Mongolia to Siberia On a Ural Motorcycle, Part 1
Y'all:
This was literally coming into Russia through it's back door. And by the looks of it, Mother Russia and Her handlers in far off Moscow (5700 km away) didn't have much time or money to work on aesthetics in these parts. I really wanted to take pictures, but I learned long ago Communists are very wary of people taking pictures near their borders. This border crossing between Altenbulag, Mongolia and Kyachta, Buryatia, Russia, was one of the longest I had ever endured (ended up being over two hours) and as we sa in lines or filled out more paperwork, the sun and it's Siberian warmth was setting quickly. There was a sign posted a several years ago apologizing for the long waiting times due to construction of new facilities which had never, or probably ever will be finished.
By the time we had finished with leaving Mongolia, and entered Russia our passports and papers had been scrutinized by at least a dozen different officers, who, in their own way made up quite a cast of characters. From the pretty Mongolian girl in military uniform who helped us fill out a form that was only in Mongolian, to the pleasant but steely eyed blonde, plump Russian Lady, who could bore holes thru your skull as she looked up and down several times at your face and then back to your passport photo.... they all had a bit part to play in this odd but necessary act in my adventure. I've never understood why Communists make entering their country so difficult....it's not like there are hoards of people trying to sneak IN to those places!
Jim in the Ural Sidecar
My partner in this adventure is my long time friend, Jim Skadan. We have had other adventures long ago, but we hadn't travelled together in many years. I asked him if he wanted to go two weeks before departure and he jumped at the chance. Jim had obtained our Russian visas shortly before leaving Seattle, as Seattle is one of the few cities in the USA that has a Russian consulate.
I had almost gone to Russia a few times before, but had never actually made it. Once, while biking thru Hungary in heavy headwinds in 1985, I had decided that in the morning I was going which ever way the wind was blowing that day... And one possible direction was towards Lvov in the Soviet Union. That was back in the Soviet era and now that city is in the Ukraine. I never made it tho, because in the morning the wind blew me straight towards Czechoslovakia instead. Jim had gone "behind the iron curtain" but not into Russia, way back in the early 1970s.
At the border crossing we had plenty time of time to chat with some Mongolians that were also headed north. Since the sun and it's warmth was now long gone, we were very interested in where the next hotel was. The helpful Mongolians told us there was a hotel in the first border town, Kyachta, but that it wasn't a "good hotel"...... Note to self, when a Mongolian thinks something, like a hotel, isn't very nice.... Well, they are probably right. But when we finally made it thru all the buraucracy, we were cold enough to seek out the first warm spot we could find.
Buddhist Shrine at the top of every hill
We really lucked in to finding the little run down hotel at all, tucked away down a dirt road and with hardly any lights on. It didn't show up on my maps.me app at all, which was about the third warning sign. I rang the bell and when I asked in English if they were open I heard a scratchy woman's voice come back with....Open Open! The voice belonged to a Mongolian faced, thick waisted middle aged woman... Who showed the slightest hint of greedy-glee when she learned her only customers had American passports. From the looks of the lobby and the fact that we were obviously her only customers it was clear to see this hotel wasn't on hotel.com! But, when traveling like this you have to look at the bright side.... My brain immediately conjured up the theory that if there obviously hadn't been any customers here in a long enough time period, then maybe all the bed bugs had starved to death by now!!! Or, more likely, they were hopefully froze to death during this last long Siberian winter. Anyway, she mumbled something in Russian as she scribbled down 2000 rubles on a piece of scratch paper.
Obviously there were no posted rates in this fine establishment and she was taking advantage of the situation. We had heard everything was much cheaper in Russia than Mongolia because of Russia's bad economy, and Mongolians even drive the 600 km (360 miles) one way, all the way to Irkutsk to buy cheaper food and other items. So....I was expecting from the looks of this hotel that it was going to be about $4.00, but at the current exchange rate of 57 rubles per dollar, it ended up being $36.
Until you've experienced what a poor communist country is like, it's hard to understand it. Immediatelfter crossing the border buildings were more run down, like nobody cares anymore, and when you talk to people you can sense a strange mixture of dispair and desperation.
Way back in Ulan- Bataar, (330km) we made the decision to head north on our quest to see the world's largest lake, Lake Baikal, on a motorcycle. (Bigger than all the Great Lake's combined) The difficult thing tho, was to find something to rent or buy something that we could take into another country. We finally found a really nice place called DriveMongolia, that had cars and motorcycles to rent and the nice owner said he'd go to the trouble of getting us the necessary paperwork to get notarized to take them across the border. Then he mentioned that he had a Ural (Russian made) motorcycle with a side car! I sensed that Jim was a bit nervous about heading out across the Mongolian Steppe on a Yamaha dirt bike, so after we gave it some thought we choose the Ural.
The main impetus for coming to Mongolia was too visit my sister Barb and her husband John who have been living there for most of the last five years. Their job here has been to teach the English teachers in the public schools. John had worked his way up to be the Country Director for about 40 American teachers who were all teaching English teachers English. He sent his days organizing life for the old teachers and training and seeking new teachers. While under Soviet rule until 1990 Mongolians had learned Russian in grammar school, but now all had many years it's compulsory English starting in grade school.
While there are some challenges to living and working in Mongolia, Barb and John seem to have adapted very nicely to their surroundings, made many new friends and have made a major impact in the lives of many of the teachers and students here.
Like many developing (and un- developing) countries, Mongolia has a very large percentage of young people of child bearing years. So, there are babies every where. Another teacher, Mary from Indiana, is Barb's next door neighbor in her apartment building and she teaches at a nearby school that has 13 first grade classes, and each room has 50 students in it!
Mongolia has many features and specifics that I've never seen in a country before. Most are the result of their history of conquest during the Mongolian Empire days 1100-1400 AD, Manchurian conquest from around 1500-1880 and the Soviet rule days from 1920-1990. Thru it all they maintained their nomadic lifestyle and independent Spirit, but never really gained much technology or commercial and industrial strength of their own. The people still have very much a nomadic herder mentality The story goes that when the Russians left in 1990 the Mongolians called them back for help because the Mongolians hadn't ever constructed anything higher than one story tall building..... Their ger (yurt) homes.
This is the only country I've ever been to with no coins. With an exchange rate of 2415 tugrigs per dollar, coins went away many layers of inflation ago. Teachers get paid with a wad of cash from the school director during class, and even though they only make $300 per month, the stack of bills is huge because the largest denomination of tugrig is only 20,000, or about $8.00! Purchasing anything of consequence take a big pile of money, and that fact is exacerbated by the fact that nobody has a checking account, so everything is paid in wads of cash.
Products, like food, seem really cheap to us here. Restaurants are very clean and a fancy dinner out is only about $5 each A taxi ride in one of the zillion Prius roaming about is only 32 cents per kilometer, so a 3 km ride downtown from Barb's apartment is less than one dollar! Chinese taxis are cheap, but not that cheap! About 60% of the cars in the road are Prius, another 20% are other Toyotas and the last smattering are other Japanese and Korean cars. I've never been anywhere where there was such a high percentage of one kind of car.
Another unique aspect of Mongolia is it's geographic relationship between to of the largest world powers. With the Tiger to the South and the Great Bear to the North, they have frequently found themselves literally been a rock and a hard place. Interestingly, they really don't care for the Chinese at all and are much more fond of the Russians. When the Russians came in 1920, there were virtually no cities, just many tribes of nomadic herders. So, the Russians built every hospital, apartment block (most of which look really tired now), school, etc. So they were really missed when they left.
Today we are heading north to the Spokane sized city of Ulan-Ude, and then possibly the last 60 miles to the southern shore of lake Baikal. I'll let you know how all of that progresses, how how Jim's search for the Russian Speedo goes in the next email. Feel free to pass this on to someone I forgot or somebody you might think is interested.