Mongolian Camel Movie

The railway runs through Siberia and the Gobi Desert. It kind of looked like this most of the way from south of Lake Baikal to Ulaanbaatar, except the little pond was special.

We found refuge inside the ger for a mean game of sheep ankle bones. It's a game played with... ankle bones of sheep.

The National Park had some beautiful views, but unfortunately not any hiking trails that we saw.

This would have been a perfect sampling well for my microbial source tracking project. The cows hang around right next to the drinking water well. I would say this is a high-risk well. It may or may not have been the source of my intestinal difficulties to come.

This is what the traditional Mongolian gers (or yurts) look like. The families move five or ten kilometers away, four times each year. It takes three adults about an hour to disassemble on of these gers and pack it up (usually onto a truck).
It was beautiful in Mongolia... but darn cold!

Adjusting Adjusting

My dear, sweet Uncle Hal took me in to Spanaway, and sent me back out again to Seattle on Wednesday morning. He picked me up at the airport after one of the clearest days I’ve ever seen along the west coast. Seriously, you could see all of the San Francisco Bay bridges from the plane! It was phenomenal! For those of you who aren’t familiar with San Francisco weather, IT’S ALWAYS FOGGY. The flight from San Francisco to Seattle was beautiful the entire way. However, I missed a lot of it because I was busy relishing in the fact that I was coming home with Ben, the person on my right. He and his wife had lived in the Czech Republic ten years ago. He acted like it was special to be the one to share this moment with me. “I feel so lucky to live vicariously through you right now,” he said. “OK, what do you want to eat most when you get back to Seattle?”

That was when I first realized “yeah! I’m coming home!” I survived the past year abroad. And there’s something about coming home that makes me realize how human I am. I just got back from Siberia, the Gobi Dessert, the Arctic Circle, but I feel the same way that I felt after the first day of kindergarten. I’m home!

Beijing Traffic

Nobody is winning the battle between the motorists and the pedestrians in Beijing. But, strangely enough, no one seems to be losing too badly either. OK, this is the situation at most intersections: You get to the corner and you notice an immense amount of activity. There are bikes. Lots of bikes. Pretty cool bike of all kinds, but anyway. Some go straight, some stop, and some turn either left or right. There are vehicles. The same is true for the cars (stop, straight, left, or right). And then there are pedestrians. In addition, if you can see him amongst all of the activity, there’s often a crossing guard officer with the apparent goal of keeping this quadratic equation in order. But he’s very polite, and you don’t really have to listen to him is you don’t feel like it. And he doesn’t exactly agree with the traffic signal. He’s usually a little ahead of the traffic light… probably… if you trust him. Oh yeah, if you’re a motorist and you want to turn either left or right on the red light, you’re in the right city! Both left and right turning seem to be acceptable on the red. No problem there.

If you’re a pedestrian, your chances of making it across the intersection with all of your appendages in tact is just as good with the signal as without. There are bikes and cars coming at you from all directions at all times, regardless of the greenness of the traffic light. In fact, I bet you’re better off crossing in the middle of the block instead of at the intersection where you have four directions of oncoming objects, instead of just two.

The funny thing was, I hardly saw any close calls between motorists and pedestrians (except with myself and a few motorists/bicyclists). This was not true in Paris, Porto, Tampere, or Helsinki, where I had a much better understanding of what I was supposed to do in order to conserve life at the traffic intersections. Somehow, everyone develops the necessary dexterity and visual acuity required to cross the street in Beijing. Or maybe no one is left who unfortunately did not develop these skills. I am proud to say I survived (though just barely) pedestrianism in Beijing!

The Most Annoying Lady in the World

Marie and I encountered her at Simatai, a semi-touristy town nestled up against the Great Wall of China. Actually, she encountered us. It wasn’t a casual encounter either. We were not special. She was looking for someone to follow, and as tourists, we qualified. She followed us as we hiked along the Great Wall for over an hour offering unwanted information and tourist trinkets. How can we get away from her? We wondered.

The Great Wall is precariously balanced along a steep ridge, with the original purpose of guarding China from… various enemies throughout history. While it had questionable success, its placement also makes for fundamentally amazing views, which are aggressively marketed at tourists all around the world. If we only had peace and no annoying ladies following us, we could imagine China back in the day, defending its territory. And, so long as we faced away from the snack bar, the tourist gondola that transported us three quarters of the way up the mountain, and the merchants selling plaques that said “Great Wall,” we could enjoy the beauty of the region.

“We want peace,” Marie very genuinely, yet assertively, explained with her outstanding Mandarin language skills. “We don’t have any money.” This was actually true. It wasn’t a miscalculation so much as we forgot to think about the funds before leaving Beijing. We had precisely the right amount of money to get us on the bus back to Beijing. No more, no less. No snacks. No trinkets. Our annoying follower had heard this before and it unfortunately just fueled the fire.

“Mongolia side,” she pointed to one side of the wall. “Chinese side,” she pointed to the other side (with the trinket tables and the snack bar). We happened to already know which side of the Wall was Chinese.

She was ANNOYING!! After over an hour of ignoring her/asking her to leave us alone my temper came through. “NO!” I yelled (in English). “I don’t want any postcards that say China is beautiful!” But then I was a little surprised (and I felt a little meaner than Marie) when she actually did leave us alone after that. Maybe it was because we were almost to the end of our walk along the Wall… and not because I’m so horribly mean that I was able to scare away even the most annoying lady in the world. Anyway, we had the last 20 minutes to ourselves to enjoy the tranquil beauty of Simatai.

31 in Moscow!!

I turned 31 in Moscow on the 28th, just after meeting up with Marie and Ever in St. Petersburg. We toured around and motivated to start our journey across Russia.





I have many pictures and few words on Krasniarsk and Yekateringburg. There are many stories to tell. You will hear them when internet access is more frequent.Sunday we're off to Mongolia!

Lake Baikal