mongolia is really cold

January 27th, 2011

wagon #1

our last leg of the Trans-mongolian Express

Another early wake up call to hop back on the TME to Bejing.  The folks at UB Guest House were great.  We would never have been able to pull of the miracle visas without their deft ministrations.  Jill and I were the two oldest folks at the UB.  Lots of twenty somethings with backpacks on world tour. Clare and Ben were a bit of a spectacle and were consistently allowed to pick out the dvds that they wanted to watch.  "Up" seemed to be a big hit with the whole hostel.   One of my biggest regrets so far is not being able to get out of UB and stay in a ger in the national park.  360 degrees of horizon.  

The twins have made a big reading breakthrough and now sit and churn away for long periods of time. Ben is reading The Mysterious Benedict Society and Clare is working on Top 10 Bejing. I started reading Gombrich's A Little History of the World out loud to them.  Perfect.  

Each leg of the TME has a totally different vibe.  No more mongolian trader chaos; this train has video screens in the couche.  The provodnista brought us hot water and a selection of tea shortly after we got on board, and at stations where a number of people get on, they roll out a red carpet the length of carriage which then disappears. 

at dusk we saw a herd of wild mongolian camels cantering away from the train.  cool.  I am having a ramen renaissance.

Our wire transfer to pay for our tour in Bhutan has been held up according to a recent schwab email.  This after 2 skype conversations with schwab reps who assured me that everything was in order and that the transfer was going through.  One of the more frustrating challenges of international travel has been maintaining our access to our money.  We get paranoid about using the cards too often or for large sums because we are scared that "security measures" will turn us into cash flow paupers. Whatever happened to traveller's checks???

the sign picture that just got away.  at the last train station: "underass entrance" instead of underpass entrance.

posted from Bhutan on Feb 10, 2011