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Sarah says:

One of the most beautiful aspects of traveling is that moment where you find yourself having arrived upon spot of the world so awe-inspiring and breathtaking, so truly different from anything you have seen before and anything you have at home and it’s all the more special because you know you may never see it again. It’s a feeling of being lucky to be included in the company of people who have had this moment.

I had one of these moments looking out upon the spectacular open countryside of Mongolia. Outside the capitol city is a pristine nothingness like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The landscape is so gentle and fresh and virtually untouched or changed by interfering humans that I’m certain it remains exactly how it was 25,000 years ago. The air is crisp and silent except for the neighing of wild horses. Out there the sun is free to lay a blanket of the most vibrant oranges and purples across the sky in sunsets that stop time. Absolutely nothing in the world could take your eyes off the sky. (more…)

Dave Says:

An important part of any backpackers journey to different cultures is the ubiquitous homestay. This is often the only ‘real’ contact to be had with the non-westernized and often purely indigenous population of those far flung places. However, the cultural homestay is not always the meeting of the two worlds the brochure promised. Firstly the expectations of the tourist are hard to meet. They want the authentic experience but the disappointment with the presence of a constantly blaring TV and the disgust of an overflowing outhouse offers reality, just not the reality they expected or paid for. It must be hard on the hosts too. Here come more backpackers want to experience living as they do but seemly unable to surrender either their iPods or their hand sanitizer.

Communication ranges from tricky to down right boring despite, but probably because of, the handbook of useful phrases provided by the tour company. Interesting gems such as: “My name is… “, “I live in…” and the utterly useless unless you are conversing with a small child: “How old are you?” That last question serving only to highlight the fact these people look a lot older than they are and that there may be some basis to Olay Facial Cream’s ability to visible reduce lines on western faces. I say boring because every tourist has the phrase book and the host family have answered the questions a million times before. Once that initial salvo of questions is over, everyone is left twiddling thumbs staring at the floor. Everyone, that is, apart from the family who have a hundred chores left to do before the sun sets, not the least being to prepare the tourists a meal that both enters and exits their bodies with pleasure and not fear.

Of all the information a tour company may supply their customers with, the most interesting is cultural do’s and don’t list. These are the actions that must be performed to please the family and those that must be avoided lest a large fire is built in the tourist’s honor upon which they will be gently roasted and fed to the entire village.

So, having completed yet another homestay without being served medium rare to the natives, I thought it would be of great service to the reader to document a few cultural rules for suitable for both rural Mongolian and rural North American interaction, should they find themselves homestaying in either locale: (more…)

Dave Says:

Mongolia was just one of those words that I would use in hyperbolic statements such as: “Oh my God, the nearest decent bar might as well be in Mongolia” or “If you don’t live in Seattle you may as well live in Mongolia!” Now I have been to the object of my exaggeration I can tell you three things. Firstly, it doesn’t have any decent bars although the beer is quite yummy, secondly, it is indeed in the middle of absolutely nowhere and lastly and most importantly, it is everything that the middle of nowhere should be when it is the cultural and commercial bridge between Russia and China – two places that are definitely somewhere. I’m sure Sarah will tell you about its beauty, desolation, warmth and humanity so I will tell you about what it’s like to be on a timeless and perpetual frontier between east and west. (more…)

Sarah Says:

If only the word Propaganda began with the letter “C”. Instead we will have to make due with confusing, colliding and competing communist capitalism, censorship and conspiracy, coercion by the former champion chairman and comrades of China. This is The Big C. (more…)

Dave and Sarah Say:

As we continue to eat our way around the world, we are pleased to offer you, our dear readers, tonight’s special dish:

Fried Put Down Bag, Dried Veg Tabasco with Pepper

So, place your napkin upon your lap and toast both the wondrous and bizarre as we bring you the best and worst culinary China has to offer. (more…)

Dave says:

The Asians have a particular way of going about their bus business and it isn’t the way we go about ours. Riding the bus anywhere in Asia appears at first to be a step back in time; the lack of humanity and civility being almost too much to bare. Then, after enough bum-numbing, vomit inducing, deafening and death defying miles you can’t help but wonder at the total humanity of it all. It’s a humanity that is lacking in the west. We are cut of from our fellow humans by our iPods and desire to just get to where we’re going without interacting with or catching a cold from the guy sitting next to us. Take away the iPod and make the common cold the least of the ailments you have to worry about and the bus becomes the connection between you and your world with a chance to chat to your neighbours in the process. (more…)

Dave Says:

If you truly want to travel, use your nose. Not as a direction finding instrument but as the sense that informs your desirous brain that you’ve arrived. Arrived at what is unclear until you get there and that all depends on what you’re looking for to begin with. In the case of China, I know we’ve arrived at the more challenging aspects of travelling because everything smells vaguely of pee. When life smells like that you know you’re in the real world and not on vacation. Sometimes it smells very much of pee, or in the case of the small child who took a dump right next me on the floor of the train carriage we were in, it smells distinctly of poop. (more…)