Last day in civilisation…

Tom and Kim arrived early yesterday and together with them, I left the hotel and moved into an apartment owned by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). We packed all gear at SLT’s office including a huge amount of food that we bought at various markets and loaded it on a truck going to the Gobi. Have hopefully finished the last things now, It’s been two very busy days.  From now on I will send messages to Guillaume Chapron (Chappen) at Grimso research station and he will publish them on the blog.

I got to take out some money and buy some calling cards and then its off for dinner. I have put the adress where you can send letters and SMALL parcels under the “about me and the project” heading

Orjan

Some valuable tips when moving abroad

I realized that I have forgot to write some very important stuff. First, I was on the same plane as the Brazilian soccer team (female), they were actually sitting in the same area as me. But while they were travelling to fame and glory in the Olympics, I was on my way to solitude in what Lonely planet describes as “one of the harshest places on Earth”… Still, it’s pretty cool, eh?

Second, I have come up with three invaluable things to remember when moving abroad, especially if the country has an extreme climate and uses Chyrillic alphabet (making it hard to understand signs):

1. If you pack an extra bag and send it as cargo, meaning it will arrive a couple of days after you, it is wise to fill it with clothes that you will not use immediately (Check, I did that, it’s full of winter clothes). However it is not as wise to fill the extra space in the bag with all your socks and shoes (Check, did that too, Ohh…)

So, I have been walking around in my nice desert boots and the same socks for the past six days. I have washed the socks in the zink but it didn’t help much.

2. Make sure that you obtain your visa before you depart, I guess mine will be ready after I have left for the Gobi. No worries, I’m sure I will be fine anyway.

3. Don’t listen to your friend if he, before you leave home says: “No, you don’t need to buy batteries, it’s a capitol, off course they have batteries”. 

Took me half a day to locate six AAA batteries (not packages, batteries) for my headlamp.

Tom and Kim from the Snow Leopard Trust will arrive early tomorrow,  so soon I will have some more information about the project.

Still in UB

Well, it’s still hot. UB is like all Asian cities, and not. Dowtown is busy, with people everywhere and lots of shops and resturaunts. The traffic is horrible, if you try to cross a street the drivers speed up to make sure you have noticed them. Though, I don’t think that they will stop in case you haven’t noticed them…

The difference is that downtown is very small, you can easily walk around it. It’s easy to tell that the houses downtown were built during the Soviet era. l I think that many of the suburbs consist of Ger tents, but I haven’t been there.

Spent last day at ISLT’s office and on the immigration office, trying to obtain a work permit and long term visa, none of them worked. I’ll head to the national museum now to learn some more about Chingis Khaan and Mongolia in general.

Some info for all people using Google earth (and all other with good maps). We will fly from UB to Dalanzadgad, the regional capitol of Omnogov (south Gobi) province. The flight is about 500 km. From Dalanzadgad, we head west in a Russian van to the Soum (municipality) centre Gurvantes. This trip is about 300 km and takes about 16 hours (without breaks). J. Tserendeleg camp is situated about 45 km north of Gurvantes in the Tost Mountains. I have been told that there is GSM coverage at a hill 800 meters from the camp, if this is true you can text me at my new Mongolian number, send a mail to get the number ( I have no idea how steep the hill is though, it might be 800 meters straight up…). 

Chingis and the Golden horde is waiting, don’t want to keep them waiting…

Arrived in Ulaan Bataar

Well, so far everything has gone almost as planned. I had some trouble getting on the plane since I didn’t have any visa for Mongolia but 25 minutes before departure, the airline personnel decided to let me on. When I arrived in Chingis Khaan airport I found out that there were no visa waiting for me, after 10 nervous minutes Nadia from International Snow Leopard Trust (ISLT) came to the office and helped me out.

I’m staying in a hot hotelroom downtown, has spent the day checking out Ulaan Bataar (UB), visiting  museum with lots of dinosaur fossils and visited Jan Wigsten, a Swede who has spent 28 summers in Mongolia and runs a tourist company called Nomadic journeys (www.nomadicjourneys.com). He is a really nice and experienced guy and I have learned a lot this afternoon.

I might tag along on a two day tour east to see some more of Mongolia before I head out to the desert. Not too much more to report, it’s hot here and it will be even hotter in the Gobi.

Orjan