Nikita's Homestead on Lake Baikal (Andrew)

As I write this Im sitting in the dining hall of nikita's hostel on the edge of lake Baikal. The building reminds me of a swiss ski chalet. Everything is made of wood and the walls have old photos of a snowy lake baikal and a braid of fake corn hang underneath some antlers . An elderly Russian man is playing the piano and outside it is pouring rain. It is very cosy inside though, everyone has big cups of tea and there are some kittens huddled around one of the wooden pillars. There's a faint, but unmistakable, odor of omul, Baikal 'salmon', (but its more like a Herring).

Nikitas has about 30 closely built wooden buildings. Some look better suited for a european ski town, others look like wild west saloons. All the pillars have smiling faces carved into them and the pathways between buildings are edged with sunflowers. its a bit of a Potemkin village (is that a term i should avoid?), but its really nice.

The scenery here reminds me of newfoundland. There are small pine trees in places but most of the land is rolling green hills and the coast is very rocky.

The people here in the dining hall make a good cross section of the kind of people who do the transsiberian. There seem to be two kinds travellers.

Young people, sometimes travelling solo, sometimes in twos, in their 20s or early 30s are one group. You often hear these people talking about what they 'used' to do. For example Im sitting behind four Americans , two travelling solo and a couple. The couple were lawyers in DC, another guy used to do mergers in New York and the fourth was an IT specialist. These are the same people who talk about "trying to get into Tibet" when you're in China but they're hardly hippies. They're all wearing gortex and have digital slr cameras. Somehow I think the guy currently complaining about the "high ping" he's getting from the wireless might still have mergers in his future.

Then there are older european couples, pairs of 'Ritas' only less adventurous. Some of these couples are really roughing it, as Rita is. Others are having quite a relaxing time. At Nitika's, for example, there is a free 'banya' (traditional sauna), and a pay one where you get massages. There's also one Cameron and I found a ways up the beach, but I'll save that for another post.

other stuff:

People love Putin. You can even buy creepy cult of Putin souvenirs like statues and fridge magnets that show Putin at one angle and Medvedev at another angle. 'To Putin" goes over big when you're drinking with the locals.

The military fatigues with sandals look is really popular, as are track suits, for men. Men wear their hair in a either a mullet or buzz cut. Women wear high heels at the grorcery store and smoke a lot. I constantly feel like Im on the set of Rocky V.

Hitchhikers have it even better here than in Mongolia. In Cameron's post on the 16 person van trip he failed to mention that at least one person was a hitchhiker. At one point the van even stopped and waited (engine running) while our hitchhiker friend ran into a fish store.

An excerpt from the book of short stories im going to write after our journey, 'adventures on the bristol scale '(working title), . This is from 'Cameron finds tp rock'


Cameron galloped into the lake laughing and spashing the water high into the air. "The waters of lake Baikal " Cameron yelled to Andrew, drawing cupped hands to his lips and drinking deeply, "Is so clean and so clear..that swimmers are said to get vertigo ". Unfortunately for Cameron, it is also said (and not just in russia) that people who drink near 'tp rock '(or poo rock as it has sometimes been called) get very ill.

Is this another peanut fiasco? Will this Cameron character ever catch a break? I guess we'll both have to wait for the full version.


In closing.. Google analytics is showing a sustained spike in readership coming from india, so we'd like to give a special shout out to our readers in Bangalore and Mumbia. Keep it real guys.

Sushi, sumo wrestling, deflationary pressure, Hiro Hito, Pokemon! Let's see if we can't up those numbers from Japan Google!

Road to Olkhon Island (Cameron)

Russia does not have a reputation for exceptional efficiency, but our experience taking the bus/ferry from Irkutsk to Olkhon Island (320 km) taught us otherwise.

For instance, if you have a van that could safely seat 9, why not pack it with 15 seats, and 16 passengers? Removing seatbelts not only improves mileage, it boosts your top speed! While fuelling up, who has time to turn off the engine? And you may as well multi-task and take your smoke break while manning the pump. When a large, heavy, structural-looking piece falls from the ceiling, just keep driving, it probably isn't necessary to support the 700 pounds of luggage on the roof. To save time later, continue at full speed ahead while you turn around to look for the large hunting knife that was tucked into the structural-looking piece and is now somewhere among your passengers. Dead horse on the road? Just carefully swerve around it; let nature run its course.

In a store in small town, a shirtless Russian guy gave us a rouble when we were one short. He gave us a ride back to our hostel too, and turned to talk to us throughout the short drive. We felt it would be rude to point out he was driving on the wrong side of the road... but the wheel was on the wrong side of the car, so maybe this corrects things somehow? He was a engineering student from Saghalien Island, majoring in road safety.

How we get our dinner here on Saturna

Trans-Siberian Stand-up with Adam

Did you guys find any pancakes on your trip so far?

I hear the mongolians make a great Ulan pancake "Bator"....

Did you guys say the mutton dishes were flavoured well or were they a little ..."mumuttonous"..

When the train at the russian border was taking too long, did you guys tell the driver to "quit Stalin!" ??

When you spoke too loud on your trip in the Gobi, did anyone tell you to quit Yakin'?

...I'll be here all night...

Diet (Cameron)

As of the first day of this trip, I had been a vegetarian (and recently a pescitarian) for 1,429 days. I decided that during the trip, I would temporarily revert to meat eating.

On our first day in Beijing, Andrew's friend Mora took us out for Peking Duck: famous, ancient, and complicated to make (you can read about it here). It suffices to say that it's extremely fatty, and that you mostly eat the skin. This was accompanied by two dozen duck hearts, and duck livers in salt water. I decided that coconut milk would be a light, cool antidote to the fatty entry, but it was only after my fourth can that I realized each one had more than 20 grams of saturated fat.

And so began the second great journey that I have been undertaking this summer: an exploration of the remotest corners of the Bristol Stool Scale.

I generally enjoyed the food on our wilderness excursions in Mongolia, even the monotony didn't get to me. Mutton (we think? it was very gristly sometimes), rice, and potatoes dominated. Andrew quickly caught on and scored a perfect prediction one night: "I bet we're having rice and potatoes, with little bits of mystery meat." We are still unsure what the mystery meat was, but we initially suspect egg or lung, and are now leaning heavily towards lung.

When a meal was being prepared by a host family, and someone said to another: "дэлгүүр нь Монгол улсын нийслэл УБ хот болон бусад аймагт төлөөлөгч болох хүсэлтэй иргэн, аж ахуйн нэгжтэй хамтран ажиллана!!!!" We would speculate as to possible meanings: "You call this pastry flaky?! Make it again! Decant the Merlot, we must let it breath. And you, keep beating those egg whites, I want that Pavlova so light that it's on the verge of floating away."

We were overjoyed to find that peanuts were available in Mongolia. However on the train I ate aBad Peanut. This was a profoundly traumatizing experience, and I will speak no further of it.

In Ulan-Bator, we were regulars at the Loving Hut (the vegan restaurant, not the brothel). We always enjoyed watching "Supreme Master TV .com". It broadcasts multi-faith new age prayers, and the screen is perpetually dominated by a technicolour array of subtitles in no less than 18 languages.

In Irkutsk, an significant information asymmetry has been remedied: all restaurant menus provide the weights of each item and sometimes even a breakdown of the sub-items (e.g. the salad is 140 grams and the dressing is 40 grams).

We are just about to take a bus/ferry to a little island on a big lake for three nights. All meals are included, but the proprietor is much better known for his table tennis skills (for real) than his ability to procure fresh ingredients (other than fish). What island? What Lake? Will Cameron and Andrew survive Nikita's concoctions? Find out next week! Exclusively here on the Sudmant Family Blog!

Some final thoughts on Mongolia (Andrew)

I think grocery stores are one of the best ways to really get a sense of a place. In UB there are plastic bags of horse milk "sealed" with twist ties or a knot in the plastic. Fruits and vegetables are definitely a luxury. The dairy section in the state grocery store dwarfs the produce section by at least 3 times and there isn't much in the way of variety-I didn't see anything other than potatoes, onions, apples, cabbages and tomatoes. To make up for this vitamin drinks are all the rage. One of the most popular is 'seabuckthorn' juice made from some sort of nettle. 90% of seabuckthorn farming is in China but we didn't encounter any juice there. In the dairy section there were at least a dozen different flavours of yoghurt drink in 3 or 4 different fat contents and 3 or 4 different sizes and with the choice three different animal sources and sometimes even combinations, (you do the math) (after doing the math I realize this number is unreasonable large, pending translation horse yoghurt may or may not exist. For the sake of the post lets just say it does.)

Interestingly, restaurants in UB have more exotic things like squash at the vegan restaurant and bock choy in a Vietnamese restaurant. This fits with impression of modern Mongolia we got; there is evidence of progress all around, but so far the benefits seem to have settled disproportionately on a privileged few (who are at the restaurants), while for the masses life has changed little so far.

On our trip through the Gobi we visited a number of very small grocers in small towns. Generally the store would be a room in someone's house and it took me the entire trip to figure out that the next room was not a casual carpet store filled with knick knacks. Commonly several houses in a row would have almost identical stores. Almost everything in these stores was packaged and the offerings were not very exciting-peanuts, old potatoes, chips-the same stuff you might find in a corner store in Canada. Some things were interesting though. By volume, beer was more expensive than vodka and was probably not far from the price you would expect in Canada. I never figured out who was buying beer (apart from foreigners who don't know how to use their money..) Also, prices are often not listed, so that you had to ask the store owner, but I never saw bargaining..

some other thoughts:

Forget your foui gra and fancy free range mennonite chicken. When in Russia get the 'oppressed chicken with baked tomatoes'. Delicious.

I think Cam might be in vegetarianism withdrawal. Yesterday he calculated how many days he was vegetarian for. Between the duck hearts in China, the mystery gristle in Mongolia and the 'oppressed chicken' here in Russia it might be time to move on Cam. Just sayin'.

Mongolian's have very smart haircuts. Is anyone else wondering if anyone ever goes into the salon and says, "Modern forward thinking western business culture in the front please. Genghhis Khan in the back." Here's hoping.

The Mongolian language sounds like when Gandalf catches the moth in Lord of the Rings and talks to it in moth language. I'm well aware this comment will be understood by a total of one reader.. unless...! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnidHtNzK-0 Thanks Youtube. (Cameron adds: it also sounds like Parseltongue, if that does the trick for you.) I'd say we're at a conversational level at this point. (Unfortunately I'll probably regress over my time in the UK, expect 'hello', 'thank you', 'delicious' and 'cheers!' when you see me next). Scratch that, I've forgotten 'delicious'.

Irkutsk (Cameron)

We are in Irkutsk, the Paris of Siberia. Like Paris, it's a great walking city, with beautiful architecture, wide boulevards, and plenty of people out on warm summer evenings. Unlike Paris, it was founded as a Cossack garrison to subdue the indigenous Buryat population (closely related to the Mongolians) .

At the central intersection of Karl Marx Rd. and Lenin St. stands a large bronze statute of the latter. Speakers play music; we enjoyed an alto-sax rendition of Pachelbel's Canon. Just down the street there is a recently (and controversially) erected statute of White Army commander Admiral Kolchak (executed by the Bolsheviks during the civil war).

We arrived yesterday on the overnight train from Ulan-Bator. We shared our four bed compartment with two girls on scholarship to study medicine in Moscow. The neighbouring compartment was filled with the same. Most spoke decent English and were friendly and outgoing.

The train bathrooms were locked during the four hours at the Russian border, but at hour three (about 1:30am), the doors were opened and we were permitted to mill around the platform. I didn't want to pay 8 roubles to use the overburdened bathroom, so with the help of a lanky Mongolian boy on scholarship to finish high school in Ukraine, I found a sufficiently secluded corner. This seemed to spark further subversive behaviour, as a parade of others quickly caught on and followed our lead.

Knackerd (Cameron)

Throughout the trip we have been almost perpetually knackered. This is probably because of our frenetic itinerary, but in Ulan-Bator the elevation must have contributed too. UB is at 4,300 feet, that's over fourteen football fields high.

Dharma Bums

So, I know Cameron and Andrew have been regaling us with some amazing stories from the far East, but I thought I'd quickly interject to update everyone on my own little adventure down the coast of the good old USA! Carlton (the name I have given to our 1988 Chevy getaway van), and my friend James and I began our journey driving through Oregon; the coastal highway is amazing with its huge beaches, massive waves, stacks, and weathered coastal formations. The drive along highway 101 was lovely, however, we faced the problem of running into quite a few crowded populated areas with drive-in camping, RV parks, cabins, and all that touristy jazz. Following the Dharma Bums ideal, this just wouldn't do; so we kept driving, and as the 101 turned inland for a while we found some random roads going towards the coast again. Very luckily we came across a logging-type road that led to a dead end gravel parking lot right on the beach, which was completely isolated for miles in both directions. This first epic beach made for excellent bonfires, acoustic guitar playing with hair in wind, and morning yoga on warm, flat tombolos.

Another day, we found another epic isolated beach, but this one was only accessible through a 5 or so mile hike through the woods. The formations on this beach were rather different, with slightly grainier sand, and huge cliffs made of sandy material that easily eroded (I felt it necessary to inscribe some profound poetry and philosophy quotes on these). At night, the stars on this beach were the most phenomenal I'd ever seen .

The fun down oregon coast continued without a dime having been spent on accommodation, and the occasional warm river or lake providing for excellent bathing. We eventually made it to the Redwoods in Northern California where we hiked in to tall trees grove, home of the world's largest trees, and camped along a creek beneath towering Redwoods and Sequoias. It's probably a terrible thing to say, but I was almost reminded of some sort of disneyland fairy tale forest when walking around the trees which looked unreal with up to 30 foot diameters and gnarly, thick bark. Highlights included sitting in a warm creek watching a family of deer watching me, and meditating at dusk on a massive fallen redwood beneath a 320 foot sequoia tree.

Our time down the coast and in the redwoods lasted about 6 days; when Carlton began showing some signs of fatigue (stalling several times on the highway and telling us he had a 3/4 tank of gas when he was really empty), we decided to head North again. Portland seemed nice, but we felt overwhelmed by the bustle of the city and were forced to instead drive to mount St. Helens that same night. Now home, I'd call our whole journey a great success. A big thanks goes out to Carlton for chuggin' it all the way home and fighting through the occasional adversity. Another thanks to Jack Kerouac for reminding us to stay spontaneous, mindful of the present, and appreciative of the most important things.

"all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures."

-Jack Kerouac

Some Observations (Andrew)

The garbage trucks sound like ice cream trucks. As you can imagine this has been an ongoing source of frustration. That said, Cameron and I noticed that approximately 1 in 2 manhole covers has been removed and the hole filled up with garbage, so maybe the garbage truck is something to get excited about.

Gengkhis Khan (or Chenggis Khan as he's called here), is everywhere. He's on every bill, from the 50 (which is like 2 cents) to the 20,000, to vodka, on which he's referred to as "the man of the millennium". Unfortunately we've been unable to up anything to "Gengkhis Khan size" yet (as in, "Please Gengkhis Khan size my dumping order"). We'll keep trying.



mutton, rice and potatoes are the major players, and sometimes the only players, in most Mongolian dishes. The food is quite good however. With the exception of some pizza we had from a restaurant with "American Pizza technology" that didn't sit very well, we've both been quite happy. Ulaan Baator also has quite a lot of foreign food and a number of vegan restaurants.

Evidence of Mongolia's mining boom is everywhere. On the way in from the airport there are rows and rows of billboards, all in English, advertising, "precision drilling", giant dump trucks and different kinds of steel cable. In the newspaper, which has a version translated to English, literally three-quarters of articles were either about mines, mining or infrastructure for mines and there are "Business", "Economics", and "Finance" sections (in a 5 page paper!). Within a 50 or 60km radius from Ulaan Bataar there are dozens of very small open pit mines. Moosh told us they were mining building materials, whatever that may be.

What do purple pine cones, horse's milk, bathroom scales and landline telephones have in common? Those are things people sell on the side of the street. The pine cones seem to be some kind of seasonal treat but they are extremely labour intensive to eat and make your hands really sicky. Given a choice between the pine cone and the milk, however, definitely go for the pine cone. The milk comes in large metal containers and is served in a recycled bottle. Thirsty? The milk also has to be mixed constantly since it has no processing whatsoever, and often has small lumpy bits in it. It is also probably pretty warm from sitting in the sun all day. The scales are presumably for checking your weight (and look like any old bathroom scale). The landline telephones seem to have cellphone capabilities. We haven't figured that one out yet.

How do you tell a Mongolian person from a Chinese person? (this sounds like its going in a bad direction but trust me on this one). See if they drink milk. Mongolian's are not lactose intolerant. In fact horse's milk is particularly high in lactose and horses need to be milked 6x per day, so the people outside Ulaan Baatar probably have super human lactose tolerance. In the event the 'milk test' is inconclusive Mongolian people also look different than Chinese people (as Cameron noted earlier). You can use the 'milk test' to be rigorous.

Breakthrough! (Cameron)

We are not yet fluent in Mongolian, but both the driver and I understood the universal language of slapstick comedy when Andrew caught his hand in the automatic window.

Beyond Ulan-Bator (Cameron)

1) There are some obvious things to prepare for on a seven day trip to the Gobi (dehydration, camel attack, etc.), but torrential rainfall did not make our list. We hiked across a swamp to climb the sand dunes, but on the way back the water level had risen substantially resulting in a challenging crossing. When we went to the dunes again the next morning on camels, they struggled not to slip in the mud.

2) Throughout our Gobi trip, we would periodically stop at general stores in small towns. These stores were all pretty much identical in terms of the products they sold (and the plastic "I <3 NY" bags they provided). We would buy water, gum, candies, peanuts, and bland pieces of dense bread which tasted vaguely of glazed donuts. We would always offer some to Oggy and Moosh, and they never refused. But we suspect that this was culturally mandated; Oggy once took only two peanuts, one for her and one for Moosh.

3) We visited a family and were given a wide variety of dairy products. Our best guesses as to what we consumed are: mares milk, goat curd, goat/sheep cream, and fermented mares milk. The mares milk was incredibly sour (and a powerful laxative according to the internet). We had trouble getting it down, yet our bowl was continuously refilled so we ended up drinking quite a lot of it. The curd was similarly strong and sour. I found the cream and fermented milk quite inoffensive, other than the odour.

3) We were lucky to come across a horse race that some rich families had organized. The race was 20km, and the jockeys were all young children, mostly boys, but some girls. The youngest jockey was three. They started from a congregation of cars and horses in an unpopulated area in the steppes, and we waited until they returned some time later. Some of the horses returned with no riders. Chaperones rode alongside on dirt bikes.

4) We stayed for one night in a ger in Dalanzadgad, a town of 17,000 people, 540km south of Ulan-Bator. There were a few permanent buildings, but most people lived in gers. In urban areas, gers are in rectangular, fenced lots (fencing is made of almost anything: wood, corrugated metal, bricks, unrolled barrel sides). A standard lot is about 7 by 20 meters.

We heeded Oggy's warnings, but nonetheless decided to venture outside the safety of our lot (the "green zone"). There were numerous playgrounds (basketball hoops and strange exercise devices were the main features), and all of them were packed with children. We stopped at one and I juggled a bit (a universal language), and the kids seemed happy with this. I had to turn down requests to juggle tiny, unperturbed puppies.

On our way back, a couple of guys were up to no good, and started making trouble in the neighborhood. After an suspicious suggestion to take out a camera for a picture was rejected, one of them raised a fist only to be held back by his compatriot. They followed us as we walked home. My concern that Gordon Ramsey and Julia Child would have to get involved (my right and left fists) was dissolved when we neared the green zone and Moosh saw what was going on and chased them down the street. One of them lost his sandals. This lent further to Moosh's superhuman image, not the least of which because Andrew's sub 100 pound estimate of Moosh's weight (based on a drunken piggyback ride).

5) Mongolian horses are very small, prompting Andrew to wonder who would be riding whom. The saddles are small and the stirrups are high, so there is plenty of groin, thigh, knee, calf, and ankle pain. This was not helped by our guide's great fondness of convincing our horses to canter.

Our second equestrian excursion was in Terelj National Park. The horses did not seem happy and proved difficult to control for our 11 year old guide, despite the whippings he generously provided. Not far from camp, a Korean girl was tossed over the front of her horse, and though uninjured, she decided she was now afraid of horses. In the commotion, the other two girls couldn't prevent their horses from trotting back home; both decided this was for the best. Our young guide sorted this out while Andrew and I sat on our calmly grazing animals. He returned at a gallop, and communicated his impatience by whipping my horse square in the face.

6) The Gobi trip was awesome, and the rain actually made it better: we saw lightning and rainbows (and double rainbows), and drove through rivers and mud. We saw thousands and thousands of cows, camels, sheep, goats, and horses (it is very satisfying to see a big herd of horses freely galloping across the steppes). We saw hawks, vultures, Jerboa, and lots of interesting insects. The sand dunes were magnificent, as were the rocky hills we climbed. We got to crawl through a 70 meter cave, which felt somewhat unsafe because it was through a clay hill and there were large chunks of the ceiling which had fallen off, leaving only small places to squirm through (Oggy joined us, yet remained improbably put together, as she was for the whole trip). The sky was huge and in some places it was very flat so the horizon was wavy in the heat in all directions.

Our Trip to the Gobi (Andrew)

Cameron and I just returned from a week long trip to Gobi. It was truly awesome. We went days seeing only the occasional herd of goats or distant Ger to remind us that people were around and the scenery was breathtaking. To set the scene here are the characters we traveled with:


Mount Zorgol, the mountain you climb to destroy the one ring to rule , a mountain in the Altai Range north of the Gobi

Rita: a 69 year French-Canadian old double knee replacement retiree who's been backpacking the world for most of the last six years. Rita is an inspiration. Toilets or no toilets she wanted to see the Gobi. Next up she heads to China. Unfortunately we didn't have good news for her on the toilet front.

Chris: a 27 year old english teacher originally for the UK currently living in Japan. Chris taught Cameron and I about the UK. When someone is being annoying or easily offended they are being "Larry". 'Knacked' is tired. Chips are 'crisps' and fries are 'chips'. Chris also had a very useful and amusing Mongolian language guide which included:

"How old is your daughter"
"Your family has many animals"
"I like meat"
and
"My leg is broken"

unfortunately we didn't get to use as many of these as we would have liked.

Cameron: see 10 of the last 12 posts (or recall that he's your son, brother and/or canim lake camping companion)

Andrew: see 2 of the last 12 posts or see the note on Cameron.

"Oggy": Our 22 year old female Mongolian cook and guide. The vast majority of our interaction with Oggy came during meals, when we said "thank you" and made vigorous efforts to show how delicious we thought her food was. Towards the end of the trip she also started making jokes like, "we camp here tonight!", when we'd been waiting in the middle of nowhere to change a popped tire, or "lunch!" when I showed her a lizard I had caught. Cameron and I hypothesize that her role as "guide" was more for the driver's benefit than the guests since we we're pretty sure our driver would have gone crazy with no one to talk to during the 16 hour days of driving and car repair. That said, if Moosh had gone crazy its hard to say if we would have noticed.

Moosh: our 55 year old driver. Moosh is a pretty amazing guy. We would wake each morning to find him under the van or sifting through the jerry can of random parts he carried and fall asleep to the same. Our vehicle was at least 30 year old by my estimation, but that number alone doesn't do justice to the "blueberry". I'm not sure, for example, how far you have to go back to find a North American car who's oil gauge is a plastic jar sticking out of the dash. What the 'blueberry' may have lacked in "modern technology" or "western safety standards" however, Moosh made up for in sheer persistence. At our first tire change I went for a jog down the road after a few hours of waiting and found one of the bolts that had fallen off the wheel casing. Moosh treated it like a "piece of treasure" (Rita). We were back no the road in no time.

In addition to driving a van, Moosh is also a doctor, once had some role in Monglian politics and raced horses in his youth. Its hard to verify these claims but I think they are entirely possible. I've never seen anyone as resourceful at patching a "made in USSR" tire, as certain of his direction while driving in a rainstorm that obliterates the road and obscures all landmarks or as ferocious at scaring away unwanted young Mongolian men during our "urban ger" experience. And after 8 hours on the "road" and three hours under the car beside the road, Moosh still managed to have a glass of Chenggis vodka (read Genghkis), or 5, and sing songs with the locals until he needed to be carried to his bed in the trunk of the "blueberry".

some memorable Moosh quotes:

on the condition of our vehicle:
"brakes very good today! yesterday brakes verry bad"
on driving in Mongolia during the winter:
"wintertime? sleep only 1/2 hour. Sleep 1 hour? Engine verry cold. Road home 1500km. Sometimes fall asleep. Sometimes lose road. Verry dangerous!"
on working in Mongolia during the Communist era:
"doctor, no pay well. Drive car with pig skins to Russia, buy new car in one year!"

other notes:

We will no longer be giving away the Canadian Kite. Cameron took it for a test fly the other day and it got caught in a tree. How did it get caught in a tree in a country that is almost entirely grassland? You'll have to ask Cameron.

Guess who else is on the transiberian? Kim Jong Il! In his armoured train no less. Apparently he's afraid of flying.

Beijing to Ulan-Bator in Car #1 (Cameron)

We uneventfully caught our 7:47am train to Ulan-Bator (a 30 hour trip). But it didn't say anywhere on our ticket that we were booked in the unofficial shirts-off car (aka: "train casual"). Most of our car-mates appeared to be from the Chinese army's airborne division, and shirt removal was the order of the day. Things were a bit different down in first class Car #6, where faux mahogany and air conditioning were clearly worth 2.5 times the "hard sleeper" price.

We scored a four bed berth for just the two of us, and were very comfortable. There was plenty of room for sit ups and squats, and to enjoy "milk + juice" drink and "jujube paste" filled sesame cakes.

We moved through rocky mountains to depressing industrial towns to spectacular grasslands and clear blue skies. Hundreds of windmills turned in the distance. In the middle of nowhere we passed a convoy of maybe 100 Chinese army vehicles: trucks, tanks, and large artillery.

In the dining car, the waitress immediately started unloading random dishes onto our table until we said stop. When the chef walked through the car 40 minutes later, everyone burst into applause.

We entered the Gobi Desert, and almost immediately ran into the middle of a sandstorm. Berths with windows open were sprayed with sand, and everywhere else the air was misty yellow and smelled like the beach.

At 9:00pm we reached the Chinese border town of Erlian. Customs checks were cursory and friendly, but we had to wait 3 hours while the chassis was switched to the non-standard Russian/Mongolian gauge. (The rails are a bit further (or closer?) apart; this was by design, to hinder foreign invasion.)

We were allowed to leave the train. On the platform, loudspeakers broadcast imperial marches, classical music, and Auld Lang Syne. We bought food from the platform grocery store: instant noodles, water, beer, oranges, and dried "California plun" (we passed on the tinned "dinner fish").

When we slowly rolled into Mongolia at midnight, soldiers with AK-47's stood at 10 meter intervals and saluted us. A Cocker-Spaniel drug sniffer scampered through each car.

Mongolia is much less humid than Beijing, but we didn't see the car thermometer go below 29 degrees. So I'm sure you're wondering: "How many large, thick, woollen blankets were they given in order to keep warm?" Eight.

The People's Living Room (Cameron)

We did not see any single detached homes in Beijing. Apartments are tiny, and we speculate that this explains the large numbers of people just hanging out in random places all over the city: it's nicer than sitting alone in a bleak little room. (Evidently the internet hasn't caught on in a big way for everyone yet.)

Old men play Chinese chess, young men play cards. Children learn calligraphy with huge brushes, dipped in water and applied to dusty sidewalks. But many people just sit and talk, or even sit alone.

We ran into more than one outdoor karaoke party. A kind of hacky sack game involving a heavily weighted and oversized badminton birdie is quite popular. Public parks have inscrutable exercise devices, and seem to be used more for group tai chi.

Near the centre of town is Houhai Lake, about 1km in circumference and totally surrounded by bars. This begs the question: How many old men were swimming in the lake at midnight last Friday? About 25. Most of them were tightly clustered, perhaps to avoid being struck by the dozens of small boats providing romantic cruses.

Public washrooms abound, especially in poor areas. We suspect that a lot of people don't have plumbing, so these are the communal facilities. I used one once, and it wasn't that bad.

Most people are far from wealthy, but they seem happy, and there is a palpable joie de vivre that I don't see at home. We had many smiles, and could get help when we needed it. One woman went to inexplicable lengths to ensure that we would get off at the right bus stop to visit the Summer Palace. A cab driver bought me a popsicle and gave me a big hug. A security guard shook my hand instead of patting me down. At least a dozen people have taken pictures with us.

I'm sad to leave Beijing. During my travels in Europe I was always surprized how quickly I could become attached to a place, and the same is true here. We know our way around, can say a few words, and are subway and cab experts. We're old hands at the hostel, and know the staff at our favourite restaurant down the street. Bye bye Beijing, I'll miss you.

Ten Assorted Observations in Ulan-Bator (Cameron)

1) The smog here is barley noticeable compared to Beijing, but some people still wear masks. One woman had a mask over her nose and a cigarette in her mouth. Penny wise pound foolish I say.

2) Cars drive on the right side of the street, but about 65% of vehicles have the steering wheel on the right side. We don't know why this is.

3) I was a bit concerned that this observation was inappropriate on a family blog, but Andrew assured me that since Adam is now 21, it's probably okay: By my scale, the histogram of female attractiveness here is not particularly notable with respect to it's mean or median, but it has a heck of a fat tail (no pun intended). If I learned anything from the Black Swan (the economics book, not the ballet movie), it means there may well exist a girl in Mongolia with a catastrophic level of beauty. I'm not sure of the implications for investing.

4) We did calisthenics in a little park surrounded by crumbling apartment buildings, and the children playing were very friendly. Earlier, we unsuccessfully attempted to join a 3 on 3 basketball tournament with boys in their teens and twenties, but nobody was helpful. (We've noticed that all youth wear popped collars and are unfriendly; we're not sure which way the causality runs.)

5) The economy seems vibrant. There are only a couple nice looking office and apartment buildings, but there are cranes everywhere, and more than a few nice cars (we were picked up from the train station by a new Hyundai Tuscon).

6) There are an enormous number of banks. This may be (in part) because the highest denomination of bill (20,000 Tögrög) is worth only about $16 Canadian, and the ATM's have low withdraw limits. We've been to the bank 3 times in 24 hours.

7) Our hostel is the main one in UB, and most of the guests are pretty hardcore. There seems to be a strong aversion to air travel. A guy from Poland has been overland from Poland down to Capetown, and across by boat to Asia. A British guy has been travelling for 20 months without leaving the ground.

8) The food here is excellent, and there is a lot of variety. Our first night I had a New York Steak at an Irish Pub. We went to "Berlin Burger" for lunch. It's the only chain of fast food restaurants in UB. When we ordered burgers, they took them from under the counter and microwaved them. We went to the "Love Hut" vegan restaurant for dinner. It was fabulous; better than the Naam.

9) There is clearly more poverty here than in Beijing, and it definitely feels less safe. We are constantly warned about pickpockets, and not to stay out past midnight. An man called us from a distance, gesturing to a huge gash on his arm and smiling. We weren't overly curious. Some stores have security guards. They wear black t-shirts with "SECURITY" silk-screened on the back, and carry handguns.

10) Andrew has been wearing the same pair of socks since August 1. Just sayin'.

Meta Post (Cameron)

We're in Mongolia now and will be going on a couple trips to the wilderness, so posting will be limited.

Also, we have more material from Beijing which will be added later.

Also, things may be added out of order.

Also, we're taking lots of pictures, but we'll probably organize and post them at the end of the trip; it's a bit too much work for now.

Fools, Money, and Lessons in Negotiation: A Trip to the Beijing Silk Market (Cameron)

The global economy is 64 trillion dollars.

In 7.6 billion years, the sun will have run out of hydrogen to fuse, and will have consequently expanded dramatically. The earth's orbit will be decayed due to tidal drag. The combination of these effects will cause the earth to be enveloped by the sun.

The second law of thermodynamics guarantees that the entropy of the universe will continuously increase, reducing the amount of usable energy available until no life is even theoretically possible.

So really, what's RMB 1800 ($276 CAD) in the grand scheme of things?

A large sign proudly proclaims that the Beijing Silk Market is "The most visited market in Beijing by foreigners!" This is not necessarily a good thing (from a foreigner's perspective). At this point I'm relatively sure there is no actual silk in the Silk Market, and the only thing that's even remotely silky is the silky smooth bargaining skills of the sales girls.

The primary negotiating tactic is displaying a wide range of emotions. My favourite is the profound shock when you first name your price (never more than 15% of the price they start with); it's like you just threw their dog off a building. (Lots of people have small dogs as pets, but according to the China Daily US Edition, dog theft is a growing problem. Dogs are expensive to raise, so restaurants buy stolen ones.)

As Andrew mentioned, we did end up buying suits. In our defense, out of all the people who get ripped off buying a suit, we must have been on the low end ($92 each). It would have been better if we got mascot costumes, which judging from the colorful feathers which unintentionally festooned our completed suits, must have been the primary expertise of the manufacturing facility (which I've dubbed Rumplestilknskinland).

During the negotiations we were keenly aware of reservation price and anchoring issues, and I learned from Andrew the "bargain up quantity, not down price" technique, which he used to great success on a non-suit purchase. But as Andrew noted, information asymmetry was our undoing.

We're planning on wearing them while attempting to sneak onto the first class car when we cross Siberia, so it's not a total loss.

Some Funny Things Happened on the Way to the Forbidden City (Cameron)

The Forbidden City, in the centre of Beijing, is the largest and best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China. Ironically named, throngs of people swarm the grounds every day. To mitigate traffic issues, as of last month one can only enter through the south entrance, and exit through the north. We did not know this, so we walked to the north side, precipitating an eventful journey to the south.

Two men with bicycle rickshaws offered to take us to the south entrance: "How much?", "Three", "Three?", "Three", holds up three fingers,holds up three fingers.

As we rode, I started to calculate how much these men earned. Three is about 50 cents; maybe 15 minutes per round trip; 2 dollars per hour? If business is steady? This seemed a bit low, but the mystery was quickly resolved.

We turned down a narrow, deserted alley and stopped. "We're here" they said. It didn't look like we were there, but I had two 5's ready, so I offered them. "No no no" they said, and took out laminated cards which showed the price as being 300 (about $50). I dropped the 5's on the seat. "You said it was 3" we said. "300" one demanded, holding out three fingers and counting them "one two three", then touching his two closed knuckles "zero, zero" (think a minute about how implausible this counting scheme is).

Andrew and I had been pumping iron on the roof of the hostel the night before, and I was kind of rubbed the wrong way by the trickery and intimidation, so I decided to get a bit angry. We had a vigorous debate. These were my submissions (abridged):

"You said 3. If you wanted 300, say 300 at the start. You lied."

Eventually they gave up and left, but not before one of them spat on me, twice. This is not as bad as it sounds. When it's 35 degrees, 80% humidity, and the smog is so bad it blots out the sun, after 30 minutes outside one gets kinda gross. (We often found ourselves saying, "Did someone spill something on this table?" only to realize that it was our own putrid forearms.) So the spit was more of a gentle cooling mist than anything else. Nonetheless, it's an unfortunate habit for someone in the service industry.

At the end of the alley, a group of small children (maybe 3, 4, and 5, and a 14 year old minder) had observed the incident with interest. They were smiling when we walked passed, so we stopped and gave them Canada pins and Canadian pennies. They were really excited about this, and it was a very nice moment.

(We've hypothesized that receptiveness to and appreciation for pins and pennies is a monotonic decreasing function of income. A sad looking little boy on a crowded bus starred at us in our cab while waiting at a long red light. Andrew practically climbed out of the window to give him a pin, and he seemed very happy about this. My attempt to give a pin to a little girl in a KFC (the egg tarts are spectacular) was swiftly rebuked. Minutes later she was given a large wad of cash by her parents to make an order by herself.)

Near the south entrance, a platoon of Chinese soldiers performed marching exercises. "So that's what we're up against" said one well dressed American man to another. "Hello, and who are you? we inquired. "Chiefs of staff for a couple of US Senators, here to talk about trade and energy." (I made up a description of free trade negotiations that I'm a bit proud of: "If you scratch your back, I'll scratch mine.")

We met some Dutch girls in the ticket lineup and saw the Forbidden City together. It was very nice.

Cameron

Lessons in Economics from the Beijing Silk Market (Andrew)

As most readers are aware, after 5 years and as many degree changes I proudly graduated with an economics degree this spring. Unfortunately, it turns out one need only spend a couple of afternoons and several hundred RMB at the Beijing Silk Market to get a good grounding in economics. Hear a just a few of the lessons I learned:

Information asymmetries

When one party has information that the other side needs in a negotiation you have a situation with 'information asymmetry'. At the silk market the savvy buyer needs a fertile imagination to fully appreciate the implications of this fact. Our suits, for example, were almost certainly made in a stuffed animal factory, which we ascertained from the purple and pink fluff in the pockets. I think the factory might be better suited (no pun intended), to stuffed animal making.

Opportunity cost

There are plenty of deals to be had the silk market. Coach bags go 3 for 100RMB (16ish dollars) before you even get inside and Gore-Tex jackets go for 100. Provided that you're interested in something that you can, at very least, convince a complete stranger at a reasonable distance is real, however, you have more of a challenge on your hands. Silk market employees are genuinely willing to battle you all day over the last 10 RMB, in part because they love it, in part because they know the gwylo in their shop is just itching to wrap things up and grab a bite over at 'california beef noodle king USA'. That said, where else can you buy bulk mao statues delivery ready? Christmas gifts for the whole family. Your call.

The 'infant industry' argument

Most commonly one hears about 'infant industries' in the context of international trade. At the silk market, however, the infant is no metaphor. Cameron and I were quite literally handed a small child while we were trying on our suits to distract from the fact that they are probably made from polyester and definitely ill fitting. Cameron's, for example, flies out a little bit at the back. What are you going to do though? Make a child cry? Well played 'Jelly' (our sales lady).

You may be thinking that all these suit examples indicate that we're bitter over our purchases. Not so. We're actually fairly pleased. As suckers go we paid only 600 RMB for each suit, making the guy on the Harvard Rowing team we met 3x the sucker we are. More importantly, the suits can still be put to good use. Cameron plans to use his suits, (note the plural), for working out and going for long runs, and polyester is also the perfect material for a makeshift train pillow. If anyone is interested our suit bags include the store's hotmail, msn and mobile phone contact information. Be sure to drop our names if you get 'Jelly' on the line.

Found in Mistranslation (Cameron)

As expected, Beijing has provided a cornucopia of amusing translations.

For instance: if you're feeling peckish and are in the Weigoncgun area, why not sample the delicious concoctions of "Grandma Skitchen"? But if you're not so adventurous, there's almost always a "California Beef King Noodle USA" nearby. (If you get the Mao Combo, be sure to get it Great Wall-sized. My friend B points out that you can try ordering the Tiananmen Square Meal, but they will deny it's on the menu.)

Worried about knowing how to order? You're in luck; every restaurant we've been to (including the ones far from the city centre and tourist attractions) has had large pictures of each item and an English description.

If you want something exciting and unpredictable, try "the palace explodes the shrimp ball". But if you're looking for something more spartan, go for the "pigeon egg abalone gruel". If you can handle a bit of kick, definitely choose "spiced donkey steak", and if you want to kick it up a notch, challenge yourself with "the fierce appearance point pepper burns the large intestine". Starving? The "deep-fried balls with sauce" are nice and filling (Andrew is a big fan of the slightly less savory "ball soup"). We're not quite sure what to make of the "sauteed rape with egg and fungus", but it's probably best avoided, especially at Grandma Skitchen's.

All street names and bus stops and the like have English phoneticizations. Usually they are great, but some are unpronounceable, as is the case with the name of what I think is a new housing development: "CHUANGJIANQUANGUOWENMINGCHENGQU ZHANZHIZICHENGMEIHAOXINGXIANG"

Shirts with English words are extremely popular. They range from hilarious to profound. My favourite: "If you were your own secret admirer, what would you admire?" Andrew enjoyed: "More Respect, Less Questions". A shirt with "1970's" didn't seem all that strange; it was a pretty cool decade I guess. But an identical shirt, this time with "1930's" was a little more difficult to understand.

Andrew's Lessons from China

Cameron and I have been dealing with some serious culture shock but I think we're starting to get the hang of things. Here are some lessons to prepare future travelers.

lesson number 1: raising your shirt is an effective and socially acceptable means of relief from the heat.

Raising your shirt will not, however, necessarily allow you to blend in with the crowd. So far my shirt raising has been uneventful. Cameron, on the other hand, got swarmed by some school children at the birds nest the other day only moments after his first shirt raise. we'll post some photos when we get the chance. He's a bit of a celebrity where ever we go actually. Yesterday at Tianeman Sqaure (where it should be noted there are plenty of gwylos (white people)), someone asked to have a photo with him. So far I'm blending in pretty well. I attribute this to my deep tan and improving chinese mannerisms.

Technique is important however. shirt raising should really be called shirt folding. You don't tie the shirt. Rather, you carefully fold the shirt inside itself. A solid potbelly is a real asset. Cameron has been building an idea that someone should make a shirt with "some sort of clips". keep this on the dl.

Lesson 2: sunglasses are both useful and fashionable but they need not have lesses.

In fact no lens glasses are all the rage. Guys and girls are wearing them everywhere and there are several ads in the subway featuring the no lens look. Here in Beijing, afterall, the smog gently filters the suns rays for you. Some days the sun is hardly visible. This probably also explains why sunscreen is almost impossible to find, (although we did find it today, provided skin whiting cream is an equivalent product). I have yet to knock out my lenses despite my intuition that I could be ahead of the curve when I reach the UK.

Lesson 3: learn some mandarin before you come

Cameron and I have an ongoing competition to see how can say "thank you" better. So far I think we're both lossing since without fail people laugh whenever we get the chance to say it. I think we've improving though. Initially people would think for a moment and then laugh. Now they just laugh.

The language barrier also stands in the way of some important questions. How much are those stickybuns? When does the metro close? Or, as came up last night why are there a team of old chinese men swimming in that festering pond in the middle of the bar district just past midnight?

Assorted observations from Cameron

1) Accessing foreign media only sometimes works. Maybe 2 out of 3 days we can get the New York Times. I don't understand why it's not an all or nothing thing. But it's nice to be able to read this kind of story, which so rarely appear in the "China Daily News US Edition":

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/world/asia/05kidnapping.html?_r=1

2) At the National Museum of China, we saw the "Road to Rejuvenation"; a relatively detailed account of 20th century Chinese history. We were surprised to find that there was a massive gap between the 1949 revolution and the leadership of Deng Xiaoping. Literally nothing. It was bizarre.

3) It is extremely smoggy. At no point have I not been able to stare directly into the sun (if I can find it!) with anything more than mild discomfort. It's hard to distinguish smog from clouds, prompting a line from Andrew I enjoyed: "I'm not sure if it's about to rain, or if a factory just exploded."

4) Transformers are very popular. Most truck have a big sticker of the transformer they transform into on the driver's side door. I enjoy this, but it confuses me. Isn't it antithetical to the very raison d'être of a transformer: camouflage?

I will describe an ad I saw on a TV in a subway station: a young man is driving a sports car; his girlfriend is in the front seat; he is drinking from a tetrapack; the girlfriend pouts; he crumples the tetrapack and throws it out the window; he spins the wheel to the left, putting the car into a powerslide; the camera pan back and the car transforms into a transformer; the transformer jumps onto the side of a building and rapidly climbs the building; a graphic appears, promoting "low lactose dairy drink". Anyone thirsty?

Andrew and Cameron Blog from Asia and Russia

Cameron joins the sudmantfamily blog this month as our featured guest blogger.

many hours of advance preparation, (but still they forgot a few things...read on)

Cameron provides us with today's Guest Post from China

Security Measures

Beijing does not suffer from a shortage of manpower. Everywhere we go there are many staff, often with no discernible duties. Last night at our favourite restaurant, I noticed five staff standing behind the counter, doing, as far as I could tell, almost nothing.

Much of the excess manpower is put to use providing security. It is often difficult to tell the level of officiality of a security guard; supermarkets and department stores have dozens of security guards in military garb. Sometimes it's hard to tell what exactly is being guarded. Real police can be identified with careful inspection; I don't think their uniforms are uniform.

Security personnel often appear very young. In most banks there are 16 year old boys, maybe 5'7'' and 120 lbs, wearing body armour and over-sized plastic helmets, and carrying clubs (sometimes with moderately spikey ends). They are distinctly un-intimidating, and I'm actually somewhat concerned about their safety in the event of a physical altercation.

The city generally feels very safe. The almost complete lack of credit card acceptance necessitates carrying of large amounts of cash. The largest bill we use is 100 Yuan, about $16, so we need lots of them. It's occasionally necessary to count and organize moderate wads of cash in public, something I took greater pains to avoid in Eastern Europe. Cab drivers and store employees also carry big wads of cash, usually held together by binder clips.

We enjoyed going though security at the National Museum of China. I had three bottles of juice/water, and the guard made me drink from each one. Andrew had chapstick, and he was told to apply it. Good thing we didn't bring toothpaste or we could have really held things up. Then we were patted down by the "Anti Explosion Security Force" (written in block letters on their backs).

Every subway station has a cursory (but well staffed) security check. You put your bag through an x-ray scanner, but the attendants never seem very interested. I'm about 85% sure we once went through a misplaced security checkpoint, that was in between two unsecured areas, and could be circumvented just by walking along the other side of the hallway. A make-work project?

Andrew reports from Beijing

went to the great wall today with my friend mora. I had no idea how touristy it was going to be. It was a bit like a theme park with crowds of people all up and down the wall. there were gwylos, (white ghosts), with rice hats and chinese with cowboy hats and these fancy hats with solar powered fans embedded in the rim. There was even a roller coaster/train you could take from the highest point that let you off in what I would describe as a "lunch trap" since it let you off in a square surrounded by food vendors who employ more people as "recuiters"/advertisers than people in the restaurant. And if the wall didnt do it for you there's some sort of game park/zoo thing you have to drive past on the way out . Cameron, Mora and I didn't take the train, we are however, planning on going to "California beef noodle house USA" very soon since we've now come across this place a few times.

Touristy stuff aside.you will be happy to know that Cam and I are now officially real men and potentially heros, (translation pending). we came across a sign that told us that you can only be "a true hero and a man" if you had your picture taken on top of a rocky outcropping. So naturally we waited in line 20mins and became real men.

on another note, pretty much every news establishment is blocked here so we're relying on "China Daily USA Version". Here are some articles I had the pleasure of reading today: "china plans escalator recall system", "wild boars invade farm, attack pets" and, my personal favourite, "profit incentive does not provide for beautiful architecture". I feel like we might be missing some stuff. On the other hand "odd style of ministry job ad raises doubts" is something you guys are missing out on.

All the best,

Andrew