One Year Away

Joseph

We woke up but did not particularly look forward to a full day in the Chinese/Mongolian border town of Erenhot (also know as Erlian, depending on what sign you read).

As we went through the town it became obvious that two Westerners walking about were a bit of a novelty in Erlian.  For the first time since arriving in China, we had a lot of people staring and pointing at us.  One mother even lifted her young daughter over a hedge so she could see us walk by.

To kill some time we wandered over to the Erlian Dinosaur Museum.  Mongolia
(the country) and Inner Mongolia (the Chinese state) have both had dinosaur fossil discoveries.  Since this is the part of the world where some of the great dinosaur finds have been made we figured it had to be worth a shot going to the museum  It turned out to be quite small and disappointing, with only one small room and two recreated dinosaur skeletons.  We asked another visitor to take a photo of us with the skeletons. He did and then gestured to us.  I figured that he wanted us to take a picture of him with the dinosaur.  But in fact he wanted to have his photo taken with us.  Maybe he thought we were visiting paleontologists, I don’t know.

For dinner we went to a nice looking restaurant on the main street.  They had no English menu so we pulled out our Chinese dictionary and pointed to the words for “chicken”, “vegetable” and “rice”.  After several attempts we got everything we wanted and it turned out to be a delicious meal.

The next day the train station was a chaotic collection of people traveling to Mongolia.  Most of the Mongolian passengers were transporting several boxes of fruit across the border; fresh fruit are more expensive and harder to get in Mongolia.  This made for a  packed train as every available storage space was crammed with boxes.

Since it was an overnight train we had a sleeper cabin with 4 beds.  We lucked out and ended up with  two great roommates. Bold, a Mongolian multimedia programmer who works for the second largest multimedia studio in Mongolia,
taught us some Mongolian words and gave us some valuable tips.  Ian, a friendly and well-traveled backpacker from Australia, ended up staying at the same hostel as us and will be joining us on a tour to the Gobi desert.   

The rest of the journey was thankfully without incident and the train arrived into Ulaanbaatar at 11 AM on Tuesday.  Total time from Beijing to UB: 68.5 hours.  We’re going to see if we can catch a flight back.

Penny

At our hostel in Beijing, we organized our trip to Ulan Bator (UB).  We first tried to get onto the international direct train from Beijing to UB but that train was full.  Instead of waiting 4 days for the next train, we decided to take the substantially longer more tedious overnight bus and then train option.  The organizer did try to persuade us to take the Tuesday train (24 hours) but we did not listen and reserved the 48 hour journey.

It all started off just fine.  We were picked up at the hostel at 2:30pm as promised and driven to the bus station.  Our driver spoke enough English and made sure that we knew exactly what bus to get on and what our seats were.  We arrived at the station 2 hours ahead of the 5:30pm scheduled departure time so we waited in the station. 

When the time arrived to depart, we hopped onto the bus and realized that the overnight bus was a true sleeper bus (i.e. there are no seats only 3 rows of small and narrow bunk beds).  The beds were tiny and not made for anyone over 5’5”.  Also, there was no place to store any carry-ons.  All had to be stored in the luggage compartments (which reeked of fish) or would have to be put somewhere on your tiny bed.  The only storage compartment that was available on board was for your shoes which you had to take off as you entered the bus.  Unfortunately, that meant that the bus also reeked of smelly feet!

Finally, we get settled in and the bus departed the station.  At that moment, the TV screens on the bus start playing a movie in Chinese… 

Leaving Beijing was long as there was tons of traffic.  But when we got outside the city, there were only buses and very large old trucks with very unsecured loads on the road. Driving in China is always an adventure and I think should be considered an extreme sport!

The bus ride did offer us one exceptional experience… As we drove in the darkness about 2 hours north of Beijing, we noticed the Great Wall.  It was beautifully lit up including many of the watch towers.  Cannot wait to go walk the Wall once we are back in China.

At about 9pm, the bus pulled into a rest-stop!  We were one of 7 buses there and I quickly realized that we had the ‘higher’ class sleeper bus with A/C and where smoking was only allowed at the front with the drivers (thank God!).  We got off the bus and headed for the ‘restaurant’ that was there.  What a total dump!  We purchased a 7Up and a bag of really bad chips and sat down to have a quick bite.  It was difficult to eat as many of the restaurant patrons were hocking up phlegm and spitting it on the restaurant floor!

Realizing that there would be few stops on the road, I decided to use the bathroom!  I saw this white brick building with 2 Chinese symbols on either side and with men heading in from the left and women from the right.  As I walked behind the front wall I came in direct sight of 5 women squatting over a trough one beside another.  No doors, no separators!  That is when I turned around and walked back to the restaurant.  I guess that I was ready for the squatting but the total lack of personal privacy and space was too much for me.  As we waited for the bus to start loading passengers again, I realized that I would not be able to last the entire trip without a bathroom break…  I grabbed the toilet paper and all the courage I could muster and headed back to the bathroom pits.  I saw that no one else was there, so I held my breath, did not look down and did what needed to be done (and as quickly as possible)!

Back at the bus, Joe handed me the Purell and gave me a congratulatory kiss.  He
was so proud of me!

Back on the smelly bus, Joe and I read some more and tried to get some sleep.  We finally arrived at the border town of Erenhot at 4:40am (ahead of schedule by 50 minutes).  As we disembarked in the total darkness, everyone was trying to give us a ride and telling us that the boarder was closed today (Sunday, Oct 1).  We knew that we would be picked up by some guy called Zhang so we waited alone.  It was scary for about 2 minutes until Zhang showed up!  We hopped into his van and he started driving.  His English was not great but enough for us to understand.  As we drove, he let us know that it was true that the boarder was closed (for China’s Birthday according to him) and that we would have to spend the night in a hotel in Erenhot.  With no other choice we checked into what looked like a hotel of some sort.  The total cost of our stay was about C$6.  I guess that without a fully functional toilet and no hot water, C$6 is the most you could charge.  The picture to the right is the view to the hotel coutyard; it’s some kind of dump/recycling operation.

Joseph

On our last night in Beijing before heading to Mongolia we decided to treat ourselves to a Peking Duck dinner.  Beijing cuisine is one of the four main styles of Chinese cooking and roast duck is the signature dish.  It was considered so highly that it used to be served only to the emperor and his family.  There are now many restaurants in the city that serve this dish but there is one place with two locations near Tienanmen Square that is well regarded and has an English menu. 

When we reached the restaurant we could see through the window that it was quite crowded.  Before we even stepped foot inside a woman of about 30 years old wearing a black suit and name tag approached us.  “Restaurant full now.  You go other location. I show you.”  We had a map with us that showed the second location so knew about where it was.  She proceeded to lead us through a series of small alleys with tiny restaurants and people eating and drinking outdoors.  I figured she was taking us along a short cut by avoiding the main street.  Then inside the maze of small alleys she took a right turn where she clearly had to go left if we were going to the restaurant she claimed to represent.  “I think we’re going the wrong way.” I said to her, but she had popped into a restaurant that was completely empty except for one table.  “Here it is!”, she said triumphantly.  Penny and I looked at each other and knew we’d been had. 

“This is not the restaurant you said you were taking us to.” She looked down at the floor like a kid caught doing something bad.  “I’m disappointed.  We’re leaving.” I said. 

We went to the second location on the map and knew we were in the right place.  The restaurant was enormous and the staff to customer ratio seemed about 1:1.

We ordered the whole duck, a side of vegetables and a giant Chinese beer.  The duck was individually numbered since they began selling roast duck in 1864.  It
wheeled out on a cart and a carver begins to work on it.  First, a small plate of crispy bite sized pieces of skin are served.  Then two plates of bite sized morsels of duck meat with fat and skin are produced by the carver.  The server showed us how to assemble the main course; take the rice wrapper, add some pieces of the duck with fat and skin attached, add a few scallions and sauce, wrap and eat.  The wraps were absolutely delicious.  The flavours of the duck, fat, skin, scallions and sauce marry perfectly.  The texture of the soft wrap and meat with the crispy skin made every bite satisfying.  Last they served us a small bowl of bland duck broth which we skipped to save space for
more wraps.  Sadly, despite our best attempts we weren’t able to finish the whole duck. 

I think I’m addicted now.  I literally can’t wait till we’re back in Beijing to eat some more roast duck.  The next day we were at a shop buying some water and snacks for the bus ride to border.  I bought a bag of Lay’s chips; Beijing Roast Duck flavour.  Yup, I’m officially an addict. 

Joseph

Hi everyone!  In order to be outside of China during the national holiday week that begins tomorrow, we are going to Mongolia.  Chinese tourist sites become extremely crowded during this week and the prices all increase.  Also, we really want to go to Mongolia, so we’ve booked our passage.

We’ll be spending the next 48 hours in an overnight bus to the border then an overnight train ("hard sleeper") to Ulan Bator.  So we’ll be out of touch completely.  We’ll do our best to update when we reach our guesthouse in UB.  Wish us luck! 

Joseph

First thing we had to do in the morning of our first day in China was go to the Mongolian embassy to apply for a visa.  The Mongolian embassy is in embassy row, an area just off the center of downtown Beijing.  Since our bodies are still on West Coast time it was easy for us to get up early and walk over.  We arrived just before 10 AM and saw the sign by the door that advertised their hours; 9 AM – 11 AM.    We raced to fill out the paperwork and glue our passport photo onto the application only to be told that we had to pay for the visas upon applying not when we picked them up.  That meant we had to literally run to the bank, withdraw a large stack of yuan and run back to the embassy in order to get our application in on time.

Our hostel is in a  hutong, a narrow alleyway of ramshackle one-storey buildings.  These charming old sections of Beijing are where about a quarter of Bejing’s residents still live.  Some of them are being preserved but whole sections of them are apparently being bulldozed to make way for apartment blocks.  This picture to the right is the street our hotel is on.

With the visa application done and cash in our pockets we set off to find breakfast near Shijia hutong.  The vendor we chose had a window opening on to the street and sold an assortment of things; we chose a thin pancake with egg and scallion on top, and a sort of fried sandwich with some sort of meat inside (we couldn’t tell what it was).  That and two bottles of water set us back 6 yuan or about $0.90 CAD.  The breakfast was great but a bit greasy.

With our bellies full we decided to go to Pearl Market.  This 7 storey building is a well known market with a seafood market in the first floor and a massive pearl market on the top floors.  It is also the best place to get fake North Face jackets and fleeces.  Although the weather here is still quite warm, about 25 C, we figure it will be a lot colder in Mongolia and wanted to pick up a windbreaker fleece.  The market clearly caters to foreigners and the vendors all spoke rudimentary English.  After much haggling I got the jacket and 2 t-shirts for about $85.  I think I could have held out for a better price though.  Penny bought herself a pair of pearl earrings for $5 after some halfhearted haggling.

On the way out I saw an item that my brothers are selling in Canada and being curious as to how much they would cost in China I approached the booth.  As soon as she saw me the 4 and a half foot tall Chinese sales lady pounced on me and literally grabbed me arm in a vise-like grip. 

Me: "I’m curious how much these belts are?"
Saleslady: "You buy two and is 210 yuan."
Me:  "That’s too much.  How about 105 yuan for both?"
Saleslady: (crying in pain) "How can you say this price?!  Too low, too low!"
Me:  (trying to break free of her grip, and failing) "Ahhh, well, it’s not for me."
Saleslady: (pins my arm to her with her elbow she can type the number 150 on a calculator) "This much I do for you because you are a nice guy."
Me:  (still trying to escape, but she’s very strong for her size) "Still too expensive."
Saleslady: "OK, you give me 110 yuan."
Me: (getting worried because I have no intention of actually buying the items.  I just wanted to see how much they were to tell my brothers.)  "Actually, I should call my brother and ask him first.  Bye, I might come back later."
Saleslady: (not even considering letting go of me): "No, why?!!" (Another cry of pain)
Me:  (Manage to slip free with a quick pull of my arm.  I join Penny who’s been laughing from outside the booth.)
Saleslady:  "OK, your price!  105 yuan, come back!"

After the exhaustion of the market we decided to go to the Temple of Heaven park next door to relax.  When we got there we realized it’s less park and more temple.  Here is a 360 degree video of what we saw: 

We wandered around and saw some beautiful temples and squares where the emperors would perform ceremonies to ensure good harvests.

This city is famous for having a lot of bikes.  There are some streets where the bike lanes are actually wider than the car lanes.  This is a shot of people biking during the evening rush hour.