Bags weighed down with endless snacks and fried dumplings wrapped in napkins from yesterday's favourite restaurant, we set off for the Great Wall of China. 2 subways, a local bus and a riot filled line at the bus station left is sweaty and annoyed. But also mildly amused at the several buses trying to drive straight through the masses of people refusing to get out of the way. We eventually shoved our way into a bus and rode past endless buildings rising into the smog out to another non-aesthetically pleasing Chinese city.
We reached the wall around 10pm, a great time for a walk in the dark. We stumbled up and along the wall for a few hours, getting lost a few times in the darkness. As I was climbing a watch tower in a slightly crumbling section, the rocks I was holding and standing on broke off from the wall and I tumbled down with them. Yep, I fell off the Great Wall of China, and came away a little battered and bruised. On top of that watch tower seemed to be a great place to spend the night. The smoggy glow lit up the silhouette of towers and mountains, promising a great view to wake up to.
The sky gradually lightened, revealing the mountains and snaking wall beneath and above us. Teeth time on the Great Wall was a moment of minty fresh beauty. We packed up our tower-top camp and clambered up and up the steep wall. From every tower a new, higher watchtower was visible in the sweltering heat. The intermittent breeze was cool on all the sweat we were losing.
We climbed onto the roof of watch towers and dangled our legs off the edge, taking in the beauty and the size of the hills we had just climbed. Our water supplies began to dwindle. I had made the wild assumption that if we walk far enough, we'd reach another town. At the top of an especially high and jagged mountain, the view showed us otherwise. The wall slithered on forever, and huge mountains rose through the haze. With only a few hundred mLs of water left between us, we had no choice but to retrace our many, many steps.
We stalked a Chinese couple down a path to an exit, and smiled sweetly and desperately at them in the car park. We jumped into their car, were given water and sped through little villages to a bus stop. We jumped into a beaten up minivan in which everyone was deeply asleep, and reflected on our lack of meals and sleep lately. We had been too thirsty to eat much that day, besides a healthy dose of mysterious Chinese sweets. Very unlike us!
An overnight bus with bunk beds instead of seats took us to the Mongolian border town. Then we jumped into the tray of the ute with 6 other guys and a couple of suitcases and sped towards the border. The border had to be crossed in a jeep, so after endless waiting and bargaining we crammed into a 4wd to drive the meager distance to get our passports stamped. With 4 people crammed into the back, we sat on a huge pile of bags of cement mix, with the door unable to close. Hoping that the white powder stuck to our clothes and bags was in fact cement, we eventually made it into Mongolia.
We drove into the desert town of Zamin-Uyd, and the jeep driver we'd just met gave our passports to his wife who returned a few hours later with train tickets to the capital for us. He took us to his house, a concrete block which towered above all the other humble shacks in the town. This reinforced our drug smuggler theory. Through a game of charades, he informed us that he was hungry and we should get in the kitchen and cook up a feast for 12.
We had no idea how to cook the giant leg of "baa-baa" we found sitting on the counter in 30 degree heat, but it was preferable over the "moo-moo thump-thump". Our pot-bellied host found our struggle hilarious, as did we. How did we end up in our taxi driver's desert mansion peeling vegetables, listening to Russian pop music, drinking Mongolian beer and being photographed while we slept on his couch? Enjoy your food poisoning, kids.
We climbed up a rickety ladder only attached at the top, to be on top of the concrete-barren's home to see yurts and all the way to the dusty edge of town...200m down the road. The teenage boys below mimed us falling and dying, and all confidence of the creaking ladder was gone.
Strolling down the length of the old green sleeper train, we were greeted by dolled up train attendants in polka-dot aprons and tiny skirts. Inside the train was stifling hot and still, the temperature reading 36 degrees, but every passenger was given a sweat towel for the journey.
A party quickly formed around our exotic blonde heads once we sat down. The old "funny man" persisted in speaking Mongolian to us although we insisted our understanding was zero. Eventually 20 year old Akuna (last name unfortunately not Matata, we checked) came to our rescue with some English. The evening went on with compulsory rounds of unknown spirits and warm beer, while they tried to set us up with every young or middle aged man that walked past. We learnt that everyone on the train were brothers.
The endless desert plains out the window finally darkened around 9pm, so Peta and I set up our beds. The party continued on on my bed in the curve of my legs as I curled up asleep. We were woken up for beer and mystery meat every time we fell deeply asleep.
Woke up in "the land of blue skies" to rain snaking along the windows as we rattled along through endless green plains dotted with horses and yurts. We shared a snickers for breakfast and looked forward to the first shower in many sweaty days and our 4th real meal this week...
We're in Ulaanbaatar!
