Goodnight Ceremonies

Not going out without a bang, I made it more Olympic event before the disappointing song and dance of the closing ceremonies. Men's mountain biking on Saturday morning was actually more like afternoon so I didn't have to get up that early. I headed out there after some noodles with John Jennison, my kind host, and his friend who was sad to leave his tickets to me so he could catch some track and field in the Bird's Nest that evening. During my 50 minute train ride out to the Western outskirts of town, I rocked out to a remixed War of the Worlds (summer mix series) and rolled up half an hour late but ready to watch some dirt get trampled by high speed bikers. I trekked through the park, pretty full of people and a few cheerleaders doing strange dances near the drink stalls, and finally found the steep section I had been encouraged to view from. I approached two guys wearing USA hats and slowly realized that they were mechanics for the US Olympic team. I lot of gear talk was swapped, and I listened in and picked out half the words, cheering for whoever rode by as they barrelled down a steep section halfway through the course on their fourth of seven laps. After following this more knowledgeable crew to a get a few more perspectives on the race, we discussed the performance of Adam, USA's no. 1 who didn't have a great race. Meanwhile I slowly realized that Mary, my other new friend, had actually placed 7th that morning in the women's race, and Mike, with the USA hat, was on the Olympic Team as an alternate - the couple was headed to Sydney in three days for another race and to check the area before the World Championship was held in Australia in 2009. They let me follow them around after the race ended, discussion which line was the best and actually sounding impressed with China's ability to throw together a startling challenging course in the middle of a park, with the help of some concrete for the looser areas and some logs to spice up the easier turns. I eventually turned down championship baseball tickets (Cuba v. N Korea) to go have a backstage beer with my new friends, eventually realizing that even though baseball bores me I should try to go - alas, the ticket was gone by then, and I strolled on to the unenterable Tiananmen Square, having exhausted my social skills and met some cool people as a consequence - I walked away from the backroom of the bike shop where the US team and friends were hanging out with my second Corona quenching my thirst.

Mountain Biking Turn, originally uploaded by wanders.

That night, I went out to the bar district, hoping to take advantage of the outgoing mood as the Olympics came to a close to meet a few different nationalities. I met some nice people from Greece, a few disappointingly lame Americans, one Lithuanian pentathlete, a guy on the Italian water polo team I had watched a few days earlier, and... I was waiting on some new German friends when I sat down to take a break at a french fry joint. The guys sitting there looked European so I struck up a conversation and lo and behold, I had found three Basques in the middle of Beijing. We immediately started yelling in Basque (they were even from Gipuzkoa, the same province where I had lived and started this journey) and the came with us to another bar. I was so psyched to have managed to find someone speaking every language I knew in the city that I ended up staying out til sunrise, standing on a rooftop bar as the sun started to light the cloudy sky.

Sunday, John invited me out to his friend's place to watch the closing ceremonies, have some food and meet a few kind foreigners - Robbie, from Dallas, ended up knowing some people in India I'm looking forward to contacting when I get there, and hosted a fine collection of interesting people to share the closing ceremonies with - plenty of insight into who was who and what meant what from ex-pats living in China. Monday, I said goodbye to the splendid new Beijing and to my wonderful host, who treated me to some Starbucks by his office on my last morning.

Goodbye Apple, originally uploaded by wanders.

I loaded up my new Chinese memory card with a few fine tunes from John's friend Trip, a Texan, meaning I would later rock out to some Pat Green, ran a few errands, and finally invested in second pair of pants. I made it to the train station just in time to purchase two Snickers bars, three Bananas, and 3 L of water for my 44 hour trip. I walked along counting train cars as directed, to the soft seater car - I didn't see a single foreigner, but was very ready to fall asleep to the sounds of Johnny Cash, who I had recently loaded onto my phone. "I'm gonna break my rusty cage and run..."

Splendid Olympic Games; Fascinating New Beijing

I made it China! They somehow quickly forgave me for arriving in Mongolia with a car and leaving without one - "Your car really broke down?" and a "Yes, it really did" later I was free of that snag - and we stepped off the train in a foreign land, I somehow raised in status immediately by speaking some of the local tongue and led our group of Beijing seeking foreigners around from train station to bus station. Our ride was decently comfortable - bunk beds!; a little surreal - we drove by a dinosaur sculptures in the middle of nowhere?; and slow - five to eight police checkpoints that each checked our passports and two of which had to go through our bags.

I stumbled around Beijing Saturday morning at 4:30 am, eventually calling my new friend John Jennison to help me find his apartment, which I was unlikely to be but in fact located around the corner from when I called. He rolled off to some Olympic tennis and some wrestling match, meanwhile I found some markets (wool sweater and new shades!), a replacement pocket dictionary, and a modern movie theater under a bar district I'd never seen - Beijing has changed. The city surprised me numerous times, differring immenseley from what I came to know just three years ago (a lifetime for this city) but proving very awe-inspiring with its new architecture and attitude. The streets are lined with volunteers (something like 100,000), including "Beijing Old Women Volunteers", every beggar and street pedlar has either been arrested or crammed into some tiny neighborhood I have yet to find, and foreigners pop up like corn kernels at the nearest cinema.

After using my passport to get internet access (freedom of information?), I contacted a few friends and somehow ended up getting into a beach volleyball match (China rocks US), diving (China takes #1 and #2), soccer (Argentina beats Brazil?), and just this morning water polo (Canada smokes China - finally) all in different venues.
The volleyball court was very pretty, though half the crowd left after China won, not sticking around to see Brazil versus Finland. The bikini toting cheerleaders did some funny dances, especially to the 90's mix of pop rock songs (Reel Big Fish?), inviting us to bring back the monkey and a few other simpler dances - China didn't allow cheerleaders til 8 years ago, and making up half of every cheerleading squad, they slow the pace down a bit. Diving was in the water cube, up in the roped off Olympic Green, where I got to see the Bird's Nest by moonlight and their garden, tower, pond, and a million things that I could not have imagined when I visited the site three years ago. My good friend Rob Struck helped me into both events, connected through Coca-Cola who even let him go on the clock to diving.

The soccer game was in the Worker's Stadium, a fun venue that seemed overly infatuated with the wave, and hosted some of the world's best soccer players between the two South American teams we watched with jaws dropped. Had a good night celebrating the game afterwards up around the stadium, meeting someone from an Olympic event and at least five different countries in every bar. Today's water polo was amazing - never seen that before - and after China was done losing, Italy and Australia took the stage only to give us an amazing show that made it past overtime to a shoot out, speakers blasting the Jaws theme between breaks.
Once you've got that ticket, doors open left and right, and you even get free subway passes all day just by flashing your that Olympic VIP pass at the stations. I've heard many stories about getting into stuff with enough sweet talking, but this guy got turned away at Club Bud, which was rumored to be housing Phelps after he broke the gold record - he wasn't there. I'm planning some more adventures still to come, sticking around til Monday to catch some night life and closing ceremonies with the crowds.

Fishing Not Flying Around

Now, much further ahead than I should be, I must recount the wanderings in Mongolia that lead me to this Olympic Paradise I now enjoy. Visa secured, well, receipt in my pocket, which assured me I would be welcome to pay $130 a few days later in return for my passport with its new stamp, I wandered out of the city to find some of the vast Mongolian steppes and mountains and rivers and streams I had driven through but not explored. Finally, after three hours wandering through town in failed attempts to catch the right bus, I arrived, via paved roads - surprise! - to a monastery south of town, carrying my backpack through at sunset and arriving atop the southern mountain just at dusk - I experienced the Buddhist flags and stone piles in the dark and then made my bed under a tree. I walked back to town the next morning, laughing about all the fuss over this visa - they really only wanted to see a few things, ticket in, ticket out, bank statement, letter of invitation from my friend, copy of his passport, copy of his lease, copy of my uncle's youngest daughter's catholic sunday school diploma. In town, I headed to the British pub, rumored to have some Mongol Ralliers, but not before a nap back at the guest house because my tree had been less than five star. I ran into a British chap who we had seen on the road about 1500 km back, arrived and alive and headed out that evening, securing my final picture for Chris, to prove I was still sporting the reverse mohawk.

Next step, buzzers, and it was great to lose the hair beard and grease that had accumulated over the years of not showering. That night I met a Chinese-citizen-British-marine who had hitchhiked across the US to prove to his friend that On the Road was still a liveable dream. We managed to find a really good local rock band jamming out with traditional instruments, followed by a US trouncing of Lithuania in basketball (prelims), which got me excited to get down to some celebrating soon in Beijing.
Despite my attempts to find other climbers, I headed east of Ulan Bataar to the national park alone, staring in awe as we passed boulder after boulder and eventually trotting off the bus when the rocks disappeared behind us. To my rescue, Chook strolled up and convinced me to come to his gher village to stay and fish and hang out with his broken English, scribbling something about two dollars and fifty cents in the dirt. I wandered through stream after stream - bridges were not a luxury expended by this area - and found a fishing pole, kindly offered to me by a man who, as it happens was disassembling a cow with his family when we stopped by. I failed to catch any fish, but I was more interested in standing around than really triumphing over nature, and had the surprise of a lifetime when three white guys rode up on horseback and also happened to be Mongol Ralliers. Whoops?! That evening I was treated to dinner by Chook's family - some delicious noodles fried by his father because his mother had broken her arm in an accident in town. A night in my own gher - I couldn't quite believe it, the coziness, the warmth, my own fire - and it was in fact too good to be true because the next day, good old Chook dropped the bombshell that it was in fact twenty five dollars for my night, claiming that a hangover had impaired his speech the night before... I wandered away after an hour of arguing with seven dollars less - not bad for a gher, fishing and dinner.

I found a boulder - maybe "Turtle Boulder" as someone else's Lonely Planet had recommended but I failed to get to the top of it - my climbing stamina is much weakened and I had nowhere to warm up, but did snap a few pics. I saw a black squirrel as I trekked around, assumed it was good luck, and ran into a local who gave me a ride, advice on where to hike, and dropped me right by some more beautiful rocks. More hills than I had asked for separated me from the final town of destination, but wearily I arrived, stuck out my thumb, and got driven the last mile or two to the Air Adventure Camp, where Alex had promised me an affordable morning of paragliding. This ex-special force sniper told me story after story about taking down animals from far away distances - 1500 meters - and in the dead of winter - a huge red wolf - and with his bare hands - a bear? Not quite.

Alas, it wasn't in the cards and after sitting around for a day, waiting for the right wind, I headed back to town, and found myself a bit under the weather - maybe it was my four polish candy bars that got me through my waiting. I sucked it up, loaded my fancy Swiss phone and its super tiny memory card with mix tapes from my friends, and managed to interview a non-profit (Asia Foundation) about river water quality in Mongolia. The day passed quickly with the help of naps and some conversations in the guest house, but suddenly I was late, somehow with only twenty minutes to catch my train. Stupid twenty four hour clock. I hopped on, just in time, and took off toward the Chinese border with a multicultural car of Japanese, Swiss, Australian, and the newly hairless Texan fellow. China here we come!!

China Bound, Mongolian Mountains to be Found

The haircut remains, and this lonesome Texans looked like a fool strolling up to the Chinese Embassy for the second time today, only to strut off like a cowboy into the sunset after, what's that? you accept my paperwork? I don't have to bribe you? I'm not being rejected for having too much facial hair? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a visa receipt has been issued, and unless they disqualify me before Monday morning, I shall soon have that stamp and passport in my pocket, arming me with all the weapons necessary to conquer that border and make good on the train ticket I already bought but feared was a waste, but not use the fake plane ticket I showed the consulate.
I have now passed three days in Ulan Bataar, tearful goodbyes to the Kelly-Lieb brothers, and a bhuz later (Mongolian dumpling), I visited every outdoors store possible, found no trekking poles, and a few cheap sleeping bags that I still refuse to buy, but made some progress in seeing rentable canoes and devising a scheme to hit a river for a few days, shut down today by two Dutch women who said the rivers were very low.

Bus ride sunset, originally uploaded by wanders.

I met up with an NY-er living in Dalian, moving to Beijing soon, so I might have more than two friends in Beijing during my stay. We cooked a beastly meal of pasta loaded with three onions and a lot of garlic, impressing my taste buds but also those of our guest house host. We almost got our pockets picked trying to go the black market here, but planned ahead, by bringing only $10 each, and witnessed, as the pickpockets departed at a stop, one rough punch delivered to an old lady's face, something I did not expect from that 12-year old hoodlum. Sounds like Mongolians can be very violent - I've already heard of two people getting assaulted in early evening - so my gruff look and beard might be to my advantage while here. I also smell quite bad most of the time, though I did do some sink washing to rinse out the layers and layers of dirt that a 70 hour bus ride across Mongolia incurrs. I'm off though, enough of this city, to hike and cook rice, and get lost and found, and maybe even climb a rock or two if Im lucky.
Stories to come.

Losers Pay

IMG_1420, originally uploaded by wanders.

Chris guessed the closest on the mileage our odometer would read out when we stopped driving- consequence was too hideous looking travellers.

Kazakh with a Yak

Tai, our older brother host here in Olgii, one of the first cities once you enter into Mongolia from the Russian Altai Republic, has showed us a lot in the past few days. After seeing the city, it's market and some great deals, including a far-too-elegant cashmere hat for me, we headed out of town in a borrowed SUV, to stay with his Kazakh friends in some ghers near the border, the traditionaly Mongolian hut, unknowingly entering a no-entrance zone for foreigners. Along the way we shot at marmots with a 22, hit every bump we could and stopped a number of ghers along the way for tea and some fermented mare's milk, or airag, which was even harder to stomach when ever you spotted horse hair in it.

Shooting Gophers, originally uploaded by wanders.

I became a professional photographer overnight, taking pictures of every family and set of women or old men Tai knew, later to develop and have him return with, but a little to my dismay. I wonderful countryside was not as accessible as I hoped, when we were afraid of breaking some kind of tradition so we rarely ventured out and away from the ghers. Chris and I did get to ride horses for like ten minutes, but it was not as illustrious as my dreams of riding up into the mountains with Tai as our guide. We sat, watched Tai tell countless stories in his foreign tongue and absorbed our surroundings, until some border police came along and started asking what we were doing there. A bit of negotiating slash arguing later, a guy nearly walked off with our passports, not cool, and finally agreed that we could just come by the next morning. We watched as a goat was killed, its throat slit, and they prepared it on the spot, meaning the freshest meat any of us had ever eaten was prepared an hour an a half later. We munched on the freshly stewed meat, trying to avoid bits of liver, and stay awake, now midnight in our gher village. The Kazakh population here is very large, being the Western part of Mongolia, and Olgii is said to be 80% Kazakh. The next morning, we drove all over the place, stopped near the border, and worried as the rest of the crew, including Tai's friend Jurman, my least favorite person on this entire trip, took our passport and walked off into some building for almost an hour. Supposedly all was sorted out, Tai took the blame and paid some $20 to get off the hook and we were off again, back towards town, one adventure and some exotic food under our belts. I stiffled the unhappiness of my tummy for an hour or two, took a few more pictures, and am now back to that semi-normal state I always seem to find myself in when travelling Asia.

Olgi Sunset, originally uploaded by wanders.

So, why the kind hostliness here? Probably has something to do with the fact that we in fact caved and are selling our poor Leo off to this Kazakh businessman, Tai, who is in the process of building a three-story autoparts store here in Olgii. We ruined the suspension and don't want to fix the car, nor do we want to get super lost for three weeks trying to drive ourselves to Ulan Bataar. So rather than trash the thing, which is an option, we are in fact doing something illegitimate and giving this 'broken down' car to Tai in exchange for some money that will help us get to Ulan Bataar. We see this as more of a recycling effort than anything else, since Leo really should be put on the fritz just due to his poor suspension, which gets him around this city fine. So we should roll out this evening, after buying some souvie gifts and a bag to haul our crap to Ulan Bataar, touting the haircuts of imbeciles, that story to come, and a head full of stories. We saw two Mongol Rally drivers on our way back to Olgii, around the time of that solar eclipse, indescribeable, but pictures to come, and hope to find more in the Mongolian capital. More stories and some photos soon, if I ever remember my memory card reader.

Ghengis Would Be Proud

And the Texan team rolls across the border, much less triumphantly than we expected, having already celebrated our arrival into Mongolia without realizing that there are a good 20 kilometers between the borders....
But first, we catch up because while less has transpired than one might expect between the Romanian-Ukrainian and Russian-Mongolian border, our adventurous selves have encountered quite a bit. After waiting in Romania, and waiting, we managed to track down our package (who's ever heard of TNT shipping?) and jumped for joy (literally) when the package was delivered via an orange hatchback VW as promised. We then sped off as quickly as possible, now down to two weeks to arrive at Ulan Bataar, hoping that we could gun it to the border and take 8 days to cross the slowly developing mountains and deserts of Mongolia. We said goodbye to the incredibly helpful Peace Corps Volunteer, Jack, to whom we owe immense gratitude for the help, hospitality and opportunity to shower, and made it to the Ukrainian border by nightfall, stopping to argue only a little about the validity of our note, giving us privelege to drive a car in someone else's name, since it was not in Russian, or English, but rather Spanish. The border guards asked us if we had narcotics, inquired when the last time we were in Paraguay was, chuckled and waved us by, without any need to bribe them, as every local had done, or the need to strip search our car.
Upon crossing the border, we immediately stopped to ask about car taxes or vignettes or whatever they wanted to call them, and the first gas station attendant we found
directed us to a police officer, the last person we wanted to speak with, and his response? No, no need if you'll only be here for two days, but if a cop stops you, and here he pointed directly at his own badge, just pay them off with a little bit of money, he said. Very surprising indeed, but we didn't question his authority, and drove on, reaching the nearest town, an ATM and a gas station for directions and a map. There, already nearing 11 pm, one attendant was drunk and we got along well in Russian, while the other kind woman, a linguist, kept James and Chris conversationally engaged for nearly an hour. We parted ways, having gained one map, three sodas, and directions on our map to the border.
One night's rest later, having slept in our ever comfortable car to avoid dogs and drunks, we began the longest trip of our lives, to continue for nearly 100 hours. We hit the highway to Kiev and spotted the Mongol Rally travellers with drivers on the wrong side of the car and large stickers touting their adventure. We stopped with them for a few minutes, telling our story and hearing about misadventures and plans - pretty exciting for us, who are somewhat of Mongol Rally lackies, never getting into the race but being all about the spirit of it. People planned to stay in Kiev and we planned to drive on through the night into Russian and wherever the highways took us, so we pushed on and said our goodbyes, reaching the border around 12 am, after a stop for dinner and another interactions with more ralliers.

Other Ralliers, originally uploaded by wanders.

The border went more smoothly than we imagined, with a cute and kind passport inspector laughing at James' moustache and waving us on, but alas we reached the car customs sections where the first response to our Spanish note was "No, back to Ukraine" which we continued to hear for 45 minutes as I stood there and asked every question I could possibly think of to postpone that trip back across the border. Finally, somehow, miraculously, when all the correct stars had aligned, and I looked more pathetic than one of those cats in a jar, the officer more sincerely considered our note, asked me to translate a bit, which was hard with such rusty Russian still spewing out of my mouth. Then, despite all odds and rational thoughts, he says OK, he says we can pass, he says he shall spare us our lives, on the condition that we get a translation in Russia, otherwise the police will arrest us.
We pass, we cross, we cheer, we roar, we are pulled over for speeding. Here-in lies the smooth talking and the swindling they do because it took an hour to agree that 500 dollars was a ridiculous fee and that we should be allowed to go for $50, an ipod nano, and a digital compass. Little did he know, despite his attempts to scare me with the threat of taking my licence, he could easily have arrested me for not having a car in my name, so I personally think we did alright, considering all the factors at play there.
This, however, scared the bejeezuz out of all of us, and inspired the following three day straight drive across Russia. We saw a few cities, but only when we couldn't go around them and got lost inside, almost feinted every time we saw a police officer, and ate whatever junk food the gas stations sold, luckily open 24 hours, so we needn't stop to wait for gas ever.

Russian Gas, originally uploaded by wanders.

We got to the border of Mongolia Monday at 6:30, only to discover that the border closed at 6pm and that lines were long and slow. We finally stopped, slowed down, and even ate some food at the local shack/restaurant, hanging out with an incredibly cool Swiss couple who were first in line. Well, to shorten the story for now, we crossed the Russian border at 11am on Tuesday, waited again for four hours at the Mongolian border, and managed to clear customs without a single snag around 5pm, hauling ass towards the nearest town where we could refuel on gas and food. The roads, or not-roads as we might as well call them, proved too much for poor Leo, who had already taken a beating when we sped down bumpy asphault in eastern Russia. Suspension did not make it. I drove the first 50 kilometers, averaging around 12 miles an hour, meanwhile Chris and James climbed on top of the car, finally discovering that our suspension was shot and it would be impressive to make it to Olgii, 100 km past the border, without the back axle falling off. We drove slow, stumbled upon some young men hunting on their day off, and after they somehow borrowed our battery to start their car, we rolled off with them and the possibility to ditch our car with them. Since then we have worked out a deal for a ride to Ulan Bataar on Saturday, and tentatively planned to stick around here til we see the reported solar eclipse that should occur Friday night, something we didn't expect but don't plan on missing - once you pass the mountains east of is, you can't see it, so we don't want to head off to the capital of Mongolia too soon, but still soon enough for Chris and James to catch their flight on Wednesday.
For now, we have been invited into the home of an older brother, who has helped and fed us, Chris is sick, James and I just tried some Mongolian Marmot meat, and everything is new and amazing, at least until I get those stomach pangs myself. Cheers from the over-hospitable world of Mongolia.