Mongolia - Ulan Bator surroundings

Ulan Bator 21.10.2014

Mongolia is a very big country and it has only three million habitants. About one third of the population lives as nomads in gers around the country.

We decided to do something special and booked a 3-day trip from our hostel. It was all-inclusive. We had with us Dandr our driver and Tuul our guide. And we drove with a UAZ Soviet Jeep.

During the first day we visited Chinggis Khan's statue which is the biggest of its kind in the world. Then we visited a meditation center on the mountains. In the afternoon we arrived to the nomad family who hosted us for the evening and night. We left almost right away to ride horses for one hour.

Panorama was breathtaking. We literally rode to the sunset.

The day went by really quickly and we sat a lot in the car. The main roads were fine but others made us appreciate the jeep. We even crossed a river with the car.

The nomad family was friendly and consisted of the father, mother and a 5-year old boy. Two older children were studying in the city. They had horses and cows. Even they host tourists their nomad life style was genuine. We ate together and the father offered us some self-made milk vodka in the evening. After one cup they already joked that we were celebrating our marriage. Same humour as in Finland. We took quickly another cup.

The sky in the night was so beautiful with its million stars. We saw the Milky Way as ever before. It was warm in the ger which was heated with an oven full of dried horse poop. It didn't even smell. During the night we heard dogs barking and cows noise. In the morning the family told us that during the night some wolves came and took one of the little cows. We just saw many eagles and other birds eating the rests/bones. The family was of course sorry for the loss of property but they thought it is part of nature.

After breakfast we drove to Kharkhorim, the ancient capital. We spent almost all day in the car. We took most of it and looked out for all possible animals. We saw eagles, horses, camels, cows, foxes, goats, sheeps, dogs, an owl, cats. And the landscape was like from a story book.

Arrived in Kharkhorim we settled in a ger with our guide and driver. Soon a musician came to our tent and asked if we would like to hear some traditional Mongolian throat singing and playing. Of course we did. The man was 60-70 years old and performing so well. Playing Mongolian instruments made from wood and horse hair. Throat singing was also something new for us. The show was very nice.

In the morning we visited the ancient temples and summer palace. Countless paintings of buddhas and other gods hundreds of years old. Some remains of the city were around the temples.

We headed to the sand dunes for a camel ride that was hilarious. While riding hundreds of wild horses ran close to us and stopped to look at who we were. It looked pretty funny. Afterwards we start our journey back to the city and arrived in  late afternoon.

We were happy of the trip because we saw the true Mongolia and its nature. Even just a small part.

Mongolia - Ulan Bator

Ulan Bator 21.10.2014

We have been in Mongolia for a little bit more than a week now. First we planned that we would have left to Beijing Sunday the 19th but the Russian train was sold out. So our stay in Mongolia became longer and good that it did.

Mostly we have been living in the city and walking a lot as every city holiday make people do. The first impression of Ulan Bator / Ulaanbaatar was that the city was kind of small. The more we've spent time here the more we understand that this city is huge.

For locals the city is just something they have to deal with but the majority would like to live in the countryside near their tribes. Most of the city is just apartment blocks where people live during the working week. The traffic is shocking because there is no infrastructure. The city grows quickly but the infra can't follow the development. Also as a pedestrian you have to be alert. I don't know which one is more secure, passing with the green light or red.

People in the city seems well-being and good looking. You don't see extreme poverty in the streets. There are not so many tourists / people from western countries either. Of course now we are here during the low season. High season is in summertime during July-August. Many people have told us to visit Mongolia again in summer.

We have visited the National Museum of Mongolia which was nice and covering well also the history of the last two decades. It seems that democracy and the 1990 are an important base for building Mongolian national identity. People are really proud of their democratic system. The national identity seems to be built on the time of Chinggis Khan and religion has a big role. Especially now after the ateistic socialist time.

The Museum of Political Prosecution was very interesting but shocking. This museum is not so advertised but well worth visiting. We walked also to the Russia-Mongolia friendship monument which is a nice place to look over the city. It is built after the second world war when The Soviet Union and Mongolia fought together.

The monument was massive but the view even more. From there we saw how huge was the city but also all the suburbs that here are gers. A lot of construction is made but at the same time there are not enough apartments for normal working people. But a lot fancy office buildings.

Food in Mongolia is very good and cheap. People eat a lot of meat. We've eaten also in local fast food kiosks but we didn't get any stomach problems. Menus have usually pictures or English help phrases so ordering is easy. A meal costs about 2-4 euros and beer 1 euro. There are also much more expensive places but we've skipped those. And a few western restaurant. I would like to visit an Italian restaurant but just for curiousity!

The weather is sunny but not as inquinated as many guide books let understand. After few days you notice that dust gives a little cough. Temperature vary a lot between day and night. During the day it has been from 4 to 15 degrees. In the night from 0 to -15 degrees. Houses are warm inside.

Ulan Bator surprised positively especially after checking the pictures on Google streetviewer.. Easy living :)

Trans-Siberian train / Trans-Mongolian route

Ulan Bator 14.10.2014

We left from Moscow with the Chinese train (nr 4°) that goes to Beijing on Tuesday the 7th of October at 23:45. Lovely friends from Moscow came to say goodbye from Yaroslavsky train station :)

The first impression of the train was that train staff was Chinese and didn't speak any English. They took our train tickets and showed our compartment. We were the only ones in ours. There wasn't any information about the facilities on train but we found the water boiler from which travellers can take hot water during all the trip. Every vagon had its own toilet (a true train toilet) and a water tap. No shower. No toilet paper provided. We checked the restaurant vagon but it seemed quite expensive (i.e. borsch soup 250 R/ 5 euros) and not worth it. The train stopped the first few days more often than in the end of the road. It was possible to buy groceries from small kiosks next to the platform. No wifi.

Chinese trains don't have 3rd class so we travelled in 2nd class. We heard that Russian trains have the open vagon 3rd class which is cheaper and more common to Russians. The 1st class in our train was not anything luxorious but it looked like ours. The only plus was a shower and more space. Also from 2nd class it is possible to have a shower if you pay the staff a little. But once in the train it didn't matter!

Sense of time vanished pretty quickly. The first day went by just resting and looking at the autumn colors passing by. We ate when hungry, mostly noodles and bread. We should have bought more food with us. Now we consumed maybe 1e per day per person! At least we stay in the budget. We bought more food from the kiosks at some stops.

Soon we got to know other passengers and evening activities were clear. Vagon 6 became the party vagon. Mostly we got to know some Chinese, Swedish, Australian and British people. We also met another Finnish couple travelling around the world. Also one of the train staff joined our party by creating a drinking game. It was so cool because after the first cold impression of him he became a really friendly and smiling guy. After this icebreaker we got some help from him also afterwards. Time went a lot faster with hilarious company, beer and vodka.

The landscape changed a little bit every day but the best ones were from Irkutsk ahead, from day 4. We passed next to the Baikal lake and near the Mongolian border the landscape changed again a lot. One night we saw it was snowing and at some point it got really cold. In the train it was still warm all the time.

The border control took altogether about four hours but went smoothly. Mongolians spoke English much better than Russian or Chinese staff.

We arrived in UB Sunday 12th at 6:35am with a temperature of -14 degrees. Thankfully we can think of the future hot months that are ahead of us :)

Moscow

Moscow 6.10.2014

One note about Moscow - it's huge. We have been walking in the neighborhood of our hostel near the Red Square / Kremlin. Behind every corner there is always a beautiful house or an Orthodox church. One thing that catch one's attention are the majestic buildings built by Stalin. There are a few of them and nowadays they are offices or universities or hotels. They are also known as Stalin's teeth. In addition to these buildings there are a lot of big majestic houses or Soviet constructions. Still, Moscow is also very modern as the new business center with skyscrapers shows.

We are really lucky to have some friends in Moscow that drove us around the city! Driving us in the streets of Moscow and taking to places that didn't seem real.

Moscow is also pretty expensive. There is such a big selection of places that one must look a while for a more economic option. Cheapest meals are around four-five euros and there is no upper limit. Also groceries are quite expensive because they are situated in Moscow.

Staying in a hostel is quite cheap, one night per person is about 10 euros. Moscow's high price level is also seen in our hostel where the majority of guests are Russian. They probably work here the weeks and go home out of town for the weekends. Of course there are also tourists and guests from other countries but we were surprised of the amount of Russians.

Moscow is an easy city to get oriented with. We have been using the metro much. Especially young people know English very well and otherwise we have survived well with sign language :D Knowing the Cyrillic alphabet helps a lot since all the signs are mainly written in Cyrillic. We got our train tickets to Ulan Bator, Mongolia yesterday. Our friend Victor helped us at the ticket office so it went easily. Probably the ticket seller didn't speak any English. But it was simple to buy the tickets, just show the passport and pay. The price difference in Trans-Siberian train tickets is huge compared to the ones sold in Finland. Now we paid around 250 euros per person in 2nd class. In Finland the same tickets were almost 700 euros.

Today we drove around the most beautiful metro stations. It took us about three hours and every metro station impressed us. It is indeed one of the most beautiful metro in the world and metro stops usually are decorated with marble, mosaic and impressive chandeliers. The subject in stations is usually Russian art and mighty Soviet Union.

Tomorrow we continue our trip to Mongolia which will last until Sunday by train :)

Helsinki - Moscow all night long

Moscow 2.10.2014

Think about what would a train going to Moscow be like. It's better.

There is not anything special to say about this trip except that we were very positively surprised. Nice clean cabin and good friendly service. The staff did not speak English but we managed to understand. We didn't checked the restaurant wagon but we got coffee and sandwiches served on table (Coffee costs 100rb ~2 euros). After the Russian border WiFi-connection worked fine and we checked the instructions to our hostel by metro.

The train left at 17:52 pm and was on time, we arrived in Moscow at 8:24 am. Just in time to get on the metro in the morning rush. By metro it was easy to find our hostel and we got checked in before the official time. We left our backpacks and took a little walk around. In five minutes we were in the middle of the Red Square.

After some grocery shopping we came back to our hostel and we feel exhausted of all the tension. We are starting to feel that we are on the road. The stress of the last weeks due to quitting our jobs, moving and packing is finally disappearing. Feels like we can breathe again. Now we just have to understand that we are not in a hurry and just enjoy freedom.

 

 

Last minute preparations

Moscow 2.10.2014

In this post we will handle things that have happened in the last weeks before the departure.

One of the biggest challenge in our trip preparations was to empty our flat and sell/give away the majority of our belongings. We wanted to feel free of the stuff that had been accumulating in the past years. Most of it we didn't even remember it existed. Shortly, the less material the better.

We moved away from our apartment in Kallio, Helsinki last Saturday. We spent Monday and Tuesday cleaning the flat. It was a hard job but we are happy now. It was actually good that we concentrated on moving and not stressed about the trip. In the last days we met friends and family who all mean lot to us. A day before the departure we bought medicines and last vaccinations. Just before leaving we went to exchange money, ruble and yuan (Mongolian currency is not available abroad).

At 17:52 our Tolstoi-train left from Helsinki to Moscow. A special thank to people that came all the way to central railway station! It was really nice leaving by train since we went there with no hurry, after a nice beer and with no worries on weight limits of the luggage.

Now we are officially citizens of Jamsa (again) and on our way. While we were moving to Jamsa, immediately after crossing the city border this song played on the radio!