27/4/97

Up and away early this morning, as I've got to be in UB by nightfall. I'm sad to leave all the guys in the camp who have all proved to be good fun, not to mention all those concrete dinosaurs. Unfortunately, "my" dog was intent on going with me, and went a whole mile down the road with me before I turned round and had the cook hold him as I walked away. He whined pathetically, and I felt truly awful, but there was no way I could bring a dog with me; luckily he was soon out of sight.

About three kilometres down the road I got a lift with a couple of Mongolians in a Land Cruiser. I had hardly sat down before they insisted that I start on a can of lager; they must have met Alexei earlier! They dropped me off soon enough though, and I set off for my mountain over a meadow, staying well away from the ger there. However, the local sheep dogs must have smelt the beer, because two of them raced out to meet me when I was 500m from the ger. They didn't attack, but contented themselves with barking themselves silly for a minute, then running back to the ger. Much to my surprise, they visited me twice more in the next five minutes; perhaps they were sent, but I didn't see anyone.

The mountain started as a fairly easy climb until I entered the fir wood that covered the slope, whereupon it went to 60-70 degrees. Took me just over an hour, but 400m up the view was great. Teredj seems very like the Lake District back in the UK; except that lakes are non-existent. A extremely imaginative person might even imagine that all the ridges looked like dinosaur skeletons, but perhaps that's just the beer talking! The climb down was considerably easier, and I got to the road just in time to catch a lift from a helpful Mongolian who lived nearby. He could only take me as far as the edge of the park, but I had hardly crossed the bridge that marked the edge of the park when a large and modern BMW hove into view, and to my complete amazement, stopped. The driver was a twenty two year old law student in UB (obviously a very well off one!), who had spent a year learning English in Birmingham. The ride to UB was incredibly fast and comfortable; not what I had expected at all.

After going back to the hostel, where my reappearance was regarded with both pleasure and resignation depending on the age of the staff concerned, I wandered down the UB hotel to get some dinner. The ground floor restaurant had very few people in it, but I had sat down before I realized that my spurned suitor and her matchmaking friends were on duty. There followed a lot of rather stilted and polite conversation from her on the subject of where I had been. Luckily, a character with an attire that fairly screamed backpacker walked in, and I went to sit with him, which partly got me off the hook.

Arnaud was French Swiss, and over a few beers turned out to be a bit of a perpetual backpacker. It has to be said that he was an extremely successful one; I've never met anyone who had been to Bhutan before, which is an achievement in itself as the government bans all foreigners who spend less than $100 a day! He had just got here from China, so I found him a very useful source of information. He in turn wanted to know about Mongolia, and places to visit in UB. I was still hungry, so I suggested a visit to the Green Club, an Indian restaurant that Uti said was wonderful. It was about one block west of the State department store, and could be reached down an alley. It was when we were walking down this alley that four shadows appeared and tried to take the rucksacks off our backs. A bit of pushing and shoving followed, and I punched one of the assailants in the stomach. We then ran straight into the Green Club; only to be followed by four Mongolians who ranged from a very sober Chinese looking character, to a more traditional type who was unquestionably out of his tree. They sat down at our table, and followed us as we switched to another.

I presumed that we were supposed to pay for their dinner, and they showed that they had done this before by loudly declaring that "we friends" and "no problem". The waiter took an order from us for some curry and then turned to them. They ordered soup and two Tigers apiece. As soon as I felt I could disentangle myself I went up to the manager, and told him that we weren't paying their bill. "But they your friends" he protested. I told him no, and that he shouldn't serve them anything. I went back to the table, where Arnaud announced that he was sure that they didn't speak English beyond the few phrases that they had already used, which was probably just as well as we called them everything from faggots to wankers in the next half an hour; with big grins on our faces of course! I primed Arnaud to be ready to push off then went up to the manager and asked for the bill; which was over thirty dollars! Being severely unamused, I gave him our share and told him he could whistle for the rest, and we left him arguing with four somewhat befuddled Mongolians. Once we were back on the main road, a somewhat shocked Arnaud declared that he had been in twenty eight countries but this had never happened to him before- me neither! Lets face it though, we were lucky; they could have been sober, or actually spoken English.

Arnaud; or is it Che Guevara?	Entrance to Teredj

28/4/97

Today was rather quiet, and was mainly taken up with administration; I've got to do my washing sometime, and an email to the parents seemed diplomatic. When I appeared at the UB hotel business centre, the PC was busy, and I had to wait with an American salesman. It turned out he was trying to sell air traffic control systems to the Mongolians. His former job was more interesting- air attache at the Beijing embassy. He however, regarded this as less of a thrill than commanding a squadron of F15's, although it had given him a small claim to fame; he thought that he must have been amongst the first twenty people in China to have an Internet connection. However, good natured requests for classified data on China's police were met with a wide smile; and nothing else!

I popped into the Bahai centre looking for Uti, and met her teacher; a British English lecturer at the University, who regarded me with a lack of appreciation that would have warmed the heart of the mother of someone I used to go out with. I don't suppose that anyone will believe me if I say that my intentions are non existent? However, she's going to go out with myself, John Teggart and his wife the day after tomorrow.

Having dinner in the UB hotel, I met a Brit who was here on behalf of a development bank. His name was Faisal Hussain, and he usually worked in Bangladesh; convenient for him, as he had been born there. I mentioned that I have an aunt and uncle working there too, one for the World Bank, and one for the IMF; did he know them? He did; the world is a very small place. Once I got back to the hostel, I realized that dinner was not agreeing with me. I threw up and hoped that would be all that was necessary.

29/4/97

I had a really bad night, with continuous tossing and turning. I had a really weird recurring nightmare in which I was closely questioned by assorted Mongolian officials as to the significance of each and every step- literally- I had taken over the last two weeks. I found this a little distressing, especially as I'm not exactly the planning type; more slapdash and hope! In the morning the shits started, so now I can say I'm a real traveller. It had to happen somewhere, and frankly UB has to be a better place than on some Tibetan mountain. Was feeling very weak by afternoon, but I managed to go out and get a copy of the local Mongol Messenger which told me that the Mongolian team had won the sambo championships; the Russians will be upset.

30/4/97

Got up feeling 100% better and set off down town for a midday RV with Arnaud; I had promised him he could have my LP Mongolia guide. He suggested a beer, which went down rather well, and we talked about where we were going next. His next destination was Bayan Olgi in the far west, then back to China; perhaps we'll meet. I would certainly hope so, as he is definitely a character worth knowing. He was rather upset by my comment that he looked like Che Guevara, declaring "I am not a Communist!".

Went to The Bridge restaurant that evening with John and Uti; his wife was ill. The place was extremely smart, and I was assured, very sanitary and we wouldn't have any "problems with the eggs here!". I sensed Uti tense up beside me as I asked John what he was talking about. Uti was called upon to explain, but seemed a little embarrassed, so John explained that a year ago a large contingent of foreign doctors had come to UB for a conference and had suffered very bad food poisoning; the government had said it was down to the eggs that had been imported from China, the doctors said it was the local meat. Anyway, it had killed off Mongolia's only neurosurgeon, so I think that qualifies as a disaster. Anyway, we changed the subject to places we had seen. Uti had us a little amazed by her story of a religious trip she had made in Bayan-Olgi in the depths of winter. Being in the middle of a storm at -45 C when your lorry breaks down would make me a little worried too. However she found it quite amusing in retrospect; they build them tough round here.

We said our goodbyes to John and I asked Uti if she needed walking home. "Oh no, I must see my teacher before I get on the Beijing train tomorrow morning" she replied. Fair enough I thought, so I was rather surprised to get a phone call at the hostel later that evening. Well, alright, I was amazed, as I didn't know the number and I had only described where I was staying in fairly broad terms! Uti was apparently not going to Beijing after all as her conference had been "postponed". I'm to see her at the station tomorrow morning anyway.

1/5/97

Up early- the train leaves at 0930. Uti makes me feel terribly guilty by giving me chocolate for the journey; students aren't supposed to give presents! I decide not to say anything about her conference but wished her better luck next time, and got on the train for last stage of the Trans-Siberian.

I had met my compartment sharer last night at the hostel; a British girl called Zoe, who had a remarkable resemblance to Marianne Faithfull (before the drugs turned her into a wizened hag!). She has travelled nearly continuously from London, only stopping at UB, and was to travel all the way through Asia to New Zealand. We also had a Mongolian diplomat on his way to the consulate at Hothot. The latter is very helpful, as our Mandarin is non existent and as I struggled to even say hello, it seemed that this might always be so! The difference between Russia and China was already evident as we passed through stations; instead of selling raw produce like sausage and bread, the platform vendors were now selling pre packaged noodle meals. Quite a nice change!

We got to the border around 10 pm, where the Mongolian border guards were their usual surly selves. I had expected worse from the Chinese, and had stashed anything Tibetan related away in obscure corners, but apart from the declarations that I was not bringing in seditious reading material, the inspection was trouble free and only forty minutes long. Immediately afterwards, the train pulled into a large shed to have it's bogies changed. I resisted the temptation to watch easily, and Zoe and I went off in search of the cafe that was supposed to be thirty metres off the railway after saying goodbye to the diplomat. Three hundred metres later we found it shut, but a little mom and pop place was open opposite the station entrance, and they were happy to serve us whatever I pointed at, which turned out to be egg fried rice. I tried the chopsticks, but was very grateful when the waitress slyly placed a fork beside my plate!

Back to the station, and we ran into a pair of Americans. One was shaved bald, wore a cowboy hat and said nothing, while the other looked like a Caltech grad and talked all the time; they turned out to be travel writers. Apparently, they were on their way to Lhasa too, so we agreed to meet at the Snowlands when they had finished "mapping" northern China. Once the train had got going, we soon decided to go to sleep, and were just dropping off when someone started bashing on our locked door. I opened it to find our two carriage attendants about to barge in; which they nearly did, despite the fact that I wasn't wearing much at the time. I got the impression that they wanted to know whether we were sharing the one bunk, but sadly for them we were in separate ones. If this is what the official Chinese are like, I'm off back to Mongolia!

Great Wall from the train	Zoe and friend