Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia: WWCD (What Would Chingis Do)?by Randi / July 22, 2017
Once we decided to do the Trans-Mongolian instead of the Trans-Siberian (Mongolia and China instead of just lots more Siberia? not a hard decision), we knew we had to line up our dates so that we landed in Mongolia in time for Naadam, the most important festival and event in the Mongolian calendar (I mean it’s the only festival and event in the Mongolian calendar that I know, so I could be wrong about that but I’m probably right). The three-day festival is like the country’s own Olympics, celebrating the Three Sports of Men, or the Three Sports of Chingis (Genghis) Khan, something like that. In our English language pamphlets handed out in the stadium it says “Three Manly Sports” which is hilarious so let’s say it’s that one. Those three exalted sports are wrestling, archery, and horse-racing. Seems straightforward enough, right? Ha!
Naadam is held from July 11 to July 13, although the closing ceremony occurs on the night of July 12 and stuff still continues the next day or so but don’t worry your pretty little head about that. Naadams are held all over the country like each little town’s and region’s own little special olympics (lowercase for both is really important). But the big deal is in Ulaan Baatar, and it is CROWDED. All the city’s 1.5 million residents seemed to be in that stadium meant for maybe 5,000, plus all the people coming in from the countryside to see it. The three sports of men are a huge deal, apparently.
we’re men manly men we’re men in tights! yessss
We got tickets to the opening ceremony, the closing ceremony, and wrestling. A whole lot of wrestling. We would learn that you don’t actually need tickets for the sporting events, so we rocked up to watch a good amount of archery and the Mongolian version of beer pong as well.
The opening ceremony was very exciting — outside, milling about the endless rows of food and drink stalls (mostly selling khuushuur, the meat-filled empanada looking traditional food that is apparently like the official food to eat at Naadam), were TONS of people, and mostly Mongolian people, so there was this strong air of patriotism and excitement and just overall camaraderie – that is, until we went to our seats. We had seats in the so-called ‘tourist section’ because it’s in the shade (bless whoever made that happen), but it was as unorganized and chaotic as you could ever imagine. People were sitting in the wrong seats, in the aisles and on the bases of pillars and on the barriers to the entrance/exit. And I don’t just mean people. Whatever number you are imagining in your head as composing this crowd, multiply it by 10 at least. We had to literally climb over dozens of people to get into the entrance (like a regular stadium gate-by-gate open entrance, but in a stadium from medieval times)and then do the same through the aisles to get to our seats, where tourists were sitting because they don’t know how to read tickets but who even cares when Mongolian and foreign people are just sitting wherever the hell they want with no regard for safety? And there were plenty of stadium staff, volunteers, and police everywhere, so the people you hoped would get things in order – or at least form a path for when people had to exit – didn’t bat an eyelash at the scene. It was a terrifying thought, but we realized during this ceremony/scene of absolute dire chaos how, you know whenever you hear about a terrible accident in a third world country where hundreds or thousands more people die than seems correct or possible for such a building or type of accident? We realized that if anyone at all went wrong in this stadium, there was no way we or anyone could get out. It was really scary, actually. I couldn’t even leave to pee! I mean I tried eventually and stepped on or over 57 people and the only bathroom was halfway around the entire stadium (cool designing, guys) but I waited for so long. I was not eager to return afterwards because what if there was a fire!
the crowd just trying to get in
Luckily, there wasn’t! Thank you Chingis! Aside from the constant fear and the terrible bladder pain, the opening ceremony was pretty entertaining! The organizers had conscripted literally every single Mongolian child, teenager, and really adult to be a part of it. Every time we thought the performer crowd had reached its limit, another group of 100 people in a different costume would run out onto the field. There aren’t that many Mongolians. I really mean it, every single citizen was either on that field or sitting in my aisle.
I’m not really sure what story the ceremony told because the voice booming over the speaker system for two hours was of course speaking Mongolian but I’m going to try my best to relate what I saw. First, lots of men in costumes reminiscent of the dolls working for Lord Farquaad in Shrek came out on horseback for celebratory lap around the track. People lost their shit seeing horses gallop, I’m not kidding. I was sitting next to a midwestern American woman who was either on drugs or just simple because every little thing made her squee with glee. She also had the loudest clap I’ve ever heard and like it actually hurt my ears sitting next to her. That’s enough about her. So after the cavalry, 100 tweens dressed in white came out and did some weird modern dancing for a bit before they released doves, which made people lose their shit even more than the horses. I was the only person not screaming my aggressive approval, because that shit is super cruel. How long did you have those doves crammed in your pockets, you little shits? Some of the doves weren’t able to fly out of the stadium because their wings had been so damaged, so for the next two hours there were half a dozen doves just on the field. It was heartbreaking. I’m sharing all of this so the monsters among you reading this who are planning an event and want to release doves decide not to. For those of you reading who would never dream of doing such a bullshit thing and are as sad as I am now, I’m sorry and here is a picture of my doggie:
HI I’M THE CUTEST BEST DOG IN THE WHOLE WORLD YES I AM
that bird is a liar
So then lots more men in hilarious I mean very stately and regal period costumes came onto the field. We’re talking hundreds. As far as I could tell, they were telling the story of how Genghis/Chingis inspired his armies to fight against the Roman legions, and he brought about the fall of Rome. I’m not sure the dates line up for that to be historically accurate, and again I have no idea what was being said so the chances of this being what was actually on display are extremely low, but you try figuring this out.
After the Romans were sufficiently vanquished, Chingis and his manly men had to deal with the, um, wizards, and their dragons. Chingis whistled for a giant silver bird to lead his men to victory, and the giant Chingis float and the giant dragon floats moved about slowly and awkwardly but overall impressively until the Mongolians cheered their approval and another round of horse riders took a victory lap around the stadium. The only good part about the frequent horse laps is the group of men who come out behind them with brooms and poop-collecting pans.
WATER FIIIIIGHT
Then they had to vanquish the um gold alien men? So they called back upon the giant silver bird to help win that battle. Guys I really had to pee.
I LOVE GAAAAAAHHHHLD
But then it got even more exciting! Somehow they set up a huge stage in the middle of the field and DOZENS of people came out from underneath. How long were they cooped up in those holes!! Oh my god! Much worse than the guy in Ocean’s 11 and I’m sure much hotter. Dayum they just kept coming and coming more and more out from under the stage I feel bad for them but it was kind of hilarious in the pure clown-car aspect of it. BUT IT GETS BETTER. Because guess who Chingis had to fight next?
DINO-MITE
THAT’S RIGHT THE DINOSAURS! He didn’t even move from his giant float seat; Chingis was all ‘get out of my kingdom, dinosaurs! Go back to chilling in the Garden of Eden with Adam & Eve like they teach happened at the Creation Museum in Kentucky!’ And Chingis is so powerful and manly that they listened.
this one guy managing the tiny white bird is my fave
But the hell demons loved the dinosaurs and the dino banishment made them angry! Hellfireeee!
It’s okay! We will dance the demons back to hell!
But then that damn Roman army returned!
But then that damn Roman army returned!
And again, dancing will be the answer.
To celebrate, the bull and the elephant statues rocked around and then hundreds more people in various costumes danced (how did people remember all this choreography!) and balloons were released (don’t do that either!) and all these medieval-looking army people waved flags and then literally 200 tweens with rainbow umbrellas came out just to stand with their umbrellas around the track for everrrr. It was so hot and boring for them, just standing there. One little boy was not about to waste his time standing still when he was a part of Naadam. He twirled his umbrella, he danced, he did the funniest poses – peace signs, waves, even dap lol. He was my favorite part. He was everyone’s favorite; the whole section was laughing and loving him. It was so funny.
Next, I just still can’t believe. It was the presentation of all Mongolia’s animals. They literally walked oxen, camels, horses, sheep, goats, ibix (what is the plural of that…is that plural?), cows and bulls, freaking yaks, all around the track. Real ones. Those poop scoopers were busy. I thought we were being punked by this point. But it got even better! Just like at the Olympics, small groups of representatives from various organizations paraded around the track, each waving their banners and holding their signs. But instead of it being the athletes from each country, here it was just representatives of the companies sponsoring Naadam. At least I think it was sponsors. It might just have been all the Mongolian companies. Oh my god. Like all the airlines walked by with their flight attendants and pilots in their uniforms, various restaurants. Even Harley Davidson wheeled by, at which I overheard the most nauseating conversation from the old white American men sitting behind me: “You know, the Harley Davidson corporate office is now just a mile from where Julia lives!” “Oh that’s GREAT!” IS IT???
Just when you thought it was over, hundreds of young girls dressed in ice blue costumes came out and danced more.
Then everyone, all ten thousand participants, danced together and everyone was joyous and we figured that was it.
But then this guy came out.
I can’t make up a reason for this guy.
Okay, on to the Three Manly Sports! First of all, let’s forget about the horse-racing. It takes place 30km or so outside the city, so we weren’t going to see it anyway, but more importantly horse-racing is a cruel and inhumane torture method masquerading as a ‘sport’. Second of all, the three sports of men are really, apparently, four sports, because there’s a pavilion for ankle-bone shooting. What the hell is ankle-bone shooting, you ask? How can you not know? It’s when non-athletic men lounge around and flick sheep’s literal ankle-bones at targets. It is a drinking game from a USA state university gone official.
As for the two remaining and more legitimate sports. I was super excited. Not that I like wrestling, but it would be interesting to see it in a country that adores it so much. And archery! I liked doing archery at camp. And I like Robin Hood: Men in Tights. It would be just like that, right? Lol no. The rules for the Mongolian versions of these sports are unlike anything you’d have guessed. We’ll start with wrestling.
We were sitting in our seats in the tourist section of the main stadium (the second day was like a whole different place; no aisle sitting or anything! so much better!), waiting for some matches to start, before we realized…it had started. What looked like men in diapers and boas just wandering around and warming up was actually Mongolian wrestling. See, there is no time limit to their faceoffs, and no boundary limit, and they had multiple pairings going at once! So like 30 Mongolian men were on the field all walking around the entire length and width of it, biding their time before making a quick move that would knock their opponent down. They can go on forever! And it was hard to know who was actually going because there were so many at once. So awkward!
Every once in a while the crowd would roar and we’d catch the tail end of a brief but exciting bit of actual activity. It was interesting and so unlike any wrestling you’ve seen. Unless you’ve seen Mongolian wrestling. So the English language pamphlet we received says this: “Many foreigners are confused by Mongolian wrestling and may find it boring or too long. On the contrary, wrestling is actually the most interesting and entertaining Naadam sport.” OKAY I GUESS THAT’S THAT THEN.
I can’t even tell if the pics I’m posting are different
All the wrestlers are wearing speedo underwear and a frilly shrug around their shoulders. The goal is to have the biggest bare skin-to-clothing ratio, apparently. The wrestlers also wear important hats – red, with yellow stripes. The yellow stripes signify how high their ranking is. They take the hats off when they are about to actually wrestle, which helps you realize that they actually started the match and aren’t just still standing around. But they still are. Little bursts of action happen every now and then, but despite how long the matches can take and usually do take, the match (is it called a match? squirmish?) ends as soon as someone’s elbow or knee touches the ground. So it’s not like the man-on-man-on-mat type wrestling you may be imagining – it’s mostly just like pushing with hands while standing, and as soon as someone goes down at all, it’s over. And they are allowed to touch anywhere they want – except the head.
As for archery, we had even less of an idea what was going on. This was mostly due to the hour and a half of interpretive dance (soo weird) that began the archery trials on Day 1. We hurried over in hopes of seeing an arrow or two hit a target, and it was like two hours before they started actually shooting arrows and even longer before we realized that they don’t shoot at targets like we know archery to do. They shoot their arrows in high soft arcs that land in a pit of little red and brown leather jars! And they try to knock them over. It’s like bowling but with archery! It was so ridiculous!
the interpretive dance at archery
The archers have 40 shots, which seems like a lot! They have to get their high soft arc to land on the cylinders – any of them, there are no extra points for hitting the red ones in the center, which seems wrong – and push the cylinders away! They don’t get any points unless the arrow pushes cylinders at least eight centimeters away from its starting position! It is SO bowling!
archery bowling
The best part of both of these sports is that there are teams of judges dressed in traditional costume that surround each of the wrestlers, like their little entourage in their corner of the ring. But instead of smacking them and toweling off sweat, they are singing traditional phrases and songs about their performances. And in archery, the Greek chorus of judges stands by the targets and sings and does certain hand signs depending on whether and how many clay jars the arrow hit. HILARIOUS.
We heard that the champion of wrestling was given a Land Rover, another car, and an APARTMENT. No idea what the archer got.
Okay, so about that Mongolian version of beer pong, or when boys fold up paper into little paper footballs and shoot them at people during high school. Ankle-bone shooting is a team game, like bowling, so says the pamphlet, though I wanna be like, your archery is the bowling. Anyway, teams are crowded into tiny spaces and everyone is super friendly and sportsmanlike, to the point that no one is allowed to curse or get angry or say anything rude, and instead of disappointment when someone messes up, everyone – you guessed it – SINGS!!!
As you can see, Naadam was really interesting, overwhelming, and mostly fun. I’m really glad we got to see so much of it. Now I don’t need to go back to Mongolia. Despite how much fun it was to fear for our lives in a poorly constructed and managed stadium and how interesting it was to learn about new sports, my favorite part about Naadam was that one of the stalls had bubble tea. I had a strawberry tea one one day and a mango tea the next. I love bubble tea. I also had this super fun potato tornado!!
NO OMG my favorite part was this amazing Mongolian baby! He was so cute! I made Z pretend he was taking a picture of me so we could sneak a pic of the baby. Enjoy!
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Shanghai, China: Why is Chinese London So Crowded…AND SO HOT?
Whenever I talk about Shanghai, I sound like Stefon. “China’s hottest city is…Shanghai. It has everything – street misters, yogurt jars, film noir, unidentifiable meat on sticks, toon bags – it’s that thing where they stuff a handful of toon into an edible sac and you try to eat the whole thing without choking.” And I mean ‘hottest city’ in all the possible ways. Shanghai was so cool and fancy and swanky, well, most of it. It had an incredible skyline that we could sometimes see through the smog, and the fanciest luxury stores and air conditioned malls EVERYWHERE. And, also, it was the hottest I’ve ever been. In fact, Shanghai was experiencing a heat wave of temperatures the highest they’ve been there in 140 years – just in time for us! It was rough. But, fortunately, the city has so much to offer that it was able to break through our sweat-fueled crankiness and impress us. Screw the Ozdust Ballroom; Shanghai is China’s most swankified place in town.
View from the Bund, of Pudong the financial center across the river
Because of all the big buildings, the excited commotion of a finance city, all the busy people, and all the English spoken, we immediately felt like we were in London. Out of everywhere we’ve been in the past two months, Shanghai is for sure the most Londrish. It was nice to feel a little at home. It was sort of welcoming! Like a big sweaty pollution-filled hug from people who smell extra terrible from the heat. Speaking of that heat, the over-100-degrees-Fahrenheit-every-day heat with high humidity so I look like Monica in Barbados just permanently now, it was rough. Luckily, like most big Asian cities, there are malls EVERYWHERE. I know the western among you are like ugh malls are trash. Yeah maybe in America, but in Asia? They have a very important purpose, and that is for respite from excruciating heat. Air-conditioned, bubble tea filled respite. Yes, there are malls in Shanghai, like in Beijing and Bangkok, seemingly on every corner, and we needed to go into every single one for a break. We’d struggle to walk a block while drinking a gallon of water, and then stop in the AC and find bubble tea (I’m obsessed). Then we’d struggle through the next block and go into the next mall to find another water bottle. Lather rinse repeat.
Shanghai was ready for this heat though, well, thanks to Pepsi, because as we started our walk down The Bund from our hotel, we passed the first item on the Stefon list:
and what about that fiiiiine miister
WATER MISTERS! The photo didn’t capture it, but the top section is shooting out mist to cool off those walking by. Such a great idea!
Our first order of business was indeed walking down The Bund, the famous river-adjacent street that was once the city’s Wall Street, where all the banks had grand historic buildings and is now filled with luxury brand stores. The water in the few convenience stores on the Bund is COSTLY, which says a great deal at least to me. One side of the Bund houses all the historic buildings, most of which have plaques sharing when in the grand old times this or that bank set up shop in what is now a fancy hotel or a Gucci. The other side is the Huangpu river and the view shared above, the famous skyline of Pudong, which has now taken over as the Wall Street-y section.
We decided after enough heatstroke-walking to get on the ferry to cross the river and go check out Pudong. A ferry ride seems like an appropriate early activity to see more of a city! There are of course expensive tourist boats that will take you cruising along the river, but, here’s a tip, if you just want to hop over to the other side of the city, there’s a regular commuter ferry that takes like 15 minutes and costs only 2 RMB! That’s like a quarter! Cheapest transportation I’ve ever encountered. I love loved the warning sign outside the non-tourist (but still fine for tourists to take) ferry.
For 2 yuan, it was as much tourist sightseeing as I needed! The windows were pretty grimy so the pictures of the city from the boat are blurry, but hey, it was fine. We got there.
Blursula through the window of the ferry
We decided to lose all our street cred from taking the commuter ferry and instead become full-on tourists by visiting the Shanghai Tower, the tallest building in China and, at least in my opinion, the tallest building in the world. Why in my opinion, you are probably wondering? At 121 stories and 632 meters tall, the Shanghai Tower comes in second in the world rankings only to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. BUT, like most megatall buildings, the top of the Burj, the tip of its height, narrows into a spire! SPIRES DON’T COUNT FOR ME. It’s SO cheating to build a tall building and then after you build actually usable space to go wait but I wanna win the competition, so here’s a 100 foot long metal rod to increase my numbers. DISQUALIFIED. The Shanghai Tower actually has the highest occupied floor in the world, which is way more impressive to me than all these buildings counting the height of their antennae and thin little completely unoccupied towers and stuff. No dice, Burjess Meredith!
How cool is this building? The whole body of it twists and turns in a corkscrew, which is so impressive. This shape actually helps save $58 million USD in construction costs because it reduces wind loads, whatever the crap that means. Also, using all the glass (the entire outer skin is glass) saves energy costs because it allows in so much sunlight. It was designed by a US architecture firm. Good job America! I love that the skyscraper next to it looks like a baby in comparison. Tickets up to the observation deck are very expensive, if I recall correctly 180 RMB each, so about $25, which is normal for such a sight in the USA but like the most expensive activity in months for us! We wavered for a minute on whether to get them, but considering this is like A Big Deal and supposably totally worth it, we went for it and I’m so glad we did! I usually get so scared of heights (I almost passed out at the Sear’s Tower (I refuse to change the name) when I stood on the glass floor) but I felt very safe in this one. Oh also, you can pay extra to get in through the Fast Track line. Do that at Disneyworld or whatever. Don’t do it here. We went at like 2pm right in the middle of the busiest tourist season (July-August) and no one was in front of us in the regular line.
Not only does the Shanghai Tower have the highest occupied floor in the world, but it also has the fastest elevator in the world, designed by Mitsubishi, and the world’s tallest single-lift elevator. I don’t know how they are different, but they are. ALSO, most importantly for tourists, it has the world’s highest skydeck, or observation deck! Amazingggg.
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That elevator is NO JOKE. Before I even realized we were moving, I noticed the screen and saw we were already at Floor 60. You don’t feel ANYTHING. Then I blinked and we went another 50 floors in an INSTANT. Now that is Japanese brilliance.
the sign on the escalator as you go down to the lift (kind of counterproductive but whatevs)
Once we got off the elevator at the observation deck, we were struck by the brightness and cleanliness of the big, bright space. We were so excited that we had such a sunny day for our viewing pleasure, and we made our way towards the big glass windows encircling the whole space aaaaand saw that we were oh yeah still in China and it was all smog all the time.
On A Clear Day You Can See FourFeetInFrontOfYou
I’m picking the very best of our pictures to share, because some of the sides were just full on fogginess. I wasn’t upset though! It’s not like we had bad luck that day, that’s just how it is! And we still got to see a good amount, and it was so cool. It’s just, you know, Shanghai abruptly ends! Shrug emoji!
From one side, you look straight down into the bottle-opener section of Shanghai’s other famous megatall observation tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center. The tickets to go to that building’s observation deck cost the same as the tickets for the Shanghai Tower, which seems silly considering how much higher, and cooler, it is from the Tower. I mean not to crap on the Financial Center, I’m sure you are very important, but if you are going to go up one Shanghai building, do the big one, right?
looking down onto the bottle opener/Shanghai World Financial Center
Around the bend of the observation deck, you run into a set of stairs going up to ANOTHER floor of observing! We kept getting higher! I’m king of the world!
We were also super hungry – we hadn’t eaten all day because HEAT but now it was like 4pm. Luckily, because this is Shanghai, the bottom floors of the Tower composed a retail space with lots of food court spaces. They even had a Bassett’s ice cream cart, straight out of the Northeast USA! I found a ready-made salad place that I didn’t realize wouldn’t make new ones, so when I asked for the vegetarian one with no egg, they just took the egg out of the container. Lol. Oh well, roll with the things like this that happen while traveling, and give the parts that were touching the egg to the husband.
It was a really good salad! Full of purple sweet potato and quinoa and pumpkin and falafel-pretenders and lettuce! I was so excited to have a good salad since we had just gotten off a train that very morning and travel makes me crave lettuce and vegetables.
Oh, side note, that train, from Beijing to Shanghai! I didn’t write a diary entry because it was just midnight to 8am. It was the fanciest train since St. Petersburg, very nice and clean, not smoky, and completely different from the other Chinese trains. They had slippers for everyone in plastic wrap! Each bed had a TV on the wall! If you book Chinese trains, try to get the G trains! (I think this is our only G, so sad.) So nice! BUT. But. We had the beds that were very first in our carriage, along the wall next to the door of the car. And for some reason, that means that the bones of the train, whatever fills the walls on those things, continued under our beds. So we didn’t have storage! There was nothing under my bottom bunk but like metal! So infuriating, we were the people with the most luggage on board! Luckily, the other people in our cabin didn’t have much so we stored under their beds. Not so luckily, one of those people had a child. See, in China, there are no laws, and so people do not buy seats or beds on trains for their children. (Oh is there a doozy of a story in this fashion coming soon.) So instead of sharing with two other people, we were sharing with three. (We also heard horror stories about how Chinese couples often don’t buy two beds but will share one tiny bed, which is much worse and super inconsiderate to force a whole nother adult into a train compartment.) But the young man who was in the other bed was NOT excited to be forced to sleep with a baby, so when he realized that, he peaced out! I guess he got the conductor to find him a new spot because we didn’t see him again. The baby was fine though. Cute! He made some noise in the night but like, so do I. That’s all I have to say about that.
I’m going to do a separate food post for Shanghai, but I’m sharing the Tower food court salad because it’s part of that sight and just makes sense. Guess what else that food court had? BUBBLE TEA! My favorite thing to drink after water! Weirdly, Shanghai..ians favorite drink is neither of those. Instead, you will see literally every single Chinese person on the street – in this heat – drinking little pots of white yogurt with a straw. Usually room temperature. SO GROSS. IT’S HOT OUT AND YOU’RE DRINKING YOGURT? MILK IS A BAD CHOICE! The yogurt pots are on display in every single food cart and shop window you pass all over town. It’s so weird.
The Shanghai Museum is shaped like a Chinese ding, a cauldron with three legs, I assume for cooking
Another day, we went to the Shanghai Museum, which our guide book highly recommended. The book said you could spend a whole day there, or at least a half day, which sounds like my nightmare and I was like hellll nooo but then I remembered that my husband likes to see everything in a museum so we were indeed there for an ungodly amount of time. Luckily, it was pretty interesting. There’s a bronze gallery, a sculpture gallery, a calligraphy gallery, a traditional furniture gallery, a coin gallery, a ceramics gallery, and more over four floors. Best of all, it pulls a London and is free! You have to wait in a long security line though to get in, and in the heat it was brutal. But, like malls, I learned that the best thing about museums (besides learning, I guessss) is that it’s a break from the heat! Hooray for air conditioning. Actually, the Shanghai museum was SO cold that I had to put a long sleeve shirt on! All this constant variation between the intolerable heat and the frigidness of air con is going to give me hypothermia.
Hilariously, my favorite section of this museum covering so much of Chinese culture and history was…the special exhibit sent from Hungary on Princess Sissy. Sorrynotsorry.
I also enjoyed some of the thousands-of-years-old Buddhist sculpture findings, like this cool slab.
slab fairy goddess
Getting to the museum is a bit frustrating because of police barricades all over People’s Square. You can’t just find the museum and head towards it. You get into the squarea around it by finding the correct underpass tunnel instead of just, like, walking above ground. Oh China. It was so annoying in this brutal heat to have to do so much extra walking but it was a very nice area, with big parks and nice views and trees and, all over Shanghai and actually most of China, recycling and garbage bins!
The coolest part of Shanghai (not temperature cool…it was never not sweltering, even in the middle of the night) was walking along the Bund at night and seeing the cool skyline of Pudong all lit up in its bright neon. It’s always incredibly crowded – 25 million people just living there, guys, not even counting visitors – but it’s worth it to enjoy the view.
We got to enjoy this view every night because our hotel was at the top of the Bund. We chose the Astor House Hotel because it is an important old historic building with lots of interesting history in its ballrooms and staircases. However, the oldness comes through, and it’s very clear that it was a luxury place one day, but one day long ago. The room was beautiful and comfortable and clean, but the hotel itself shows its age and is now very much a hotel primarily for domestic Chinese travelers, not international visitors. This was evident by the fact that, despite ostensibly speaking English, the hotel staff was impossible to communicate with. It was very frustrating. Incredibly, in our next stop, Nanxun, we stayed in a lovely boutique hotel where not one person in the whole town spoke English, let alone in our hotel, yet communicating solely via Google translate went much more smoothly and professionally than our attempts with the Astor House staff – which should not be the case for a place pretending to be a top hotel. Most of the time, every staff member on the floor had a badge that read ‘Trainee’, and they had no idea what they were doing. The lobby was chaos 100% of the time. Worst of all, the lobby had a grand cafe seating area that was very nice – but you couldn’t sit there unless you were ordering something. In the lobby! The only other seats for paying guests were just wooden chairs in a far corner by the front door, with no table or anything. Shame! Thank goodness we didn’t pay as much as the book says it costs. It wasn’t that bad for the price.
But the location was good, because it led us through the Bund all the time. One night on our walk home, we stopped at the other historic old hotel, the Fairmount Peace Hotel, which really has that 1930s Shanghai feel, that film noirishness, complete with a hallway of movie posters with all the movies about that era, including a family favorite:
Every night, the Fairmount has live jazz, but we didn’t realize that cover charge was exorbitant, so we left and went to the other live jazz show at the Peninsula Hotel, which just charges you for drinks and seemed just as good. They did the theme song from Coupling and I was soo excited I was singing along without realizing! I had these weird cranberry soda, white chocolate (sugar syrup), and black pepper (I know!) concoction that was really good!
As for other entertainment, I was gung-ho on seeing some Shanghai Acrobats, which I knew were special and unique and a must-see in Shanghai. The most recommended theatre for an acrobatic show was the Shanghai Centre Theatre, at the Shanghai Centre on West Nanjing Road. Tickets were expensive, like $40 or more, but we figured it would be worth it for some flying through the air with the greatest of ease and what not! But actually, I can’t recommend this show at all. It’s the biggest, most well known one, but as such it caters to tourists, and to the lowest common denominator involved, so it was dumbed down quite a bit and had like, 2 acts out of 8 or 9 that were actually strong acrobatics. Maybe 8 minutes of the almost two hour show was actually the kind of amazing physicality I wanted to see. The rest included a guy using one of those toys where you like hold a stick between two other sticks? That people do like on street corners? Another was a juggler. I mean it was impressive juggling but it was still juggling, and I didn’t pay for that. Another featured men throwing heavy vases and catching them with their ankle-crooks or necks or the tops of their heads, which the audience loooved and yes is impressive but again IS NOT ACROBATICS. The worst though, the thing that made me furious, was the magician. His main schtick? Turning everything into doves. He had five live doves hidden on him for that routine, and I think we all know what happens to doves in stupid shitty magic acts like that. I’m furious still and I have my strongly worded email to the theatre company ready to go if I can find out how to contact them.
But those two actual acrobatic acts were indeed amazing. One was two men doing a partner routine full of handstands on top of each other that were mind-blowing enough but that culminated with one holding the other just by the head, just with his hand. I mean. HOW. The other impressive one was a woman and man doing a very sexually charged routine on a pole, which was hilarious because 90% of the audience was children, but it was like a ballet, clearly telling a story and powerfully so. They did a lot of that ahhh-I’m-slipping-down-the-pole-I’m-gonna-crash-into-the-ground-JUST-KIDDING-I-STOPPED-MYSELF-WITH-MY-QUADS-AN-INCH-ABOVE-GROUND stuff. So I’m really glad I got to see those two amazing bits. I just wish the whole show was that and not stupid touristy drivel.
Speaking of stupid touristy drivel, we were seated next to an older New Zealand man and we chatted for a little before the show started. He asked us how we ended up here, and I proceeded to share every last detail about our trip – ‘we live in London and we flew to Helsinki and we took the Trans Mongolian train route through Russia and saw a lot of Russia and Siberia then we toured Mongolia and then we ended that train route in Beijing and we saw Beijing and now we’re in Shanghai also I had a UTI and diarrhea in Mongolia and my favorite thing is Broadway and puppies and I really love puppies and I really need to wash my hair tonight.’ Okay I didn’t say all of that stuff but it sure felt like it when I finished talking about our route, and his response was, “I meant how did you choose to see this show.”
I died, I am dead now.
The best part about the show was not even those two good bits though. It was the theatre’s location in the fancy pants Centre that we lovingly referred to as Expat Centre. It had EVERYTHING you could possibly want as an expat living in Shanghai, and I think that’s where lots of them do indeed live. First of all, the main part of the Centre is not the theatre, but is the giant Ritz Carlton Hotel – a beautiful fancy hotel (I used their bathroom of course) but it also has two residence blocks attached! Can you imagine being an expat in Shanghai and living in the Ritz residence building? Dayummm son! Okay, so not only is there that, but in the basement of the whole place is a fancy pants supermarket with all kinds of imported recognizable goods, and a Godiva ice cream stand. In the market. And a lot of fresh fruit and even green juice! Then, on one side of the Centre, is a Starbucks, several legit tea shops and juice stands, many fancy Chinese restaurants, many casual and good-looking Chinese and non-Chinese restaurants, a paella cafe, A VEGAN RESTAURANT (next post), an HSBC (our bank), a Parkway Health Clinic – the expat-focused medical practice I went to in Beijing!, a Parkway Health DENTAL Clinic, a massage parlor, a gym, literally everything you could want. If I lived there I would never leave the complex. I’d never have to! It was hilarious. Every corner we turned we’d find something else that would make us thing we were in London.
Not too far in the grand scheme of things (literally and figuratively) from Expat Centre was Xintiandi, an outdoor shopping complex that is suuper fancy. It’s like Rodeo Drive or something, a totally Westernized outdoor mall sort of thing but housed in beautiful old buildings reminiscent of Shanghai’s past. It’s pedestrianized as well as totally Westernized, with craft beer gardens on every corner, all the recognizable shops, Starbucks on every block as is the custom in China, and a complex-wide wifi (that I think only works on Chinese numbers, like most public networks here (and in Russia) that require you to put in a phone number to connect. Not a fan!). We didn’t spend too much time there since we weren’t shopping, and once you see the cool juxtaposition of modern brand shops being house in historic buildings, you get the point, but still it was cool to see. My favorite part is that pets are allowed, but as you can see in the picture above, they MUST be in carriages! What! Not even like, oh if your pet gets tired here’s a baby carriage for them. No, they MUST be in baby carriages. Oh China!
So, we really enjoyed our time in Shanghai overall, despite the heat, though we didn’t do that much in our limited time. We both agreed that we would happily (and relatively easily) return here from London in the future, if for no other reason than the food. The food was amaaazing. That’s the next post! You’ll have to read that one to find out what toon bags are!
From Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan: The Hardest Border Crossing Yet
After our perfectly lovely time in Almaty, Kazakhstan, it was time to cross into our final ‘stan, the one most believed of Herman Cain: Uzbekistan. There was no easy direct way to go from Almaty to our first destination in Uzbekistan – Tashkent – so we had to take an overnight train (but of course!) to Shymkent, Kazakhstan first, then get a taxi to the border, cross the border, and then get another taxi from the other side of the border to Tashkent. It was exhausting just to think about, but considering how relatively well our travels had gone so far, I was optimistic that it wouldn’t be too troublesome. I think I’ve previously shared on this blog that IQ quote about being an optimist and fool? Yeah.
To relish our final moments of Almaty’s modernity, we got an Uber to the train station instead of arguing with taxi drivers. We would have enough of that the next day, oh boy, would we have enough of that. When the car was due to arrive I shut down the little baby laptop and prepared to put it away and get my giant pack on…and true to chitty, chitty form, Windows decided to install updates then. DO NOT SHUT OFF YOUR COMPUTER. You think that maybe it was one of those quick ones since they didn’t ask first? Here’s the picture I took.
150 UPDATES. What in tarnation is that about! This is the kind of bullshit that can put me off Windows forever. I had to hold my computer open in the car, in the train station, as we waited for and then boarded the train. Can you even picture how ridiculous this crap made me look? I had a giant backpack on my back, my stuffed daypack slung on one arm, my ticket in one hand, my passport open in the other, my purse hanging cross-body, and the laptop nested in the crook of my elbow. If I thought people had stared at me before in these parts just for being a Western female traveler, hoo boy, was I in for some learnin’.
Fortunately, this train helped to balance out the fury that the computer caused me. Because of some of the less-than-stellar experiences endured on the Chinese overnight trains, we decided that our first night back on the rails after so many weeks merited an upgrade! We got a private berth instead of sharing with 2+ randos (not to be confused with randis which are usually good) and it was GREAT. And clean! The little compartment had one set of bunk beds against one wall and a little vanity table with a (clean!) mirror and small table on the other side. I thought there was a closet but the inside door was a connecting one to the next compartment, for families I guess. Our neighbors were none-too-pleased when they realized someone was trying to open the door but they had a crying baby so it’s a draw. This little room was so nice, as was the train in general. The bathrooms weren’t horrifying, AND – there was a water cooler! Guysssss! I could refill my bottles with potable water! My baby nephew says to me “drink agua!” every time he sees my water bottle and you know what Huddybear? I did!
We placed the still-updating computer on that little table and left it to finish. When we went to sleep, it was at number 9. Of 150. In the morning, when it was at 33, we just shut it down and used up ALL of our restraint to not smash it into a thousand pieces.
As we waved goodbye to the European-style cosmopolitan vibe of Almaty, we knew we were saying goodbye to civilization in general for a good while. Our time in Uzbekistan would comprise experiences on the more raw, less modern side of things, as our itinerary tracked ancient Silk Road stops and historically important towns and landmarks that are more or less untouched since the old days. Meaning, it would be like stepping back in time, especially considering how modern the city we were coming from was. Bye civilization!
But we didn’t realize at first just how drastic the contrast would be and how quickly it would materialize. When we got off the train in Shymkent, we needed to get a taxi to the border with Uzbekistan, and it was quite the ordeal. We asked several drivers for prices but all were oodles more than they should have been according to literally every piece of information – internet, books, hostel employees, previous travelers. We talked to a woman at an information desk by the side of the road (I don’t know if it was official; it looked like the Bluth banana stand without bananas, which I wanted even more than information) who told us in Russian to take this bus that was there and that would do the job. We were about to board but with a little more questioning, we figured out that that bus just would take us into the city center, where we would have to find the bus that would actually take us to the border, or get a taxi. The extra step seemed incredibly unnecessary and unwanted, especially if we would end up needing to negotiate with a taxi there anyway. We might as well just do that now, we thought. So back we went to argue with taxi drivers. Finally we found one who offered a not too bad price, so we agreed and unloaded our stuff and got in and…didn’t leave. The driver instead started filling the other seats with other people. We sighed but this was to be expected, right. Finally the car was full and the driver starting driving and took us to…the other side of the train station. What’s going on, we asked, not actually wanting the answer because we knew there was some bullshit about to come our way. The driver indeed spewed some bullshit, telling us to get into this other van that was there, already full of people. So this driver we had found wasn’t actually going to ever take us to the border. He was taking us to his friend with a van. He actually had the gall to agree to something he was never intending to do and then DRIVE US 15 SECONDS TO ANOTHER PART OF THE STATION.
Oh man this shit was just the beginning.
We said are you kidding me, no f-ing way, we are not getting into another stuffed mashrutka and paying the price we agreed on as if we were getting a private taxi. So we went back to the front of the station and started all over again negotiating with drivers in Russian the best we could. One driver promised he would just take us and not fill the car with others and we said great let’s do it. We left the station, drove for five minutes down the main road…AND THEN TURNED BACK TO GO TO THE STATION. What the HELL is going on, we asked? OH – he had to pick up another person. At the station. That we had left. You said it would just be us and ALSO WTF, we said. That’s it just this one more, the driver promised. JFC, fine, we said, come on let’s go. We again left the station, and then the driver stopped the car along the side of the main road where a crowd of people were standing. He wanted to pick up another person from this crowd! And not someone he knew about, he was just going to ask if anyone needed a ride. FFS. We yelled HELL NO! Just take us to the f-ing border right now! He reluctantly left and started driving the three of us to the border — at the fastest speed I’ve EVER witnessed any car go, race cars in Talladega Nights included. I was petrified. This guy was such an asshole AND he was a dangerous driver?? Oh my god. We sped down the roads passing every car and weaving through lanes and cutting off EVERYONE else on the road and just holding on as tight as we could, terrified.
When we were sufficiently in the middle of nowhere, nowhere near anything we could see or walk to besides highway and desert, the driver pulled into a gas station along the side of the highway. He said he needed gas, and didn’t have money to pay for it, so we had to pay for it. Are you KIDDING ME? I started screaming at him in English, I knew he could understand my hatred and disgust at him even if he didn’t know every amazing curse word I used. We are not paying for your gas, you crook! But then he popped the trunk and started pulling our bags out, threatening to strand us along this highway in the middle of nowhere if we didn’t pay up. As much as I despise giving in to people like this, we really had no choice, so I gave him a little money. But no, that wasn’t enough. Apparently gas is very expensive in Uzbekistan or something because he kept asking for more. I really didn’t want to give any more and set a dangerous precedent in case he kept stopping along the way and demanding more money, but luckily that didn’t happen. Just this one instance of extortion so I guess we were lucky. He got back in the car — I don’t even remember if he actually pumped any gas — and flewww down the highway for another hour while I sent him death ray stares from the back seat. He drove mostly in between the two lanes, stopping anyone who dared even think about passing him. I continue to wish him very ill thoughts, naming him like Arya except I don’t know his name but the universe knows who I mean. Get ‘em.
Finally, finally, he dropped us near the border. We walked up to the gate, took a deep breath to get over the horrible experience we just miraculously survived, and then another deep breath to prepare for one we expected to be equally terrifying. See, the Uzbek border brings with it a lot of rules, and a lot of horror stories. We never heard anything as strict and scary as the stories about Uzbek border guards. They can delay travelers for hours, going through every single nook and cranny of their luggage, opening every container, going through pockets, everything. Worst of all, Uzbekistan has a VERY STRICT and VERY SERIOUS no-drug policy, and their list of banned substances includes things that we can get over the counter in many Western countries. So we had to be careful about every substance we were bringing in, and make sure we had prescriptions ready to show. But the banned substance list is serious, and it’s not something you can get around with a prescription. If you try to bring any of them in, you could go to jail. One of the substances on the banned list? Ativan. I know. Because we did our homework (do your homework!), we knew about this trouble before we left for the summer, so I only packed about as much Ativan as I thought I’d need up until this day, so I wouldn’t have to throw much out. I still had a few extra I had to toss back in Kazakhstan, but nothing worth crying over. It’s just so funny and perfect that the one thing that would have helped me deal with the shitshow that was this country was the one thing I had that they outlaw. COOL GUYS.
When we got through Kazakh exit, we were given the forms. We knew we had to declare every kind of currency we had on us and in what amounts, so we had counted up all our shiz on the train. This is more annoying than it sounds when you have traveled to 10 countries! We had dollars, we had euros, we had pounds, we had soooo much Chinese yuan that converted to like just a few dollars but takes up so much space, we had Mongolian money, we had roubles (a significant amount since we would return to Russia after Uzbekistan), we had Kyrgyz money, Kazakh money. Man alive this really makes one appreciate the euro zone. We wrote everything down and then had to declare our valuables, including our phones, readers, and the baby laptop. We had read about other white travelers who had to unpack everything and who were detained for hours so we were super nervous. But, luckily, the border guards on duty for us were SO excited to meet Western tourists that they were pretty much just friendly and trying to ask us all sorts of questions, not about what we were carrying but about us and the west and whatever. We SO lucked out. I mean there were no toilets anywhere to be found but still, quite lucky. I guess I could have brought my Ativan in after all but better to be safe than to end up in an Uzbek prison in the driest desert with no toilets, right.
Oh but then we had to find another taxi to take us to Tashkent. Guyssss. I never want to take a taxi again. But there are no buses! There’s no other way! You just find a guy with a car and you hope that they are trustworthy. Ish. We found an old man with an old car and mistakenly thought ‘hey maybe this old guy will be more legit and somewhat decent than the younger asshat men are.’ We showed him the name of our guest house in Tashkent and he said ‘oh yes I know that place!’ We were relieved. The guy drove us through the nothingness and into the city, where he immediately stopped, got out, and started chatting with two young women. What is going on NOW, we wondered. Then the two women got in the car with us. I know. What’s going on, we asked?? One of the women spoke a little bit of English and she explained that the driver didn’t know where the hostel was, so they were going to help them. Let’s go over this again. The man who told us he was familiar with the hostel not only lied about that and didn’t know it, but DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THE ROAD IT WAS ON. And here’s the kicker – neither did the two women. They were just helping by using their phone maps –WHICH WE HAD TOO. And they showed us that they didn’t know how to read their phone maps, because WE were the ones who ended up instructing the driver on where to turn and how to f-ing drive. It was ludicrous and so frustrating and like, are there ANY taxi drivers in central Asia who aren’t complete assholes?
Finally, after we screamed NO, LEFT – NO YOUR OTHER LEFT about 40 times, we found our guest house, yelled at the driver to get out of our sight for ever and never come back here again, and entered the house eager to shower and relax. Naturally, the room wasn’t ready yet.
We’ll talk about that guest house and about the rest of Tashkent in the next post. Until then, I need to go take an ativan.
