Tim_Day 264 - 289 (Mongolia)

Day 264 (Back in Xion)
Woke up a little late in the morning. I think I was in love with my clean white sheets and didn't want to part from them. The hotel was really nice and really clean and a diamond to find in China.

We headed downstairs to the local internet place to put some time in catching up our blogs. While typing you could hear the lovely noises of a Chinese city outside. It sounded something like Beeeeeeeep, Beeep, Beeeep, Beeeep, Hauuuuk, Hak, Gulp, Beeep, Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, Beeeeeeeeep, Haugkkkkkkkkkk..Spittt, Beeeeeep, Spit, Beeep, Haukkkk, Etc.

Wonderful China the soon to become super power of the world. At least maybe. I know for sure they got the most gallons of spit per minute record of any country in the world. I bet at any one moment at least 20 gallons of spit in China is flying through the air on the way to the ground. The truth can be nasty.

Anyway after a few hours of the Chinese streets in my ear and Ana driving me nuts trying to figure out how to change our flight home ticket I decided it was time for pizza. Not any Chinese fish tasting pizza but good old Pizza Hut. Damn Niger that stuff great (No offense to my lovely black people, it’s just that pizza is just the shit when you in China). Maybe I should rephrase what I’m saying and be more politically correct by saying something like “Pizza Hut’s pizza is the best thing since white sliced bread” or “This cracker loves his pizza”. Either way you got the point I was excited to eat a big slice of America.

We headed to downtown in a taxi that turned out to be a nightmare. The streets were packed! I think all the billion people in China were on their way to my Pizza Hut. None the less about half an hour later we finally made it to the firm red oak seats of Pizza Hut. We ordered a large pizza, crisp wafer fries, and garlic bread. It was heaven and I don’t think I need to explain the passion from which I consumed my food. Just thinking about it makes me shake my head and smile.

Bottom line there was nothing left on the table but a Tums package Ana had opened. Her stomach didn’t like the switch from a light diet to the shock of American grease. On the other hand my stomach was giving me high fives and saying it would never make me run to the bathroom again. Liar.

After the pizza we headed back to our hostel in a little motorcycle car things. The funny thing was there was an older very proper driver taking us home. It was quiet funny since most of the guys driving those kinds of taxis are country type poorer men. But she had a little squeaky clean suit on and was a strong bargainer. I was willing to pay her more since she was so unusual and really keep her little machine in proper order.

When we hit the road I was wondering if she was going to be timid. I guess I forgot she had slanted eyes. That’s usually a sure sign they drive like a mad person. I wonder if they drive so crazy cause they can’t see? Ha that was messed up. Not as messed up as a joke I heard the other day. It goes like this “Why do Japanese have tiny slanted eyes? - Because H-Bombs are really bright. (Don’t forget I heard the joke and didn’t make it up. I’m just passing it on).

Jokes aside she did a great joke diving through traffic and getting us back to the hostel way faster than any car taxi could. We paid her and she smiled and away into the polluted sunset she went. She was pretty cool and I give her props for doing a job like that. You go girl.

After getting back to the hostel and dealing with Ana going crazy and being moody we headed out to the train station. For some reason me and Ana were set on killing each other. Must be something in the water.

When we got to the station it was crazy as usual. I was pretty excited though since we had luxury beds on the train. We had to get them since the cheap one’s were all full. This I was hoping meant special treatment since we paid almost double for them. Sure enough when we got there we were sent to wait for the train in an area with seats. It was still loud and crazy but it had seats and that was really nice. Last time we stood up for 1.5 hours in a line that was packed with little Chinese guys.

While waiting we met a Chinese English teacher. He turned out to be really nerdy and really funny. He was a nice guy just really comical. Ana and I were laughing quite a bit. He had a good heart and we spent allot of our time waiting and talking with him. Soon enough the gates opened and I ran like Carl Lewis to the doors. While I was running like a Carl Lewis with a fat gut I started noticing other people weren’t running and trying to keep up with me? Could this be a Chinese door opened and five hundred million people weren’t fighting for it. Sure enough it was. Everyone was mediocre polite? They still shoved a little but they didn’t lean into the shove. It was amazing. I think the education level is much higher in the expensive part of the train and that’s the only reason it’s wasn’t like the rest of China I had experienced.

It was actually really nice. People were very polite and respectful (for China). We made our way to the train and got on. Ana and I checked into different rooms since those were the only tickets we could get for this overnight train to Beijing.

There were four beds in my room and only 3 of them were occupied. The two other people were a couple and didn’t speak any English. They were pretty quite. Ana on the other hand met a nice older couple on the way to Beijing to visit their son. The man spoke English and Ana was laughing up a storm with them. They were really nice people. The one thing she didn’t know was they snored really loud. My roommates on the other hand were quieter when they were awake and when they were sleeping. I think I got the better room since snoring drives me nuts.

That evening I said goodnight to Ana and went to chill on my bed. I stayed up till later that night when the need to sleep forced my eyes to shut. If I waited till that time I could pretty much assure myself a couple hours of good sleep. The great thing about staying up was it was easy with my own TV at the end of the bed. That’s right I said my own TV blasting 5 channels of Chinese TV into my personal headphones. I stayed up watching all kinds of Chinese fighting movies and even Nimo in Chinese.

Eventually the Chinese screaming voices and fighting scenes lulled me to sleep. I hit the light and flipped off the boob tube and fell asleep with my feet hanging off the end of the bed.









Day 265
I woke up that morning with a kink in my lower back, mid back, upper back, lower leg, left knee, and right lower kidney. But all in all I felt like I had slept pretty good. I jumped out of bed and hit the toilet. After letting yesterdays dinner spread across the train tracks below I headed to see Ana. She was awake but didn’t sleep the greatest due to the snoring. Lucky me got the good draw on the room.

We arrived in Beijing sometime around 7:00 in the morning. It was funny to be back in Beijing again. I didn’t think I would be seeing this city for at least another 10-20 years if that. But here I was again. We grabbed a taxi and headed to the same hostel we had stayed at before. It was nice to be in a city we knew and going to a hostel we knew. It was nice to know where everything was like the supermarket, Mc Donald’s, and the local massage parlor with happy ending. It kind of felt like we were going home. Kind of. Maybe more like a Chinese crazy twisted version of home.

We got to the hostel and dropped our bags off. We couldn’t check in since it was so early. We headed to the free breakfast I had been waiting so long for. It was wonderful and reminded me of the lasagna my mom cooked when I was growing up. I keep gauging and almost throwing up the whole meal.

After that we messed around till eventually we got a hold of Ana’s sister Vanessa. She was arriving in town the same morning and we were pretty much there just to meet up with her for a couple days. It was nice to know family was just around the corner. It’s always good to see family and recharge the old heart batteries.

We taxied over the hostel she was staying in. Sure enough traffic was ridiculous. It took about 30 minutes to get only a couple miles. It was now officially their week long holiday in China and that meant the usual horrible traffic was only going to get worse and that ride was proof it was terrible. Finally our driver (who had no juevos and drove like a chick) got us to the hostel.

Meeting Vanessa was great and Ana was super excited. It was so funny to see her and within moments it was like we weren’t in some crazy far away place anymore. It’s weird how seeing people can do that to you. One minute you’re in the middle of some mad, crazy, exotic Chinese city and the next you feel like your home just in a little different place. Very cool feeling.

We met Vanessa’s friends (3 of them) and headed out to grab some lunch. Lunch was great and we had the usual Chinese food. Basically a few different dishes we shared with each of us having our own white rice bowl.

Lunch was fun and after we headed to the crowded streets to try and fight our way to the Tiananmen Square. We had already seen it and were just tagging along to spend time with Vanessa. The Square was crazy crowded and I was surprised that the crowds weren’t driving me nuts. It’s easy to see how Ana gets claustrophobic when I’m in a place like that. It was crazy packed.

While we were walking around we got a lot of crazy people asking us to take photos with them. It’s pretty strange when a person comes up to you and says in their language if they can take a photo with you. I think that’s what a movie star must feel like. They don’t even know you but they are asking you to take a photo with them. It’s a weird feeling and I guess movie stars just get used to it. I can see that it must be a pain after a while. I was tired after only 2 movies star photo shots. In the end it’s pretty funny and we just play along with them and laugh.

After about an hour we decided to split up and head back to the hostel as separate groups. They wanted to see the museum and we needed to run a few errands. Pretty much the most of the rest of the evening consisted of us dodging and weaving our way through thousands of people and trying to talk at the same time. At one point Vanessa bought a necklace for herself and we ate some more lovely Chinese food for dinner. Man I must say their diet seems pretty limited to me. I’m used to choosing from food from the world. But they choose only from Chinese food. Who knows maybe they get used to it?

After dinner we sat around for a while and talked. We were pretty tired and eventually headed back to our crib to catch some Z’s. The taxi ride home at 10:00 was interesting and actually cost more than the ride we took at 9:00 in the morning. Traffic in Beijing SUCKS. It makes you not even want to go anywhere.

Finally we headed to our room where of course I was staying on the bunk bed with a crazy older dyke chick that looked like she just out of a Siberian Russian prison. She was probably doing hard time for tearing a man in half because he called her a dyke. Man I better shut up with that rude comment.

Anyway when I first saw her in the dark I though she was a man cause of her butch army haircut. And to top things off she keep hacking and coughing right underneath me all night long. I keep thinking in my mind ”I wonder how many sicknesses I’m getting right now?” It was nasty and to top things off it was super hot and stuffy in our room. I could smell her gasoline perfume all the way from my bed. Man what a lovely night I was in store for.









Day 266
I woke up with what was sure to be a couple new airborne diseases and headed out to hit the town and meet up with Vanessa. I had a weird feeling that morning. I felt very angry and my hair felt too long. I tried to talk Ana into letting me buy this Russian shirt but she didn’t let me. I was so pissed I felt like tearing her in half. I felt really weird that morning and it was unexplainable. But by mid day I was feeling more like the tall fat jolly man I am. That’s funny I wonder if I’m starting to look like Santa. Man that kind of sucks. But if I was a kid I probably would have though that was really cool. I’m torn on how to feel about being a fat jolly old man?

Anyway we found out that Vanessa was going to come over to our hood and hand with us for the day. Her friends wanted to ride bikes and she just wanted more to hang out with us and maybe go to the zoo. By around 10:00 (contrary to Ana’s worries) Vanessa showed up in a taxi safe and sound. Was good to see her again.

We decided we wanted to go and see the local zoo for the day. It was sure to be filled with vicious killer animals like the tiger, cougar, and crabby old Chinese ladies. I was excited and we headed to the local corner to catch a “loco” bus.

Jumping on the bus was fun and didn’t cost hardly anything. A taxi in that kind of traffic was just as slow as a bus and in the bus you got to smell the sweet smell of the local Asian community. Those dumb people in the taxis were missing out.

We made it to the zoo and bought our tickets. The zoo was a zoo and people were everywhere. The lucky ones were the animals. They had tons of room to stretch out in their own places and not touch anyone. It was the only time I’ve even not felt bad for the animals in the cages. I would die to be in a cage. Just throw me in there with a couple couches and a TV and call me the imported from America white couch potato. I would be a hit. I should have pitched the zoo guys on it.

We spent about 4 hours walking around the zoo. It was crazy and tiring. The animals were ok but nothing really special. It was nice to see the African animals in the cages. I felt like most people have no idea how they really look in the wild. In the wild you’re in their home. Their kings. That’s a totally different experience than being in the zoo where people are throwing bottles to try and make the animals move.

By the end of the day we were pretty tired of the zoo. We were also getting tired of seeing the animals as well. We headed out and on the way out tried to get a look at the Pandas they had. Of course it was the most crowded part and consisted of feverously passionate Chinese people trying to take thousands of photos of 3 different bears. To keep people moving along they had young teenagers with microphones yelling at everyone in Chinese. Great crowd control and I moved pretty quickly to avoid the screeching Chinese voice belching out of the microphones right above my head.

We finally left and headed right to the local Dairy Queen I had spotted on the way in. We all got ice-cream and it was wonderful let me tell you. Man it was good. Ana had a hot dog to top it off which was like eating a bite of America.

One thing that has been very nice is to have Vanessa crave food the same way me and Ana do. It’s nice to feel connected to people who understand how badly you can crave the food you know from home. She says things that just crack me up. Things like “wouldn’t cheese bread be great right now”. It’s so funny yet so sad because we all say with sparkles in our eyes “Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh”.

Stomachs filled with happiness we headed home on the local bus. By the time we got off we were even fuller with a balanced diet of local smell and smog. Man if I keep a diet up like this I’ll bet I’ll live to be 35 or 36.

Back at the hostel we were pretty exhausted and ended up turning the ac on in our room and taking a little nap. It was great and I’m going to miss that when I get back to the States and get a job. Maybe I can hide out under the desk and take naps during the day. That would be sweet.

After our little cat nap we headed to the local restaurant to grab some duck. I had actually been craving some since the last time we ate it. It was great and I walked with a steady pace to the restaurant. Once we got there we had to wait a little bit to be seated. That was a good sign this was a good place.

Once we were seated we ordered up a Donald Duck with a side of fried rice. The duck was amazing and we had no trouble taking it down. Vanessa seemed to like it as well as Ana who when the first time she tried it was like a little kid. She keep saying “I don’t like it” even though she had never tried it. Crazy Latina.

After licking our chopsticks clean we headed back to the hostel to relax a little, talk, and play a couple games of “Texas Hold’em”. At the end of the night it was hard to say good-bye to Vanessa. It’s so easy to get comfortable having family around. It’s so nice. I love being with Ana but having more family makes things that much more fun. Were missing family and it’s sad we only got to see Vanessa for such a short time.

But sure enough the taxi drove away with Vanessa and there we were again. There we were all alone in a lonely dark alley in the middle of nowhere China.

We headed back to the hostel to catch some sleep before we had to wake up early the next day and catch our train to Mongolia. We were both excited for Mongolia but it would take a couple days to get back into the rhythm of being along again.








Day 267
We awoke around 5:00am to catch a taxi to the train station. It was the usual crowd to get into the train. Luckily though there weren’t that many people going on the train and the line never really got out of control.

Our room on the train turned out to be pretty nice for the cheap tickets we had bought. It only had room for 4 people and the bunk across from me was never filled. It was great. We were both pretty tired and as soon as we were settled and the train started to roll out of the station we headed off to dream land.

We awoke around 11:00 or so and spent the most of the rest of the day listening to the sound of the train and staring at the ceiling. Their isn’t too much you can do in a small train but walk up and down the walkway a little and look out the window. Then when your bored with that you go back and lay on your bed. It’s pretty exciting and a great way to spend 30 hours of your life.

Around dinner time we headed to the cart that had some food and we ordered some sweet chicken with rice. There were people smoking in the cart and the air was hot and stuffy. I tried to open the window but the damn waitress keep saying “No, No, No!” I looked at her like why the hell not. I just wanted to crack it a little to get some air. Man she was pissing me off. In the end I cracked the window and waited for her to say something.

Sure enough when she noticed the window was open she came and said in a annoying pissed off motherly voice “No window” and shut it on me. I was pissed. I tried to ask her why but she gave me that dumb ass Chinese face and no answer. Man I can’t stand these people. They only know how to say no and no more than that. FUCKKK! I can’t tell you how annoying that it. She could tell I was pretty pissed and just walked away to the kitchen. Damn Chinese chick with a man’s haircut. I can’t wait to get back to the States with some intelligent people. Not mindless drones that can’t think for themselves.

We got our food and I tried to hold back the feelings of wanting to act out the movie “throw mama from the train”. Luckily the food was really good and my happy stomach seemed to calm my steaming head. Ana was pissed as well and we left right after eating our dinner. We didn’t want to be in the same cart as that marine looking Chinese son of a motherless goat.

While back at the room I continued where I had left off staring at the ceiling and counting the rivets on the wall. I started to wonder things like “why did they make the baggage compartment so small? They could have designed it wider and longer so it would fit more baggage. What a dumb design.” The whole time I was thinking I keep smelling and feeling like there was allot of dust in the air. I keep closing to window till it was fully shut. It was getting cold outside so the closed window didn’t feel that bad.

After a few hours of deep and profound thinking we started to slow down into a station that seemed like it was the border of Mongolia. Sure enough the door opened and we were handed our entry slips. Man was I excited to cross the border. I had heard it takes 5 hours and that meant we would be done around 2:00am in the morning. Oh boy I can’t wait to find out why it takes 5 hours to cross a border by train.

Sure enough we filled out our forms and I headed outside the door. As soon as I opened the door I could see a bunch of smoke. I looked down the hall and the attendant had a handkerchief over his mouth. I was wondering if the train was on fire or something. But that wasn’t the case. In fact what had happened was we went through a windy desert filled with dust. A window was left open in the hallway and it filled the entire hallway with dust. The windows even had a coat of dust on them. It was pretty funny and I headed back into the room and closed the door.

Eventually we someone came by and stamped our passports out. We stayed there for about an hour with not to much really happening and no one telling us what to do. I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to get off the train or not. I figured they would tell me if I needed to. The bathrooms were locked while we were sitting still and our western neighbors were pretty upset. They had been drinking and really had to pee. But after a couple full Budweiser bottles were dumped out the window thing were better.

Later that night the train continued to act schizophrenically. It keep going forward and backwards and then stopping all of the sudden and making loud bagging sounds that rattled the cars. Then we would sit for another 30 minutes and repeat the process. Back and forth, back and forth. It was like a circus in that train. I don’t understand at all how the process works and I just tried to be patient. After another round of passport checks we headed to the main station where according to the people on the train we were going to change the wheels on the train. I guess Russia is the only country that uses a wider track than the rest of the world and because of that they have to jack up the train and change the wheels. That was part of the 5 hours needed to cross the border.

Sure enough after going back and forward a million times, and a bunch of loud banging and popping we were lifted into the air. The wheels were changed and we headed out. But not for long. We then headed back into the station then back out. Then back in again to wait another 30 minutes and get our passports taken from us. By that time I was getting pretty tired and the constant people coming in and demanding the passports and to look under the beds was getting annoying.

By sometime around 2:00am we finally headed out and were on our way to the great capital of Mongolia Ulaanbaatar.










Day 268
Most of the night consisted of me sleeping a little then my arm would get numb and I would wake up and switch sides. After that my feet would get tangled in the chains and my back would get sore so I would move. That kind of lovely nights sleep continued to about sometime around 10:00 the next morning when I got up and started staring at the ceiling, counting the nuts and bold, and wondering deep thoughts like why they designed the foot latter’s the way they did. It was so dumb. Man if I was a foot latter designer for trains I would totally have some revolutionary ideas.

We got up and had some lovely “Cup o Noodles” king of things for breakfast. The country outside the train was getting very open and desolate and I liked the looked of it. Staring out the window the air was clear and fresh and you could clearly hear the sound of the wheels going over the joints in the tracks ... Cling…….. Cling……..Cling……..Cling……..Cling ……..Cling……..Cling - I really love that sound.

Sometime around 2:00pm we started seeing some factories and Ger tents and I knew we were getting close to the city. It was nice to be there and the 30 hour ride wasn’t too bad but I was looking forward to getting off the train and stretching my legs. Sure enough as the train rolled into the station we were greeted by a guy holding our names on a sign. They even spelled it correctly which said allot about the place.

We un-mounted the train and with our saddle sore butts walked kind of funny to the van that was waiting for us. We crammed in like circus clowns and away we went to the hostel. The city from the van looked pretty rough and edgy. They warned us to be careful of pickpockets and I knew we had to be back on guard like in South American and Africa. That kind of made me sad because I was really enjoying the safety I felt in China. I’m still surprised at how little crime there is in China. I think though if your caught they just shot you and call it a day. That’s probably what makes them so non violent. The punishment is so great no one wants to risk it.

We made it to the hostel and quickly made friends with a Swedish couple in the van. They were pretty cool and I was hoping we would be able to go in a group on a trip. They seemed like a bunch of fun.

We settled into our rooms and met up with the Swedish couple to patrol the city looking for other people to take a trip with and get some quotes of vehicle prices. They were walking really fast and trying to get things figured out in a hurry. We were a little tired and after a while realized we were not going to be a match to go on a trip together. They only had a short window of time and wanted to travel by plane. We had time and wanted to take things a little slower. Too bad cause they seemed like fun.

That evening we met up and chatted for a while. They were leaving the next day on a plane flight to the north. We ate and after a while told them good-bye and wished them luck. We headed back to our hostel and sat down to watch a movie in the tiny common room. It was SOOOOO nice to see a movie in English. In fact the hostel had a great collection of movies and I felt like I just wanted to stay there and see them all over the next few weeks.

We ended up seeing the movie Jar Heads and eating the candy we had got from the local store. It was wonderful. Movie and junk food go so well together. After the movie we headed off to bed to catch some of my first Mongolian sleep.









Day 269
I spent most of the night having strange dreams of being stranded in the desert with no water. The dreams made sense to me when I awoke in the morning and realized I had spent the freezing cold night sleeping with no blankets and only a t-shirt. See I was right by the sun - I mean heater and it was cranking all night long. I guess being hot was better than being cold.

After a couple gallons of water to parch my thirst I headed to the breakfast closet to get some food. Around a 2x2 foot table sat 2 people eating small pieces of bread with jam. Oh my favorite free breakfast. I sat down and opened the butter. I quickly shut it after looking at it and decided just jam on bread would be fine for me. I was full after two small slices and we headed out.

Me and Ana hit the town for the first part of the day just looking at different tours and options we could take. We even read a bunch of posting and posted a couple messages ourselves looking for people to join up with. We even met one guy who said we can go on a day excursion to drive an old Russian tank. He even said I could shoot some old guns. I told him my enthusiasm and he secretly told me I could even shot a grenade launcher. It was illegal but he had friends. I told him I’m in and when I get back I’ll be talking with him. I’ve always wanted to shot a rocket launcher. That’s so cool.

Toward evening we had pretty much decided that we wanted to use the services of our hostel to make a trip to the northern part of Mongolia. It sounded really nice and I was excited to see that area. We didn’t have anyone to join us yet and if we had to we would pay for it ourselves. It might be kind of fun to just do it ourselves.

We headed to the local pizza place to have some dinner. We were both starving and hadn’t eaten well in the last couple days. A good thing was the pizza and salad we ordered was wonderful. It even came with some small round bread with garlic butter can you believe that. Man we were in heaven and surviving Mongolian food wasn’t going to be that bad after all. At least in the Capital it wasn’t. We’ll see about the outskirts.

After a very satisfying meal we headed back to the hostel to watch some more movies. Man it was wonderful. We had a great pizza dinner and sat in the hostel watching back to back movies. I was in heaven and I had been dreaming about American movies for quite some time.

After movies we hit the shower and washed off some of the stink. We were pretty awake and I was still craving some more of those little circular bread things at the pizza place so we headed back there for more. It was kind of over kill but I had to do it. Ana ordered a hot chocolate with milk. It turned out to be pretty good but the milk was strong. I know they like there milk here strong. They drink it more as a meal than a drink. Allot of traditional Mongolians live off milk type products and meat. There almost like carnivores. Vegetables and fruits are pretty much none existent in the outer reaches of the country. The guy we had met up with earlier was a tour guide and he said that the hardcore Mongolians didn’t like to plant crops. They believed that when you dug in the soil you were scaring mother earth. It’s interesting that those habits to some degree still exist today.

After my carb overload we headed to the internet place inside the Post Office of all places. We spent an hour catching up on emails and letting people know were alive. After our www time we headed back to the hostel to get some zzz time.









Day 270
I woke up in the morning and noticed someone had replaced my back with an old man’s back. Man those thieving old Mongolians are fast and I was left with a back that was really sore. None the less I sprung out of bed, dressed and hit the city to find Ana. I think she headed out early to hit the internet.

As soon as we walked out the door we could tell that someone hadn’t paid the heating bill for the city. It was FREEZZING. Man the temperature must have dropped about 40 degrees. There was a little snow on the ground and I suddenly realized I should have brought my North Face heavy jacket. I said oh well and thought I would make my way fast to the internet at the Post Office where Ana was. On the way my ears froze and my hands got numb. It was really cold and I was wondering how cold it was at that time in the north? It’s gonna be colder than a witches tit.

I found Ana at the internet and I sat down to type and unthaw. About the time I was feeling my ears again we headed back to the outside freezer to re-freeze them. At the hostel we settled the details on our trip and decided we wanted to do a 9 or 11 day trip to the north with only me and Ana. It was more expensive but what the hell we wanted to go and we were in Mongolia. They advised us we would need some boots and warm pants for the north. We had to go to the local Black Market to get them. Cool name for a market.

We jumped in a taxi and first headed to the train station to try and reserve some tickets to Beijing for when we return. Sure enough we were told “No, come back Monday”. It was 11:00 on Friday how come we can’t do it today? Again “No, come back Monday”. I’ve never felt such strong feeling to punch a girl in the face since I was 5 years old and my sisters were fighting with me. Damn I can’t stand that dumb look and the single answer. You can’t talk with idiots and I told my little red faced wife let’s go.

I ridged air took allot of the fight out of me and we told the taxi driver take us to the black market. Sure enough he did and we paid him the money and excited his ride. I was hoping since the weather was about 1 degree that the market might be inside. Sure enough I was wrong. The black market was in a large empty windy lot and it was freezing. To top things off my warm fleece, gloves, and beanie were in the wash. So all I had was a t-shirt and my North Face jacket. Not enough.

Ana was freezing and shivering as soon as we stepped out the car. I think I was a little warmer with my extra 6 pack belly sweater. Or should I say my keg belly sweater. Either way I was warmer and happy to be pleasantly plump in that moment.

We hit the market hard and went searching for warm Mongolian boots. It should be interesting since most of the boots look like Genghis Khan wore them when he raided China.

We headed up and down different isles looking for massive boots for me and Ana. After about 2 hours of literally freezing to death we finally gave in and bought some boots. I got the largest ones I could find and Ana ended up getting some men’s boots because her feet were too big for the girls shoes.

It was funny to watch Ana while we were buying shoes. She keeps saying I’m not sure if the boots fit I can’t feel my toes. She was freezing and doing a great job holding herself together. I must say if I would have brought the Ana I first met to this market she would have never lasted 5 minutes. But she’s getting stronger and tougher. Poor thing I feel like I keep dragging her into the middle of so many hard things. But I think deep down she loves it as much as I do. Maybe not so much but I think she’s really starting to enjoy adventure beyond the hardships.

After the shoes we headed the area where I thought there would be some warm pants. Sure enough Ana was freezing and we were having a hard time even doing things with any kind of efficiency. We were so cold it was hard to think. The crowds were also a pain in the ass and the people are even more aggressive than the Chinese. They actually with grab you and push you out of the way to get around you. If there is room to move to go around you they just shoulder check you and keep going. It was starting to piss me off till I started just imagining the market like one large Mosh Pit. After that it was kind of cool. I was pushing old ladies out of my way and thinking of songs like Teen Spirit and Grandma got ran over by a reindeer. Really pumped me up. I must say it’s something else to check and old lady as you walk by. In the States I would get slapped for that.

God must have guided me to a local building that had heaters. It was amazing and we were so happy to feel that warm air flooding from the heaters. After about 15 minutes I started to feel my hands and feet again and Ana was starting to not look so blue. I decided to leave Ana and venture out into Siberia alone to find the last things we needed – warm pants. Sure enough within a couple rows I found some used down pants for myself and some pants for Ana as well. We put them on and instantly starting feeling better. The weather was cold but was starting to feel more manageable.

After the pants we made a dash for the front where we caught a crazy local Mongolian women cab driver. After biting off 9 of my 10 nails we finally made it back to our hostel alive. We paid the crazy lady and she screeched off into the distance.

After the taxi I went to the bank to pull some money. I ended up getting in a little scuffle with a pain in the ass old lady that cut right in front of me in line and handed her money through the window in front of me. FUCK these people are SOOOOOO RUDE. I try to be patient but I can only go so far. She got pissed at me when I said something and tried to block her hand. She pushed my hand and gabbled something in Mongolian at me. I’m telling you I’m going to go postal on these Mongolian people.

I did get my money and in the end tried to forget the frustrating money situation. We headed to the local market to get some food for the trip and shove and push some more local people. After surviving the market we headed to the local “Berlin Burger” to grab a really horrible burger. It’s always great to end a tough day with a horrible meal.

After a few hours of internet we headed back to the crowded hostel to catch some sleep before our big next day. I was looking forward to getting out into the country and seeing what Mongolia’s all about.












Day 271 (October 7, 2006)
I realized I was pretty tired by the huge amount of my force it took to peal my face away from the pillow that morning. We were running around most of the day and it caught up to me.

We met the driver Otto in the morning and got to see the van. It was an army green old Russian van and it looked like it was in pretty good shape. We threw our stuff in the back and there was tons of room since the van fit up to seven people. Ana and I jumped in and we headed out.

It took about ten feet of driving in the van to realize that this trip was going to be a rough one. I’m pretty sure the van had no suspension and what that meant was that the vertebrae in our backs would be suspension instead. I wasn’t to excited about this but the wide open grasslands of Mongolia were calling and that was so much louder than the soon to be voice of pain in my back.

Our first stop was at a local grocery store to pick up some last minute food essentials like instant noodles and water. We ended up looking at a couple stores to try and find me some AA batteries for the camera. But no real luck with that.

We hit the road and soon enough the grey Soviet shaped apartment blocks were fading away and the country started to turn into golden rolling hills. The frigid air outside swirled the grass around as we bounced down the road. I love the feeling of hitting the road and not knowing what were going to see and experience in the next few days. My mouth waters with the idea of seeing remote people living like nomads. But that was a ways away and I decided just to sit back in my uncomfortable seat and watch the mysterious world roll by like a movie in front of me.

Sometime around lunch we stopped in a little dusty grey town to have lunch. There were a few Soviet apartment blocks which are usually easily to see since they usually are very modular in shape and painted either bright pink or purple. The buildings colors are in complete contrast from there structure and it reminds me of a somber old man wearing a wild Hawaiian shirt trying to fit in and have fun.

Ordering lunch turned out to be interesting since the menu was in Mongolian and our driver didn’t know how to say in English the dishes they offered. The options we were able to get out of him was either goulash or dumpling soup. We decided to order one of each and hope for the best. The food turned out to be pretty good. Both dishes tasted pretty much the same but were not bad. It reminded me of Taco Bell and how they have about 200 things on the menu but they all taste about the same. That’s how the authentic food in Mongolia tastes.

After lunch we hit the road again to pound or backs a little more and see if we could giggle something loose in our brains. The road had turned into only dirt about forty miles outside of the city and I had the bad feeling it was going to be that way for the rest of the trip. The statistic that Mongolia has less than four hundred miles of paved roads in the whole country helped cement the idea we were stuck on dirt.

One thing I noticed as I was holding onto the handle grips on the ceiling and trying not to hit my head on the ceiling six inches above my head was the fact that roads seemed to be unmanaged. The roads looked to be created by cars that were just driving through the countryside. Eventually enough of them went on the same path to create a dead grass area that was now a road. There were no signs and the road constantly split into three or more roads all going the same directions. Most of the time the driver was just looking for the best track and he would take that one. It was really weird and I wasn’t sure how the hell he even knew where we were going. There were no sighs and the landscape all looked the same. He did though at one point get out of the van to take a leak and look at the road like a tracker would look for tire tracks. After a little while of looking closely at the road and landscape we chose the right hand path.

Sometime around 4:30pm we rolled into the little town we were going to stay for the night. Ana and I were both really happy to be there as both or our backs and necks were getting pretty painful from the roads. The roads weren’t that bad but the old Russian van with no suspension was killing us. I wasn’t looking forward to the next few days and neither was my back. But we were finally there and getting out of the van was a sweat relief.

The town we were staying in was right next to the first Buddhist temple ever built in Mongolia and was over 300 years old. It also survived Stalin which in itself was a miracle. It was a really beautiful temple and it’s location in the middle of a remote valley in the depths of Mongolia made it that much more beautiful. We unpacked our bags in the Ger (traditional circular felt tent) and headed out to explore the temple.

The sun at the time of day was really magical and glowed with a warm orange that light up the landscape. There were only about maybe ten different buildings and Gers in the small town around the temple and I’m sure were only there because of the temple and the tourist it brought. We passed through them and entered the walls of the temple. Inside was a typical Chinese Buddhist temple and it was nice just to wander around it. There were no tourist and the air was dead quiet. It was really magical and I felt lucky to be able to experience this place. Seeing the temple made the pain in my back start to meld away.

The golden sunset sky lasted for about three hours which was really nice. I keep taking photos like a little Japanese tourist as we walked around the temple. The one thing that was really funny was to see that there were Gers set up inside the Buddhist walls. Rather than set them in the corner they just set them up right in the middle of the temples. Really funny and really Mongolian. It was a funny blend of the people and religion.

It was getting frigid as the sun started to fall so we headed back to our Ger and to the warm little fire stove that was roaring in the middle of the tent. We weren’t too hungry for dinner so we just cooked some of the vegetables we had brought with us from Ulaanbaatar and ate just that.

The Mongolian lady who owned the place we were staying was really nice. She had a strong man hands and a leathery face which was proof of how tough you had to be to live in this region of the world. She brought us wood from which she grabbed and threw in the fireplace. Her hands moved with power and precision while building the fire. She didn’t worry about splinters or bugs on the wood. It was a simple process for her and within a couple minutes we had a blazing fire warming up the tent.

The nice old lady continued to tend the fire well into the night. How she did that was simply by flipping open the door to the Ger and walking in like it was her room. She then would throw a few logs on the fire and smile then leave. The way she did it was very barbaric and aggressive and gave me what felt like a glimpse into why they called these people barbarians and brutes. They were aggressive and brash and I hadn’t experienced this type of people in any other part of the world. I don’t know exactly why it’s different but the experience is that the people are brutes.

One time while we were being brutalized with nice gestures we were brought some weird looking white things in a dish. I found out later that the dish was filled with dried cheese. It looked rough but I had to give it a shot. I bit off a small side of what had to be a rock and not cheese. The flavor was so good that I had to immediately find something to get the taste out of my mouth. A large palm full of “Laure’s Seasoning Salt” did the trick. Man that was really bad cheese.

As I was eating the salt Ana was looking at me and wondering why I was eating a palm full of salt. She said I was crazy. But sure enough later she bit off a corner of the cheese and was eating salt just like me. It was pretty funny and she was mad that I didn’t her tell her that the cheese tasted like ass. It was a little mean but pretty funny. I had to kiss butt for a while to make that joke up.

It was pretty dark by the time we had finished dinner and we were pretty tired from a pretty full day. The weather outside was really cold and I was sure as soon as the fire died down we were in for a cold night. Luckily we had borrowed some really nice sleeping bags from the hostel we were staying. The bags were really large and we were able to slip our North Face bags inside the large bag we borrowed. I was pretty sure we were going to be pretty warm.

We jumped in bed and I was pretty excited to be staying a Ger tent for the first time. It was really nice since most of the evening we had to cook and do things by candle light. It was pretty romantic and reminded me of the old Wild West times.

At one point before heading to bed I went outside to go to the bathroom. The air was frigid but the moon was amazing. The moon was full and bright lighting up the temple and the surrounding landscape. It was really amazing and although it was freezing I had to go check out the temple at night. I went over there and it was dead quiet and deep ultramarine blue and black. It was really magical being there and I tried to take some pictures in the night despite the fact that I was sure they weren’t going to come out. Being in a 300 year old Chinese temple in the middle of Mongolia on a full moon night was an amazing experience and I felt privileged to be able to experience such a thing.

After a while my core body started to get cold and I was starting to shack. I decided it was time to go back to my little warm villa with my beautiful wife inside. When I returned I warmed up my hands by the fire and my heart by Ana. We jumped into bed and the firelight danced on the ceiling like the glimmer of the sea. It was really beautiful and I dug deep into my pile of blankets to escape the soon to come cold.










Day 272 (October 8, 2006)
Although I fell asleep in a good mood I woke up in the night in a bad mood. For a one horse town there sure was allot of noise. I also had gotten hot during the night when the fire was still going so I took my bag out of the other bag and tried to get to sleep that way. Later on the weather outside started to overtake the fire and I was too lazy to wake up and put all the blankets on. I keep trying to keep the blankets stacked on me but of course as soon as I moved they would fall on the floor and I would wake up cold again. I guess my laziness is at fault for my bad nights sleep. I also think my swollen and painful back is contributing to my bad sleep.

The nice old lady who owned the place broke open the door early in the morning to build us a fire. The gesture was nice but the brut way she did it with no care of how loud she was made the gesture seem less nice. But either way the heat from the fire was nice and started to bring me to life.

For “breky” we had some bread things the lady had made. They were actually pretty good and reminded me of the tortilla things we had eaten in Zanzibar, Africa. After a couple pieces of bread we loaded up the Russian back torture machine with our bags and headed out.

The roads were tough and Otto was driving like a mad man. Sliding around corners and all that good stuff. I couldn’t hold onto the ceiling handlebars because my hands were sore from the previous day and I didn’t want to get a blister. I tried sitting on blankets to reduce the crushing force of the bumps on my sore vertebrae. I think it helped but I’m not sure. It did though raise me closer to the ceiling in which I left a few head prints.

The scenery was pretty much the same as the previous day and mostly consisted of rolling hills covered in dead golden grass that blew in the wind. Every once in a while you would come upon single Ger’s in the middle of no where with the cattle or horses in the fields around them. It was really magical and these people had the freedom to roam the land wherever they wanted grazing their cattle. In fact Mongolia is one of the last remaining countries with large stretches of grazing grounds.

The seemingly infinite grazing grounds in Mongolia are still intact mostly due to the beliefs of the nomadic people of Mongolia. They believed that you shouldn’t scare the earth. Farms were off limits and the ground was to be respected and not “hurt”. They even wore large shoes with big footprints as to not disturb the ground as much as possible.

The Mongolian people’s beliefs in saving the land and not destroying it seem to still exist today but are quickly dieing off with the desire to “modernize the country”. There are some aggressive agriculture initiatives to develop the country and the improve the economy through mass farming. If they pass, which they probably will, the lands with be changed forever. I felt lucky to experience this part of earth before it’s gone. I give it 10 -15 years to be totally destroyed. Sad but that’s the way countries work. I can’t blame them for doing it but at the same time it’s sad.

Around lunch time we stopped into a local tiny town to eat some goulash. The goulash we had the previous day was pretty good and both Ana and I ordered it. The goulash turned out to be pretty damn good and we were both happy. The goulash consisted of rice, karate salad, cabbage salad, and roast beef with broth. It was nice and actually reminded me of the roast my mom cooks at home.

After we filled our belly’s we hit the race track again for a little more beating. As we slide around the turns and bottomed out on the bumps the landscape started to change. There were starting to be more brown trees that filled the country side. Eventually we were going through roads filled with trees and the rolling hills were starting to look almost like little mountains. Not really though they were still pretty small.

At one point the road started to get pretty muddy and snowy. At the top of one hill the driver asked us to get out and walk down the hill. It was steep and he didn’t want us in the van when he went down. There weren’t many cliffs but I think he was worried he would lose control of the van and slide down the hill into some trees.

I was happy to get out and stretch my back that was really starting to hurt. The trees were really magical the ground was even more beautiful with all the yellow pine needles on it. In fact so many needles had fallen on the ground that it looked like a blanket covering the ground. Really cool and I’ve never seen landscape like that before and it was really magical.

We followed the van down the hill as it carefully made its way down sliding all over the place. Eventually we got back in and away we went in and out of the changing landscape of Mongolia. It’s really magical flying by real cowboy’s on their horses herding cows, sheep, and horses. It was the American Old West alive and well. The people looked a little different but the life was the same. They were dirty rough people living off the land and their cattle. Very cool.

We arrived to our camp that night sometime around 5:00pm. It was a long day and the bouncing was really tough for about the last three hours. It’s the last three hours when my back and neck hurt on every bounce of the road. Those are the times when I’m having no fun and really don’t want to be there. But the pain lead to better times and I tried to just enjoy what I could and make the best of it. Ana was hanging in really well despite her obvious frustration with the situation. She’s becoming a strong women and I love that about her. It allows us to see places other people will never see because they aren’t willing to get past the discomfort. I love that because we get to experience things together other people will only dream about. To me that is really special and I couldn’t ask anymore from my wife and partner.

The camp consisted of one wood house and two Ger’s on the bank of a river. I wanted to fish but was unable to get a pole from anyone so we just took a walk around the peaceful and beautiful countryside. The sun was setting as we walked and the cold air was starting to take over the land. We decided to head to our little Ger and the warm little fireplace.

For dinner we had some instant noodles using the hot water that was supplied to us by the owners. I was hoping it was safe and didn’t leave me with the Mongolian Thunder from Down Under. As night fell we light the candles and caught up on our blogs. The Ger’s stayed pretty warm and even at times got so hot we had to open the door to let some cold air in.

It wasn’t that late when we decided to go to bed but we were tired and there was nothing to do. So we crawled under the layers and kissed the each other and that day good-bye.










Day 273 (October 9, 2006)
The night turned out much better than the previous night and that was a relief. I didn’t get to cold and only woke up about five times during the night. During the night it rained a little bit and the wind kicked up a bit. But the Ger was strong and the weather seemed to be no problem.

With no breakfast in our upper intestines we took off and hit the road again. Of course it was the usual neck and back beating. Both of us keep shifting and moving but at some point nothing seems to make things better and you just have to give in and take the pain.

Somewhere between me saying “OHHSSHHHETTHH” and Ana saying “UGGFFFUCCKUUGG” we came upon a guy flagging us down. This had happened a couple times but they usually want a ride to the next town or some cigarettes. But this time there was a small family that had gotten stuck in their small truck on a mud road just a little bit off the main road.

We drove over to the small truck and there were about six people all waiting for us. We hooked up the van to the truck and pulled it out with no problem. In fact after he got the truck out of the road he drove him all over the hills. I’m not sure why Otto did that but I think maybe they were trying to get the truck running? Either way the family was finally out and on their way. Later we found out that they had all spent the last night there. Poor things. They must have froze. It was freezing the night before. So cold that the small puddles had all frozen over. I’ll bet you they all squeezed in the cab of the truck and sleep in their on top of each other.

The country started to get a little boring and the toughness of the ride was getting old. I wanted to get to the lake which we should have arrived to later that day if all went well. We had planned on spending a few days on a horse ride so it was going to be a nice break from the Russian death van.

Finally around lunch time we had reached the city of Murren where another big plate of goulash was awaiting us. It also meant we only had two more hours to the go and we would be at the lake – YEAH!

Sure enough only the goulash was great and the roads were horrible. But two hours later we jumped out of the van like a bunch of old people and we were there. We had been on the road for over seven hours that day and that was the main reason for me walking like I just got dropped off from an overnight party at Michael’s Jackson’s pad.

We dropped our bags off in a little wooden house that would be our room for the night and headed straight for the shower. We hadn’t showered for the last three days and we were both dying to get in there. I went first and was expecting a freezing cold shower since it had just started snowing a little outside. But to my surprise the water was actually really hot. I was in love and walked out of the shower a half an hour later looking like a new man. Ana followed me and had a similar reaction to the warm magical cleansing waters flowing from the crocked and rusty showerhead.

After the shower I headed to the main kitchen where everyone was hanging out and eating. I wanted to talk to Jimmy (the head guy) about the next day horse ride and cost. When I arrived to the house they offered me a seat and I sat down on the chairs that were about eight inches off the ground. I felt like a little kid but that’s how most of the tables are in Mongolia. They have to save as much room as possible in the Ger’s so they have only small chairs and tables that are made for little kids.

The room was dark and only light by a single candle and the light from the fire in the stove. The smell was musty, damp, and dirty. I sat next to a fat guy who I didn’t recognize. I think he was staying there as well. As soon as I sat down at the table the fat gut started laughing and looking at me. He grabbed my right arm and squeezed it as if to say I was strong. I laughed and though it was funny. He then took his had off my arm and touched my family jewels. I swatted his had away and said what the fuck was that? I was still laughing and thinking maybe it was some joke but no one seemed to be laughing. I then realized no one was looking at me. I think was starting to think this guy was the local gay guy or something. I got the feeling that no one liked him and they were just ignoring what happened. I asked Jimmy who this guy was and why he did that. He seemed to ignore me and pretend like he didn’t understand what I was asking.

The whole situation got weird and I started getting pissed. Jimmy offered me some peanuts things which they were all eating and I accepted. I tried to shrug off the fat guy but he was starting to piss me off. He tried again to grab my arm and I swatted it off and looked him dead in the eyes. I figured that was the last time I would allow him to touch me and if he touched me again I was going to hit him in the jaw from the side which I learned in Karate was the way to knock the shit out of someone. He was a big guy so I figured I’d just hit him hard and make my way to the door. If he wanted to keep fighting I wanted to be outside and not stuck in that small room with him.

The fat fucker must have known I was pissed by the way I was looking at him and eventually moved his seat away from me. Good thing he did cause I was really pissed. What he did was totally disrespectful and he’s lucky we spoke different languages or I would have talked with him and probably ended up in a fight.

Eventually Ana came in and the fat guy left. I was pretty shaken by the whole situation and felt like punching that fucker in the face just because. But in the end I didn’t.

Jimmy seemed was talking to me in an apologetic tone as if to know what was going on but not really acknowledging it. I decided to shrug the situation up and chalk it up as part of the travels. It took a while to shake off my anger but in the end it wasn’t worth it and it was making my whole evening messed up.

Later that evening we met Jimmy’s niece a three year old Mongolian girl. She was cute and we had allot of fun with her. Joking and playing with her helped me to shed my anger. We also decided that we were leaving the next day to do a three day horse ride around the edge of the lake. It should be interesting since either of us have ever been on horses for more than about ten minutes.

Later that evening we caught up on our diaries by candle light and then jumped into bed. The fire and our consciousness faded into the cold night air.










Day 274 (October 10, 2006)
Not sure why but I didn’t sleep well the night before. Keep waking up all night. Could have been the full moon and my wolf instincts were taking me over? I do have a pretty hairy back? It’s all starting to make sense now.

Not sure what’s going on. I must say I’m getting tired of not having a full nights sleep. Eventually though I did get out of bed and headed in to see what was going on with the horse ride. Jimmy was no where to be found and things were moving the usual speed in these kind of countries – dead slow.

Eventually we found Jimmy and after about an hour of confusion and running around we got into an old Russian Jeep and headed to the local market and post office to do who knows what. Whenever I try to talk with Jimmy he doesn’t really respond. It’s like talking to a wall. The nice thing is he seems like the smartest guy in town.

After an hour of being in the local post office while Jimmy made some calls we headed back to the hostel to get the horses? At least that’s what I thought but as soon as we got there everyone took off. Nice. So I said screw it and I wasn’t going to worry about it. I was going to the pit toilet to get rid of some breakfast and take my time doing it.

Sure enough I returned to my room with a roll of toilet paper in my hand only to find 6 people in my room. They made themselves at home like a normal Mongolian by sitting on our beds and putting there feet all over my things on the floor. I don’t know where all the people came from but I was guessing it was time to go now.

We packed all our stuff and headed out to see the horses. We had a pack horse and they started to load the pack horse with our two backpacks, 2 sleeping bags, food, and two blankets. Our guide also loaded up his gear by putting a small plastic bag in his coat. It was so funny to see what we were taking on the trip. We had a extra horse for our shit and the guide fit all he was going to take in his jacket pocket. I felt like the movies when the rich dumb chicks take 500 suitcases just to go somewhere for the weekend. But to make me feel better I said all the stuff on the horse was for my wife.

Before we got on our horses Jimmy told us how to steer the horse and make it go faster. That took about three seconds and after that he gave us the lecture on what not to do while on the horse. He said not to unzip your jacket, take your gloves off, pass things, blah, blah, blah. He was being ridiculous about the things he was saying we couldn’t do. I ignored him and knew better. Man the cowboys used to shoot there guns while riding their horse. He was expecting us to get off the horse just to fart.

We jumped on our trusty steeds and headed out of town. Man we looked so cool. I’m sure I looked like Clint Eastwood just tougher. The horses were walking pretty slowly and it didn’t seem like the trip was going to be that bad. We started to ride out of town. The town for all the world looked like an old western wooden town. I love that feeling like I’m living in a real live Western movie. The people and the place was dirty and tough and I loved that about it. We were finally ridding and it was great.

About 5 minutes after we got underway we stopped at a house. I got off my horse and was ready for another 2 hour wait some weird reason. The guide had us go into the gated area surrounding the house and enter the small wooden house. I was curious and excited to see the inside of these little houses we had been passing for the last few days.

When we entered the house it was warm and a nice break from the harsh cold winds outside. The ceiling of the house was just less than six feet high and made me bend over to walk inside and sit down. Ana and I sat down next to a cute little girl that was living there. I warmed my hands on the fire and slowly started to unpeel the layers that were now making me start to sweat.

We were offered some hot yak tea and we accepted. I was a little worried about the drink but what the heck we gave it a shot. The tea was made of water, yak milk, and some tea leaves. It was ok and I drank it more as an experiment than something I enjoyed. I was happy to get to the bottom of the bowl and when she offered me more I patted my stomach and smiled saying I was really full.

We sat for a while with the little family in the house. There were a total of 2 adults and 3 kids living in the small house that was about 20 feet by 10 feet maximum. It was really crowded and they didn’t have things like a table or chairs. The beds were the chairs and you carried your table around with you all day – your lap. The fire was in the middle of the room and acted as a stove as well. They had a small cabinet for pots and other small things. It was amazing how close they lived but I’m sure in the winters it felt warm and cozy. I wonder if a family that lives that close together has really close lives. I’m not sure. Maybe they live very similar to us just physically closer. The idea of a close family like they had was a romantic idea to me.

Eventually Ana was fitted with another layer of warmth which was a local Mongolian wool jacket. It looked warm and I think was her sixth layer. It was freezing outside and I was glad they gave her the extra coat. It was a nice gesture.

After a couple pictures and Ana’s jacket we were off. We jumped on our horses and officially were on our way. It was about 11:00 pm by then.

We rode for the next few hours through some really amazing countryside. We both were getting a better feel for the horses and Ana was doing great. She it a pretty tough women and it was nice to see her on the horse going through the trees with her Mongolian sweater. She looked pretty cool.

One thing that was having me and Ana crack up the whole time was the pack horse. The horse was the fastest of the horses and was dark black. It also must have been a Mexican horse because on the top of every hill he kept farting. They were massive as well and kind of smelled like burnt hay. Man it was bad and luckily Ana was right behind the pack horse to get the brunt of the intestinal force.

About an hour of ridding and the pack horse disturbing the ambiance we came upon a really step hill. I was actually impressed at how well the horse climbed the hill and Ana did great as well. It was a steep and a little scary on the back of a horse. I was just hoping the horse didn’t fall over on the hill side. That would be the end of me.

At the top of the hill we took a break and I was able to get of the horse. My knees were starting to kill me and it felt like they were being turned inward toward the belly of the horse. I tried to figure out a way to correct it while I was ridding but couldn’t find anyway to make it better. But once I was off the horse I was able to walk off the kinks in my knees and bum.

The weather was really cold and being on the top of the hill keeps the icy cold winds blowing right through our jackets. My gloves weren’t the best so my hands were pretty much freezing. I was glad that we had bought the warm shoes and pants in the black market before the trip. They were really nice now standing on the edge of a small mountain with the icy wind blowing on us.

After a little bit we got back on the horses and keep riding through the dead forest toward the Ger camp. For the next few hours my knees, lower back, and buttocks slowly began to really hurt. I tried every combo of positions on the horse to try and ease the pain. But at some point you give up and just take the pain. Ana seemed to be doing a little better but was also was sharing my pains.

My horse also started to be a pain in the butt. For some reason he got the idea in his head it was ok to eat every two feet as we were going. The only thing that sucked about this was that the reins I had were really small and every time he ate I was taken forward and almost over the front of the horse. I would then have to try and rip his teeth out to get him back up and on his way. It was getting really old and I couldn’t wait to get to the Ger camp.

Around 5:00 we finally we getting to the Ger camp and we got off those damn horses. Man that felt great and six hours on the horse was plenty for an old man like me. We unloaded the pack horse and threw our stuff in the small wood cabin we would be staying in. It was really nice and it seemed like the owners took good care of the place. That was nice to see since so many things in Mongolia can be pretty dirty and disgusting.

We then headed into the owners Ger to sit and have some more Yak tea. Lucky us. I also tried some more cheeses they had on the table and sure enough they were just as bad as the ones I had before. This time though I didn’t have season salt to take the taste out of my mouth.

The Ger family was a young family with the husband and wife only about 25 years old. They had one daughter that must have been around two years old. She was really cute. We drank our tea and looked at each other in an uncomfortable air due to the lack of our ability to speak to each other.

After a while the uncomfortable air faded and the husband started to joke around with us. He knew a couple words of English and he joked with us. At one point he turned on his battery powered stereo he had on and started playing a rap songs from America. It was really funny and I couldn’t believe we were in the outskirts of Mongolia in a Ger listening to “50 cent”. The guy was really funny and would joke around and dance moves I’m sure he had seen on music videos. It was allot of fun and I wish we could have both spoke the same language.

After a while we eventually left Ger and headed outside. The husband and his cousin started to wrestle Mongolian style in the grass outside the Ger. It was pretty funny since the rules of the game were to grab each others belts and then wrestle till the first person hit the ground. I was sure they were going to invite me to wrestle at some point since I was bigger than them. I didn’t really want to wrestle because I knew they were going to win and make me feel dumb. I was twice their weight but it was about technique and I could tell that.

Sure enough I had to get in the ring with the guys after a little bit. I borrowed our guide’s cloth belt and put it on and hit the ring. The guy was about half my height and weight and I was about 100% sure he would have me on the ground in about two seconds.

Sure enough the match lasted about as long as I thought. The little punk locked my leg with his and down I went. It was fun though and after getting thrown down three times I was pretty damn tired. It took full energy burst to wrestle and I was out of breath and had to take a break. I was 3 and 0 and I needed to beat him at least once. I came close but he always managed to hit the ground after me.

After a short break I wrestled the other guy that barely beat me then finally in the fifth match I won. Finally. I was out of breath and worried if I keep wrestling I was going to throw up. They were dead tired and we called the game complete. It was really fun and the guys were really cool.

For dinner we headed back to the main family Ger to have Pasta for dinner. It was pretty good. If I had made it at home it would have tasted really bad. But her out in the middle of nowhere it tasted just fine. After the pasta they brought out the vodka. Sure enough I had heard from another guy I met to be careful with these Mongolians and the vodka. He said he passed out and they had to take him home on the back of a Yak. Having this in mind I did my best to fend off the alcohol being thrown at me.

Sure enough my fight turned out to be worthless. In about one hour I had 3 BIG shots of local hand made vodka (which tasted really weird), and true Russian out of the bottle shots. Luckily the two other guys drinking with me bailed and that made it easy for me to head out without having another 6 shots. By the time we hit the room I was pretty light. It was nice and was a good end to a really fun day.

Ana was building the fire and I was laughing the whole time. I knew I was pretty drunk because of the comments I was making and the fact that everything that was going on was really funny. I remember Ana grabbing a packet of instant potatoes and fanning the fire with it. That was SOOO OO funny to me and had me in stitches for about half and hour. I love that about alcohol. It makes the simplest things funny.

I crashed pretty hard that night leaving my bladder to work all night filtering out all the toxins I had been forced to ingest earlier.









Day 275 (October 11, 2006)
I think the Russian Vodka was messing with my American blood during the night because I had some really weird dreams. One dream consisted of me trying to convince my mom to evacuate her house immediately. There was a massive dirt hill rising from the ground and was about to kill her and the rest of the family. The other dream consisted of me trying to save people that had drowned when a huge fish tank broke. There were snakes eating the fish on the floor. Crazy dreams.

After a night of saving the world I got up to start my mortal life in the north of Mongolia. It was pretty cold at night but luckily I had two sleeping bags and stayed pretty warm. Ana also stayed warm and that was good to hear.

Breakfast was the usual trusted breakfast the Mongolians ate since the times of Genghis Khan - instant noodles. After that we got our sore butts back on the saddles and headed out for a day ride in the local mountains. Both me and Ana were feeling more confident on the horses and lucky for me my butt was still molded to the shape of the saddle from the previous day.

After a few hours of ridding all the painful areas from the previous day were hurting again. The pain was the only thing that was making the experience less than amazing. I really was enjoying horse riding and hope that in the future I get to do more in the States.

Ana’s horse was acting a little strange in the afternoon and was starting to eat all the time like my horse had done the previous day. I was being really strong with my horse and not letting him eat anything. That seemed to be working. As soon as my horse tried to grab some grass I would try and pull his teeth out with the reins and kick him in the butt with my legs and say the magic Mongolian words to make a horse go “Chew”.

It was really funny to see Ana way behind us with her horse eating and Ana pulling and kicking trying to get it going. She was doing a pretty good job but she didn’t have the strength or authority in her voice and it seemed like the horse was taking advantage of her. Those horses can be strong headed.

Sometime around mid day Ana was complaining that the backpack on her back was bothering her and she wanted me to carry it. I said I would and rode my horse up alongside of hers. Up to this point we had become really comfortable on the horses and I was doing things like putting on my gloves, taking photos, and picking things off the ground while ridding side saddle at a full gallop. So the idea of Ana handing me the backpack while riding didn’t seem like that big of a deal. It turned out not to be the case.

As soon as Ana handed me her backpack my horse started to go to the right. As it went to the right I could no longer hold the bag and told Ana “take it back”. When I let go the backpack swung back her way and my horse jumped a little. Right at the same moment the backpack hit Ana’s horse on the side. When the backpack hit Ana’s horse it freaked out and took off running full speed with Ana clinching her butt cheeks and holding on for dear life.

When Ana’s horse took off my horse and the guide’s horse also started to freak out. But we were both able to dig the reins in and make the horses stay put and not take off running.

Ana in the meantime was headed full speed for a large tree full of branches. I was praying she could keep holding on and not fall off. We had met two people that were thrown off the horses at the hostel and one of them jammed her shoulder and the other broke a rib or two.

But Ana did great and survived the branches of the tree by doing some Matrix moves. It was pretty cool and I was thinking man that was awesome. The horse continued after the tree to run in a circle around us. I keep yelling at her to pull on the reins. She told me in a scared pissed off voice “I am pulling!” Sure enough with some more pulling and kicking she was able to settle the horse down.

The whole situation was pretty funny and we were both laughing after we got over the initial shock of the situation. Ana was now an official cowgirl since she had ridden and survived a wild horse. I guess Jimmy was right not to pass stuff while ridding a horse. Lesson learned.

We rode for a little while after that before taking a lunch break which mostly consisted of sitting in the pine needles and eating a snickers bar.

After lunch we hit the road some more and by this point things several parts of my anatomy were getting pretty tender. At one point the trail became to rough and dangerous to ride so we got off the horses and walked them. We ended up going about half a mile which was great for my knees that were killing me. Ana’s horse keeps being stubborn and at one point she pulled so hard on the reins that she broke them. It was really funny but Ana didn’t seem to find much humor in it. The guide fixed the reins and we were off again.

We continued to ride for the next few hours. I keep thinking the Ger was just around the corner but after about 20 times of guessing wrong I decided to stop thinking the Ger was close and just ride. Both me and Ana were getting tired of the ride and just wanted to get off. Eventually the sun started to get close to setting and we needed to make quicker time so we started bringing the horses into a gallop. A gallop on a horse is pretty much a death sentence for your butt checks but at this point we didn’t care we just wanted back.

We galloped on and off for about 30 minutes and right before dark set we finally arrived back at camp. My body was pretty tired and sore when I jumped off the horse. But despite the pain of galloping at the end of our ride it did turn out to be my favorite part of the ride. The horses were so strong and it was really cool to be on the back of such a fast animal. I truly felt like a cowboy and wished I had a Marlboro cigarette and cowboy hat to complete the whole experience.

In the end we rode eight hours that day and that was 7.99 hours too long. But in hindsight I will forget about the pain and the ride will be another amazing adventure on our long list we’ve created so far this year.

We went back to our cabin and were starving for some good food. We anxiously cooked the spaghetti we had. Of course it turned out to be horrible and was a great end to a rough day. We spent a little time catching up our journals and we hit the hay after that. Man it was good to be horizontal and not on the back of those damn horses.









Day 276 (October 12, 2006)
I slept pretty restless and had allot of weird dreams. I think were sleeping too much. Most of the time were in bed only a couple hours after it get’s dark and we don’t wake up till after 9:00. Not sure what’s going on with the sleeping problems I’ve been having on this trip but I think there related to too much time and crappie sleeping conditions. .

Breakfast consisted of instant noodles and that was much better than the previous dinner we had. After filling our bellies we packed and headed outside to load the pack horse and head out. Of course it took about 2 hours to get everything ready. That’s just how things work in Mongolia. Everyone has a ton of time and no need to move fast. Man that’s a really frustrating experience but at the same time really nice. I wish my life could be that simple and filled with tons of time. But I’m destined to live a Western life of no time, bills, and stress. Who knows though maybe later in life I’ll move down to another simple country and live out the rest of my life? Maybe communication and transportation will be advanced enough to make that kind of life easier. Time will tell.

Finally after 2 attempts at loading the pack horse “Tweedle D and Tweeedle Dumb” finally finished. I was pretty sure our packs would fall off the horse in a maximum of 30 seconds.

While we were waiting for the Einstein brothers to load the horse a few local ladies were dropped off by there husbands on a motorcycle. They started to set up a blanket and all their goods right near us. Obviously they were going through all this trouble to sell us some stuff we didn’t want. We had been approached by one of the girls the previous day and said we weren’t interested. But this was the Mongolian way - to shove push and intimidate. Me and Ana were pretty pissed at the whole situation and didn’t even look their way the whole time. Eventually one of them came up and asked us if we needed anything. We told her we weren’t interested. They seemed pretty pissed that we didn’t want anything and packed up and left. Man I hate that about the Mongolians. Pushing sales down our throats then they have the nerve to get mad when we don’t buy. URRRRRRR!

Ana and I put our sore butts back on the saddles and headed out. We rode for about an hour before stopping at a local Ger. I think the guide was friends with the lady inside and we were invited in for some hot Yak Tea. It was nice to see the inside of a real Ger and it was much like I had suspected. The door getting into the Ger was really short as usual. I had to bend my sore back over pretty far to get in. Once inside we were offered to sit on a bed either on the right or left side. Straight to the back of the Ger was the small cabinet with a mirror and usually some sort of radio or TV. But in this case they were poor and didn’t have either. The ground was dirt thin rugs were used to keep the people off the dirt. In the right hand corner hung some old meat that looked pretty bad. The sink was a simple sink that had a small jug with water inside. Basically the water was poured out of a jug then captured in the sink. Then when you were done using it you simple threw the water out the front door. The Ger’s were smart little house and for 2,000 American dollars I could have brought one home.

We only stayed at this particular Ger for about 15 minutes then back to bouncing down the trail again. The landscape was starting to get very repetitious and we just wanted to get to the city and get off the horses by this point.

After another few hours we stopped into another Ger to get some more Yak Tea and chill for a couple minutes. I passed on the Yak Tea this time and decided I had put enough Mongolian Exlax in my stomach for this trip. The inside of the real nomadic Ger was nice to see and very similar to the previous one we say. It was warm with the fire going and had a musty Mongolian smell to it. The women living in the tent talked faster than a kid that just ate all his Halloween candy in one sitting. If I had some Riddlin I would have dropped a few pills in the tea. Luckily we didn’t stay long and we were on our way. I think even the guide was getting tired of hearing her.

We finally arrived in town around 4:00 and it was nice to finally get off those horses. Ana and I were pretty sore and ready to start the Russian Van beating. At least it would be pain in new areas.

After getting our gear off the pack horse and into the van we ate some bread and paid for our trip. We hit the road shortly after that and in no time my back was starting to remember why I hated driving in the van. But it was only a two hour drive to the local town Murren where we would be staying the night.

When we hit Murren we ate some Goulash for dinner and got our Ger for the night. Our Ger was had two other girls from Singapore inside and they seemed pretty cool. After talking with them for a little bit we found out that they wanted to join up with us on our way back to Ulaanbaatar. That was cool with us since it would mean we got an extra 100 bucks from them and some great company.

Since the showers didn’t work at the hostel we had to go to some public showers. I was pretty sure that was going to be an interesting process. But in the end it wasn’t too bad. The showers were actually semi clean. Man it was great to get in a shower since it had been three days since our bodies had touched any soap. The down pants I had bought turned out to be really warm but left my legs looking like I was a chicken. There were feathers everywhere and it was a pain in the ass trying to get them all off my cloths. There were feathers everywhere and my black fleece jacket was looking like it was going in the trash after this trip.

We arose from the showers feeling once again like clean human beings. Man that shower was the best and the water was hot. Ahhh the simple pleasures in life.

After we returned to the Ger it was pretty late and we were both really exhausted. We talked for a little bit with the Singapore girls then fell asleep.










Day 277 (October 13, 2006)
We woke up around 8:00 to get to the local internet for a little bit. After an hour of feeling connected to the world we headed out to take on a few more rounds of beatings.

Sometime around lunch Otto picked up some fried dumplings in a little no where town. We then drove about 20 minutes out of town and pulled off the road. While he messed with the brakes once again we ate fried dumplings for lunch. They weren’t too bad but after 2 they started to feel really greasy.

Otto put the wheels back on and we were off again. He usually stopped about 5 different times a day to fix the car or check something out. He was a good mechanic but also liked to “putter around” with the car.

The rest of day was just more beating on my back, butt, and neck. It was a tough ride and the terrain wasn’t that exciting. Eventually we made it to our final destination (White Lake) late that evening. It was cold and was on and off snowing. The lake was nice and its remoteness really added to the beauty.

When we arrived Otto backed up the van right to the Ger and we unloaded all of our gear. The fragrant smell in the air was a sure sigh that Yak poop was being torched to create the heat. There weren’t many trees in the area so I kind of suspected it might be that way.

After unpacking and getting high off the Yak poop fumes Ana and I headed out for a freezing walk along the lake. The lake shore was really peaceful and there were some really interesting rock forms along the lake. On our way back it started to flurry a little. It was really magical and a wonderful little lake.

For dinner we had some instant noodles and for desert some Mambas. We talked and joked with the really fun and nice Singaporean girls. We all were pretty beat from the day and went to sleep pretty early. The air outside was cold and it was great to cocoon myself deep inside of the multiple layers of blankets and mummy bags.









Day 278 (October 14, 2006)
The night was cold and I sleep ok. I keep moving under all the blankets and the girls keep lighting the fire all night long which meant the temperature keep fluctuating from freezer to microwave. That meant I was constantly pealing the layers off then putting them back on all night. It was a pain in the ass and I couldn’t wait for a continuous all night sleep. Maybe that would happen when we got back to Ulaanbaatar which was only now a day’s drive away.

We packed up and headed out early that day since it was going to be a long day. Sometime around lunch we found a town that supposedly had good American food. We should have never trusted the Lonely Planet book. The lunch sucked harder than a hooker on Garvey Street. I had a burger that was probably old frozen Yak meat. I left with my stomach still hungry and feeling a little off. We should have just stuck with the usual Goulash. We never learn. Whenever we hear American food we run and pretty much every time you’re guaranteed that the meal is going to suck hard. Oh well.

I grabbed the handles in the ceiling with my sore arms and we off again down the bouncy dusty Mongolian back roads. The horrible lunch in my stomach keep reminding me that it wanted out of my stomach. Luckily for me it waited till we got back to the Ger that night.

The town we were staying in for the night was pretty much a nothing town. There were the usual tons of fenced off areas with a small Ger or wooden home in the middle of it. It was amazing to see this town only for the fact that this was the once the capital of the largest kingdom to exist in the world. But looking at the landscape you couldn’t tell. The Mongolians were notorious for not building permanent structures so there was nothing left of a once great civilization. They said that in this city they had a huge fountain that had 4 different kinds of alcohol and milk flowing from it. They image of the fountain can be found on several of their dollar notes.

Looking at the dumpy little city in the middle of nowhere made me kind of sad. I wish I could have seen the city at its peak. It’s amazing to think that Washington DC could end up with a similar fate. Most likely it will be reduced to nothing over time. Pretty much all great civilizations have collapsed. I wonder when America will. I hope not within my lifetime. Russia was trying and we’ll see what China has in store.

That day in general was a pretty flat day. For dinner we ate some really bad vegetable dumplings that were given to us. We should have cooked our own food. But oh well. I ate it and just tried to make the best of it. I wanted to get back to the city and was done with this trip.

After catching up on our diaries we headed to bed and dreamed of arriving in town the next day.









Day 279 (October 15, 2006)
Of sleeping was once again restless but the good thing was that we ran out of firewood in the middle of the night so the girls couldn’t keep lighting fires all night long. We packed in the morning and hit the road again. Man it was going to be great to be back in the city. Electricity, good food, semi normal beds, and of course movies were waiting for us.

As we drove that day the weather conditions were deteriorating. The temperature was dropping and the winds were getting strong. Winter was coming and it had a strong hand here.

For lunch we headed to local place for some more Goulash. The wind blew the door of the van open and made it hard to shut. Just being outside in the strong wind was freezing and would start to make your face and head hurt. Ana was getting tired of the cold and was complaining she wanted to go somewhere warm. Hopefully southern China will be nicer.

After lunch we continued driving till we hit town sometime around 5:00 in the evening and I couldn’t wait to get out of that Old Russian no suspension piece of sssshhhhhhhhhiiiiiiii - van. My back was killing me and I was so excited to be back in town. We were diving in and out of traffic and the driver Otto seemed like he was in a hurry and trying to get in an accident. Three times he locked up the brakes hard enough to make the van slide a little sideways. I couldn’t wait to set foot on solid ground and know that I wasn’t just on it for the night.

After dropping off the Singapore couple at their hostel we headed to ours. Sure enough we made it safe and sound and grabbed our gear out of the back of the truck for the last time. We were both really exhausted and ready to veg for a while and just enjoy doing nothing.

After dropping off our things in the room we ran for the showers. Oh man it was so nice to shave after 9 days my beard was killing me. But sure enough right as I went to turn on the hot water for the shower none came out. I was pissed. For some reason the water wasn’t working. I was pretty pissed and put back on my stinky 4 day old cloths and headed out to figure out what was going on.

Sure enough they were fixing the pipes and said they would have the water on in a few minutes. Good thing I took so long to shave because Ana wasn’t as lucky as me. She ended up getting caught in the middle of her shower and having to wash the soap off with freezing cold water. Pretty funny. I love when I get the lucky hot shower.

A couple minutes later the hot water was ungluing the sealed dirt from me. Man it was a great shower and it ended up taking a double soaping to finally feel clean.

After the shower we headed straight for the TV and caught a chick flick right at the perfect time – the ending. We then decided we had to make it to the local convenient store before the movie started. We were worried about loosing our precious seats on the couch so we ran all the way to the store. Ana had been dying for some potato chips so we grabbed that and a few other things that ended up filling a pretty big plastic bag.

Returning to the hostel we were glad to see our seats were still not taken. I was happy I didn’t have to start a fight and really kick some potato couch butt. We popped in Scary Movie 4 and enjoyed the next brainless hours with smiles on our faces. Man it was great. In fact so good we had to watch Superman 2 after that.

By the end of Superman the bars in the old couch had put dents in my back and I was ready to head off to the other piece of furniture that put dents in my back – the bed. I put a pillow under my back and headed off to dream land. Man it was great not to be in a Ger.








Day 280
Despite needing to sleep with a pillow under my back to straighten out back all night I sleep pretty well. In fact I didn’t even wake up several times in the night which was a first in at least 2 weeks. Not having good sleep for a while can really be taxing.

Ana had bounced out of bed early in the morning to go check the internet and talk with her family. I was too lazy and preferred to stay with my best friend the crocked bed. Sometime around mid morning we decided it was time to get up and go get a good breakfast. We had heard about a good place around the corner that served eggs and bacon that didn’t taste Mongolian or Chinese. It was too good to be true but we had to check it out.

Once we got to the restaurant it was pretty packed with foreigners. We luckily saw our two Singapore friend and were able to sit with them. Breakfast ended up being pretty damn good even though we had to wait about 30 minutes to get it. But it was worth it if only for the 4 pieces of crispy bacon that I was served. Man that was heaven.

We also talked with a few guys we had met on the train to Mongolia. They had gone on an 8 day trip to the Gobi and hated it. The people were terrible and they were really unhappy. I was happy that we decided to go to the North rather than the Gobi with them. Poor guys. In the end things got crazy where someone got in a fight and a few people went to jail. The embassy’s had to get involved and everything. Crazy and I was glad we were no where near it.

After our yummy breakfast we headed around town to post some messages and see if we could find some more people interested in going to the Gobi. I wasn’t as interested in going and would only go if we could find some really nice people to go with. Being on the bouncy roads for seven more days wasn’t that appealing of an idea and if the people were a pain in the ass it could be a nightmare.

Went spent most of the day following the trail that we had taken before when we were hunting for other people. We went to allot of guest houses and posted little notes saying were looking for people. The more we looked the more I wasn’t really looking forward to spending seven more days on the hard roads just to see some more desert and sand dunes. From the photos and pictures I had seen I wasn’t too impressed with the Gobi. The name and its reputation was actually more interesting than the place.

We decided after walking around for a while to head back to the hostel and watch some boob tube. Man it was great just to be a couch potatoes. We watched about eight consecutive series or “Friends” and it was fun. We did get some exercise in the middle of the shows to get some snacks from the local market. At least we did something.

Towards the evening it looked like there were a few people in our hostel that wanted to go to the Gobi. We weren’t really excited to go with the group and we decided to back out. They had enough people to go and truth be told we just weren’t that interested anymore.

With our decision to not go to the Gobi we had more than a week to burn in Mongolia before our train left on the 26th. We decided to go on a short trip to a local National Park for two days with the Singaporean girls we had met earlier. We went over to their place to firm up the deal. Once there we spent a while talking and decided to meet for lunch the next day to iron out the details.

Later that evening we headed back to our noisy crowded hostel to try and catch some sleep. The place was starting to get on my nerves and I was thinking we should really think about heading to another hostel.








Day 281
After an ok night’s sleep Ana and I woke up early to head over to the internet to spend an hour catching up on emails and trying to talk to family. No luck with the phone calls though. After the www time we headed back to the hostel to pack and meet up with the two Singapore girls. Sure enough the van rolled up at 9:00 and we squeezed in. I was under the impression we were only going to be four people but it ended up being a group of eight of us.

The others were pretty cool but I think I’m really getting tired of other travelers and people all over me. It seems like I can’t escape. I’m think I’m getting tired of having no privacy. China and Mongolia have been hard and the fact that we’ve been staying in dorms about 80 percent of the time doesn’t help the situation. Whatever reason people are starting to drive me nuts! I must be around my period or something.

We drove about 1.5 hours to reach the camp we would be staying for the next two nights. To my surprise the landscape was really beautiful. It was large rocks protruded from the golden grass hills. The rocks were rounded and worn and allot of the valley walls were covered with the naked grey trees. It was really nice and much more than I expected. Honestly I was thinking we would be in a large dirt lot with a couple rolling hills near by and a cheesy karaoke bar near by.

We grabbed our bags from the van and headed to our nearby Ger. It was only about 100 meters away but by the time we got to it my tongue was frozen to my teeth. Man the wind had a bite and it reminded me we were close to Siberia. We got into our Gers and tried to warm up. Ana wasn’t too happy about the cold and I can tell she’s getting tired of it. I must say I am also. We’ve been in the cold for over a month (Tibet and Mongolia) and it starting to wear on us. Of course were also horse riding and sleeping in tents so that adds to fire. But in the end I keep telling her we won’t remember the cold but we will remember the memories. Actually maybe we’ll remember some of the cold but in the end it’s worth the adventure. Maybe when I’m older I’ll revise my thinking but for now it works.

After setting up our beds we went outside and did a little walk. Not too far though since it on took only a 10 steps for your body to start shutting off the heating to your ears, hands, and feet. We did though get the chance to see some of the valley from the high rocks behind our Ger. We cut the trip short towards the end to get back and warm up.

Lunch came about an hour later and it was ok. Rice and some kind of meat/vegetable thing. Was eatable and I was expecting much worse. All of us were pretty cold and we didn’t have much wood to build a fire so we ended up getting under our sleeping bags to warm up. That move lead to use sleeping the evening away. It was pretty funny because we all pretty much went to sleep at the same time. Almost like we had planned it but no one did.

After a few hours nap we all awoke and lazed around for most of the rest of the day. We were pretty worthless but it was nice just to talk and joke with each other. Eventually we light the fire and it was burning hot and we had to open the door to let the heat out. It seems to be the way those Gers work. It’s either freezing cold or a sauna.

Sometime in the evening we all drifted off to sleep. I was surprised since I thought I was going to be up all night since we napped in the evening. But I guess when it’s so cold outside and you’re cuddled up in blankets it becomes a natural aphrodisiac.







Day 282
Sleeping that night was pretty rough. I keep turning and bouncing all over the place. Of course in the middle of the nigh the girls light the fire a couple times. Basically what this means is after they light the fire I wake up sweating and feeling like I was just sent to hell and Satin is right next to me laughing. I ripe off my blankets and sleeping bag to try and keep from becoming a piece of bacon. Usually the heat is too much and get out of bed to open the door. With the door open a flood of cold breathable air comes flooding in and for about the next 20 minutes the air is either hot or freezing cold depending on how the wind is blowing outside. As I start to fall asleep the fire starts to die down and I have to wake up again and shut the door. I fall asleep again and about 20 minutes after that I’m freezing because I’m sleeping on top of my blankets. Getting back into my bag is of course a process and I can’t help from waking up fully again to complete the task. By this time I’m pretty pissed and of course they light about 3 fires that night so you can imagine how much I slept.

Finally the sun cracked the mountain ridges and it was time to get up. There was no more firewood so of course we had to get up in the freezing cold. Thanks to the lovely Singaporean girls. Luckily they were really cool otherwise I’d have to bust out my pimp hand and regulate.

After a horrible breakfast of stale bread that was made out of plastic and some old hard cookies we were ready to start the day. Sometime around 10:00 we got called to get our horses for our 4 hour horse ride. I was looking forward to the horse ride since we had been before and this ride was only 4 hours and couldn’t possibly be as painful as the 3 day trip we had just been on.

Once we got to the stables we realized the ponies outside were actually the horses we were going to ride. I was pretty sure they had stolen the little guys from the local birthday party for all the 5 year old kids. Everyone started getting on their horses and complaining they were small. I was thinking you guys are about half my height and weight what are you talking about.

The guy grabbed the brown and white “My little Pony” for me and said jump on. I got on carefully as to not break the horses back. The cool thing also was that the horse saddle was also for a 5 year old so that made my butt and family jewels really happy. While on the horse I keep thinking I should have the saddle and the horse should be ridding me.

Finally everyone was on their ponies and we headed out. Sure enough our guide was a young teenager with less brain cells than a normal teenager (If that’s possible?). He started herding all the horses like we didn’t know what we were doing. He was whipping the horses and it felt really funny being with him.

After a while we tried to communicate to him that we all know how to ride a horse and that he just needs to tell us where to go. He laughed with a little bit of arrogance and keep on herding us. About half an hour into it the girls were getting really upset since the young guy was forcing the horses to trout and that is really uncomfortable. I finally had to look him straight in the eyes and tell him to stop that shit. He knew what I was saying and calmed down for a little bit. We were really starting to not enjoy the trip.

We made it to “Turtle Rock” about an hour into the ride. We happily jumped off our horses and walked like a man would after his first night in jail. It was really nice relax the butt/family jewels and especially the knees.

After the rock we rode another annoying 30 minutes to a local Buddhist temple on the hill. It was nice and again good to get off the horse. The temple was nice but we are still in the “over Templed out” mode so we visited it pretty quick. The valley below was beautiful though and we’ll worth the ride.

The ride back to the camp was interesting. Our young teenage boy got some of his spunk back and started whipping the horses to make them trot back. Although it was painful it was nice because we were making much better time. But in the end I had to tell him again to slow down and he did.

The one funny thing that I still can’t work out the physics on is the amount of carbon monoxide and green house emissions the horses let out during the trip. I’m not kidding I think our six horse are the reason we are having global warming. Man they were ridiculous. I don’t think more than 2 minutes passed without one of the horses burning away some more ozone. Man I was cracking up the whole time we were riding. My vision of the old west has totally been changed. They never have the horses farting on the Wild West movies? But you know that’s what happened. Jessie James ridding into town on a farting horse. That’s not tough.

In the end I got off my horse and left behind a couple layers of butt skin on the saddle. We headed to our Ger to chill for a bit and enjoy the rest of the day. We ended up pretty much lighting the fire and sitting in the Ger the rest of the evening. Pretty boring but we were so cold we didn’t want to do anything else.

Dark and cold pressed down on the tent and I jumped in my bag to enjoy another night of sleeplessness.







Day 283
Sure enough I awoke to my dream of being in the fiery pits of hell only to realize I was. My roommates had light the fire in the middle of the night and we intent on converting our Ger into a sauna. The good thing was I knew there was only enough wood for one fire. So the night turned out to be an ok one sine I was sure to only have to go through that process once in the night

As for the girls it was pretty cold night and they actually got up in the middle of the night to search for more firewood to build a fire. There isn’t any firewood to be found and they only ended up with a pathetic bag of small branches which they light. Poor things. But I didn’t feel too bad for them since they had already been traveling a few weeks in the cold and still hand not bought proper clothing and sleeping bags. They weren’t to bright that way.

The huge ball of fire finally cracked the sky and warmed up everything at least 1 or 2 degrees. The girls were pretty tired after a tough night and sleep in for a while. We sat around for the morning a little bored and tired of being cold. I started throwing rocks at everything (including Ana) trying to figure out ways to keep my boredom at bay.

In the end the van finally came and took us away from the beautiful but freezing cold Mongolian paradise. Being back in UB was nice and what was even greater was hot showers waiting for us back at the hostel. Of course the water was cold and the shower sucked. But I’m kind of getting used to those things these days. Getting screwed like that is just an everyday thing.

We put our cloths in the wash and headed for the TV to catch up on our brainless activity time. We popped in “Meet the Parents” and laughed our way back to feeling like we were in civilization.

Later that night we met up with Tom (A German guy we met on the Trans Mongolian Train) to have some drinks and see if he was still interested in going with me to drive a Russian tank. Turns out he was still interested and after a few drinks and some great conversation we were all pretty drunk.

We headed back to our crammed little hostel and crashed on our bunk beds. It was nice to be a little drunk cause I was pretty assured a good nights sleep.









Day 284 (sat)
I woke up late with that crusty “I drank last night” taste in my mouth. But after a shower and some deodorant I was good as new except for the sick feeling I had in my stomach.

We headed to the local restaurant to meet up with Tom and have some lunch. We ate a really good chicken burger with fries that was actually something like home. That was hard to find in these parts of the world and I savored every tasty morsel.

The rest of the day wasn’t too exciting. We pretty much ran around looking for small tours to do but in the end decided to just burn the next few days in that city relaxing and drinking. In the evening we did some internet time and tried to meet up with our Singapore friends. I started not feeling so good and decided I needed to go back to the room to lie down to rest.

What started as a little fever and sick feeling in my stomach turned into a full blown kick my butt sickness in about an hour. I started the night by freezing. Even with 2 sleeping bags and a blanket on me I was still ice cold. To make things worse the people, noise, light, and crowds were really annoying the shit out of me. I just wanted my own room and some quiet. I was determined at that point to move to another hostel the next day.

As I laid there going through the hot and cold cycles I started tossing and turning. That continued for the rest of the night as I spun round and round. I tried counting how many times I flipped over that night and I think it was around six hundred and thirty two kintillion, billion, million, smillion. That’s a rough approximation though.

I’m not really sure if I fell asleep that night or not? It was more like a messed up half sleep feeling bad trance type thing.








Day 285 (Sunday)
I kind of woke up in the morning I think. I was pretty sure I got more sleep toward the early morning hours. I wasn’t sure since I was coughing, clenching my stomach, dreaming, freezing, and sweating all night long. But in the morning I was feeling a little human again and jumped in the shower. The shower kind of made me feel better and when I was finished I headed to the room to pack up and get the hell out of that noisy and crowded hostel.

We met Tom for breakfast and afterwards he helped us to move to his hostel which was closer to the train station and WAY nicer. We got our own HUGE room for only 4 more dollars a night. The place was dead quiet and once we got settled in we hit the beds to take a nap and make sure the rooms were up to snuff. Man naps are wonderful in the middle of the day and I wonder if when I return to reality if I will miss that the most. Maybe I can do like they did in Seinfeld where they sleep under the desk at work. Worth a shot.

After the nap we headed to a local bar called “Detroit”. It was pretty nice and had an American theme which was pretty funny. While in Detroit I proceeded to do what I do best – drink. After a few beers I was feeling pretty good. Hanging out with Tom was nice and it was good just to shot the shit. I’m good at shooting the shit and can hit an aardvark turd from 1000 feet away.

We all proceeded to raise our alcohol levels pretty high that night and had a good time. We headed home and crashed sometime around midnight or so.




Day 286 (Mon)
Because we had drank so much the night before getting out of bed early wasn’t on the agenda. So I think we finally got out of bed sometime around noon. We headed over to talk with Bolad about setting up the tank drive. He said we were on and to be at his hostel the next day at 10:00. I was pretty happy about this and looking forward to driving a Russian tank.

After getting that set up we walked to a local train museum which was pretty nice. After admiring the old massive trains for a little bit and taking some photos we headed out. We had planned on simply walking to a local Khan temple but that turned into a minor mission of crossing small wood plank bridges in the mud. Ana wasn’t too happy about this and was starting to get moody.

Eventually we did make it to the last Khan family temple. I was interested in seeing the temple and interested in what it looked like. I was surprised to see a permanent structure that pretty much looked like a Chinese temple. I didn’t do much reading on the temple before hand but I’m assuming the last Khan was after the Chinese invaded the country.

Ana’s stomach wasn’t feeling too good and she was getting moody so I knew that I only had about a half an hour or so to check out the temple before she turned into Satin and dragged me out of the temple.

The temple turned out to be pretty interesting. The actual architecture wasn’t that unusual but the artifacts they had were interesting. They had a complete Ger made out of leopard skins. That must have been very exotic and extremely expensive back then. Really cool. They also had some of the Khan’s toys that he played with when he was young. The toys were things like jade boats that seemed more like art pieces than a toy. There was also a really impressive stuffed animal collection. They had animals from around the world and they must have been really amazing to the people of that time. They even had 3 different penguins from Antarctica.

Eventually we headed out and back to the hostel to take a nap. I was hoping a nap would help Ana to feel better.

That night we hit the Detroit bar again to grab some drinks and some appetizers. I ordered the bacon with French fries and they were fabulous. Man I miss bacon and I ate almost all ten strips that came out.

It was fun hanging out with Tom and we had a good time talking about anything from food to religion. By the end of the night we were a bit drunk and decided it was time to head home. On the way home we passed a local guy that was really drunk. He was all over the road and it was pretty funny to see him trying to navigate his way down the icy streets. We’ve seen allot of those guys and I think Mongolia probably has allot of drunks. That must be the Russian influence.

Sleeping was easy and was simply a matter of lying down and closing my eyes.








Day 287
Woke up feeling pretty good despite all I had drank the night before. Breakfast consisted of some tasty instant noodles and really jump started my day. I needed that kind of good meal in the morning to help me drive the Russian tank. Yep it was “Tank Driving Day” and I was pretty excited.

We walked over to Bolad’s place where we had set up the excursion to go drive the tank. The weather was horribly cold and that kind of sucked. Man I was getting tired of being freezing. It also meant that driving the tank was going to be interesting. Hope they have heating? I doubt it.

Bolad met us at the door with his kid and we jumped in his little car and headed out. It took about an hour to finally get to the small active training base where we were going to drive the tank. It was kind of weird being there and I was starting to get the idea that what we were doing was illegal and something that was done on the side. Whatever though as long as I got behind the wheel of a tank.

Sure enough after out the tank came roaring down the road. It was really cool to see and both me and Tom were excited to get to drive it. The engine was roaring and pouring tons of smoke out the back. I was really impressed at how large it sounded. I though the engine on the tank was going to similar in size to say a bus or something. But to my surprise it was MUCH larger and seemed to really roar and thunder with power. I guess the tank was pretty heavy and needed some serious power.

The Mongolia driver turned off the tank right in front of us and we walked over. He instantly waved me up on top of the tank to check out the driver’s seat. He pointed to things and we tried to communicate without speaking any words. I got an idea of what the instruments and pedals were and the guy told me to get it. It was freezing cold and I didn’t really understand everything he said but I figured I would learn on the fly. As long as I didn’t run over Bolad’s car I would be fine. There wasn’t really much else to hit.

Getting into the drivers cockpit was interesting. That damn thing was tiny and made for midgets. I tried to take off my jacket so I would fit better and the guy just pushed on my head and forced me through the hole and into the seat. It was really tight and I was trying to get my feet on the pedals when the guy reached down and started the tank up. That thing roared and it was really cool just to hear.

I finally got my feet on the pedals which were pretty much like a car just huge, metal, and really hard to push. He had me push in the clutch and shift it into gear. Everything on the tank seemed to need force to move. Even the gear shifter took some grinding of my teeth to get it into gear. But I could feel it drop in and I knew it was time to go. It wind was blowing and I was starting to shiver at this point but I didn’t care. This was the coolest things I had done in a long time.

I was ready to go and Tom told me to hold on and not move. He wanted to get down and to do that he had to put his feet on the tracks. He got off and Ana ran out of the way. It was go time and I let out the clutch as smoothly as I could. It was pretty rough but we were off and I was driving. Since I didn’t really understand how the controls for steering worked I tried pulling the one of the right to go right. The tank didn’t go right? I pushed the left one forward and pulled the right one harder but nothing seemed to really be happening. The Mongolian guy who was lying down on the side of the tank right next to me reached down and pushed my hands away. He then pulled only the right handle and the tank jerked right. The steering was weird and really unresponsive. It seemed to only work when it wanted to.

After the guy helped me steer right he motioned to me to shift to forth gear. I though we were going fast enough but oh well I shifted into fourth gear and away we went. We weren’t going that fast but in a tank it felt pretty fast and the fact that I hadn’t really figured out how to steer made it even feel faster.

Eventually I figured out how to steer and later found out that there was a button I should have been pushing on top of the steering sticks I should have been pushing. That might have explained why it was acting so weird. Eventually though I was able to gain a moderate sense of control and the experience of driving a tank. What a GREAT feeling that was rolling down the road in a tank. It was such a powerful feeling. I was behind the wheel of a machine that could blow up the buildings I was looking at on the horizon. That was so cool and I can only imagine how it felt to roll through the streets of Berlin or London during the war. Really cool experience.

We were only going to drive 1K in the tank so eventually we cut across the field and turned around. When I did that we were now facing dead straight into the cold wind and my face felt like it was going to fall off. It was FREEZING and my nose and checks actually starting really hurting. But screw it they would warm up later.

One thing that I keep doing was slowing down for the bumps. It was funny because a tank has long track and the small holes and bumps really don’t affect them. I keep thinking I was driving a car and slow down. The guy would then reach down and push down on my gas leg. It was pretty funny and eventually we were back to the car. That was the scariest part of the drive because I didn’t want to accidentally run over the car with Ana in it. That tank could easily enough do that and because it was so tight in the cockpit and the steering was poor at best I was a little nervous. I made sure I could get my foot onto the brake when we got close. But there were no problems and I rolled up along the car in my tank and parked it. Man that was so cool and I sure I was smiling from ear to ear. I couldn’t tell if I was smiling because I really couldn’t feel my face.

Tom was outside freezing and asked me if he could borrow my gloves. I threw them to him and he jumped in the cockpit. He was a little nervous and said it looked like I was going really fast. It felt kind of fast but not that bad. I gave Tom some quick pointers and soon enough we were off with Tom behind the wheel of that Russian war machine. It was pretty cool riding in the turret part of the tank wit Tom driving up front. During the drive my hands were absolutely freezing and I was doing my best to not touch anything metal or anything inside the tank. I didn’t want to send off a round by accident.

Eventually we took the same turn I did and headed back to the car. The wind was freezing and I tried to shelter myself behind the lid of the tank. About half way back to the car the tank started to die out and it sounded like it was running out of gas. Sure enough it finally came to a halt and was dead.

After cranking over the engine a couple times the Mongolian guy jumped down into the turret to try and fix the problem. Ana was coming over at that point to see what was going on and take a couple photos. Eventually the guy cranked a few things and gas came out of a tube. He then went back up to the front to try and start the engine. Ana was taking a photo and I told her he was going to start the motor and she stopped taking the photo and ran away. It was really funny and she was pretty scared of the tank. I don’t blame her though that thing was a little monster.

After some playing the guy figured we were out of gas. Tom said he was good with driving and we called it a day. We paid the guy seventeen American dollars each for the drive and headed out. We were off to the gun range to shot some machine guns and sniper rifles.

Unfortunately when we got to the range the guy wasn’t there and we couldn’t shoot guns. I was pretty bummed out but what could I do. It was also so damn cold I don’t know how long we could have lasted outside.

We headed back to town and were dropped off at Chez Bernard’s to have lunch. After a really yummy chicken sandwich we headed to the local internet place to put some time in on catching up the blogs.

That night we headed to the local Irish Pub to have a few and chill out. It didn’t seem like we had drank that much but Ana was about to pass out in the bar because she as so tired and buzzed. Tom and I were also feeling pretty drunk and we decided it would be much nicer to cab back to the hotel this night.

We got to the room and instantly crashed.









Day 288 (Wed)
Ana and I got up feeling a little run over and tired. Tom had left a little earlier to take some photos around the city and we decided to head out and get some lunch. Hopefully that would make the sickness in my stomach go away.

Lunch was great and I love the tiny breads with garlic butter in that place. After lunch we headed to the couple of the museums we had wanted to see in the city. The first museum was the history of Mongolia Museum. It was pretty interesting and gave me a better grasp on the history of the country.

The second museum we went to was the Natural History Museum. It has on display some of the dinosaur bones they had uncovered in the southern parts of the Gobi desert. They also had a pretty good collection of stuffed animals but by the end we were flying through them.

After the museums we headed to the internet to spend some more time on the old blog. Because we had to leave early the next day on the train back to China we didn’t go to the bar. Instead we pretty much spent the evening packing and going to bed early.








Day 289 (October 26, 2006 - Leave Mongolia on train)
We woke at 5:00 am to catch the wonderful 30 hour train ride back to China. I was looking forward to getting out of Mongolia and getting really tired of what ended up being too many days in the same grey city.

Boarding the train was pretty pain free (too my surprise). But of course the last guy in the four person compartment we were staying in had to bring a TON of shit onto the train. There was really no room so he pilled it up everywhere and even filled up all of the room under his bed. It took three other guys to carry all of the shit he brought on the train. That was such a Chinese thing to do. Man I tell you the trip begins way before you get into the country your headed. We just laughed and shook our heads. What can you do?

Looking back at Mongolia it was a great country to see but at the same time a little bit boring. It had an overall grey Soviet tone to it and wasn’t as adventurous as I had hoped it would be. When I first heard the statistic that 50 percent of the people living in Mongolia were still living like the nomads did hundreds of years ago I was amazed. I was hoping to see people who were locked in time. But most of them knew allot about the world and had things like solar energy panels and DVD players. But none the less they did live the life of a nomad moving around to different grazing grounds throughout the year with their cattle. That part was pretty cool. Learning how to horse ride and drive a tank was also pretty cool. But still as the train left the station I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief. Finally we were out of Mongolia and I couldn’t imagine myself coming back anytime soon.

The train got under way and we went straight back to what we had been doing before we woke up that morning. After a few hours of I was back to counting the tiny holes in the ceiling and wondering why they designed the step latter to get into my bed the way that they had. Man it was going to be a long day.

Around lunch time we met Tom for some food in the dining cart. The dining cart turned out to be a really amazing experience. The interior was made of mostly carved wood and had some really amazing dragons and things all hand carved out of wood. Pretty cool.

We pretty much spent the rest of the evening doing just about nothing. Our Chinese compartment friend was keeping us entertained with his overly loud snorting and slurping. I can’t believe the sounds that can come out of Chinese. You can’t do anything but laugh. Just one example was when he drank tea he slurped as loud as I would if I was joking. Then he finished a loud “AUUUGHHH”. Both me and Ana just keep laughing at how loud he was. He wasn’t even joking it was just his normal way of drinking. I swear Chinese are cartoon characters in the flesh.

Just at dark (around 7:30ish) we made it to the border. The crossing was going to be around five hours so I wasn’t really looking forward to it. Sure enough we got the biggest Mongolian BITCH in the world as the first officer to our cart. Both me and Ana were laying down on our beds and she came in and stood at the door with a cold dead stare on her face. She was in full uniform and looked like a Russian Drill Sergeant. At first I didn’t really see her but after moving my legs I could see her dead serious Rambo face looking right at me. She then said “you (pointing directly at me) STAND UP. Your need to respect me were now at the border!” I had to laugh because she was so dead serious and I felt like I was in boot camp. I think that pissed her off even more. She then continued with a brilliant comment saying “This is not a hospital bed”. I proceeded to get up and slowly got to the ground and stood in front of her. Ana did the same and got up behind me. She asked for the passports and I gave it to her. By this time I was starting to get pissed off as she was acting like a total bitch. Ana tried to move out of the way so I could pass my passport and she told her to sit down. That really pissed me off and I was looking her dead in the eyes by that point. She stared back at me like she was God or something. I really wanted to say something or crack a joke but decided to hold back since I didn’t want to have any problems and just wanted to get thought he border. After a couple minutes she collected the passports and got on her broom and took off.

We all looked at each other and laughed after she left. I made sure to say a few comments and laugh loud enough for her to hear me. I can’t understand how someone could treat other people like that. She had such a power trip. The funny thing was all she did was collect passports and stamp them. Not a job to be proud of. What a dumb bitch and I was so glad she was gone. She reminded me of the worse about the people of Mongolia and I just wanted out of that country by that point.

Later Sergeant Cunt flew came back and threw our passports on my bed without even looking at us. She had no more power and was probably feeling pretty dumb at that point. The process was over and we got our stamps. I felt a little bad for her at that point since I’m sure her world must be a pretty tough one. I don’t know why she has to treat people like but no one was responding to her attempt to be a drill Sergeant. Most of the people on the train were Westerners and I’m sure they all treated her the same way I did. But whatever. She was gone and so was I. Better for the both of us.

The train shoved forward and the Chinese collected our passports. I was more worried about this part of the process since it’s a communist country and I didn’t want a border crossing problems. Sure enough the guy was really cool and took our passports and said thank you. Nothing like Sergeant Testicals on the Mongolian side. Later he brought back the passports and everything went smooth.

I’ve crossed several borders all around the world and that Mongolian officer was by far the worst I’ve ever had to deal with. Thank God I don’t plan on going back anytime soon.

The rest of night continued pretty smoothly through the process of crossing the border. We did the forward backward thing with loud banging and shacking for about an hour. I think they were unhooking the wheels and the carts at that point. Then we went into the station to change the wheels on the train. They lifted the entire cart up. Slid the old wheels out and the new ones in. Then they lowered us back down and a bunch of banging and shacking later we were on our way. By that time it was about 1:00 am in the morning and I was off and on sleeping. At some point I went from sort of sleeping to actually sleeping. I think it was around 2:00am or so.