The thing about roads

Our last days in China and our first days in Mongolia are the textbook definition for contrast. Although neighbors, these two countries share little in common other than a border. The last week for us has been highly eventful to say the least.

Driving in the desert with a young guy from China lends time for many questions. The fork in the road heading North to Mongolia is the start of the heavily industrialized Northeast of China. As we approached this fork in the road, the air started to get more and more dense with smoke. Factories lined the highway spewing smoke so thick that it is surprising the air is even breathable. Jason informed me that this most polluted area of China. After our time in Xian it is hard to believe that it could get any worse. This area of China is so polluted that when satellites fly over the images are simply white smoke.

The border of the Inner Mongolia province in China is where the South of the Gobi desert begins. Here many changes are present. It is the only province that China allowed to keep their roots when Mao took over in the 50s. Road signs, homes and villages are in great contrast to the rest of China. Instead of houses many of the communities have yurts. The factories get thinner and thinner and the wind picks up. Relief on the horizon changes from hills and mountains to plains and finally just endless miles of sand and barren desert. Characters in the old style Mongolian alphabet look like a new form of Arabic turned on its side. We like to call it fire writing.

Eventually, all of this new information led me to some questions with our guide Jason. I asked, "Why is Inner Mongolia part of China and not a part of Mongolia?"

"Inner Mongolia was actually liberated and this year is the 60th anniversary."

In my head I am thinking, liberated from whom? So many times since the start of this journey the history lessons make me feel ever so stupid.

Jason carried on, "When The Peoples Democratic Republic of China was formed in the 40s by Mao, they were the last nation that China liberated."

I thought in my head about good old Chairman Mao. I though more about Tibet. Liberated is a very interesting term, in my past I have always associated it with something being held captive against their will. IThe Inner Mongolians were liberated from their inferior government, just like the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans were "liberated" from their lack of communism. Others may see things differently, but the Dalai Lama is a pretty easy choice over Mao and communism any day of the week. It is unfortunate that great guys like our guide Jason have spent their whole life being lied to by their government. He knows no better, according to the history books and anything that you can access in China, all of the nations China invaded were liberated. A simple search on the Internet will give the rest of the world the facts about what happened in these places, but any site with something adverse to say about the situation in Tibet or Inner Mongolia is blocked in China. In fact, all images in an image search for Inner Mongolia was blocked when searching while in Beijing, like for instance this satellite photo of the pollution over NE China (all of the gray is smoke from the factories, click the photo to check out the hi-def version).

Luckily enough, our turn was to the left taking us North to Mongolia. The writing on the signs changes, the weather changes, but most importantly the smoke begins to fade. It is amazing how much better you feel when the air quality is not threatening your health on a daily basis. We had our first glimpse of blue skies in over three weeks. It certainly put a smile across both of our faces. Wide open nothingness was just what the doctor ordered. Well built highways with hardly another car in sight was certainly a great way to ease our way into the next few hours of the usual Chinese border madness.

As we approached the border a rainbow bridge spanned the road leading to the last of our time in China. I asked Jason if it was the Mongolians or the Chinese that like rainbows; he informed me that it was in fact the Mongolians. How could things get better? We were leaving the cloud of pollution under a rainbow entering a country full of people that like rainbows. After jumping through all of the Chinese hoops we finally said goodbye to Jason and made our way through the last two Chinese checkpoints (there were three total to leave).

Moments later we arrived at the Mongolian border. This is not a place that I would recommend anyone visit unless they have a great deal of patience. It did not take us long to get through, but finding out how to get through is the hard part. After finishing at immigration and making our way through the hoards of drunken Mongols, the radio conversations between the two of us wen something like this:

"Okay so what now?"

"Let’s go down that line."

"I think that old bus is broken down at the end of it."

"Do we need paperwork to get through."

"I don’t know."

"Let’s just go for it."

"But how the road is totally blocked."

"I think we can go the wrong way on the other side of the road and get around this."

This went on for another 5 minutes or so, until we found a place to park the trucks and milled around asking questions. We did notice that when people left the final checkpoint at the border they were giving the guard a piece of paper. It seemed in our best interests to obtain one of these slips before trying to get through.

After a couple laps around the inspection yard I managed to track down a customs officer dealing with some more drunk Mongolians. This led the two of us into the customs building that was equally chaotic. At every turn a though pops up in this building…what is that smell. Well my friends, that is the smell of alcohol on everyone’s breath, drivers included. $4 later we had our handwritten note from customs saying that we could go.

_DSC0437 At this point the sun was going down and we were on our way into the heart of the Gobi desert with nothing more than some binoculars and a compass. The common question people ask before you leave on "roads" in Mongolia is, "Do you have a GPS?" Our immediate answer is, "Heck no, that takes all the fun out of it." Clearly we did not know what we were getting ourselves into.

We drove for about 30 min on what we thought was the highway, only to decide that it did not seem right so then drove 15 mins through the open desert in hopes of finding a better road. Go North, Go West. Eventually you have to in Ulaanbaatar, just follow the railroad tracks, or at least that is what we kept telling ourselves. By now it was getting dark so we pulled off the track and watched the sun set.

We passed out that night and woke up to find ourselves covered in sand with the wind blowing. Our rig that we set with the tarp to block wind did a good job, but it was just no match for the Gobi winds. After brushing off all the sand and packing up, we hit the "road" again.

Never in my life did I expect to be a the top of a hill in the desert using binoculars to find my way. Never did I expect to use piles of alcohol bottles as _DSC0452 markers to find my way. Never did I expect to think of camels at a gas station as the usual. This is Mongolia and this is the Gobi, and it has never been so apparent since we left just how far away from home we have managed to get.

That is the thing about roads, if you take the right one you will end up in a country full of people that like rainbows and ride camels; if you take the wrong one you might just end up in a place were satellite photos are just fuzzy tones of gray. I will take the rainbow lovers any day of the week, those commies down south can take their paperwork and smog and put it where the sun don’t shine and rainbows don’t exist.

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