Blog entry from China- Mongolia 9th July

We arrived in Beijing on Sunday 4th July at 6.30am to a warm 26c. After checking into our hotel we decided to set out and explore some of the tourist sites. The rest of the group were arriving later on Sunday from Shanghai where they had been visiting Expo.
We decided to visit the Forbidden City as this was only a 30 min walk from our hotel , we hadn’t banked on the enormous crowds due to the start of the school summer holidays. By the time we arrived the temp was sitting at 36c. The Forbidden City is amazing, the size is mind boggling, opposite is the Tenamin Square where the queues were now over a kilometre long. We decided that due to the heat that we would head back to the hotel. Here we met up with the other travellers from NZ.
Bright and early on Monday morning we headed to the railway station t catch the fast train to Tanggu, south of Tanging which is the port where our truck “Moggie” was waiting to be released by customs, sit our Chinese drivers licences then head back to Tanging for the night. On Tuesday evening we went to the theatre to see a performance of Kungfu, which was actually the story of how Kungfu originated all done in dance, it was amazing, this was followed by a dinner of Peking Duck at a well known restaurant. The next day we visited the Summer Palace, the Olympic Stadium , a traditional village where we had a rickshaw ride, lunch in a family home and went to a tea ceremony.
The next morning we left the hotel at 6.20am for the NZ Embassy where we were guests of the Ambassador and his wife for early morning tea and scones. As our PM was in Beijing they had arranged for us to meet with him, have photos and then for him to wave us off with the NZ flag. The entire embassy staff came to see us off. A moment we will remember for a long time to come. Getting out of Beijing in early morning traffic was something else, eventually we arrived at south west section of the Great Wall. We climbed this section to the top and marvelled at the creation of the wall so long ago. From here we drove to Jining via Zhangjiakou (where we had lunch) The next day we drove to Erianhaote which is on the Chinese- Mongolian Border, this is known as the last place that dinosaur remains dinosaurs, and as you approach the city there is a huge archway made from two giant dinosaurs, from that point along the highway there are all sorts of dinosaurs strategically placed, it is very well done. Like all the places we stop Moggie is of great interest to everyone. It is nothing to have a dozen or so people around the van, of course little boys just love it. We have found the people to be very friendly, and the children love to say hello in English. The temperature here was a little cooler in the late 20’s which a relief was. Today we crossed the Chinese border, then across 500 meters of no man’s land to the Mongolian border. In all this took 4.5 hours which is good as it can take up to 10 hours depending on immigration & customs Tonight we are staying in the border town of Borhojn-Tai before heading into the Gobi desert where we will stay in Ger’s the traditional Mongolian tents for 2 nights We are looking forward to the desert drive as Moggie will come into her own, we are not as fast on the hill as the 4 Lanscruisers but we feel we will sort them out in the desert. The town we are in is very poor, but people are friendly and welcome you to their country, the children are delightful, go bare bottomed, this teaches them to use a toilet early .Bearing in mind all the toilets are of the squatting kind it makes sense and with 1.5 billion people the disposal of such would be nightmare.
From Ulan Baatar Mongolia 15th Jul y 2010
Crossing the Gobi desert was something else, it has a beauty of it’s own quite unparalleled with anything we have seen before. It is the largest desert in the region of Northern China and Southern Mongolia surrounded by the Altai mountains and the grasslands and steppes. The Gobi is a cold desert and it is not uncommon to see frosts and the occasional snow fall in the dunes. It runs on a plateau roughly 910-1,520 meters above sea level .Temps can range from +40c in summer to -40 in winter. When we drove through it was between 35 & 29 c. There are only a few trees in the whole desert, no roads just hundreds of tracks formed by cars making previous crossings and as one gets too rough, muddy or rutted then another is formed, this makes it very difficult to navigate, thank god for the Garman maps Vic had loaded on to a lap top. Dotted throughout the desert are Gur’s. These are the tent like circular homes occupied by the nomadic Mongolians who farm sheep, goats, horses, cattle camels and yaks. The size of some of the goat herds is amazing, and to see herds of semi wild ponies with foals is wonderful.
We stopped at a watering hole in the middle of the desert to photograph ponies at a watering trough and help the herdsman pull the water up in a homemade rubber bag an empty into the trough as he could not keep up with the herds thirst. With in 20 mins a 2nd herd of ponies arrived plus some cattle, it was fascinating. We visited an isolated Buddhist monastery village, where the children flocked to see us, all very excited, they love having their photo taken especially with digital cameras as you can show them immediately.
Mongolian food on the whole is rather bland, with a lot of mutton and diary ( fermented mares milk, sour milk) not my favourite. We also a national festival as we were passing by and could see that there were horse races taking place. The Mongolians are superb horse riders. The races we saw were for the children (a 10km race through the desert)it was quite a spectacle especially as a large # of them were wearing national costumes. Once again we were mobbed by young and old alike. (This is what it must be like when you’re a film star.)
The closer we got to Ulan Baatar (the capital) the smarter the peoples cars became. 32% of Mongolia’s population live in the capital, but the drivers are maniacs, the worst I have ever experienced, they cut you off without any indication and stopping 7,500 kg Moggie quickly is not easy, Vic gives them a real blast on him fog horn. On a single carriage highways they pass a long line of traffic when there are cars coming towards them. They pass on the inside(on the gravel shoulder) it reminded me of driving in India without the constant blowing of everybody’s car horn. They never wear seats belts and hold their children on their knee in the front seat. After visiting a 13th century working village and the giant stainless steel statue of Chinggis Khan we made our way to our hotel in the centre of town feeling very dusty and dirtying all after leaving the dry desert, a cold beer then a hot shower in that order was a priority. Today we have visited a large Monastery in the city centre plus a few other local tourist attractions before heading back to the hotel. It is not advised to sleep in your camper in the city. We have 2 free days in which to sightsee, do any maintenance on the vehicles and clean them before we head north Sukhbaatar.