Where is Trond & Maren ?

Narantuul market, or the black market, history goes back to the Soviet era, and is absolutely massive.

The market is largely un-regulated and is known for hosting a lot of counterfeit goods, but also lots and lots of other stuff. Here you will get everything from washers to tshorts, saddles, jewelry and suitcases. Also there is tons and tons of clothes, cloth and shoes….so so so many shoes.

We really did not have anything in particular we where looking for.But we wanted to check out the local boots (not very comfy, sonthat was a pass), Maren was buing a local dress (deek) and Trond really needed new sneakers. After the great wall walk i China, the sneakers had picked up a distinct smell that scared off dogs and made kids cry.. also, the hotellroom got infected, triggering lsd-type dreams and curled up curtains.

The market is really huge, and we got lost after 5 minutes – its impossible to keep an idea of direction. The stalls are divided into zones, show zone, clothes zone and so on. Its really not a lot of knick back and endless stalls of the same stuff,tgmhere is a lot to explore.

I went and checked out saddles and other horse equipment. I cant really bring a saddle back home, but when checking prices it would probably be a nice investment.

We ended up walking around here for 4-5 hours, alleays seeing something new. The market is a sight in itself – even if you are not buying anything, its cool just to walk around and look at stuff.

The popular mongolian hero is visible almost every where you turn in Ulan Baatar.

We decided to visit the 44 m high statue of him located outside the city, an hour and fifteen minutes by car.

Genghis Khan was born Temüjin 1162 and he died in August 1227. He was the founder and first khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongol tribes, he launched a series of military campaigns, conquering large parts of China and Central Asia.

This was a fun and wierd place. It had a small serious museum with history. Some art by local artist, which were very interesting. (See some pictures below, but there were lots of mindblowing art we didn’t get photos of). And you could go almost to the top of the statue and get a magnificent wiew. And a very good selfie oppertunety with the great man himself.

We were not surr what this was, but he looked kind of scary.

A giant mongolian boot, probably not for sale.

The museum had a nice exhibition with focus on both history and everyday life.

Our driver was a all nice guy, he had been living two years in New York, and had stayed over a year in Korea (not willingly, he got locked in by corona), so it was nice to get some history along the drive. Politics dont seem to baba super touchy subject here, and as we found there are many similarities between Norway and Mongolia. Showing some pics if the Norwegian Sami people with reindeers was a very close resembelnce to the nomands in the north here – also herding reindeers.

We could probably do e this trip cheaper, we played 425.000 mongolian (120$ ish). That was just for the car driving os out, waiting for as long we needed and the driving us back. But it was well worth it.

As we all know the the world is on fire, and if one wants to travel, you just have to go with whats avalible. Trond booked tickets 3 months ago with the travel agency in China for railway tickets from Bejing to Ulan Bator. It was a lot of emails and the language barrier was significant. But with a little trust and patience. It all worked out. And it was quiet the experience. We got to see a lot of both China and Mongolia we woulden’t have seen otherwise.

The first leg of the trip took us to Erlian, where we had a wait of 12 hours (!), that was “everybody out!” and finding a hotell to lounge around in until approx 1730 when we boarded again and started the 2-3 km ride over the china-mongol border.

After crossing the border, our passports where collected in a 80s spy movie briefcase, a customs guy went trough our room and looked in my bag… Then we waited some more, then a lady clearly military came and had a second look – checking underneath bed, overhead compartment ..looking at suitcase, then a bit more wait – and we got our passports back. All of this took close to an hour, and the train started moving! Woho!

but no, it stopped, backed up some hundred meters and then stopped. And there we sat for 3,5 hours… With no internet, because our holayfly eSims where fucked (I got them fixed just now, in Ulan baataar).

So 12 hours wait, 15 minutes across boarder, 3,5-4 hours wait. And then! Then it got dark, and we started our trip towards Ulan Baataar.

We kept the same coupe the whole trip, a 4 pax soft sleeper all to ourselves really was a luxury.

The toilet situation was something we had wondered a bit about, and also one of the reasons we opened for nicer seats. I gotta say, it was not real bad – it worked, you saw the moving ground trough the toilet. The smell was, it was, hm, pungent ? It smelled of old piss to put it bluntley. The ‘trick’ was to use it when the train moved, and there was som air circulation .

Was not to bad . I have seen and smelled worse.

Sleeping, or kinda sleeping, trough the night – its a bit of movement and the beds are not super comfy, we woke at 06:something to a beautifully day, some hours out of Ulanbator.

The landscape is pretty flat and barren, lots of horses and cows. Really not that much to see, but it is cool riding trough the massive landscape.. weather here is colder than China, so some snow n ice.

Arriving into Ulanbator on schedule, no internet and no money – we found a taxi driver that showed us an atm and told us that the prise was 25.000 .. how much nok was that? We did not know 🙂

Finaly here 🙂

Got woken up at 0500 by the conductors, everybody off in 30 mins. Now it is time for change of the wheel sets to fit the wider tracks in Mongolia, og narrower – we are unsure. They are different at least.

It was absolutely freezing and windy – it at least felt so that early in the morning, think it was about 10c.

We where met by a bunch of locals selling jeep rides across the border to Mongolia (thats just a couple of kilometers away), food, hotell stays and other tours. We stood around for some minutes until we where pretty much the only ones around…wondering what to do.

Checking googlemaps – or amap as the app is called in China, we found a hotell and a very sleepy receptionist that set us up with a splendid room for only 100cny (140 nok).

The orange part there is the hotell – we are on the third floor. Big bed, European toilet and waterboiler for our ramen. 👍

Really nothing to do until the train leaves at 1645 (we think, it is absolutely impossible to know for sure 🙂 ). But nice to get a few hours sleep until then.

We really really need to stock up on snacks and water – there is none of this on the train.

We arrived in Hohhot after 2,5 hours on the bullet train, arriving at a huge rail station (the new one). And we where met by our travel-company-guy just outside. He had gotten a bit nervous that we would not be able to get from the new station to the old one (10 km), so he had gone and got his car after work – so he could drive us there. What a nice guy! ( He had been to Senja in Norway )

The new station above, the old one below.

We even had a bit of time sampling the local cuisine, a mcdonalds… Nice to have a regular burger again.

So one more security check – all good, no meat scissors. And then just wait for boarding

When we finaly got to walk out on the platform we did feel a bit excited and curious about or seats. There are different options, and we would be fine with most..but sharing a 6 person coupe with plywood beds would not be ideal..

Luckily we had gotten the correct tickets, and ended up in a 4 bed soft sleeper, and probably because the train was not full we got moved to one we could have all for our selves….the luxury!!

Now its 36 hours ride to Ulanbatar, with a 6 hour wait in Erlian where they change the wheel sets on the train. Beds where fine, im not sure SOFT is the word I would use, but at least they where to meters long. No charging in the room, we found one outlet in the hallway that worked.

If we have understood it correctly we should be in Erlian at 0530, there we just have to see what we do during the 5-6 hour wait.

Today we start the travel that will/can/might bring us to Ulan Batar in Mongolia. We have spent months setting up these tickets, transferred money abroad.. 20 emails, so lets see how this will work out in the end.

The bullet train (speed just below 300 kmt) leaves from Beijing North railway station, and because of luggage we went with a taxi this time around.

Its a fairly nice station, with the bullet train gates at the ground floor. First thing we learned is that the security checking here is a bit more strickt than we where used to. So our supernice meatscissors from Korea is now in the property of a very nice girls in the security check… The scissors where 3-4 cm to long. Our bags are absolutely stuffed – 23-25 kg each (We actually bought a new suitcase some days ago, the old one was to small), so repacking and getting out the scissors was an absolute joy! 🙂

Our tickets are attached to our passport numbers, so we should now be golden. Hanging out at Gate 7 – for the 16:50 to Hohhot, where we probably/will/might get our international tickets to Mongolia… On either coach, second, first or some other option..we dont know 🙂

Jinshanling

The great wall is a series of fortifications in China. They were built across the historical northern borders of ancient chinese state and Imperial China as protection. The first walls date to the 7th century BC, these were joined together in the Qin dynasty. Successive dynasties expanded the wall, the best-known sections were built by the Ming dinasty (1368–1644). We did som googeling and decided we wished to visit the part of the wall you can acsess from Jinshanling. Its a part of the wall that haven’t been restored, but still safe to walk. It was challenging in parts, but so worth it. You could feel history under your feet and the view was breathtaking. Its also very few tourists here. So you could enjoy the great walls magic undisturbed. And the great wall of China definitely has a magic thats hard to convey into words. One simply has to exeperience it.

We booked an unguided tour that picked us up at our hotel. They had bookes tickets for us and explained where to go. The bus drove us to the main office at Jinshanling.

From the office there were small busses drove us to the startingpoint. The tourbus would pick us up at the East gate after 4 hours. There were a few exit trails along they way if you could make the end in time.

We took cabelcars up to the unrestored part of the wall.

Trond was super brave and was promised this was the last cabel car ride he would ever have to take.

After a short trail from the cabel car to the wall we could finally enjoy the wiew.

When using the cable car you will end up approx 2 km into the walk – but those two km’s are a very restored part of the wall, and its really at the cable car the scenic old original wall starts. We found no reason to walk a newly built wall, and also know that we where going to have an extra hour or so, taking breaks and pictures.

We got an easy to follow map from the guidecompany, Bejing downtown travel service. Higly reccomend them, they were great.

I would say that it is not a -easy- hike, there has to be thousands of steps, uneven, and in some spots there is just a massive incline where you walk on a flat surface – fearing your shoes will slip and send you hurling down.

Actually, on a few of the steep hills, if you have a fear of heights, you will feel it.

what an absolutely magical place. And pretty much no people – it was great to experience this site without endless lines of people.

we walked for 3,5 hours, knees and legs was jelly, impressions was amazing. We just walk along going “wow”.

There where locals selling stuff at the different Towers, water beer magnets. We picked up a magnet at the last tower, and started to move down the hill towards the car. (That was 40 minutes, and probably 1 million more steps) 😀

At the bottom we met up with the rest of the group and had one of the best beers yet. Great collection of people, there where Dutch, Kiwis , English and a very nice American solo travelers that we talked quite a bit with on the ride back.

All inn all – Jinshalinfg👍👍👍👍

Its one of those places where its really hard to capture the scene in a picture You feel engulfed in the place – with all the massive buildings on all sides. History going back hundred of years.