The food - Part 3

First of all - have you noticed the fancy NEW AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION button on the right hand side? Try it, it's hilarious.

We are currently in Hanoi, where we are forced to stay in our hostel unless we want to go play with the Monsoon rain. Unfortunately for you, this gives Judith & me time to update our blog. Having raced through Latin American (The food - Part 1) and Japanese (The food - Part 2) cuisines before, we would like to give you a quick taste (ha!) of our culinary experiences in Mongolia and China as well. Over the past few days, Judith & I have both recovered from our first serious stomach bug on our tour to date* – what a timing for this post! 

In an earlier note, I had already alluded to the fact that Mongolian nomad cuisine is, well, special. Nomad food really is not created to taste nice or to be a pleasure visually, it's just an honest provider of calories for survival in a hostile environment. Mongolian cuisine is highly seasonal, even more so than in other places. The harsh climate only allows for dairy production in summer - well, the two months of the year they call summer anyway. In winter, the nomads usually eat the animals which in the previous season have been nice enough to provide them with milk. Life can be tough.

As we stayed with different nomad families during summer, we got to eat tons of dairy products. For breakfast, we usually had yoghurt with sugar, milk rice, or urum (the brother-in-law of butter) with some bread. To prepare for the cold season, most of the cheese production was dried outside or in the tent. The tent is also where all the cooking takes place, always on a single stove fuelled with dried cow dung. Yes, it burns.  

For lunch, we often had home-made noodles, sometimes prepared in a  - surprise, surprise - milk-based soup, accompanied by some parts of animal fat & the odd piece of mutton. Dinner essentially was the same. Being nomads in an environment such as Mongolia, the chefs neither add any spices, nor do they include a lot of veggies. Nomads don't grow anything which doesn't have four hooves. No wheat, no rice, no corn, no spices, no green veggies, nothing. The few veggies they do use are bought on markets, a lot of it imported from China.

For drinking, people mostly resort to milk tea, consisting of hot water, milk, salt (!), and a bit of the leftovers of the Chinese tea production. To party, they throw in some “vodka“ made of  goat milk (only about 15-20% alcoholic content), which really tastes like vodka with a goat having drowned in it. An all time Mongolian favourite is Airag, or fermented mare's milk. It tastes like regular milk gone bad (the one that comes out of the carton in little pieces as you try to pour it over your cornflakes), with a lovely hint of horse. Mmmh.

To conclude, the food described above may sound horrible. However, if there's nothing else to eat, Mongolian nomad cuisine can actually be OK. Just try for yourself. 

After several weeks in milky wonderland, Judith & I were happy to return to China. Chinese food is simply great. And it has nothing to do with “number 54 sweet & sour for take-away, please” which until now I had thought was Chinese. The biggest surprise about Chinese cuisine was its immense variety. Every region in China has developed its own recipes, using distinct ingredients & spices. Beijing as the capital is said to be the best place to sample different regional restaurants. And sample we did. Central Asian Chinese food (depicted above) from the Xinjiang region, for example, features very distinct Mid-Eastern flavours. The Northern food generally is more salty in that they use a lot of soy sauce. The further South-West you go (Yunnan, Sichuan), the hotter & spicier (and more delicious) it gets. Conversely, the food in the  South-East (e.g. Hong Kong) is a lot milder again. Of course, being in Beijing, we sampled fabulous Peking Duck. In addition, hotpot (see below), a pan-Asian favourite, not only sounds funny but also tastes nice.

Last but not least, both Judith & I decided to try some of the shock-food as well, just to make our travel stories more exciting. While we didn't have snake (even though I thought I'd do anything to free our planet from these beasts), we did try fried scorpions. They're actually not half bad: once you put salt on them they taste like Pringles Original. Who knows what P&G put into Pringles, anyway. 

With this silly remark, I shall close this post for today. We're heading from Vietnam to Laos tomorrow on a lovely 22-hour bus ride, so I'd appreciate some compassion for our backs. Gude appo. 
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*) This is what happens when you get overconfident. We caught this stomach bug eating at a rather unclean food stall at a market in Vietnam – bragging to each other about how well our stomachs had coped with the food so far. If we'd get through this unscathed, we thought we could get away with anything. Well, as it turned out, we're sissies after all.

The Chinese cities

Hello again. This blog post will cover our experiences in – you wouldn't have guessed it – Chinese cities. Beijing & Hong Kong to be precise. We actually stayed in Beijing twice (before and after our trip to Mongolia) before flying to fabulous Hong Kong.

Beijing probably is the location where our first impression (bad) and our final opinion (very cool) of the city differed the most out of all the places we've seen. Here is why:

Having spent one month amongst extremely polite Japanese, arriving in Beijing at first came as a proper culture shock. The average Beijinger is a lot more “direct” than people in many other places. That, coming from a German, means a lot. For example, when queuing, people in Beijing literally get their elbows out and push their way forward. I prefer queuing in London. Moreover, foreigners are prone to fall victim to one of the many tourist scams. There's a popular list of 60 well-known tourist scams in Beijing alone. We managed to avoid 59 of them. The one we did have to deal with was the rickshaw-driver-overcharging-rich-foreigners-scam. We had to call the police before the bastard finally gave up. Another factor adding to our hesitant embrace of Beijing was that the effects of the public education programme leading up to the Olympics (among others telling locals not to spit on the streets) have worn off. Last but not least, pollution in Beijing is so strong that seeing the blue sky is as likely as Mario Gomez scoring a goal. So, considering the above, you might understand why we didn't exactly fall in love with Beijing right away.

After a while, however, we learned to deal with the initial deterrents. For example, it didn't take Judith and me long to sharpen our elbows while queuing and do as the Romans do. Payback time. The main reason while eventually we ended up very much liking Beijing is that we were able to stay with Leti (who had studied with me in my undergrad studies) & her boyfriend Jon. Leti is Spanish, but grew up, studied, and worked in many countries. With her love for Asia, she considers herself an “egg” - white on the outside, yellow on the inside. Jon first moved to Beijing some 15 years ago, and thus must be considered one of the grand seigneurs when it comes to foreigners in town. The two of them now live in a really cool traditional Chinese home with a nice courtyard (and an inflatable jacuzzi!!). 

Their house is in a Hutong – one of the old Beijing streets/ quarters constantly under threat of being bulldozed to make way for new property developments. Life in the Hutong is great in that you can experience the normal way of life outside the fancy new glass & steel structures, with regular Chinese sitting outside on small plastic chairs, playing cards, and sipping a beer.

Besides providing us with a lot of tips and background on Beijing, Leti & Jon turned out to be true experts when it comes to local night-life. Going out with them and their outgoing group of friends made us appreciate the diversity and liveliness of this 20+ million mega-city. We went for dinner virtually every night to sample one of the very delicious regional cuisines of China.... check out our upcoming “The Food – Part 3“ (I promise to post it soon, it's just that the beach here in Vietnam makes it so, so tough to sit down in front of our laptop). Besides eating and partying, we somehow managed to fit in some sightseeing, too. The world famous sights like the Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall are quite impressive, but be prepared to share your time there with tens of thousands of other tourists. 

Beijing, and with it of course much of China, has developed at an amazing speed over the last few years. Just look at the huge number of modern buildings everywhere (admittedly, many of which are empty as a result of the property bubble), and you see what I mean. From a Western perspective, many things might not seem right yet - economically, socially, environmentally, and politically - but keep in mind where China has come from. What the Chinese have achieved over the past 15 years took the Western world 150 years to do. If they continue to work as hard as they do right now, it's only fair that the Chinese get a bigger share of the global wealth and power pie, with the saturated West having to accept a smaller slice.

OK, enough, back to the light-hearted story-telling. We eventually left Leti, Jon, and Beijing after some ten days with a very positive image in mind, and, again, a hangover. We didn't even sleep before flying out to Hong Kong. Will we ever learn? Only time (and this blog) will tell... 

Few places in the world have impressed me as much as Hong Kong has. If you're looking for a proof that capitalism works, go to this allegedly economically most libertarian country/ city in the world. From being a mere fishing village a century ago, HK has benefited massively from its use of free capitalism, its geo-strategical location, opium-trade (OK, that was a while ago) and many (cheap but voluntary) immigrants from all over the world. Today, HK is a global commercial powerhouse, whose inhabitants on average (both mean and median) are a lot more wealthy than any of their counterparts in the neighbouring countries. 

HK in large parts consists of rather small, mountainous, tropical islands. If you want to fit 7 million people into a place like this, you can either dig massive subterranean lairs (rather unlikely) or build many skyscrapers. As a result, HK is the most “vertical” city Judith & I have ever visited, both regarding residential and commercial buildings. Nevertheless, the tropical vegetation is abundant in the mountains and parks and gives the city a pleasant, exotic feel. HK is so small that I ran into two people I know more or less by accident. One was a former client of mine, and the second one was Ayako, who had studied with me in my undergrad programme and who showed us a great dinner place.  

On Sundays, there are thousands of Philippine women, many of whom work as maids for the rich & powerful, occupying the central sites around the HSBC building. It's fun to watch them as they sit on their blankets, pick-nick, and chat away.

After only four pleasant days in HK, it was time for Judith & me to move on again. Some ten days ago, we flew to Ho Chi Minh City, this time without a hangover. Right now, we are in our little bungalow 5 meters away from the beach and enjoy the sun burning onto our bellies. I've certainly had worse. Our next post will cover food, followed by an update about 'Nam. Hasta luego.

The last frontier

 

OK, Mongolia might not really be the last frontier on this planet, but it's certainly up there alongside Papua New Guinea, Greenland, and Bavaria (Austria). The vastness of the landscapes, the harshness of the climate, the very traditional way of life of the rural population, the “food”, and the interesting transport system even surprised relatively experienced travellers like Judith & me. Thankfully, mostly in a positive way.This is our longest post yet - sorry - but at least we've again included many pics, and two shockingly revealing videos. 

We got to Ulaanbaatar, capital of the most sparsely populated country in the world, by train from Beijing, capital of the most populous country in the world. The Transmongolian Railway is part of the famous Transsiberian Railway route, and it's definitely worth the 32-hour ride. Leaving from Beijing, you get a very good impression of the Northern Chinese countryside, the Gobi Desert, and Chinese and Mongolian immigration procedures (based on what happened to the guy in the compartment next to us, I'd recommend not to get into an argument with the Chinese border police). 

Judith & I spent the first few days in UB (as the cool guys like to call it) sorting out our next tours, and buying the last items for our camping plans. UB holds the title for being the world's coldest capital (temperatures allegedly can drop below -45° C in winter), but while we were there, the Continental summer climate treated us to some nice +30° C. The city is a strange mix of Soviet architecture, traditional Mongolian Ger tents, and increasingly Western influences.

Having concluded our preparation efforts in UB, we headed to the Bulgan & Arkhangai Provinces some 400 km West of the capital. As part of a semi-organised tour, we had arranged to stay with different nomad families, which allowed us to gain some brilliant insights into their lives. Except for the odd motorcycle and maybe a fancy black & white TV linked to a solar panel with an old car battery, the daily life of the nomads is still pretty similar to what it was centuries ago. A typical nomad family would consist of three generations sharing one or two Ger tents. As a result, privacy is very limited, which made us wonder how they manage to, well, perform the necessary tasks to ensure that there are enough descendants to take over the family business.

Being herders, the nomad families typically own several hundred sheep, goats, horses, cows, yaks (Rastafari-cows), and maybe some oxen and camels. In order to protect the Gers and the livestock (against e.g. wolves), most families have pretty aggressive dogs. Before getting off your horse or motorcycle when arriving at a Ger, it is therefore highly recommended to save the small talk for later and shout “Hold your dog” instead. Since Mongolians are nice people, they will actually do it and hit the dog for you - yes, it's all a bit rougher out there. But seriously, the people we met were very nice, down-to-earth, and welcoming. 

 

Most of the nomad men we encountered didn't show a lot of facial expressions at first, but after some days (or glasses of vodka), they opened up, too. As far as the kids are concerned: it must be pretty tough for the children to grow up in the middle of nowhere without any neighbouring kids to play with. To make things worse, sometimes complete strangers show up and take away their favourite toys - click on the shocking video below. 

Talking to the families turned out to be quite challenging, but we managed somehow. Thankfully, the Soviets had introduced Cyrillic in Mongolia, which made reading easy-peasy compared to Japan and China. What is more difficult is the pronunciation of Mongolian. An unnamed neutral observer has likened it to “the sound of two cats fighting until one of them throws up”. We have to concur. Compared to Mongolian, even Czech, (Swiss) German, and Dutch sound like lovely melodies sung by long-haired virgins.

In summer, the nomad families eat & drink tons of dairy products... milk, fermented milk, cheese, dried cheese, curds, dried curds, yoghurt, salty milk tea. If you're lucky, you'll get a bit of mutton. Proteins and fat for a lifetime. We will provide more details about our culinary experiences in our next separate blog post on food. 

Besides eating, Judith & I spent a lot of time riding horses & camels. In that context, we found out that wooden saddles (why would anyone ever even consider making a saddle out of wood?) are not exactly ideal for ridiculously bad riders like us. Luckily, we had gringo-friendly leather saddles that one day when we had to gallop down a mountain in the middle of a surprise hailstorm.

Another interesting aspect of Mongolian culture we got a chance to witness was Naadam, the annual sports festival held in summer in every town throughout Mongolia. It consists of three official disciplines. Wrestling (ideal for fat men), archery (for those men not big enough for wrestling), and horse racing (for little boys). For us, seeing those little boys of maybe 5-8 years race their horses like madmen for two hours was very impressive. Some of them didn't even use a saddle. Kids of that age in the Western world still build castles in their sandboxes.

After some two weeks, we headed North to Khövsgöl Province, which is famous mostly for the huge 136km long, 267m deep lake bearing the same name. Lake Khövsgöl probably is the most beautiful lake I have ever seen, featuring crystal clear water and pristine coastlines. 

 

Judith & I rented a kayak for 5 days, packed our tent, some food, my vodka pocket flask, and a fishing rod and off we went. Judith actually managed to catch dinner for us, while I, feeling slightly emasculated, at least got to kill and barbecue the fish. 

 

The Eastern shore we visited is not very to not at all accessible by car, which is why we felt truly detached from the rest of the world. Beautiful. The only people there were the Mongolian president and the leadership of his Democratic Party, who did a joint camping trip together. Now that's something you wouldn't see in many other countries. Can you picture Sarko and Carla Bruni going camping with the UMP elite?

Speaking of accessibility: transport in Mongolia is definitely worth a separate mention. The roads and the means of transport in Mongolia are by far the worst Judith & I have ever encountered.  Outside UB, roads are virtually non-existent. The people in their 4x4s just speed across the grasslands and rivers. Unfortunately, being on a tight budget, we did not want to pay for a more comfortable Japanese 4x4, and opted for a Soviet/Russian Jeep (based on a design from the 1930s!) instead. They are truly horrible. The hopelessly overloaded Russian minibuses are even worse. By comparison, Latin American chicken buses seem like first class flights with Virgin Atlantic. As promised, here's our second video of the day...

The lack of roads certainly adds to the Mongolian last frontier-charm. Maybe this is why we met many people from all over the world who had been on the road for a long time. Compared to their massive undertakings, the extent of our small trip is put into perspective:  

Check out this French-American who has been on his motorcycle with a sidecar for more than six years: http://www.thetimelessride.com/

Or this German guy who travels the world by 4x4 & paraglider: http://www.human-multivisions.com/

Or this nice Swiss couple who managed to drive to Mongolia in a cute minivan:
http://www.oschtwerts.blogspot.com/

So, to summarise: Mongolia has been a definite highlight of our trip. If you're the outdoorsy type, you have not seen this planet if you haven't been to Mongolia. Our last two stops since – Beijing & Hong Kong – have been very different. But great nevertheless. We will upload the respective post over the coming days...So once again, thanks for taking your time to read through this, and I promise the next posts will be shorter again.