January 19, 2023
A Return Trip to My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center Before It Leaves Us for No Good Reasonby Randi / June 27, 2019Hello mes babies! Have you read the Dubai food post? I wasted my funny (to Philadelphians) title and my intro about Dubai in that one, so hopefully you read it, because now we have to jump into the actual travel information about Dubai, a place that is, and I mean this in the nicest way, perfect for a layover. (Our layover was en route to Oman, which will be the next travel post.) Dubai has a fair amount to see, but it’s very easy to do the tourist highlights in just a few days. We don’t usually like settling for just tourist highlights, but for Dubai I’ll allow it.
As I said in the food post, Dubai is often thought of as a plasticky playground for the rich, where they build ski resorts in the desert and eat gold or whatever. But, like everywhere in the world except Florida, there’s a decent amount of history and culture, of course. Humans have lived in Dubai, the largest of the Emirates, for at least 100,000 years. Sure they called it something else. These early humans were likely isolated from the rest of the world at that time, but soon started trading baseball cards with Iran, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley. Through various dominant cultures and three Iron Ages, the region in ancient times was mainly nomadic but with some fortified settlements and some fun occupations. And then, hoo boy, then Islam was introduced and shit went bananas. It spread to this area of the Arabian peninsula, it is thought, by a letter written by Muhammad, and everyone in the region was all “in the 7th century AD we write letters, we write letters/we put down in writing what is happening in religious movements elsewhere in the world”. (You should know that reference by now.) But then Muhammad died and new leaders couldn’t keep control of everyone as much as they wanted because leaders loooove them some total control so there was war, obvs, called the Ridda Wars (as in we’re gonna get Ridda you rebels) and a ‘successful’ ‘unification’ of the peninsula (/lots of death). Because the people were living in the g-d desert, they remained mainly nomadic for like ever. Then the Ottomans ruled the world, yada yada yada, and then Portuguese came in, yada yada yada, the British were harassed by pirates as they should be, but then they found oil and shit REALLY went bananas and everyone was like wheeeee money but then the Brits were like ‘eh we’re gonna pull out (SO THEY DON’T GET PREEEEGNANT) of our protection agreements because we are like tired and need more tea’ and the Emirates were like ‘um please don’t just leave so abruptly, we will be seriously vulnerable and it’ll be bad’ and the Brits were like ‘nah mate need my tea tho’ and then Iran invaded OBVS and the British navy just kind of watched and was like ‘yeah that’s what they do though, peace out’ and while shit was going down and deals were being made Saudi Arabia snuck in and was like ‘I’m just gonna take this piece of Abu Dhabi shhh’ and then a bunch more stuff happened that you should definitely read about from a respectable historic source if you are interested but the Arab Emirates became United in 1971 which is baby-sized but really exciting for them. I kept this all as one paragraph so it would be easier for most readers to skip.
LOTSA MONEYYYY
OIL MONEYYY
So what did we do during our time here, besides butcher historical information? Well, first, we did the thing you kind of have to do: we toured the enormous ridiculous mega-malls. IMPORTANT NOTE: These malls, this whole central tourist area where the Burj Khalifa is and all the various malls and the faux-lake with its nice bridge, it is not made for pedestrians (well except the pedestrian bridge and lake area, okay I meant like getting to and fro the malls). This whole area was built for tricked out SUVs that no one driving them actually needs. They were built for stretch limos (but not those disgustingly ugly Hummer versions; they can go fork themselves). They were built for driving to, is what I’m saying. We like to walk, especially on vacation, and so we tried to get to and fro the malls with our feets. This is not a good idea. You need to get a taxi. We walked around the perimeter of the Mall Town for literally hours trying to find the way in. You will not find the way in unless you act like a car and go into dangerous lanes where only cars are supposed to go and then enter through parking garages and breathe in only exhaust and wonder why the FORK you couldn’t just walk in the front door like a human being. Do not even think about being a walking human being, okay? Just take a cab.
Once we got inside, I mean, it was a big ass giant mall. It was fun to see all the luxury brands and all the familiar restaurant chains and all the people probably spending millions of dollars, but the thing about these malls is to see the extravagance of the extras. There’s a lot of stuff going on, besides (checks notes) having a Tim Horton’s, a California Pizza Kitchen, a P.F. Chang’s, a Red Lobster, a Texas Roadhouse, and, I shit you not, an Eataly, as any mall in an Arabian desert should. But no, you’re going for the ice rink.
Yes there’s an ice rink.
Yes there’s a movie theatre.
Yes there’s an aquarium.
Yes, there’s inexplicable…art? of people…swan-diving to their deaths?
Yes there’s a dinosaur skeleton.
And plenty more (by Ottolenghi). ( And yes there’s an ACTUAL WAITROSE grocery store on the lower level where you can buy normal priced water.) Suffice it to say, spend an afternoon exploring, shop if you need to (we bought water shoes! we needed them), have fun, but know that there is much more to Dubai than the glitzy monuments to capitalism.
Like museums! We do love museums. First up, the coffee museum! I do not love coffee.
But this was a charming museum that teaches you all about the history of growing and making coffee, plus there’s a tiny cafe upstairs that will make you a decent cup, so I’m told. Coffee growing is serious, hard work, easily exploited, so you should always make sure you buy fair trade (with chocolate too, something I know I need to be much better about I KNOW JOJO).
We got to play with a whole range of bean types, which, despite not being the kinds of beans I love, was still interesting.
This chart is probably important for most of you (though I wouldn’t trust all the facts; maybe take it with a grain of salt (like my historical overview) since I’m prettayyy prettayyyy sure coffee doesn’t cure cancer).
So the Coffee Museum is a nice little way to break into the big museuming, so you can learn a little but like in a half hour, tops, which is my favorite kind of museum. But then you have to go to the Dubai Museum, which takes…longer than a half hour, but is worth all the fact-learning you get! Plus, it’s in a fort!
In the museum, we learned that Dubai lies on a creek, not a river as I assumed from looking at it, even though at 10 km long you can understand why you wouldn’t jump at the chance of calling it a creek. Creeks where I’m from are 4 inches across with maybe a frog nearby. Anyway, Dubai Creek is responsible for how the city developed, in two sides, Dubai and Deira. After undergoing a huge restructuring project in the ’50s to deepen the channel, the creek was able to boost Dubai’s economy by becoming the main trading artery of the Emirates. On both sides of the river creek, enormous cargo ships sit at all times, docking and undocking, loading and unloading all sorts of goods (or just letting them sit for days, as we saw).
We also saw lots of creepy ass mannequins. I will share pictures of the non-creepy ones because I’m nice. (“I’m nice now!”)
As you can see, the museum had exhibits on all aspects of old Dubai culture – dress, food, farming, energy, traditions, religion, family. Everything! There were also a lot of signs that began “Umm”, like “Umm Suqaim Mound”, an important archaeological discovery that I’d tell you more about but the accompanying info was faded on the sign, but the important part of me sharing this is that this was the height of my obsession with the original cast recording of The Band’s Visit so this whole day I was bothering Z singing “Umm Kulthum and Omarrrr Shariiiiiif” you get it. I guess that’s not the ‘important’ part.
So, you should definitely pay a visit to the Dubai Museum in order to get a handle on the culture and traditions of the region. That is the most important thing to learn about when you travel, is it not?
But my favorite site of the day came on the walk between the two museums. Winding around this part of the city, there are tons of clay buildings and you can easily get lost trying to find your way through the maze they form, from cute little square to cute little square, trying to get your bearing and remember which way the water is. In one such little square, I found this mirror. (You can see I had fun with Paint cropping Z out. He can’t have his identity blown.)
This is me busy taking a picture of myself in a mirror before investigating what this area housed which I think effectively answers the question posed by the mirror
Behind this stands my favorite place in all of Dubai, the Mawaheb From Beautiful People Studio. Meaning talent, Mawaheb is an art gallery and studio for adults with special needs, who they call ‘the determined ones’. Any determined ones over 16 can create here, learning life skills through art and proving, in their words, that anyone can create art in their own unique way.
We poked our heads in to see what it was, and we were quickly ushered all the way inside to meet everyone and watch a painting class. It was so lovely to be welcomed into their space and everyone was happy to show us their work.
So obviously you need to pay a visit when in Dubai. They’re located at Villa 11 in the Al Fayidi Historical Neighborhood, and you can also buy their products in the Dubai Airport, Terminal 3, Concourse C. The best place (this studio, not the Dubai airport, god no.)
After the Dubai Museum, we made our way along the water to find the boats. We got in line, got crammed onto wooden canoes, paid our few dirham, and enjoyed this fantastic way to cross the creek to the Deira side.
We were crossing in order to explore the souks and all their various marketplaces and all their various goods. If you’ve been the souks of Istanbul, for example, you know what souks can be like. If you’ve been to the souks of Istanbul, you can skip it in Dubai. These souks were a nightmare. It was nonstop touts shouting at you and some kind of shady back alleys and just nothing worth buying if you aren’t a local. Save your time (although it wasn’t so much time; we went through the entire area in 20 minutes, power-walking through to get out).
Luckily, we still had the Big F-ing Thing to get to that day: The Burj Khalifa. The BK is the tallest building (and freestanding structure, important to distinguish when you’re talking things like radio masts) in the world, and we were going to the top. (Well, effectively.) Built from 2004-2009, the Burj Khalifa is 2,722 feet high (counting the antenna, which seems a little cheaty anagonye but I’ll allow it); the second tallest building is the Shanghai Tower at 2,073, which we also went to the top of!
Hot tip: Book your tickets to the observation deck in advance, if you can. We didn’t book until we arrived in Dubai, and the only time still available that worked for us was late at night. But you know what, this was lucky for us because going at night is AWESOME. You see the lights of the whole city and it’s very cool, even though it’s harder for pictures to come out well (not that that ever stopped me from sharing pictures).
The observation deck is called At The Top, and you have free reign (using the spiral staircase with the glass walls to the outside world which are kind of terrifying) to go between two floors, 124 and 125. This is the basic ticket that most people get, about $40-50 depending on when you book and everything. But there’s also At the Top SKY, which is the elite ticket, giving you access to Floor 148 and a separate observation deck (the actual highest in the world, whereas the one on 125 is actually lower than the observation deck at the Shanghai Tower, we learned after!) and a private guided tour. There’s also a private lounge super high up for fancy pants people that’s even more expensive. But the SKY ticket starts at $100, and there were two of us, so paying the regular ticket price seemed to be more than enough. Warning, when you book on the website, they make it VERY hard to find the regular ticket, always showing you more info and buttons for buying SKY tickets. RUDE.
On 124, there is an outdoor terrace – there’s a glass barrier of course but you are open to the elements above head level. I could have easily thrown something (I DIDN’T). It is SCARY but kind of cool. It was also kind of hilarious because right when we got out on that terrace, it starting POURING. We were in the desert, remember, so this was a surprise. And I mean like, it was a monsoon. Everything outside flooded, all the streets and paths, it was unbelievable. And here we were thousands of feet in the air, standing out in the torrential downpour on the highest terrace ever.
It’s a little cheesy to go to the top of the Burj, I guess, but it’s the big f-ing thing and you gotta see the big f-ing thing!
So that’s what we did with our few days in Dubai, besides eat and swim which you read about in the previous post. But we still have one more thing to talk about.
THE WORLD’S QUICKEST TOUR THROUGH ALL THE ARAB EMIRATES
For our last day in the UAE, we hired a driver to drive us around the entire country to see the six other Emirates: Sharjah, Ajman, Ras al Khaimah, Fujairah, Umm al-Quwain, and Abu Dhabi. Why did we rush through seeing all of these places that most tourists never see (besides, of course, the last one)? Because it’s important to see as much of a country as possible! To learn about the people and culture more! To pay respect! No it’s because each emirate counts separately for the Traveller’s Century Club.
The driver we hired has never actually done all 7 in a day, and tried to tell us that it was impossible. But nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it! And pay him more! Unfortunately for our abilities to prove him wrong, the enormous storm the night before flooded a ton of main roads leading out of Dubai and into Abu Dhabi, so instead of starting with that most important one (and making sure we had plenty of time in the Grand Mosque), we would have to save that one for last and make a mad rush back to Dubai for our flight that night. I know! Stress!
So we started with Sharjah. The drive into Sharjah is usually 40 minutes? I think? It took three hours. All the roads were flooded, and to top it off it was rush hour on a Monday. It was A MESS. Driving through the main square of Sharjah city center, we were stuck on the same 4 block expanse for 90 minutes, before we were able to exit onto the highway and onto the next city. Luckily, that standstill meant I could run into this bazaar, see an actual thing in Sharjah, and USE THE BATHROOM. It was the best bazaar I ever ran into across multiple lanes of traffic.
Sharjah is a mainly small business and residential city, and it’s very conservative. Most people who live here work in Dubai but it’s cheaper to live out here so they commute. That’s what I learned about Sharjah!
Finally we made our way to Ajman, which is the nice coastal beach area, with more/any Westerners, we spotted. There are some cute beach hotels we passed here. Then we made our way through Ras al Khaimah and Umm al-Quwain, which are both sparse yet have INSANELY large luxury hotels on their beaches, like WHO are all the people going out here for these immense hotels that won’t let me in to pee?!
We drove for a while through the, well, not much, to make our way to Fujairah, where we stopped to eat. I was super nervous because this is where we stopped, and English out here is much harder to come by. But luckily, the guys working made me a big bowl of pretty good veggie stew and brought lots of bread and it was great!
Finally we were on our way to Abu Dhabi, a drive of a few hours from this point, and we made it to the Grand Mosque with enough time to properly visit it. You have to be dressed in longs and longs with your head covered for the mosque, and there are many guards policing the many tourists from removing head coverings or trying to get into roped off sections. You also have to leave your shoes in cubbies before entering so make sure you know which one your shoes are in – this place is ENORMOUS.
It’s also gorgeous.
I could honestly share hundreds of photos but I won’t. It was so beautiful.
Because of our delayed and reconfigured day, we only had time to quickly drive through Abu Dhabi. Next time! If the extravagance of the mosque didn’t have me shaking my head at all the money pointed in not-ideal directions, Abu Dhabi’s obvious wealth did. Our driver told us that people with luxury cars often want to distinguish themselves and their status even more, so they’ll spend up to $50 million (I assume that’s in dirham, but damn) to get two digit license plates, instead of the normal four digit ones. That is such a disgusting waste of money, I mean, wow. And Abu Dhabi in general, even on a drive through, made me upset with its disgusting wastes of money on display. It took most of the drive just to pass the enormous palaces. There are 42 for the one royal family. They have hundreds of cars. And the country spent billions, billions of dollars, to get the rights to use the name “Louvre” on their new art museum, paid to the French government. I wonder what France is doing with that money? I bet it’s not helping refugees!
Our driver pointed out the towers shown in the 7th Fast and the Furious movie as well as the crazy hotel from “Sex and the City 2”, the latter of which used to be a palace and is now this incredible, exclusive, outrageously expensive hotel. There’s a big entrance that only the royal family and VIP guests are allowed to use (it goes on FOREVER behind the gates (but not as long as the royal palace section of the city!)).
So, I left Abu Dhabi and the Emirates in general with a bad feeling and a renewed appreciation for socialism. It sucks that there is so much money used for such b.s. while so many people are starving. It makes me made that most/every country in the world doesn’t really care about anyone.
Anyway. That’s a rant for another day, because this is already too long.
We made our way to the Dubai airport, and here’s a hot tip for Terminal 1: The Yo Sushi/Camden Food Shop on the first level sells water for 24 dirham (about $6-7), which is LUDICROUS considering I needed 4 (they were small bottles). Luckily, upstairs there’s like a regular bodega selling water and snacks at normal prices!!! What kind of amazing airport gem is this? There’s also a McDonald’s upstairs (I know) but they have a plain garden salad, luckily, which is the only vegan option I could find in the airport. It was fine. I’m fine.
We spent most of our waiting time talking to an Emirati man who complained about his Iranian wife for a while and then gave us life advice and it was all pretty amazing. He said you could have a palace or a tent, but if you’re unhappy in a palace and the man in the tent is happy, then that’s all that matters. He may be the only man in this country to get it. (Then he told us he’s the man who designed the roads in Abu Dhabi so, wow.)
All in all, it was a successful, interesting, thought-provoking trip to Dubai. I leave you with the most thought-provoking picture I took, and I ask, I beg of you to answer, WHO is disposing of their large suitcases at the departure gates????
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Traveling Through Kyrgyzstan, Part 1: The Return to the Yurt Camps
If you’ve been a devoted reader of this here website, then you know that I ABSOLUTELY ADORE sleeping outside in the countryside and worrying 24/7 about bathroom access. Readers familiar with my simply outstanding time in Mongolia will be happy to know that there’s more of that coming. That’s right, our first night in Kyrgyzstan, discussed in the previous post about our entry into this country, was the first night of several back in the yurt camps of my youth. In addition to our first night booked with Kubat Tours, we had an eight-day tour of the country booked with the company NoviNomad, and I was so nervous that it would mirror our Mongolian adventure in more ways than the structure of our sleeping shelters. And while it did – it really did in a few ways – this experience was roughly 100 times better than that in Mongolia, so much so that we said many times “Kyrgyzstan is what Mongolia wishes it could be.” Such a catchy catchphrase right?
Hold on though, because we still had some serious trials and tribulations, especially in the early days. And I’ll be sharing all of them because as expected I wrote diary entries every day. To keep track of all the many things we did and so I don’t get confused with my notes, I’m going to keep the diary entries numbered according to the day of the tour – 1 to 8 – even though it started on our second day in Kyrgyzstan. Don’t be confused it’s okay.
DAY 1
“Maybe this time…I’ll be lucky”
After our night in Tash Rabat, we drove two hours to Naryn, the main city (town) in the Naryn region of Kyrgyzstan. I mean, if another town claimed the title from Naryn when the region is named after it I bet there’d be some dramaaaa. The driver dropped us at a guest house used by the NoviNomad tour company, where we were to meet our driver for the week, Alexandr. I’m spelling it like that because it’s the Russian version and they do that e-less business and it helps you do the accent right. A very Russian (gruff, imposing…not huggable) man came out and said his name was Sacha and he would be our driver for the next 8 days. We were like no our driver is named Alexandr I’m getting so good at saying it in a Russian accent don’t take that away from me! (It was important that we got our right driver because we didn’t pay the (exorbitant) extra price for a guide but were promised an English-speaking driver who could generally do both jobs.) Sacha was not amused and was like, ‘yeah, Sacha, Alexandr, same thing’. Both of us said ohhh riiiiight because we forgot that Sacha is the diminutive/informal/cutesey nickname for Alexandr. I DON’T GET IT EITHER BUT IT’S TRUE. (I then sang the relevant part from “The Great Comet” in my head literally the entire rest of the day: “Countess Natalya Ilyinichna Rostova” “You must call me Natasha”…”Sofia Alexandrovna Rostova” “You must call me Sonia”.) So Mr. I-Won’t-Make-Small-Talk-Or-Be-Warm-And-Jovial-But-It’s-Just-Because-I’m-Like-So-Russian-Not-Because-I’m-Rude packed our stuff in his SUV, where he had a case of water bottles (amazing already), and drove us the far, far distance of…across the street. Our first stop was the Naryn Museum – not wasting any time, just gasoline.
The Naryn museum had this reproduction of a yurt’s dining area, which really looks like all the dining yurt setups at every camp we’d see in Kyrgs except the table settings in real life are gorgeous and abundant
The staff at the museum was HELLA excited for our arrival, and the main lady brought us around and described every item of Kyrgyz history and culture in that small museum in Russian, and had Sacha translate (roughly). The rest of the staff – wayyy too many ladies considering how small and not busy it was – followed us around and offered us bowls of traditional Kyrgyz things that we’d seen on the yurt dinner table (like, weird dried cheese bits, and those Chinese restaurant crunchy noodles which are everywhere). Our own little private awkward tour. It was really nice though, and I could tell it was a very nice museum even if I was too distracted by how much I wanted to tell the ladies ‘you don’t have to be on your best behavior for me!’
Naryn city center
After the tour, we went to the city center for an art museum that was managed by an 8-year-old boy who let us in and turned the lights on. Not weird. It was a good museum, actually, which is quite something considering how sick of museums I am. We went to a cafe for lunch after, and I had my first tomato-cucumber salad of many because of course that’s all I’m going to be able to eat in Central Asia; why should that tradition of my Asian travels ever have to end? I also had a plate of grilled vegetables, the other thing I would come to have pretty much every day for the next month. But hey, it’s veggies!
After lunch, we saw the Naryn mosque, which is covered with pretty blue tiles. It’s a very quick stop because you generally just look from the front and that’s that.
Then we went to the marketplace in Naryn. We thought we’d have to buy our food for the next few days, until the next market stop, as we did on the tour of Mongolia. But it wasn’t clear how long we had to account for and what sorts of things we needed to get; Sacha was like ‘you should get fruit’ (to me) and then kind of told Z he wouldn’t need anything, just whatever he wanted. So confusing! We bought some fruit and Sacha bought a watermelon, and then we figured out from him that that night’s yurt camp would provide our dinner. We didn’t figure out for a few days that ALL our yurt camps and lodging would account for our food (except the meals in restaurants and stuff obviously) in big communal meals so we didn’t actually have to worry about anything! Already so different!
Sacha bought a watermelon and I was sooo excited to see if Kyrgyz watermelon was as good as Xinjiang watermelon. Spoiler: It was. We began our first long drive of the week, towards Song Kul Lake, way up in the mountains at 3000+ meters (almost 10000 feet!). Yes, our first night at Tash Rabat was just slightly higher, but we drove down to get to Naryn and now had to go back up. I’m so into elevation now. Song Kul is right smack in the middle of Kyrgyzstan, so we were already covering some serious ground. Fun fact: Song Kul is covered in snow 200 days of the year, and the SUMMER average temperature is 50 degrees. FAHRENHEIT. Shit’s cold. First, we would stop at a beautiful waterfall on the way. We parked at a random spot halfway up a mountain and hiked to the waterfall and it was beautiful! I was so happy: we had broken up a long drive with a hike, and I had fruit. Already better than I feared.
THERE IT IS I SEE IT
After we saw the waterfall, Sacha cut the watermelon and kept giving us piece after piece. It was amazing, probably because all the aspects of this excursion included my favorite thing (water, get it). I was so giddy on Day 1 being so much better than the last Day 1 of a country tour that the next half of the drive to Song Kul was like a punch to the gut. Like, it really was, considering it was full of watermelon and the roads starting getting scary. They were really windy, winding up and up around the mountain like those cliffside terrors in Italy (I did not look out the window) and then they started getting Mongolian – as in, no roads, just rocky terrain. It was really rough for a few hours as we maneuvered over rocks as we went higher and higher up a mountain, so that was something else. Don’t look down! Finally we got to a clearing and got out so Sacha could show us the small hills that were ancient gravesites, the likes of which are all over the country. It was interesting but not as great as the fact that the field was covered in edelweiss, and when Sacha informed us of this fact, he started singing “Edelweiss” to himself for like, a long time. Maybe we will get along, Gruff Russian, maybe we will become best friends indeed.
winding mountain roads
SUPER winding mountain roads
No roads, yes animals
Finally we got to our camp on Song Kul, although it wasn’t so much ‘on’ or ‘near’ Song Kul as it was ‘closer to that lake than any other lake in the world’. You couldn’t see it from the camp but we got a picture from the drive. The camp was pretty decent otherwise – there are REAL TOILETS in little wooden shacks! And there’s a sink – not a bucket sink, but a real sink piping out freezing cold water. The wooden toilet shack is actually two toilet stalls and two ‘shower’ stalls, which have basins and buckets of various sizes for doing bathing via buckets but hey if it works! Luxury!
Dinner was mix of the same vegetables as always now, plus a plate of kasha and rice. I was super pumped to get kasha; it’s actually a good protein source. It was an awkward as ass dinner though, because it was communal, as all future ones would be, and they tell you where to sit, and I was seated in the very center of a semi-circle. Z wasn’t feeling well so skipped it, so here I was in the middle of 30 some people just being weird and awkward and silent. The two groups on either side of me were both big tour groups, so they were very talkative among themselves but also very curious about me and just staring like hey what’s your deal? To get to my position I had to step on everyone already seated (you sit on the floor in the yurts) because the table was around the edge of the yurt. I also left early because hell if I was going to sit and be stared at any longer than I needed to and so upon leaving I also stepped on 15 people. Fun times.
After dinner, I asked if I could shower – I hadn’t since China, remember. The yurt people boiled some water and brought it into the stall for me. So inside this wooden stall is a basin of the boiled water, a tub of cold water, and various buckets and utensils for mixing the two and pouring over yourself. So, maybe in my eagerness to be ‘clean’ I didn’t think this through all the way. See, it was freezing outside. Remember I said last night that it was the coldest I’d ever been? Well, now let’s travel into an even colder region and then VOLUNTARILY BE WET. I was shaking-shivering even before I poured the water over myself the first time. I tried to shave my legs but they were so be-goosebumped that it was extremely painful and I couldn’t do it, it would have just resulted in the little bumps bleeding. I knowww! I used mostly boiling water and just didn’t stop shivering. The sink was outside the stalls, in the freezing wind, so I had to use that when I was done to brush my teeth and stuff. I have never been that cold in my life. As soon as I could, I ran back the 220 paces to our yurt (that’s right, the toilets were better here but farther! 220 paces!!) and flopped on my mattress with literally 15 blankets and quilts over me. We were luckily in what appeared to be a storage yurt, so the sides were filled with stacks of extra mattress pads, quilts, and blankets. I used everything I could carry. Getting in and out of that contraption for my nighttime peeing (right outside the yurt that’s right) required all my strength to lift it off of me, it was so hilarious, like a reverse princess and the pea. I could make another pee joke with that but I won’t. Anyway it barely worked. See, blankets and stuff keep warmth in, but they don’t generate warmth; you have to do that yourself with your body. So if one’s body, say, refuses to generate any heat to begin with, you’re just a cold fool under 4 mattress pads, 9 blankets, and 6 quilts. I shook all night. Man alive.
Day 2
“Into the woods and who can tell what’s waiting on the journey”
The next morning, I was in no mood. The car was locked and I was out of water, and the yurt owner people didn’t have any, and Sacha was nowhere to be found. Finally one of his guide friends told us he was still sleeping. LUCKY HIM. I was so tired and thirsty and miserableh. Someone got Sacha and he opened the car and I drank 2 liters right there in front of him. So, why were we up and he wasn’t? Well, today, Day 2, we would hike 10 kilometers (pretty long!) to our next yurt camp with a local Kyrgyz guide, giving Sacha the day off, plus most of tomorrow off while we did another long hike with the local guide to the next-next camp, where Sacha would be waiting. There were no roads or paths or anything so navigating around the mountains required local expertise, from someone born in this area. The local guide didn’t speak English, which really pissed me off at NoviNomad because they never told us this part. Luckily he spoke Russian (everyone does here) so we personally were fine but no one at NoviNomad knew that we knew any Russian (they don’t know that we know they know we know!) so they were okay with their tourists just not being able to communicate? FIE.
Luckily there was a dog.
The yurt people had him tied up (cryface) but I was told it’s because he’s a baby and there’s like not a fence or any sort of boundary because we are just out in the open so it’s until he learns not to run away? I wanted to take him. Oh but wait till tonight’s camp!
So we left our Song Kul yurt camp (bye toilets) and began our 10K trek to our next yurt camp in the jailoo of Kelemche. Jailoo is the name of the type of landscape, these sprawling summer pastures in the mountains that are used for cattle and all kinds of pasture activities, I don’t know. I know you’re probably like 10 kilometers is nothing hush your face, but it was mostly uphill! Ahhh! But it was pretty. OH so, this was supposed to be a horse trek to Kelemche jailoo, following by another even longer horse trek tomorrow from Kelemche to Kyzart village, our next destination. But after Mongolia we emailed NoviNomad and we were like NOPE CUT THE HORSES NO MORE HORSE RIDING WE WILL JUST WALK XOXO gossip girl. Luckily the very helpful Madina, who helped us plan everything, said that it was doable by foot, even though she didn’t really understand why we were so vehemently anti-horse riding all of a sudden. (Horse riding sucks.)
Our local guide was named Melis, I’m definitely not spelling it right but it sounded like that. He was pretty great except he was clearly amused by how slow we were compared to him. We didn’t grow up climbing these mountains like you did, MELIS! He rode a horse because he had no problem with them and put our day packs and water in the saddle bags (sorry horsie I’ll drink fast). And we just trudged behind him. Kind of hilarious.
Hiking uphill, the whole first half of the trek, was really difficult at this altitude, which made it harder than it would have been otherwise. At a particularly pretty stretch, we stopped for a picnic that Melis had packed us. It was nice but so funny: whole cucumbers, whole tomatoes, and boiled potatoes, plus bread and fruit. If I didn’t hate raw tomatoes beforehand, having to bite into them like handfruit (THEY’RE NOT FRUIT FOR HUMAN PURPOSES) did the trick. The nectarines and peaches he brought were superb. What is it about the fruit in this region! I’ve never really noticed a difference, even in tropical places, with quality of fruit before. While we ate, we saw our first other hikers of the entire day! We had seen a decent amount of horseback riders (not a ton – we were still in the middle of Kyrgyzstan – but a decent amount taking that into consideration) but here were our first fellow walkers. They were trudging with even more difficulty than we were, so I joked to Melis, “See we are not the slowest people out here!” Melis responded, “but they have their packs on.” Duuuuuude you’re not supposed to burn your clients like that! Gonna pretend the Russian was something else and I misunderstood.
i was planning to pee behind this rock but then this horseback tourist decided to sit on it for some deep thinking ughhhh white boys
i fucking hate this hat why does it refuse to reform into ANY other shape that doesn’t make me look like a cartoon rancher. ps i’m wearing like 4 shirts
The second half was slightly downhill, which was easier on the lungs but harder for me. Why? Because the path was all tiny little pebbles and rocks, and for some reason (seriously if anyone knows please tell me), whenever I step on little pebbles and rocks, I skid. Badly! I despise gravel paths! No matter how I walk or what shoes I wear or how I balance or how much I brace my core, I skid on all gravelly paths. It’s RIDICULOUS. I nearly fell every few steps and Z was like SERIOUSLY WHAT IS HAPPENING? Am I missing something very obvious about how to walk on these things? Did I fake illness that day in Necessary Human Skills school? Damn my love of sleep!
We got to our next camp a little after noon. It was, how do you say, ah yes, not nice. It was actually probably the most dilapidated and whack camp yet. We had nothing to do the rest of the day, no activities or anything, so I spent a lot of time taking inventory of our yurt. There were holes in the shelter covered over with clear plastic bags. There were ants everywhere because there wasn’t a real floor covering, just a bit of carpet but then mostly grass. A weird, heavy anchor swung down from the center hole, I’m sure to keep it standing but we’d never seen that in any of the previous yurts. It was a small yurt and the mattresses on the floor were positioned right around the anchor so I hit it A LOT, and it was f-ing heavy. Like, an anchor.
So I was complaining a lot about how gross this camp was, and Z got quiet and said, “Hey…were you a Girl Scout?” Um have we met? Hell no I wasn’t a Girl Scout, I wasn’t even a Brownie! I just went to all the Disney on Ice shows with the Brownie troop because I was friends with the leader’s kid! I have such great Disney souvenir cups from my Icees. Anyway, so no, not a Girl Scout. He then asked, “Wait, have you ever camped before?” Again, nice to meet you! No I haven’t camped, like in tents and stuff? With the ELEMENTS? f that noise! I never even had to go on the obligatory one-night-in-the-woods camping trip at overnight camp! Z got even quieter and then said, “I wish I knew that before this trip.”
Apparently the picnic wasn’t our actual lunch, because soon we were called to lunch in the food yurt with the family who lived there and a bunch of random shepherds. It was AWK. They were all speaking Kyrgyz to each other and we just kinda sat there. The food was good, some kind of yummy cabbage and potato filled crepe-y thing. I liked that everyone was given the same meal, like because of my veganism I made everyone skip meat for a meal. Yay! I think I heard them say that I eat a lot of watermelon though.
I was excited that the outhouse area, despite being up THE STEEPEST HILL EVER, had a real toilet inside. Unfortunately, the toilet was broken, so we were to use the regular out shithouse farther up the steep af hill. This hellshack was tied for first with worst campsite toilet I’d ever seen, so THAT wasn’t great! Luckily our yurt was at the end of the camp so I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing me out there. Except a cow and a few dogs at night who were REALLY unhappy that I was in their space. Dudes.
But it was all okay, because my little Bearnutfriend was there.
DO YOU SEE THE ABSOLUTE BEAR NUTTERY OF THIS LITTLE BOY BEAR BUTTER??? OH MY GOD!!! I played with him the rest of the night. Little guy omg! One of the other tourists tied him up (MEAN!) because he was a biter – and I mean a real biter. He had little baby butter teeth so it didn’t really hurt but he didn’t really stop DID you you little nutter butter bear baby you! I LOVED HIM. I really wanted to take him home, so badly. But the little kids who lived there took good care of him.
Here I am saying, “Little bear baby! I thought we talked about biting! No biting silly button butter! We talked about this!”
And then here I am saying, “Oh I can’t stay mad at you little boopily bear baby you’re too cute here’s my hand again you can bite it”
Of course I untied this little bugger. And of course then he started biting my ankles, right through my HeatTech leggings (which don’t work anyway UNIQLO).
Near the camp was a natural spring that we could fill our water bottles with! We were really hesitant about whether it was actually safe to drink; Melis said it was but our soft Western tumnuses require different levels of safety than hardier folk. But despite actually seeing horses drinking from the same place, we did not get sick! Yippee! The water poured out superfast from a little spot above a creek and it was a fun adventure to try to fill the jugs without falling in the creek.
Dinner was another communal affair but with a more friendly tourist group tonight, a group of Swiss and Israelis. The Swiss girl closest to us who we chatted with called Israelis ‘Israelian’. LOVES IT! Dinner for me was the vegetable filling from lunch, plus – you know it – a cucumber-tomato salad. Do we ever expect anything different? I love the traditional Kyrgyz table setting, though. They have all been so lovely, with baskets of bread, baskets of the Chinese noodle jawns, plates of the Chinese noodle jawns but fried in sugar, bowls of apples, bowls of wrapped candies, plates upon plates of melons, and fancy little glass containers filled with assorted jams for tea (or bread, I guess, but I definitely became a convert to the whole putting-jam-in-your-tea thing. Well, I hate tea, but when I was forced to drink it. We’ll get there).
Guess what! I actually slept that night! It was still freezing, but we had a fire, and because the yurt was smaller than our storage yurt the night before, the fire actually heated the little space. Also we were like 1000 meters lower now. The stars were GLORIOUS. Not as incredible as that one night in Mongolia on the lake was, but still the second best I’ve ever seen. I noticed that every night I pee while looking at Orion’s belt; I’m just always oriented that way. WEIRD. Z told me I talk about peeing too much. Lol gurl please. I share literally every detail of what we do (mostly for me when my memory goes) and I just happen to spend most of my time peeing. You’d rather NOT read about a person’s bodily functions? HA!
Part 2 soon!
Entering China: The Train from Ulaan Baatar to Beijing
July 20-21
Dear little baby laptop diary,
Dear little baby laptop diary,
Here we are on our 8th long train journey of the summer but the very first part of our China adventure! For the next 30 hours, I look to you for support, for guidance, for refuge from our very very loud Canadian male cabinmates (I thought Canadians were polite loudness beyond all decibel recognition is not polite). But most of all, I look to you for distraction from the fact that the bathrooms might be closed for 6 full hours tonight, for customs and bogie (wheel) changing. I am not stress-free, I’ll say that.
bye Mongolia don’t let the door hit you in the ass oh wait no doors
Luckily, the train is a tiny bit nicer than what we’ve been on for the past 5 weeks. It’s another Chinese train, so it’s smoky as all hell, of course, but I guess that’s good practice for all the secondhand cigarette smoke and (god I hope not) lung problems I’ll be getting once we arrive in China. But other than that (and of course, the Chinese tradition of not supplying toilet paper, soap, or speaking English), the train is nicer. Our cabin seems ever so slightly wider than usual, meaning all four of us can sit on the bottom bunks and not have our legs touch. Most importantly, there are outlets in here! Two of them! Before, on the Russian trains, there was one 220V outlet in the entire carriage hallway that everyone fought over to charge their phones. But here, hell we’ve got the phones charged, the kindles charged, and you little baby are plugged in for the first time on a train! How does that feel!
Even better, there are two toilets at one end of the carriage instead of one at each end. So the attendants did not lock the one by them for their own use! Two toilets for me! Best of all, the other toiletless end of the carriage has an open area with the hot water station (no more samovars, of course, being out of Russia, but still endless hot water) and TWO SINKS! No more washing our cups in the toilet sink! No more waiting to pee while 4 people use the toilet just to brush their teeth! We’re flying high! And most importantly, the sinks can’t be locked, so with my newfound lack of inhibition cultivated in the Mongolian country tour, if need be, I will just pee in those open sinks. What are they gonna do about it?
the mountains and smog of China start to take shape
No, really, I’m incredibly nervous about the bogie change. Mongolian exit customs starts at 6:30pm and is about two hours, and then Chinese entry customs starts only half an hour later, at 9pm, so I think the bathrooms will be closed that entire time, with that half hour not long enough to warrant an official reopening. I’m nervous enough about that, but the Chinese customs part includes a bogie change to account for the difference in tracks or wheel requirements in China or somesuch nonsense that will force the bathrooms to be closed until freaking 1:30am. So best case, that’s a 4 1/2 hour closure, which I can’t do, and worst case, that’s a 6 hour closure, which I REALLY can’t do. The guide book says we are able to get off the train and wait at the station while they change the bogies, but then you are out in the cold until 1:30am!!! Is anyone else on this UTI machine worrying about this? How is it possible for anyone to think of anything else? Even you can’t go for 6 hours without needing to pee! Come on! Does everyone have a Stadium Pal in their packs? Adult diapers? WHAT’S THEIR SECRET? What do I do Murray?!
While I wait for my fate to reveal itself, I am listening to our two Canadians TALK REALLY LOUDLY ABOUT ALL KINDS OF THINGS IN THEIR REALLY LOUD VOICES. They are nice enough but like shut the crap up already I’m trying to do literally anything but listen to your talk about Burning Man and how it’s the best thing in the world and ughhh you wish you were theeeere because it’s just representative of everrrything gooood the worrrrld can beeee. SHUT UP I HATE YOU AND BURNING MAN IT SOUNDS TERRIBLE.
The dining car was soo fancy! I didn’t eat in there because the food was Mongolian (the dining car is always from the country you start in) and NATHANKS but so pretty!
The scenery is hilarious. We are literally going through the desert right now, so there is nothing for miles and miles and miles. Just sand. Nothingness. It’s so dry out there. Damn I would hate to be stuck in the desert.
Omg this one guy’s voice is like the loudest you can ever imagine. How is this person human? I didn’t know regular human talking could occur at this decibel. If I were in my apartment I’d be calling the police about a noise violation like I used to do all the time in Philly about that stupid burrito place across the street like listen it’s 3pm and you are NOT a club you are a burrito shop so stop thumping the bass like yo’re a gangster no one wants to eat your food if they can feel the thumping in their chest too just chill the f.
So the loud boys like to pass the time on the train – on a THIRTY HOUR TRAIN – by playing 20 Questions with each other. You know, when you think of something, anything, and the other person has 20 questions to ask before guessing what it is. Usually children who don’t know what to do with their lives play this. Usually people pick objects they can see or something. Do you wanna know what their first question to each other has invariably been? Are you even ready for this because I still am not. The very first question they ask each other every round is, “Is it a product of modernity?” jigga WHAT?????? IS IT A PRODUCT OF MODERNITY? Who DOES THAT! START WITH ‘IS IT AN OBJECT” FOR FUCKS SAKE.
I do not like them. And I do not like that apparently all Chinese attendants will be constantly smoking. I know that I am a broken record of complaint in these posts but I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experiences.
Wanna hear the funniest thing? These two idiots are going to Beijing to catch a flight TO NORTH KOREA! Oh they are going to get eaten ALIVE by Kim and his friends. I mean honestly they need to tone it down, for real; it’s dangerous to go there and not know how to behave in civilized society (Kim and I am civilized society). Soooo many men in uniform are going to be like SHUT UPPPPP but in Korean. Godspeed to you two foolios, godspeed.
Okay so we are in the middle of the customs time. I am very thirsty but I was able to pee right before the designated time for exit customs. The Mongolians pored over every single page of our passports just because we want to leave. I really don’t understand exit customs. You already let us in, just let me out please. It took a few hours and at 8:30pm I heard some commotion down by the bathrooms and guess what, someone else indeed had to pee! Other people are human too! A lady got the attendant to open a bathroom before Chinese customs officials boarded and the line grew down the whole carriage. Woohoo!
Chinese customs officials do not smile, but they do bark. We got stamped through though, and then the train started moving back and forth between stations, like long 10 minute rides back and forth. Something was clearly not going right. Finally we went into a building we had passed 4 times – yes, straight into it- and saw that all the carriages of our train had been separated and were kind of stacked sideways to each other, so we could look from our window into another carriage’s cabins. Privacy violation! It was so weird behind on a train but being inside this random warehouse. And then, all of a sudden, we realized our car had been raised like 15 feet in the air, without us feeling it! Chinese machinery is sophisticated! (Made in Japan?)
But after a bit of time, things stopped being so smooth. The entire carriage started being jerked this way and that, preventing any kind of relaxation and invoking a mass confusion of whispered “what’s going on”s. A few minutes would pass, then we’d hear a BANG! CRASH! Like a comic strip except we were in a train car and no one could tell us what was going on. They need to work on this system.
At about 10:30pm, a French lady nearby got the attendant to open the toilet. I don’t even care that this lady was also smoking, I love her now. I was going to be okay. Dehydrated and exhausted and concerned about what the crap was going on outside, but okay.
But we thought by then that the bogie change was over. Why were we still in the warehouse? Where…wait where were all the other carriages? We could no longer see ANY of the rest of our train, like they had regrouped and departed to continue the journey and forgotten to add car #4 back in. Ermmmm guys? GUYS? CAN ANYONE TELL US WHAT’S GOING ON?
By this point, the screamers and Z had all gone to sleep, while I waited for a chance to do Final Pee (TM) before sleep. I thought it was coming – I was so tired! But the clang clang clang of the bogie machines still rocked our carriage back and forth – while these silly boys just SLEPT. I wanted to scream how can you people be sleeping through this I’m literally having to hold onto the railings! By 12:45am, we had left the warehouse but just as little as possible – we were parked outside it. I honestly think that we were waiting for the train to come back and collect us and add us back in. I have no evidence of this – I probably just couldn’t see the rest of the train from my window’s angle – but come on what else would be taking until 1 in the morning!
Finally I really had to pee and wanted to sleep so bad that I resorted to playing dirty with the attendant: I went to his cabin, opened the door, and put my hands together and said ‘toilet, please??’ He pointed to his watch and said “Must wait! Must wait!” I said “please emergency” and he again said “must wait!” So, I dug a tampon out of my pocket that I had dug out of my bag and held it up for him and said ‘NEED TO USE’. He SHUDDERED and instead of being forced to think about lady problems for any longer, he hurried to open the toilet for me. Guys! I successfully discovered a surefire way to always get the men to unlock the toilets! Make them super uncomfortable by showing them a tampon that you’re not going to even use (don’t use tampons at night, PSA)! New train motto is AHATIMP (always have a tampon in my pocket) and I will be stress-freeeee saaaailing awayyyyyy hoorayyy for fragile masculinity!
I slept.
In the morning, at about 7 or 8, I heard the SUPER LOUD CANADIANS (seriously they can’t be Canadian I think they are lying) rustling and opened my eyes, which I shouldn’t have done because that triggered the extra loud one to immediately announce that the attendants wanted to collect all the sheets. “Fuck that”, I said, glaring at him, and turned over for more sleep. I am so in charge now.
The landscape starting looking undeniably like the China I was so eager to see, with misty mountains and lots of buildings and smog (well I wasn’t excited about the smog) and just so much interesting scenery. The mountains were incredible! I’m so excited to see so much of this country. We will soon arrive for five days in Beijing. Stay tuned! And let me know if you hear anything in the news about two Canadian men being captured in NK.
