The Trans-Siberian Experience (so far)

It turns out our fears of a Blogger blackout in China were well founded. We couldn't figure out an easy way to get around the government-imposed block, so we just had to save all our stories up until now. But now we're in Ulaan Baatar with a train to catch shortly, so if you want interesting, well written stories and/or pictures, you're just going to have to go somewhere else.

Beijing was awesome. Maybe it's just that we headed there from Delhi, but it seemed like a modern, sparklingly clean metropolis with cheap, delicious food and at least a 75% reduction in scams and hassle. We did all the things that are practically government-mandated for tourists to do in Beijing, including an amazing 10km hike along a totally deserted stretch of the great wall, a trip to the Forbidden City, and a huge, incredibly delicious meal of Peking Duck, or, as it's known there, "duck". I've used that line like 6 times already in emails, sorry if you've seen it before. See above disclaimer re: post quality.

We met up with the other 5 people travelling with us on the Trans-Siberian railway (descriptions and pictures to be posted sometime soon), and then hopped on the train. The first leg was a one-night, 30-hour trip from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia. On its own, a 30 hour train ride sounds pretty long, but it's just a warm-up. Later this evening, we get on a 2-night trip from here to Irkutsk, Russia, and after that, we've got a 96 hour monster trip from Irkutsk to Moscow.

We were expecting Mongolia to be pretty cool, and it didn't disappoint at all. While the capital (Ulaan Baatar) is covered in a giant smog-cloud, filled with crumbly concrete block buildings, and apparently packed to the gills with pickpockets, we survived our one day here without incident, and even had a tasty meal at a Mongolian barbeque place nearby.

After that, we headed about two hours into the countryside for a 3-day camping trip, where we stayed in gers (traditional nomadic Mongolian houses), which were way more comfortable than we were expecting. The scenery was jaw-dropping and the weather was pretty mild for Mongolia (5 below during the day, 15 below at night). We went for a few hikes, climbed some hills, and got to visit a nomadic family for a few hours, to get a bit of experience with their way of life. About 25% of Mongolia's 3 million people still live nomadically, which is pretty impressive, given how much foreign influence the country has been exposed to (it was under communist control until 1990, and the Russians destroyed most of the cultural buildings and artifacts in the 1940's). That being said, most nomads now also own solar panels, satellite dishes and TVs, but if I lived in the desert I'd probably want some cable too.

We're off to go do some grocery shopping for the train to Irkutsk, more details and pictures will be forthcoming from Russia. Dosvidanya!