Mongolia was the first country in almost fourteen months that started to feel “less” Asian and more Western, in this case Russian. The people are bigger and taller (and the ladies quite attractive) and their dress sense more fashionable.
The capital (the coldest in the world) Ulanbantor is a weird mix between Mongolian architecture – meaning tents or gers as they are called – , ugly Soviet style apartment blocks and new glass and concrete high rises. But the best part of Mongolia is not in it's city (there are only three), but the countryside.
We’re just stopping over for a couple of days and the only reasonable way for us to get into that magnificent countryside was to take a tour. In this case it constituted of two old Minsk-vans, four-by-for and ten guys, including us three (me, Jo and Cath) and two fellow travelers we met in Beijing (Jack and Sherren). The other van was occupied by a couple of cool guys, mostly from Canada but including a Brazilian.
For four days we slept in gers (tents), ate with local families, didn’t shower and take camel and horse rides. The landscape in Mongolia is absolutely amazing. Wide open plains, mountains, deserts. We used to quip that Mongolia had the widest highway in the world, we would often just drive off the asphalt onto the steppes.
But we had a train to catch. This one from Ulanbantor to Irkutsk, a city in the middle of Siberia, Russia. It took us two days – the same amount of time from Beijing to Ulanbantor, but half the distance. Why? Well, I never had a border crossing take this long – twelve frikking hours being stranded in a desolate border station with absolutely nothing to do.
First thing I noticed was how European Siberia felt. I never experienced such a distinct boundary between two cultures. he moment we crossed the border everybody was white and when we got into the city it felt we were in some dingy little Eastern-European town.
Even though we were in middle of Siberia it was a bit warmer than Mongolia where the temperatures could drop to minus twenty. Two days of recuperating in Irkutsk gave us the opportunity to check out the deepest lake in the world: lake Baikal.
Bakail is quite a sight. The lake was still frozen and the ice was at least a meter thick. Frozen stiff after frolicking in Irkutsk we made our way back to the last leg of our journey. The four day train ride to Moscow.
It’s quite relaxing being in a train for that long. You don’t have to do anything. You sleep, talk to people, listen to music and smoke. Come evening you eat your instant-noodles and play drinking games with Russian military officers. Though I do have to say that after four days on that train, I was longing to get off.
And there she was: Moscow. An amazing city. Quite expensive, but the girls were beautiful and the beer was good. Too bad I slept in probably the worst hostel that I encountered during my whole trip. Four days on the train and four days in that hostel really made me wish I was back home.
But a little volcano in Iceland was messing things up. I was supposed to fly via Copenhagen, but because of the ash cloud the airspace above Scandinavia and later the Netherlands was closed. My brother had the same problem, but he was flying from Vienna together with his girlfriend.
Not wanting to get stuck in Moscow for any longer I quickly changed gears and booked a flight a couple of hours before I was suppose to leave to my new destination: Vienna. I was damn lucky. A hour and half before the airport in Vienna closed, I manage to arrive. Halfway home. The last twelve hours of my trip were spent in a rental car cruising along the highways in Germany. Dog tired and little bit trippy I finally arrived home around six in the morning.
An interesting way to end a very interesting journey.
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