ROAD TO ULAANBAATAR - By Will

The night before we entered Mongolia/Grand Final day, our Chinese guide, Michelle, told us that we should be able to start the border crossing process at 10:00am. This would mean we wouldn’t get to listen to the granny on the internet. But the company that Michelle’s company was hiring for border processing stuffed something up in the paper work [Dad: wrong day at first go, and, as Chinese Customs quickly found, wrong engine number on second set of papers albeit with the correct date of exit from China] so we ended up entering Mongolia at about 7:00pm but got to listen to the granny in the end! And we might even get to watch the replay in Ulaanbaatar (capital of Mongolia)!

So by the time we got into Mongolia the sun was setting. The plan had been to drive 250km after entering Mongolia but that wasn’t an option given the hour so we decided to stay in a hotel in the Mongolian border town of Zamyn-Uud, but we didn’t have any Mongolian money. So we drove into the town centre to find a money changer. We stopped at a large car park, that had a few shops which were full of people, that ended up being a car park to a train station. We walked around for a bit and didn’t find anywhere. But as we were walking back to the car I saw 2 men counting huge wads of Chinese money in their car. They were money changers!

Then we found a hotel, which dad thinks was also a brothel [Dad: what, Will, was the 30,000T we were quoted for? - it wasn’t for a hotel room] but I’m not so sure. For dinner and our first meal in Mongolia we had Korean.

Me and dad both found it strange and a bit uncomfortable at first being without a guide, but both enjoyed the freedom.

The next day we got up early and started driving. As soon as we got out of the town the road turned into numerous dirt tracks. But navigation wasn’t a problem because all we had to do was follow the train tracks to Ulaanbaatar. I don’t think we passed one car that day. We drove through several really small towns on the railway, passed herds of camels, cows, sheep and goats. The land was extremely flat and we only saw 2 trees on that whole day. [Dad: the dirt tracks pass both sides of the railway and at one point we needed to cross the tracks but the crossing was blocked by a gate. Will tried to open it unsuccessfully. At this point a man emerged from a ger (these circular, transportable houses with low conical roof, are everywhere in Mongolia) and opened it. A second man indicated by sign language that we were not to proceed further without entering the ger, which I was comfortable enough doing, and interested in seeing the inside of. This turned out to be a “semi-private” toll, and a “receipt” was issued, change given, hands shaken with both men, and we left on good terms… interesting! In Indon, we had, by the way, needed to deal with similar private tolls, semi-official tolls, or other variations for collecting money from passing traffic, minus the ger of course!]

That night we camped about just off the tracks [Dad: finding any sort of seclusion from a passing camel trains, or the modern equivalent if you insist, in such flat and treeless terrain is nigh on impossible but we pulled well off the tracks, and tried to hide ourselves behind a “hill“ which we convinced each other, existed!]. When we got out of the car it was really windy and really cold. We used the car as a poor wind buffer. Once we got the tent up we cooked dinner and ate it in the car…keeping a close eye on everything, making sure it didn’t blow away. [Dad: a tumbleweed rolled in as we watched, and stopped by our tent.] The tent was almost flat on one side because of the wind. When we got up in the morning, it was -2 degrees C. So we skipped brekky and started driving.

On our second day’s driving there was a lot more traffic…many trucks. We stopped for lunch on the side of one of the tracks. Several trucks passed and people in a few of them waved to us, which was good…it made us feel sort of welcome in Mongolia. We are so used to people staring at us all day, everyday. But when we drove past a small town, the people took one glance and got on with their business or don’t even look at all.

About 200ks out of Ulaanbaatar the tracks turned to one bitumen road…a good bitumen road. Driving into Ulaanbaatar we saw snow! We didn’t expect to see snow for a while so this was a surprise. It was raining that morning but didn’t snow.

During the day it’s fairly warm in Ulaanbaatar and pretty much always sunny. But it gets really cold at night. One thing that neither of us expected was traffic in Ulaanbaatar. It sounds really stupid but I didn’t expect Ulaanbaatar to be a ‘city’. I don’t know what I thought, but I didn’t think there would be bad traffic. And, for the first time since leaving Aus, there’s not a billion scooters surrounding the car every time we hit the road!

[Photos are back!: camp site; lunch by the tracks; ger at rail crossing]

100 DAYS by David

[Google/Blogger, is blocked in China so this blog has been loaded by Ros & Hamish. We are not able to view it. No photos are possible at present.]

Over 100 days, Will and I have now driven in seven countries, but still have an amazing ten to go. We have clocked up in excess of 18,000km, with over 5,000km of these in China. We have had two short flights (Will more), shipped the car twice over seas where car ferries don‘t exist but used ferries six times where they do, stayed in more ‘cold water’ (basic) hotels than we care to remember, have had too many uninspiring meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner in Indonesia, for weeks on end comprised rice and chicken, because we could see no other) but eaten wonderfully rich and varied meals in China (ever tried wild bees, fried and lightly salted?).

We have travelled in hot, sticky weather for months on end and comfortably lived in a T-shirt, or two but, at last, we have started to notice a change in the air. We have driven through mist and cloud and fog, and carefully negotiated extraordinarily atmospheric thunder storms which have flooded the roads, brought down trees and caused traffic chaos at times. We have been caught out in rain but have mainly suffered the consequential power failures in hotels, internet cafés or roadside restaurants we have used. In northern China we have driven for days on end in a hazy fug of what appears to be bad pollution - visibility even over short distances was affected, both in city and country, and the sun unseen for almost a thousand kilometres…

We have had good roads to drive on but suffered thousands of kilometres of bad roads, some head shakingly bad at times. We have hit numerous unannounced pot holes but are now well beyond feeling regret at every one (just the big ones!) Very occasionally we have seen car swallowing road collapses which we were so very thankful to have avoided. We have laughed at the very bad roads and, at first (in Thailand), expressed disbelief at our fortune with very good ones. We’ve been slowed almost to a stop innumerable times by very slow moving cars, tractors of various hues and overloaded, labouring trucks, but patiently awaited the opportunity to pass, which always comes. We’ve avoided so many farm animals but continue to be wary at their unexpected wanderings. We’ve both been quietly angered by the stupidity of unseeing drivers we have had to pull up alarmingly behind as they lunge into our road space from one side. In Chinese cities and towns we continue to be so careful as vehicles come at us from all directions. We have been amazed by the aggression of Javanese bus drivers (followed closely I might add by Chinese bus and taxi drivers). We have come to accept as normal the suicidal passing techniques of drivers in both countries. We have seen the results of crashes too many times, although considering the distance we have travelled, these have been remarkably few in total. We undoubtedly have become more careful and tolerant drivers.

We have been inspired by breathtaking mountain scenery in Flores and in Guan Lin, here in China, but have been bored for days and weeks on end by the monotony of so many of the roads and villages, particularly in Java and Sumatra that we have fleetingly driven through. We have seen many wonderful fragments of history and stayed in a number of ancient old cities, but none so extraordinary as the old town of Pingyao in the north of China. Much of this UNESCO listed town appears as it would have centuries ago, but remains lived in and vibrant - a wonderful achievement.

We have listened to innumerable hours of great and some not so great music provided by our trusty iPods but at other times have driven for long periods with no music being played and little or nothing being said, or wanting to be said. We have welcomed the routine and reassuring diesel rattle and hum of the car we have come to depend on so much, but have become super sensitive to any change in the way it sounds or feels or smells.

We have had many moments of shared laughter and the occasional tear, at least on my part. We have enjoyed, and been annoyed by each other’s company but truly, have come to trust and become very dependent on each other, more than I, and probably Will, ever considered possible before. We have come to realise that neither of us can make this uncertain journey without the other.

More than anything, however, we have been treated well by so many people in every country we have passed through. Apart from the Indonesian businessman on a ferry crossing between Bali and Java, who twice said he wanted to buy our car, the vast majority of the people we have had cause to speak to, spend time with, or to ask for assistance from, were probably poor in monetary terms but gave freely in other ways. In Indonesia we have been guided on our way by locals in cars and on motorbikes, in Malaysia we were driven to a doctor by Tan, a hotel manager, while in Timor Leste, our real fear of dropping, quite green, into a semi-war zone was displaced by the smiles and welcome provided by two young students, Akito and Oloa, sitting at our waterside concrete table, spending time talking to us, complete strangers. I have however on so many occasions wondered how these same people would be welcomed were they in our shoes, in our city and in our country…

In Indonesia we were frustrated many times by road signage, which, where it existed at all, most often looked only to the next town, and not to the large city beyond which was shown on our maps. We have found more broadly that people themselves tend not to look much beyond their local towns or villages, but we have come to realise that, for us, travelling as we are, the world is not so small but instead grand in scale and it is only the aeroplane and digital communications that make it appear otherwise. While we have used both, the scale and magnitude of our extraordinary journey remains, at times, daunting. Yet, while we still have a very long way to go, as we leave each country and enter the next, we can‘t help smiling at each other and being amazed by where we are what we are doing. Our adventure continues…

FOOD AND ACCOMMODATION GUIDE by David

Just outside Kaili in southern China is Xi Jiang, a Miao (local ethnic minority) town comprising perhaps a hundred or so mediaeval looking rustic timber houses tumbling down a hillside. It is night-time and the hillside is now alive with hundreds of pin pricks of light from the houses. While our surrounds are quiet, low down some coloured lights flash and almost western music wafts up to our ears and provide reassurance that there is still life on the street. Inside our guesthouse (perched over the valley and reached from a central car park by a labyrinth of uncertain steps and narrow paths winding this way and that up the steep hillside), bare, very basic, and cheap (AUD7 per room)), Will and I sit on low stools at a low table with members of the Miao family guesthouse owners, Michelle (our constant guide) and four labourers working nearby who seem to fit oddly in our group (or perhaps we are the oddities?). We are to eat together. Our meal, prepared by the women family members, comprises seven dishes, unexpected rice wine (which is made in the guesthouse, is milky in colour and poured from a metal kettle (!)) and of course a wooden barrel of hot, sticky rice set to one side as it is too large to fit easily on the table. For the sake of completeness and to provide a flavour (sorry) of the style of the wonderful food we are eating more broadly in China, I list the main ingredients of each dish:
Tofu, finely cut spring onion, fried pork cut small, tomato and scrambled eggs, mixed well
Beans & pork, cut small, garlic, all in its own juice
Cauliflower and tomato pieces in its own juice
Straws of smoked pork and dry tofu (unusual compared with the normal soft and damp variety)
Spinach, lightly steamed with small pieces of fried garlic
Straws of curling fried potato, with small pieces of tomato and larger cut leak leaves, and
A watery soup with large pieces of lettuce and tomato, cubed (normal) tofu, and finely cut spring onion.

While the meal (which is delicious), is the main focus, Will and I ceremoniously share cups of the wine with the head of the family, 71 year old Li Fuzhong. Later his daughter in law Zhang Xiu sings a Miao welcome song, for Will, me and Michelle (sung three times!). We are touched by this totally unexpected expression of welcome, sung to complete strangers. It is generous and genuine.
On the seemingly never ending road, Michelle continues to navigate for us, check and arrange hotel accommodation, select restaurants and order food. The restaurants range from very cheap street-side cafés with a couple of laminex topped tables and benches or small stools (costing very little at times - for instance last night’s meal of delicious white noodles in a steaming and spicy broth with quail eggs and greens, together with a couple of bottles of local Chero beer, drunk from flimsy plastic cups, cost AUD2.60 for three people), to more formal restaurants in larger cities, and with correspondingly larger prices.

Eating on the street, as we did this night here in Xi’an brings a strange (for us) reaction from locals (apart from those in the occasional tourist city, we see no other westerners) passing or eating as we were: in a small number they simply stand and stare at us as we sit and eat at our little table! They appear fascinated, particularly by Will, and we are told foreigners rarely eat as we try to do (“normal” foreigners, at least in their experience or expectation, eat in expensive restaurants or hotels, not with the locals!). On our part, we were fascinated to see the cook’s assistant standing next to a very large wok set over a fierce open flame, strip off individual noodles from a slab of dough like noodle base - the noodles quickly fly off his knife and land in the rapidly boiling wok adjacent. His arm action is not dissimilar from that of a musician very rapidly playing a violin! I stood and stared at him…

Occasionally getting a hotel to accept Will and I (we are called foreigners) is a problem and we need to try another, as all hotels in China are required to register us with the local police and on six occasions to date accommodation has been refused as the police have not given permission for us to stay at particular hotels, or the hotel staff know that they are not permitted to accept foreigner guests. The reasons for this refusal are unclear but there appears to be an element of foreigner safety being of concern. We are mystified…

Slowly and carefully, given the traffic volume in cities, road conditions (which range from excellent toll roads to the very rough and, not unusually, under repair or construction) and erratic local driving patterns we face every day, we head north. Mongolia is now four driving days from Xi’an.…

SOUTH CHINA: CELEBRATING THE COMMONPLACE by David

[Google/Blogger, is blocked in China so this blog has been loaded by Ros & Hamish. We are not able to view it. No photos are possible at present.]

And so our journey continues, now moving through southern China. We were disappointed that roadworks and rain prevented our entry into long anticipated Tiger Leaping Gorge, with only the north end being able to be reached. Them’s the breaks. Dali, Lijang and Kunming have come and gone and now we head towards Kali, and then X’ian with its ancient Silk Road history.

Two thing are very obvious from our viewpoint from the road and footpath. Firstly China remains a land of agriculture, on a micro scale, at an individual farm level, compared with home. Rice is harvested by hand scythe, and laid out in neatly tied bundles to dry in the sun. Only once have we seen a small machine assisting the harvesting. The small neatly bordered fields of rice and other crops are tilled by hand, and tended with care by what appears hoards of people (well, a dozen at a time, perhaps), hoeing and weeding and even watering by buckets, suspended from the ends of a slender carved staff carried over the shoulders. Mainly men and boys, still follow and tend individual animals and small flocks or herds as they graze by the roadside. I am reminded of Biblical times…

The other thing that is obvious to us is the equal or even dominant role that women take in physical work. On our drive to Kunming, we have seen an all woman crew backfilling a large rectangular hole in the bitumen of a freeway, small groups of women in Lijang carrying away on their backs, woven baskets full of demolition materials from a building site, and in the western outskirts of Kunming (where our budget hotel is located), we watched a woman alongside men, loading the bucket of a front end loader with heavy pieces of demolished concrete. Everywhere in rural areas we have seen women caring for crops, often in greater numbers than men. Women sweep the roads (!) here on an everyday basis. Men also but mainly women toil by the roadside reserves, planting flowers and trees in narrow median strips, with little protection from the traffic hurtling past. China seems, perhaps because of its history, to be more than egalitarian in the division of physical labour between men and women.

Physical labour itself, in China, has a very real role in daily life everywhere we have recently travelled. From women cleaning the roads and footpaths using a long brush sweep, undoubtedly made by hand, to the riders of the numerous pedal powered tricycles delivering goods and passengers or collecting roadside rubbish, to the farm and building labourers mentioned above, hard and to us wearisome human effort is to the fore. Paralleling human labour is that of animals: oxen or ponies pulling farm carts, ponies pulling rubber tired taxis in cities and pony pack “horses“ carrying anything from bricks to timber poles, all can be seen in a single day in areas we’ve driven in recently. These observations are of everyday events, not delivered especially for tourists.

To our eyes and ears there is also much irony in everyday Chinese life which undoubtedly goes unnoticed by the locals. Nearby from our restaurant’s sealed and wrapped crockery provided now with most meals, and the face masks still worn on the footpaths in surprising numbers, raw slabs of beef are hung in the street, or cuts of beef and pork as well as pigs trotters are laid out on tables in an open air market to be handled and turned over by potential customers. A few metres away I see a squawking hen casually have its throat cut and blood drained, presumably to be soon plucked and chopped up for sale nearby. Ducks, by the dozens, neatly plucked, hang by their extended necks adjacent to a dusty section of local road. On our public bus men loudly hawk and spit with alacrity. While other people take absolutely no notice I carefully look at the bus floor to see where the ‘product’ goes. On the same bus I thank a woman in Chinese (using precisely 50% of my limited Chinese vocabulary!) who has read our guide’s instructions (why am I amazed to see Michelle quickly write out these instructions in Chinese characters?) and helped us navigate our way to the ‘downtown’ area of Kunming, only to have my thanks acknowledged in English! On the same bus the next stop is announced in Chinese and English (on screen and by loud speaker), while a portion of an Italian opera (La Traviata?) is played in Italian from another speaker on the bus. The Italian is just audible above the road and engine noise of the bus. And so it goes, including an amusing incident which must be left until we travel on.

The everyday is not everyday to us. The commonplace is occasionally far removed from our previous experience. While no individual day is usually exceptional, the daily unfolding of places and people and events continues to make our journey extraordinary, in the midst of the very ordinary.

China 1 by Will

[Google/Blogspot is not available in China so this blog has been prepared and then emailed to Melbourne and loaded by Ros & Hamish. We are not able to view it.]

It was sad saying goodbye to Laos, because that’s where we left Lauren and it was a really fun place to drive through.

I thought the border crossing into China was going to be bloody hard and drawn out…but it was actually really easy and quick. The only trouble we had was finding our guide, Michelle. We were not allowed to get through the China side of the border without a guide. [Dad: the entry process including car examination and testing ended with Will & I being issued with Chinese driving licenses and the car getting a Chinese number plate!]

Michelle is 26 and lives in the city of Chengdu in central China…I think, and has some strange tastes in music [Dad: she probably thinks the Grizzly Bears are pretty strange too!] She has been really helpful. One of her roles has been ordering our food…we have been eating a huge variety of food. Two strange things we have eaten are wild bees and tree bark…both were actually pretty nice! We always have three dishes and a large bucket of rice which we share. Me and dad usually have a beer which have been very light tasting. A couple of nights ago Michelle bought some local ‘plum wine’ which tasted more like peach schnapps. The same night the owner of the restaurant insisted we taste his home made white ‘wine’ which was actually more like really strong whisky. [Dad: the same night, a local policeman in the small town of Feng Shan needed to check us against our passport photos (for registration purposes) so he visited us in our hotel room (showed his badge first - it looked pretty good to me) to see our faces! It was weird with him, Michelle, the hotel owner, Qin Ming, Will and I all gathered in the small room and us not having a clue about what they were talking about for the 20 minutes or so it took! The policeman then suggested we park our car in the secure police station grounds which we were glad to take up.]

I have found the people to be really nice, helpful and fun to be around…whenever Michelle asks for directions they are more than happy to help. We were buying posters today in a small shop, where we had a fun conversation, through Michelle, with the owners [Dad: I bought a Chairman Mao poster and another from Revolutionary days. Will liked the one of this guy with a big bushy beard - turned out to be Karl Marx!]. Yesterday the owner of a restaurant offered to wash our car.

The roads have ranged from great to pretty bloody bad (because of road works). But most of the time they have been really good. The majority of the time we have been driving in the mountains with really good views. There have been a lot of road works though.

Yesterday it got noticeably cooler in the late afternoon. We expect it will get a lot colder in a couple of weeks as we head further north. I’m really looking forward to the cold weather.

LAA KAWN PQI KAWN LAOS by David [Will promises China…]

Change is felt strongly now that we are just short of the border, and ready to enter Gone are western eating utensils, and in their place are chopsticks and (for us, eating with the locals), flat bottomed metal spoons for soups. Road signs are now in Lao and Chinese. Trucks carry Chinese characters. Chinese style conical hats are common. In Udomxai there were many more bicycles crowding the road, than in the south. Colourful sun umbrellas are now commonplace, as is the serving of very weak, leafy, green tea with meals.

As we left yet more bad roads and turned off for Luang Nam Tha (where this blog was loaded) trucks, some with Chinese markings, lined up both sides of the road, headed for Boten and the border 15km away. They carried huge tree roots. Just tree roots. I count twelve trucks by the roadside and at least eight more are parked nearby. Why tree roots? Chinese puzzle… For BSS people, Alasdair will make a special presentation to the winner…[very sorry, bad in-joke…].

This northern part of Laos is mountainous and everywhere green and lush. The green of rice paddies is intense. It rains every day, now, and the sunshine between, is strong and hot. As elsewhere we’ve been recently it is extremely humid. On the road the villages were tiny and poor. Women are engaged in food gathering crrying round woven baskets on their backs, or carry something for digging or a rake for gathering, or they sit by the roadside trying to sell an often meagre lot of vegetables. Sometimes with kids in tow. Corn seems popular, some bright orange. Seeds and grains of different colours are spread thinly on plastic sheets on the roadside, to dry in the sun, Men walk the roads carrying a machete, or scythe. Rather than a wrist watch I suppose (and around these parts, certainly more useful). Very occasionally, a man carries a rifle on his back. Farmer type we suppose. Surprisingly, in two days we have seen four snakes on the road, one vivid green.

On the way here we had a late breakfast at a truck stop. A driver finishes his meal, climbs aboard the front bumper to adjust a mirror, drives off. As usual we are little able communicate with the cook and food server but having given the nod to something, anything, we end up with a large bowl of boiled rice, another bowl piled high with meat cut in small pieces in a hot and spicy sauce, with a few slices of tomato and carrot (I asked Will if dog, he said beef), and a third of greens in a steaming broth. Delicious. Our meal has been cooked over an open fire. It blows the breakfast budget at 50,000kip for both of us (AUD7), but worth it. As we finish the cook/server hangs up dozens of thin strings of marinated meat on wooden skewers, for drying and smoking over her fire. We guess that what we have just eaten was the result of much the same process. Nearby us is a TV with a bedroom off. We have just eaten in the family’s living room and open kitchen.

As we wait to enter, the past ten days or so seems to have gone slowly, but perhaps this reflects the pace of life in this beautiful country, we have quickly brushed past. We have, as elsewhere, generally been treated well by those we’ve had contact with. The country has clearly however many needs, and its people likewise.

Laa kawn pqi kawn (goodbye) Laos, we have enjoyed our brief stay in your green and beautiful land, I hope, one day, to return.

[Photos: roadside truck stop kitchen and open fire; tree roots on a truck bound for China; market stalls; thatch houses? by the roadside]