The Land Of Blue Skies

Around 8:30 Wednesday night, our train approached the platform where Chinese immigration officials awaited us. A young man in an official-looking green suit and a pleasant smile boarded the train and went from berth to berth checking passports. The four of us sharing a berth handed over our passports and he stamped them, finalizing our departure from China.

From there, the train went to the boagie shed. The train tracks in China are different from the Soviet-standard ones that run through Mongolia so the undercarriage of the train had to be replaced. The train was disassembled car by car. A jack was attached to the side of each car that would continue to Mongolia and raised the car six feet in the air (with all of us passengers still inside). Once we had a new undercarriage, kind of like having clean underwear, we were off to the Mongolian border where stern-looking Mongolian border patrol agents would make us wait another few hours to get moving again. The train did not depart until almost 2:00 a.m., which wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't closed the toilets at 8:30 (the toilets are always closed when the train is stopped - our leader warned us to stop drinking fluids at 6:00).

I awoke this morning around 9:30 to bright blue skies and a view of vast plains and rolling hills in the distance. Mongolia is known as the land of blue skies, which is a welcome change from the smoggy rainy haze that blankets China. Everyone on the train sat staring out the windows at the landscape that was only interrupted by random wild horses and occasional settlements.

We arrived in Ulan Bataar, the capital, around 2:30. UB is not a very pretty town. Indeed, if it wasn't so blue and beautiful outside, it would be almost depressing. It is a town of 700,000 people (which is 25% of Mongolia's population). I don't feel comfortable in a place where we are warned to heavily guard our possessions from the busy hands of the pick-pockets.

The architecture is a hodge podge of mud hut and Soviet communist style. It appears from all the cranes, similar to those that hang above the air in every Chinese city we visited, that Mongolia is attempting to develop. It is a country in transition. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was very much a client state and heavily dependent on Soviet aid. They now have nothing and must redefine themselves economically and culturally. From what I hear, Mongolia has cozied up to the U.S., even sending troops to Iraq, which may explain why I didn't need a visa to enter the country.

The Mongolians look like a mix of ethnicities -- some look Chinese, others like Ughurs and Kazhaks. The alphabet of the language looks like Russian and those who speak English do so with an odd Russian accent. The language sounds nothing like Chinese.

We leave tomorrow to a Ger camp in the Terelij National Park where we will stay for two nights. Horseback riding, desert hiking and relaxation will be pastimes there.