Chingis Khan energy drink

So we went to Mongolia last week. I think I should say that our first 18 hours in Mongolia were awful, and the rest were really fun.

Most people just take a Russian train straight to Ulaan Bataar, the capital, but there were only 1st class trains on the day we wanted to leave so we decided to take the train to the border and see what we could do there. We heard that there were cars and stuff that would take us to a Mongolian border town, so I wasn't too worried.

The train ride was fine, we left at night and arrived around 1:00 at the border town of Naushki. On the trip, a train policeman asked us if we were Americans, and we kept trying to give him our documents because we didn't understand him but he said that he didn't need them. "You are Americans?" "Yes." "And you are going to Naushki?" "Yes." "And then on to Mongolia?" "Yes." "I see. Then blah blah something something something, okay?"

We didn't understand him, so we said yes and tried to give him our documents. "I don't want your documents!" He said, and walked away. Later I realized that he probably gave us some valuable advice on how to cross the border, like probably not to do what we were about to do. Oh well.

We got off the train and immediately found a person who would take us to the border town of Sukhbataar in Mongolia for 600 rubles per car. Great! Except we just drove 25km to the actual border, and then we had to change cars. And still pay him. So at the border there was bunch of trucks and little beat up cars and Mongolians yelling at us to get in their car. Kevin and Patrick were in another little van because they got there about a minute earlier, and I was about to get in with them when the other three of us got into a beat up little white car. It was one of those decisions that you know is completely wrong, and yet you still do it anyway. I immediately felt pretty uncomfortable, what with all the shouting and pointing in Mongolian, the fact that the car had only 0 doors that were working perfectly, and that our driver was drunk, farted next to our window, and did not speak english and about 4 words of Russian. Before we got in I asked how much and his friend said 200 rubles. "To Sukhbataar?" I said. "Yes."

So the Russians opened the border gate and to my delight our car was pushed into the zone. Our driver asked me to write his own damn name on a customs form, which I did, but when he started telling me to write some numbers down and I didn't understand what he was saying at all I suddenly realized how stupid this all was and said in Russian "no! No! I don't understand! Where Is Your Friend, Who Speaks Russian?" It went on like this for a while, with him pushing the car from station to station, and in the car it was revealed to me that the car was not going to Sukhbataar (probably because it did not run) and now cost 300 rubles. At the Mongolian passport zone the border guard looked at my passport and asked me if I was an Indian when he saw that I was from Alaska. In english.

So Chris and I decided that we weren't going to pay him, seeing as how he didn't do anything close to what we agreed on. We decided, in our naive American certainty, that we were going to give him 30 rubles, because he did take us across the border. In Mongolia proper there was a van that promised to take us to Sukhbataar for 100 rubles each. We tried to give our guy his 30 rubles, and he responded by grunting angrily and grabbing Chris's bag. Chris held on to it, and we tried to explain that he didn't do what he promised. I then looked around and with a sinking feeling looked at the hard, unsympathetic faces of the 9 other Mongolian men around us, including the border guard who thought I was an eskimo. Everything became clear to me: give him the 300 rubles. Except then we found out that it was 300 each, and we protested a bit more, but there was really nothing we could do, so I gave him 1000. He didn't have change, of course, but that didn't matter. I just made sure to shake his hand so that he wouldn't get the idea to ask for any more money.
At this point I must say that I was not to hot on Mongolians in general, and when our last driver told us that he had to stop at his house to tell his wife, I pictured a bunch of baseball bat-wielding Mongols waiting for us, and was extremely unsettled. It turns out that he really just told his wife that he was going to take us there, and he turned out to be a very nice guy who spoke a little Russian. "Your driver, taxi driver, bad man." he said. "Very drunk."
Its surprising how quickly I went from being a generally trusting guy to a guy who hated non-American Asians to a normal trusting guy again.
So we finally got to Sukhbataar, and all we had to do now was buy a train ticket to Ulaan Bataar. Except the ticket office was closed. So we waited in the small station hall for about 7 hours. At the start of the last hour about a million people flooded in and the ticket sellers came opened up shop. In Mongolian trains there are basically two classes: hard and soft. Soft means slightly softer beds and a guaranteed spot. They sell unlimited hard tickets, so we obviously wanted soft ones. They were twice as expensive, but when choosing between a 4 dollar ticket and an 8 dollar ticket, it wasn't too difficult.
Except:
They were out of soft tickets. So we were just given a wagon, #3, and we gathered in a big clump around it. As soon as the wagon attendant showed her face by the door, people started fighting to get on. Not like Americans fight to leave a baseball game, or even like Russians fight to get a spot on a minibus, but like a big battle. Probably because of our size advantage, Patrick managed to get the last compartment on the wagon, which meant that we didn't have to watch our bags as we could put them under our seats. Unfortunately, this was a night train and we tried to sleep sitting upright while dozens of Mongolians talked loudly and banged the door as they went to smoke. Every time I woke up, which was a lot, there were more and more Mongols on the train, sleeping on luggage racks and such. It wasn't nearly as bad as Indian trains, though, I bet.
When we arrived in the capital at 6:40am it was really ______ cold, because it is in the desert and the temperature pretty much keeps dropping until sunrise. Nobody was there to meet us from our hostel like we thought, and there apparently no telephones in the station, so we decided to walk.
I was just glad to be in Ulaan Bataar at this point, and as we walked the sun rose and despite the cold I felt pretty good. It was my first time in Asia proper, and I saw all the little kids walking to school, and the signs for Korean hair salons and everything. It wasn't a pretty city, but it was a very pleasant city and I liked it a lot. We found our hostel by accident because although it is very close to a central landmark, the State Department Store, it is hidden away in a nearby courtyard. We got there around 7:30 and I finally took a shower.

Well that was the first bad part of the trip, but I have run out of time so I will soon write about the rest, which was fun and interesting and safe. But that was the thing. Also, I have been in Russia 2 months and Obama will be the next president of the United States and that's good for me and for the Russians, I think.