Married? Yes, Married!

We can't wait to share more details with you all when we return.

Itin Update - NEWARK NJ???

Back in the USSR, I mean USA. We are on a 9 hour layover in NEWARK between India and Peru and we are LOVIN' it. And I might be copying the McD's commercial since I have had my first McD's sausage biscuit in at least 7 months, probably longer. Oh, I missed it so.

So, we just posted 3 Mongolia posts and we have a couple of more, but I think I have to get off now to catch our flight. About 10 days ok, we posted a bunch of Russia posts from Olkhon Island and Irkutsk.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – 09/24 (afternoon)

(Michelle) After a hardy lunch of mystery tough meat with thick fat noodles and potatoes (which other than the hardness of the meat was actually pretty tasty), we went on a horseback ride with our non English speaking horsemen of the house. Actually, we never heard him speak Mongolian either, he was a man of few words, but he did speak quite well to the horses – “chew”. I don’t know what “chew” means, but whenever the horseman said it, the horse did what he wanted. TJ tried to use this tactic as well, but he must have been off a little on the intonation at first, because the horse didn’t listen to him. This was especially frustrating for TJ when his horse wouldn’t stop walking right behind mine and mine had gas.

Towards the end of the horse ride, my horse had enough and decided to stop for a water break at the “ger hotel” behind the rock from our place. I don’t know if that water was supposed to be drinking water for people or not, but nobody saw my horse dip his nose in it. Ooops. I couldn’t get my horse to go anywhere, so finally Mongolian horseman came back with his “chews” and we finally made it back to camp. TJ tried to speed up the process by scaring the horse, nearly killing me in the process. This was not appreciated by me or the horseman.

That night, we wrapped ourselves up for the cold sleep in the tent. We had the fire for when we went to sleep, but there was no fire by morning and thus, it got a bit chilly in there, although not as cold as I had feered. We were sharing the ger with Richard from England. We would run into Richard 2 more times in China.

(TJ) Let me just say I don’t think the horses we got were the pick of the litter. They pretty much just followed the horse that was in front of them regardless of what the other horse was doing. The ride only really got fun when I figured out that I could use part of my reins as whip along with the “CHU… CHU” to get my horse moving. So the second half of the ride was much better, Michelle however never really seemed to master her beast. They were constantly wandering off in different directions.

We decided to head back the next day since there was not a lot of stuff to do other than chase horses, look at scenery and freeze, especially if you don’t have long underwear like me.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – 09/24 (morning)

(Michelle) Today we left for a 1 night, 2 day excursion to Terelj National Park, which is about an hour outside of Ulaanbaatar. We were to spend the night on the land of a “typical” Mongolian family in a “Ger” which is a typical Mongolian Nomadic Tent. Historically, Mongolia has been a country of nomads, and even today, 43% of the population is still considered nomadic.

Terelj Park is one of the most beautiful and unusual parks I’ve ever been to. My pictures will of course not do it any justice at all. Part of what is so unusual about the park is the eerie silence and feeling of grand spaces. The rock formations are really cool and the horses and cows made it feel more alive. TJ had a good time chasing horses through the wide open spaces.

(picture notes, us taking a hike, our ger is the one in the middle of the picture, TJ getting ready to sneak up on a horse)

(TJ) Surprisingly I never could quite catch up with the wild horses, I must be getting slow in my old age. Part of the traditional Nomadic way is also freezing your butt off and not having much else to do except stare at the scenery and think of how you’re going to catch a horse or drink fermented horses milk.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – 09/23

(Michelle) It was about 25 hours to get to Ulaanbaatar from Irkutsk (including that heinous border crossing), so we arrived at about 8am. Our hostel had sent a person to pick people up from the train, so it was easy enough to get there. We are sharing a room here with the Finnish girls, so that worked out well.

We went to the Gandantegchinlen (Gandan) Khiid, which is Mongolia’s largest and most important monestary. Built 1838, it managed to survive the communist purge during the 1930s where over 900 monasteries were destroyed (this one was spared to house Russian officials and their horses). In 1990 after the democratic revolution, they began restoring this monastery. We’ve been in quite a few Buddhist temples, but this is the only one I have seen where there are some many things to touch and spin. It also has a 26 meter tall Buddha (a little over 85 feet), which is pretty cool (you can’t take photos of the big Buddha).

On our walk home, we saw a billboard that made us stop in our tracks. Mongolia doesn’t have traditional American chain food restaurants like McDonalds and Subway, but this billboard was for a restaurant that TJ and I used to eat at in Chicago all the time: BD’s Mongolian BBQ (like Khan’s Mongolian BBQ in Minneapolis, Khan’s is actually better). We thought it was so hilarious that the only American restaurant here was an American version of Mongolian food, we had to eat there. It was very busy, so it must be quite popular here.

(correction – later on we saw one other American restaurant which was also a surprising choice – “the Red Tomato”, we know of one in Chicago with the same logo, but we weren’t aware that this was some chain restaurant that would make it all the way to Mongolia).

(TJ) The Buddhist temple would have been a great place to take 3 year old to spin all of the shiny prayer wheels. Yes BD’s was good, also they had a bar below called the Detroit-All American Sports bar. I thought it looked a little to upscale to have the name Detroit mentioned anywhere near it.

Itin Update - The South of India

We are currently in Pondicherry, India. Leaving tonight for Madurai to check out a temple there and then on to the backwaters of Kerala. We will finish our India trip in Goa next week.

I have just posted Irkutsk and Olkhon Ilsand Russia entries. I can't remember how many (7 or 8), but they go down until the last Itin Update for the Taj Mahal. I think the date in the title was 09/15.

Irkutsk, Russia-Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – 09/22 The Trans-Mongolian Train

(Michelle) So we are on the train again. When we tried to buy tickets in Platzkartny (3^rd class) there were none available, so we had to take Kupe (2^nd class). We also couldn’t get the same room as Bill and Liz, but we were in two rooms right next to each other. We are sharing our room with 2 Finnish Girls. This car, unlike the experience we had when we started the train trip, is completely filled with tourists. We had a great time though, because everyone was from different places and it was a good group of people. The Hungarians we saw camping on Olkhon Island were in our car as well. Pretty soon our Kupe (room) became the hangout for us, the Finnish girls, Bill and Liz and the Hungarians Circus Performers.

We are leaving the Buryat area – goodbye to the cool cemeteries with the blue fences and the prayer posts with ribbons. The scenery during the ride past Ulan Ude Russia until the Mongolian border was definitely the best scenery on this ride: Beautiful valleys, hills, trees, water, animals and sunlight. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much for pictures because the train windows were so dirty and they wouldn’t let us open them in this car.

(Picture notes, Bill and Liz filling out the immigration forms, the Finnish Girls we shared the Kupe with, and the one picture I have of the scenery – it doesn’t even come close to doing it justice).

The border crossing into Mongolia was one of the worst we’ve had yet. We had one break where we could get off the train, and then they took our passports. Once they took our passports, we had to stay on the train, but of course since we were at a station, the bathrooms were locked. The dumbasses that we our, we kept drinking beer like it was no thing. Five hours later, the pain… everyone was in a lot of pain with the bathroom wait (we’d only had a couple beers, but I’m sure part of it was a mind thing where you know you can’t go to the bathroom so you of course need to go so much more than you would have otherwise) . If that disease from Seinfeld – Uromysitsis – when you have to hold it for too long were truly a disease, we would all have it after that. Good Times.

(TJ) I can only remember the pain of having to use the bathroom and suspecting the carriage attendants were secretly laughing at all of us on the inside.

Irkutsk, Russia – 09/21

(Michelle) Back in Irkusk, TJ went around to check out some Decembrist houses, while I did a little shopping and organized some photos.

That night, Bill and Liz arrived back at the hostel and they brought with them Peter and Kate, the Czech couple who helped to translate for us on our second tour on Olkhon Island. Not that I could probably rank the best days/nights we’ve had on our trip, but this was definitely one of my favorite nights. The 6 of us sat in the kitchen for hours telling stories from our childhood in US, Australia and the Czech Republic. Peter is currently a journalist that works for the Czech version of Public Radio and he is stationed in Moscow (he just interviewed Gorbachev 3 weeks ago… wow!), so he has tons of hilarious Russian stories as well. I will recap a few, although they will be nowhere near as funny as when we were talking about them then.

Kate and Peter told us how of course as children in Eastern Europe, they had to learn Russian and they were taught about how great and perfect life was in Russia. Then one time, some friends of Kate’s family visited from Russia. She remembered thinking about how they brought the family really strange gifts (junk) and she wondered to her parents why the friends were buying so much bread to take home with them.

Peter said that in Moscow he gets the shake down by the cops quite a bit. He has been asked for his passport 8 times. Since he speaks fluent Russian, he finally asked the 8^th cop, “Is there something wrong with me? What about me made you want to ask me for my passport?” The cops reply was “Because you have a criminal face”. I know, it doesn’t sound so funny written down, but they way Peter told the stories, I was almost in tears I was laughing so hard.

The six of us shared the 6 person dorm that night, which was funny because we are all pretty much the same age, but we had laughed so hard that night that by the time we got into our bunks in the room, it felt like we were 8 year old children on a sleepover at camp. We didn’t want to go to bed, but Bill, Liz, TJ and I have to leave for our train at 4:30 in the morning (and it was already about 1am when we went to bed).

(TJ) In addition to being a great band, the Decembrists were a movement of young nobles in Russian (in the 1850’s or 1860’s) that was pushing for reform in Russia. They wanted such absurd things as a parliament, land reform and serf reforms. Needless to say the Czar crushed this movement and instead of executing the perpetrators (they were nobles after all) he exiled them off to Irkutsk. Anyway so these nobles from St. Petersburg ended up building some really nice houses now know as the “Decembrists houses”. They are really cool looking places especially the ones that have been renovated. Basically they are two story log cabin structures that have been mixed with Victorian style gingerbread features.

Another thing that we all were laughing about that night at the hostel was how we all knew a similar story about the nucleur football from being children of the 80s- The Czech, Australian, American version were all surprisingly similar. The opposing president or premier goes everywhere with a man who carries a briefcase that is chained to his wrist. Inside the suitcase is a red button, all the president or premier has to do is push that button and the world is over. We all also had a similar stories on how there was a military base or radar station by our house and if it came to Nuclear war that was going to be one of the first targets hit. Yeah sounds really funny but it was it was good time.

It was also very interesting to here Peter talk about the missile defense shield that “W” wants to have put up to deter nukes from what he says is “Iran”. If any of you have been following this current event- Russia is pissed because it sees the shield as against them, which they may be right about. Anyway Russian and the US have been going back and fourth on ways to get past their differences on it. Since part of the system will be based in the Czech Republic, Peter has been following the story closely. Last summer, as a means to stall the process, Putin suggested having part of the control system based in Russia saying that they already had the state of the art technology at an airbase to support the system. Peter had to go to this old airbase to check out the supposedly modern equipment. He said they took a tour of this dingy airbase and the computer looked strait out of the 60’s and the guy leading the tour fed them total BS. Peter and the other reports said they started asking questions and the General who led them on the tour kept the line that they could track missiles, do this do that etc., etc. After saying all of this he then says to them off the record that there is “no way in hell this will ever work from here”. I asked him if he published what the General said off the record and he said hell yes. I guess that guy is not a general anymore.

Olkhon Island on Lake Baikal - Irkutsk, Russia – 09/20

(Michelle) We left Olkhon Island this morning to head back to Irkutsk. It was a relatively uneventful ride with no stops taken except one. We did stop at a shaman prayer spot and the driver left some money and a cigarette as an offering. Yes, the spirits appreciate a good smoke. We heard it was also common to tie a ribbon that has been drenched in vodka around one of the wooden posts.

The guy from admiral hostel knew that we would return to Irkutsk while he was still on Olkhon Island with his private tour, so he had us just keep our key to the apartment the whole time. Liz and Bill were returning the day after us and we told admiral man that we would let them in.

That night, we ate at a Subway in Irkutsk. As I mentioned, in Moscow or St. Petersburg you would never find someone working in public service who could speak English. In Irkutsk, not only did we get to buy our train tickets in English, we also got to order our Subway in English. A sandwich artist in his late teens or early 20s hesitated a moment and then asked us in English if he could help us. It was so cute. He told us we were the first customers he’s spoken to in English. He asked us like 5 times how our sandwiches were, but the best thing he asked us was if we had ever heard of Subway before. That is funny.

(TJ) Yes it was cute.

Olkhon Island on Lake Baikal, Russia – 09/19 Evening

(Michelle) After we returned from our day trip we saw our friends Bill and Liz in the main town, but there really isn’t anywhere to meet up in town to hang out later, so we didn’t really spend any time with them there. There didn’t seem like there were any bars or restaurants at all. Everyone who visits eats at their guesthouse. We did see one place that looks like it is a bar in the summer, but it was already closed for the winter.

I walked around at dusk to take some more pictures. This thought occurred to me as some cows walked past my window.

That night, we were joined in our guesthouse dining room by the 2 people in the private tour, they were an older French couple. They were very nice and pretty funny. The guy made TJ do vodka shots with him.

(TJ) Yes there are not a whole lot of restaurants and bars yet, I guarantee that will change .

It was nice to meet some other people once the French couple got there, despite some small language barriers, after being in isolation for a couple of days. The husband spoke perfect English (also pretty good Russian) but his wife was German teacher with no English so it was there was at times some delays in the conversation due to translation. As I remember it his wife was a little taken back as to how rough it was as in no showers, outhouses and fishhead soup. Her husband I think was more than ready for this since he had been doing in Russian for more than 20 years. It was also good that he had brought some vodka with him and was kind enough to share it with us so we did multiple shots to fight the cold before heading off for bed.

Olkhon Island on Lake Baikal, Russia – 09/19 Day

(Michelle) On our second day, we want on a tour to the Eastern side of the island (yesterday was the northern parts). The northern part had a lot more open (treeless) areas, whereas the eastern part is more wooded. We took a group tour this time from Nikita’s guest house, which was alright but the guides didn’t speak any English so we didn’t really know what was going on when the bus stopped and people got out wondering around on their own in the woods. Fortunately, there was a nice Czech guy who spoke Russian and English and he finally told us that we were just supposed to walk down a path to the water, walk around on our own and then be back in like 3 hours. Ok. We walked down to the water, and it was quite pretty there. We met some Hungarians who were camping there on the water (we would later see them on the train to Mongolia). It was pretty cold though and we were not really sure what to do with ourselves at the water front, so we decided to head back to the bus early so we could have the 30 minute walk in the woods by ourselves (without the others from the group). This was a really pretty walk with all the leaves changing and they were falling off the branches slowly as we walked through them, creating an effect like it was snowing yellow, red and green. It was so quiet that TJ and I heard bird sounds we’ve never heard before.

When we got back to the van, we were greeted with a campfire and another lunch of “fish head soup”. Fortunately, our hostel owner from Irkutsk showed up with 2 people he was doing a private tour with that morning and he arranged for our guesthouse to send with us a packed lunch. So we ate our lunch in the woods with a campfire, which was kind of cool because it was like we were camping but with no work.

(TJ) No real comment other than it was my idea to take the photo above since I noticed that Michelle’s rain jacket matched the leaves despite my color blindness. Don’t let her tell you differently this was my idea and I took the photo.

Olkhon Island on Lake Baikal, Russia – 09/18 The Guesthouse

(Michelle) So, I described the dining situation on the first night, and now I will tell you a bit more about the place we stayed at on Olkhon island. We had a nice big room with a picnic table, two lazy boy chairs and a bed (see photo of TJ sitting on a lazy boy enjoying his Baltika 7 beer). It was not winter yet, but it was plenty cool. I was wearing long underwear under my clothes plus about 3 layers on top. Our room was heated by a wood burning fireplace which meant it was blazing hot at night and freezing cold in the morning.

Toilet – well, it is the old fashioned outhouse and it is not right outside the door either – it is out in the garden. I have gone in some outhouses before, but these were the “freshest” I have ever been in (read fresh as rank). It was also a cold dark trek out there at night, so I will admit that I may have peed in a plastic cup in the room one night when TJ was too tired to walk me to the outhouse. For washing hands and brushing teeth, they had a system set up outside with a “sink” and a bottle of water hanging above it so you could create running water.

Now, the banya – this is the best part. This is how you bathe here in the land where there is no running water (although according to Lonely Planet, group banya’s are quite common throughout Russia). It is really just a sauna, but the ritual is supposed to entail beating each other with a venik (a tied bundle of birch branches) pouring cold water all over yourself and then going into the hot sauna, while drinking tea or beer. We tried the venik thing, but we didn’t feel we were beating each other properly, so we stuck to the cold water, hot steam and beer part of the ritual. This is not so dissimilar really to something we used to do at the RCI when I was in high school, where we sometimes dared each other to leave the hot tub at the hotel to go jump in a snow bank outside.

The photo to the right is the front view of the guesthouse. Our room was the window on the right, next to the green gate.

(TJ) Nuff Said.