CHINA!

We've made it to Chengdu, China.

Wow, Leah and I stick out like sore thumbs.....very few western faces. We haven't done much yet so there isn't much to write. My first couple Sichuan food experiences have ended in sweat dripping down my face and an upset stomach. Leah has managed to avoid it (so far). We have settled for now in a comfortable guest house known in the international travelling community to be one of the best. Everything we've heard is true....cheap, very comfy, with all the services you'd ever want.

I happen to have some relatives, Kdell and Cheryl Bagley, living here in Chengdu, so we plan to give them a call. We'll hopefully go see some sights together. Leah and I also plan to find a couple short-term teaching gigs while here. We only have a couple weeks, but it sounds like native english speakers can get jobs pretty easily. We'll see.

Nutt'in Like Mutton!!!

Fine dining in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia includes the following:

Mutton Steak
Mutton Soup
Mutton Dumplings
Mutton Kabob
Mutton with Rice
Mutton with Egg
Mutton with Grilled Peppers
Mutton Stroganoff
Mutton Meatballs
and last, but not least, Mutton Head!

I think Leah and I have met our mutton lifetime quota. Yummm yum!

We're too old for this sh?!

Just when we think we can relax in Ulaanbataar for a couple weeks after having slept on the ground for the previous two weeks, we are sadly mistaken. Getting to China, and even worse, getting from China to Kathmandu, Nepal is proving to be very difficult to organize. Things are never as easy as you think they'll be.

The following may sound like complaining, and maybe it is. I go back and forth about writing negative stuff in our blog, considering how lucky we are to be doing this trip, but since this is such a significant part of our travelling experience, I want to describe it.

Yesterday, we got up-close and personal with the beurocratic nightmare that is the Office of Immigration, Naturalization and Foreign Citizens in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia. We found out over the weekend that if an American wants to spend more than 30 days in the country of Mongolia, they must register with this office within 7 days of arrival in the country. Nevermind that all Americans get a free 90 day visa upon arrival and are not told this information! If you happen to find out you need to stay in the country for more than 30 days due to train restrictions exiting the country and China entrance visa restrictions, and did not already registered within the first 7 days, you are in for a treat.

First, you get to enjoy trying to find the place. This may sound insignificant, but since Mongolia does not use addresses to define locations (instead they use the "over by the square, across the street from the red building" system), it makes it very difficult. It makes it especially difficult when the location description given on the government office website is completely wrong!

So you manage to find the right building. Next, after filling out all the forms, making the required photocopies, and submitting everything they tell you to, the whole office leaves for lunch. You wait for an hour in their office for fear that you'll find yourself in the back of a long line. When they return, you are told that you should have done this registration within the first week of arrival. You may say, "but we did not know this, and are only staying 7 extra days (37 of our 90 allowable days!) due to exiting train and China visa restrictions". You are immediately and confidently shown that you should have known about this fine print in the law because it is written on the front door of their office. Ohhhh, of course, you should have somehow known to come to this government office, magically learn how to read cyrillic on the spot (the law is written in cryllic on the door), and realize you better register just in case something unforseen happens and you must stay longer than 30 of you 90 allotted visa days.

You are then told that you should write a letter describing your situation and submit it to the Audit and Revisions Office (an unoccupied window across the room). You pull out a piece of notebook paper and write a respectful short letter asking for leaniancy and to be registered. You wait another 20 minutes for someone to submit the letter to, because these Audit and Revision guys are the fat-cats who run the show and can stay at lunch as long as they like. When the letter is given to one of these fellows, he does not even look at it and tells the translation girl to explain you must pay 100,000 T per tourist (this amounts to about $185 for two). At this point your jaw may hit the floor (ours did). You may also sit down on the floor and cry, or get that deer-in-the-headlights look for an extended period of time.

Once you come to, you weigh your options. Pay this rediculous fine or worry and risk being stopped at the border as you leave the country (in the middle of the night). You may think that paying the fine is the easier, although painful, option. Think again. In trying to pay the damn fine, you are bounced around on command with no forethought from window to window, to neighboring banks, to photocopy machines, and more letter writing. I think the letter writing is the best part. You are handed a photocopy of a letter that some poor sap in a similar situation wrote months ago and are directed via body languange to write your own letter saying the same thing. These fat-cats can't read a word of english so you can write whatever strikes your fancy. This is only another piece of paper these men get paid to push. Oh yah, and when you hand them the letter saying you think their sister is ugly, they won't take it unless you give them a little cash in the process. You also hand over you passport which is lost TWICE on the most unorganized desk you've ever seen. You must watch very carefully every step, because at this point, you know what needs to be done better than the officials themselves. One slip on your part, and the official incorrectly fills out two forms for one person and no form for the other. After you correct the official and show him how to do his job, you have what you need and can finally pay the fine. But not before standing in one more line and fighting off, as you have in every other line you've been in that day, all the people that do not know about the concept of a line.

Lastnight I stayed up until 4AM reading "All Quiet on the Western Front". Wow, we have it good!

Fly Fishing in Mongolia

We arrived in Ulaan-Bataar (the capitol and only "city" in Mongolia) via the Trans-Mongolian train 3 days prior to leaving on our outer Mongolia trip. I found out from the primary trip planner (a girl we met online looking for traveling/cost sharing buddies) that the main goal of the trip was to find good fishing spots! She is researching a fishing guiding business in Mongolia, which I found strange considering she knew nothing about fishing. The opportunity to do some fly fishing while in Mongolia was a great surprise, but very unexpected. I had 2 days to find some fly fishing gear (rod, reel, line, flies) in Ulaan-Bataar, which wasn't easy at all! I did manage to find a "starter kit" (something you'd buy your 10 year son as his first rod/reel). Definitely not what I'm used to but it would have to do. Decent dry flies was another issue entirely. A treble hooked spinner on a hand "reel" (palm-sized piece of flat wood) with heavy monofilament is definitely the gear of choice out here.

3 days into the trip, we made it to a fishing ger camp. The camp guide, an older Mongolian gentlemen who prefered the wooden hand reel with a worm method, was very nice and took a liking to me. Lucky for me, some previous western-world clients of his left him some fly fishing gear as a going away present. He was happy to share some good dry flies with me and I was ready to roll. I caught many small trout and grayling. Not overly colorful/pretty fish. While fishing one stretch, I saw a BIG surface disturbance farther out in the main current. I looked at the Mongolian guide and he said "Taimen" with a smile. Now, before we left on this trip, right after finding out it was going to involve lots of fishing, I did some internet research and found that Mongolia is home to the taimen, the largest salmonid in the world (I guess also found in parts of Siberia). They are known for eating rodents and small birds. The guide handed me a big mouse-fly and motioned for me to give it a try. I threw it out there as far as my "starter kit" rod could handle and drifted the mouse across the current. Wow....it slammed it right away, and snapped my 3 lbs trout tippet in a heart beat. During the excitement of tying on the mouse to my line, I either forgot to think about removing my light tippet or simply didn't think I actually had a chance in the world of catching it and didn't worry about it. The fish didn't like that mouse stuck in his mouth and jumped out of the water multiple times, making it clearly visible what I missed out on fighting and possibly landing.

A great runner up to this fish came a week later when I managed to fool one of the biggest trout I've ever caught. We were in a part of central Mongolia called "the five rivers area", where the confluence of five rivers takes place. This occurs over a stretch of a few miles, and is probably the prettiest spot we camped at. Another fishing ger camp was nearby. Upon our arrival in the area, while setting up camp, a man rode up on a motorcylce (I know now he worked at the camp) and told us we needed special permits to fish. He continued to try to scare us off by saying the police would fine us. Yah, right! What police?! We are in the middle of nowhere and the nearest signs of life are 5000 sheep, goats, and yaks. I went up river to a perfect dry fly fishing spot under some willows. I casted one of my two remaining good flies, given to me by the previously mentioned Mongolian guide a week earlier (he actually gave me three good flies upon my departure but one was snapped off on a rock while teaching a young Mongolian boy to fly cast days earlier). Right as the fly drifted into the spot that looked perfect, a mouth, much bigger than I was accustomed to seeing, came out of the water after my fly. I jerked it right away from him! I threw it back at him multiple times but he wouldn't be fooled. Nothing a fifteen minute wait and a change of fly (my one other decent fly) wouldn't fix. He came back at the same spot and this time I let him take it. I wish I would have measured it up against my rod, but I think it was close to 18". The coloring was red with black spots. Definitely a high point in the trip.

During the two week trip, I'd say we spent about half of it in our rented Russian minivan on the most atrociously bumpy roads imaginable. The other half, Leah and I spent camping, relaxing, and fishing. We had trout dinners multiple evenings. Very tasty. I feel very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to fish here in Mongolia. Definitely, an unexpected fantastic experience. The other fishermen in my family will be happy to know, as it turns out, Leah is quite the natural fly caster. 15 minutes of instruction and she was throwing a tight loop. I better be careful about telling her all my secrets if I want to catch any fish of my own in the future.

Mongolian Adventures

As expected, it's really different here in Mongolia compared to Europe- even the roughest parts of Eastern Europe are far more "developed".

We arrived in UlanBataar a few weeks ago and had a reservation at a guest house about 3 blocks from the city center. We expected it to be more urban than what we may be comfortable with, but thought the services would be better there. We were picked up at the train station and drove down a 5 lane road that passed by many large 30-story buildings and many businesses that gave it a real "city feel" This was Peace Avenue- the main artery of town. Looking around while in the car, it was "rougher" than what we had experienced before, but appeared to be only a few degrees "less developed" than say, Albania. We were then dropped off at the guest house. The hostess showed us around a 40 by 40 square fenced off area with two buildings and a large ger inside. (Gers are traditional Mongolian huts - pretty much Yurts that are easily packed up and moved-perfect for a nomadic culture). The area of town we were in had row after row of these fenced off residences, all packed into one of the many residential areas of town. We were shown into our room, and then shown the facilities which resembled outhouses and a camp shower. I had to use the toilet right away, so I went into the toilet expecting a "turkish toilet"- instead they were pit toilets! 3 blocks from the center of a country's capital center! Then I looked around and realized there was no running water. There was only big barrels of water that I realized later they purchased and had delivered! I can still hardly believe it when I walk back to the room from a metropolitan area and enter the pit toilet! I can only assume that the whole residential area we are in use pit toilets too.

Well a few days after we arrived in Ulaan Bataar, we left on a trip with two girls we had found online that needed a couple more people to share the cost of a trip across Mongolia. We met them the second night we were here to talk about the trip, and that is when Kirst the main organizer said she was using this trip as a research trip for a fly fishing guiding business she was starting here in Mongolia! Brent got increasingly excited that we would be scouting and fishing rivers all over Mongolia. (the fact that she needed to do research and the fact that the trip was not only for fun came back to haunt us later).

As for how and who this trip was organized with, I think we've finally learned our lesson when it comes to traveling with others whom we don't previously know-its best to figure things out on our own. Agendas, budgets and priorities are hard to coordinate with people you meet a few hours before a 2 week trip.

However, as any tourist/traveller finds out when planning a trip through Mongolia, if you wish to see any of the "real" Mongolia (outside of the capitol), you must take part in renting a 4x4 jeep or Russian minivan along with an accompanying driver. This cost around $50/day (not including petrol or feeding the driver!). To make it affordable for budget travelers, you have to find others to join in on the trip. Getting 2 or 4 others really helps with the cost, but then you have the previously mention lesson to contend with. The parts of the trip that involved us needing to be on the same page blew up in our faces. Its really difficult to coordinate with others who travel much differently than we do.

The upcoming conflicts aside...For the time being, BRENT NEEDED A FLY ROD!!! We hunted all over town,...and picked up a true beaut!- (check out the pics) We went grocery shopping and were ready to go! We got picked up the next afternoon in a "russian minivan" ( I could just imagine some Russian soccer mom trying to drive this beast all over Moscow!) It WAS a beast! and our driver was a perfect match with it. Crazy. He drove fast and with wreckless abandon. I dont think my back will ever be the same. There was approximately1 hour of paved road, and then the roads gave way to the finest dust that got kicked up and covered everything. I didnt recognize what was coming out of my nose most days.

After driving for almost two solid days, we finally got to Moron, a town only 400 km from UlanBataar (It takes a long time to get anywhere in Mongolia). We spent a few days there fishing and then headed up to a popular lake Lake Hovsgul, and spent a few nights there, fishing. The girls needed to go up to another area of the country, so we opted to get dropped off at the river we enjoyed fishing so much, and relaxed there for 5 days. In the course of 5 days we were visited by about 10 local Mongolian people. Every day a few people would stop by, and want to see what we were doing. Brent's fly fishing technique was a source of constant curiosity. We ate lots of fish and relaxed with the locals and then returned to Ulan Bataar via a 5 rivers area in which Brent caught a great fish. It felt good to return to Ulan Bataar and settle back in for a couple weeks of relaxation before we head for China!

Train Tales

Well, we made it! After a few hectic and not-so-eventful days in Moscow we prepared to get on the Trans-Mongolian train.

So the day finally came to get on the train....After all of the experience that I have with trains, I was still a bit nervous about getting to the correct train station and to the correct platform, etc. since most of our time in Russia was spent trying to navigate in a country that has nothing written in any other language than Russian, and very few people speak English (or are willing to admit they do) So, totally immersed in a sea of cyrillic writing, we arrived at the train station early that morning to figure out (well in advance) where we would need to be and when. We brought our cyrillic alphabet and figured out we were at the right station, and asked about the platform. So armed with all the info we needed to get on the train at 9:30pm that evening, we went into the downtown area of Moscow to see some of the sights. We walked around the Kremlin, and across Red Square, and saw St Basils, etc. (our attempt to do this the day prior ended in a total downpour and we got stranded in a huge cathedral for hours while Brent had a gastric emergency- ahh, the stories we will tell!!)

Then we made a trip to the grocery store and loaded up with Ramen noodles, and instant oatmeal, and other non-refrigerated items, packed them up and headed for the train station (still a few hours earlier than Brent thought necessary, but he humors me and my nervousness sometimes). As we prepare to board we notice large quantities of clothes and shoes and other items being loaded onto the train by many Mongolian looking people. These were not clothing items a person wears- they were ones that a person sells-large quantities of the same item. Then we enter our 4 berth cabin to witness a couple of Mongolian-looking people shoving 50-60 pairs of shoes into the overhead compartment, and doing it in such haste, we thought they were storing the shoes and leaving the train. But as the train pulls away, the husband makes his bed and settles in for what appeared to be the rest of the ride (the wife left for a time, only to return periodically and torment us with her angry and almost evil demeanor- we're still not sure what we did to piss her off so much). We had another traveler in the cabin with us from the Netherlands, who spoke English well. She is a musician, very talented, and pretty famous in Holland. We enjoyed talking to her about her music, and listening to her very unique and original creations. She was planning to spend three weeks with a nomadic Mongolian family to become inspired for her next album.

The next two days we slept and ate and read and talked. Brent and I tried to draw each other. Looking out the window was enjoyable. Even though the scenery was rather typical and not too spectacular, (lots of forests and communist block towns scattered along the way) the land was green and the landscape changed most every day. Throughout all of this, we were really enjoying the ride, relaxing, eating well, napping, and the rhythm of the train was comforting, somehow.

Periodically, at certain train stops the man in our cabin (and the 30 or so other Mongolian merchants) would start to load up his goods and jump off and start selling his items to the hundreds of Russians that had crowded onto the train platform for cheap clothing and shoes. The bartering and yelling and pushing and shoving made for and entertaining time. A few times the train would start to move, and a seller would finish up their sale just in time to run after the train and throw their items on, and jump on themselves. The man in our cabin left after the 3rd night, with plans to wait at that stop for 10 hours and ride a train back to Moscow that same day. What a life- cant be easy.

We arrived in Ulan Bataar yesterday morning, and had reservations at a nice guest house where we have been resting and preparing for the next adventure.

Mongo-expensive Moscow!

What our modest daily budget would buy in Moscow.

- Sharing floor space with six other travelers, sleeping on the floor of a nice Russian woman's appartment. Very cozy!
- ONE slice of pizza.

Needless to say, we were happy to leave.