Mongolia received us with a smile! :)

We feel dusty but great. We have just spent 3,5 days at our guest family in Ulan Bator, and lived together with them in a Ger (Yurt); a wooden-framed portable, originally nomadic tent. And its been wonderful. We ate good food, spent lots of time with the family (and their four really talented! children). It was difficult to part from them this morning, but we will be going on a tour to the Gobi desert tomorrow.

The ride here was another adventure, and we just have to tell you a little about 2 things: the Russian post and the border passage. Right before we left Irkutsk, we wanted to send home some gifts/souvenirs. So we went into the post office. No English, and the point-it book didn't work either. With no cardboard boxes in sight, we asked for an envelope, thinking this might be the cheapest solution. So we prepared everything, wrote the address of our Moscow friends as return address, glued it together and .... we told to go outside! I stayed with the backpacks, thinking that Jan only has to put it into the mailbox. Jan came back within 2 minutes, unable to find a mailbox or a door leading to something that would make sense. The lady of the post finally went out with him to show where, leaving me (mar) waiting with the luggage. Waiting....waiting...waiting.... for 10 minutes (ok, he probably needed to go and get money)....for 15 minutes... (ok this is taking long...)... for 25  minutes..(what could have happened???).... 30 minutes.... starting to panic :S. Ok... the story is... after me (jan) finding the parceloffice which was in a pitchblack hole/entrance I just thought I have to pay and thats it... BUT not in Russia :D. First I had to fill out the customs declaration... ok then when the lady refused it because the sender adress was not in irkutsk but in moscow it was not ok. It was also not ok that it was written in english (normal letters) not in cyrillic, that the weight of the content was not correctly weighted on the gram, as well the package was sealed already and the customs form was not filled out 3 times!!!!! so asking me to fill out the form again (3 times!!!) she actually cut the package open took everything out, inspected it, weighted it (in front of everyone - privacy of letters???!) and actually took the wrapping of the articles. Because??? ... well after searching 5 minutes for an english translation, telling me that no tea, documents, gold,.... and newspaper!!!!!!!!!!!! are allowed to be sent outside the country (KGB, Stasi, Gestapo, where are we?!?). so she wrapped it in neutral paper, got a new plastic bag tied everything together with a ribbon and stuck in inside. Then another ribbon on the outside (after I had to fill the letter out again) WITHOUT!! glueing it together, so that the letter actually is sealed and nothing can fall out!! But arguieng, pointing on it,... sign language, body language and slowly getting an angry voice she refused to close - I think she tried to say it cant be closed for further KGB or Gestapo inspection!!!! In the end i had to pay about 5 euros for the parcel again for the plasticenvelope (which she cut!!!) and spending about 57 minutes in there I am still not sure if this parcel ever will reach its aim or at least with any content..............:)) We hope so!!! Long story another experience richer and a few nerves poorer we almost had to run for the train to ulaanbaatar :))

The border control was another fun element of the journey. The whole train neat and clean, except for.... our wagon! :) A rusty old thing with "dump"  toilets going onto the track. Great fun! But nice people in the train, so we managed! Arriving in Naushki, the Russian side of the border, the train stops and we were told to go outside and come back after 2 hours. Gave us the chance to fill up some sweet-reserves at the local market and eat some Borscht (beetrout soup). Coming back to the platform, nothing except our wagon was left.... no locomotive, no other wagons. Quite a strange sight!!! And then passport control came.... once.....twice!!! With a " I take passports now, ok?" (which was more of an announcement than a question!) the severe looking lady left, not to return for the next 1,5 hours! In the meantime our coupe was strip-searched by a female military officer, who had a real good laugh about the big box of bananas that the train-hostesses had put under our bed and part of the train carpet that was on the top compartment of our luggage storage within the coupe. " Not ours"  didnt really sound convincing, but she could smile at least. Then after 3,5-4 hours, we finally get our passports back, to drive to the border, with an amazing speed of around 20 km/h. At the border we had to fill out the customs declaration forms (you think they believe we really only have 50 dollars with us?) that we are supposed to keep with us for the rest of our time in Mongolia. Then 10 minutes later in Cyx-Bator, the same procedure starts, this time with severe looking Mongolians in uniform. We did not dare to take pictures, you dont want to risk jailtime for that! The highly-decorated uniformed man even wanted us to stand up straight to check the height and repeat our names (no smiling here!!!). The compartment-search was this time accompanied by dogs, and after another 3 hours of sitting locked in the coupe without the possibility to go out or to the toilet, our nerves were kind of through with the whole thing. With finally our passports back, we could get some sleep before arriving to Ulan Bator early in the morning. Really strange going from Irkutsk time (GMT +8) to Moscow time in the train (GMT +3) then to Ulan Bator (GMT +7), although we are driving eastwards! By the way, the banana-mystery was never solved, we still don't know who's it was!

In Ulan Bator we realised we are really in Asia. Although we can now decipher the cyrillic letters, it doesnt help as the language is completely different. Even if you would be able to read subtitles, there's no making sense of it. We wanted to book a tour for the time after we stayed with our guestfamily. Three tourist infos with no info later and a few guesthouses we still didnt have a tour booked. Apparently people (tourists) change their mind too often, so if you don't show up personally to book a tour for the next day, they most likely don't trust you!

We then applied for a Chinese Visa here at the embassy, which had some challenges as we needed an invitation. A helpful Belgian guy was a friend in need and hopefully ew can pick up the Visa on the 10th of October. We will write more about China later, for reasons we don't need to mention here.

So quite exhausted and at the end of our nerves, we spent the rest of our time doing food shopping (German prices, meaning relatively expensive! and hundreds of German imported brands. Strange to see Schokolinsen and Ja! toilet paper here....) and we took some time to sit at the main square, looking at people, before meeting our guest family. But it is more people looking at us than the other way around. We are a " surprise"  as they call it here. Jan is 2 heads bigger than most of them, and we walk around with a huge backpack that could fit 2 Mongolian children in. :-) its fun and great to see that we at least make people smile. You get a much warmer feeling from it! Mongolia received us with a smile!

Our guest family lives relatively close to the center (you can see it from the Ger), but still half an hour to 1 hour drive by buss, depending on the traffic. Traffic here is insane. Even though it is regulated (nr 1 license plate isn't allowed ot drive on Monday and so on...) it is simply crazy. Driving licenses come as an addition on a package of washing powder we think. Ulan Bator is quite big (1,2 million, but growing every day!!) but as most of it is composed by Ger districts, it stretches very long. From the hill where we stayed, you could see other Gers and houses for miles. 

And the busses are packed!!! more packed than the streets! Crammed in between the locals we arrived at the Ger district. Without wanting to be offensive or negative, some of you might think twice about living here. Those that are comfortable at home knowing for example European clean water and rubbish standards might gasp for a while. There is no running water (they have to get water by wheelbarrow and pay for 1 l  1 Tugrig and some of these waterstations are actually sponsored by the red cross, dutch government or others), pit toilets, and Gers usually have only a single room (ours for 8 people including us) and a cooking stove that is heated with cow dung in the middle, creating the sense of a penetrative campfire. It is impressive, and guess what....we loved being there. It felt peaceful, full of love, appreciation and dignity even though the circumstances are something you have to get used to as Europeans. We got straight away accepted as family, the sweet and beautiful kids climbing on us, playing for us traditional songs, dancing mongolian dances, smiling and everything was shared, food, house, computer, as well as knowledge, experiences and contacts!! Deeply impressed by the generosity of people who have financially less to offer but still give everything!!

We also had the huge luck to actually build another Ger and help to make the first one winterproof. So we went in the evening to disassemble the Ger (in 30 minutes!!) and bring to their place. The next two days we were busy evening out the ground to give the Ger a horizontal foundation. This was hard work as the ground was rocky, hard and gave us a hard time :) We felt like being in an American prison as you know from the movies. But we managed and actually build the Ger,which is actually like a tent with a wooden frame. You start with the door, then positioning the supporting column and unfolding the walls. After attaching everything together stiffening it up by using a rope around the walls and pulling it tight. Then, you put the sticks for the roof one by one and your frame is ready!! This then gets covered by a few layers of tissue (sheep felt and cotton mainly) depending on the season and personal preference. So without the earth-moving work we probably would have been done within an hour. Unfortunately the earth-moving took us a whole day.
The preparation was prolonged by the fact that the master of the house wanted to support the fundament by a few used tyres which he knew where to find. So an hour later arriving in the hills we caught ten used tyres from the rubbish filled "river" tied it to the wheelbarrow and humbled down the slope to dig them in  :). It was very hard work but fantastic to have the chance to build one ourselves and being able to give something back of all the hospitality we received!!! It was absolutely fabulous! 

On the last day it was actually snowing and in the morning the mountains were snowcovered and windy. The greatest effect of that was that the smog of burned cowshit, millions of unclean cars, russian trucks, the coal power plant in the middle of the city was washed down and the air was clear for a while. Amazing!! It is a merciless life they live here, hard work, tough conditions but definitely not less worth living then in our world. In fact we can learn from them what is important, what we need and what makes us happy. We are grateful for this experience and the time spent here in the outer skirts of Ulaanbaatar and hope to come back one day :). 

If you visit Mongolia go here, people will look at you like a white grizzly bear in the dark forrests of Alaska, but they are friendly, open, peaceful and positive!! And yes pickpocketing does happen here like in every crowded place and the fact that every robbery below 700 USD is not a crime here doesnt really help this issue, but in general these people here have a good heart!. Just because the outer skirts dont appear clean and organized (as they are not) does not mean they are different to us!!!!! We learnt a lot, and living with so much affection would help us in the "Western World" to live more peaceful and collaborative.

Thanks!!!

Just so you know: we now have 7 days of Gobi desert in front of us, with 7 people in a minivan. Don't count on inbetween contact, but hopefully on a lot of stories afterwards :-)