maanantai 16. heinäkuuta 2012

In Bolod we trust

After a days wait at the Russia-Mongolia -border we finally got to continue to Mongolia, the land of the Chinggis Khan and the humble nomads. It really says a lot about a country, that the best thing ever happened to it was Stalin's communism and that it still seeks mental guidance from a guy who lived in the 10th century.

Basically the capital Ulaanbaatar was an over-grown tent-village of about 1,2 million people (2008).    

The man sitting on the ground was Mr. Bolod. He was our beloved tour-guide who also offered one of his apartments for us to stay in. Unfortunately one of our group-member took the only set of keys for the apartment with him back to Finland, so Bolod's accommodation-business got messed up for the season.

Bolod showed us a set of bizarre sights, such as this old Mongolian army barrack. No idea, why this was relevant. Although, it's quite funny and sad at the same time, that there appears to be a person living in front of the abandoned barrack in a yurt.

A spectacular show on how to wool a lamb was displayed to us western city-people by the nomad's. Very exciting stuff! 

The gentleman on the right is Colonel Friday, a fundamental communist with a very short fuse. He enforced obsessively that we'd eat every dairy meal and snack that was offered us by the nomad people. While gagging down some yoghurt-dumplings one of our group-member was able to distract the Colonel by putting a peace of paper to the nomad-stove. That was a great insult for the nomad culture, because the stove was only allowed to be heated up with sacred cow-manure. During the distraction, we were able to get rid some of the force-feeded food by throwing it under the yurt's rug.

A typical nomad dish looked like this. Looks pretty delicious right? Well, when you eat this stuff 365 days a year three times a day, like the nomad's for sure eat, you might consider ordering a pizza.

At this corner of the world people tend to have some weird habits. Whereas chinese people burb and fart a lot to improve their digestion, mongolian people spit to improve their... well... they just spit. The habits make them fun people to hang-out with, especially in closed compartments such as trains or cars. 

In Ulaanbaatar we spent an evening at the Chinggis Beer Club. We encountered a serious liquidity problem when the electricity went off at the city and no card payment was possible. We had no cash and the bill was 123.800 tökröks.

Luckily we had a solution for the problem. We just kept on ordering more drinks until the electricity would come back on and a card payment would be possible again.

Also in Mongolia the back-seat boys were sleepy.

There was a horrendous silver statue of the Chinggis Khan standing in the middle of the desert. It was quite obvious that it was built there just that Mongolia would have something for the tourists in the middle of the desert. We didn't fall for that touristic crap and turned our backs on the stupid thing. 

At the nomad-camp Bolod told us, that there might be a shaman sitting at the top of the nearby hill, and that the shaman might wanna meet us. Bolod encouraged us to climb to the hill and see for ourselves. Well we climbed and there was no shaman, but at least we got to do some top-class power-fisting at the top.

At the edge of the Gobi-desert. We crossed the Gobi-desert at night time and decided it would be a good idea to leave the cabin's window open for the night, because it was so hot. During the night, there was a sand storm raging in our cabin, but everybody were too tired to close the window.

Can you spot two of our former friends from this decorative Mongolian restaurant cabin? Yes, you're right, there is Jens and Borreliosis-Peter. We saw them again in Ulaanbaatar, and especially Jens was surprised, not happy, that we're alive after our epic travelling in Russia. 

Don't be fooled by the sarcastic tone of this Mongolia-post, because it really is a wonder, that there are living, breathing and spitting people in this isolated part of the world. For that, Mongolia deserves some god damn respect.

maanantai 16. heinäkuuta 2012

In Bolod we trust

After a days wait at the Russia-Mongolia -border we finally got to continue to Mongolia, the land of the Chinggis Khan and the humble nomads. It really says a lot about a country, that the best thing ever happened to it was Stalin's communism and that it still seeks mental guidance from a guy who lived in the 10th century.

Basically the capital Ulaanbaatar was an over-grown tent-village of about 1,2 million people (2008).

The man sitting on the ground was Mr. Bolod. He was our beloved tour-guide who also offered one of his apartments for us to stay in. Unfortunately one of our group-member took the only set of keys for the apartment with him back to Finland, so Bolod's accommodation-business got messed up for the season.

Bolod showed us a set of bizarre sights, such as this old Mongolian army barrack. No idea, why this was relevant. Although, it's quite funny and sad at the same time, that there appears to be a person living in front of the abandoned barrack in a yurt.

A spectacular show on how to wool a lamb was displayed to us western city-people by the nomad's. Very exciting stuff!

The gentleman on the right is Colonel Friday, a fundamental communist with a very short fuse. He enforced obsessively that we'd eat every dairy meal and snack that was offered us by the nomad people. While gagging down some yoghurt-dumplings one of our group-member was able to distract the Colonel by putting a peace of paper to the nomad-stove. That was a great insult for the nomad culture, because the stove was only allowed to be heated up with sacred cow-manure. During the distraction, we were able to get rid some of the force-feeded food by throwing it under the yurt's rug.

A typical nomad dish looked like this. Looks pretty delicious right? Well, when you eat this stuff 365 days a year three times a day, like the nomad's for sure eat, you might consider ordering a pizza.

At this corner of the world people tend to have some weird habits. Whereas chinese people burb and fart a lot to improve their digestion, mongolian people spit to improve their... well... they just spit. The habits make them fun people to hang-out with, especially in closed compartments such as trains or cars.

In Ulaanbaatar we spent an evening at the Chinggis Beer Club. We encountered a serious liquidity problem when the electricity went off at the city and no card payment was possible. We had no cash and the bill was 123.800 tökröks.

Luckily we had a solution for the problem. We just kept on ordering more drinks until the electricity would come back on and a card payment would be possible again.

Also in Mongolia the back-seat boys were sleepy.

There was a horrendous silver statue of the Chinggis Khan standing in the middle of the desert. It was quite obvious that it was built there just that Mongolia would have something for the tourists in the middle of the desert. We didn't fall for that touristic crap and turned our backs on the stupid thing.

At the nomad-camp Bolod told us, that there might be a shaman sitting at the top of the nearby hill, and that the shaman might wanna meet us. Bolod encouraged us to climb to the hill and see for ourselves. Well we climbed and there was no shaman, but at least we got to do some top-class power-fisting at the top.

At the edge of the Gobi-desert. We crossed the Gobi-desert at night time and decided it would be a good idea to leave the cabin's window open for the night, because it was so hot. During the night, there was a sand storm raging in our cabin, but everybody were too tired to close the window.

Can you spot two of our former friends from this decorative Mongolian restaurant cabin? Yes, you're right, there is Jens and Borreliosis-Peter. We saw them again in Ulaanbaatar, and especially Jens was surprised, not happy, that we're alive after our epic travelling in Russia.

Don't be fooled by the sarcastic tone of this Mongolia-post, because it really is a wonder, that there are living, breathing and spitting people in this isolated part of the world. For that, Mongolia deserves some god damn respect.