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.

Naadam Festival

Naadam is a traditional festival celebrated nationwide for thousands of years (July 11-13). The three games are wrestling, archery and horse racing - in ancient times essential skills that men should possess to defeat the enemy.


The wrestling was originally a game to test the strength and wit. It might have also aimed to train young children to tame and domesticate wild animals. The horse is the main mean of transportation and symbol for power, strength and loyalty. The ability to shoot with bow and arrow was needed to hunt and defeat enemies.


View photo set here: Naadam Festival

Chinggis Khan and the Red Hero

In short one could say: The Mongols conquered the world and then they went home.

In the 13th century Chinggis Khan and his Mongol army seized an empire stretching from Korea to Hungary. When Chinggis died they stopped everything and returned home to bury their leader. A new khan, Ogodei, was chosen and the conquest resumed. Others succeeded him and later moved the capital from Karakorum to Beijing. The longer they stayed in China the less control - and interest - they had in other parts of their empire and they were chased back to Mongol lands. Back in Mongolia they resumed their traditional lifestyle as Nomads while their neighbours, Russia and China, grew more powerful and absorbed some Mongol regions. Mongolia declared its independence when revolution in China overthrew the Qing Dynasty in 1911. After a defeating a White Russian invader, in 1921, Mongolian's People's Party proclaimed a government. They turned to the Russian revolutionaries for support how to run a country. Soon the Mongolian government was following Soviet Union's development and in 1924 the Mongolian People's Republic was founded. To mark the change to the path of communism the capital was renamed to Ulaanbaatar (Red Hero). Mongolia relied heavily on the USSR as livestock remained the main pillar of the economy. Since 1996 elections Mongolia would look neither north to Russia nor south to China but outward, and mostly west.

Based on: Wild East: Travels in the New Mongolia, Jill Lawless
(Admittedly there are some gaps in the summary above.)

The Great (Fire)Wall

It was not fully thought through when I wanted to post the first message from our hotel room in China. Internet censorship in China prevents from accessing Blogspot, Picasa and several other sites (if you are interested to find out more see these articles: Internet Censorship and List of Blocked Websites). 


How to work-around this without a VPN and 6 long weeks of silence? - Here is what I can think of: Enable "Email Posting" in blogspot (which I just did from our guesthouse in Ulaanbaatar where we arrived today) and/or post photos directly from Flickr. 


Let me know if you have any other thoughts!

Departure Date: TUE 05 JUL 11, Reference: RTW RAC5KX

Finally, a little more than six months from the decision to tour around the world, the departure day has come. My parents are dropping us at the Frankfurt airport to catch flight BA903 to London Heathrow (terminal 5, yeah!) and then over-night flight BA039 to Beijing Capital International airport, terminal 3.

The full itinerary of our trip can be found here. Given that this is a one year trip, it might be prudent to add a disclaimer at the beginning: This plan is subject to change without much of prior notice depending on reasons outside of our control but likely also because of subjective reasons such as our preference, mood or just because we can.

If you like to join us for part of the trip or meet us for coffee along the way, please let us know. In this case we will stick to the plan... ;-)

First impressions... - Foundation Nepal in Humla

View photo set here: Foundation Nepal - Humla