Wanderlust Heaven!

Mongolians are oddly confrontational folks and seem to like fucking with foreigners.  I might have gone off on this point recently, but humor me.  I was out jogging near the State Circus (which seems perpetually shut) and saw a cop car coming my way.  I moved to the other side of the road to stay clear, whereupon the cruiser (actually, a Toyota coupe) swerved right at me before veering off.  As the cops went by, the one on the passenger side, my side, grinned at me.  Charming.

Of course, incidents like this, and like my recent pickpocketing scare, make you paranoid.  I was walking down Peace Ave. the other day, head in the clouds, when I heard someone running behind me.  A pickpocket?  I volte-faced to check it out – and strained my shoulder.  Turned out to be a guy just running to catch the bus.

I also heard from an American Peace Corps staffer whom I met on the UB Hash House Harriers run this week that two American guys were beaten up, quite badly, outside Great Mongol Pub.  Seems they were targeted inside and followed out of the bar by a gang of locals, and were willing to scrap instead of running like hell.  One of the Americans had to be medevac’d to Bangkok for treatment.  I don’t like hearing stories like that…but at least I know what not to do if a gang of drunken Mongolians starts taunting me.  My pride has no floor…

Had a nice chat with a young professional in Level Bar, right below my guesthouse.  I had been walking home when the skies darkened – actually, only the skies on the east side of town darkened, the western skies were largely clear.  The effect was bizarre – anyway, I figured rain and hurried back to the guesthouse.  But before I got there a huge dust storm hit me – this city is so fucking dry and windy that you’re often nailed by clouds of dust and dirt.  I had grit in my mouth and my face was filthy – I ducked into Level to get out of the storm.

This local guy laughed and told me this happens all the time.  We had a long talk about the country and other lands, including the States.  I ended up asking him about the 1996 murder of Zorig, the ‘father of Mongolian democracy,’ who was stabbed to death in his flat, perps never identified.  The guy didn’t want to seem to talk about this…even here, I suppose, the walls have ears.  I’m cursed with severe inquisitiveness – I generally expect locals to clam up when I ask them about dangerous topics (‘what happened to the last king of Laos?’), but I feel the need to make an attempt regardless.

Went to a couple nightclubs on the Saturday night before taking off for Lake Khovsgol.  One was Face – modest little place, locals dancing around in a big circle.  Next was the biggest club in town, Metropolis.  Modern disco, expensive drinks, flashy clothes.  I fancied a lass down the end of the bar, and eventually asked her if I could buy her a drink (I know, not a great approach, but I don’t have a handle on Mongolian pickup techniques).  Her reply, in broken English, was to the effect that she could buy her own drinks.  Smackdown.  I finished my whiskey and limped home, tail between my legs.  My consolation to myself was that UB might not really have a bar pickup scene, and that you might need to spend a few months here to get into the right slipstream.  On the other hand, maybe I’m just getting to be the dreaded ‘old guy in the club’, a state which Chris Rock has warned against in his various gigs…

Did some sight-seeing on Sunday.  First, to the Soviet-built Zaisan Memorial, commemorating cooperation in WW2 between the two countries.  There’s a cool tank mounted on a pedestal, with the Moscow-Berlin route shown on the side.  Then you walk up a set of steps to the memorial itself, which comprises a stone sculture of a socialist soldier, and a montage of ludicrous socialist heroic paintings.  I had a slight feeling of Allied solidarity whilst there, but really the whole thing is so campy I had to laugh.  A few images of Zaisan:

Campiness aside, it is fascinating to get a look at how the ‘other half’ lived and thought.  And ‘evil empire’ aside, they did think they were onto something, at least for a few decades…

I walked over to the Bogd Khan Winter Palace, the home of the Buddhist god-king who died in 1924.  The place is showing its age, but there are some great maps, paintings, and items inside.  UB was first known as Khuree or Ikh Khuree, which translates as ‘Camp’ or ‘Great Camp.’  Later it was changed to ‘Urgu’ or ‘Orgoo,’ meaning ‘City of Felt.’  Mongolians aren’t city-builders, that much I knew, but it’s still funny to hear those sorts of names for the capital city.  The current name means ‘Red Hero,’ which isn’t much better.  How about changing it to Chinggis Khaan?  I don’t think that one’s been used yet…

That night I packed for my week-long trip, and visited Kiwi friends Al & Johnny at their rented flat.  I brought a bottle of Chinggis Khaan vodka, a salami, some pickles, and soda, and they had some grub and beer too.  We sat, consumed, watched the Yankees game on the tube, and parted ways around 1 a.m.  Johnny was flying the next morning back home to Christchurch, and I was flying to Lake Khovsgol.  I was happy to have met the guys – nice to know someone in an odd spot like UB.  And I do plan to consider the offer to join their jetboating outfit.

Monday I went to Chinggis Khaan Airport (detect a theme here?).  I was flying on the state carrier, MIAT, which had the cheapest fares. MIAT has a dreadful rep and that was soon reinforced when I saw no mention of my flight on the departure board.  I found the MIAT office, gave my ticket to the woman inside, who looked at her computer, spoke on the phone with someone, then walked me over to the Aero Mongolia line.  I checked in for that flight.  Looks like MIAT is eating itself – the domestic market is unprofitable so if they don’t sell many seats on a flight they just shut it down and throw the passengers onto a competitor’s plane instead.  Lovely.

Between sorting out my flight, I was able to watch the second half of the Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals Game 2 on two large screens they had at the airport.  I had watched the first half at my guesthouse – the Celts had built a 20-point lead and I was feeling confident.  For some reason many analysts had favored L.A. at the start of the series, but we won Game 1 and were pounding them in Game 2.  A security guard watched next to me – the locals seem to like hoops, as I’ve written earlier.

Our lead looking solid, I went through security and downstairs to the gate. That took some time – there were a few geezers who could barely walk and that held things up.  I was hoping for another TV downstairs, and when I got cleared I saw one, but it was switched off.  I looked around, then pressed the ‘on’ button, and the set flared to life.  I checked the channels and soon found the ballgame.  Soon I had a bunch of Mongolians watching along with me.  The lead was shrunk to 8, and L.A. was coming on strong.  Worries.

Then a local dude came over and changed the channel.  Huh?  I figured he was some airport official, but I don’t think so.  I made some motions with my hands, a kid said something to him, and after a minute he went back to the sports channel.  The lead was now 4 – yikes.  Paul Pierce of the Celts drove the lane and drew a foul, then sank his 2 free throws.  We held them off the rest of the game and were now up 2-0, best of 7, the series now shifting to L.A.  About 90 seconds after the game ended, we boarded a shuttle bus to take us the 18 meters to the waiting plane.  The kid who had helped me out smiled at me – we pretended to dribble the ball and defend each other, before I play-dunked on him.  He indicated that he liked Boston when we were watching the game…I’m glad the historical flashiness of Los Angeles hasn’t garnered all the fans in markets like this one.

I have had tremendous good fortune when it comes to Boston sports finals.  I was able to watch nearly all of the Red Sox playoff and World Series games…I caught the Patriots Super Bowl match (unfortunately)…and I’d seen most of the Celts’ finals as well.  But now I was off to the Lake Khovsgol region, and would very very likely be away from TV and Internet coverage for an entire week.  A long time for me, I’m a news junkie and the timing wasn’t great.  Still, I was hoping that the Celts would play well in L.A. and that I’d be able to watch the end of the series back in UB.

The flight was to a provincial capital called Moron.  There are some unlauts in there, so the pronunciation is more like ‘Ma-roon.’  Fitting name for such a dumpy little town.  The finest hotel in town is the Dul Hotel.  There was a chance I’d need to stay there before my return flight…at least there’d be satellite TV and Internet, so I could catch up on my endless emails, and perhaps watch a finals game, before plugging back into UB life.

I was met at the airport by Sarah, who was the local rep for Nature’s Door, the company which runs the two places I’d be staying at on the lake coast.  Sarah was very nice, but it was her first day and she hadn’t a clue.  I was expecting a fairly painless ride up to Khatgal, on the southern lake’s edge…but no ride was arranged and I had to 1) cool my heels at a ger camp/guesthouse in town for a few hours, and 2) board a public minivan for the ride up.  The cost was minimal, but the entire day was shot and I was visibly annoyed, letting poor Sarah know.  I think she phoned the manager, but nothing happened.

The minivan was fuller than full – there were 19 of us in there.  Reminded me of the Philippines’ joke ‘how many people fit in a jeepney?’  Answer:  ‘one more.’  A local guy was intrigued by the hair on my arms, and pinched it a couple times.  I made a face and indicated that he might be gay – that went over reasonably well – no one punched me.  I handed out candies and that went over very well.  The ride was dusty and long, nearly 3 hours.  I cursed Nature’s Door and Sarah silently as we bounded over hills and dry river beds to get to Khatgal.

First stop was Garage 24, where I’d spend a couple days.  This place was a former Russian auto garage, hence the name.  It’s just a concrete building with 3 rooms with dorm beds, and a couple gers outside.  I opted for a dorm bed.  The only other guest was Yoni, an Israeli who looked familiar – turned out he’d been, with his family, at the same guesthouse in UB.  Yoni was the typical hardcore Israeli – he’d just spent 10 days solo hiking around the lake and adjacent mountains.  His pack weighed a ton, and this was without food now.  He had a bunch of detailed maps of the region and seemed very self-sufficient.  And earlier in the month, with his family, he’d hiked/camped in the Gobi.  I did too, with an outfitter and guide, but Yoni et al had printed out detailed maps from Google Earth, stitched them together, bought some regular maps as well, and pretty much done everything on their own.  Yoni said that the Google Earth maps were so detailed you could actually see individual gers – helpful in case of emergency, lack of water/food, etc.  I replied that gers move all the time, and the Google maps weren’t updated daily.  He said that was right, but when gers move you can still see the places where they were beforehand (they leave marks on the ground), so you generally can track them down over time.   Very cool.  I wish I were an Israeli Jew…then again, Yoni was in the Israeli Self-Defence Forces for 4 years, and you all know what a pacifist I am.

Garage 24 was terrific in every way.  I generally don’t like dorms (I am 40, after all), but this place was so cozy and homey, and Yoni such a good guy, that it was absolutely fine.  If every bed were taken by an American college kid, I imagine I’d feel differently.  G24 had beer, good food, and utter silence.  An iconic guesthouse, right up there in terms of character and friendliness with such faves of mine as Lani in Vientiane and Hoa’s on China Beach.

I sat on the porch, and later in my bunk bed with my Petzl headlight (thank you much, Alan & Janine Mackay, for that suggestion), powering through ‘American Gods’ by Neil Gaiman.  Got through nearly all the 600 pages (small pages, admittedly) in a day.  More on this book later on.

Went to sleep around midnight.  I was beat from the long day of travels.  My mattress was pretty lumpy, but I slept well nonetheless.  The air around Khovsgol is so clean, and there’s hardly a sound – I’m sure the insects show up in force later in the summer, but for now they were largely quiet and I couldn’t recall such a peaceful place in all my travels, except perhaps for high mountains.

And the next day was more of the same.  I did nothing but eat, read and walk around Khatgal town.  I don’t think I’ve had a more relaxing day since I started these travels.  There’s just nothing to do in Khatgal, except walk around.  The town is spread out, and consists mostly of log houses.  Probably like the USA West was 200 years ago.  Deadwood Mongolia?  Domestic audience is probably too small to justify the production of that show.

The ‘town center’ consisted of 5-6 food stores, and a few election offices for the major parties.  Loud music was blaring, propaganda blasting, the elections were 3 weeks off and the Mongolians were getting into it.  The posters were quite funny – one candidate was wearing a cowboy hat and holding a snuff bottle.  ‘Snuff for every man, woman and child,’ I imagined the poster read.

I have largely worked out how to read Cyrillic, although some letters still stuff me up.  It’s well worth the effort, as some words do translate pretty well into English, and anyway you can at least pronounce the unfamiliar words and locals will understand.  And I’m going to Russia fairly soon so can use my newfound skill over there.

Got through American Gods that night.  Not a great book – probably the first dud in a couple years.  I have been picking my books carefully, I’m not the sort to devote any time to Grisham et al sorts of thrillers.  This book’s premise is that ancient gods (primarily Norse, like Odin and Loki) have American incarnations who have weakened over time as Americans turned to worship new gods, those of television, Internet, money, etc.  The new gods are trying to put an end to the old ones, and a war ensues.  Nice theme, but the book didn’t work for me.  Gaiman has lots of assertions that don’t seem credible/supported, the dialogue is a bit flat much of the time, and he introduces lots of sub-plots and characters that are left hanging and don’t serve much purpose.  Gaiman is famous for his Sandman graphic novel series, which I haven’t read – I suspect he’s a lot better there.  The recent books I’ve read – by David Mitchell, Salman Rushdie, and a few others – are very hard acts to follow, so Gaiman can’t help but suffer in comparison.  Anyway, that’s my two cents, feel free to give American Gods a whirl and let me know what you think.

Gets dark around 10 p.m. up here.  I like that…feels like the day goes on forever.  London’s like that in the summer too…and when I get to St. Petersburg, I believe I’ll experience the famous ‘White Nights.’  Do you think Mikhail Baryshinikov and Gregory Hines will be there?

I obviously had some free time on my hands (don’t I always, though?).  I took off my parka’s pocket zipper straps – noticed that one was busted, probably from the pickpocket in UB.  Having the straps makes it easier to unzip the pockets – I felt a bit annoyed as I removed them, as now I’d have more trouble unzipping…but I wasn’t in the mood for some vermin to try me again.  And I was certainly in no mood to try to find someone in UB to repair the strap…as I’ve written before, taking care of crap like tailoring etc. is a real pain and I aim to reduce the amount of time I spend on annoying tasks like that.

Took a shower at 11 p.m.  They heat water and give it to you in a bucket, a la Ladakh.  Felt like a holy ceremony, showering by candlelight.  Nice thing to do before heading off to bed.

Next morning I phoned home to say hi.  The post office has overseas connections – but the equipment is in plain view and I half-expected the woman there to have to move the plugs around, like in the old days.  The connection was decent, a bit faint but clear and no echo.  Spoke with Dad and Ellen for 10 or so minutes – about the Celtics, about my mail, etc.  Total cost:  about US$4.

Walked by the ‘port’ – a couple rusting hulks sitting there, probably waiting for someone to pay for a charter ride up to Khankh, on the northern lake edge near the Russian border.  Wouldn’t be me, although the ride would probably be stunning.

A few shots of Garage 24 and Khatgal town:

Got in a jeep to head to the Nature’s Door ger camp an hour north.  The weather was perfect, as it had been all week.  I was thinking that the snow and cold of the Khentii and Gobi was through, and that the true Mongolian summer had arrived.

Got to Nature’s Door, they showed me to my own ger.  Sweet.  Went for a walk before lunch around the lake.  Still a bit of ice on the lake…wouldn’t be much kayaking or fishing this time round.  Oh well.  Got some good shots from the walk:

Lake Khovsgol is huge, I believe 1-2% of the planet’s unfrozen fresh water is in there.  Of course, Lake Baikal in Russia (Lake Khovsgol’s older and bigger ‘brother’) has 10-20%, so there.  This is one of Mongolia’s main draws – most people make it up here for a week or so of horse-riding, hiking and camping, fishing, etc.

Spent 4 days/nights in Nature’s Door.  Did a lot of reading, mostly Lonely Planet guidebooks to Russia etc.  Spent a lot of time tending the fire in my ger – the stove goes through logs like mad.  Sometimes a cute staffer would show up with a thermos of hot water, for tea, and she’d crank up the fire.  Hard to keep the temp just right in a ger – I was often sweating, or cold, and would open/close the ger door as necessary.  But it was fun tending the fire, hadn’t really done that in ages.

As expected, no news of the Celts or anything else.  I hinted to the manager that she text someone in UB to tell me what was going on, but that didn’t work.  There was a TV dish outside the office, but they only got 4 local channels and no foreign news was available.  I’d be in the dark till I got back to UB, most likely.

Second day there, woke up to cold rain and cloudy skies.  Was scheduled to hike up a nearby mountain with a local guide – decided to do so despite the weather.  It actually hailed and snowed the higher we got…the views were fleeting.  My guide was a middle-aged guy named Bayaraa, like one of the dudes on my Gobi trip.  This guy’s age was hard to work out – could’ve been 45, or 60.  In any event he set a grueling pace and despite the cold I was soon shvitzing.  The climb was not easy and I had to stop and rest a few times.  Bayaraa was not sweating and seemed ready to run up the mountain.  Humbling.

Got a few shots of the farther mountains, and the lake too – here they are:

I was stymied in my attempts to get great lake shots at altitude, unfortunately.  I might ask friend Nigel to send me a few, he went to Lake K a few years ago and hiked around a good part of the lake.  My week there would be more mellow…

As we reached the bottom, wouldn’t you know, the sun came out and the lake shimmered.  My timing was bad.

Took a shower when I got back.  They had just fixed some problem with the water supply.  I turned on the water…the shower head fell off, onto my head, and a bunch of dirt (hopefully) came down on me.  Spent 15 minutes getting that off my head and bod and probably wasn’t much cleaner when I emerged.

Had dinner, then kicked back, tired after the long climb and weird weather.  My understanding of Mongolian summer was continuing to evolve…up here in the north/northeast, it’s colder later in the season and it’s not till July that the place is truly warm and sunny. Of course, the mossies are in full force then and the place gets (relatively) crowded, and I might not like that any more.

A peek at the innards of my ger…

Read in my Lonely Planet guide to Russia and Belarus that there’s a Jewish Autonomous Oblast (Region) in eastern Siberia, near Vladivostok.  Stalin created it – in large part to segregate the Jews, not to foster vibrant Jewish life.  The main city is Birobidzhan, and there’s still some Jewish presence today, although most families have upped stakes and moved to Israel and other countries.  Given what I know about Russian xenophobia, I think Israel is probably a much better bet than Birobidzhan.  Odd factoid, that.

Also read that the longest possible train ride in the world is through 12 countries, 18,000 miles, beginning in Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Portugal, all the way to Saigon.  You do need to switch trains, but that’s apparently the longest ride you can take.  Much of this is on the Trans-Sib, which I’ll have the pleasure of experiencing quite soon.  I haven’t verified this factoid, by the way, so go ahead and check the math if you feel so inclined.

Turned on my little radio, got nothing.  Probably easier to access alien transmissions out here than anything terrestrial…

Next day was Friday the 13^th.  I had signed on for a daylong horse riding trip to see the Tsaatan, an ethnic group which herds reindeer and live in orts, like teepees.  The date was not auspicious, and I am not an experienced horseman.  I had no helmet.  Oh well, I decided I go anyway.  The weather had turned nice and it was a great day to be out.  My guide, whose name I couldn’t get, was superb.  He took me to his family’s ger en route and on the way back…his wife stuffed me with tea and food, his kids got a kick out of my camera’s picture files, and they helped me read some Cyrillic on their posters and magazines.  I took Cyrillic lessons from 5-year-old kids – they were laughing at my crappy pronunciation.

The wife had a large bandage on the side of her face – she had an awful toothache and somehow this was helping – might have been medicated.  No dentist around, closest was in Moron.  She indicated that if it got worse, she’d tie a string to the tooth and the other end to a yak, and pull it out like that.  Fun fun fun.

The ride up to the tsaatan encampment was grand.  Blue blue lake, decent horse (a bit bumpy), and almost no one around.  The reindeer people site was a joke, though – talk about a tourist trap.  There was a single ort, a few tsaatan – indistinguishable from ethnic Mongols – and about a dozen unhappy-looking reindeer.  This was very obviously a site set up for tourists, who come, take photos, and then give US$3-5 to the tsaatan for their ‘troubles.’  Tsaatan generally live to the northeast, near Russia, and their reindeer feast on the lichen to be found there. Here, near the lake, there’s no such lichen and the reindeer are subsequently forced to eat local plants which don’t do the trick.  These ‘bizness tsaatan’ are a real hoax – they live entirely on tourist bucks and the visit was depressing.  I did have a nice chat with Dan, an Israeli now living in Brazil – we agreed this tsaatan visit was a depressing experience and that we’d not advise others to do the same.  That said, the day out itself was terrific.

During the ride back we stopped at the guide’s friend’s ger, where they handed me a smoked fish from the lake.  Not sure what type of fish it was, but it was fresh and perhaps the best fish I’ve ever eaten.  They smoke it right away, and I swear it’s better than any smoked fish I’ve had from Zabar’s or Barney Greengrass’s in New York…and it only cost me US$3, whereas in NYC it would be more like US$50.  Good fish can’t be beat.  Mongolians don’t generally eat a lot of fish, but I think those who camp by the lake do, and with very good reason.  I dreamed of that fish that night…

My guide (who only had 3-4 teeth, giving him a leering look) had a perverse sense of humor.  We came upon a herd of yak grazing, whereupon the guide got his horse going towards a couple of them…my horse followed suit.  The yaks spooked and ran – we kept that up for a half hour.  Probably not great for the yaks – might curdle their milk or something.  But no one came out to complain – and it was good fun for us to see the yaks scare and run off.  Our horses seemed to enjoy it too.

A few shots from that day:

It strikes me that Lake K is one of the more colorful spots I’ve visited…such rich colors come through in the pics.  If I ever do settle down, I won’t have any trouble decorating the walls with photos from my wanderings…even though my photographic skills leave something to be desired.

There were a few machines working the road – looked like they were widening it, and that a couple new ger camps were being built.  Lake K is a great holiday area and I have no doubt development will proceed there, I just hope it’s done tastefully and at the right clip.

Stopped again at the guide’s ger – my ass, back and inner thighs were in agony.  Hadn’t spent so much time on a horse in my life, methinks.  Would be sore for days.  The guide’s little girl walked alongside us as we rode the last couple kilometers to Nature’s Door.  I felt sore but also on top of the world as we got to the ger camp.  I had probably ridden 60 kilometers, often at a fast trot/light gallop, and felt like I had had a quintessential Mongolian experience…you’ve gotta ride a horse here.

The next day it was back to rain and cold, but I’d done my trips and was relaxed.  Had breakfast with two Taiwanese women, the only other guests.  Sat in my ger and read ‘Black Swan Green’ by David Mitchell, one of my fave novelists.  I’d read his other 3 works over the past year or so, and loved them all.  It would be good to read them in order, at some point – they all make some reference to aspects in his preceding novels.  This work was excellent, too – about a 13-year-old kid growing up in rural Britain.  A sort of British ‘Catcher in the Rye.’  Mitchell really has a distinct voice and can plumb the depths of the human experience – he and Rushdie, as I’ve said on a number of occasions, are my latest top authors.  I mean to keep abreast of anything new they put out.  Readers – any recommendations from you?

Finished the book late that night – I swear my reading patterns are crazy.  I lug around 8-10 books from my US visit, barely touching any of them until I get to a quiet place like a Mongolian ger camp, then I tear through them at the clip of one every day or two.  That gets the load down, except for guidebooks which I must keep for a while, but then again I’ll be taking a 4-5 day train to Moscow and need reading for that.  So I might need to reload again once in UB.  Heavy books are a traveler’s bane, except when you’re stuck on a long ride.

The bad weather persisted.  I got down to such mundanity as cleaning the innards of my old nail clipper with a ‘wet-wipe,’ the usefulness of which cannot be overstated.  Wiping your bum…washing your face and hands…cleaning appliances.  I’m a convert, except that they make me feel like an old granny.

Sunday arrived.  My last day at Nature’s Door.  Still cloudy, but I was hoping for some good shots of the lake from the hillside so started hiking up that way.  Had to abort after 45 minutes, as the clouds mounted, the hillside fogged over, and it started to rain lightly.  Oh well.

Took a jeep back to Garage 24 for the night.  Had considered going all the way to Moron, to the Dul Hotel, largely to watch sports of TV and check email.  But it made more economic sense to stop at Garage 24 for the night.  Did I mention that the nightly tariff at G24 is US$5?  Food is extra, but still it’s hard to top US$20/day there.

This time some other foreigners showed up.  Uli from San Francisco and his Czech girlfriend…Agnesz. and her British boyfriend…Jacques the French accountant…nice people.  G24 was strangely out of meat – unheard of in this country.  Had a crappy Korean beer (Cass), tomato soup and vegetable buuz (dumplings).  Chatted for a while with my fellow guests, who were thankfully staying out in the 2 gers, ensuring I had the entire dorm building to myself.  I do like a bit of space and privacy, and am mildly (?) misanthropic…after a couple hours of conversation I’d rather read a book.  But you already know that.

By this point I knew which mattresses were lumpy and which were not, picked the best one and slept like a corpse.  The room was warmer than a ger and while there was a stove with a fire in the room, it wasn’t critical and I didn’t need to feed the fire more than a couple times.

On Monday morning we all piled into a Russian minivan to head to Moron.  The ride was comfortable enough…and the scenery wasn’t half-bad:

Proof that the town of Moron indeed exists:

Most of us were catching flights to UB – Agnesz. was getting cash in town.  She had a hard time…and I got a bit annoyed (so did Uli, et al) because we spent time going from bank to bank instead of heading to the airport, a more time-sensitive mission.  Agnesz. finally got her cash, and we headed to the tiny airport.  Turned out I didn’t need to hurry…I was on MIAT and that flight was 3 hours late.  The other airlines took off pretty much on time, so I was stuck there along with Agnesz., who thought the same minivan would take her back to G24 straightaway but was being disabused of that notion.

I did have the pleasure of hanging out at the airport with Anna, a cool Russian chick who was on my flight.  She helped me order goulash in the cafeteria…we later commiserated about the lateness of our MIAT flight.  She was in a real hurry to get back to UB, as she needed to visit the Korean Embassy before it shut at 18:30.

Moron Airport is a modest place.  One little cafeteria, one little shop which only opens for 15 minutes every hour and which stocks fish – which seem to come in contact with every other product in the store.  My bottle of water smelled fishy – not a pleasant thing.

We finally boarded and took off.  The plane was an ‘AH-26-100,’ Anna was sitting next to me and thought this was an Aero Novosibirsk (her hometown) product.  It was not an encouraging plane – the luggage was stored inside the plane in a netted area.  It reminded me of Tom Hank’s FedEx plane that went down in the film ‘Cast Away,’  I was seated right next to the exit door, which I could have opened in 5 seconds.  The seating configuration at our end was two seats facing two others, like a train.  And there were no overhead luggage bins.  Like a cargo or military plane, I could imagine Russian paratroopers jumping out of the exit next to me.  I prayed silently that the props would keep turning and that the flight would be short.

We made it in one piece, but I swore never to try MIAT again.  I had been forewarned, rightly so.  Poor Anna didn’t make it to the embassy in time, it was nearly 18:30 when we got into the UB terminal.  Anyway, I had fun hanging out with her and got a dose of the famous Russian friendliness – hopefully I’ll get more of that shortly.

Back to Zaya Hostel.  Took a while to find my driver, but he eventually showed up.  Youngish guy – I immediately hit him up for basketball info.  He said ‘Boston’ and showed 3 fingers, then ‘LA’ and showed one.  Ch-ching!  He then indicated that Game 5 might have taken place but he didn’t know the result yet.  I was happy in any event – we’d be going back to Boston with the lead.  The goal was in sight and attainable.

Checked email – 200 or so sitting there.  Got through the urgent ones immediately, then went out for a bite and over to Marco Polo for drinks.  I was beat from sitting in the dusty airport all day so didn’t stay out too late.

Next day, did my round of errands.  Picked up my passport, Russian visa, and Trans-Siberian Railway train ticket at Legend Tours. Not cheap, but smooth sailing.  Looking forward to confrontations with Russian Customs agents.  Got a ‘repair haircut’ at a salon on Peace Ave. – the kid did a great job and now I look semi-normal instead of like Bozo the Clown.  Had a pizza at nearby Pizza Della Casa, and ran into Kiwis Al and Mike, so sat and had a beer with them.  Small town.

Did the Hash House Harriers that night – after 15 folks showed up at the Bayangol Hotel lot, and we took a van out to the country.  Anne and Rory from Ireland/UK were the Grandmasters, and I did the ‘run’ with Jim the Brit and an American woman.  The rest of the gang hiked.  Different sort of Hash, but fun anyway.  Plenty of beer and sandwiches afterward.  We had run up a sizeable hill and I was winded from that.  A homeless local hung around – we gave him some water (not beer) and our empties, I think that’s what he was looking for anyway.

Went with a few of the Hashers to Dave’s Pub afterwards, chatted for a long while with Rory.  Turns out he’s lived/worked in (he says) 114 countries, putting me and everyone else to shame.  Of course, many of these countries are total dumps – he’s in the oil biz and has to spend stretches in backwaters like Yemen (which I’d love to see, but probably won’t risk the kidnap/homicide threat).  He talked me out of visiting Ukraine – too murderous, he opined – but invited me to his large spread on the Bulgarian/Turk border.  I do think I’ll try for that before long.  Good folks, these Hashers.

En route to Dave’s I ran into Ashleigh, a fun Aussie woman who was also stranded with
Anna and I at Moron Airport.  Small town, really.  She didn’t feel like joining us for a drink, but I tried my best.

Next morning, landmark event.  Celtics-Lakers Game 6.  Series closeout opportunity for us – turned out we had lost Game 5 in L.A. and that the series had returned to Boston.  I found the game on CCTV, the Chinese channel – the broadcasters did a pretty good job, not talking too much.  Meanwhile, the Celtics gave the Lakers a serious whipping – a beating of historical proportions.  As Magic Johnson said recently, these Lakers are soft.  Not the classic struggle that we used to see.  L.A.’s center, Andrew Bynum, has been injured for several months, and when he returns next season L.A. might be stronger, but for now the Celts are clearly the better team and that warms my heart.  I still wanted revenge for the 1985 and 1987 finals, when we lost to L.A., and this was a small measure of vengeance.  And it was brilliant that our 3 veterans – Pierce, Garnett and Allen – got their first rings.  I imagined longtime team prezo Red Auerbach and radioman Johnny Most sharing cancerous cigars in heaven.  The good guys won and I’m sticking with that opinion. I hate L.A.

After the game was over, CCTV showed a few minutes of old Celtics finals footage – some really classic stuff, Havlicek (whom I met once, through friend Meredith), Russell, Bird, etc.  And they showed old footage of Garnett with Minnesota and Allen with Seattle.  Well done – I love looking at old clips, I could sit for days and stew in the nostalgia.  Reminds me of my younger days, when my father would take us to the old Boston Garden and we’d watch the magic of Larry Bird and crew.  Some of my fondest memories…talk about being in the right place at the right time.  Dad, thanks for getting season tickets in 1979!!

Boston only won 24 of 82 games last season, then traded for Allen and Garnett to complement Pierce.  I thought it would take time for all the new guys to mesh, but it did not…they had the right chemistry from early on and were the best team all year.  Some analysts picked L.A. to win the series, perhaps with some justification (they played very well in the playoffs and had momentum, while the Celts were a bit spotty), but they were wrong and we were the best.  Hallelujah!

Friend/former colleague/regular reader Bansi texted me during the game, and included a blurry yet nice shot of the arena stuffed with Celts fans.  He has perfect connections for sporting events – he manages to make it to every key game in town.  As the game wound down we exchanged text messages and it was funny that he was in the arena and I was in Mongolia, both watching the same game.  I would have traded places with him, mind you.

During halftime I changed channels – I don’t watch a lot of TV, so had to maximize the time – and watched 15 minutes of Ren & Stimpy in Mongolian.  Somehow it worked and I knew what was going on…

Also during halftime I worked up a fake e-ticket on Aeroflot, in case a Russian Customs agent wanted ‘proof’ I had a ticket out of Russia.  I’ve gotten very good at concocting these pages and they do provide peace of mind, even if agents rarely ask for these sorts of things.

Being back in the city brought its usual tortures.  Firefox had a new Mozilla browser upgrade, Version 3.0, so I downloaded that and had to get through the installation – a few hiccups.  Also, Microsoft released something called ‘Vista Service Pack 1’ (implying future Service Pack releases – wonderful), which took an hour to download, and then another hour to install.  And besides the waiting time, you have no clue what the software actually does or fixes, Microsoft gives you no info whatsoever.  One can only conclude that these releases fix bugs/vulnerabilities in the original OS.  I hate Microsoft.  The only benefit this time is that the upgrade seemed to free up 5 gigs of hard drive space, which I can use for photos and music.  Still, no thanks to Big Bill & Co.

I went with Kiwi Al to see the new Indiana Jones movie.  Reading the promo poster in Cyrillic is a kick – phonetically it works out, but it’s funny to read.

Final night in UB…went to a cultural performance which was actually quite entertaining.  One fellow did ‘khoomi,’ or throat singing – couldn’t believe the sounds he got out of his gullet.  Some dances and gymnastics, too – Mongolians seem big on contortionist acts.  As for me, they only reinforce the realization that my body is getting creakier and creakier…

Met Al for drinks at the Irish Pub.  We got a ‘table keg,’ which is a device that holds 3.5 liters of beer, and you can dispense it yourself.  Ingenious.  I was supposed to meet local friend Bolor too, but as usual, he didn’t show.  Al and I moved on to gents’ club Marco Polo – which was raided by the cops 30 minutes later.  A signal for me to get out of UB?  Perhaps.

An affluent-seeming young local offered to take us to another place – he seemed friendly and non-homicidal so we accepted.  We drove in his SUV for a while, then ended up at familiar joint Amrita.  The place he wanted to show us – called ‘Golden Banana’ – was shut.  Oh well.  Had way too many beers at Amrita, ogled the 6-foot waitresses, and eventually Bolor (whom I’d texted) showed up and joined us.  Stayed there till around 3 a.m…got a bit at Xaanbuuz (the Mongolian McD’s – nice lamb dumplings), and called brother-in-law Dave while waiting for my food.  Can’t recall much of our chat, given my state of mind(lessness), but I think we covered the various bases, including the Celtics.  Then I went to the guesthouse and got 5 hours sleep.  Gotta get up, pack, and head to the train station.

Fraternity brother/faithful reader Ari emailed me – he loved the photo of me in traditional Mongolian del and hat.  And he wrote that the stock market sucks, that it’s likely to suck for another year, until oil comes down.  He also promised to investigate the presence and promise of gers in his current home state of Wyoming – there are a few gers in a nearby town, as I may have mentioned in a prior posting.  Go, Ari – we need more Jewish financial types who live in gers in Wyoming.  A small but growing demographic.

In a few hours I get on the Trans-Sib train all the way to Moscow – 4-5 days.  Will bring several bottles of vodka, lots of tea and sugar, some wetwipes, snacks, toilet paper, and whatever else I can find.  See you next week, when I’ll be in the Russian capital attempting to fend off corrupt anti-Semitic cops and other sordid characters.  Over and out.

Tags: Travel

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