Two Mongolians, one Chinese Businessman and a Frozen Fish

My trip home was the part of my experience that from day one I was looking forward to the most. I could not wait to spend six days on a train, sitting, sleeping, reading, looking out the window, nothing sounded quite as nice as this did. And for all intents and purposes, it lived up to its billing. There were a couple of times, especially today, when I really just wanted to be off of the stupid train. The tight quarters were getting to be a bit much, but overall, a rockin’ good time.

There were a couple of parts of the journey that I was a bit worried about….getting to the train station on time and my cabin companions. I had no problem with getting to the train station, I actually had a bit of time to kill. As for my cabin mates…let’s just say that they did not quite fit my idea of dream cabin mates, single, attractive, smart females that happened to be looking for a tall American that wants to more or less live abroad for a while and has been known to be hard to please. As I boarded the train I sat in my compartment in car #5 looking at the others that filed onto the train….they were, without exception male and Chinese. It began to dawn on me that the fact that I had booked my ticket in China probably meant that I would not be surrounded by other Westerners, something I had been expecting since the Trans-Mongolian route (which I took) is dominated by Westerners. As more and more people began to fill the car, a strange thing happened though, no one put their stuff in my compartment… It turns out that, perhaps because I was a foreigner, there was no one else booked into my compartment. This changed a little, when a Chinese businessman realized that he could have a lower bunk in my compartment instead of the upper bunk that he had in his, but no one else came in, we were joined for about 12 hours by a Mongolian father and son from Erlian (Chinese-Mongolian Border town) to Ulan-Bator. The only other thing to join us was a frozen fish (along with someone else’s luggage) while we crossed the Russian border to spread out how many goods him and his companion were taking into Russia. This had the wonderful quality of stinking up the car, but no other real benefit. All in all it was a very peaceful trip, highlighted by sleeping and reading.

The journey produced a couple of notable occurrences, all dealing with language issues. This was one of the first times that I had a lengthy conversation in Chinese, since Hu Zhangli spoke no English. I pretty much exhausted what I have gotten to in my tutor lessons so far by the end of the first day, rather the first hour, but that did not stop us from trying to learn a bit more about each other as time went on. I found out a lot about him while getting ready to cross the Russian border. The mounds of paperwork that we had to fill out to cross (ok, just three sheets, but two copies of each) gave me a chance to ask odd questions, like, how much currency do you have with you, how many bags do you have, important things. Most of the paperwork was given to us in Russian only, though one form also had English on it. Neither of us spoke any Russian, nor can we read the Cyrillic alphabet. This made for a difficult situation where, using a guidebook and the one form in English, I translated the Russian form into English and then tried to explain the information that went in each spot using a phrasebook and my little Chinese to Hu. All in all it worked pretty well, and we both made it through Customs without any worries or too many extra questions.

The scenery was impressive, but especially through Mongolia and the first day in Russia. After that, the sights began to look a lot like Michigan. The Gobi desert was beautiful, a place that I will be sure to visit again. The Mongolian plain north of Ulan-Bator was even more impressive. In Russia it rained all the first day, the day that we passed by Lake Baikal. What I could see was impressive, but I am sure that on a clear day the lake and surrounding mountains would have been even more majestic.

This was a trip of a lifetime, one that is just beginning. At the end of my stay in China I was just beginning to feel like I had some command of the language, that I could compose myself in public in bits and pieces of the native language, now I find myself again in a place where I speak nothing….and I kind of really like it. I have no desire to learn Russian, so I just shrug and act like the ignorant American that I am. My first impressions of Moscow are that I am really impressed. A lot of these feeling may be that I am in a European city, with fresh air, blue skies and cool air for the first time in a long time, but all in all I really enjoy it here so far. Much more to come later on as I continue to make my way across the Northern Hemisphere.