MONGOLIA

It's 9:00 on a Tuesday night and it's RAINING! This normally wouldn't be exciting, except for the fact that this is the first form of precipitation that I've seen that hasn't been in the form of snow (although now that I look a little more closely, it might be a snow/rain combo). I'm currently fighting the endless struggle with the internet, which works about as fast as the internet worked in the US in the year 2000, and waiting for my laundry to finish soaking in the sink. I'm really going to miss Irkutsk when I leave at the end of the month, but I will never be nostalgic for washing my clothes by hand. Luckily I'll have no reminders of this because most of my clothes are nearly destroyed from hand-washing and I'll be leaving almost all of them behind.

I spent this past weekend in Ulan-Bataar, Mongolia, which was a surprise trip SRAS organized for the 4 of us on the program. In all, the trip was pretty amazing, although I don't know who is responsible for planning a trip in which we spent 2 ½ days traveling and only 1 full day in the city. We left by overnight train on the trans-Siberian railway late Friday night and arrived in Ylan-Yde early Saturday morning. From there we took a 12-HOUR bus ride to Ylan-Bataar, Mongolia. Crossing the border was, of course, a complete fiasco and pain-in-the-ass. The process goes like this: Pull up to the border, wait. An official comes on the bus and personally checks everyone's passports, wait. Cross the border, disembark, gather luggage, wait in line. Passport control, customs, wait. Get back on the bus. An official comes on the bus and personally checks everyone's passports, again. Then we cross the border. And that was just to get out of Russia. The same process occurs on the other side with the Mongolian officials (the only difference was that the Mongolian drug dogs were a lot wimpier than the Russian ones).

We got to Ulan-Bataar around 7pm and met our tour guide, who was about 20 yrs old and spoke excellent English (and quite attractive, might I add). When I told him I was from PA, he told me that he's going to Lehigh University in the fall! He then added that he had also applied to Colgate, Vassar, Hamilton, Brandeis, and Lafayette, and that he had to apply two years in a row because none of the schools he applied to the first time around offered him enough financial aid. When he told me that he found out about these schools by reading US News & World Report's "Top Colleges" list (my temporary bible when I was applying to college), I realized just how small the world is. Even though he was obviously a very intelligent person, it turned out that he didn't really know too much about Mongolia (we started to doubt the fact that he grew up in Ulan-Bataar) and wasn't a very good tour guide.

He showed us to our hostel to drop off our stuff before going to a Mongolian barbecue buffet for dinner (where I tried horse meat for the first time). After commenting on how "nice" the hostel was, we all realized that our standards had significantly lowered after coming to Russia. Looking back, the hostel was of about the same quality as you would expect at "Purdy Motel" on 11&15 South. After dinner, my friend Andrew and I went to a very Western-style karaoke bar and had the opportunity to hear Mongolian renditions of songs by Michael Jackson, Journey, and Whitney Houston. We also tried the very popular Mongolian "Chengis Khan" beer, which was a disappointingly light and flavorless beer. (I don't know why, but I was kind of expecting something dark and bitter.) Before we left, I left a 100-tugrug (Mongolian currency) tip for our waitress, only to rush back to our table as soon as I realized I had only left her the equivalent of $.07. In fact, the currency in Mongolia is so inflated that they stopped using coins a few years ago.

On Sunday, our one and only full day in Mongolia, we went to a giant metal statue of Chengis Khan in the desert outside of the city. This was supposedly the estimated location of his death, and there was a whole complex constructed in his honor. Unfortunately, the museum was under construction and there really wasn't much to see, but we got a chance to take an elevator up to the top of the statue and look out over the mountainous desert. We then drove further and went to a national park out on the steppe, where I felt the strongest wind I've ever experienced in my life; in fact, while we were climbing a hill I had to take a few breaks to sit down for a few moments because I was afraid the wind would blow me over.

We then headed back into Ulan-Bataar for the city portion of our excursion. Ulan-Bataar is really unlike any other place I've ever been in my life. The outskirts of the city are pretty rough, and there are even young children begging on the streets (which is something I've never seen in Russia). Also, most people who live outside of the center of the city or in the countryside live in yurts, which are round collapsible tepee-like dwellings no more than ten meters across and 2 meters high. They actually seem quite roomy from the inside, and I bought a beautiful silver bracelet as a souvenir for myself from a man who turned his yurt into a tourist shop (with his bed and belongings situated neatly against one of the walls). The inside of the city is fairly modern and somewhat resembles Irkutsk. The only huge difference was that behind the tall buildings you can see the desert mountains in the background, which makes you realize that even though you're in a city, you're still in a desert in the middle of nowhere, and outside the city walls there is literally nothing for miles and miles; only about every 60 miles or so do you see a tiny yurt village and a herd of animals. A lot of people in Mongolia still live semi-nomadic lives, and Mongolia is considered the most underdeveloped country in the world because it is so sparsely populated. In fact, the population of Mongolia is only about 3 million, and one-third of those people live in the city of Ulan-Bataar.

In the city, we had the chance to walk around the main city square and visit various Buddhist temples and statues. By the end of the day we were pretty exhausted and headed off to bed early to brace ourselves for the long journey back to Irkutsk. Whoever planned this trip had surely never sat on a bus for 12 hours with no ventilation, no restroom, and nothing to look at but miles and miles of desert wasteland. Additionally, the road between Mongolia and Russia is covered in potholes and blocked every couple of miles by wandering livestock. When we finally got to Ulan-Yde, we still had another overnight train ride ahead of us, and we arrived to Irkutsk at 7:30 this morning, giving us just enough time to quickly finish up our homework and drag our zombie-like selves to school.

In case anyone back home is till unaware, I recently received a grant from Wesleyan to stay an extra month in Russia during which I will work and live for free at Nikita's Homestead on Olkhon Island (the place where I stayed back in February). There, I'll probably teach English, translate for foreign tourists, help with cooking and cleaning, and, most importantly, have the chance to see Lake Baikal UNFROZEN. By now I'm getting pretty homesick, but I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I'm actually becoming pretty excited about it, and I think it will be a great way to end this crazy experience I've had here in Siberia. Although, I'm still looking forward to the end of June, when I'll be able to grab a coffee to go at Starbucks, use a washing machine, and walk around outside without a coat. Until then, it will be instant coffee, hand-washed laundry, and wool jackets in May.

Pictures soon to come!