The 1000 Day Holiday

In Russian style we were drinking shots of vodka as toasts.

Well into the session one of the group decided it would be a funny prank to have some people drink white vinegar. Long story short, 2 of us ended up drinking a shot of vinegar.

Under normal circumstances I don’t think this would have caused any problems, apart from a possible instant vomit/bit of a gag. Said Swedish prankster refused to take it himself, claiming he didn’t know the effects when he did. bad Karma to him.

However what the pranksters didn’t know (I really hope not), was that they gave us distilled vinegar, 70% Acetic acid! According to online sources distilled vinegar isn’t usually stronger than 5%. I guess said sources didn’t check with the Russians.

The result was very swollen tounges, extreme levels of salivating for 3 days, burnt throats and mouths and great difficulty eating/swallowing/sleeping etc.

Goes down as one of those, ‘umm’ moments in travel.

The last 36 hours have been spent in a train from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to Irkutsk, Russia.

3 of us shared a cabin. An aussie tour guide, a Mongolian woman and I.

We arrived at the border ~4am. This means the toilet is locked from then until it departs at 3.30pm. The toilet on the platform was open from 6am.. not too bad so far.

9am arrives, which begins with us being locked into the carriage for 4 hours for Immigration processing, and customs checks. And since we’re still in station, the toilet is still locked.

The process involves customs searching the entire carriage. Checking underfloor spaces, inside heaters, in the roof, everything.

Before they arrived in our cabin, the Mongolian woman had arranged with the guide to put a pair of boots with his stuff. All fine and good, since they could converse in Russian.
She had a heap of new clothes, jeans, and around 30 pairs of socks. Which she was putting inside each other, taking the tags off everything then strategically placing the items around the cabin.
Once the customs agent came to our cabin he went through everything. The Mongolian woman on the trains get searched extra thoroughly, as ‘cheap Chinese warm socks’ (that doesn’t make much sense) obviously have a lot more value in Russia if they bother to smuggle them with such quantity! And since we were in the cabin with her. We get the twice over too.

Our packs get searched, and what do I find under my pack? another pair of boots! The customs guy starts shouting something in Russian loudly at me.. so I just kept saying yes, yes, yes….

In the end she ended up loosing a few pairs of jeans and top but she managed to keep some of the socks. Bummer that she forgot a pair of socks and her passport!

So for helping the Cheap Chinese/Mongolian Sock Smuggling trade I got a really crap pair of warm socks that had a hole after their first wear. And a really spongy apple that she gave me before the customs guys arrived..   And she thought I could be bought for cheap.. HUH!

I’ve just got back to Ulan Battor after 14 days in the Mongolian wilderness nothingness. Me, 2 Germanish: Holger & Torsten. Jasmina the Bulgarish. And Byrah our Mongolian driver who I suspect is the 2000-2005 “RussianVan Enduro-Rally Mongolian National Champion”.

Highlights:

• Collecting Poo for the fire : There are certain qualities you look for!
• Having 2 showers in 14 days
• Seeing a tree after 4 days
• Buying a Boney M tape for the driver to compliment his Abba one.
• Getting spat on by my friendly 2 hump camel
• Hiding a “camel toe” in the van as a gift for my tour mates
• Overtaking another vehicle after 7 days.
• Finding a replacement travel hula hoop in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
• Buying wood so we dont have to collect poo, then disoverin said wood smells like really bad poo when burnt
• Waking up to a white Mongolia, snow everywhere!
• All 4 of us getting food poisoning, with the toilet being 400m away across snow.
• Catching the driver watching FREAKY German $#!t on my chest style porn in his ger(yurt).
• Eating mutton everything. Even the boiled water tasted like mutton.
• Smelling like mutton.
• Spreading the chili sauce religion o my fellow travellers.
• Getting everyone saying “why not!” to answer any proposal.
• Getting my Mongolian mule horse to as fast as walking pace
• Picking up a Mongolian Woman hitching in the middle of nowhere, but carrying a nice handbag. She did wave goodbye to a goat herder then proceeding to teach her Yaniv (card game) and her beating Holger.
• German Holger used to play a Supergroove song in his covers band
• Being Polish as much as possible, using derivatives of polish in speech (being polite)
• While partying the way back to UB (3 bottles of vodka), one of us stood on my bag, breaking my cameras LCD. DOH

And a few silly statistics from the trip:

• 30 Bottles of Vodka
• 10L Beer
• 5 bottles of wine
• Meals provided that didn’t contain mutton: 1
• Total KM’s Driven: ??2500 to b verified
• KM’s driven on Asphalt: ~45

Disclaimer: This post is powered by mutton dumplings that I had for breakfast!

We didn’t have satellite tv, or crazy german porn. So what else to do when it gets cold and dark but drink!

608 Days down, 392 to go…
01/09/07 Chengdu – to the Pandas.. and catching up w Wim!
02/09/07 Chengdu
03/09/07 Chengdu
04/09/07 Chengdu
05/09/07 Bus from Chengdu to Songpan
06/09/07 Songpan Horse Trek to Ice Mountain
07/09/07 Songpan Horse Trek
08/09/07 Finished horsetrek, and back to chengdu for the Rugby!
09/09/07 RWC – 3 games NZL vs Italy…Aus v Japan
10/09/07 Chengdu, Sichuan Opera (Face Changing…)
11/09/07 Museum of History
12/09/07 Terracotta Warriors & Overnight train to Shanghai
13/09/07 CS ing with Sarah & Thoma
14/09/07 Shanghai Museum. Hotpot Resturant then ‘Antidote’ Party & Bar st
15/09/07 Banana Club
16/09/07 MOMA,
17/09/07 Bus to Hangzhou
18/09/07 Hangzhou, Suffering the rain from the typhoon
19/09/07 Hangzhou, Riding around west lake
20/09/07 Crashed a flash peoples party at
21/09/07 Live Concert, Retro (china style placebo) & Synth group (ala Depeche Mode)
22/09/07 Overnight Train to Beijing
23/09/07 Scoring a train ticket to Mongolia in Golden week!
24/09/07 1 Legged bicycling around Beijing
25/09/07 Beijing
26/09/07 Beijing
27/09/07 Beijing
28/09/07 Beijing
29/09/07 Beijing
30/09/07 Beijing

While in Beijing, I ran into a guy, Stu, who I know from Nelson. And he is a true Ginger Ninja/Red Head/Carrot Top/Ginga.

In NZ/Aussie gingers definately are the butt of a lot of jokes. But Stu has discovered an amazing travel benefit of the Ginge.

He was negotiating for a tshirt in Vietnam and he is a very dedicated bargainer. After a lot of bartering they were at a deadlock. She wanted $3, Stu only wanted to pay $2.

She had a flash of inspiration. She said pointing at his hair and then to his crotch, “same same?”

He replied yes…

She says, “you show me, I give you for $2″

And the rest is history….

Who said recessive genes were pointless.

Today I hired a bicycle to cruise around the sights of Beijing. THE BOOK even goes so far as providing you a mapped out route.

I quickly lost that route, and wandered all over central Beijing. The city is filled with over 2000 Hutong, narrow alleyways that twist and turn, leaving you disoriented and a long way from where you started. 1/4 of Beijings residents live in houses on these alleyways. There was more than 5000 Hutong, but the Olympics and rapid development are bulldozing them at a rapid pace.

Anyway.

I was on the other side of the city and one pedal fell off. DOH. In most other cities I’ve been in there would be bike fix-it men on every corner. But since the roads are all paved I guess the demand for running repairs is a lot reduced.

So to get home, I was one leg pedaling. I discovered an unreported feature of my Jandals (flip flops). I hooked the remaining pedal between my foot and Jandal which created a type of toeclip so I could raise the pedal, completing the loop. I had some races with other cyclists and even Electric bikes/scooters and they all thought it hilarious. A foreigner with a 1 pedal bike..

Beijing would class as a bike friendly city! most roads have a bike lane, some the width of 2 normal lanes. There is also integrated traffic lights for the bike lanes!

I had a few concerns that my Mongolian “horse” for this adventure would turn out to be a cross bred donkey/mule/pony/over-sized dog. But he was cool, had attitude +MORE

 My trusty steed..

My horse insisted at being at the front of the group. I couldn’t decide if this was stubbornness or he was a wimp and didn’t like getting the whipped by the guide. If we happened to drop from the front – usually because my horse would decide it wanted to explore some dense bush. It would then proceed to shove past everyone else on the track even with no spare space.

Note to self in future: Always keep your legs up and clear when they do this…

It did make the trip into a mini race, with the others trying to get to the front. I think they participated in this game more due to the fact of my Horses other problem.

 He had incredible amounts of gas! I’m sure he farted over 500 times in 4 hours – horse farts smell!

Heres the highlights of Marc’s pictures from the trip. 

Getting the drift? GRIN

Post horse trek Marc & I had a race to see who to get back to Chengdu (400km which takes 8hrs by direct bus) in time for the France Vs Argentina Game which was starting in 12 hours time. With no buses going, we planned to hitch independently.

I managed to score a local bus which went 1/2 way and then into a 800cc minivan..  Thinking I had Marc well beaten. Only to have the minivan break down, turn back 5 or 6 times, decide that it was ok, and go again… I got to Chengdu at midnight (10hrs total). My only surprise was Marc walking down the stairs as I checked in. Beaten by 10 minutes…  Although he did get ripped off, his ride dropped him 45km outside central Chengdu, and thinking he wasn’t far from the centre jumped in a cab. 150Yuan later ($25).. he beat me..

I got mine back with Argentina beating the frogs in the Rugby!  Guess what?  French is called “farqwah” in chinese… like prince farqwah in shrek.. 

577 Days down, 423 to go…
01/08/07 Arrive phonsavan
02/08/07 to Nam neun
03/08/07 To Vieng Kahm
04/08/07 To Luang Prabang
05/08/07 Luang Prabang
06/08/07 to Luang Nam Tha
07/08/07 Chilling in Luang Nam Tha
08/08/07 2 day hike in NPA
09/08/07 2 day hike in NPA
10/08/07 Hanging out. avoiding busses..haha
11/08/07 To China! (mengla) Overnight bus to Kunming
12/08/07 Kunming – CS surfing w Laura
13/08/07 Kunming – CS surfing w Laura
14/08/07 hanging w Optimus Prime in Kunming
15/08/07 Bus to Dali
16/08/07 Dali
17/08/07 Bus to Lijiang
18/08/07 Party Party in Lijiang
19/08/07 Oops, slept in and missed the bus to the gorge
20/08/07 Leaping tiger gorge, sleep at tea horse
21/08/07 Leaping tiger gorge, sleep at Woodys
22/08/07 back to Lijiang
23/08/07 bus to Dali
24/08/07 Dali – 3 pagodas, and the lake by bike
25/08/07 Bus to Kunming
26/08/07 Shopping in Kunming,
27/08/07 Overnight train to Chengdu
28/08/07 Remainder of train…
29/08/07 Hike Emai Shan
30/08/07 walk to the summit for Sunrise.. well FOG
31/08/07 To Leshan for the worlds biggest Buddha (nup.. it rained..) so onto Chengdu.

Question: As a traveller what do you do if you have no plans for that day, and your CS host is going to get some jabs at the CDC for their upcoming trip to Tibet?

Answer: You go along and get them too!

Rabies vaccines in Australia cost $100AUD each (and you need 3). With my forward planning of less than a week before my trip. Getting a month of shots didn’t work out.

But here in China, you can get the same shot for $10AUD and thats the German imported version. Not a trusty Chinese copy!

Why not. Stamps in passports are overrated. Chinese writing in your Yellow Innoculations (Fever) book is much cooler.

Emai Shan is one of the pilgrimages in China. At 3100m its a good hike. Most Chinese get transport to the top. But thats not sport.

Tackling the mountain the traditional way. People had said it was a lot of steps, I didn’t realise they meant only steps. No inclines, just steps. All 25,000+ of them.

On and on and on……..

Overnighting in a Monastery. There was no temptation to do one of the 10 day no speaking meditation retreats for me.

An early start to hike the last hour to the summit. It was all worth it though. The view across the clouds as the sun rose!