Halloj halloj
Now I am in Bejing. Tomorrow is the day for our trip to the Great wall. Exciting. Today we saw the temle of heaven, a place were the emperors worshiped... well heaven. I also visited the olympic stadium but one could only see it on distance, I thought it would be possible to enter like in Sydney 2000 when I was there eight month before the olympics but missed to visit the stadium.
Be careful if you take a taxi in Mongolia. Our taxidriver to the train station drove us to a parkinglot and pretended not to understand where we wanted to go. But the hotel staff had talked to him so he bloddy well knew where we were going (and how often do three foreigners with a lot of luggage take a taxi to a dirty parking lot....?) We had agreed about the price in advance. He just wanted more money. He didn't get it. After a while he "suddenly" understood and we made it to the train. But that does not change our overall positive picture of Mongolia.
I can not write everything here, no time for that :-) So you will all hear more when I get home. I hope little information here is better than none. Soon I will enter the internetdarkness of the People's Republic of Korea. The one place(?) in the world where cell phones and internet is not working. I am back in Beijng at Maj 7th and return home at May 8. Until then, have a good time wherever you are..
I have now for the first time during my journey the possibility to write on my blog. Since it looks terrible to write Swedish without the three specific letters, I write in English.
I am currently sitting at an intern center in Ulaan Baatar, the dirty, messy, noisy and wonderful capital of Mongolia. I love this country. We arrived three days ago with the train and were met at the station and driven to our hotel. It was rather nice to get a shower after five long days without it. The traffic is crazy in this city, green or red lights are only for recommendation. But still. You got to love a country were 45-65 percent of the populations (the information varies) are still nomads moving around throughout the year. People speak surprisingly good English, at least some of them. The city is under transformation, as the whole country. The atmosphere is good, we felt really welcome when we arrived here.
On the train from Moscow we shared our small compartment with a persons who is almost impossible to describe. It was a big Chinese man who spoke no English. We called him Kurt. He wore a SWAT vest the whole time, smelled bad, made noise constantly, had trousers and under wear with big holes (and brown spots) witch he gladly showed us. But well… you can not explain it, the person is a legend already but I guess you had to be there… did I mentioned that he spoke Chinese for himself and had only one leg…and put pieces of his smelly caviar and fish paste everywhere… Kurt made the train journey a bit different; I can not say if it was to the better or worse. At least we had something to talk and laugh about. Poor Kurt had no Visa for Mongolia, so the border officials took him off, but he could buy one there. We were a bit worried for him for a while...
In Mongolia we have made a trip to the countryside, staying in a traditional Ger (Jurta). First we visited a Mongolian nomad family. We could try their traditional outfit (yes, I have photos) and they gave us salty(!) tea, frozen yoghurt and bread. I kind of liked it. We thought we were going to stay with them for the night but obviously not. Our Ger was at a tourist camp and we were the only tourists. At least we could ride a tour on Mongolian horses. I had not been on a horse since I was five years old or something… but I survived.
I would like to write more, but I can not do it now. Probably I will write something in Beijing and then when I get back. Our train leaves tomorrow morning and we arrive in Beijing about 30 hours later. Four days there, then North Korea… :-)
Jag gjorde ett test på www.vuxenpoäng.com och enligt det testet borde jag vara 25,1 år. Det låter väl rätt rimligt :-) Det är nog runt där jag känner att jag befinner mig. Förmodligen står det fel i mitt födeseattest...
På måndag åker jag. Sjukt... Jag kommer inte skriva resedagbok på nätet. På tåget finns ingen möjighet att koppla upp sig och inte heller i Nordkorea. I Mongoliet är internetuppkopplingen tydigen opålitig så det skulle bli i Kina då men det vore en futtig resedagbok så jag skriver en längre reserapport när jag kommer hem istället. Med tanke på hur annorlunda Nordkorea är som resmål kanske jag kan försöka sälja in den till DN eller nån större tidning... eller ? I annat fall får nån resesajt eller denna blogg duga.
Jag kommer nog vara svår att nå via telefon eller SMS också. Inget mobilnät i Sibirien; och i Nordkorea får jag inte använda mobilen. De lägger den i en plomberad påse vid ankomsten och gud nåde mig om jag öppnat den vid avfärd :-)
Jaja, det var allt för nu
