Her: May I know who I’m speaking to?

Me: This is Jiahui

Her: Do you have a short name?

Me: Huh?

Her: How should I address you?

Me: Jiahui.

Her: Ok, so what should I call you?

Me: Jiahui.

Her: Ok Miss Jiahui…

And no, she wasn’t any help.

Needless to say, we were all pretty excited despite having to sit through the very rough terrain. Vans like this obviously don’t come with state-of-the-art suspension and there were no proper paved roads outside of the city. Every few minutes, we’d be rolling along some rocks and hitting our heads and knees. Our trip started with a ride from Ulaanbaatar to Tsetserleg which took all morning and afternoon. The blue skies soon darkened and a storm loomed. We had asked about the sort of weather to expect previously and Scott, one of our riding guides said to expect anything between hail and sun. Still, it took us completely by surprise when we drove into a hailstorm.

Now this is the first time I’m witnessing a hailstorm and I guess the same goes too for some in the van so we stopped for a break just to take in the sight. Some of the guys went into a frenzy, whipped off their tees and pranced around in the open fields in some sort of raindance display. Oh, how we laughed and played.

The Gods must have been pleased because the sun came out soon after, melting the ice. It became a full-blown thunderstorm by the time we reached camp. It was a very miserable existence because it must have been something like 5 degrees and we were all in our day clothes, cowering in the lunch tent. We waited for the storm to die down. It didn’t. My clothes were wet but I was in a tee and shorts so it wasn’t as gross as if I were in long pants but I couldn’t feel much of my feet.

The rain did die down slightly and we set up our tents before it got dark. The insides of the tents got damp from the rain and our stuff got wet from being brought in from the rain. By the time we were settled, the skies were dark and I couldn’t exactly get dressed in weather-appropriate attire – not that I brought any for the cold. I had a tee, a jacket and a pair of the thinnest cotton pants on and tried to snuggle in my sleeping bag. The sleeping bag is NOT rated for the temperatures it says it is.

I think I probably slept no more than three hours that day and woke up a couple of times in the night when I couldn’t feel my toes at all. It was very morbidly amusing that the thought that I could actually lose toes to frostbite came to mind. I remember wiggling my toes often so they wouldn’t stiffen up and fall off. I actually felt scared we’d be riding in weather like that the next day but thankfully enough, the rest of our trip was sunny and warm(er)…

…until our last night, that is.

====

Like in all good horror movies, the weird weather returned. There seemed to be some light rain the night before and the morning events unfolded more or less like this -

6am: The howling of the wind and the angry splats of raindrops wake me up. We were due for breakfast at 7 but I can’t hear anyone outside. They must still be asleep. I go back to sleep.

630am: The winds and rain got louder. I took a peek out of my sleeping bag and saw that my side of the tent was blowing quite violently. Still no one can be heard. Ah, breakfast must have been delayed. More sleep.

7+am: The rain and winds got EVEN louder. Still no busy chatter from the outside. I peeled off my sleeping bag from my face and saw that my entire tent has now flopped over on the other side, crushing my tent mate. Flashback moment here – on the second morning, she explained she woke to the cord of her sleeping bag around her neck and mused about what I’d do if I woke up to her blue body beside me. I probably gave a yelp of alarm and tried to push the tent away from her with my feet, both of which are still in the sleeping bag. She’s fine. The winds are VERY strong and I have some difficulty holding up the tent with my feet. She later tells me I looked like a worm; a very amusing sight.

Sand filters in from the outside and falls on my face, annoying my nose and making it slightly hard to breathe. I’m tired and seeing how it’s futile for me to hold the tent up anymore, I figured I should go back to sleep and hope the rain would go away.

8am: Someone’s face is peeking into the tent on my side. “Don’t worry! We’ll help you get out!” I wake up immediately. The tent is still flopping over.I wake up immediately and check if my tent mate is still alive. Good. I unzip the tent and saw that the lunch tent (about 20m away) is now collapsed in a pile. 3-4 people are fighting to put a tent down and everyone else is sort of looking panicky and packing up. It’s apparently not raining and the noise was entirely due to the strong winds.

In a mild state of confusion, I get out out, grab my stuff out and stand around as a few people came to our ‘rescue’, unpegging our tent and fighting it down. The wind is so strong I can lean forward quite a bit and not fall flat on my face. I can now see that the toilet tent too has collapsed and blown away from the toilet. The Mongolian crew (who are probably used to freak weather) are now briskly packing up and helping us with our baggage and eventually, we’re led to a nearby ger camp to have breakfast indoors.

We find out later that day that while we were sleeping in our tent and hoping that the wind would go away, people on the outside were wondering how we could sleep through and be completely ignorant of the raging winds.

I’ve read about the Jerboa before and I googled for the critter again and found articles stating that it’s on the Top 100 list of endangered animals. The one we saw was probably injured or ill. It stood in a spot and allowed us to pet it and get photos of it. It was really close to the main tracks so it might have been hit by a vehicle previously. Despite the size, it had these disproportionate ears and huge HUGE toes. And a really long tail with a bit of fluff at the end. Kinda like the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde cartoons.

How can you not like an animal that looks like that???

One of the guys got this pic of me walking on Riding Day 3. I was quite impressed with how fit I looked and went to the mirror to admire the lovely irregular tan (you can see the line just below the right side of my tights) and what looks like leg muscles. Then I realized I don’t quite look that toned.

Moral of story: Walk with a unicycle. It makes you look fitter.

On a rest day during the trip, I finished this book, Wolf of the Plains which is a historical fiction about Chinggis Khan. It chronicled his hard childhood and events that led to the start of his conquests. The story was quite poorly weaved but there was a poignant description of how the Great Khan’s steed served as companion, sidekick and sustenance. You cringe but in the harsh conditions of Mongolia – and you have to realize that the conditions 900 years ago has got to be much worse than it is currently – the arrangement makes perfect sense.

Mongolians really like their meat. In a land where agriculture is almost impossible because of the extreme and dry weather, livestock provide nourishment for the people and a nomadic lifestyle seems to be the norm for many. Sheep and goats feature prominently on menus and cows, though reared, provide an alternative source for milk. Pick any random item on the menu and it’s likely to be mutton cooked in broth, steamed with dumplings, dunked in milk or all of the above. It’s a rich diet and I found myself weary of the meat by the third day.

On my return to Ulaanbaatar after the Terelj detour, I joined the folks from my hostel room for dinner. There was a good Mongolian BBQ place nearby and some of them raved about the cook’s theatrics.

Laugh at his hat and you’ll get the nasty end of his knife-sword

There is a buffet spread of raw meats and other assorted appetizers (ie. more meat). Pick the meat you want, sprinkle various seasonings, from garlic to basil to Special Mongolian Sauce, and pass it to the cook who’d stir-fry everything on a giant metal wok the size of a banquet table. I had some horse meat, beef and chicken but overdid the seasoning all three times so I didn’t exactly had a proper taste of horse. It quite possibly tastes like beef though because there wasn’t anything on my plate that stood out as being particularly game-y or unfamiliar.

Horses are our friends. Yummy yummy friends.

Venture into the countryside and you’ll find animals aplenty. Every other family has their own herd and the animals are left to roam free. It does make you feel a tinge of sadness for the animals back home that are kept in zoos with the premise that it is a pampered life they lead. As horses gallop the miles and miles of plains, you can almost feel the energy and freedom the environment brings. Despite compost being a prominent part of the landscape, there isn’t as much a stench in the air as one would expect. The grass must be fresh since the animals retain a luxurious (and clean-looking) coat of fur.

Free-roaming goats, sheep and the occasional bare-chested unicyclist roam the countryside.

It’s quite amazing how families can keep track of their livestock and how the goats and sheep would return home on their own but I guess with hardly a tree in sight on most of the land, it shouldn’t be too difficult to track down a stray. Herds visited our campgrounds on some of the days and the goats ran wild, chewing on our tents and our belongings. They were awfully tame and weren’t privy to the fact that a good number of us were omnivorous.

Our camp chef bought a sheep from a neighboring ger on one of the days and prepared it in a local style.

The sheep was first made to lie on its back and a small slit was cut in its underside. The murder was complete in mere minutes as he grabbed at its heart and squeezed it til it stopped pumping. The sheep made gagging sounds for a while and barely struggled. He then de-skinned it and piled up the wool in a carton, to be sold for garment at a later date no doubt, and set off to clear out the insides. The meat is chopped and blood is mixed with flour and some spices to be made into sausages using cleaned-out intestines. Everything was next thrown into a giant milk barrel with some stones, cabbage, spices and water and pressure-cooked over a fire. The sheep’s head was thrown into the fire for good measure just to show it who’s boss.

The stones were delicious.

At the end of the night, the Mongolian crew gathered with us for a bonfire and we sang songs and danced around under the stars.

We woke up the next day to the most spectacular wind ever, rivalling Wellington’s but that’s another story for another day.

The white dots are gers while the red ones are wooden cottages.

It was about 7pm at the gers. From what I can tell, there were two families living there and 4 daughters between them. I was introduced to my ger by the two older girls who are 14 and 15 who were my child slaves for the day, sent to see to my needs. Uanga was one of them. My ger had 4 beds, a table and smelt like dank wood and cloth. It wasn’t unpleasant though, partly because there was always the distinct smell of animals wafting through the air to distract you.

I tried to be friendly to the girls but they didn’t speak any English and didn’t understand half of my gestures. It struck me that I had a Mongolian phrase book so I got them to point to phrases to communicate. It worked and we were happy. Uanga seemed to be the brighter one and asked if I was hungry or thirsty or tired. Regardless of my answers, I was brought some wafers that resembled bars of soap and a bottle of juice that had chocolate smeared all over the bottle (one of the younger kids was eating some). They asked where I was from and my age and I asked the same. I took some photos of the ger and seeing I had a cam, they decided I’d enjoy being touristy. So they led me outdoors.

Both were quite excited about my camera and I allowed them to snap photos and showed them how to preview pictures. Uanga felt that one of the rocks was particularly worthy of posing on.

They showed me their shed which housed cows and horses. I was prodded to take photos of them all as they dragged various animals around quite gleefully. They had a few horses and one of them happened to be saddled at the time. Uanga felt that was a great photo op moment so she forced me on it.

And taught me to pose because I didn’t know how to (see difference in above and below pics).

At this point, their younger sisters decided to come out to play. The environment must be quite a playground for kids. There is plenty of space to run around in and despite the noticeable absence of toys, they must be having lots of fun with the animals and obstacles.

They just look lost. I, however, was lost.

It was nearing dinner time and Anxious Woman (the mom) reappears again. She has a bucket with her and decides that I should milk the cow. So I did and the kids are around to capture the grand moment while telling me to smile because it makes the job more glamorous.

I got bored of milking the cow after 10 minutes and the mom took over, laughing at my incompetence and miserable yield. She finished the job in about the same time.

The milk was to be both dinner and beverage. We had chopped-up noodles in a salty, milky broth with pieces of fatty mutton and cabbage and pieces of really hard tasteless bread that’s reminiscent of stale rusks. At every meal, there was also a pot of drink consisting of (my guess) 1 part milk, 3 parts stale water and some salt. The meal was cooked outdoors over a charcoal stove. I was very wary of getting an upset stomach from the milk and grubby-looking utensils so I ate very slowly to gauge my reaction to the food. I apparently have a pretty strong stomach so the night went incident-free.

Over dinner, we discussed – ok, gestured and grunted – my plans for the following day. I could ride a horse for 5,000 Tugriks (About US$4.80) an hour but I’d need a guide for the same hourly cost. We agreed on an hour of horse riding that’d start at 10am the following day. She explains (with numbers, the odd English word and pointing) that lunch would be at 12:30pm and the bus from Terelj leaves at 7 and I’ll have to be at the bus stop at 6:30pm. After dinner one of the dads busied himself with pitching a tent and I gathered that that might be because the ger I was assigned would regularly be their home. I helped with stacking the dishes and tried to talk more to the girls. They seemed to be asking if they could both share my ger for the night. I nodded a yes but eventually, only one of the Child Slaves was banished there for reasons unknown.

—

The next day started at 10. As agreed on, I went horseriding with Mom as my guide. Mom led me over hills and valleys and pointed out temples and landscapes to me. I brought along my camera but unlike her daughters, Mom wasn’t into the whole photography business so we never stopped or got off the horse. Along the way, she meets a friend with a sleeping kid and stopped to take over the burden. At some point, she was carrying the kid in an arm while leading my horse with the same hand and using the phone with the other. I felt like a family pet.

The ride lasted an hour and a half because of the detour and I went back to take a rest. While daydreaming on the bed, someone drops by and announces lunch is ready. I had lunch with the family. Their ger was much cosier with satellite TV (yes), a stove in the center and various oddities. Lunch was rice with the same cabbage and mutton mixture as the night before with the same milk drink that has by then gotten cold and has developed a layer of skin at the top. I felt obliged to be polite so I downed everything while not breathing a lot.

Mom then comes around with a sheet of paper and a pen and amidst changing out of her clothes, she starts listing my expenses – 15,000 for the stay, 10,000 for the horse ride and 2,000 for food (presumably the drink and wafer I had the first day). Seems reasonable. As I handed over the stack of bills, the entire family gets up from their seats to wave goodbye to me.

It was 1pm. My bus isn’t due for another 5.5 hours and I was in the middle of nowhere with no notion of where the bus stop was.

I tried explaining that I wanted to go for a walk and leave my bag in the ger. They waved some more. Ulaanbaatar, I repeated. Where’s the bus stop? Mom looked in thought for a bit and then tells me to grab my bag. I wasn’t too sure what she wanted and tried to explain some more that I needed to be shown the bus stop.

Bag, she gestured. Ulaanbaatar, she said. Uh, sure, I smiled… weakly.

There’s a discussion between her and some of her family and when I came back with my bags, she ushered me into the car again. Road trip! Exciting stuff.

This time, there were five passengers in the car so it was a more comfortable ride. Uanga came along. We drove to some neighboring gers where the men traded bags of tools. Along the way, there were lone locals selling jars of red berries. We stopped at one; the driver examined the goods and held a discussion with the rest before returning the jar and driving on. We stopped at another one. And another. After a few of them, it appeared priorities have been changed and we started backtracking to seek out the Ultimate Jar of Berries. Mom joked that we were returning back to Terelj. The whole car laughs. I laughed politely.

The berries they eventually settled on came from the grungiest-looking seller among the lot and she scooped them out from a giant pail into a plastic bag. The family got two bags and Uanga happily set down to snack on them. I was offered some and after refusing it twice, felt obliged (again) to have some. The berries were the size of your nail and slimy from the heat. They looked and tasted exactly like really sweet strawberries and I hoped they were strawberries.

At this point, it slowly dawns on me that we weren’t driving to the bus stop but rather, heading back to Ulaanbaatar. Before I left, the guy at the hostel had told me that there was only 2 buses a day to and from Terelj and a drive by car would cost US$55. No one’s mentioned yet how much money’s involved in the road trip and I didn’t quite know how to ask.

About 2 hours later, we were in the city limits and Uanga tells me she lives in a house in the city (which would explain why she’s the cleanest of the kids). The car stops at a corner and she leaves to get something from a roadside stall. She returns with some plums and hands one each to us. I got an extra bag of dried dyed-green mangoes too.

When I reached my destination, I asked how much the trip was. Mom thinks about it really REALLY hard and tells me 2,000 Tugriks. My bus ride had cost 3,200 so whatever she suggested seemed incredulous. Still, I didn’t question, paid and said my goodbyes to everyone.

Nice people. But very very random.

That’s expensive, says Bob. I have a friend, only 15,000 Tugriks (That’s about US$14.50) with meals. She can pick you up when there.

Sounds great.

I’ll call her when you leave for the bus later, says Bob.

—-

When I left the hostel, I forgot to ask Bob for further details but hoped that the mysterious She will be identifiable at the end of the bus line. I did have the hostel number in the worst case scenario and if there weren’t phone reception, I could probably attempt to find someone who’d house me for the night when there. It’s not a great plan but it could work.

I was to look out for a white bus but there seemed to be plenty of white buses with signs I can’t read. My bus would come at 4pm and I had a little note with Terelj written in Cyrillic that I showed to conductors. The bus stop wasn’t one with tourists. One of my room mates at the hostel tells me that he hasn’t heard of anyone travelling there without a guide and as a result, most tourists traveled by chartered jeep. The only other identifiable foreigner at the bus stop was a geeky European guy in his twenties with a ponytail and a horrid snort-laugh which he produced at regular intervals. He had a rather plump, older local woman with him and I can’t quite make out their relationship. She seemed like his guide, pointing out various signs to him but he seemed to be leaning in quite a bit during conversations so they could be friends. Or more. He sneaks curious peeks in my direction.

My bus turned up on time. It was a local bus. I had my bulky backpack and carry-bag with me and chose a seat near the front which was facing the other seats for more legroom. Geeky Guy sits diagonally across from me on the other side. The bus fills up rather quickly. In front of me is a girl no more than ten and her mom, this chubby woman with beady eyes and a perpetual scowl, sits behind her. Beside her is a lady with a sleeping infant and beside me is a young boy, probably 5. It gives me quite a bit of space for my bags and I am content.

A dog runs around on the bus and settles down beside Beady Eyed Woman. The conductor comes around and attempts to grab it by the neck making it growl, bite and scamper first to the back of the bus, then to the front before settling down under my seat because I’m sitting calmly, unaffected by the scene. The conductor is now trying to grab the snarling dog from under my legs. I remain seated and still amidst the tickling, pretending nothing’s happening.

Ten minutes later, the battle is won. The dog is dragged by the neck and quite literally thrown out the door. We can now leave.

—-

An hour into the ride, I had settled into a comfortable semi-dazed state of mind and dozed off on occasion. Beady Eyed Woman scowls at me between moments of placing a protective hand on her child. Geeky Guy is trying to teach his friend various words in English and spells it for her. Loud. In return, she speaks some Mongolian phrases and Geeky Guy responds. I can’t help but notice he’s sneaking more looks in my direction, looking for some clue of where I’m from.

At one of the stops, a middle-aged couple squeezes their way through to where we are. The man is tall with wide shoulders and looks exactly like how Mongolians look in books. He grabs the girl in front of me, places her on Beady Eyed Woman’s lap and takes her seat. Before I can summon any reaction to that, his wife, a short woman with wide hips, squeezes her way between me and the boy and plops herself between us. The boy grabs hold of the window (for air, I presume) and I find myself looking around the bus, wondering if that’s the norm. I tense up a butt cheek in a desperate struggle to stay in contact with the seat.

I’m awake.

Shortly after, some greasy, dirt-covered men in work clothes got on and one attempted to share the seat with Geeky Guy’s friend. She isn’t letting that happen and engages herself in conversation with Geeky Guy. He leans in closer, happy with the attention and has his hand on hers. She’s leaning slightly away and he’s oblivious to the body language. He continues sneaking peeks at me.

The bus frees up slightly and Geeky Guy takes the opportunity to switch seats with his companion. More minutes pass and the suspense is killing him. He says hi to me and asks how I know of Terelj. I lied that I heard about it at the hostel. He brags that he speaks Mongolian, majoring in it at University and that he’s working in the city. I make polite noises and pretended to be distracted by other happenings in the bus.

—-

A tap on my shoulder interrupts my daydreaming. A woman anxiously asks me something in Mongolian. I turn to Geeky Guy who looks stunned, then goes on to inform me she’s looking for someone who contacted her on a website. I shake my head and she goes further into the bus. She comes back again shortly and in between the Mongolian, I make out a faint “Golden Gobi”. I ask if she’s sent by Bob and she beams and says yes. Geeky Guy apologizes for mistranslating. Anxious Woman ushers me off the bus – she got the driver to stop – and I wave goodbye to Geeky Guy.

Out of the bus, there was two other men waiting and Anxious Woman helps me with my bag. She leads me into a dusty car and more of her pals enter. I counted nine passengers, excluding the driver. We bounced around on the uneven road and stop at a junction where she leads me into another car. This one had 6 and there’s a bag of bread on the back seat. I scooped it up and saved it for her lest that be my dinner for the night. I wasn’t wrong.

It’s worthwhile to note that all this while, I’m the only foreigner in the car.

We get out at a group of deserted rundown wooden cottages and some passengers take their leave. Anxious Woman, a man and a girl who I later known as Uanga (phonetically), run from cottage to cottage checking on the doors. One had a broken window and the man lifts Uanga into it. She climbs in the gap and I stand behind them both, staring. Thinking I was Japanese, the man tells me “Daijobu desu!”, which means that everything’s alright.

Uanga climbs out again after checking on the insides and I prayed that I wasn’t going to spend the night there.

I didn’t and we get back into the car. The final destination turns out to be a group of gers (Mongolian nomadic tents) in the heart of the mountains. They seemed like the family home and I was the only tourist there.

No one spoke English.

(I can’t recall how his hat looks like but figured with all the animals roaming the countryside, there has to be some point in time he’d have wanted something like this. Also, I believe he’s a gruff sort of person so it makes sense to me he’d say things like ‘Oy!’)

If there’s anything else in Mongolia that’s as certain as eyebags on national heroes, it is that your planes will be delayed. I flew with Air China from Singapore to Ulaanbaatar via Beijing and was stranded in Beijing. Instead of meal vouchers which would seem impersonal, we received packed breakfasts and lunches just in case we pined for airplane fare or forgot how it tasted like. After all, 6 hours is a pretty long time and most of us have memory spans of a hamster. Now where was I?

Breakfast consisted of a rock bun (ie. a stale soft roll), milk, a preserved braised egg and some pickled vegetables. I didn’t quite know how they’re meant to be eaten but none of them tasted good on their own.

Lunch fared better and was actually quite good. There was some sort of sweet and sour fish cake with carrots, stir-fried mushrooms and celery and some sort of mixed vegetable stew. It was another 2 hours before we got on the plane.

On the return trip, we were once again delayed at Ulaanbaatar, this time for 9 hours due to bad weather. We received better treatment this time though and were put up during the wait at the Ulaanbaatar Hotel, the first 5-star hotel in Mongolia. It felt godsend at first because the hostel I was at the night before didn’t have heating. The room was humongous.

There was a short corridor between the bedroom and the bathroom/closet area and some of the rooms came with a 6-seater dining table. The first thing I did after putting down my bags was to grab a shower to wash off some of that fake tan. It pleases me that there are actual bathrobes in the closet and as I sauntered out, ready to spend the afternoon sprawled on the bed with a jar of caviar and contemplating a souvenir photo, the door rings.

It turns out we’re supposed to share rooms. I get changed and let some random stranger into MY room. She leaves her bags and exits for some sightseeing. Five minutes later, Rod and David, two of the Aussie unicyclists, turn up at my door and we leave for some sightseeing too. I took a nap after lunch.

The flight delay resulted in a missed plane connection at Beijing so we ended up spending the night at some transit hotel at the expense of the airline. I learnt from experience and decided to wait to be the last to check in for a room. I had the room to myself because the rest had already been paired. Happy times.

The next morning brought on more logistical nightmare which isn’t very interesting so I’ll save the sordid details. We tried to score meal vouchers at the airline counter but should have known better than that.

But hey, I’m back. Mongolia stories to come over the next few days!

In the massive round bag is my 29″ Qu-Ax Cross, helmet, guards, slackline and tools. The backpack contains 15 days of clothes, sleeping bag and necessities. That other blue bag is a dry sack with my water bag (ironic, eh?) and cameras.

One day, I hope to be able to look back at escapades like this and appreciate the sense of humor I have.

I’ve been making banoffee for dessert these days and it’s apparently pretty good because bananas and toffee is ALWAYS ALWAYS good. I don’t really like pies so this is a sludgier version. At the bottom is a biscuit base, followed by a layer of dulce de leche, then bananas and finally cream with a dusting of cocoa.

Artery-clogging goodness.