Thee Gobi desert was not what I expected. It wasn't the sand dune covered desert that you imagine. This part of the Gobi was more like a gravel covered car pak. There was a bit of sand here and there, but not that much. Our guide took us to "the sand dune" which was the only decent sized mound of sand I saw. Oh yeah, and the desert wasn't hot either. It was damn cold, probably why the Chinese didn't want to go there.
Eating food made from milk, flour and meat
To be fair we didn't "do" that much in the Gobi. It was just an awesome experience being there are seeing the emptiness of the place. Despite the apparent hopelessness of the place, it turns out people, plants and animals live there quite happily. We visited a nomad family who claim they have about 800 animals, all wildly roaming the desert. I'm not exactly sure how they look after all these animals, but apparently Mongolian herders are very in touch with their animals. The nomad guy was nice enough to find some of his camels for us and let as go for a ride on one (although the camel wasn't so happy about this).
Our driver (who turned out not to be an ordinary driver, but quite an extraordinary person) showed us "Gobi Desert spring onion", which apparently the camels and sheep love eating. It's because of this unique type of food that the animals of the Gobi eat that makes the animals more delicious (or so I'm told). Apparently, the Gobi has the tastiest mutton, and I must say, it was quite tasty. It's a good thing its tasty too, the nomads who live out there basically live off a sustenence of meat, milk products and flour based products. There's not a lot in terms of vegetables and fruits avaialble to them.
Camels just chillin
The resourcefulness of the people living in the Gobi is quite amazing. Not only do they eat their animals, their animals have many uses. They wear their animals (it turns out animals are quite warm), they build with their animals (turns out animals provide good insulation), they can turn their animal's milk into almost anything you could think of, and they even use the shit of the animals as a fuel source. Yep that's right, since there's not many trees in the desert, nomads use camel shit as firewood - and you need a lot of fire to keep warm in that place at night!
A nomad and his kid
Nomads are pretty cool folk. They live the simple life. They live in gers (round tents that you could imagine Ghengis Khan in) and have no running water. Inside the ger, in the middle is a stove (as previously mentioned fuelled by camel shit). The stove has a multi-purpose function in being used for cooking and heating. Cleverly, there is a chimney so the ger doesn't get smokey. Around the outside of the Ger are usually beds where the family sleeps. Pretty simple. The more hi-tech nomads use solar panels for power in their gers, while the simpler ones rely on car batteries. Power is important, not only for lighting, but a power source is required for the satelite dish and TV and to charge mobile phones. Yep, nomads don't need a toilet or shower, but they can't live without TV and phones. I guess with out a mobile phone, how do you find a nomad? Interesting how the basic human needs have been redefined. Maybe Maslow got it wrong. It also turns out nomads don't constantly move around, they only move their gers about 2-3 times per year, usually dependent on weather conditions.
In the Gobi, I stayed in a tourist ger camp. This is like a high school camp, expect the cabins are replaced by gers and there are much fewer activities to do. There's comfortable bathroom facilities and a dinning room for meals. All in all a nice place to stay to feel like a Mongolian nomad, but actually be reasonably comfortable.
A ger camp
The desert omens were quite good for us on our trip in the Gobi. We climbed Wish Mountain and from the top we were able to see about 7 Gobi Ibex (some kind of rare wild sheep). Apparently, the locals believe sighting these animals to be extremely good luck. When I came back down the mountain, some people asked to see my photo, and even took photos of my camera's screen. Our incredible driver says he has seen them many times, but this was the closest he has ever seen them. In addition to the ibex, but we also sigthed a snake on the way down the mountain - apparently also a sign of luck. These signs of luck came after we visited a temple and were proved to be super lucky by playing Shagai (rolling animal knuckle bones) and rolling in the right combinations. At this point it was becoming apparent that we were the walking deities and the Gobi was bowing to our every need.
The Gobi Ibex
In the Gobi we visited more temples, encountered more luck and finished our visit at the Danzanravja museum, where we encountered our most lucky moment yet, learning that our driver was actually the grandson of Tuduv, the monk who was the custodian of all the historical buddhist relics which were hidden underground during the Mongolian purge which started in the 1920s. This link gives shows the recent unearthing of some of the relics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drZJc4Uy8jY Our driver was able to give us some special insights into the museum, which I would have otherwise found relatively uninteresting.
The Gobi desert has a basketball court
With the Gobi part of the trip wrapped up, it was time to bid farewell to our amazing driver and get on an overnight train to head north to Ulaan Baatar. The train ride, although this time not completly empty, was still quite comfortable for a shitty old russian train.
The Chinese National Holiday was upon us. Cue a week on holidays and millions of Chinese traveling around the country. With no work to do, there was no point staying in Bejing so I decided to go somewhere for the week. But where?... anywhere in China would be tough, with train and plane tickets being both expensive and selling out fast. How about that neighbour to the north who I know nothing about... Mongolia?
It turns out that Mongolia was the perfect destination to visit during the National Holiday. In the week of public holidays I was able to travel by train from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar (UB), manage a few days in Gobi Desert and explore some of the nature just outside the nation's capital before flying back to Beijing.
I left for Mongolia the day before the National Holiday started, supposedly the peak travel day. The Beijing Railway Station was fairly busy as expected. However, when I got on train 23 to UB I noticed something strange. The crowds were gone. In fact on my train carriage was only myself and my travel companion. There I was worried about having to share my train berth with others, when I realised I wouldn't even need to share the rest of the carriage. After exploring the train briefly, I found that there were 14 passengers on a train with 12 carriages. Seems like Mongolia was the right destination after all.
The view along the way
The 19 hour train ride on an old Chinese train actually passed quite seamlessly. The views from the windows were interesting enough ranging from wind farms, to picturesque hills, to Chinese ghost cities, to agricultural fields and even industrial wastelands. The restaurant cart was just as interesting with a humorous waitress and chef. I was actually not bored the whole trip. The most frustrating part was the border crossing to Mongolia, which takes hours. First, on the China side (Erlian), you need to wait about 2 hours while the bogeys on the train are changed (the Mongols use the Russian gauge which is different to the Chinese folk). This was an interesting experience. First the train goes through a series of complicated manouvers before it gets jacked up by a number of giant jacks while the wheels are just swapped. Pretty cool actually. The Mongolian side of the border also takes some time while the James Bond villain looking immigration officials complete with slimline briefcases do something with your passport.
But finally we made it through the overnight train ride, with about 2-3hours of sleep we arrived at Sainshand, our first stop, in the Gobi Desert.
It's been quite a few years since my last post on this. I've been travelling quite a bit in this time, but haven't really felt the motivation to write about it. However, I came across a pretty unexpected discovery in my recent travel in China, so why not write it down.
I spent a couple of days last week hiking around the Ningxia Province in China. Ningxia is an autonomous region located somewhere in the middle of China (towards the north), bordering on Inner Mongolia. Much of the terrain feels a lot like desert. Many of the areas I was walking around were supposed to be "protected" meaning that bushes have been planted and farming and grazing of animals is not allowed, to try and stop the landscape eroding into complete desert. That apparently doesn't stop the local shepherds, from walking around with their flock of sheep. I'm happy to cut the shepherds some slack though - if your job is to walk around watching a bunch of sheep all day, every day, for your entire life- in a place that's -30 in winter and +30 in summer - I say walk wherever you feel like it!
The terrain is quite amazing. It's made up of a series of sparsely vegetated steep rolling hills. The tops of the hills are pretty windy, so that's inspired the development of a very large wind farm in the area. I'm no geologist, but there appears to be no rock in the area. meaning the landscape is made of soft dirt. When it rains, you can see that this dirt just washes away, changing the landscape dramatically. There are many trenches and valleys that you can see have been made because of the erosion of soil. This makes for a bit of a challenge when walking around the area, trying to find the best way to avoid the steep cliffs that have formed. I would imagine those wind turbines have some giant concrete foundations to keep them upright in the soft ground.
But the soft earth seems to have created a housing opportunity for people in the region. The locals live in cave dwellings called a yaodong, dug into the side of the mountains. This took me by complete surprise when I first saw them. "Do people really live in those?". Apparently, "yes" is the answer. Some later research on Wikipedia tells me that 40 million people in China live in these style of dwellings. Cool. I feel like quite the fool for not knowing they existed. Apparently, even Chairman Mao's revolution is famous for having started from such caves. The caves, cool in summer, warm in winter, appear to be very practical places for people to live.
The caves vary in their size and grandeur. Some are just holes in the side of mountains, some have decorative archways and I imagine would be quite comfortable inside. It seems most also have electricity. We were standing out the front of some of these caves, marveling at how people could live in one of these when a local lady approached me and my travelling group. After a short conversation (of which I partook in only by smiling and nodding), she was very happy to show us around her caves. She pretty much had a farm built around a few caves. A couple of small caves used for storage of vegetables (basically fridge caves), a cave for the dog, a cave for the pig, a cave for the lambs (Ningxia is said to have the best lamb in China - can confirm lamb is tasty). She had a vegetable patch growing out the front, and a well where she collected rainwater that washes down the side of the hill she lives under. Her living cave was very simple - basically a single room with a bed inside...but... I did notice a massive satellite dish out the front, so all I can imagine she does is farm all day, and sit of the bed watching cable TV all night.
Words (my words at least) can't really describe this place, these people and the way they live very well. I took some crappy photos on my phone, but hopefully they can convey one of the lesser known curiosities of China.
Hong Kong is probably the perfect definition of the word “city.” The place is bustling all the time with big double decker buses, double decker trams, taxis and hoarders of pedestrians always brushing past you as you walk through the streets.
In Hong Kong I stayed in Tsim Sha Tsui, which is in Kowloon. The place is full of cheap guesthouses and finding accommodation there was easy. The accommodation though was not of the greatest quality, it was quite small and not in the nicest of neighbourhoods but the location was central and suited my purposes well enough.
Watching the light show across Victoria Harbour on my first night there was incredible to see. After seeing the harbour before in movies and on TV, the scale of it was much larger in real life. Taking the tram to the peak which overlooks the city the next day gave a real indication to the sheer size of the city.
While there we visited the Big Buddha statue. To get there we had to get an overpriced cable car ride, which went for about half an hour. Unfortunately, the day was so misty that we couldn’t see anything from the cable car. I was quite disappointed in the end by the Big Buddha. Sure it was big and Buddha like, but the whole area seemed to be a tacky scam geared at taking stupid tourist’s money. For example you could not visit some areas inside the monument without purchasing an extra ticket.
The food in Hong Kong was also different… compared to the Malaysian Chinese food I’ve become used to anyway. I found Hong Kong food is less geared towards flavour, and more towards healthiness. For example, the food there was far less sweet than the food you can find in Malaysia. I also took the opportunity to try some different foods while there including a variety of odd things at dim sum, and a watery tofu dessert, which to my surprise actually tasted quite good.
Ocean Park was also a highlight of my Hong Kong trip. Being a huge fan of roller coasters I chose to visit this park over Disneyland. It’s very much like Sea World in Australia, with a few added extras. One of the best added extras would have to be the Giant Pandas. An-An the panda just sat there eating bamboo leaves the whole time, and really did look like it was a guy in a suit. The rides at Ocean Park were the standard theme park fair. I was able to confirm my love for roller coasters by sitting in the front seat of the two roller coasters they have at the park, and enjoying every second. The only problem that I found with the park was that it was too big, which made it troublesome to get around. To get from one side to the other you need to take a cable car, and then to negotiate your way around that side you need to take a series of really long, really slow escalators.
In Hong Kong I also travelled briefly into the New Territories, or the burbs of Hong Kong – where lots of the people live. About an hour out of town I was surprised with how busy the place still was. There were heaps of tall buildings everywhere which would put most city centres to shame.
See videos of places visited: Victoria Harbour light show:
Billed as the “Vegas of the east” and being the highest volume gambling centre in the world I was very much looking forward to my visit to Macau.
The place is very different to what I imagined. There are heaps of casinos for sure, but I found the place to lack a sense of excitement. The casinos are big, with lots of tables for most budgets. Baccarat is the game of choice, with some other Chinese games I’ve never heard of as well, but most of the games I’m familiar with were there too. Although I started off positive, in the end, craps let me down,
To me, most of the casinos looked the same. The one that really stood out was the Venetian. Apparently the 4th largest building in the world by floor space, it has to be seen to be believed. The outside is modelled to look like a series of buildings from Venice, but the inside is the most amazing. A series of indoor canals, complete with gondolas, singing gondoliers and fake sky make it quite the experience.
Aside from the casinos, Macau has a very European feel to the city with narrow cobblestone street and old churches etc. – which is a strange feeling when the city is full of Chinese people. I found that English was used a lot less than expected. Luckily I travelled with a Cantonese speaking friend, but otherwise things would have been more difficult. Most shops have signs in Chinese only.
On the plus side Macau is very easy to get around and for free too! The place is so small that you can walk to most parts yourself, but when you can’t, there is usually a free shuttle bus offered by a casino which will take you to the right general direction. As a result, paying for transport is almost unnecessary.
The airport in Macau is also quite cool and worthy of noting. The runway is quite literally a narrow strip of land in the middle of the sea, with the planes able to drive onto the runway from the airport on small causeways. The plus side to this is that take offs and landings are more exciting, the downside is that the taxying from the airport takes ages as the plane has to drive the entire length of the runway each time
At Gunung Gading I was finally able to shower under a waterfall. That was one awesome feeling. In fact, at water fall number seven at the park, there’s even a rock located right under the waterfall which is in a perfect spot for you to sit on and relax for a while. When you’re sitting under a waterfall it’s a little difficult to breathe, and almost impossible to keep your eyes open, but it’s is incomparably refreshing. The river is made of really clear, really cold water which rushes over you. Unfortunately we had to leave after a while because we felt the water level was rising and thought we might get stuck.
The national park is quite a good one, not too far away from Kuching. We caught a bus with a group of students from uni to head there for a weekend barbeque. The tracks are pretty good and well marked. It was raining the day that we went so the rocks and tree roots were very slippery, but luckily, now that I’ve had a few jungle walks under my belt I was able to handle the conditions fairly well.
Unfortunately we didn’t get a sighting of a rafflesia flower (biggest flower in the world which is supposed to smell like rotting human flesh), but the day was good regardless.
“Not the trip I expected it to be” is probably the best way of summing up my Pontianak experience. Pontianak is a bustling city which lies smack bang on the equator (marked by the equator monument) somewhere in West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo.
I never really intended on visiting Indonesia, but when the opportunity came up, I decided I may as well go. Not really looking forward to it, or expecting much, I was definitely impressed by the city.
I stayed at the house of a friend I was travelling with. This was an experience in itself. The householders spoke very minimal English (slightly more than my attempts at Indonesian though), so most communication was done non-verbally. The household consisted on Tante (indonesion for aunty), her two daughters and a daughter’s husband and son. The son was toddler who developed a liking for us and would always play with us, constantly talking to us in Indonesian, not seeming to mind that we didn’t understand a word he said.
In Pontianak I got my first massage. It wasn’t as good as I had thought, sometimes being quite painful, but not bad overall. I guy came to the house and it lasted about an hour in total. Once again half the fun was trying to talk to the guy who spoke very little English. Also on the beauty theme, I got my first shave from the barber using a straight razor. The best part of both was the price. The massage cost about $5AUD and the shave was about 25 cents – amazing.
Most things in Pontianak are amazingly cheap. The problem is keeping track of your money. Because the exchange rate with Indonesia is so bad I had trouble the entire time figuring out exactly how much the money I had was worth. Also, doing maths with hundreds of thousands of rupiah, while mentally trying to convert everything into Australian Dollars and Malaysian Ringitt (which I have become so used to) is confusing to say the least.
Probably the thing that I spent most money on was food. I was able to try frog for the first time. Apparently there is only one vendor in the city, and our trusty friends were able to take us there. I had deep-fried sweet and sour frogs with rice and a soup which tasted pretty good. Funnily enough, it tasted like chicken (although it was annoying to eat because the bone to meat ratio is so high). I also had a version of one of my favourite Malaysian dishes, Kolo Mee, with the pieces of pork replaced with crab meat. I have to say that the Pontianak version was better. Durian flavoured ice cream was also a winner.
It was refreshing to see the Pontianak city after spending so much time in Malaysia. It’s not really a tourist town with very few tourist attractions. There is the equator monument and a mall (which we spent a surprising large amount of time in) – but that’s about it. People in Indonesia seem active, and will do things even if there is no air-conditioning (unlike Malaysia). The driving is mad. The craziest I have ever seen. The roads are clogged with scooters, driving past in random directions at various speeds. Road rules are non-existent, as are lane markings. But somehow it all seems to work. It all adds up to make Pontianak a really interesting place.
Getting to and from Pontianak was half the fun. We caught a bus from Kuching to Pontianak. The bus ride takes ten hours in total. Crossing the border was a challenge. We were able to buy a visa for 10USD (I found it really strange we had to pay in USD) but when trying to pass through immigration it seemed that the guy had never seen a foreign passport before and didn’t know what to do with it. After much stuffing around he finally figured it out… but just as he was processing my visa the power went out. Apparently this is a usual occurrence. After waiting a total of about 45mins the power was back on and we made it through. The people on the bus didn’t look too happy that we held them up- probably not the best way to make new friends. But friends we did make somehow. The lady sitting next to us invited us to her place for “roast chicken and cheese” but unfortunately we had to decline.
The border crossing on the way back was also tough to get through. We were at the border before 5am (waiting for it to open)… but unfortunately it seems the rest of Indonesia had the same idea. So after about 2hrs of waiting in line we made it back to Malaysia.
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