol station to have him open it up

And then, we drove and drove, bounced around the van's back, until we arrived back in UB. 

Trans-Mongolian Rail

Trans-Mongolian Rail, a set on Flickr.

Train 24, Ulaanbaatar to Beijing

Ideas from the Land of the Blue Sky

My Father's Name - Mongolian's did not have family names in the past. On official documents they added their father's name. In common practice it was reduced to an initial. In 1991, the president supported the idea to re-introduce family names. A book with 1,300 names, grouped by Mongolian districts, was created to help Mongolians in tracing their family names. People who did not know about their family name could select a name from the area their parents came from or invent a name. 

New Capital - Karakorum (Central Mongolia, population today 8,000) was the ancient capital of the Mongolian Empire in the 13th century for 40 years. Following the move of the capital to Beijing and the collapse of the empire, the city was abandoned and destroyed. Recently the idea was proposed to move the capital here and build a modern city. (Apparently there is a billboard in town with the layout. We could not find it - maybe because the project was abandoned in 2004 by the new prime minister according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakorum).

 

Mongolian Roads, Traffic and Transport

What looks on a map like a major road is often not more than a tyre track track in the dirt, sand or mud. Mongolia has more than 40,000 km of highways but thereof only 1,900 km are paved. The average distance traveled per hour on the latter is about 60-70 km/h (at least with the common Russian-built minivans or jeeps; that's what we were travelling around in our Gobi Desert tour, which I will talk about in another post) while on dirt roads it is a mere 30-50 km/h. Of course, this is assuming no breakdowns. 

Driving is not recommended without a driver, says the Lonely Planet. Outside Ulaanbaatar and a few (major) cities there is no signposting for the dirt roads heading in all directions. Hence, the a full page of GPS coordinates in the mentioned travel guide comes in handy. Towns or even villages with petrol stations or shops are scarce. 

In the capital traffic is coming to a hold with cars, SUVs and minivans (lots of Korean and Japanese) at peak hours - even when "creating" additional lanes on the (not paved) shoulder or the oncoming side of the road. The fleet, crawling over potholes and through puddles, is a mix of both left- and right-hand driver vehicles. Drivers are quite aggressive, cutting off or thwarting others constantly. 

Looking for a taxi? Every car could be a potential taxi. There are no, apart from 2 or 3 which we saw over the two weeks of our travel, marked taxis. Simply put your arm out at the roadside and a driver will stop soon. The price is currently 1,000 MNT (Mongolian tögrög, ₮), about 55 euro cents, per kilometre. 

Mongolia

Mongolia, a set on Flickr.