Life with the nomads

After the car dropped us of at Terelj, two hour drive out of UB, we where picked up by Mr. Bolt on his ox cart and taken to his farm. As we where taken away from Terelj we left the modern world behind and entered into the world of the nomads of Mongolia. Except for a few mobile phones and some TVs people here still live the old way. Living of the land and their animals, they move their Ger and animals three times a year.

At Mr. bolts place we got to try ice bowling, horseback riding and archery. For the First time we got to try salted milk tea, which is used daily. The tea was much better than expected, and we started to enjoy it in the end.

After a long night of keeping the fire going, we where taken to the next Ger, Bogy and Amra’s place. This family have two kids, daughter 5 and son 1 years old. Their neighbor also had kids so here we got to play a lot. They play games with ankle bones, which was really fun, especially for Tiril. We played both horse race and some other games.

 

The last night we stayed at a bigger farm with lots of goats, sheep and cows. Here Tiril and Lars helped by picking up cow dung , which is burned to keep the Ger warm.

Their food is mostly meat and rice, onions and carrots are the most common vegetable they use. For breakfast they have a type of  bread, and of course salted milk tea….. to every meal. We had around –15 to –20 degrees Celsius so it was really cold, especially the ox cart riding. But we had a great time and very interesting. Must say that our simple guest house in UB felt like a palace when we got back. Going to a proper toilet felt nice after doing it behind a tree in minus 15 degrees. 

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Ger to Ger

Just got back from a very cold, but interesting trip visiting the nomads and sleeping in ger, kind of a tent used by the nomadic people. We are now rushing to get a shower before the train ride to Irkutsk, Russia. Will get back with more from the trip when we get to Irkutsk.

Beijing to Mongolia

November 24th and one month left till Christmas, and we are driving through the Gobi dessert and listening to Christmas carols. We left Beijing at 7:40 am this morning, now the sun is setting outside and we still have more than 18 hours to go.

The train ride on the Mongolian plains and rolling hills has been one of the most beautiful train rides so far. With the white snow, blue sky and horses, yaks and camels roaming the hills.  

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Ulaan Baator

We are now in the Capitol of Mongolia. Here we stay at a guest house, very simple, just a room in a apartment, but perfectly fine. Cashmere is the thing to buy here and the city is full of cashmere stores, so there has been some shopping…… Ove has ordered a Mongolian bow so we got some nice souvenirs!!!  Even though the city have more than 1 million people it still feels like a small town, with lots of cozy, local cafes and restaurants. Chains like Mc Donald’s and Starbucks have not reached this part of the world yet.  Everywhere you can see that this was ones a part of USSR, old ugly blocks and state buildings.

Lars woke up this morning and looked out the window and said with excitement: “Something is dropping from the sky!!” It is not everyday he see snow. Today its been a little bit snow and around -15 C. We have one more night here in UB and then we will go on a three night trip on the plains, living in ger with the locals.

Beijing

Hi everyone, we have not been able to post anything on our blog lately because Blogspot and also facebook is banned by the Chinese government.

Here in Beijing we rented a room at a Hutong Guest house, a typical old Chinese house with a court yard in the middle and small houses around.  The Guest house had only 6 rooms and Tiril and Lars played in the yard with the house cat. There was only a little bit snow left but it was enough for Tiril and Lars to have a great time.  They are not spoiled with to much snow!!!!!

Here we stocked up on more winter clothes and also we got our 15 kg box, that was send from Singapore to a former college of Ove who now lives in Beijing.  After all the different markets we have been to Tiril and Lars are now getting good at barging, when they play we hear: “ 1 for 3 dollar, 2 for 5 dollar, what color you want…. we have many things …any thing you want…what you want….”

One day we took a tour and saw the great wall and Ming's tomb.   The great wall was a cold experience, but very impressive. We are not so impressed by the taxi drivers here in Beijing, most of the time they don’t want to pick us up or the take us to the wrong place. We have also seen a acrobatic show, very good……..

The last night in Beijing we where treated to Pizza by some friends of Ove that he worked with in Singapore. I nice ending to a interesting time in Beijing.

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Ha Long Bay

After a four hour long car drive from Hanoi we came to Ha Long City and our boat, a 23 meter long Junk, Du Tieu Chuan. The boat has two cabins, a dining room, a big sundeck and a crew of five + guide,  we have it all to ourselves.  The weather is now a lot colder, a round 15 degreed C and windy.

Ha Long Bay has 1969 small pinnacle islands, and in between them the local people live on floating houses. About 2500 people live out here in 7 small villages, the biggest one with 150 families. We visited one of the villages, here we got to see their local floating school. People out here live a very hard life, and most of them have never gone to school. A family make their living from fishing and tourism, and can make up to 100 usd a month.

We have also been kayaking and swimming, the sea is still warm even if the weather has gotten cooler. Since we have our one chef on board the food is amazing, I think we counted 7 different dishes for dinner.  Ha Long Bay is on the world heritage list and it is understandable……very beautiful. 

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Hanoi

We are now in Hanoi and getting ready for a long train trip to Beijing. Here we stay in the middle of the old quarter, a very busy part of the city.After two days in Hanoi traffic we are starting to get the hang of crossing the streets here, running zigzag in between a million motorbikes and cars. Traffic goes everywhere even on the sidewalk. People in Hanoi seems to live on the street, chatting, cooking, playing games and drinking their coffee. Last night we saw the famous water puppet show, the kids loved it!!!!!

Saigon to Hanoi

The train left Saigon at 11 pm. The train will take about 30 hours to get to Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam. We will arrive around 6am.

Life on the train

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We had a cabin with 4 beds and a small table. The beds where very narrow and hard, but Tiril and Lars where very tired and fell a sleep right a way. The next morning we woke up at 6:30 am to sunshine and a  very talkative  group of  60 years old Australians. Outside we could start to see mountains, the train tracks run along the coast line, and at one point we where driving on the side of a mountain and had the ocean below us, spectacular view of the sunset!!!   
The train made a few longer stops along the way so we have time to run out and buy food and snacks. Here Ove and Lars is out shopping for French baguettes(which is sold every where here in Viet, after the French colonial time) and some drinks. The small shops is almost on the train tracks. Tiril and Lars spend the time playing Nintendo, Uno and looking out the window at all the water buffaloes, ducks and people working on the rice fields.

The lunch cart was very interesting and a bit scary, but we still tried some.  Rice and chicken!!! 

On the last night Lars fell out of bed twice, good thing we where able to convince him to sleep in the lower berth. 

Boat trip on Mekong River

At 9 am our guide came to pick us up. First we took a small boat through a floating village and then to a Cham village. Cham people is a minority group in Vietnam, originally from India. Centuries ago they had a big kingdom in central Vietnam, only a small group live in the south and they are Muslims.

After we went to the river boat for a two day cruise  down the Mekong River. The boat had a crew of five, including chef and guide, so we where well taken care of. (this was a private boat only for us). Ove got sick, high fever and runny nose, so he didn’t get to enjoy the trip. But the rest of us had a nice time.

We have now had one night in Saigon, and are getting ready for the train to Hanoi.

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