3Nations: Free Day

Have a look at previous 3Nations posts on the Expedition Page. It's where all the cool kids hang out!

Sunday 26th July 2009

Today was a free day for us to relax, recharge the batteries etc... which is usually needed at some point in the middle of such a long expedition.


In the morning, as a thank you to the monks that allowed us to camp and hike on their land, we did a litter sweep through part of the Bogd Khan National Park.

All of us, about to set off on our mission.

You would be surprised for somewhere so remote just how much rubbish we found in the National Park!

It truly was rather disgusting. Some of the stranger things that we found included most of a deck of cards (all separate of course, we were all trying to collect poker hands as we went along) and I found a fair amount of a vehicle chassis.

A small selection of the bags that we filled.

In total we filled somewhere in the region of 130 black bin bags!

The rest of the day was ours, and was mostly filled with laundry and washing and relaxing. Until dinner came along and we were told that it would be a cooking competition, where we were to make some traditional Mongolian food. We opted for some Khuurshuur (pronounced Horsha) with a variety of different fillings.

And we actually came joint first! Tho to settle who came first overall it was a relay race to the flag pole... which we didn't win. The rest of the evening was just laid back and relaxed.

3Nations: Ulaanbaatar

Have a look at previous 3Nations posts on the Expedition Page. Go on, you know you want to!


Saturday 25th July 2009


Today was rather different from most of the days here in Mongolia. Instead of the Aravts pairing off and going to do activities separately, we were all going to be heading out as one big happy family!


The plan... taking in some of the sites of Ulaanbaatar! woo hoo, touristy fun! I'm always a fan of touristy fun.


First stop was the Gandan Buddhist Monastery. Which was packed with tourists, or at least it felt like it after the quiet of camp.

Ok... doesn't look as busy as I remember it...

We'd waited about a bit, waiting to find out exactly what was happening. I think someone was supposed to show us around, but that didn't turn out, so we eventually just started wandering round like the rest of the tourists. Right round the back of those buildings was a load of prayer wheels, which led us round to a prayer room, where there was a load of monks chanting. Unfortunately there was also a load of tourists surrounding and blocking the entrance, so I didn't really get to see anything.


But turns out, this was only a small part of the monastery. We found a temple nearby with possibly the biggest Buddha I have seen (and I've seen some big Buddhas in my time)

I didn't take the photo, cause of all the signs saying not too. But one of the others was naughty and snapped this quick one. Yes, it is a Buddha statue. Looks rather Hindu in style I thought; what with the 4 arms, breasts and the spot on its forehead.


Actually, check this out. It's a 360 view from inside the temple itself!

Megjid Janraisig in Ulaanbaatar

How cool is that!! Anyway, I asked Dawn, one of the leaders on the trip who is Buddhist, about the statues form and she said different statues were aimed at getting different aspects of the Buddha across symbolically.


After exploring the temple we were then taken to our next location, a sauna. A chance to get properly clean was a very welcome prospect at this stage, since we left China we'd been washing in buckets from water you had to heat over the fire. The showers were nice and strong, the green tea bath was very refreshing and the freezing plunge pool took your breath away. The fact that all the guys were in together and we were all completely naked.... *shudder*... I saw FAR TO MUCH of some people. and before any of you ask, NO there are no photos, and if there was any they would be hunted down and destroyed for the sake of humanity.


Moving on, after lunch we went to the National Museum of Mongolia, where we got to learn a bit about the history and culture of the country. I say a bit because only the first so many displays had english translations. We still enjoyed it tho, and I did get this:

It's my name in Mongolian

We were then given some free time around the main square area of the city before heading off for another meal. Myself and a couple of the others went in search of somewhere to post our postcards and I attempted to phone home (it was a stupid number of digits to use, like 20-30ish).


Dinner was followed by a visit to the Cashmere Market on our way to our final destination, Zaisan Hill. It's a huge memorial for Soviet Soldiers killed in World War 2 on the top of a hill just south of Ulaanbaatar.

Photo from travelblog.org

The inside of the ring is covered in a mural.

Zaisan Hill Inside View in Ulaanbaatar

This panorama is just perfect actually, it looked exactly like this when we were there. Have a look round at the mural and see if you can find the woman breast feeding!


Thanks to those that I borrowed photos from, thanks also to 360cities.net for the awesome panorama views!

3Nations: Scout Project and Ulaanbaatar

Right, I realise that it has been an age since my last 3Nations post, so please go to the expedition page to remind yourself what happened.... go on.... go on, go on, go on...

sorry about that, was channeling Mrs Doyle there!

I've made it a New Years resolution to get these done, it will happen!

Thursday 23rd July 2009

Given that the whole program has been thrown a bit off kilter; what with the storm, evacuation and moving the entire site; today was trying to get it back on track. So our plan was to head into Ulaanbaatar, for a bit of community service and culture.


All aboard the minibus! woo hoo


First stop on our magical mystery tour is the scout service project. This service project actually began before we had even left the UK. Money from the project and our fundraising was being used to build an official scout hall in Ulaanbaatar (and if I remember correctly it would be the first purpose built scout hall in Mongolia). The builders had been busy building the hall, our job during the trip was to paint the inside.


Our instructions were, well... basic to say the least.


"Blue, blue, purple, white"


... that and being handed the pot of paint and some brushes. Well, we say paint. It was more like blue water, but hey, you work with what you have!

The blank patch in the corner is damp from the storm two days before (the one from evacuation day)

 

Right into all those cracks!

You can see how thin the paint was... we had to do quite a number of coats

That little hut outside isn't storage... it's the toilet. We had been warned by previous aravts about this little hut of horrors and its preilous drop of doom.

After numerous hours of this we were taken to a shopping center food court. Food! And it's NOT mutton! It's even in the shape of pizza *mmmmm pizza* (scarily this was the one type of food that I missed the most during the trip)

After our meal that me, if not anyone else, happy we set off on our next stop on the magical mystery tour of Ulaanbaatar... the black market. Now don't worry, this is actually nothing illegal and doesn't hold any of the negative connotations that it does in the UK.

Aside from looking for some traditional mongolian stuff for souveniers, we had a rather bizarre shopping list:

• Lino (for the floor of our ger, as our last lot got damaged)
• a flat cap for Dan (because he decided that he would rather look a bit more dapper)
• a hard hat for Pete (as he keeps hitting his head on the low ger doors... even knocking himself out cold one time!)
• SWEETS!!! (just because... I don't need a reason for sweets)

 And given that it had started to rain just as we were about to leave the black market the lino doubles as a handy group umbrella!

...we didn't get random looks from the locals, so siree

We'd asked Annie and Tempka (the Mongolian Scouts who acted as our guides for our time in Mongolia) where we could get some souveniers, something traditional, so an extra shop at the imaginatively named 'Souvenier Shop' was squeezed in. And I really do mean that it was squeezed in, we pretty much had to run from it to our next stop, the theatre!

I got this traditional horse brush

Us Networkers can actually be cultured at times.... honest.

We were there to see a performance by a Mongolian orchestra. It was quite stunning actually, all the musical instruments were traditional Mongolian (including the flute and the horse head fiddle I tried on our day on site) and it also featured throat singing. I doubt that I would ever be able to sing like that (and given that your throat can bleed if you do it wrong I'm not exactly lining up to learn if I am honest).

ok, the horse head fiddle is funky... but check out the really cool Mongolian Clarinet in the background!

They also featured some dancers and gymnastics to give the musicians a bit of a break.

All very bright and colourful and impressive... educational as well given that they had a LED display at the side translating and explaining stuff in english (how thoughtful)

Given this rather busy day, we were starting to get hungry again so were taken to a small local restaurant for our dinner where we were taught the Mongolian method of drinking vodka (ie. vodka and mixer in seperate glasses, neck the vodka and then the mixer)

From there... well, let's just say that a drunken return trip to the campsite is even more fun when the music is pumped up, you are literally bounced off your seats at the back of the minibus and its after midnight when you return.


Thanks for those I borrowed pictures from, pictures of the show are from http://www.astronomicaltours.net/

3Nations: Relocation Day

If you would like to follow the 3Nations posts from the beginning then head to the expedition page

Wednesday 22nd July 2009

Well, yesterday certainly threw the plan out the window!

I awoke on the floor of Ed's 'calm room' to realise that it wasn't some sort of dream... we really had been evacuated and our little bubble had not so much burst as decided that it would much rather do an impression of a snow globe.

The buzz from yesterday had started to die down a tad, everyone was safe, there were some that weren't exactly in good shape... but PJ (our medical wizard) was on the case and things were looking very positive.

A small group, made mainly of the expedition leaders and some of the Mongolians, ventured back to the site to check out what the damage was and to figure out what we should do to protect ourselves should it happen again. While we were doing that we were told that we could go explore Zuunmod.

A couple of us had decided that we should go on the hunt for a newspaper, not to get clued up on the news in Mongolia... or to enjoy the suduko or crossword (which would have been a tad difficult given the language barrier)... but so that we could stuff our boots and try to dry them out. We did manage to find plenty of shops, none of which had signs on the outside... or newspapers for that matter.

And to be honest, there didn't appear to be that much more to Zuunmod, that we saw that day anyway. Just a load of nameless shops, which you could easily walk by.

But it was time to start heading back up to the site. The kit was thrown (literally in some cases) back into the mini-buses and trailers and we hiked up to the site.


This was the storm damage to the site



It ripped right through some of the gers.



And the outside of the gers got pretty battered by the hail stones.

It had been decided that we should move the site, so that if there was another storm we would no longer be in the way of the run off water.

The way gers are supposed to be moved is to systematically de-construct them, load them onto either a vehicle or your cattle, move to new site and re-construct it. Which would be fine if you have one or two, we had 12.

If we didn't want to sleep outdoors then we were going to have to do things slightly differently.

3Nations Guide to Relocating Your Ger (the 'Quick' Method)

1. Recruit about 20 mates to help you.
2. Tie the door of the ger open.
3. All but two of you go inside the ger.
4. One person stand in the middle, two people grab the poles holding up the centre of the roof, everyone else lines the walls.
5. The ones lining the walls crouch down, grad some trellis, and lift... you are now relocating your ger!
6. The person in the middle, with the help of the people outside, are to guide you - remember you can only see out of the tiny little door at the front (so they had to be spun round first to go up the hill).
7. When lowering your ger, make sure to push out on the trellis... or the roof will fall in on your head.
8. It is also advisable to get another team to move the flooring while you are walking to ger up the hill, so that it will be ready for your arrival (good puzzle/jig saw experience may be required)

If you want to see this method is action, check out Marks video.

*waits for you to come back*

It always reminds me of the Luggage from Terry Pratchetts Discworld. But it was this method that we used to move all the gers...

One...

...by one.

Every...

... single...

... one

 Needless to say, this took up about the entire day, and we were absolutely knackered. I remember having to curl up in a corner at one point and get an hour or so sleep... I think I was still recovering from the evacuation day.

Lessons learned:

• Nowhere in Zuunmod sells newpapers.
• The Peace Corp are everywhere... including the tiny town of Zuunmod.
• Gers are designed to be transported a certain way, and it is that way for a reason.
• Apparently Coca-Cola in India make a lime fizzy drink, which cannot be exported from India... because it contains cyanide.
• Fishing for bones when preparing the groups lunch can be made even more difficult when you're trying not to loose any of the vegetables.

Thanks, again, go to those who I borrowed photos from!

3Nations: Evacuation Day

Right, before I get started... if you havn't read them already, visit the Expedition page and follow the 3Nations Expedition from the start.

This post has been rated PG and contains scenes of mild-peril*
No Networkers were harmed in the making of this post.

*Trace amounts of other types of peril may be present.


Tuesday 21st July 2009

Well, this is probably the most memorable day of the expedition for all involved... and not for the right reasons... but before I get ahead of myself I should really start at the beginning of this rather eventful day.

We were to get up early this morning to make sure that we would be able to set off on the hike that our aravt was programmed to do. Given that this is Mongolia, and they generally have little use of maps, we had a Mongolian who was going to guide us on the hike.

Time keeping in Mongolia is a tad different from here in the UK. Generally when we say that we will set off around 9am, then we will try to set off as soon to that time as possible. In Mongolia they will wait for a good omen until they set off. This can mean that they will wait several hours until the omens are right.

I don't know what the omen was on this particular day, but it was actually nearer ten when we set off, heading just over the hill into the next valley and the entrance to the Bogd Khan National Park.

Once in the national park we headed to the museum and the ruined Manzhir Khid monastery. The place really was beautiful and rather awe inspiring.

One of my favourite pictures (that I took anyway). The blue cloth is used in prayer.

I just love the detail!

From the monastery we headed/scrambled up the steep slope behind it to the top of the hill, which is where our first mishap of the day happened. To be honest I am not entirely sure what happened, but one of the girls had a bit of a run in with a snake or something... anyway, she was a tad freaked out and required a bit of consoling. Once she was ok to carry on we set off again.

This smaller shine was part way up the slope.

Occasionally we would pass something similar to cairns randomly dotted in the hills, they would also have prayer flags attached to them. We were directed by our Mongolian guide to pick up some small stones, we were to walk round all of these cairns while adding our stones to it three times; first for luck, then for sorrow, then for luck... so that your journey will start and finish with luck.

It was about 12noon ish that we reached this really large one at the top of the hill, and after doing our circuits of it for luck we stopped to take some photographs of the stunning view.

The approach...

Woo hoo! I got there!

It doesn't really show well on camera... but out there, the horizon just keeps going further and further back. It's like the longer you stare at it the further it goes.

The guide set off again... wait a minute... we came from THAT direction... why is he going away from the site

"now we head for the summit"

.... oh crud...

We thought that we were at the summit already! We had been told that it would be a short walk and that we wouldn't need to take much in the way of supplies. But then again, we still hadn't got used to the Mongolians concept of time just yet.

It was actually 4 hours later that we reached the actual summit, with no food or water left... we were all starting to suffer from dehydration in the hot weather. But we were happy we had reached the summit.

To our left we could see Zuunmod...

to our right was Ulaanbaatar...

... and what's that thing in the middle...

... ohh yeah.... that'll be the biggest storm that they've had in 20years!

... ohhh and look, now its turning towards us

double crud!

We only stayed at the summit for a short while, as we raced down the mountain ahead of the storm. Unfortunately the storm won, it was only maybe 40mins or so after we started our descent that we were hit. This, ladies and gentlemen, is when the excrement collided with the propeller.

We got soaked. But why only be soaked by rain when you can be pummeled by hail stones that were the size of a 20pence piece. And believe me... they hurt! We were carrying our small day sack over our heads to try to provide a little bit of protection while we walked... but there was more than once we had to run for cover under the trees.

I know, I know, you don't need to tell me. Hiding under trees in a thunder and lightning storm isn't a good idea. Frankly it's dangerous. But at that point we were in too much pain to do anything but. Even when we were under the trees, with our bags over our heads we were crying out with pain when hit.

I managed to get one quick photo during one bit of hiding... just before we were told to turn everything electrical off so that we wouldn't attract any lightning.

The rest of the hike down to the site is frankly a bit of a jumble in my head. but there are certain things that stick out in my head.

Like the moment the lightning struck a nearby hill top, you could feel it through your entire body,  and our guide.... the ONLY person who knew where we were... curled up in a ball and started screaming like a little pansy.

I also remember getting scared senseless by the marmots, who had been forced out of their holes (as they were overflowing with water) and were defending their territory against us.

Or the 5 rivers of ice cold water, that hadn't been there that morning, which we had to wade across and which went half way up my thigh.

But, thankfully, we all made it back to the site to find chaos. The flash flood had ripped right through the camp. The people that had been onsite that day had been running around trying to secure everything and reduce the damage as much as possible. They had been panicking about us as they hadn't been able to get in contact with us (everything electrical switched off remember?) and had made sure that there was a ger heated up for us to get immediately bundled into.

We actually had to be stripped out of our wet clothes by the others, our hands had gone so numb that we couldn't bend our fingers. Basically they started treating us all for hypothermia and dehydration (remember we had run out of water as the start of the day had been gloriously hot and sunny).

Once we had recovered enough, we were moved back to our our ger to rest and recover more while the others finished securing the site. By this point it was about dinner time, so we took the decision to make ourselves useful and make dinner for everyone on site (as the others were so busy they didn't have any time to prepare anything).

It was once we had dinner ready that we had been told that the storm may be returning and we were to evacuate.

Everyone and all personal belongings were to be removed from the site... NOW. The race was back on, and we were determined to win this time. All of our stuff was packed, but we also had to pack all the gear from the people that were in Zuunmod and Ulaanbaatar, so we went from ger to ger grabbing things and stuffing it into any bag that you could find. It could be sorted out later.

Those that were on the hike and those that were ill were to be evacuated first, so that included my aravt. We were to be taken to a boarding school that was empty for the summer. It was like a refugee camp...

...mass confusion, stuff everywhere (chain gangs to move gear from the buses inside to the corridors), people going around trying to find their bags... even a hospital room for those that were in bad shape. It was good when I found Eds little room of calm. He had imposed a rule that anyone coming into the room was not the panic and just RELAX.

I remember writing up my diary that night, up until then I had usually done some little funny notes of things that had happened that day (which I have tried to share with you).... but I made a conscience decision not to make too light of a day that could have gone horribly wrong.

Thanks again to those I borrowed photos from

Please be reassured that everyone from the expedition fully recovered from the effects of the storm, it was later reported to us that 8 Mongolians in Ulaanbaatar died... my thoughts and prayers go out to them and their families.

3Nations: Day On Site

If you're new to the blog then feel free to back to the start of the 3Nations posts, they are all linked on the Expedition page.

Monday 20th July 2009

So it's the first day of activities in Mongolia, in a rather full program... so, what does my aravt have...

*looks up timetable*

... a day off. cool.

Well, a day to relax and get into the laid back Mongolian way of life is a rather good way to start off any expedition. And as we're being laid back we were able to get a lie in, which was very welcome after all the traveling and setting up the site yesterday.

Our first traditional Mongolian activity was stitching, initially they were only going to teach this to the girls of the group... until Dan managed to convince them that the guys should have a go too.


Some of the guys, unfortunately, lived up to the poor expectations of the girl teaching it!


After our bit of stitching we got to try some Mongolian writing, which if I am honest is really difficult. First you have to change the word to the Cyrillic alphabet and then into the Mongolian... which has three different forms for the letters (start middle and end).

It means Mongol by the way

If you want to try it then you can find tables with the letters on wikipedia.

And now, for the laid back nature of this part of the trip, a four hour lunch! I wonder if I could sell this concept to the office?

Eventually we tried the some of the Mongolian music. In total we had three things to try... the horse-head fiddle, the flute and some throat singing.

 

First off the fiddle.

and yes... that is me trying it

*screach*


*squeal*


*squeek*


As you can see from the picture above, instead of holding it under your chin, you hold it between your legs. The bow hand actually holds the bow strings tight and the other hand presses the strings. But again it's different from our fiddles, there are only two strings and instead of pressing them into the wood you have to press them across... which makes it really difficult as you have to match the pressure with the bow for the sound to sound right. And even then sometimes your fingers go over the strings and other times then go underneath!


Fortunately I wasn't actually that terrible at it! But what i really wanted to try was the flute. I used to play it in school so I should easily be able to play it, all I would have to do is work out the new fingering right....


... right?


I couldn't even make a sound out of it!


Right sod it, I'll try the throat singing.


*droan*
*gargle without water sound*
*cough, splutter...


wait a minute, what did he just say? "if you practice this wrong then your throat will bleed" Ok, maybe I'll just leave that to the Mongolians...


... crazy b******* (edited for any younger readers- its crazy bananas by the way... just to let you know, honest)


Here's some people that actually know what they are doing!

Lessons learned today...

• The badger can be buried
• Some Mongolians also know some pretty filthy phrases in English
• The program can and will change
• Unfortunately the badger is like a pheonix and can rise from the dead... either that or its zombie badger. I don't know what is worse.

 
 Thanks again for those I borrowed photos from

3Nations: Off to Mongolia

Previous 3Nations entries can be found on the Expedition page

Sunday 19th July 2009
The Chinese believe in the whole good/bad balance, they call it yin yang. This morning, at least was... well... balanced.

Good: We were getting a flight to Mongolia today! woo hoo
Bad: We had to leave the hotel at 3am to get to the airport

Good: We were given rice cakes on the bus
Bad: That was the only food we got til the plane as everything was shut at the airport

Good: We arrived at the check out desk the designated 3 hours before departure
Bad: No one told the airline staff this, they didn't start check in til an hour and a half after we arrived.

Good: The flight was relatively short
Bad: The flight was relatively bumpy

Ulaanbaatar

But all that didn't matter... we were all successfully transported to Mongolia, the main part of the expedition experience. If only we could say the same thing for the luggage. Heather was unfortunately without a bag, a hour or so of investigation... and getting us to all line up with our bags to make sure that none of us had it by accident... revealed that it had fallen off the luggage cart on the runway in China. errr, opps

Ulaanbaatar Airport, it's really small... only two gates!

Just before setting off on the coaches, we were introduced to our Mongolian scouts, they would be paired with an aravt (group... kind of like a patrol) for the length of our stay in Mongolia. I am a part of the Lion Aravt, and Anne is our Mongolian scout

go Lions!

... we rock...

Sorry, just a little bit of Lion PRIDE coming out there...

you know it's rude to groan out loud like that!

Anyway... it wasn't that long a trip to the camp site, located just outside the Bogd Khan National Park (on the south side, near the Manzushir Monastary and Zuunmod). It was an absolutely stunning spot.

Stunning isn't it...

Absolutely unbelievable, completely untouched and incredibly fresh (well the freshness was extremely noticeable given that we had just traveled from the smog of Beijing!). The grass even had some wild thyme in it... so when walking about you would kick it up and get a lovely whiff of it.


As you can see from the photos above, not all of the gers had been built (they're the 'tents' that Mongolian Nomads use)

Ger Building 101:
First, start off with the floor

... and some confused looking Mongolian scouts

Put together the center of the roof in the middle of the floor area 

Tie together the curved trellis like walls (all 5 of them)

 

... wait for Mongolian guy to fix your work....

Get some people to hold the roof centre upright in the middle of the floor area

Attach the roof slats, slotting them into the central wheel and looping the horse hair string to the trellis

Getting there...

woo hoo!

Cover roof with layer of cotton like fabric

Cover roof and walls in thick wool

Get someone to climb onto the roof

Final top layer of cotton like material (white of course)

Strap it all in...

... and stick two posts in at the door

And Bobs your estranged sibling of one of your parents (ok uncle then- but am sticking with the estranged, fine then.... just strange then)

Notice some people digging in the background in some of those photos? Well... that's people digging out the toilets. I'll leave those details* out, am sure you'll thank me.

With the completion of the gers and the toilets it was time to officially open the camp with a little ceremony. The Scouting, Mongolian, Union and Austrian flags were all raised over the camp, and the Mongolian part of the expedition was underway. Which is when Troll decided to surprise us with a gift. Our very own Mongolian top!

That's the Mongolian scouts being presented with the expedition neckies

Each aravt had its own set of colours, the Lions were red and silver, and it had Mongolia written in Mongolian script on it. Very classy. I still wear it to some camps actually

 Random lessons learned:

• 80 people in a queue to check in at stupid o'clock in the morning can have an uncanny resemblance to human-pick-up-sticks.
• Sitting next to Stu on a plane can be hazardous to your health (number of flights so far=2, number of people beside stu throwing up=2, number of others throwing up=0... coincidence?).
• Tiny, little, sweet, innocent Beth can be a force to be reckoned with when she is trying to get the bus to sing.
• In Mongolia, large stage coaches are apparently classed as off road vehicles.
• ... either that or anything resembling a brown smudge on the ground is classed as a road.
• The in fight magazine informed us that it is actually socially acceptable to throw bricks at cars that run red lights in China! 

*Throughout the Mongolian part of the trip the conversation regularly turned to toilet matters... things like colour, consistency and even artistic impression were discussed. This is how sophisticated we were, and this is what I will spare you from in the future! (except when I publish the International Toileting Badge requirements later- and yes we came up with all the requirements while away)

Again, thanks to those that let me borrow steal their photos