8 - Trainspotting (Irkutsk, Listvyanka)

Ulaan Baator, MONGOLIA to Irkutsk, RUSSIA - 16 July 2002

As it was my last day here in Ulaan Baator, I had wanted to visit two main sights that I had not gotten the chance yet.

However, after the Museum of Mongolian History, Pablo’s diarrhoea and my insufficient Mongolian Togrog prevented further activities.

We returned to Nassan’s Guesthouse and negative-energy couple was… Wait, hang on. They had packed up and left. This was great! Well, although they had left with their guitar, they had left behind their guitar pick. Pablo picked it up, eyes twinkling with evil glee.

The couple had been selfish and inconsiderate when we shared the room and we had schemed to rip off the last page of the books they were reading. But, we respected books. We could not do it. We, however, did not share the same respect for guitar picks.

I reached for my pair of scissors and snapped the guitar pick into two. I kept the left side, Pablo the right side. For a laugh, we promised to reunite the two halfs of the guitar pick when we meet in Buenos Aires in six months’ time, or when I eventually get there.

Ulaan Baator had not been the most pleasant city we were in. We had been victims, near-victims and witnesses to quite a few crimes. Many buildings and parks appeared to be neglected and some buildings were downright dilapidated. To me, it never really felt safe at night. But Mongolia in its entirety had been unexpectedly wonderful because of the things we did together as a group and the friends I made in Beijing. Outside of Ulaan Baator, Mongolia is breathtaking. The people are hospitable and incredibly friendly; the smiley children here have great personalities. There are picturesque rolling hills and steppe all around. Then, out of nowhere, you spot a few gers or a lone horsemen or some two-humped camels and horses grazing in the wild…

I was leaving for Irkutsk today and Pablo would be leaving for Moscow on 19 July. Pablo struck upon an idea for a meeting - that I should wait at the Irkutsk Train Station when his train pulled up on 20 July and we would meet for 20 minutes. Imagine: dark, misty night, steam from the train, a platform crowded with jostling passengers and porters, me in a hat (with feathers) and a mink coat… Leo Tolstoy’s popped into mind (minus the part where she threw herself under the train, of course) and we could not stop giggling about it.

Then, he suggested I try to get on his train on 20 July to do the rest of the Trans-Mongolian ride together. That would be great but I was not sure as it would give me very little time in Irkutsk and Lake Baikal.

He saw me off at the train station. Well, we would meet again… maybe in Moscow, maybe in Buenos Aires… Hasta la vista.


To Irkutsk, RUSSIA - 17 July 2002

The train had stopped at the Mongolian border for at least 4 hours before some sort of border activities began after 9am.

The border guard took my passport away. The French guy in my cabin had stayed 31 nights in Mongolia, including last night on the train. In a way, he had overstayed by one night as he was given a 30-day visa. The other Austrian couple did not even have entry stamps. They said no one was at the counter when they arrived at the Ulaan Baator airport. So, with these dodgy train companions who seemed more ‘illegal’ than I was, I could not understand why the border guard stamped their passports and yet took mine away.

After 1½ hour’s wait, I happened to stand by the train-door and spotted the border guard chatting with his cronies on the steps in front of the office and passing my passport around. Ah, must be my gorgeous photo again.

Finally, they returned it to me wordlessly and the train moved off eventually. 2 hours later, we arrived at the Russian border and played the same waiting game. In total, we spent at least 8 hours on the border.

I had expected to arrive in Irkutsk in 24 hours time but no… it seemed I had another night on the train.


For dinner, I cracked open my pack noodle into my lunch-box and added hot water. The train jerked and my lunch-box made a spectacular crash to the floor, spilling the water on me and scattering the noodles everywhere.

The Russian train attendant, with a full set of gold teeth no less, rushed out and ooohhed and aaaahhed over my predicament. She tossed me a wash-cloth to clean myself and proceeded to pick up the noodle to throw it out.

“Er… Nyet nyet nyet! [No no no!]” I hazarded, a tad embarrassed by what I intended to do next. I picked up the main unbroken square of the noodle sheepishly and indicated I was still eating this. “Spasiba. I’m sorry for the mess. Spasiba… Spasiba… [Thank you]”

Well, when you're hungry, you're hungry.


Irkutsk to Listvyanka, RUSSIA - 18 July 2002

We arrived eventually after 8am. I had several things to do first and I wanted to get out to Lake Baikal by today, if possible.

Left my backpack at the Left Luggage. Plodded into town on foot to try and find a bank. Had the presence of mind to stop and buy a sketch book, pencil and sharpener because now, I felt inspired to start drawing on my trip. Hunted for a café for food. Unable to locate one. By then, had walked across tiny Irkutsk to the bus station. Used the phrasebook and the universal language of numbers to buy a bus-ticket to Listvyanka, by Lake Baikal. Searched for a café for food again. Finally, found one. Ate awful microwaved food. Returned to the bus station. Boarded the bus. Realised I FORGOT to register my visa.




In Russia, it was not enough for you to have a visa for entry and an entry stamp at the border. You still need to register your visa with a hotel or tour agency within three days of arrival into the country. I officially crossed the border on 17 July. Today was 18 July and I had just hopped on a bus to a tiny village by the lake. So, 19 July would be my third day and I would need to register it if I did not want trouble in Russia. Argh!!!

I guess I had to return to Irkutsk the next day and get the registration done. It seemed I would be able to get on Pablo’s train on 20 July, after all.

Found a youth hostel for only R50 [R31 = US$1]. The toilet was an out-house with a hole dug in the ground… China flashback. But for the life of me, I could not find running water. When I asked the babushka [grandmother] of the hostel where I could wash my hands, she simply yelled at me and waved me away.


So… after toilet, where did I go? I furtively trudged out to Lake Baikal to wash my hands.

Lake Baikal, if I may briefly impress you with some statistics here, is the ‘Pearl of Siberia’ - crystal clear, drinkably pure (er… not for long) and surrounded by mountains and little wooden cabins. It is the world’s sixth largest lake and the world’s deepest lake (1637m) and contains nearly one-fifth of the world’s fresh water. There!







Listvyanka to Irkutsk, RUSSIA - 19 July 2002

Back in Irkutsk, I tracked down Hotel Arena without much problems. But the fat middle-aged woman in the hotel could not register the visa for me and would not accept me if my visa was not registered. With no Russian, I tried my best to inquire where I could get it registered. It got frustrating as we simply could not understand each other.

Then, I looked up and saw a familiar face with a huge grin. “Hi” he nodded. “BEN!!! B-E-N! Oh great!! How are you??” It was Ben from USA whom I had met briefly in the hostel in Beijing. So GREAT to see a familiar face in this daunting country! And even better if he spoke Russian. “Do you speak Russian?” Nope. Rats. We agreed to share the room to split the cost but first, I had problems to solve.

The fat woman very kindly (!!) gave me the address of the Registration Office. OK, I would try and get myself registered.

I waited for the office to open at 3pm and by then, there were already about 50 men and three women waiting outside.

When the office finally opened, everyone bull-dozed their way in. The building was in one of those old eerie buildings that was not designed as waiting rooms. It was tiny and had no ventilation. I had no idea where to queue. The 50 men, some fat, some skinny, all smelly, had glued themselves behind one another in some queue or other. I asked a few ‘staff’ and was directed to different doors and the last door pointed out to me was shut.

With the summer heat and no ventilation, I nearly blacked out. My claustrophobia took over. I felt a sense of panic surge from within me. I knew I could not do this alone, especially with no Russian and with no one willing to smile or help. I staggered out towards a more expensive hotel.

I had thought I needed to be a guest before this hotel would register me. That would mean I had to ditch Ben in Hotel Arena. Surprisingly, for a fee, they registered my visa there and then within 5 minutes. Strange bureaucracy.

Ben and I headed out for dinner later and stumbled upon a delightful little local café. The voluptuous babushka from the next table, we learnt later she was the owner of the café, came up to us and tried to explain each and every item on the menu.



She was probably half-drunk by then, as it appeared she was celebrating something with her friends or family. When she reached ‘kuritsa’ [chicken], she did a wing-flapping thing and then, literally grabbed her ample right breast to tell us, this one was breast meat. Then, she slapped her buttock to indicate the next item was the chicken thigh. She was splattering her saliva away in Russian, trying to read the menu with her reading glasses, licking her fingers to flip the pages in rapid speed. She was hilarious.

We found that the party was celebrating the birth of her grand-daughter. Everyone at the table was offering us cognac and vodka and toasting us frequently. Soon, Voluptuous Babushka was using my phrase-book and telling Ben ‘It is nice to meet you’, ‘Hope to see you again’, etc…

Later, they wanted photos and Voluptuous Babushka wanted some where we planted kisses on her cheeks and yelled, “Mama!!” and then, she would squeeze us with one gigantic hug. One of the guys at the table, some half-pissed fat guy named Igor (IGOR, for heaven’s sake!) got me to dance. To my surprise, Igor lifted me up with his right arm (and only with his right arm) and I found myself ‘dancing’ with my feet in the air! Ben waltzed around, looking for a partner and the half-crazed Voluptuous Babushka elbowed her way into the café to snatch Ben up. It was one crazy, fun and very drunk night.

7 - Mongstruck (Ulaan Baator, Kharkhorin)

Gachuurt to Ulaan Baator, MONGOLIA - 10 july 2002

The next day, we thanked The Herdsman profusely and made our way back to the village. He took his horse and lasso to see us off. We crossed the river again. This time, Pablo’s and my feet did not feel that painful.

When The Herdsman finally left, the picture was of him riding the horse, in the middle of the river and turning back to wave at us. It really looked like a movie… the ending would be a circle around this picture shrinking to nothingness!

Nassan’s Guesthouse was more crowded today because the Naadam Festival would start tomorrow. We told Nassan we did not mind having no mattress to sleep on, we just needed some floor space. We were finally allowed to return to our original room to try and find ‘floor space’. OK, if we squeezed a little, we could crunch out floor spaces for three… and we would get in the way of everybody. Tina took the only free bed.

There was a sullen and silent German couple reading and smoking in the room. Negative energy oozed from them. Actually, they pretended to read. They eyeballed us the whole time we were in the room, watching us as we went from toilet to kitchen sink, hung our underwears, scratched ourselves, wrote our journals… They pointed us out, nudged and made muttering remarks to each other. Weird.

There was a local cinema opposite Nassan’s Guesthouse and naturally, we felt we needed to pay due respect to the Mongollywood industry.

Waiting for Tina and Jus to show up at the cinema, I wondered what movie we were watching. We found the poster outside. Well, there was a bare-breasted woman and a bare-chested man pressing their bodies against each other on a bed and next to it was written ‘8pm’. This must be our movie.

“Hmmm… Is this porno? Pablo, we watching porno?” I queried. A disembodied voice came from behind us brusquely, “Nyet porno [Not porno]”. We spun around in surprise, and saw a very grim woman who seemed to know her Mongol movies well. Ooookay…

The only people in the cinema were four other tourists, also from Nassan’s Guesthouse.

The movie began with a dying elderly woman lying in bed, being taken care of by a pretty young woman dressed in traditional Mongolian costumes. They were inside a ger, whispering and crying. We intuitively knew that the dying elderly woman was most likely NOT the naked woman featured in the poster. Our attention turned to the pretty young woman in traditional garb and appraised her slowly, mentally stripping her of the costume. The lights popped on suddenly and the cinema attendant entered sheepishly, waving a video-tape in her hand. Oh, that was the wrong movie.

The movie began again with a naked man and a naked woman frolicking in the shower and then, romping about on the bed. Now, that was more like it… Nyet porno.

The movie seemed to be shakily shot with a video-cam by someone with Parkinson’s disease. The harsh lightings caused the faces to be featureless and there was absolutely no regards for sound-editing. We could not figure out who was who because they all looked alike under the bright lights. But, we pretty much knew exactly what was going to happen because the storyline was thoroughly predictable. After the abrupt and bewildering ending, we stood up and applauded, yelling “Mongollywood! Yes! Mongollywood!!”



Ulaan Baator, MONGOLIA - 11 july 2002

We had timed our visit to Mongolia to coincide with the Naadam Festival. This morning, we followed the procession from the main square to the stadium. There was a parade getting ready to walk around the stadium. While some of the paraders were wearing the gorgeous and varied traditional Mongolian costumes, there were also Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, Pluto, a boy with a poodle and acrobats dressed up like Xena and Hercules. We found the latter characters extremely odd and disturbing.

After a long wait for the opening ceremony, the wrestling began. Pairs of wrestlers, with no weight segregation, arrived on the field, doing a slow-mo eagle dance. They spread their arms like wings and bounced around slowly. They removed their pointy hats and began their wrestle. The loser would be the first guy who touched the ground with any part of his body, other than his feet and palms. Then, the winner would retrieve his pointy hat, do the eagle dance towards the centre, around a podium-thing, bow his head on the podium and depart. The loser would NOT retrieve his hat. He would do a loser-dance on the spot and ‘fly’ away. How I knew this was that we sat under the sun for hours, watching the wrestling (which eventually got boring) over and over again.

We found the archery competition in an open stadium outside. Here, there were women competitors, as well as men. All were dressed in their thick Mongolian wrap-around dresses. They looked really smart. The targets were the judges in the distance, apparently. I was pleased to note that some of the competitors were rather young.

Negative-energy couple was reading and smoking in the room again.







Ulaan Baator, MONGOLIA - 12 july 2002

Pablo, Jus and I headed to Yarmag for the horse-racing competition on this second day of the Naadam Festival. The whole plain was wide and dusty. People were riding horses everywhere, kicking up the sand. It was difficult to see. Sometimes, a horse would appear out of nowhere and gallop by you, nearly crashing into you. It felt quite dangerous actually.

We squeezed to the barrier with the crowd and waited. Slowly, slowly, the crowd thickened. I had my camera in front of me and with the crowd pushing and shoving from behind, I was nearly fused together with my camera. Remember, I had mentioned the Mongolians are pushers. With each rude, forceful push, I would look around for the culprits and what I saw were shiny, happy Mongolians, smiling away. I was packed so tight I could not breathe. I figured I should slow my breathing rate down to suspended animation and hope to be revived later.

Finally, the horses arrived with the young jockeys. The crowd went wild, cheering and pushing some more. Some horses had lost their jockeys earlier, it seemed. Ooops.

Later, when the race was over, Pablo told us that he was at the section where some horses keeled over and died of heart attacks in the middle of the race. The concerned crowd surged forward with intentions to help the jockeys who were being dragged down and the crowd crashed the barrier! It was mayhem as behind the human crowd, there were spectators on horses and these horses were easily spooked. So, the horses were panicking and kicking up sand everywhere and everyone was pushing. Pablo and some nearby tourists simply gathered together and tried to protect their heads.

Meanwhile, Jus informed us that he encountered an Ali-Baba whom he caught red-handed. Ali-Baba simply broke free and slithered away into the crowd.

Later, when we took a bus back to Ulaan Baator, the same Ali-Baba got onto our bus. He even moved to stand behind Jus and Pablo, back-to-back. As I was seated down, I could see the guy between Jus and Pablo. His left arm was holding the railing. He had his head bent and was eyeing at us below his left arm-pit. I stared at him straight in the eyes. He then decided to try somewhere else. Just before the bus pulled away, he shoved further into the bus and then suddenly dashed off the bus. Rats. He got something.

Negative-energy couple was reading and smoking in the room again.



















Ulaan Baator to Kharkhorin, MONGOLIA - 13 july 2002

Jus, Tina and Goretti would be heading to northern Mongolia today. They had a longer time here in Mongolia. Pablo and I did not. We decided to head to Kharkhorin because it was only 8 hours away and seemed to have an interesting monastery nearby.

We found the bus-station and were looking around for the bus when we saw a wrinkled hand extended from within a minivan and heard a booming voice in English, “If you're going to Kharkhorin, hop in. We are ready to go…”

The voice belonged to, we learnt later, a Zen Master nun. Her name is Lily-Marie, from Switzerland and she is 71. My goodness, she was quite a character. I never imagined in my entire life that I would meet a true-blue certified Zen Master.

She had with her, and I quote, ‘my lama’. The monk’s name was Demberil and he seemed the sort of sweet, patient, humble guy forever serving the needs of others.

Throughout the ride, Lily-Marie would tell the monk, Pablo and I anecdotes and Buddhism stories with really profound meanings. Pablo was more interested in religion than I was. I shall not pretend that I was intellectual enough to understand the complex meanings behind some of her stories. But, I must say she was very wise and funky as well. What a spontaneous lady! She made wisecracks, ate ice-cream and even snapped her fingers to the dance music playing in the minivan. Wonderful character!

We accepted her invitation to meet her tomorrow at Erdene Zuu Monastery and ‘her lama’ would give us a tour. What a treat!

Kharkhorin used to be the capital of Mongolia at one point in their glorious history. Now, not a trace of the majesty remained. It had a ghost-town feel. Every other shop or café seemed to be shut. The wooden buildings looked neglected. Strong gusts of wind would blow sand everywhere suddenly. Stray dogs roamed the streets at every corner and barked throughout the night.



Kharkhorin, MONGOLIA - 14 july 2002

We met up at Erdene Zuu Monastery as agreed and had the privilege of learning more about Buddhism from Lily-Marie. One concept that rang deep in my memory was: “One should not fret and regret about the past… One should not fret and worry about forcing the future… One should live for the HERE and NOW. By the time one is aware of the Present, it has already become the Past.” Or something like that. See what I mean? I am still trying to figure this out.

There were many tourists visiting the monastery as well. One came up to Demberil and said, “Hi, I’ve always wanted to take a photo with a monk. Do you mind taking one with me?” Was this a zoo? I wished Demberil had replied, “Why, thank you. What a coincidence. I’ve always wanted to take a photo with a stupid tourist. So, where should we stand?”

Later, we observed a chanting ceremony in a temple. Sadly, throughout the ceremony, tourists who had paid extra for the privilege of photographing the interior of the temples, also assumed they had paid for the privilege of disturbing the ceremony with their flash-pops and snappy-snaps.

That evening, I encountered my first ever mini sandstorm. We could see it brewing and blowing towards the town. I stood in the middle of nowhere, mesmerised. Then, suddenly, we were engulfed and totally blinded by the swirling sand. Everybody was scurrying to hide behind barriers and buildings. Disturbed dogs were howling eerily. Incredible…



Kharkhorin to Ulaan Baator, MONGOLIA - 15 july 2002

Zen Master Lily-Marie wanted to leave Kharkhorin at 8am today and had invited us to join her this morning to get a vehicle back to Ulaan Baator.

8am? She was so kidding me… We slept til way after 9am. Then, at 10am or so, we sauntered our way to the front of the market and found many minivans waiting to leave for Ulaan Baator. In fact, one was lacking two passengers. Perfect.

To our surprise, Lily-Marie was in the van! She was in her most cranky mood, however. Well, she HAD wanted to leave at 8am and now it was after 10am. Apparently, the van had a flat just now and the door crashed down earlier too. She insisted we would not make it back to Ulaan Baator alive.

Just before we left, the van spun around for another half an hour, loading more canisters of horse-milk and packing in more passengers. Lily-Marie got really mad and kept scolding Demberil about how they should have gone with the other van and not this one. In fact, throughout the ride later, she could not stop blaming Demberil for this and that.

Pablo and I giggled away. She was a Zen Master. But she was also human. In fact, she was like a spoilt impatient diva today. We finally reached the Ulaan Baator toll-booth in the evening. She applauded at once, utterly relieved. Then, we had a flat! THAT WAS IT! The driver, whom by now knew her cranky nature, hurriedly got around to open the van’s door. She stormed out of the van with Demberil in tow and marched angrily out to the road to flag down random vehicles.

We returned to Nassan’s Guesthouse without further incident. To our surprise, negative-energy couple was still reading and smoking in the room.