Beijing......as planned.

We boarded the tran-seiberian train at Ulan Baatar heading for Beijing. A 36hr train journey through the Gobi Desert and the mountain range of Northern China. We figured the best approach would be to watch the Gobi and Mongolia slip away in the dinning car with a few beers.

It was a great plan until we were asked to leave, quite some time later as we were at the Chinese boarder.

We found ourselves a wee bit tipsy and absolutely busting for the toilet. As you may imagine - well do go there!! - the toilets are pretty basic. All waste is simply dropped on to the tracks, so the toilets are closed at stations. As the Chinese and Immigration did their thing I paced the corridors whilst jammy Nick, after much gesticulating, was given a large empty Coke bottle, true class!

After reliving himself the train guard very nicely disposed of the bottle for him. Thankfully the boarder formalities didn't take too long and we were moving again. It was at that moment we realized that our Chinese room/cabin mate was missing. We were sharing a cabin with two others and after our passports had been taken away to be processed he simply packed up his bag and did a runner, we never saw him again.

Not only did we loss our Chinese cabin mate, but we also lost the trains wheels (or as nick likes to call them, bogeys). Interestingly, the train track size is different between Mongoliaand China. Instead of simply changing trains, we were asked to stay onboard while a massive 8 post hydraulic lift raised each carriage individually in order to replace the Mongolian wheels for Chinese bogeys.

 I was too busy to witness these events...

We awoke the next morning a bit fluffy around the edges as the train snaked it's way through the mountain ranges and along some river.

Our first task in Beijing was to check out the Forbidden City. Built in 1406 it was theImperial Palace during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Home to 24 Emperors until 1911. A truly amazing place with 8707 rooms and countless temples and gateways. We have no doubt that new emperors were left very frustrated trying to find his concubines.

The Emperors also had a summer palace, strangely enough called the Summer Palace. We found it to be more impressive and beautiful as the large grounds contained a massive lake and gardens.

South of the Forbidden City is the Temple of Heaven. Again it was built during the Ming and Qing dynasties for Emperors to perform their seasonally religious duties. Nowadays, apart from being a major tourist hotspot, The Temple of Heaven is also used by retired Chinese folk as a area to participate in all form of activities, weird and wonderful. We saw rows of ballroom dancing, line of line dancers, young want-to-be pop singer singing to their adoring grandma fans and old boys spinning around and around a parallel bar! 

Next on the agenda was Mitianyu, the less touristy part of the Great Wall of China. Though the path to the entrance was jammed packed with stalls selling all forms of tack. It did however, lack the bus loads of tourists. How to describe the Great Wall? It is a mind blowing structure built under great intentions (to prevent Chaggis Khan from ransackingbeijing) but completely useless.

The wall isn't one complete structure that stretches from east to west but made up of several sections with large gaps in-between. Which is of course how Chaggis Khan invaded Beijing. The Mitianyu section of the wall winds it way across very ruggered terrain, which made the walk along the wall quite challenging. We got some amazing photo's through the haze of Beijing's pollution.

Not being a massive fan of Chinese food to begin with, Nick and I were over it. No matter how pretty the pictures of sea cucumbers and shark fin soup looked, they still did not look eatable.

The exception was Pure Lotus Vegetarian. A flashy modern restaurant run by funky monks. Everything about the place was so damn cool. From the metre long menu's, to the e-collected serving dishes to your fruit being served in a bowl of dry ice. The only downside was no alcohol was served.

It's now back on the train for the 3 days trip to Lhasa, Tibet. Beijing most certainly opened our eyes to Chinese culture and way of life, however we are very much looking forward to less crowds, cleaner air and hopefully less spitting.

Mongolia......FINALLY

It's bloody cold here: was our first impression as we quickly marched out of the airport. Our hasty exit was caused by the immigration prick, who was making his presence strongly known while we were passing through customs. We both decided to wear different clothing on this trip in an attempt to de-size ourselves. We looked something like this:
MUPPETS!

In a sea of Chinese and Mongolians all dressed in black and grey, we really could not have stood out more as tourist attempting to enter Mongolia, again. Our cunning plan worked however, as we got through.
It was an early start the following day to begin our 3 day 2 night Ger to Ger tour. It began with a 3 hour bus trip to Bulgan region, north west of UB. Mongolian public transport is ummm interesting. Firstly, the bus is packed to the rafters, the driver doesn't always have to drive on the right side of the road or even on the road and cheesy Mongolian comedy shows blasted from the TV while the inside of the windows completely ice over.
 
                                           


Mr and Mrs Byambatogtoh and eight year old son, Batgerei were our first nomadic host family. Most Mongolians outside of UB speak very little English and our Mongolian was non-existent. We were going to spend the next 3 days learning Mongolian quickly or doing lots of sign language.

Nomad-ism is a male orientated society that has many social and cultural rules. Nick is always the first to enter the Ger, as he is old and male. On entering the ger you must head in the western (as in direction not culture) or visitors side of the ger. Never point your feet in the direction of the alter (which is always north) and never receive any food with your left hand.

Nomads are herders with sheep being the most common livestock. Mr Byambatogtoh had 80 sheep, 5 camels and 1 horse. The wives roles are to look after the family ger. Which basically means keeping the stove going, cooking and constantly cleaning the snow and mud off the floor.
Batgerei was a laugh. He could speak a good amount of English, with his favorite saying being 'come on and play a mean game of chess’.

Part of the Ger to Ger experience was to take part in Nomadic life. I helped Mrs Byambatogtoh prepare Bansh, a boiled meat dumpling, while Nick collected dung. Instead of firewood, camel, sheep and horse dung is used to fuel the stove.

We were constantly blown away by the beautiful vast surrounding landscape.

Day 2 involved a 2 hour camel ride to Mr Idertsogt ger, our second host family via the local worshipped site of Khadagt.

 

We tried so hard to learn and remember everyone’s names, but come on, they didn't make it easy for us. I was happy to find out that 'buggy' was going to show us Swan Lake and the Sand Dunes in a blizzard! The 21km round trip was by horseback. 5 km into the journey our backsides were hurting. 10km in, we were wishing the -10c temp would numb the pain. Mongolian saddles are not like any other in the world. They are small and made of wood. Poor Nick even had a metal bar to add to comfort. I saw his butt, ugly! His riding sores were not pretty either. P.S The lake was frozen and there was no F'n swans.
[photos 8 and 9 please]

We returned to the ger tired, sore and hungry. Our sleep was restless as Mr Idertogt snored like a dieing chainsaw. This forced Nick into my undersized single bed in an attempt to distance himself from the racket. Impossible in a ger. I was happy for the extra warmth as the fire had gone out and the temp inside the ger was -20c.
We were expecting to see the nomadic Mongols living as they have done for centuries with no running water, oil lambs and dung fueled stoves. So it was a bit of a shock to see a satellite dish and solar panels outside each ger. Overall, we loved the Mongolian experience. We would have liked to stay longer but both agreed that next time it might be better in the summer.

Beijing...round one

Our first encounter with the Mongols at immigration did nothing to deter our determination to see Mongolia.

By 9am the next morning we were queing outside the Mongolian Embassy appying for our Visas. With relative ease we filled out a rapid visa application and was told to come back at 4pm the following day. With the rest of the day open we decided the best plan of action was to explore Tian'anmen Square. On making our way to the square we were joined by two very polite english speaking chinese girls. After 10minutes of constant questioning we found ourselves in a 'student art' shop. By the time I realised we were being scammed and trying to back out of the shop, it was all to late. Zinta was already up to her neck in the scam, by buying two average chinese artworks because the one of the very polite english speaking chinese girls was the surpose artist. Oh well, lesson learnt. We now have a code word to let each other know if we start to get caught out. It is a bit more subtle than yelling RUN!
We did finally make it to Tian'anmen Square once we had escaped the scammers and passed through the secuirty checkpoint. It's a massive open area in the shape of a square!!!! Apart from having a dead guy (Chairman Mao's Morseleum) in the middle and 'the' national falg on the north side, that's about it.

    

One thing we did find interesting was the food on offer at the street markets.

The next day we successfully obtained our Mongolian Visas. Hurrah!! It was off to the airport to fly back to UB.

Mongolia........almost.

After a long day and a half of traveling from Weymouth to London to Frankfurt to Beijing, Nick and I were excited about getting off the plane and begining our honeytrek in UB. Well, Mongolian immigration had other ideas! A long story short, you are not able to get your Mongolian visa on arrival even with a visa invitation from your mongolian travel agent and esp. when traveling with Air China!  So with no explaination we were put back on the plane we just arrived on and sent back to Beijing. What was really annoying was the fact that the immiragtion prick would not talk to us or explain why we were being deported.
All was not lost, we did manage to take some photo's from the plane window.

 Another 2 hour flight and 3 hours in Chinese immigration being 'processed' left us in no mood to search for a hotel. We jumped in a cab and headed to the only hotel we knew of, Raffles! Two very expensive beers in, Nick and I were back in high spirits and laughing about deportation. Our first adventure as husband and wife!

Welcome

Welcome to Team NZ’s PG rated honeymoon Blogspot. The R rated version is still under construction!  

Not really knowing where to begin or what to write, we thought we would give you a simple introduction on where we are travelling.

Mongolia, China, Tibet (though technically it is China, but only to the Chinese), Nepal and India.

We might be more informative the next time we blog. But hey we are new at this.