Author: Maren Hanetho

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 🙂

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👍👍👍👍

with guide

The forbidden city build from 1406 – 1420.

After going through a lot of checkpoints we came to a massive queue. And our guide told us its like this every day. Of course everybody wants to go to the forbidden city.

The tour operator had booked the tickets, but since they are linked to our name – we have to show our passports to get them and pay. We got money from the guide – and me and Maren voulenteered to stand i Line to get tickets (the guide was not allowed, we where not on a tour.. if anyone asked) So – 1,5 hour in line, 13 passports. 🙂

From the outside it looks very splendid. And amazingly buildt in only 12 years, predomanatly in wood.

The moat that surronds the forbidden city is beautiful and about 50 meters vide.

Our guide getting our gear ready, we all had earpices, so we could hear her even if we were lagging or trailing behind in the group.

And lagging behind was not hard to do – she moved at great speed, walking speed only beaten by the talking speed. I think she drew her breath at 08:00, and just kept going on a single breath until 12:00. 😀

The forbidden city is huge, there is no way one can se it all in one day. It is mindblowing that this huge luxurious area in the middel of Bejing was forbidden for anyone but the emperors and their family for 600 years. Trespassing was punishable by death. And it takes a looong time to walk around.

It has been open for the public since 1924 and it is supercheap to get in. It has somewhere between 15 – 20 million visitors annually.

It got a bit crowded at times, but still well worth it. Its one of those places you just have to se.

While the South Korean people have a very spesifc exprience linked to the Hanbok rental. The Chinese are more limitless. You can rent you Hanfu for 24 hours and do whatever you like. Which makes it a collective experince and fun for all of us.

We went to visit the art zone, and it was a super cozy, highly creative and fun. We spent hours here. And we could have stayed a couple of days in these creative spaces without sering everything. Among cool museums, there were small atliers and shops. We found a DIY atelier, were you could buy the supplies and rent a small workbench and tools. There were selfdriving snacktruks and old industrial buildings turned into artspaces.

We found small cafés with amming food and even a prize winning brewery.

It was a bit of a metro ride to get here but we are super peoud of our metro skills.

Hear me out. I know Lego is a Danish brand. And I been to Legoland several times, but this store was FUN. Cool exibit pieces, a massive colletion and a huge selecton of Lego by the wheight. You could make your own figures. And all at a price cheaper than in Denmark and original. So if you love Lego like I do, its well worh a visit. Even though it feels a bit like cheating. Travel half way around the world to see Lego….you know what I mean. But next stop is a hip Chinese art district, so I figured I had 30 minutes to spare. I made myself a Lego man, and bought 2 premade just bcause they were super fun and I have never seen so much accessorizes for the Legowomen/man.

Last night as we were walking to our hotel we noticed a huge line and was very curious. It was a small hole in the wall with cold drinks and ice cream. Everybody walked away the same green ice cream. Today as we were walking by, there was just a few people in line. So Maren decided to give it a try. You could chose green tea or jasmine. I chose Jasmine, it it was super light, melting on your tounge, like a cross between slush and soft ice. It was super good and only cost 15 kr. I will defenetly go back and taste green tea.