We now have a good old fashioned tale to tell from our return journey from the nomadic families in Mongolia. There is no feeling quite like being left stranded at a bus station without the tickets you need for your bus and the promised local representative with said tickets nowhere to be seen, being denied access to this bus and then watching helplessly as the bus on which you are supposed to be going back 'home' to Ulanbataar disappears off in a cloud of dust in to the evening sun.
After five hours of waiting at the 'bus station' which resembled more of a road-side collection of shacks, and being promised non-existent 'small cars' we finally boarded a 'small bus' (a lethal death trap of a vehicle) and were on our way to UB. A tyre blow-out, a 360 degree spin on the off-road section in bewteen the paved main road, some swerving and some napping by the driver, we finally arrived back in UB at 4am. What should have been 4 hours turned into 12!
Mongolia as left us with mixed emotions. It is a beautiful country with stunning scenery and freidnly people. Seeing how basically and sustainably the nomadic families live in their gers (at least family one) has been quite humbling. Never shared a ger with six nomads and four other travellers before. :) The trips on horse and camel-back were quite entertaining but sometimes felt a bit random. There was a lot hanging around in the gers drinking tea.
We now have arrived in Beijing (apparently today in Confusicious' birthday) and we will be getting our Russian visas sorted tomorrow hopefully. Facebook and Blogger are banned at the moment, so this update will be wee-bit out of date by the time it goes up.
No comments:
Post a Comment