Try This Tape

ARKHANGAI AIMAG, Mongolia – Battir and I have different tastes in music. He prefers saccharine love songs with milquetoast melodies belted out by Ulaanbaatar's latest pre-fab teen sensation. I prefer, well, not that.

Since Battir is the only person who can drive, navigate and repair our aging Soviet van out here on the steppes, we've been listening to mostly soft rock and power ballads on the trip. As there's no radio stations out of the capital area and no one here possesses an angelic voice, we would be hearing these cloying tunes over and over again, if I hadn't remembered to pack a small piece of plastic. This $10 accessory from Sony is an over-looked but essential bit of equipment for anyone planning on a long overland journey in a third world country.

I'm talking about a car tape adapter, a piece of plastic that resembles a cassette tape with a long cord strung off the end. These devices were popular in the 90's, when they allowed drivers to listen to CD players in older cars. Now most American cars come with CD players standard, and these devices have little use.

Not in Mongolia. On the first day of trip, one hour after leaving the UB Guesthouse, Battir slid a tape into the antique van's antique system. We heard a Mongolian love song, with a Celine Dion tempo and a gently played Casio keyboard. Another song came on, indistinguishable from the first, and another and another. Then, after the fifth song, I heard a familiar drum pattern, then a few keyboard chords I'd heard before. And the singer didn't sound like a copy of the one earlier in the tape, she was a clone. It took nearly 30 seconds - 25 more than it should have - for me to piece together what was going on: the tape had started over.

As we drove through champagne colored fields splattered with a thin patch of crusty snow, the tape looped and looped. Out of courtesy, I said nothing. I concentrated on the alien scenery, counted the stray sheep and tried to remember every state capital. Anything to drown out the muzak.

By lunch on the second day, I stopped being polite. I rummaged through my internal frame pack until I found the cassette adapter and marched over to Battir. Now, it took me some to do this. Battir is an imposing figure, a gigantic six-foot five inches with a rotund belly. At age 26, he is still growing. He easily consumes twice as many buuzat dinner as any other member of the crew, and on some nights approaches our combined food intake. Battir wrestled as a teenager, and competed in the national championships during the Nadaam Festival, Mongolia's most important holiday. He's massive man, someone who in America would be a bouncer at a gentleman's club.

Thankfully, I've learned this guy is a big softy. My first was the music - a Mongolian alpha-male listens strictly to gangsta-rap. Then there's the smile. It's hard to be afraid of someone, no matter how big he is, when he wears a goofy grin from cheek to cheek. Battir's is constant. Whether unloading hundreds of pounds of luggage from the van or checking the oil, he never stops smiling.

Confident the man wouldn't try any wrestling moves, I gave Battir the tape and pointed to the player. "Put this in there," I said, even though Battir doesn't speak a word of English. And with a smile, he did just that.

Half a second later, the booming bass of Basement Jaxx's "Where's Your Head At?" came on the stereo. It's been a long time since I've heard Western music outside of my teeny iPod earbuds, and it sounded great. All that afternoon, the car worked through a lengthy playlist of hit songs. We sang along to R.E.M., U2, Nelly, Jay-Z and Eminem. It was wonderful, even if I did sing slightly off-key.

Something Old, Something Digital

TERKHIIN TSAGAAN NUUR, Mongolia – From the outside, the ger where the resident family lives and the one where I'm staying are identical except for a small detail: the family's ger has a satellite dish. That's right: the canvas tent next to mine has a satellite dish. Not the tiny kind that people in the Bronx string on a fire escape or rooftop, but a six-foot model that's wider than the door. Here I am 400 miles from the nearest city, in the middle of a mountain range, staying in a collapsible home, but my hosts get more channels than I do in the States.

Oh, I know I shouldn't be shocked that there is television on the steppes. The Indo-American author Pico Iyer traveled around the region 20 years ago and reported back about "Video Night in Kathmandu." In the rather ponderous final product, Iyer argued that people around the world, no matter how from "civilization" they may appear to live, are being drawn into our globalized world.

Good for them. Too often, Westerners come to places such as the Great White Lake, and expect to find indigenous people living exactly the way their ancestors did 1,500 years ago. Meanwhile, these same people have an iPhone on order to be delivered as soon as they are available in New York. I despise "native" rituals, so common in China, hate "sacred dances" and "traditional rites" performed three times a day for tourists.

Mongolia is refreshingly different. I won't say the place is "authentic," rather the Mongolians approach to tourism, at least on this trip, is just more laid-back. Once we left the capital, there have been no stops at souvenir stands, no detours to cheaply restored cultural relics with steep admission fees. People here don't apologize for their lives.

At our first ger, Battir's family extended extraordinary hospitality, but made no attempts to hide away the trappings of twenty-first century life. Some of the family wore the traditional Mongolian herder's outfit, the del, while the teenagers strolled around in jeans and knock-off sweatshirts. In one corner of the ger hung a series of family portraits taken during a visit to Ulaanbaatar's Sukhbaatar Square. At night, we listened to the radio.

Here at the Great White Lake, we arrive just before dark and immediately are shown the same kindness. Inside the family's ger, we down buuz and buuz in soup and take the obligatory shots of vodka. The oldest man in the house starts asking questions through Bobby, our guide. Where are we from? Are we students? How is Mongolia?

We talk until nine, when Bobby takes to our sleeping quarters. Rather than bunking next to the fire, this night we sleep in a ger specially for tourists, one with five beds and no wall of photos. The arrangement here is more a business proposition than the one we found on our first night, as this family relies on tourism for their income.

The next day, we wake up to plates of stale bread and a young girl warming the embers of the fire, making it safe to crawl out of our sleeping bags. As we wait for the adults to rally, the girl shows us a game. She takes out a worn bag of shagai, or sheep ankle bones, and shows us how to play shagai dice. The bone pieces, which are about two inches long and an inch wide with a S-shaped curve, are thrown in pieces. Each side is an animal: camel, horse, goat or sheep. Players take turns rolling the dice, moving a set number of places based on the animals thrown (horse is great, camels stink), until someone "wins" the race.

Cing is smitten with the game, and after Bobby arrives she has Bobby ask the girl the price of a set. The girl is visibly puzzled: She clearly brought out the dice as a way of making friends with the guests, not making a sale. After a lengthy discussion, she finally accepts 5,000 turgug, or $4.50.

Her mother arrives shortly afterward, and then there is a subtle shift in her behavior. They stop being just hospitable and start offering "service." The mother wants to know if we would like to try on dels and go horseback riding to the lake. I shoot Caleb a look and at the same time I see Myriam glancing a Cing: we all realize this is ridiculous, but don't want to offend the host family. They believe that we came to Mongolia and expect a bit of a show. So, as a courtesy we accept the mother's offer, and soon her husband appears with a large trunk. Inside are a few crisply folded del. A del resembles a one piece, knee-high dress made with thick cotton. As with all things Mongolian, it is extremely functional: the open legs allow a rider to comfortably be in the saddle all day while insulation protects against the wind. The four tourists are each handed a piece in his or her own size. Myriam and Cing both wiggle into plum-colored garments, Caleb's is maroon with a repeating gold circular pattern, and mine a dull shade of gray. Our hosts tie colorful belts to complete the ensembles.

We are then paraded outside, where our noble steeds await. A young man, perhaps 10 or 11, helps Caleb, Cing and I mount (Myriam, of course, needs no assistance). Our handler arranges us in a line, and then requests our cameras. Then, with the young guide and his even smaller brother in the lead, we are sent in the direction of the lake, three kilometers distant.

On the way, with my horse frequently running off-course, I have plenty of time to ponder the family. They brought out a bit of kitsch - dressing us up in colorful costumes and taking snapshots to send home to Mom and Dad - but they didn't put on a mask in their dealings with us. There is no pretension that these people are herders who live off the land and spend their evenings reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead by candlelight. They're in the tourist industry, making three dollars a night for hosting and feeding a foreigner, and an additional two dollars for every hour someone rides a horse. It's not much, but with few expenses, it means enough for something special from time to time.

Here's my only question: When the yuppies in the Patagonia jackets arrive, do they hide the satellite dish?

Myriam Takes the Reins

TERKHIIN TSAGAAN NUUR, Mongolia – I summoned my inner cowboy, felt the noise build from deep in my gullet, and then bellowed so loudly that the sides of the frost-lined mountains echoed.

"CHU!" I said, but nothing happened.

My diminutive transport continued to munch on brown tufts of grass, ignoring my command to go. I tried again, this time with a gentle voice.

"Chu." And again and again. "Chu, chu, chu."

The obstinate equine would not budge. He could somehow sense the novice rider (and poor speaker of Mongolian) in the saddle. Then a knight in a reindeer coat galloped up beside us, and barked the order with such gravitas that the horse had no choice but to trot. Myriam, once again, showed why she is the group's naturalist.

I profile Myriam at great risk, because she is one of the most mercurial personalities I have ever met. Her vivacious enthusiasm hides a complex person, someone who can't be pinned down. I'm sure the Myriam I know is quite different from the Myriam I would have met off the steppes.

So, I start with the irrefutable. Myriam is German, her nationality clear from the first word out of her mouth. Her cadences are a bit abnormal, drawing out "o" and "u" sounds for an extra beat. Her natural tendency is to reach for the longer cognate, using compound words that are seldom found outside of English academic literature. She sometimes says "jaa."

Her hometown is a small village in Southern Germany. Her parents run a biodynamic farm. I've never heard the term before, but apparently they raise livestock and vegetables using organic methods and renewable energy. Here Myriam learned how to ride a horse. She adores animals, and pets anything in sight with fur or feathers.

Despite their reputation for punctuality, Germans dawdle through school. She spent most of her childhood in a Steiner School (sometimes called a "Waldorf Education"), where pupils don't use standardized textbooks, they create their own illustrated guides to the material. Significant amounts of time were spent being creative, with many art and music lessons. Rote learning and grades were minimized, although when they were introduced, she did well. Myriam graduated from high school at the age of 19, and will take between four and six years to earn her bachelors. In between she is taking two Gap years, to break up the long stays in academia.

She wanted to do a long-term volunteer project, so when she heard about a Swiss-Russian charity that sponsored a village for mentally and physical handicapped Russians, she pledged a year of her life. Incredibly, Myriam spoke no Russian. She boarded a plane for Irkutsk, 5,000 miles away, without knowing a word of the language. On arrival, a man drove her 60 miles to her new work site. There is no Internet, no cable television, just a few buildings, a barn and some animals. She works alongside a few Russian staff members, and one other volunteer, who is Swiss.

Two months after she arrived, Myriam felt ill. Her stomach hurt so badly that the village van took her to a hospital in Irkutsk. The doctors determined she had appendicitis, and removed the vestigial organ. Maybe a surgeon did not sanitize the scalpel or a nurse had a touch of the flu, because Myriam continued to deteriorate after the surgery. She slipped into a coma, probably from an infection. Worried, the hospital staff called Myriam's parents on the farm.

At this point in the story, my mouth is open and my eyebrows are arched from worry. But Myriam continues her near-death tale in a jaunty tone, as if this was a perfectly normal string of events. "After five days I woke up," she said. "My parents, they were worried for me, jaa. But they knew if it was my time, it was my time."

After a couple weeks of recovery, Myriam resumed her unpaid position deep in the forest. She shared a stuffy room with the Swiss girl, washed dishes, planted crops, and hauled equipment. She supervised the mentally-challenged patients, some of whom were prone to fits of violence and hysteria. They have few resources and little support in this isolated village; most Russians stigmatize the mentally and physically ill. What little money comes in is mostly from selling crafts made by the residents at European craft fairs and specialty shops. Myriam works tirelessly; her respite trips to Irkutsk are weeks apart and then only for a day or two.

For the first month Myriam was essentially a deaf-mute. She could not express her desires or understand what people around her wanted. Slowly, slowly the words came. She wrote them down, made lists and practiced over and over with the residents. Soon she had phrases, then sentences. And as the months went by, she got to know the people around her along with the language. Now her Russian is at a level where she finds it easier to speak to most Mongolians in Russian rather than in the English she's learned in grade school.

Myriam finds satisfying what to most would be unbearable. She's in Mongolia on a holiday, a holiday mandated by her continued to desire to work. Russia would only issue this tireless volunteer a six-month visa, so she had to head south and wait for the embassy to slowly process a couple of pieces of paper. The current estimate is two weeks.

So she came out here to the countryside, back to open spaces and wild horses. Wearing a bell bottom-shaped coat of reindeer fur given to her by a colleague in Russia, she mounts her steed without assistance – unlike the other three riders on this particular day.

With a single "CHU!" she takes off to the south. After a few paces the olive-colored scarf with tiny croqueted roses tied around her neck takes flight, forming a train of fabric that flows backward, as she charges ahead, toward adventure.

Stinky Pile of Poo

LÜN, Mongolia — I don't need to say what's absent from a Mongolian rest stop, but I will anyway. No McDonald's, no Sbarros, no chain restaurants selling foot-long sandwiches, no refillable Big Gulp glasses that hold more than a liter of soda and cost under a dollar, no windshield wiper fluid or premium grade gasoline, no friendly Mexicans who wave as they mop the filthy floors. This is not a place for swanky service - here, a rest stop is classy if it has a bathroom.

(Disclaimer: The following post contains some frank discussion of human bodily functions. If offended, please don't continue — but keep in mind Everyone Poops.)




There's no room for the picky eater on the wide open Mongolian transportation system. On our first day, we left Ulaanbaatar in the mid-morning and were off the pavement less than half an hour later. When the sun made it to the highest point in the sky, Bobby, our de-facto guide, turned around and posed a question.

"There is a place where we can have lunch. It may not be open. Should we stop?"

Our stomaches, rattled though they may be from our van's questionable shocks, demanded nourishment. And since we had not passed an eating establishment for hours, we could not be choosy. Fortunately, the small wooden house optimistically called a café was open, and we took seats at the largest of three tables inside.

Traditional Mongolian dishes were served, or more to the point, a traditional Mongolian dish. After having the group study the menu for five minutes, Bobby emerged from the kitchen to inform us that we would be eating mutton stew with a side of rice. We stopped by on New Year's Day, and were not surprisingly the only customers. That meant freshly prepared food, and we had to wait for the stout chef to cut every hunk of meat and simmer an appropriate amount of time. Mongolian wrestling, live from Ulaanbaatar, was the only distraction on the television. I watched for several minutes as two obese men attempted to force each other out of a ring. I now understand why many top sumo wrestlers are Mongolian.

The rumbling on the set caused a rumbling in my bowels. This was a bit unusual, as I believe my intestinal track has a sixth sense and intuitively knows when I'm entering a new territory. I normally have two, sometimes three days in unfamiliar ground before I need an outhouse. Out on the steppe, I got just six hours.

Asked about a bathroom, the chef pointed out the window towards nowhere. I walked outside, expecting to pop a squat in an open field, but instead I followed the specified plane and saw a small brown shed a couple of hundred meters in the distance. On closer inspection, the structure used the same primitive log cabin design as the restaurant, except here the boards seemed thrown together rather than carefully laid out. The latrine had three sides, an open entrance which meant relieving oneself while facing The Great Outdoors, and a low ceiling. Once inside, I surprisingly smelled no odor; the waste was frozen solid.

I did my business, and then looked down into the hole. In a hole that appeared eight feet deep, there was a long, thin pile of poo reaching six feet back toward the earth. It was the refuse of thousands of protein-rich meals, all ejected in the same alignment.

I did some quick mental math: at this rate, the latrine could be overflowing before spring. And then I had a new candidate for world's worst job: knocking down a frozen pile of feces in the bottom of a cesspit. What tool would be right for the job? A hoe, maybe a spade. Maybe that wouldn't be enough to cut through the solid matter. Perhaps an ax would be needed, or pots of boiling water to soften the mound.

I should be thankful. The latrine's three walls protected my nether regions from the biting winds, and there was no chance that any fecal matter would accidentally wind up on my shoes. Mongolia isn't the most developed country in the world, but they haven't let the shit overflow — yet.

Home Sweet Ger

Near BALGAI, MONGOLIA — Preparing for bed on the steppe is a strange ritual. First I take off the clothes I wore to keep warm during the day: the fuzzy brown sweater, the two layers of long underwear, the smoky pair of Gap cargo pants. All of them are covered in sweat, sweat that will freeze in the night and lower my body temperature. I rummage through my bag for new set of clothes: another layer of long underwear, blue sleep pants, a T-shirt and a hat. I put on the sleep pants and the T-shirt, but keep the long underwear tucked under my shoulder, to hide under my pillow for later. Only then can I put on a fresh pair of wool socks and tuck myself into the Mummy sleeping bag.

Maintaining the appropriate body temperature during the night will take balance. I must weigh the heat of the fire against the icy winds of the steppe outside. It's four hours after dark and already Bobby's pocket thermometer reads -20 on a quick trip outside. Getting through the night, like everything else out here in the Mongolian countryside, requires careful planning.

Thankfully, I don't need to invent a way to survive out here. Our hosts, with decades of experience and the wisdom passed down from generations of nomads, are experts. The most important line of defense against the elements is the ger. The ger, usually called a "yurt" in English, is a specialized tent with features even the most advanced North Face structure can't match. The base of the structure is a circular lattice of wood, about four feet high. At the top of the lattice, several dozen wooden poles are angled inward so they meet in a small circle. This opening is the chimney, and it is supported by two thick beams that drop to the floor. These wooden pieces (which aren't found out here on the steppe, they come from distant forests) are wrapped around the outside in a thick layer of white canvas. In the winter, wool felt blankets are hung around the insides of the tent to keep out the howling winds.

The felt is less than an inch thick, but it's throughly windproof. On this cold night I can hear the wind howl, but it doesn't penetrate this warm space. A small iron stove is the only source of heat, and it's placed right in the center of the structure.



Our party arrived an hour after an awe-inspiring sunset with empty stomachs. Tonight, our hosts are the family of Battir, who Bobby has hired as our van driver. We've only met a day earlier, but Battir's mother, father and sister are very welcoming when we haul our still clean bags from the van. They implore us to take off our coats, and start feeding us bowls of buuz, a fatty mutton dumpling, and airag, fermented horse milk. Vodka comes out later, and we do several shots to honor our hosts.

By 9 p.m. the bottle is put away, Battir goes off to an adjoining ger where Bobby and he will spend the night. Bobby then begins to figure out sleeping arrangements. This ger, like all others, appears cylindrical from the outside, but in reality is five-sided. One side is the entrance, another contains a small armoire, and final three sides have thin mattresses that serve as chairs during the day, beds at night. Battir's mother and grandmother take one bed, Jin and Myriam squeeze on another side, while Battir's father has the smallest bed to himself. Caleb and I are placed on the floor on opposite sides of the fireplace.

Maybe it's the heavy dinner, or the excitement of beginning the journey, but I'm not tired after getting in my sleeping bag. I scan the surroundings. Grandma is already asleep. Husband and wife, sleeping in separate beds, are conducting conversation in whispers. A portable short wave radio is quietly playing an Old Mongolian folk tune. Then I return to the ger. The outside seems so plain, just a circle of off-white fabric, but inside it is colorful. A ring of hand stitched flowers has been carefully sewn and placed at eye level. The wool blankets that provide insulation are colorful scenes from nomadic life: a strutting ram, a picturesque sunset. In between one bed there are a few family photos, one of Grandma on a visit to Ulaanbaatar many years, another of a young Battir in front of his home. Opposite these is a small altar, where Buddhist prayers can be performed. Although the interior of the ger is wide open, each bit of space has been carefully compartmentalized, to ensure that all basic life functions can happen in this small space.

After the radio is turned off and the married couple stop chatting, I take stock of where I am. As the dateline suggests, I'm not entirely sure. We are somewhere "near" Balgai, a town of a few dozen, several hundred miles from anywhere. All that separates me from that nothingness is a couple of layers of felt and canvas. The mind wanders: If my heart stops, there is no defibrillator to restart it. If a piece of an old Soviet Military Satellite falls on me, there is no government official to report it. If quicksand swallows the ger whole, there is no one to pull us out. But I've already let these worries go. My eyelids are closed and in my dreams I head toward the stars.


Previously: "Welcome to Our Home"

Sun, Moon & Stars

TÔV AIMAG, Mongolia — Life happens in seconds, seconds that turn into hours and then days. Sometimes, though, a moment yanks us from the dreary tick of the clock and lifts the ordinary into the sublime. Today, incredibly, featured two such moments.

I'll start with the second. It was around 9 p.m: I stepped out of our ger with Cing, Caleb and Myriam. We told our hosts we were going for a walk, which Bobby translated into Mongolian only to receive a puzzled grin in response. Why leave the warmth of the fire, their faces said.

The night is chilly. It touches my face even though my scarf covers most of my cheeks. Caleb lights a cigarette. He quit in America, but after traveling through Russia and Mongolia, he's back to the habit. We set off in no particular direction, wandering a few steps to the west, then back toward the east before settling on the north. We stumble around for only a minute and then stop. There's no point in continuing. I look around, and in each direction there is nothing — only the faint glow coming from inside the ger. I strain my eyes in all directions, scanning 360 degrees to the limits of my near-sighted vision. I cannot see a thing — no other source of light.

For many city slickers, a formative childhood moment occurred during an early childhood vacation, staring up at the clear, dark sky. I signed up for the astronomy merit badge two years in a row at Scout Camp, so I could stay up late as a teenage counselor picked out constellations with a laser pointer. Tonight is ten times more intense. There is no faint glow of the city on the horizon, no summer cabin on the other side of the lake. This is a pre-civilization state of darkness.

The unobstructed sky is overflowing with points of light. The Milky Way rips a broad swath through the center. There must be several commercial airliners and 100 satellites high above. And I then realize then the night moves, flows like a body of water. I don't go back inside until my nose is frostbite white.

But before the stars can rise, the sun must set. Today the sunset made the van stop, even though Bobby wanted to reach the first camp by nightfall. The brilliant orange rays shone directly through the windshield. When they started to mix with deep pinks and rich shades of magenta, Cing suggested we pull over. Everyone rummaged desperately for a camera, to capture the last rays of light. In the foreground, the rolling hills of steppe went on and on until they covered the horizon. The thin, hard layer of snow sent the light bouncing off and toward our eyes.

The sun sets everyday, and the stars are always shining. But today something beautiful happened: the inevitable became incredible.

I don't post many pictures here, mainly because I believe this should be a place to practice my writing, to put my travels into words. I'm reminded of something the author Paul Theroux says in his essay collection, "Sunrise with Sea Monsters." Young Theroux explains that he doesn't carry a camera, because he's afraid the technology will make him lazy. Instead he pushes for the right words to describe the experience. At the time of the writing, Theroux wonders if he'll ever have the skills to capture a moment in Paris when a group of pigeons took flight from a spire high on Notre Dame. He'd been three years trying to find what to say, and hadn't succeeded. Maybe someday I, too, can present this post without images, but for now I think the image below helps one appreciate the awesomeness of that sunset.

A Hasty Assembly

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia — We were four, six if you count Bobby and Battir, but they do this for work and can't be counted among the adventurers. Fate brought us together, plus a common belief that costs should be kept as low as possible.

There is Cing, whose actual name might be Qing, Jin or Elida. There is Myriam, who favors a black bandanna around her neck, and finally Caleb, who knows a dozen Mongolian swear words.

The girls were expecting me. They had seen my e-mail sent from the small town near the border, indicating that I would stay through Lunar New Year and wanted to get out of the capital. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was their only hope, but their options were slim. Most people had just a day or two between trains, enough to sneak out to Terlej National Park on the outskirts of the city, ride a tame horse for 45 minutes, sleep in a ger and make it back by noon the next day. But the girls wanted more, someone with more time and up for a bigger challenge. I was their man.

Bobby, co-owner of the guesthouse, knew that she had to move quickly, so she started pushing as I filled out the hostel's registration forms.

"You said that you might be interested in going to the countryside?" she said.

I demurred. I woke up that morning before dawn, and had entered the country less than 24 hours before. I wanted a hot shower and a catnap before making any serious decisions.

"There are two women here," she continued. "They want to leave tomorrow."

She explained the itinerary. We would leave Ulaanbaatar midday, and begin the two day journey to the White Lake. The first night would be spent in a ger along the way. At the lake there would be horses, a ger family and climbing. Then we would swing through the town of Tseterleg, stopping there to refuel and then make our way to Kharkhorum, the old capital for the final night. On the fifth day, we would be back in the capital.

White Lake, Tseterleg, Kharkhorum. These places meant nothing to me. I knew Genghis Khan, Soviet Colony and yurt. That's it. I needed a nap.

Bobby pushed further. "I would come along as a free translator. These people are my friends. We stay with nice families." She promised an "authentic experience," by celebrating the second most important Mongolian holiday in a traditional way.

Then she brought out the calendar and started crunching numbers. The fee for the driver, petrol and the car would be $340. An eye-popping figure for someone of limited means, but then Bobby started dividing. Split over five days and four people, the costs would be well within the budget range. She promised two-dollar accommodation and one dollar meals during the trek.

Everything sounded fine, and I realized that I wouldn't be allowed a respite without making a yes or no decision. I was on board.

We had three, but the numbers were based on four. I found him in the hostel's small pantry, which is stocked with complimentary strawberry tea, bread and condensed milk. His name was Caleb, and he didn't seem to know what he was doing. He might come on the trip, he might stay here in Ulaanbaatar. He possibly could be leaving for China in a couple of days, or the embassy could take another week to issue his visa. He teeter-tottered, and he did it very well. But he did know the area and offered to take me out to lunch and to scout out a couple of record shops.

By the time we finished our Cuban sandwiches, the hesitation in his voice had died down. We swung back to the hostel for a credit card, and went to Mongolbank for a withdrawal. Mid-afternoon I slapped several dozen turgik bills on Bobby's desk, which made it official. In under a day, I'd be headed into the wilderness with five people I didn't know, to places I knew nothing about.

The future was wide open.

I (Not Him) Have Been Expecting You

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia — The sharp tug on my checkered sleep pants means it's time to wake up. My eyes open but nothing changes: It's pitch dark in the train cabin. Why did my bunkmate wake me up? I fumble for my glasses, and after locating them, peer out the window. The sky is still monochromatic, but I do see a smattering of white lights illuminating empty blocks. This must be Ulaanbaatar.

At the station I perform what is now routine: awkwardly gather my belongings and bang the rolling suitcase on the train as I exit. The station is long and narrow; there is only one set of tracks, and the sole platform is now full of scurrying passengers from the biggest arrival of the young day. I am conspicuous in my puffy green down jacket and internal frame pack. But I'm not the only foreigner in this crowd: I see, for the first time since Moscow, obviously Western European faces.

And where there are multiple people from developed countries in a developing one, there will be people trying to give them service. An aged man approaches me as I shuffle toward the main exit. His coat is worn at the shoulders and the hair on his uncovered head frizzles out like bolts of lightning.

"UB Guesthouse?" I ask him. He nods and I start walking in tandem.

I booked a room at this particular guesthouse on the advice of some westbound Siberian passengers. Through an online reservation service, I secured a bunk bed for the night of February 14. Fate intervened, I missed my direct bus to Ulaanbaatar and was forced to rely on a couple of beat up vans and the slow local train to make it to the city. This put me 12 hours behind my original schedule, so instead of spending Valentine's Day in a six-person bunkroom in the hostel, I was in a four-person bunkroom on wheels.

When I checked my e-mail just over the border in Sukhbaatar, I had a message with the subject line "Hi From Mongolia." It read as follows:

"Dear Johathan,

Thank you very much for your reservation through the Hostelworld.

We would like to know how would you like to come to Mongolia? By train or by air? Because we arrange a pick up service. Our charge is $10 from the airport, but free of charge from the train station. If you like, please send us your arrival information such as train and carriage number or flight number etc.,

With kind regards,
Bobby"

I responded by explaining my situation, and requesting a pickup the next morning. And here, apparently was my man. He spoke no English, but led me out the station to a vast parking lot. Taxis, vans and motorcycles were shoved into a tight space, arranged in positions that ensured more than half the cars had no chance of exit. As we made our way through the third row, a voice yelled my name.

"Jonathan? JONATHAN!" It came from a few cars over. A tall Mongolian with a western-style coat and a red beanie gestured when I turned my head. He then ran over and started berating the old man in Mongolian. "Come with me," he said, and dazed, I followed.

"That man isn't from the guesthouse," he said. "He tried to trick you. I am from UB Guesthouse." To prove it, he took a business card that showed the guesthouse logo identical to the one I saw online. The man seemed legit, and when we arrived at his late-model van, I could see a couple of white faces already inside. I let him take the rolling suitcase and toss on top of the other rucksacks.

The man who rescued me was Anbar. As we pulled out of the parking lot he explained in excited tones about how I'd almost wandered into a strange car. He grew more and more animated; I cracked a smile at my stupidity. I've been traveling on this lonely winter route for so long that I forgot about touts. With no tourists in Siberia or on the train, there's been no one to try to trick me. This encounter also happened before dawn, and I'm typically useless before noon.

So, Mongolia, you got me once. But now I've activated my anti-virus software, and I won't let anything slip through the firewall again.

Previously: "Straight Outta Ulaanbaatar"

We're Out of That

SUKHBAATAR, Mongolia — From the outside, the place is the spitting image of the bar from the "Dukes of Hazard": a wooden porch, window shutters with peeling paint and a big sign over the door. The parking lot is unpaved and full of small boulders. A weak gold light shines out from the two front windows.

But this isn't Nashville, it's Mongolia in winter. Rather than facing a room full of rednecks, I find this place deserted when I walk in the door at 7 p.m.

The restaurant is quite simple, but there has been some effort made to decorate. Pictures of the short Mongolian horses are on display along with a couple of small landscape paintings. The wall is painted salmon, and is lit up by mood lighting. The bathroom is a squatter, a porcelain hole with a hose that only produces a dribble on the side to flush it. But it is clean and the light inside works. Considering that the equivalent establishment in China would only have three walls and harsh fluorescent lighting, I'm impressed at the level sophistication.

The sole waitress leads me to a back room, a ten by ten foot cube connected to the restaurant's other small room. She brings a menu, which runs four pages and lists dishes in Mongolian, Russian and English. There are Russian specialties, including borscht and other beet dishes, several kinds of meat and even french fries. After much debating, I select a chicken and rice dish and call for the waitress, who is back at her desk, staring into space.

I point to my selection. She shakes her head. They don't have the chicken.

I slide my finger down a couple of spots to a beef stew. She shakes her head again. I'm beginning to see a pattern, so I ask the waitress what they do have in stock

"Noodles," she says, and moves her fingers around in a circle to show a bowl. "Noodles with meat."

"Anything else?"

She doesn't seem to understand the question. I go with the noodles and an order of bread, which the menu indicates comes with the meal.

Of course, beer was in stock and I ordered a bottle. I never used to drink alone. I was so against non-social drinking that I had a rule: If you're not going out, you're not having a drop of alcohol. But a glass of beer seems necessary after a long day in these far-out places, relaxing the mind and dulling the body's temperature receptors during the walk back to the hotel in the frigid outdoors. Being in the former Soviet Bloc is threatening to turn me into an alcoholic.

The waitress brings over a Tiger Beer, which is from Singapore. How the beer from this equitorially-based company made it all the way to the top of Mongolia I'm not sure, but the crisp taste is a reminder of tropical days past. It warms the body, and not just because it opens capillaries.

The food arrives all at once. It's a huge plate of noodles, thick and yellow, covering an entire oval-shaped serving plate. There are strips of mutton mixed in. Garlic and oil are the obvious seasonings, and they have been applied generously. It's good: hardy in the best sense of the word. I'm barely able to finish half the dish. I mourn the fact that the "doggy bag" probably has not yet come to Mongolia.

I also used to be intimidated by the prospect of eating alone - I certainly would never do it at an Olive Garden or TGI Friday's, or the high school cafeteria - but it's something I do now with being self-conscious. Tonight I am the sole diner, and I interact little with the waitress. Instead I fish around in my pack for Lonely Planet Mongolia, and start researching possible adventures. Eagle hunting in the Altay Mountains, camel trekking in the Gobi. It's all imagination, with no need to ruminate with a tired companion about the challenges faced during the trip here. Instead I'm able to just forget them and move onto a more smoothing place.

Eventually two Russian men interrupt the quiet and take a table on the opposite side of the tiny room. They demand menus and glasses of vodka. I demand the check. I spent 3,800 tugriks on the meal, which after struggling with a new conversion rate, I realize is about $3.50. At least the sole dish on the menu is not an expensive one.

Clusterfuck!

SUKHBAATAR, Mongolia — I love the word "clusterfuck."

It's a wonderful piece of slang, a precise word to describe the epic, swirling disasters that appear so often in the comedy of life.

My father adores the word, and uses it liberally: The mall in December. The post office on tax day. Pretty much every part of an airport. They're all clusterfucks. Coming out of my father's mouth, it's not a compliment.

Especially egregious situations - perhaps a five-mile backup on the Interstate during a rainstorm - require a modifier. In his lexicon, these are not merely clusterfucks, they are Mongolian Clusterfucks. Growing up I knew whenever the words "Mongolian Clusterfuck" were put together, it was time to shut up and give my father some room to vent: we were in a bit of mess.

Until this very moment, I never thought about why the word "Monoglian" was used to emphasize the worst type of clusterfuck. Now, after only two hours in the country, I realize that the slang-coiners were dead on this time.

I needed a train ticket to the capital city, Ulaanbaatar. The crowded van I took from the border dropped me and my rolling suitcase right in front of the gray, Social-Realist train station. I rolled into the waiting room, a box filled with two rows of decaying plastic seats and an ugly shade of lime green paint peeling off the walls. It took much of my concentration to stay awake. I'd been traveling for 12 hours, difficult ones punctuated by yelling at various customs officers and bank tellers.

I focused on the occupants of the room. They're weren't many, and the few people were huddled in the corners, guarding their bags. The faces here are sadder and thinner than the faces I had seen over the border in Buryata. These people, in their tattered clothes, with their dust-covered possessions, wear their poverty as an outer layer. Yet they also seemed stoic, as if showing that years and years of abuse and hard conditions wouldn't crush their will to go on.

A small movement broke the peace. A young staff member removed a sign that was next to one of the ticket windows; pandemonium ensued. Every person in the station went toward that window at a full sprint - mothers grabbed their kids and forced them to lunge, an old man abandoned his bag of dirty vegetables - and they formed a massive huddle. People from the outside streamed into the station, and soon a dozen became nearly a 100.

Being mostly British, I made a move toward a shape to the right of the window that somewhat resembled a line. A uniformed train employee arrived and an attempted to make the line mandatory, with little success.

It took 15 minutes to get in front of that window. I was next in line three times, but each time I went to make that final step a skinny Mongolian wiggled his way around me. The fourth time I felt someone behind me attempting the same maneuver, but I'd had enough. I threw a right elbow out and blocked the deviant. Then I turned around to discover that I'd just hit a young mother in the side of the cheek, and come within a foot of giving her young son brain damage. But after fighting through that sea of humanity, I didn't feel guilty. I bought my ticket, one first-class upper berth, and ran out of the station.

It was an awful, awful time; the worst ticket buying experience ever. This is why a really bad clusterfuck is called a Mongolian Clusterfuck.

The Exile

KYAKHTA, Russia – On the road out of Russia, I passed only a single vehicle: an aging brown tank driving on a dirt road parallel to the main highway. As my rudimentary taxi got closer, two heads popped out. They wore the Russian army uniform, had shaven heads and couldn't have been older than 19. The tank operators had to stop because their mode of transport got completely ensconced in mud. The tank moved feebly forward and backward, but as my car drove into the distance it wasn't going much of anywhere.

That tank neatly represents what I will take away from two weeks in the Russian Federation. Russia is a powerful country, one that is becoming even more powerful with surging energy commodity prices and new mineral discoveries in remote areas. It is an important actor in global geopolitics, one that can still make waves in international affairs. But I'm not sure that the person driving this heavily armored tank is qualified for the job. Instead this lumbering giant might just be piloted by a scrawny, inexperienced teenager.

I didn't see Russia; I saw Russias. On the streets of Moscow I peered in restaurants where oligarchs and their progeny snarf down $100 mayonnaise-covered salads and saw one country. I saw that place again in the Sony store, where everything costs twice the price in the United States and there were two salespeople for every customer. To dodge the cold, I wandered through the GUM Department Store. Once a few mostly-empty Communist shops, the turn-of-the-century structure has been renovated and subdivided into dozens of fancy boutiques. This is the fanciest mall I have ever been to, anywhere on the planet, and inside the shoppers were privileged, mega-spenders with $2,000 clutches and matching designer boots.

Then there is the Other Russia, the one I saw mostly on transport. It was in van taxis, long-distance buses, on the subway and that epic train ride I came elbow-to-elbow with those not doing so well. The ones with cheap Chinese T-shirts and faded designs, carrying old backpacks back and forth from a block flat in a small suburb. They live lives without flash or glamor, eating out infrequently and . Dying early from poisonous liquor and poor working conditions. Subsiding on a pension that wouldn't be adequate in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Then there are the have-somes, the Sergeis and Vasilys that are doing O.K. Things are better than 1998, when the currency collapsed and the International Monetary Fund forced economy policy down Yestlin's throat like he was in charge of Sierra Leone. Their lot's improving, but life is still a slog.

These Russias should be in open conflict, with daily protests as the poor try to institute the Orange Revolution on a massive scale and those with a stake in the current system fight back with their superior resources. Instead, people from all walks of life accept Vladimir Putin as the driver of the country. He and his cronies get to decide where to point the tank, at defiant ex-Soviet Republics and democratic elements in the West.

I personally believe that the people with grapes should take them up with the driver. Make him pass a more difficult test before renewing his license. Try someone else at the wheel for a while.

But I'm no longer in the car, I just came for a test spin. I couldn't buy Russian. For all the friendly people I met here, meals I shared and wonderful literature and art I exposed to, I could never live here. The Russian deposition is too solemn for my extroverted personality. The skies are too gray and too cold someone who loves the beach. The quality of life is shit. It's a police state, somewhere where I had to worry about being written up for small infractions by an underpaid man in uniform. Most services are corrupt, so if I got in real trouble I wouldn't know where to go.

Russia is lurching in three directions. It may explode or prosper; I'm not sure. After spending some time here, it's no longer a black spot on the map. I'll be closely monitoring how things develop here – from a safe distance.

Previously: "Do Svidaniya"

The Best of 2007

ALBANY, N.Y — Blogging every day, or the majority of days in a year, produces an incredible amount of text, a virtual avalanche of verbosity. This year I wrote 180 entries, each with about 600 words (things got longer as the year went on). After mashing on a few buttons on the Windows Calculator application, I can claim to have written 108,000 words on this Web site.

That's a lot to wade through, especially since Blogger is blocked at many places of employment. As an introduction, I've selected a dozen entries which I feel represent the best of what I've written this year and provided links and a short summary below. In the newspaper business, or at least the corner of the newspaper business I used to operate in, this would be called a "Clip 'n' Save" post. Feel free to print it out and send it to your grandmother in Arizona.


"Monika"
I meet a sharp-tounged fellow student while staying in a claustrophobic hostel.

"Standing Up to A Bear"
A Lithuanian student of politics explains why Russia is really, really scary.

"Do Svidaniya, Russia"
Sneaking out of Russia with a vanful of Mongolian sheep herders.

"Please Observe All Signs and Regulations While in the China"
A friendly police officer defends China's draconian penal code.

"Straight Outta Ulaanbaatar"
Mongolian gangsta rap brings tears to my eyes.

"Two Bombs, One Song"
I check out Qinghai's newest tourist attraction: The Nuclear Weapons Testing Bunker.

"Celvin"
A chicken-wing salesman falls in love.

"Running the Border"
The monsoon ruins a dubious plan to run the border into the closed kingdom of Bhutan.

"Bandages, Thermometers, and a Spider"
My Chinese comes in handy when a friend gets sick in a small town.

"The Ladykillers"
I'm robbed in the night and the prime suspects are Thai transvestite prostitutes.

"Man-Meat"
A Kazakh pimp wants me to "entertain" rich Beijing women.

"The Capture of Jiang Zhendong"
A criminal case in Beijing brings back memories of a tough assignment several months earlier.