Steppes of Mongolia (5 August): Getting Wet

5 August 2014

Gun-Galuut Nature Reserve near Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Fortuitous hike

Chilly morning for man and beast

Getting  northern. I’m sitting up late in a bed in a warm ger. By sunrise tomorrow I know, from today’s experience, it will be cold. Cold in a way that says we’re into something different. Cold in a way that prompted us to go shopping first thing in the morning at a marketplace in a small town somewhere on our route. Gracie has a new blue velour sweat suit that says HAPPY over the butt – she want’s to change it so it says APP. Carrie bought a new pair of warm tights and sweat bottoms. Liam owns a new red sweater that, true to form, he said he didn’t care about when we bought it and had since been wearing around proudly, collecting compliments as if the whole thing was his idea. We didn’t find hats or mittens. I didn’t get anything, either. These might prove to be oversights – maybe we can get some stuff when my mother-in-law flies over from the States next week. Packing for 48° N latitude, where we’ve arrived now, proves to have a new set of challenges. Carrie walked in a few minutes ago wearing all the clothes she possessed in her clothes bag – layer upon layer of tropical clothes topped off with her most recent purchases. We were not ready.

As the sun rose over the Mongolian steppe, all worries of cool evenings and cold mornings evaporated like morning dew. Our first full day on our Taste of Mongolia Tour (the tour company’s name, not mine, and quite fitting) was a pell-mell itinerary, with enough time to pose in historical regalia or holding an eagle, climb a giant Genghis Khan statue, take a hike across a river, and to go out searching (unsuccessfully) for rare argali sheep before a dinner of Mongolian barbeque.

Jumping for joy in front of the largest mounted horse statue in the world (a protracted claim to fame).
Chinghis Khan, or course.

Skye, Carrie & Gracie

Liam passed up the chance to dress-up and pose as
a mongol warrior, but later found this lovely eagle in front.

Watery adventures. Our unscheduled hike across the river Kherlen provided a worthy anecdote. Mongolia provides broad, sweeping expanses between gentle slopes. Driving through, one wants to just get out and run to the nearest rise all for the pleasure of running and to see what’s on the other side. Her first day out Gracie said, “I feel so free in Mongolia. Can I just run around?” China was all paths. The steppes are like a lawn. Our chance to explore came when the afternoon rains dispersed and Skye, Carrie, Liz and I poked out of our gers and headed to an otherwise pointless rise that, in the event, just happened to be on the far side of a broad and sweeping stream. Skye was the first one to decide that fording the stream would be just the thing, and I was quick to agree. Liz and Carrie waited until we demonstrated that the water was more than waist high, but not more than belly high, and that the current, though strong, would not sweep us down. Then with some hemming and taking off of pants, they crossed to join us. With the exception of Liz losing her balance briefly, we arrived in tact. From the top of our promontory we could see the herding families and their herds. We were introduced to the thoroughly modern practice of herding from motorcycle, which seemed to exist side-by-side with horseback herding.

The whole hike had so far been a little over an hour and we had just enough time to return before heading out to seek the rare argali sheep. We surmised that upstream the river might be more fordable – perhaps we thought we’d seen someone cross on horseback -- and so traveled further along the river before attempting to cross back. My first attempt I turned back when the stream passed belly level and risked the backpack I was carrying. But rather than retry there, or take the time to go back to our original ford, hope sprang eternal and we ended up crossing further upstream. It appeared that Skye had made it across there. Only after I was halfway across with my pack and Carrie’s and my shoes and clothes on top of my head did we hear that Skye had swum the river. The water was well above my navel by then and the solid current scrapped my feet downstream several years with each increasingly rapid step. 30 meters upstream Liz and Carrie were having the same experience, less the pack. As I approached the bank of our camp, the water rose further and faster. The number of electronic devices I was carrying flashed through my head – camera’s, iPhones, batteries, lenses. I heard a splash which was our driver, Eggy (!), jumping in to help Carrie. But I could’t spare a glance because 3 meters from the bank the water was too deep even for me. I was swimming the last, struggling to keep my head above water without using the arm required to keep the pack on top of that head. Then the bank was a foot away and two feet up. I hurled the bag onto the grass and grasped at the mud, grateful the bag didn’t fall back down into the water. Upstream I could hear that the others had made it back safely as well. Bad judgment. Good outcome. Find story.

It was a full day. The ger camp settles down for the night. So do I.

The river in question. It looks deep even on horses, although
this is shallower than our spot.

This is a picture of yaks. Because they're cute.

Beijing to Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia (3 August): the Wrong Wheels

3 August

Train from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar

Gracie’s Blog: We are on the train to Mongolia. We are in hard sleeper, but it feels like soft sleeper. I’m on the top bunk and my Dad is on the bottom bunk. We are with six people. They are my dad, aunt Liz, Cousin Skye, my sister Carrie, my Brother Liam and I. We have to have two rooms because we have too many people. Only four people can stay in a compartment. So Aunt Liz, Carrie, Liam and Skye are in a compartment together. Dad and I are in a compartment together, but we have to share it with people from France. Last night I went to sleep very late but I got a lot of sleep because I woke up at like 9:00. The reason we had to stay up so late is because the train was getting new wheels because the tracks in China are different from the tracks in Mongolia. What I liked about the train is that the rooms were really fancy: fancy seat covers, fancy TV’s (but not so fancy that they turned on), and something that was really nice was that you could lift up the bottom seat and put your bags in there and close it. Voila! Some of the least favorite parts about the train were that we would have to ask the train people to turn on the A/C. Soft sleeper class had a chair, but we didn’t get those in hard sleeper. I didn’t like that because we only had our seats to sit on.

Angus’ Blog: The train is almost to our first stop in Mongolia. Looking out the window I see roads cross the steppe with actual traffic. When we woke up this morning – quite late, in fact – we were still in the Gobi. Dun colored scrub stretched in all directions. Over the next several hours the ground earned green sprigs and then legitimate vegetation, slowing sprouting the occasional white gers (yurts) and small herd of cows. Hills rise in the background. There was a windfarm. But there were rarely people, rarely cars. The electric wires were our only constant companion. So the contrast with these suburbs of Ulaan Baator is striking.

You get a lot of this out the window.

We awoke late because the train from China to Mongolia is a bit of work. We arrived at the Chinese border at 9 pm, but we had the wrong wheels. That’s right – we had to change wheels. So after handing in our passports the train headed (with us in it because we refused to stay off) to a long shed in which they lifted the train to put on new gauge wheels, a several hour affair. We didn’t leave then until after 1 am, arriving at the Mongolian border just before 2:00. Mongolia was as easy as anything can be at that hour – I’m glad I didn’t have any of worker’s jobs – but we weren’t on our way until 2:30 am. Luckily, the kids were not required to be conscious or else Gracie, instead of gregariously telling our neighbors in the next compartment all about our travels she would be a wreck.

The shed for wheel changing at the Mongolian border.
The red steel uprights foist the cars. I slept through it!

Of us all, Skye is probably the most prepared for Mongolia. Phrasebook in hand, she’s been preparing all morning. She has flash cards. She’s watched videos. She’s ready to dive in.

Outside the traveling cars have led to the outskirts of our city. Instead of slums, though, we see compounds of gers. Instead of a ramshackle, Ulaan Baator begins with an increased density of tents.

27 hours is not a long enough train ride. Yesterday I had a luxuriously long time to edit the Beijing video. But it seriously sucked up the whole day save for a few minutes set aside for conversation, border administration and putting children to bed. Today I was able to finish, but couldn’t make much progress here on the blog. And this all occurs under the shadow of correspondence with students, colleagues and papers. Tomorrow we’re going out into the hinterlands – there may be no wifi for days. Better get the done tonight!

With a little planning, trains are well-tolerated.

Beijing, China (30 July - 1 August): Forbidden and Not-so-forbidden Stuff

30 July 2014

Beijing, China

Liam’s Blog: We wake up and get ready for the day, at around 9:00 we get picked up and head on a 1 hr. trip to the great wall we go up on a cable car and walk around it was extremely long no matter how long I walk I cannot see the end. It is made of not as hard as new brick, brick but not soft and crumbly.  It has loop holes and regular wall crenellations on both sides so if the enemy got in the wall they could shoot them, it was not a risk because their civilians were in the city so could no shoot them on accident. There were a lot of stairs. Then when we got back to the hotel Skye my cousin and Liz my aunt went for a walk and then we went to bed. We had dinner on the way back from the great wall.

31 July 2014

Beijing, China

A day to catch our breath. My sister Elizabeth and niece Skye arrived on the 27^th and brought a new excitement and mix of personalities to the tour. It’s great to have them on board! In order to get to Beijing in time to pick them up at the airport we took the bullet train from Xi’an. The old train was a 14 hour roll. The bullet train left from a different station, featured car attendants in crisp new uniforms and reached speads of up to 302 kph (187 mph) – I know because each car had an LED display keeping the passengers abreast of the speed. Had we not been informed, it wouldn’t have been too impressive because the acceleration, deceleration and ride were so smooth that it certainly didn’t feel particularly fast.

Gracie and I picked them up at the airport and we took the subway back to our hostel in a hutong. Hutongs are the alleyways of Beijing and by traveling in the youth hostels here I’m able to get the kids used to budget travel while at the same time enabling us to be located much more centrally than would otherwise be possible. Liz and Skye’s energy lifted them over their jetlag and we were off and running from the get-go on Monday. In the past three days we’ve seen the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall at Mutianyu. A student who will be joining my lab in September, Siming Xie whose family now lives in Beijing, made splendid arrangements to take us around to various sites. Yesterday as we were wandering I knew we needed another musical travel blog – so there’ll be one forthcoming on these Beijing sites. Liam insisted that we cover the Great Firewall of China, too. So why not? I put a verse in it about internet censorship, too.

Carrie’s Journal: Forbidden City. When we walked in there were “secret” police security guys who look exactly like the regular ones excepting they wore regular clothes. I was really interested in the concubines and everything because it kid of disturbed me and reminded me of books I have read. It was amazing and everything was very pretty. The animals on the roof symbolized how important the building was.

Gracie’s Blog: Things I am noticing. First things first, people keep taking pictures of us or as we call is paparazziing. Then something else is people touch us, stare at us and well that’s all. So I hadn’t told you the way people ask to take a photo of us. Some people say, “Can I take photo?” (but in a Chinese accent).

Also we need a progress report. Beijing is 40°N, about the same latitude as Philadelphia, but more inland, so perhaps more like Columbus, OH.

August 1

Beijing, China

Liam’s Blog: It is finally August I am so exited I am going to see you guys in just about a month!!!!! Any way. We got up and had breakfast then we move to a new Hotel with a pool we get situated then we go to the pool and then they say you have to have swimming caps so we buy swimming caps it was fun in the pool then we got out and got ready to go to an acrobatics show it was based on a story they made up of a clown getting lost it a computer game and in the levels the acrobats to things that are really cool and in the last part 14 people get on a one person bike and open their fans. Then we go home and go to bed it was a really fun day.

Hua Shan Mountains, China (26 July 2014): Holy Mountain Therapy

26 July 2014

West Peak, Hua Shan Mountains, Shanxi Province, China

The steeper the mountain, the better the view - Chinese proverb

The kids are at their quietest. The one who is not asleep is huddled under his quilt not because he’s cold but because that provides the best light for his computer game. To save battery power it is set on its lowest contrast.

Only one of us made it to see the sunrise this morning. The haze on the horizon made it an intimate affair; the orb arose from its terrestrial midst, surely no more than 40 or 50 miles away. I watched from the West Peak, but the real crowd was on the East Peak. You could hear them in the pink light though it was miles away. When the sun first peaked there was a row. The lingering impression is not the sun, but the stone, and the air that surrounds it. To the west of the peak the surface just ends, not to begin again until 1000 meters are gone. Nothing grows on it. Whereever you look other cliffs give the same impression.

These are not the limestone karsts of Halong Bay. They don’t team with jungly life or monkeys. Made of granite they have not eroded. But still they are graceful and, considering the efforts of countless Chinese workmen, are easily accessible to the intrepid and fit. They are somewhat less easily accessible to the well-dressed and timorous: picture hikers in sequins and high heels. That is not a rare occurrence on the trails. The kids were amazed. Carrie wrote about it this way:

Carrie’s Journal: I have noticed lots of “fashion sacrifices” and other things. Climbing up Hua Shan I saw 5 WOMEN WEARING HIGH HEELS!! I laughed later when I saw dad and we discussed the mater. And if you count all the high heeled cute tennis shoes then like 35 women made Huge Fashion sacrifices. I’m just saying! And dresses really when I was walking up I saw a woman in high heeled sandals and a long red silk dress with little blue flowers on it. I was astonished at the stupidity of some of the women. Like Oh my god, I’m going hiking. Hmm what should I wear? Oh I know let’s wear my silk dress imported from France and my best shoes! I just pity the poor women. Also there was a girl wearing 1” flip flops and on the plastic bridge was a whole lot of fake white fur and they were white!

Just so you believe us, this story has a video to go along with it:

Xi'an, China (25 July 2014): Warriors in Clay

25 July 2014

Ready to be carved in stone?

West Peak, Hua Shan Mountains, Shanxi Province, China

The Hua Shan mountains are a collection of sheer peaks holy to Taoism 2 hours outside Xi’an. They jut from the surrounding plane like the cockpit of an airplane crash extruding through a wall. If the crash site had bonsai like trees, little temples and thousands of pad locks and prayers adorning it. (ed. Gracie calls them “dumplings” in the video. She’s right, too!) Whatever their geological bone fides, the Hua Shan are a wonderful accident – at one point distant and inaccessible, now chinked with steps from the very granite. And, therefore inevitably, covered with tourists. It is a testament to their grandeur that they survive their popularity!

They were not, I can say, all that popular with the younger set. But it wasn’t Gracie that struggled the hardest. It was Liam. Moments ago while we snuggled he said, “You’re the best Dad in the whole world” It’s a common litany, but always makes me smile. Tonight he added, “Thanks for encouraging me to get here.” That warranted a deep hug.

“Encouragement” is a thoughtful phrase for Mr. Liam and would not have been his description at 4 or even 3 pm this afternoon. “No, Dad. No, I’m not going any further.” “I can’t do it, Dad. I just can’t. Dad!” Seeing your boy pout through some of the most beautiful scenery mankind has access to on Earth causes a little death inside. Of course in the event he always did proceed. We would continue, leaving him there perched on some step or fantastical bend in the path. We would continue a little further until Gracie – always game to continue, but frustrated by how many of the stairs went up and how few went down or sideways – needed a breather. Then Liam would come trotting along, steel-faced and resentful. But he came. They both did. I’m proud of them all, but most proud of Carrie who drank in the vistas and whose mood was unperturbed by the challenging climb. Not quite true – Carrie has always had a terrible fear of heights, a trait that her brother liked to provoke by sitting particularly close to the edge. Even without her brothers’ help, the trails switched back between sharp drop-offs, and in one place the chipped steps climbed a ridge with cliffs dropping away to both sides. At another time in her life her fear would have been crippling. Today she bit her tongue, focused on the task, and move forward. She came out with me later to watch the sunset, proud and ready. Tomorrow we’re doing the sunrise, too.

Xi’an has been full-on tourism. We arrived three mornings ago at 4:30 am – about 4 hours early than I would have chosen and about 2 hours earlier than our kind hotelier could manage to prepare our rooms. Walking the streets of the Chinese city before sunrise in full packs with 3 children belies description and is really something that must be experienced to be appreciated. Suffice to say that Dad’s capacity to ask directions at just the right intersection to avoid making a wrong turn saved my reputation from further skewering by Gracie.

A little fisheye goes a long way!

Of course the reason to come to Xi’an is for the warriors. Terra cotta warriors. We did those yesterday and had a good time. We had an English-speaking guide, but in the event that meant that she told us in clear English where she was going to be waiting for us after we had experienced this or that archeological event. She never actually did any guiding per se. The kids were good until 12:30, at which point being a little behind schedule (because of us) they began to get hungry, tired and cranky before we were done seeing what of the terra cotta army has been unearthed. I’ve resorted to bribery – for each hour they could hold it together, they’d earn a ¥ (Chinese Yuan), a technique I chartered back in Chongqing and something of an indication of what is required to keep an 8 and a 10 year-old on target during long days. In their defense they earned 5 of the 7 ¥ available that day. And what is there really to say about this massive army after all we’ve seen and studied? So what the tour may have lacked in novel insights, it more than made up for in family-friendly photo-ops. Perhaps because of the higher ticket price, perhaps because of all the marble and granite, or perhaps because I was bringing a family, but whatever the reason it felt more remarkable today to than it did when I first visited the site in 1989.

I was 20 years old and had just taken the train from Hong Kong. I was young for a global traveler, as I am now older than other Westerners traveling in Asia. The terra cotta warrior complex was not much to speak of – I recall a large airplane hanger, and plexiglass behind which stood the eternal army. Outside a small museum, about the size of a convenience store, contained a few more pieces behind plate glass obscured by dust. For travelers’ convenience, several copies of warriors and horses had been sculpted outside for posing. Of course China has rocketed forward in 25 years, but the change to one of its most sacred modern totems perhaps captures it best. Fittingly, the complex is as much a temple as an archeological showpiece. The buildings are made of severe white stones with steps up to lend awe (the steps are ironic because one must walk down again to get to the site). One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is that science still hasn't delivered a means to maintain the color once unearthed, so 90-some% of the army remained interred.

Chongqing, China (22 July 2014): Dad's Successes and Failures

22 July 2014

Train to Xi’an, Shanxi Province, China
　
Sometimes you’re the bomb; sometimes you’re the bum. Our three days in Chongqing Province have come to an end and the journaler has tasted both sides of that equation here.

A few scenes to remember. First, we arrive in Dazu on Saturday afternoon (19 July). Dau is a little city 90 minutes outside Chongqing. I haven’t found any hotels online so I’m relying on the guidebooks suggestion of a hotel a few feet from the dusty bus station where our ride has just ended. But when we finally find it (thanks to the help of 3 to 6 helpful passersby who took an interest in our case), they deny having a hotel and send us on our way. Except we have no way to go. There is no back-up plan. I’m acutely aware of three children with their little backpacks relying who have been traveling the past two nights in on trains. They need decent food, showers, and a place to recharge their batteries. Literally, because their iThings have been out of charge for hours. I leave Carrie and Liam with all our bags under a tree next to some hawkers beside a river and Gracie and I begin the search on foot, guidebook in hand with a few handy phrases that we cannot pronounce but at least we can show the characters. It was entirely old school – asking, pointing, following, asking again. Within 20 minutes the trail leads to a communist-era monstrosity: a hotel run by the post office. The carpet is stained. The walls are stained. The windows are grimy. The deepest cut of all, though, is that there is no wifi. This is how the post office gets its digs against the electrogentsia.

Songli: Ming Dynasty-era village along the Yangtze River

Surprise! Buddha and Bob 
in their unlikely niche.

Songli: Dog and chilli’s - just like in the Ming dynasty!

We’ve sought out this region to see the rock carvings made by Buddhist monks during the Tang and Song dynasties. The kids are interested because then they don’t have to risk being stuck on a boat being underwhelmed by the Three Gorges. I’m interested because I’m wondering if there is a sense that rock carving was an alternative form of meditation during that era. What we don’t count on is a sign at the end that points toward a hilltop pagoda. It which turns out to be a boring pagoda (see Carrie’s blog about the sad dog caged behind its locked door), but as we’re leaving a hawker tells us we can’t leave until we’ve seen Shakyamuni down this other stair to the right. Shakyamuni down the stair to the right? Well, alright. Gracie protests – she doesn’t want to go up or down another stair. And it’s true it doesn’t look like much more than a construction site until we stumble around the last corner and turn back to look at the hill we’ve just descended. There, in a huge niche directly beneath the pagoda, sit two giant Buddhas confortable on their thrones. No one is around. No sign marks their presence. Several sticks of incense smoke lazily in a trough between them and workers’ piles of sand, gravel and boards. Full marks for discovery.

Again and again Chinese people have stepped up to help this benighted Western father. The guidebook says you can catch a local bus from Yongchuan to Songli, so the next day we sought a Yongchuan-bound bus from to deliver us from Dazu. (These events occurred after Gracie and I spent an enchanting morning peering at an even more remarkable collection of carvings which, amid the droves of domestic tourists, made up for in wonder what it entirely lacked in discovery.) What you don’t know is that Yongchuan is an entirely adequate to host at least two bus stations. This possibility is entirely lost on us, though, until a friendly stranger walks us out of the station, hails a cab, tells the cabbie where to take us, tells us how much it will cost and then goes back about his business. A few minutes later we’ve made our last connection of the day and Daddy’s plan doesn’t look so crazy after all anymore. Others have helped us find hotels, get to train stations, chased us down with left cell phones. When I first visited China in 1989, there was a terrible reputation for surly, unhelpful service. I recall then that kindly strangers would still emerge at key moments to help or practice conversation. Perhaps that kernel of kindliness has spread? Or the incentives have shifted.

I don’t know if I was the bomb or the bum at Songli – a little Ming dynasty riparian village upstream from Chongqing. Zoning has managed to preserve a series of cobbled ways and alleys between a fine collection of half-timbered and pseudo-half-timbered structures. There were no other tourists in sight despite the village elder’s best effort to post signs and maps in Chinese and English: the Chen family household here, the Mouth of Supernatural Beings there. We tried to make it out to see another Buddha statue carved into a bluff overlooking the river, but in the end we didn’t have the hutzpah and the Buddha went unseen that day. Instead we turned from our path to a stairwell that went straight down to the Yantze. The kids didn’t stop – it was hot and sweaty and they waded right in. Liam grinned. Gracie said it was the best feeling ever. So Songli brought a top score for quaint and authentic (no western restaurants to be found, not even English menus), but, again and alas, no wifi in the hotel. How can anyone be expected to play Minecraft in another’s world if there is no wifi?

Carvings at Dazu: Gracie contemplates the punishments of a variety of sumptuous hells

Here’s an anecdote with a surprising lesson. Ninety minutes before our 5 pm (17:00) train we were in a small tea house eating dumplings and playing Chinese checkers and were about to learn that we would not be able to get a cab back to our hotel. This stage led to one of the most wonderful family crises we’ve had in China, if not the whole trip. I relayed the news in clipped tones. The children immediately got it. We dashed down garbage-strewn byways, up foot-eroded stairs, failed to flag a taxi again and again. Then, when we decided to hoof it the whole way to our hotel, we carried forward up hills and around traffic, unified by the mission of catching our train. There is fatigue, there is exhaustion – the temperature here is 102° in the sun -- but desperation provides a clarity of purpose and a joyous cohesion. Here we are in a strange city on the far side of the world. The traffic swirls around us. We know where we need to go and how and when to get there. We have only been thwarted in that we have less time than expected because cabs aren’t going to do the taking. Hands joined we step quickly. Gracie is the first to double over. Carrie takes my backpack and I put Gracie on my back as I climb the dingy Chongqing stairs, up, up, up. Later its Liam’s turn on my back. Neither of them need to ride for long, just long enough to catch their breaths. No one is worried about what is fair. Everyone just does what they can without drama or reprimand. It was the team play I’ve longed for since the beginning of the trip. We covered in 15 minutes going uphill what has required over an hour going down. Did we make the train in time? Indeed. There were high fives all around when we finally reached our compartment, victorious. I only regret we had neither camera nor voice recoding to use for “quality improvement purposes.”

In terms of progress toward the tundra, Chongqing is 29° N, or about as far north as Houston. We’ve arrived in latitudes equivalent to the United States!