How to shit in Asia

Two notes about toilets in this part of the world:

1. Squat toilets are great, once your muscles adjust. Since there's no seat to contact your bum, even the ickiest toilet is hygenic. Gladly, most of the outhouses and toilets we've used have been clean and low-stink. As a bonus, it seems that the squatting posture makes for a straighter bowel path, thus easing the excretory exercise.


2. When you do have a flush toilet (squat or throne), the local plumbing almost never accepts toilet paper. Instead, there's a trash bin in the room in which you deposit your stained paper. You'd think this would lead to a smelly bathroom, but for some reason it doesn't. I guess it just dries up and doesn't smell, so the situation is actually perfectly fine.

Tsituation update

Still hanging out here in Tsetserleg, having a great, relaxed time. Two nights ago, Isabel (my constant companion) and I walked up one of the mountains that looks over the town. The hike was similar in scale to Mission Peak and with the sun setting around 11pm, we sat up there quite late watching the scenery in peace before walking down. I've been starving for a hearty meal of buuz (pronounced bose), mutton packed steamed dumplings. Unfortunately, the late sunsets have thrown off my sense of restaurant opening hours. We got off the mountain at about 10pm, but everyone had closed up at 9-- I think it's silly that a restaruant could close for dinner while the sun is still up! Instead, we ate salami and instant noodles back at the hotel. Life goes on in the third world.

Yesterday, I finally got on a horse. The trip was set up by Marc, the British owner of the Fairfield Bakery, Cafe and Guesthouse. The Fairfield is the only western establishment in Tsetserleg, and this serves as a haven for expats and travelers looking for a real cup of coffee and a sandwich. It says a lot about the variety of food in Mongolia when British cuisine is sought after as a rare gourmet meal.

Anyway, Mark has an agreement with a nice local horse-raising family, headed by one of the brothers, Ghazghan. His name was not pronouncable, so I dubbed him Gaspar. We spent 6 hours with him and his horses, riding from his ger back into Tsetserleg, about 12km total. The ride was fantastic. My horse, who I named El Guapo, was very cooperative and always eager to run. On several occasions, I got her up to a blissfull gallop across the grassy plains. At one point, we came upon a group of Mongolians on their race horses who were practcing for the Nadaam festival competitions. They were racing at top speed through the valley floor and my horse caught the sprit and we flew together for a magic moment before I turned her around and caught up with the group.

When we weren't racing around the steppes, we liesurely rode through serene streamside glades with short wildflowered grass and shady happy trees. I could have spent days in those meadows, which if you hadn't known better, would have seemed to have been hand designed and manicured. Magical.

We rode back into town tired, saddle sore and starving. I was really ready to finally sit down for a heaping pile of buuz only to be thwarted again by the scheduled power outage that had the whole town in a blackout. At least the restaurant at our hotel had a gas burner and served some tasty soup (but couldn't make a pot of tea for some reason). After dinner, we sat in our hotel rooms snacking, playing cards, drinking vodka and watching the tremendous rainstorm flood the muddy streets.

Was supposed to meet a local woman today for a Mongolian language lesson at 10am today- an hour for $3, why not. She never showed up, which was fine because after the horse trip and a very late night, I wasn't feeling all that internationally curious. All the better to get some writing done.

To the lake and back, part 1

Arrived at Tsagaan Nuur to find that Хишгээ wasn't there, he'd gone off for a few days to the city. As it turns out, actually, there's not much at the Great White Lake except for a few simple ger camps.

The guy who ran our camp seemed nice enough, and the food and ger furnishings were above par. The lake is lovely and we spent three days there.

If you remember, the plan was to meet Хишгээ, get in with his horse operation and learn all about horsemanship. That idea quickly fell apart. Our host could arrange for horses for a several day trip, but there was practically no English to be had at the lake.

The four of us who had wanted to stay at the lake decided to spend a few days there and then head back to Tsetserleg instead (the comfy mountain town we were in a few days ago). Since the other two had wanted to go back to UB, we decided to have our driver change the itinerary and return to UB via Tsetserleg instead of Ogii Lake. Based on our agreement with Bobby (our tour organizer) we were supposed to be able to change our plans at will (so long as we agreed to pay for any extra days or petrol). Someone forgot to tell this to our driver, Baatar.

He steadfastly refused to return via Tsetserleg. He actually didn't even know that we were scheduled to spend 2 nights at Tsagaan Nuur. He refused to amend the schedule in any way. Saturday morning, we spent about an hour arguing with him and our ger host-- they both insisted that the road to Tsetserleg was washed out by last nights heavy rains and that the town was completely inaccessible--- for another week.

Suspicious, Jen and I decided to spend the afternoon walking around the other ger camps by the lake. At the first camp, we met a very nice Mongolian family who assured us that they could take us that day or any of the next to Tsetserleg for a reasonable fee, the road was fine. The wife spoke excellent Russian, which made the discussion quite a bit easier.

Walking away, we met a group of Mongolian youths in a swanky Mitsubishi 4wd van who no only told us (using gestures and since words from my phrasebook) that the road was good, but they could take us the next day for 50,000 togrog (about $42), a good deal. We told them that they should come by at 9am the next morning and if we wanted to go with them, we would go then. They agreed and we walked on.

At the next camp, we met two French couples who were traveling together with a personal chef and a guide/interpreter. When I introduced us in French, they invited us into their ger for some hot tea and fresh biscuits. Jen sat there in shock as we carried on a fairly easy and interesting conversation in French for about a half hour. Our hosts were very gracious and patient with my small vocabulary- staying in French but dropping a few English words here and there to help me out. By the time we left, their guide had assured us that there was no problem with the road and I had an offer to meet the couples at their homes in Toulouse if I ever pass through that way-- et pourquoi pas?

Lastly, we found a group of Dutch travelers camped out with their guide along the lakeshore. Again, the story was the same- indeed they were leaving the next day themselves for Tsetserleg in their (alas) fully loaded vans.

Jen and I walked back, trying to piece together the motivations for the deception. It was clear that our host wanted us to stay and spend money at his camp and on his horses, but why our driver was going along with it made no sense when we considered that he would likely be fired when word got back to Bobby.

In the end, we decided to take the Mongolians up on their offer of a ride and we spoke with them to confirm. A slightly English speaking girl had turned up in their entourage and she told us that they would absolutely, definitely be there at 9am margaash (tomorrow).

That night, Isabel, Ken, Elin and I decided to take our tents and gear up for a little backpack trip to the top of the ridge. We walked up there for about an hour, picked a camp with a view of the lake and the sunset and sat outside. The sun went down around 10:30 and there was still light in the sky well past midnight. It was around then that we saw the UFO.

To be continued. . .

Mongol Quiz

Real quick, here's the long awaited Mongol Quiz:

What common courtesy is inexpressible in Mongol?

Good luck.

Big Yak Attack

Out of the Gobi and into the wooded grassy steppes. Amazing vastness everywhere, but it's good to have a hint of civilization here in Tsetserleng.

This is definitely the nicest town I've found in Mongolia so far, up in the hills with more trees than dust. If I were to settle here, it would be in Tsetserleng. Hmm, hard to write, I'm a bit shellshocked and a bit hyper from an overdose of caffiene. Lunch was at the only "western" style restaurant for hundreds of Kms, Fairfield, a charming cafe owned by an expat British couple. Cold Coca-Cola a real lattes lead to a bit of a binge. 7 days of rice filled dumplings, water and fermented mare's milk will do that to you...

Despite the jitters, I'm fine: happy and healthy and looking forward to the next leg. We arrive at Tsagaan Nuur (the Great White Lake) tomorrow. That's where I hope to hook up with the horsey dude to find out my equine destiny. I'm feeling confident that I'll be able to find a niche there for a little while. Probably no internet access, so you know the drill.

Yesterday we were invited into a family's ger to share in their homemade cheese and the national drink araig (pronounced air-ak). It's served by the bowlfull, with about the same alcohol content of beer. It tastes like sour alcoholic yoghurty liquid cheese. It tastes better than it sounds. While we entertained our guests with digital cameras and Jen's guitar playing, I downed a few bowls-- which was better than our driver who downed about five. After we left, and after about 20 minutes of sprited driving, he pulled over by an idyllic mountain stream and promptly lay down. We used that opportunity to make our lunch for the day.

Last night was solstice, we celebrated by buying a tasty bottle of $2 vodka and dowining it at sunset with another group of 4 dudes who were staying at the same guest house as us.

Time to set up the Mongol Quiz.

Three Sheeps to the Wind

Day 3 in the Gobi Desert finds our team in the dusty outpost town of Dalanzagad, about 500k south of Ulaan Baatar. The past few days have been incredible, some of the most affecting of my trip. The desert is boundless and empty and hypnotic. Past few nights have been spent with Vodka straight from the bottle, watching the shooting stars and satellites spin overhead.

Last night, we stayed with a family in their guest ger. Sunset was spent practicing English with our host, Nanona, and playing basketball with her 10 year old nephew. Besides the family's four gers, there was no other civilization in sight.

The locals are universally interested in my hairy arms.

Yesterday, while we stopped for lunch, another 4WD stopped beside us and disgourged two older Mongolian men who stopped to meet us. We invited them to join us and offered our food and water. They also spoke Russian! Before long, we were chatting in simple sentences-- my first actual practice and it worked great. The rest of my team just watched on in curiosity as we babbled back and forth in Russian. They passed out cigarettes and I passed out the vokda and we spent an hour in the afternoon shade of the truck making friends and getting tanked.

Just had a shower at the public bath house and we popped in to the rudimenary internet center. Have to get back to tonight's ger now, our hosts are making us dinner. Last night was homemade noodles and potatoes with mutton. Yummy!

Gobi bound, don't wait up

Ahh, what a difference some good sleep makes. I'm tired as a write this, but the good kind of tired that comes with a long day of accomplishment.

First, I haven't forgotten about Bangkok. Stuff has moved so quickly that I haven't had time to write it up. I'm going to save those stories for later, when my photos are uploaded and commented, since I pretty much captured the entire trip with pics. They'll be up in a bit, but it might take a while because:

I'm headed out of civilization for a while. The team I was talking to yesterday and I have reached an agreement for a 4wd trip to the countryside. Isabella, Elin, Jennifer, Ken, Gail and I have booked a 10 day tour into the Gobi desert. We have a native driver who will take us about, spending most nights with local families in their ger (yurt) camps. The situation is very above board, the arrangements are made through Bobby, who runs the guesthouse with her husband Kim. They organize several of these trips each week and have their own trusted staff of drivers on contract. In addition, they have scouted out the families and locations in which we'll be staying and can vouch for our safety and customary comfort.

Most trips end back here in Ulaan Baatar, but we've opted to end the trip in an area called the Great White Lake, several hundred kilometers west of here. Most of the other travellers on the trip are independent minded like me and didn't want to just "ride around in a car for 16 days," so we've decided to split up at White Lake, thus getting a trip through the Gobi and transportation to a good remote staging area. For me, Bobby told me about a fellow named Хишгээ (Khishgee) who runs a horse tour company out at White Lake. Apparently he and his staff speak excellent English and it should be possible for me to spend some time with him learning about the art of horsemanship, from riding the animals properly to taking care of them. Like Airlie Beach and sailing, this sounds like a unique opportunity to take advantage of the local scenery and expertise.

Of course, I've never ridden a horse for more than a day before, I might find that I don't have an appetite for it after all. No problem, there's lots of hiking and other things to be done out there. When I'm all done, I can get a ride back to UB without too much trouble.

So, here's where it gets interesting. There's internet out there, but it's unreliable and sporadic. White Lakes probably doesn't have any and I might stay there for over a week. The town near it, Tsetserleg has internet and phone service, so I should be able to provide an update in about 10 days when we arrive there. I'll hopefully know more about my plans at White Lakes by then, too. If I do decide to stay for a while in White Lakes, a periodic trip back to Tsestserleg should be possible, but I'm not sure yet.

The short of it is that I'm going to be out of contact for a while. Please don't worry about me, there's nothing dangerous out there and I'll have a good driver and friends along for the next 10 day stint. It's possible that I'll make it to Tsetserleg and White Lakes and stay a while longer and still be unable to send a message home, so don't be suprised if I don't update in 10 days. If there is an emergency, I can best be contacted through the UB Guesthouse in Ulaan Baatar. Their website has their phone number: www.ubguest.com.

So that's it. I'm heading out. I can't wait to see the night sky away from the city. I'll post again as soon as possible, maybe I can send a postcard via carrier yak.

Mongolia at last. Now I sleep.

Very overwhelmed and spun out by travel snafus. Flight from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar was supposed to leave yesterday morning at 9am. I would get in at noon. Instead, flight was delayed until midnight last night. Air China was nice enough to put us in a hotel to clean up and relax and have free meals. Spent the time with a very interesting group of international travellers, all headed to UB for reasons as various as architechtural heritage preservation to Christian missionary work to the USA National College men's wrestling team. Interesting but not very restful. Finally got in last night around 2am. Hostel is cramped but clean and very friendly. Slept about 4 hours before the hubub woke me up. Seems like everyone is trying to team up into groups of 5 ot 6 to hire a Jeep and a guide to take a 10-20 day trip throughout the country. I've been propositioned to join a group headed out tomorrow. I'm so tired I can't think straight, and I'm not sure if this is the way I want to travel. I see many up and downsides and still need to consider other options. If I don't go with this team, there's people coming and going every day that I could recruit later.

I'm going to try to make it to about 9pm tonight, then it's ambien and hopefully the sleep I need to get back to usefulness. It's been 48 hours since I've had a proper rest. I'm optimistic, but this isn't the way I wanted to arrive. Blah.

Bang-rocks!

Hey All,

No need to worry, everything is fine. Great even, I just haven't had much time to sit in front of the PC and write it all up-- and who could blame me for preferring to explore this fascinating city instead of sitting inside the internet cafe. Lots of great stories after two days jaunting. All is happy and healthy.

Pics and stories soon.

Back to the city.

Bangkok

Slept the whole way on the flight, very nice. Shared a cab with an English traveler chick to the guest house, which is very clean and comfortable, if a bit sterile. Still, having just arrived, I'll take sterile over dissapointingly shabby for now. I have a private room with a huge bed and an ensuite shower with hot water.

9:30am here and I'm feeling fresh and a bit hungry. Time to go find some tasty street food. On the list today is to get a haircut, explore the local markets and book a massage for tomorrow. I also have to break in my new journal by finding an interesting place to sit for a while.

BK has an odd charm to it, from what I've seen so far. Bustling, but cozier than Seoul, HK or Shengzen.

Poshity posh posh

Ahh, I love flying business class. I love it more when it's called "Royal Executive Silk Class". I got to check in ahead of about 150 people on line earlier. I also get to chill out here in the Thai Airways Executive lounge, eating gourmet snacks and boozing it up on nice wine and liquor. I also get free internet access with which to gloat about it all.

Oh yeah, and I'm getting to sit on THE UPPER DECK of the 747. I never dreamed that I would one day sit on the upper deck. My imagination runs wild picturing the scene that awaits me as I ascend those stairs.... leather brass tacked chairs, cigars, cute stewardesses pouring wine and giving foot massages, your choice of million dollar business deals, a spitting-cherub fountain, a sushi boat aquaduct bringing fresh ngiri at regular intervals, palm trees, fruity drinks served in pineapples, sheepskin rugs and a crackling fire. . .

Whoa! Gotta go, they just broke out the cocaine!

Ocker Quiz Conclusion

Hey Gang,

These are my last hours in Australia, I've got everything set up. So before I leave for the airport, I thought I would finish off the Ocker Quiz.

The last question asked: What is unique about the Australian Coat of Arms?

Many of you grazed the answer, but no one got it completely correct. You were on the right track if you mentioned the Emu and Roo, but the real meat of the question lies in the uniqueness of those particular animals appearing on a coat of arms. Indeed, you'd need to be familiar with Australian dietary habits and have a hunch about those of the rest of the world in relation to their own coats of arms.

Indeed, the full answer that we were looking for is:

Australia is the only country that habitually eats the animals depicted on its coat of arms.

In fact, people have been known to throw "Coat of Arms" dinner parties featuring Emu and Kangaroo.

So how shall I award the points?

Dad: Hmm. Not even close. Although I'm glad to see that you decided to keep the Z and forget about the TT. 3 points.

Jessie: Large folded passages. . . covered in mucus no doubt! The yabbos eat the emus, they don't fornicate with their orifices. That's what all the sheep are for. Bad girl. 3.5 points.

Lizzle: see above explanation. 4 points for being on the right track

gnuheller: interesting tidbit, and the right track. 4.5 points

uslennar: thank you for pointing out the gross misuse of wikipedia and google. On the other hand, you obviously have never been to Melbourne in June. I'm wishing I had a down insulated Gore-tex Coat of Arms sometimes. 4 points

mom: The kiddies were right about the emu and roo--- I wish I could be there to tell them that they taste delicious. I'd send a roo home for the landing. Wouldn't Buddy look cute with his head sticking out of the pouch? 4.5 points

Velma: vegetarian animals on the coat of arms. Very insightful. How many carnivores do humans eat anyway? Crocs, I guess, but that's very Aussie, too. So maddeningly close. Half a cigar! 5 points.

Okay!

Here's the final standings for the Ocker Quiz:

Velma 11.5
gnuheller 11.1
Dad 9
Lenny 9
Mom 8.5
Lizzle 7.5
Karl 6.4
Matt 5.5
Jessie 4.5
Steve 3
Jason 3
Rich 1
Mark 1
Guru 1
Mike -3

So Velma's in the top spot as the Ocker Quiz concludes. But we're not done!

Gird thyself for The Mongol Quiz shown here:

All very sudden

With my flights all sorted out, my time in Australia is rapidly coming to a close. It's caught me off guard as I'm suddenly nostalgic for all the little bits that I've been assimilating and taking for granted. I've become quite at home here, which while it's sad to go, is all the more reason to hit the road again.

So Monday morning, I schlepped up to the airport to finish my flight bookings. I'm using my Star Alliance miles to get to Beijing on Thai Airways and then flying on Air China to Ulaan Bataar. There were no eligible flights for coach seats on my way to Beijing until the end of the month, so I got business class (actually known as "Royal Silk Class" !!) instead for only 25,000 miles more. Bargain.

As an unexpected bonus, my flight to Beijing has a stopover in Bangkok, which I was able to extend for a few nights, so I'll actually get to punch my passport in Thailand. I don't know what I'll accomplish in Bangkok in such a short time, but I'm happy for the opportunity.

Here's my official flight information:

June 8 Thai Airways flight 994 departs MEL at 00:15, arrives BKK at 06:35

June 12 Thai Airways flight 674 departs BKK at 00:35, arrives PEK at 06:15

June 12 Air China flight 901 departs PEK at 08:50, arrives ULN at 12:35

I'm off to book my room in Ulaan Bataar, while I do that, check out the pictures from my travels around Victoria.

The Van is Dead, Long Live the Yak!

Happy times. Sold the van today. Got $4000 for it, which is $1 more than I paid for it. After my repair and maintainance costs of about $1300, it would up costing me about $325 per month. Not a bad deal compared to renting or bussing it.

So I'm here at the internet cafe ready to leave Australia, just a soon as I can get a flight. Ulan Baator, here I come.