Paharganj - Delhi, India

The pictures in the last post were all taken from a car because I hadn't quite mustered up the courage to walk around with my camera. Once I flexed my shutter muscles, Rick and I took to the alleys for an intimate look at Paharganj. Notice the lack of women in the photos.

Get excited for the next post which will feature Agra + The Taj Mahal !

We are off to Varanasi tomorrow for a week where internet may be a pipe dream so posts may be delayed.

First Impressions | Delhi, India

After feeling a bit stagnant in Ulaanbaatar, we were ready to get moving again. Mongolian immigration however, felt they hadn't sucked us dry yet. We were pulled aside at immigration because we didn't have a registration stamp in our passports. Not this registration crap again! Our diligence in Russia over our visa registration yielded nothing. They wouldn't even take our registration and now we were in Mongolia, where American citizens don't even need a visa, yet we were being fined for not registering. WHAT? They hand us a piece of paper that says if we were planning to stay in Mongolia for over 30 days, we had to register at the immigration within 7 days of entering the country. Mongolia allows for a 90 day stay for Americans, so we had no idea. This paper is conveniently not given to you when you enter the country, so we had no idea. But just like any good corruption scheme, they write down a number that is just pulled out of thin air and we find ourselves at an ATM taking out what equates to about $125 each. So then we get our registration stamp so we can get our stamp to exit Mongolia. We just paid $125 for a stamp so that we could get another stamp. Makes perfect sense. By this time, we are more than ready to get on a plane. We arrive in Delhi around 2am and had arranged for a driver to pick us up. It's probably good that we arrived at such an odd hour so that we weren't thrown into the madness of Delhi traffic. Save that for tomorrow. We get to our hostel around 3am. The area we are staying in— Paharganj, is known as "backpacker ghetto" and lives up to the name. We are too tired to think too much about it and we check into our room which does not live up to expectations but is livable given the $17/night price. At least the AC works. Phew.

The next day, we venture out. So we left Mongolia which is the least densely populated country in the world to one of the most densely populated countries in the world and somehow we thought this was a good idea. Stepping onto the main road the first time is overwhelming. A complete assault on the senses. I can only concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other without getting hit or run over by a car, tuk-tuk, bicycle, or other various modes of transportation. The haggling is exhausting and the 90+ degree heat isn't helping. After day 1 I become more acclimated to the surroundings.

The madness is still madness, but I am less overwhelmed.

A cow over there, a stray dog over there, men peeing over there, the usual.One thing to note is the male to female population disparity. It is palpable. It feels like a country of men. Groups of men. It can be intimidating as a women to feel these waves of testosterone. I stay close to Rick, and luckily most people will address him and not me in this very male dominated society.

(Ironically, while perusing CNN, I came across this article about the imbalanced male to female ratio)While we've explored our area a bit, we've conquered and mastered the Delhi metro system and found there are several different areas in Delhi. We've also discovered that the Delhi metro system is surprisingly the best metro system we've come across on this trip. It puts the NYC subway system to shame. Just a few blocks from us is metro station that is modern, clean, fast, and cheap. It's around 50 cents a ride depending on where you are going, many stations have safety rails, trains have a women only car, and the longest we've waited for a train is 2 minutes. You have to go through security at every station and I think the NY MTA could learn a thing or two.

The juxtaposition of the modern and the impoverished live next to each other here in India.

Just under the very modern metro are sights like this... So India is nuts.

But it is never boring.

More madness to come...

Flashback | Trans-Siberian Railway

We made it to Delhi (more on this soon) despite some problems at Mongolian immigration, and while we had some down time in Ulaanbaatar Rick made this video about our Trans-Siberian Train experience.

The Architecture of Happiness | Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

I just finished reading The Architecture of Happiness (quoted above) in an architecturally acerbic city. Remember my first impressions of Ulaanbaatar post where I waxed poetically about how it wasn’t a wasteland? Well, I must have been viewing it with my rose colored Russian glasses, because guess what? It is a wasteland. We now know more about Ulaanbaatar than we ever wanted to know. The infrastructure is poor, the traffic is awful, the architecture (if you can call it that) is not cohesive or aesthetically pleasing, and after being witness to a disturbing incident in a parking lot, we realize the city is probably rampant with corruption.

So I finish this book, which explores what our surroundings do to us, and I realize why I am so eager to get the heck out of here. Don’t get me wrong, Mongolia is amazing, but it’s very much a duplicitous country. It’s when you leave Ulaanbaatar that Mongolia becomes a magical place. The countryside is beautiful, the city just a holding cell.

So what does being exposed to a chaotic, ugly city do to one’s happiness?

Chaotic I can somewhat deal with, hence my ability to live in New York City, but at least the big apple has some pretty beautiful sites. You can be bombarded with complete chaos, want to crawl in a hole, swear you are quitting NYC and then look up and see the lit Empire State Building (or my favorite, The Chrysler Building), and suddenly you are in love with NYC all over again. Ulaanbaatar affords you no such experience. You can be so annoyed with the traffic, unable to breathe the dusty air, hope you are wearing appropriate shoes to trek through the haphazardly torn up sidewalks with exposed pipes and whatever else, want to get on a plane, and then you look up, find another torn up ditch that you have to jump across, and then really want to get on a plane. Ulaanbaatar doesn’t make you fall in love again. It makes you want to break up with it.

I’m a big believer that the external permeates the internal and just like the traffic I’m beginning to feel a bit congested. I finished the book at a time when I was so over Ulaanbaatar. Feeling trapped just waiting to make use of our plane tickets to India. I felt my first wave of New York miss and travel blues while cabin fever was setting in. But maybe my own architecture of happiness was being heavily swayed by Ulaanbaatar’s architecture of unhappiness? The book in some way made me realize my own sensitivity to aesthetics.

All this time I thought I was the sole architect of my own happiness, not realizing that perhaps my surroundings act as my subcontractors. Once I realized it’s not all internal and that the external is at work too, I felt relieved to know that my limp arches were probably a product of peripheral woes. Phew. Get me out of here!

Now India, am I going to fall in love with you or want to break up with you?

MONGOLIA MONTAGE

Visually, Mongolia is stunning. Mongolia has always a dream and now it's my reality. Here is a little Mongolian video montage. Enjoy!

Mongolia from Nomadic-Habit on Vimeo.

Central Mongolia Tour | Part 2

After the toads and mouse sightings, we slept tight in our frigid ger and woke to day 3! The landscape often changes in Mongolia and soon enough we found ourselves out of the flat lands and in the middle of rocky mountains. We stopped by a monastery that is tucked between peaks. We continue on until we reach our ger for the night. This nomadic family has the largest amount of livestock we've encountered. Horses, goats, sheep. They are rolling in livestock. We notice their brand new car (the new generation of nomads) and guess they are doing pretty well for themselves. Remember how I said we tried fermented mare's milk? How do you even milk a horse I wondered? Well here's how... After the mare's milking, we were in for a real treat.

Rick and I went horseback riding. Or should I say, horseback riding/sheep herding. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera with me because not falling off the horse was more important to me than getting a good shot. Rick has experience with horses, while I had little to no experience at this point.

We hop on and we are led by the herdsman. We think we are just riding around the beautiful landscape but he leads us to his goats and sheep. He puts us to work! We end up herding the animals! What a treat! Here we are in the middle of Mongolia, herding sheep and goats. We are feeling quite nomadic at this point.

Rick's horse goes a little wild at one point but he holds his own. I don't fall off. Everyone wins.

We head back and freeze our rumps off for the rest of the night. The view however, is quite nice.

This is our view from our ger in the evening.When we wake the next morning (day 4!), this is our view as we open our door. Hello heaven. We leave a bit earlier on the last day to head to Hustai National Park where a rare breed of wild horses, (Przewalski's Horse)    reside.

All Przewalski horses in the world are descended from nine of the 31 horses in captivity in 1945.

So there you have it. Tour #2. Camel riding, herding sheep, purple rain, and wild horses.

Central Mongolia Tour | Part 1

After returning from the Gobi, we thought we deserved a few days of as many showers as we pleased. We moved from a sketchy hostel to a nice hostel where many proper showers were had. After five days, we set out on another tour—this time to Central Mongolia and this time for only 4 days and 3 nights, just the two of us. I know what you are thinking... how romantic.

Well, it was much too cold and rustic to be romantic. Temperatures dropped during the night and sleeping in separate beds in a ger in 30 degrees gets less romantic with every shiver. There were nevertheless, some really great moments. I'm splitting the tour into two posts and here are the first two days.

The good news was the majority of the driving was on paved road, which is a novelty here in Mongolia and we had the whole van to ourselves. The first day was primarily all driving and our destination was the Erdene Zuu Monastery in the ancient city of Karakorum. Unfortunately we arrived just before closing, so we didn't have much time to roam for photo sake. We stayed the night at a ger camp instead of with a nomadic family which meant toilets! Another novelty! We had enough firewood to warm up the ger for falling asleep, but come 3am we were missing that Gobi Desert weather. The following day we headed to "Mini Gobi." The sand dunes were much smaller than the ones we had just visited, but also much less windy which made for a pleasant walk and the ability to take photos! This night we stayed with a nomadic family and stayed in a ger where we had little toads jumping around and I spotted another mouse. Rick thinks my imagination got the best of me and that I just saw a toad, but I know what I saw. This time at least, we could share a bed so I slept easier knowing I could wake him up at any sound. We put our packs down and headed to the dunes and checked out the surrounding area. Since we were such camel riding experts at this point, we went for round 2. I decided not to take my camera with me this time and to just take in the view. The major difference between the last camel ride and this one was here we actually went through and dunes. The camels brought us to the top and the late afternoon light was magical. After we dismounted, we decided to go back to the dunes, cameras in hand to capture that nice evening sand glow. As the sun was setting and the clouds were rolling in, we spotted some very colorful sunset rain. Call Prince. It's Purple Rain. So a very colorful ending to day 2 of 4.

MY OUTSIDES FEEL WRETCHED BUT MY INSIDES ARE BEAMING

Travel is glamorous for the soul… But as a backpacker, that’s about it.

I’ve been traveling for about four months now and I can probably count the number of times I’ve brushed my hair with my tiny travel size brush on my two hands. That means at best, I’ve brushed my hair 10 times since May, meaning I’ve brushed my hair at a rate of 0.4 times a week. Let’s not even talk about the rate at which I’ve shaved my legs. On an eight day Gobi tour, I was afraid my armpit hair was reaching braiding territory. My once neurotic face care regime has all but disappeared. As my travel size organic products ran out and I couldn’t read the languages on labels, my face washing has been reduced to whatever will lather on my face, or even a wet wipe (who am I?!) followed by whatever remotely resembles some sort of moisturizer. Finding face care products in languages you don’t know is sort of like eeny meeny miny, oh-no-i-hope-i-don’t-get-a-rash-from-this. I’ve probably forgotten how to bring a mascara wand to my lashes and my smoky eye would probably look more like a black eye.

I thought editing my clothes to fit into a shared studio apartment closet in Manhattan was a task, but try fitting style and practicality into a backpack for a 1+ year trip. Let me first say that I would travel the world in a potato sack if I had to, but damn I miss my leather boots and fedoras. I knew traveling long-term would mean stripping down — style included. While some days I appreciate the simplicity of less options, so as to not agonize which shoes (I only have 3 pairs now) to wear with what shirt, some days I am missing my favorite threads (or wearing Rick's). While I would rarely repeat outfits, I find myself in the same outfit for days and sometimes my former fashion stylist assistant self is cringing. I find myself in cargo pants and flip flops out at dinner (ew) and it seems like my latest accessories are a roll of toilet paper and wet wipes. Now that’s chunky jewelry.  And even if I had glamour packed in my backpack, when would I ever use it?! I scored an Ivana Helsinki dress from a thrift store in Finland but haven’t found an appropriate Mongolian trek for the occasion.

Now, I haven’t gone over the fashion cliff just yet. Rick and I haven’t reached matching fleece jacket territory.

We still have some New York in us.

But travel IS glamorous. You may find yourself with the most magnificent Mongolian sunset in your view, complete with horses, a running stream, the whole nine, and your soul is glowing until you realize you are squatting on two wooden beams over a pile of feces and your only privacy is a rusted metal triptych that only covers your backside and barely covers your head.

Who knew you could feel so amazing and disgusting at the same time?

My outsides feel wretched but my insides are beaming.

Entouriste Feature

I didn't want to break the rhythm of my Gobi posts, but in case you missed it, our romp in Finland was featured on Entouriste!

MONGOLIA - GOBI DESERT | Day 6-8

Day 5 was the highlight of the tour and the remaining days were more or less just getting us back to Ulaanbaatar. The pictures in this post are actually day 6 at which point my last camera battery died just as I was shooting the stars in the evening. There wasn't much to shoot on Day 7 or 8 as we were driving all day and taking the same route back. So here we go, Day 6. I'm going to call this the night we sleep with mice in our ger. Or should I say, the night I could not sleep because there were mice in our ger.

After leaving the lovely dunes of the Gobi, we quickly stopped because our engine was overheating. Oh, don't we just love these Russian vans. It was fairly warm out and we find ourselves letting the engine cool periodically throughout the day. We stop where a nomadic family has set up tables of different souvenirs for purchase. While some are tending to the tables, others are tending to the livestock. Here the goats go wild for water. We end up stopping for lunch and as Rick and I walk around, we find a carnage of animal parts which is always a nice sight before eating. We eventually end up at Flaming Cliffs in the afternoon, which doesn't really look that flaming to us and we later find out, they appear "flaming" at sunset, so I guess we are too early for the fire. The site is also of importance because here is where many important dinosaur fossils have been discovered. Most famously, it's here where the first fossilized dinosaur eggs were found. This IS The Land Before Time! Nearby, we settle into our ger for the night and this was the least impressive as far as view and facilities thus far. The one perk was there was a tourist camp within walking distance where we could pay for a shower. Hallelujah! A proper shower. And when I say proper, I don't mean nice or clean—there were buzzing flies in mine and it was the kind of shower where you definitely want to wear your flip flops, but it did the job and there were no animal feces in sight. I'll take what I can get.

We walked around the area to find more animal parts strewn about.

What is with today and animal decay? The evening light was rolling in and we all decided to head back to the tourist camp for a nice cold beer at their bar, which in reality we found out what it actually meant was a nice warm beer in the dark because there was no electricity. Eh, you take what you can get.

We head back and the sky is brimming with stars. I take a few shots and we head to bed...

or so I thought... Rick and I as well as the Austrian couple crawl into bed still with the light on— well it's not a light, it's a candle, so we know we have a limited amount of light left. I take my glasses off and am laying there until I see a blob of white go across the floor. I think it's nothing and blame it on the fact that I don't have my glasses on. Wait! There is goes again. This time I put on my glasses and it's like living in NY all over again. Mice! Noooooooooo. Rick then sees another small one climbing on the WALLS! He checks under our beds and there is mice poop everywhere. I want to sleep in the van, on top of the van, I don't even care at this point. Rick thinks they are cute and I am annoyed that he can sleep soundly while I am up all night worried mice are going to crawl in my sleeping bag. It's pretty warm this night, but I fully zip up my down sleeping bag, which I later find out that I might as well be sleeping in a sauna. The Austrian couple seems just as grossed out as I am and we all move our backpacks away from our beds as to not create a grand staircase to our sleeping quarters which were are already pretty low.

We look at the candle and we guess we have maybe 30 minutes left of light and after that it will be dark—a free domain for the mice to run wild! I am freaking out. The ger has holes throughout and they run in as quickly as they run out. There's nothing to be done.

The candle goes out.

Our other two tour mates come in and I'm just concentrating on trying to sleep all the while trying to make some noise periodically so that if there is a mice near by bed, maybe it will be spooked. By this point,  I'm sleeping with a towel over my head too because I'm imaging them running over my face.

I don't even know what time it is, but I am startled by the Austrian couple and their flashlight. A mouse is crawling on one of our tour mates beds. She hadn't moved her bags away from her bed and the mice took the stairs. By this point I'm sweating—dripping even, refusing to unzip my sleeping bag. Rick hasn't moved an inch and I am awake in a pool of my own sweat.

I barely slept that night and probably lost a few pounds of water weight while doing so. Morning came painfully slow and I was eager to get the heck out of there. Rick was rested. I was weary.

I told myself I'd sleep in the car, but then I remembered that surviving the bumpy roads awake was hard enough. Let's just say I was over the tour come day 7.

Day 7 was all driving minus a lunch stop as well as day 8 and we arrived back in Ulaanbaatar around six in the evening.

Tour complete!

I hope there isn't a mouse in my bag...

MONGOLIA - GOBI DESERT | Day 5

This is the first and only day of our tour that we don't start by getting in the van. We have a full day to enjoy the dunes. First up? Camel riding.

The nomadic family we were staying with had horses, sheep, goats, and camels so we did not have to go so far to get between humps. We also found out the night previous that they also produce their own fermented mare's milk. We sipped, but we couldn't really get into it.

We had an hour with the camels, led by the owner and we were to finish the ride at a nearby "lake," as we were told by our guide. By day 5 we were all dying for any form of a shower. She told us it was possible to swim in it, so we all put on our bathing suit attire at a chance of feeling fresh.

The owner prepared the camels and we were off!

My Gobi Desert camel riding fantasy was realized! We arrive at the "lake" as seen behind the camels two photos above. It doesn't look like much, but we are all pretty desperate. We strip down and I'm trying not to be grossed out by the mushy, muddy bottom, or the livestock poop that floats near shore. We wash up all the while pushing away the poop around us in a desperate attempt to wash ourselves. I even made an impromptu facial scrub out of Gobi sand and sunscreen. Who needs a spa?

The things we do to bathe. Once we dry off we head back to our ger and rest up before we climb to the top of the dunes. Our lunch is reminiscent of empanadas (yum!) and our guide and driver set up a game played with livestock ankle bones. I never thought I'd see the day where I'm rolling ankle bones like dice. Vegas is missing out.

Read more about ankle bone games here. We were taught a game called "Horse Race." After feeling ankle-boned out, we got ready to set out to for the dunes. The guide told us it would take about an hour to get to the top and that it would be best to do barefoot.

She was right about both. The dunes are steep and the sand is slippery. It was like being on the StairMaster for an hour. Thighs are burning!

We rest frequently on the way up and as we ascended, the wind became worse.

In fact, you could hear the wind on the dunes from our ger. This is a phenomenon called "singing dunes," and we were about to be in the thick of it.

As you can imagine, sand is deadly to a camera so I could only manage a few shots. When we reached the top, the wind was brutal. I couldn't take my camera out, let alone see because the sand was enveloping everything. We made it to the top, now if only we could see! The barrage of sand bullets became too much and we slowly made our way down.

We were exhausted after the climb!

I had no choice but to collapse on the desert floor...

Dream day complete.

MONGOLIA - GOBI DESERT | Day 4

Day 4! This is the halfway mark of the trip! We left the area we deemed The Land Before Time and traveled into a protected area only accessible by way of tour operators.

We stopped at Yolyn Am Valley to find narrow gorges, yaks, and impressive views.After hopping back into the van, we found ourselves driving through gorges that could barely accommodate the width of the van, (much like in the above picture) not to mention that we were driving through streams. Is this a road or a river??? Eventually we made our way out and drove a LONG time until we reached the famed Khongor Sand Dunes of the Gobi. This is what we've been waiting for!

And how were we greeted? With a sand storm.

It eventually cleared and we spent the remainder of the night checking out the area and ogling at the view. The night ended with a rainbow!

The next post includes camel riding & climbing the dunes. EPIC !

MONGOLIA - GOBI DESERT | Day 3

Day 3 started off as any normal nomadic day would— milking goats. This is where I discover, I'm not so good at it.

The women separate the females and arrange them head to head with ease. It becomes a goat milking puzzle. I give it a go, but I am clearly not a goat milking expert.

We pack up and head out for yet another bumpy ride.

We stop as we come across a large group of camels hanging out by the road. As we headed further south, I understood the term "Golden Gobi."We arrived in a magical area that felt like The Land Before Time. As you walk around this untouched land, you fully expect a T-Rex to appear from behind the hills. No wonder the Gobi has been a hot spot for dinosaur fossils. If I was a dinosaur, I'd definitively live here. There were condors circling above us as we walked around and I was hoping they wouldn't mistake me for baby livestock. This evening our guide and driver presented us with a bottle of Chinggis Vodka, which we were told we had to finish. We took shots, toasted to the trip, and slept very well that night.

Another brilliant moon over another brilliant view.

MONGOLIA - GOBI DESERT | Day 2

Day 2 starts with breakfast at 8:30am and we hit the road by 9am. We drive for the bulk of the day and we are like batter in a bowl by the time we peel ourselves out of the van.

The view is worth the shake up. We occasionally see other tour vans taking a similar route and this day the drivers of 2 other vans — who are clearly buddies with our driver, stick near each other for a portion of the day. I'm thinking it's because these "roads" are brutal and the buddy system may be important in a possible breakdown. We drive for hours until lunch time where we find ourselves perched hillside for a break.

Lunch and dinner usually consists of some sort of pasta or rice with a bit of vegetables and meat. Rick and I found some pretty awesome rocks in these parts and we stuff them in our pockets before we set off in the van again. The landscape changes yet again and long, luscious shadows layer the land only to then find ourselves in the middle of hills that are of a reddish hue. I have never seen such a thing! They are of such saturation that I fear my eyes have fooled me. We finally arrive at Tsagaan Suvarga, also known as Painted Desert. We start at the bottom and drive perilously to the top where the view is nothing but spectacular. The desert floor looks like it had a field day with red and orange splatter paint. We get back in the van and find our home for the evening... We say hello to the family which consists of a grandmother and her grandchild.

Here we try dried goat curd and I get to photograph the space in which they live. I love that below is where all things hang; purse, baseball hat, cell phone, jacket, meat...

It's the ultimate nomadic hanger. Dried mutton hangs feet from us. Mutton jerky? Who's in?Since there is little vegetation in the area, these families burn dung to keep the fire going.

Below is a bucket ready to burn baby burn.Here is our host and her cute grandson. She sets out in the evening to collect dung for future fires... Our views are incredible and as night falls the vastness of beauty across the land is overwhelming. The sun setting and the moon rising were equally impressive. Where to shoot?!?! They corralled the livestock and Rick found his Capricorn self among his kind.  Day 2, you were lovely as ever.

MONGOLIA - GOBI DESERT | Day 1

Mongolians boast a true nomadic habit. Looks like we are in good company. We got a taste of this nomadic way of life on our 8 day tour to the Gobi Desert. Remember our lovely van ride from Olkhon? This was Olkhon times 8 in terms of bumpy roads. Guess we had good practice.

Our group consisted of a driver, a guide, an Austrian couple, and 2 others who hailed from Japan. We all got to experience the roads, and I use that term loosely, as we bumped around this Russian van (and boy do we know Russian vans) together for a week. Look at that padding!So what does this tour consist of? A hell of a lot of driving. I'd say we were in the van driving, or getting thrown around the van for on average 6 hours a day. Each night we would stay with a nomadic family that had an empty ger that could accommodate the 6 of us. You'd think these sort of accommodations would be arranged beforehand, but it's very off the cuff. Some families we stopped at already had guests, so we would often have to visit several families until we found an opening. The gers were basic and when I say basic, I mean you are sleeping on a wood board with a thin padding. Pillows were improvised by wrapping our jackets in our towels, and sometimes Rick and I or the Austrian couple would have to share a twin bed. Remember my gripe about two twin beds pushed together? Well now we were either in two separate twin beds, or squished together in one. Dare I say I was wishing for the twin beds pushed together scenario. So all in all, nomadic luxury.

Now let's talk about bathroom facilities. Or let's talk about how there aren't any bathroom facilities. These nomadic families had outhouses that made you wish you were constipated so you didn't have to use them. So then what? Why be stuck in a smelly outhouse when you can squat somewhere tucked away in the hills and watch camels in the distance? So we skipped all the outhouses and became expert squatters (I knew those yoga classes I took before the trip would come in handy). I am pretty sure I could go to the bathroom in Warrior 2 pose if I had to. Needless to say, toilet paper and wet wipes were always stuffed in our pockets. Wet wipes were also the closet thing we had to a daily shower. We had 1 true shower the entire trip and 2 improvised bathing sessions in a body of water in the Gobi where we learned the local animals also used it as a toilet. So we were feeling squeaky clean. Desperate times call for desperate baths. No bodily rashes were discovered.

You are probably thinking, all of this sounds awful! Nausea inducing bumpy roads, a toilet-less trip, bathing next to camel feces, no showers in sight, and beds that leave you stiff as a board... Why on earth would you even want to partake, let alone pay for such an tour?

Let's get to the good stuff.

As Mongolia's landscape revealed itself, I didn't know if I should cry out of bliss or pee my pants out of excitement. Luckily, I saved myself the embarrassment of both, but no doubt Mongolia has a way of moving you. It's like seeing for the first time. My virginal eyes deflowered by Mongolia's curves. The seduction of simplicity. It has a way of making your feel small, yet possible. Much in the same way you might feel when in a plane and you look down at earth and realize you are an ant in comparison, only to realize your ant-sized self is hurling itself through the sky to discover the world. That is possibility. That is living big.

This is Mongolia. We started the trip out of Ulaanbaatar at 9am and we stopped for lunch around 1pm. All three meals are included in the tour and the guide whips up all the lunches out of the back of the van. When you step out of the van you realize you truly are in the middle of nowhere, not a soul in sight except for your tour mates and scattered horses. This is how it is for much of the trip, just the van and the landscape. We made a few stops the first day and the landscape changed dramatically with every passing hour. We found ourselves in the plains, then suddenly mountains would appear, and here we stopped in an area of great rock formations (reminded me a little bit of Joshua Tree) where there are ruins of a monastery which was destroyed upon Stalin's orders. In the evening, we finally found accommodations and got situated in our ger. It is customary to greet the family in their ger where they have food and drink offerings for their guests. There are several customs when it comes to the ger. Guests always sit on the left side upon entering, family on the right side, and there are different areas in the ger dedicated to specific things whether it be the women's cooking utensils, or the men's horse bridle. After the greeting we had a little time before dinner to explore. Here is our ger for the night. These people live so simply, yet you will always find a TV dish. Yes, these nomads love flipping the channels like the rest of the world. Many have also starting using solar panels and we also encountered lights and other electrical objects powered by car batteries once the wires were hooked up. As dinner was being prepared, we got to walk around a bit and explore the area.

Here are a few shots of the matriarch of the family. To get a sense of scale, that's Rick on top of the rocks! As we stood among the rocks, (see our shadows below) the moon began to rise and the views were magical. So day 1 was ending and minds were already blown.

We slept tight that night, as in both of us in a tiny, hard bed, in a ger, in the middle of Mongolia.

Dream come true.

First Impressions | Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

What do you do with six weeks in Mongolia? We decided to book a week in Ulaanbaatar upon arrival to arrange for tours and scope the city out. To be honest, from what I had read and heard, I was expecting a total wasteland. While Ulaanbaatar is not up to par with other Asian metropolitan cities, it was surprisingly much more modern and westernized than I thought. (Especially coming from Irkutsk, Russia where nothing feels modern.) There is a restaurant called Los Angeles, which is down the street from California Restaurant, which is a few stores down from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and across town is The Brooklyn Restaurant & Pub. So I guess they covered all my old haunts. The streets are filled with luxury cars boasting brands like Lexus, Mercedes, Range Rover, Hummer, etc and while we sat having lunch, songs by Jason Mraz and The Lumineers played in the background. Gone are the days of broken down Russian Lada cars and Russian club music.

One thing is for sure though, the air quality here can grind on your sinuses. The city is quite dusty and you inhale the dust along with the car fumes (traffic is horrible!) leaving you all stuffed up. And while there are modern parts to the city, there are also the areas that are less so. One day we took a LONG walk in search of Buddha Park and a memorial that was to have a great view of the city. As we crossed a river, it felt like we were in a different part of town. Suddenly we were among several newly built, or still in construction buildings that appear to be luxury apartments. With all these tall buildings we couldn't find the big Buddha statue...

until...

we spotted Buddha among the luxury condos in construction. Isn't this a little sacrilegious?We eventually found our way to Buddha's feet around all the construction in a valley of all the condos.

Imagine this could be your view if you snagged one of these condos.

Doesn't this seem more gimmicky than sacred?The memorial we were in search of was perched high upon a hill and so our legs took a beating from the stairs.

On the way up, Rick found a friend. As we continued the climb, the new construction around us was so visible.

It almost appears that an entirely new city is being built. The next photo really shows modern living next to traditional living.

All the white circles below are traditional Mongolian ger's which shows the contrast of how people are living here.We finally reach the top and the view is amazing! We spend another day at a local monastery which is filled with pigeons. I hate birds so this should be good. The grounds are filled with prayer wheels and colorful buildings though the inside of the monastery is the most impressive part and the safest part from getting bombed by bird poop. Tomorrow we are leaving on a 8 day tour to the Gobi Desert, so stay tuned for a feast of photos upon return.

Trans-Mongolian Railway | Irkutsk ---> Ulaanbaatar

The best and the worst part about Russia was leaving it. The best part about it was that I no longer felt like I was in trouble. Russia has a way of making you feel like you are about to be sent to your room (or worse) all the time. There is a definite Big Brother feel with omnipresent voices that reverberate over city speakers. Everything is difficult and friendliness is not their forté. Obtaining a visa is hard (and expensive) enough, but then you are also required to register your visa upon arrival. If you stay at an established hotel, the hotel will do it for you, but if you are a budget backpacker, you will find that not all hostels will do this for you and if they do, they charge you a fee. Also, this process is completely different according to whom you talk. Some say if you stay in one city more than 3 days, then you must register, (in each city you visit!) but if you hop around and don't stay more than 3 days in each city, then you are OK. You will also read that there are heavy fines if you don't register your visa when leaving the country. AHHH! At this point, you are just itching for a straight answer that you soon realize, you will never get.

SO... we registered our visa's in two places (Olkhon Island & Irkutsk) just in case, which entailed passing over your passports, the registration fee (which varies according to who's doing it), and the next day you receive a piece of paper confirming your registration that you are to keep. The whole thing seems so unofficial. Needless to say, we were ready to cross the border (hoping without incident) into Mongolia.

But let's get to the worst part...

First of all, remember our lovely air-conditioned cabins from our Trans-Siberian adventure? They are all but a distant dream. We learn that the higher the train number, the worse the trains get. We took train 2 from Moscow to Irktusk. We are now taking train 362 to Ulaanbaatar. The proof is in the pictures...Another major difference between the Trans-Siberian train and this one is that while the first leg was primarily all Russians, this car had none! It was all foreigners. We board and there is a group of jovial Portuguese all traveling together. We congregate in the hallway, take a shot of vodka, and toast to the trip. Our other two roommates are a British and Swiss guy. It's an international affair. We boarded at 10pm so we went to sleep shortly thereafter for night 1 of 2.We knew we would hit the Russia/Mongolia border the next day in the afternoon and we also knew from a couple who crossed days before us that we were to expect about a 6 hour stint at the border. So comes the worst part...

We get to the border and what should take maybe an hour, takes the 6 hours we expected. After we get to the station and play disconnect and connect cars for awhile, we find our car all by itself on the tracks. Officials then board the train, look at our passports and visa's to make sure we haven't overstayed, etc. and then leave. Then we are told we have 3 hours before the next phase. (Why? For what?!?!) We can get off the train and meander around, but there is really nothing to do and nothing happening. It's a total stand still. After the 3 hours pass, we have to all re-board and they come to collect our passports (why couldn't they have done this when they first looked at them?) at which point they don't even look at the registration papers that we stressed out over. I use them as a fan, which was the most use I could make out of them. Then customs control boards the train and they search our cabins. Then we wait again for our passports to come back with stamps. Meanwhile our lonely car is hooked up to a Mongolian engine and we finally leave the station 6 hours from when we got there.When we get to the Mongolian side, we go through similar procedures which only take maybe an hour at most.

I am already liking Mongolia better. We have another hour to wait while they hook up more cars to the train and by the time we leave it's around 9pm local time. Did I mention that as soon as you cross the border, you no longer are on Moscow train time (even though you are traveling 5 hours ahead of Moscow), but local Mongolian time (which is an hour behind local Irkutsk time so we lost an hour) so by this point, your sense of time is totally useless. It's like math class and I was always bad at math. All I knew was it was dark and we had to get up at 5am the next morning so it was time for bed.

We were woken up the next morning at 5am to prepare for our 6am arrival into Ulaanbaatar. We were tired but the sunrise was beautiful. Now this is what I'm taking about...I think we are done with trains for awhile.

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The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly - Olkhon Island

This is the last post about Olkhon. We stayed 4 nights and we were ready for a proper shower. The trip proved to be a great experience that I highly recommend. This post is all about exploring the beaches, which as you will see, are of great variation. As we spent some time soaking in the sun, I couldn't believe I was getting a tan on the beaches of Siberia. Pretty amazing. Many people come to Olkhon to camp and this beach seemed to be the popular one to do so. There were portable banyas along the beach to rent if you needed some heat before braving the chilly Siberian waters. As we continued south and crested a hill, we found a cove of decay. Just 10 minutes away from the spiritual Shaman's Rock, there lies a carcass of boats, bordering abandoned buildings full of waste (trash disposal is a real problem on the island). It seems like boats aren't the only victims of expiration around here...As we strolled the beach, there was a real sense of beauty within the decay... Though cool, but probably not very safe, there is a boat that is half swallowed by the lake that you can freely walk around on... Our last night, we hung out around Shaman's Rock trying to soak in the last of the spiritual magic.

But here's what happened...

Below are 3 pictures that show the progression of the evening.

In the first picture, I'm just hanging out by the water, taking in the landscape. It's peaceful, lovely, etc.

Picture #2: We decide to go closer to the rock and I climb a secondary rock nearby. Still lovely as ever.

Rick wants to climb higher on Shaman's Rock and we begin to ascend as I am suddenly ailing with pain as I hit a plant with what feels like a thousand stingers and they go right through my leggings. (Further proof that leggings are NOT pants. I should listen to my own fashion rules.) I feel like I am being poisoned, maybe I've struck a form of Shaman poison ivy? My immediate thought is, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? BEING POISONED ON A SACRED SHAMAN ROCK?!?! We quickly abort the climb and Rick suggests I soak my legs in the water to reduce the swelling. (Picture 3). As I am soaking, I find that I am standing in a sea of the most amazing rocks I've ever seen.

I forget about my poisoned legs and go rock hunting. I find 6 amazing rocks to take with me.

Who knew poison could lead me to beauty? Toxic bliss.

Thank You Olkhon Island.

Khoboy Cape - Olkhon Island

There are plenty of tours to choose from on Olkhon Island and we decided to pick one: Khoboy Cape. Khoboy Cape is the Northern cape of Olkhon Island. In Buryat language Khoboy means ‘fang’ or ‘grinder’. A huge fang-shaped stone dominates over the cape. Approaching it from the sea, you will see a big piece of rock that looks like a figure of a woman. The locals call it ‘a Virgin’. The legend has it that a woman that asked for the same wealthy house as one of her husband was turned by Tengries to a stone. The spirits declared she would be a stone till evil and envy occurs between people.

Since we visited Nordkapp (North Cape) in Norway, we found ourselves in a cape kind of mood and wanted to see if the two northern capes were comparable. (Hopefully this one wouldn't be lost in the fog!)

We braced ourselves for another minivan adventure. Compared to our broken down van from Irkutsk, the tour vans are stylistically much more interesting. However, style doesn't mean comfort. Bumpy roads equate to jumbled brains and bruised body parts.

The driver doesn't speak any English and we make a few stops before we get to Khoboy Cape.

Once we arrive at Khoboy Cape, we have 1 hour to hike around while the driver prepares us lunch.

The views are quite spectacular and it is evident that Khoboy is a sacred site for Shamans.

We tuck 10 rubles among the ribbons as an offering. We find our way back to our van where our driver is blasting music while preparing our lunch.

What's on the menu?

fish soup + sandwiches + salad + tea + biscuits

All delicious.

I think I can safely say that I will never have a man cook me fish soup in a bucket with camo PJ pants ever again. Our next stop is Lover's Rock or also called Lover's Cape.

According to tradition, this fertile rock will grant you a girl if you walk to the right and a boy if you want to the left. Our last stop was the only area on the east side of the island that is boat accessible.

While the west side has long stretches of sandy beaches, the east side is predominately rocky cliffs that don't allow for beaches. The tour itself lasted from 10am-5pm and the dust from all the roads was lodged into our sinuses.

Neti Pot, where are you when I need you?