Waiting for the wedding

September 21, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Greece » Kavala » On the SE corner of Plateia 28 Oktovriou

The wedding ceremony was held in a very small church. Apparently it had been difficult to find a church where Frodo and Melina could be married since most churches didn't want to marry someone who hadn't been baptized (Frodo).

The party was great, although the more official part took a bit too long. No less then some 250 people had been invited for dinner. Nothing, compared to the 400-500 people that show up at an all-Greek wedding. The mix of Greek folk-dancing, pop and Dutch classics was a success and we, including the new couple, went on until after three in the morning.
Wong did a special routine after a Greek dancer had invited, nay, commanded him to dance.

Dead tired, we crawled out of the bed after twelve the next day for a day of relaxing at the beach resort were the party also had been held. There, we celebrated Joost his 30th birthday with special Russian vodka and Red Bull. Vodka I had taken with me all the way from Holland.

Joining up with Wong

September 19, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Greece » Kavala » At the start of Kyprou street

Kavala is a lovely and quite little town. Most visitors to Kavala end up going to Thassos, the very touristy island just off the coast.

We staid in a small house, right below the fortress in the old town of Kavala. A good choice. Most of the visitors to the wedding were staying at a beach resort some 15 minutes out of town by car. Although the wedding party was going to be held there, there's also nothing at all to do. There wasn't even a restaurant.

When I signed in at our hotel, the older man at the reception made it clear we would only be able to stay one night. Staying longer was a big problem since, as he said, the next night 'Babak' would come and stay for four nights.

The bachelors was reasonable. We had way to few people of which many didn't even know each other. Easily the best part was the Greek inexperience with bachelors parties. A guy dressed up like a Tirolean Heidi was therefore a rather remarkable sight and Pens didn't have a hard time entertaining the girls.
However, he was unable to get together an all-female soccer team to play against the boys.

The pre-marriage party in a pub/club in the docks of Kavala, later in the evening, was good. Luckily enough, for the first couple of hours, the drinks were catered for, since we later found out that a regular Amstel set us back no less than 4 euros. A glass of house wine no less than five. In a country were a half liter of retsina, in a pub, only costs about 2 euros, that's a lot of money.

On the Thessaloniki boulevard

September 18, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Greece » Thessaloniki » Halfway on the waterfront

We arrived in Thessaloniki late in the day. I had tried to make reservations at a hostel, but the owner wouldn’t hear of it, even after my repeated asking.
When we finally arrived, there were no more beds available and when I pointed out I had tried to make reservations I got the angry reply that ‘I could display that behavior in my own country, not here’. Most probably, the older man running the hostel assumed I was Turkish and I decided I didn’t want to take the abuse, after he made that same comment several times. We ended up at a hotel, at only a couple of euros more.
When traveling back from Istanbul, we staid at the same hotel and paid as much as what we would have paid at the hostel.

Thessaloniki isn’t a very interesting town, although it’s bursting with life. It has only a few interesting sights. It’s unique selling point are great views of another kind: The girls are simply spectacular. It seems that Greek girls have a tiny figure but big boobs. What a place.

Monks, monks, monks

September 17, 2003 • Blog

World » Greece » Kalambaka » Psaropetra viewpoint

Meteora is well known for several monasteries that are perched on top of rocks in the eroded landscape around the town of Kalambaka. Busloads of tourists are driven to the area every single day of the year, resulting in some 1.5 million visitors, annually.

Waiting for our train, Joost and I drank so much retsina and metaxa, we were quite drunk when sharing a compartment with two Marias, one older and one good looking younger, who just had broken up with her boyfriend and was now heading back to her hometown Thessaloniki, after having lived with her boyfriend in Athens for a couple of years. I think we cheered her up, mostly because she didn’t understand the abuse we threw at her in English.

Relaxing in front of the Acropolis

September 15, 2003 • Blog

World » Greece » Athens » In front of main entrance to Acropolis

We spent two days touring Athens and that is more than enough. Although Athens isn’t an unpleasant town, there’s less to see than I thought. Sure, the Acropolis was nice, although expensive.
Fortunately, the Acropolis also wasn’t as busy as I was led to believe it would be. Sure, very touristy, but you had to stay alert, taking the right steps when walking on the heads of all the tourists.

The funniest thing happened the next day, when, before leaving for Kalambaka, we visited Athens’ First Cemetery, and found a small building close to the main entrance where stacks and stacks of boxes were stored, all with skeletal remains. We found Fred sunbathing outside and took our picture.

We were heading to Greece to attend a wedding of friends in Kavala. After meeting his future wife in the UK, they had decided, after being together for 8 years, to settle in her hometown. And to get married there.

30!

September 09, 2003 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Delft » Home

First posting indeed… I gave myself a little birthday present today. This is it. Don’t worry, there’s still quite a bit of work that needs to be done on this site, but the basics are there.

The plan is to put up pictures every day, for the next thirty years. The current objective is to shoot a portrait picture of myself and ‘everyone’ around me at 12 noon. Let the games begin!

Today’s pictures aren’t very flattering. But I thought that very fitting, since today I’ve entered my fourth decade as a human being.

Portreat.com: Artquake 2003

August 24, 2003 • Photography

1 / 1
World » Netherlands » Cruquius » Spieringweg

Portreat.com was a project where photographers took portrait pictures at, mostly, street festivals in, mostly, the Netherlands. The photographs were made available online afterwards. The images were free to download, and printed copies were available for sale.

‘The end of an era’

August 12, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Mongolia » Ulaan Baatar » Khanbrau

Note: All pictures by Patrick.

In the end, I felt much more sad for leaving then I had expected only weeks earlier. The last couple of weeks have been so much of a blast that they easily outweighed the many work-related inconveniences of the earlier weeks (and months!). Of course, another reason I felt sad on Thursday morning, 6:15, was that, after having partied every day for more than a week, the two hours of sleep I just had had weren’t really enough to make me get out of bed at all. I was snuggled up way too nicely.

Lastly, before taking a cab to Buyant Ukhaa, UB’s international airport, I had to get rid of a whole bunch of books, donated by O’Reilly to Geekcorps, that had been lying around my apartment for over two months. The books were donated during the visit of the first group of geeks and had been waiting in a locked cupboard at Engineersoft, one of the companies the first group of geeks worked with.
Shortly after starting at Capital Bank, I had picked them up from there since the main idea was that any (or at least more than one) company should benefit from the knowledge provided in these books. A plan needed to be formed, by Geekcorps, as to where these books would have to go to. A couple of weeks ago, I had started to harass Geekcorps with questions related to these books, but to no avail. They were still waiting at my place and now I had to get rid of them. Early morning Thursday, I dropped them off at Pat’s. He’ll be here for another two years, which should give Geekcorps ample time to decide on what to do with them.

On my last night, with some 14 people, we had dinner at Taj Mahal. Needless to say, it was perfect. Even Bob showed up who, apparently, has had quite a couple of stomach-tumblers from eating at Babu’s, possibly due to some of the spices Babu is able to acquire from all over Central and South-Eastern Asia which don’t agree with Bob.
Although I had been warning Babu for a couple of weeks that I was about to go, it only now seemed to dawn on him that it was my last day and he was heart stricken. After stating my intention to move on to Khanbrau, where another troupe of volunteers was enjoying Lee’s last night in UB, it took me a tequila filled hour to say goodbye to Babu, Martin and Ramesh.
Babu started out at the -other- Indian restaurant in UB but began his own restaurant three years ago. Now, after being married to a Mongolian and having had one child, he felt it time to move on and, some months ago, invited one of his brothers, Martin, to come over, with the intention of him taking over the business from Babu. Martin, however, hasn’t been at all charmed by the awkwardness of Mongolia and very much wants to go back to Kerula.

Visiting Khanbrau, only to learn almost everyone had already moved on to Ginza, we waited a couple of minutes so that I was able to say goodbye to the guys who weren’t going to swing at Ginza’s. Andy, Bob and Beaver were all headed for home and, after Babu’s, this was the second time that night I felt saddened by my leaving. A pity Beaver hadn’t shown up in UB earlier and I realised I was not going to see Bob or Andy again for a long, long time, if at all. Two guys with whom I like to believe I’ve become very good friends.
Me having shaken up things more than once within our group of friends, Andy made the complimentary comment that my leaving signified the ‘end of an era’. I hope him and Pat, probably the only two expats from our crowd staying in UB after everyone else has left, them not being volunteers, will have a good time during the cold winters.

Ending at Ginza, where I felt the late-nights of the previous week creeping up on my ability to deliver a reasonable dance performance, I mostly hung around one of the booths. Several times, we tried to get everyone at the table to ‘do the eagle, do the eagle, do the eagle’, but twice Tara decided to stare ahead into infinity, ignoring our pleas. I hope her, Jess, Aus and the American face-shitting couple will have a good time in the Gobi.
And I hope the weather will be agreeable. Three nights ago, temperature dropped to a mere 2 degrees celsius. This is summer!

Joining the crowds at the airport the next morning, I pushed myself through the multitudes of friends and family saying goodbye to their loved ones and arrived at the check-in desk just minutes before it closed for my flight. If anything, my lateness paid off since I was bumped up to business class. And I really needed that, having the extra room, the complimentary slippers, good food (with real cutlery!) and as many drinks on the house as possible. Still, I slept most of the time. I needed that sleep, only waking up minutes before touchdown in Moscow.

Eating and drinking in Moscow is totally un-affordable. What’s more, the only really accepted currency at Sheremetovo-2 (the international transfer terminal at Sheremetovo, one of the four major airports in Moscow) is the Ruble. The beer I had shortly after arriving nearly knocked me unconscious for the alcohol, but the coffee I had later did an ever better job, at $5.50. I asked if the waiter was joking and, with a smiling face, he told me he definitively wasn’t.

So after waiting for nearly six hours, I got onto the last leg of my trip. Packed like sardines in a can, with screaming babies all around me, I had to endure only three more hours before being back home. I tried sleeping as much as possible, but the bear sitting next to me beat me to it, sprawling one of his arms and part of his torso all over me. When we got to the food, I gently started prodding his ear with my fork.
And then, after 18 hours of traveling, the plane touched down. I was back in Holland. At least the country is suffering from a heatwave and not from the dreary Dutch weather and, of course, I got to see my girlfriend again after seeing her for only two weeks in the last four months.

Sitting again behind my PC at home, I have no choice but to look back on the last four months. Yes, professionally, Mongolia is a bit of a mess, but socially, it was fantastic. All expats seem to have this “we’re in it together” feeling, which made us much closer. I had a great action packed time, met the best people and although it seems that for the next couple of months I’m not going to have as much of an exciting time, at least I’ll be together with my girlfriend. Trade-offs, trade-offs.
Although it hasn’t been confirmed officially yet, it seems I’ll be spending two years in Zimbabwe, come January. I’ll keep a blog, don’t worry. ttfn.

And we call him ‘Loves That Shit’

August 05, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Mongolia » Ulaan Baatar » Face club

Note: All pictures by Patrick.

And so yesterday I became the 7th UB hasher with a handle. Christened in vodka after a speech by Aus and after receiving a shirt commemorating my 'quiet' stint as RA, I received the name 'Loves That Shit'. And I love that shit!

After the hash, some 25 people went over to the Friendship park to enjoy the rides on the fairground. We finished dancing at the Face Club where, like last Friday, quite a couple of couples got hooked up. Jess was cool for dancing with two extremely hot Mongolian chicks.

U2BH3 and the 100 Buuz challenge

August 03, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Mongolia » Ulaan Baatar » Silk Road

Note: All pictures by Patrick.

The weekend was a total blast. On Friday we had a red-dress-vodka hash (not affiliated with the UBH3), for the occasion organised by the U2BH3, The Ulaan Ulaan Baatar Hash House Harriers. No less then 5 guys ran the course in dresses and another five people wore enough red to join us on our crusade.

Everyone loved it. The runners, the Mongolians and most of all the people at the Steppe Inne. David, the GM of the regular hash, even came over and gave some suggestions for an even better experience. Earlier in the day, I had called Simon, who sort of runs the Steppe in (located at the British Embassy), to see if he would be okay with us showing up in red: 'well, as long as you don't *try* to flash anyone, I suppose it's marvelous.'

Later, after the run had taken us past shopping centers and we were having a samosa stop at Babu's (the magnificent Taj Mahal), everything got out of hand. Babu loved our crazyness and wouldn't let us go. I had no choice but to leave at 11, since my people from the bank, where I worked over the previous two months, had planned a drink for me and only told me that very day.
Going home and changing quickly, I headed over to Brauhaus, where the beer flowed freely. After we left, I wanted to go home and pick up my phone after which I would rejoin them. I came home, sat down for a second and woke up four hours later.

Saturday was a relaxing day, with the highlight of the afternoon being Charlies Angels: Full Throttle. The evening was spent at Andy's, where everyone mellowed out. To spice things up a bit, Aus and I went for the '100 Buuz Challenge', failing miserably.
At 11, we went over to UB Palace to dance the night away. Supposedly, they have a 2am pig/pinata that, when smashed apart, drops hundreds of 10 and 20 togrog notes on the dancefloor. However, this time there was no pig, although we did enter a dancing contest which we horribly lost to a professional dancer.

Sunday was a total chill with brunch at Silk Road, cricket and Jaws 3 at Pat's.

I will miss this country come Thursday. Not really for the right reasons, but so be it.

UBH3 300th

July 29, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Mongolia » Terelj

Note: All pictures by Patrick.

Last weekend, we enjoyed the 300th UB Hash. Lots of fun, although some people had more fun than others. Mostly due to extreme raunchiness the more family oriented members of the UB Hash couldn't stand. True, we had a lot of cock- and cunt-jokes, but the 75% or so English-minded contingent loved it. And lets face it, can you ever have enough of these?
I had a fantastic time: A wet hash; sauna with Luke Warm Froth and Jess; Khorkhog in the woods; swimming in the icy cold Tuul river; Dancing in a tacky disco; Pornographic songs on the bus back and a fantastic dinner on the balcony of Taj Mahal.
The only drawback for the whole weekend being the loss, or actually theft, of one keg of beer. Cost of the keg? $200. And then the whining of some people that they are not willing to pay for the keg since they weren't responsible for it anyway.

Anyway, by far the best part was the wife of the German embassador filing a complaint with the American embassy for my behavior. Gotta love these people!

On the bus back, we created the theme song to the UBH3 300th Hash. Most notable contributors were Beaver, Jess, Brat and myself. It is to the tune of 'yellow submarine' by the Beatles [Note: VERY explicit lyrics.]:

In the land of Chinggis Khan
We held our cocks and stroked them strong
And we swum in streams of cum
In the land of Chinggis Khan

Chorus:
We all came on the 300th Hash, the 300th Hash, the 300th Hash
We all came on the 300th Hash, the 300th Hash, the 300th Hash

On the hill, we did a moon
And after that, we came real soon
As we bent towards the sun
We were glad that we could cum

Chorus

In the sauna it was hot
The sweat dribbled of Babak's cock [personal favorite line]
We sweated long, we sweated hard
We sweated out the mutton lard

Chorus

And the hares they ran in front
We caught them up, those cheeky cunts
We fucked them both, one by one
And christened one, who never comes

Chorus

So we drank beneath the stars
Then lost our keg in a Mongol bar
And a ger sleeps three or four
But it fucks fourteen or more

Chorus

And as we went a long, long way
Trekking along, come what may [Think of Babu here]
Not only jump, not only climb
But sure drink, till we are blind

Chorus

We swung them high, we swung them low
Throughout the Hash, the beer did flow
And in the land of Chinggis Khan
Our final words, they were ON-ON!

Finish with a cacaphony of the chorus

:)

July 22, 2003 • Blog

World » Mongolia » Ulaan Baatar » Khanbrau

After having had dinner at Los Bandidos, in the streaming rain, I walked over to Khanbrau together with Andy. The previous Friday, we experienced one of the worst storms ever. Hail, marble sized, came down in streams. I had to walk home through streets turned into rivers, 30cm deep. Still nothing compared to the 3rd district where people were stuck in water, chest high. Or some of the outer districts where gers were washed away, killing 10 people.

Sitting in Khanbrau, among a contingent of English volunteers, listening to some band playing covers of Radiohead, U2, Limp Bizkit and others, I, for a minute, realised how lucky I was. I have heard Beethoven play at Fel Tiz and PaDoeDoe at new years in Budapest, I've seen girlfriends of oil barons dance naked on the tables of the Hungry Duck in Moscow, I've seen local musicians play acoustic compositions on the Ring of Kerry and seen native folk songs performed in miniature pubs in Dublin in Ireland, I've seen the Swan Lake performed in St. Petersburg, I've seen the emeralds encased in the walls of the Taj Mahal, the pyramids of Gizeh, lake Baikal in summer, I was frightened in the Bermuda Triangle, saw the WTC before it got leveled, got Drunk at Lake Balaton, built a house in Romania and fought with elephants in Ghana. And now, for a second, I was ready to die.

Naadam

July 17, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Mongolia » Ulaan Baatar » Main stadium

Last weekend, UB came to life as the stage of the country's most spectacular festival: Naadam. It's full name being the 'Manly three sports', it puts the country commercially to a standstill for a good three days.
The three manly sports are wrestling, archery and horse racing, although only young kids feature in the horse races where, depending on the age of the horse, distances of up to 45km are covered. Never do all horses come back with their riders and occasionally, one of the small riders gets trampled underfoot and dies.
In previous years, the horse races were held just outside UB, near the airport. This time, they were located a good 40km out of town and since virtually everyone in UB goes to see the races, it was nearly impossible to drive there. Standing at the finish line, we saw the finish of the 5 year old steeds.
One of the 400 riders in the 5-year old (horse) race, a boy was whipping his horse to beat his nearest competitors. After the boy finished, like all jockeys dressed in full Mongolian regalia, he got of his horse, the horse shuddered, fell down and died.

Only two days before Naadam, the streets of UB had come alive with tourists. Hordes and hordes of tourists. In a way, I felt happy for SARS because normally, during Naadam, tourists almost outstrip locals.
Not that, as a whole, Naadam is that spectacular. All in all, the event can be compared to any reasonable fair or sports event anywhere else in the world. It's uniqueness coming from the types of activities. Not only the three manly sports, but also ankle bone shooting, throat singing, fortune telling (with ankle bones) and more can be seen. Mongolians coming to UB from all over the country.

On Friday morning, the official part of the festivities started with a group of Mongolians on horseback picking up the 9 white (signifying peace) Mongolian standards from the parliament house and carrying them towards the stadium for the opening ceremony. The group of Mongolians, walking in unison, holding the standards and dressed in what to me looked like battle-dress, gave me an insight into the freight these people must have incurred in their enemies when conquering Asia under Chinggis Khan.

Saturday night, we did a hash pubcrawl. Visiting four bars and a disco, drinking beer and vodka, we had the most crazy time scaring the hell out of locals and tourists who happened to be in the same bars at the same time. For good measure, we ended up around a campfire next to the Tuul river, drinking vodka with a bunch of Mongolians, hanging around to see the sun rise.

More countryside

July 07, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Mongolia » Erdene Zuu

At Khorgo-Terkhiin Tsagaan Nuur we staid in a guest-ger of a Mongolian family camping by the lake (Tsagaan Nuur). We witnessed the killing of a sheep, where the guy used a small Swiss army knife to slice open the chest, reach in with one arm and snap the aorta.
Near the lake, a dormant volcano and a nice ice-cave were interesting. But the most impressive site, I suppose, we didn't get to feast our eyes on. Ugi, our driver, told of seven stone gers, in the middle of a forest, a days ride away by horse. In his own childhood, he had seen the gers himself and they apparently look exactly like stone gers, door, furniture inside, the whole lot. But in his childhood, only four of the gers remained and now, supposedly, only two are still left standing.
Similarly, the '100-year old tree' with '100 branches' was completely green in his childhood but now seemed close to expiring. Still, the multitude of squirrels that were hanging out in the tree and were feasting on the food tourists and pilgrims would hand them didn't seem to mind.

Erdene Zuu, the most prominent monastery in Mongolia was quite impressive, but only a shadow of its former glory. And the stories Ugi told us of some of the things that happened during the Stalinist purges were far more impressive. We stood on one ridge, near a river, with a clear drop of some 300 meters, were hordes and hordes of monks were driven off the cliff. At another site, were a small prayer house was rebuilt after the whole site had been leveled, no less then 1500 monks were killed and buried.

Sleeping on one of the rolling hills for our last night, with no trees for kilometers around, we were forced to practice the ancient Mongolian tradition of burning dry cow and camel dung. Surprisingly, the stuff doesn't give of that much heat, but burns for hours.
The next day, our last, we had a seven hour drive back to Ulaan Baatar, but luckily across paved roads, one of the first since our departure from Erdenet over a week before. We ended up being chased by an off-duty cop, carrying six people in his small Suzuki, who felt disadvantaged by Ugi's driving. He drove us off the road, got out of the car and almost pulled Ugi out of the car. Ugi was able to drive off, but the wicked man tried to hold on to the door for a while.

On the road in Mongolia

July 02, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Mongolia » Khovsgol

After taking short trips to Selenge, Khustai and Terelj, it was finally time for my first big trip into the heart of Mongolia. Together with Henry, Bec, Jocie and Sarah, we were going to spend 10 days in the countryside, being driven around by guys from the excellent tour company 'Mongolia Experience'.
We started by taking a train from UB to Erdenet, from where we would continue on by Russian minivan, a car we soon nicknamed 'Ivan'. The train we took was as Russian as they come. Four people to a cabin, all sleeper compartments, with a samovar, washing basin and conductor on one end and a toilet and smoking room on the other.
The day before, we had been buying supplies for the trip, an amazing five large cardboard boxes of food filled to the brim and we were quite happy that we didn't need to bring those with us on the train, although I have seen families take much more on their trips from Russian city to Russian city. Apparently, Henry, myself and a big wrestler in the compartment next to ours were all big snorers and none of the girls really got a good night's sleep. The morning confusion resulting in the loss of Bec's sleeping bag, which was later replaced by blankets bought in the market of Moeroen.

Like most of the nights, we spent the first night under the stars, setting up camp close to 'Ikh Uul', or Big Mountain, next to the Selenge river which drains in lake Khovsgol. This summer is the wettest of, at least, the last five years and although Mongolians consider rain to be lucky, the lower temperatures and the wet days and nights we experienced didn't make us feel that lucky at all. However, the rains also resulted in the country's biggest waterfall to be very spectacular. Only three weeks ago, the waterfall still stood completely dry.

The next two nights we spent at lake Khovsgol, truly a very beautiful lake, although it doesn't completely match the beauty of Baikal, which I had the pleasure of seeing on my 1999 trip to Russia. The area around Khovsgol is very different from most of the country. Very wooded, mountainous, green and wet (the region gets, on average, 40cm of rain per year, the most in Mongolia), the area is amazing. And to make things even better, we didn't set up our tents but staid in an actual ger camp, complete with hot showers and, gasp, a sauna!
By this time, we had figured out the one annoying thing of this trip. Mongolia is big, really big, and to see some of the attractive sights, you have to drive. A lot. Over very, very, very bad roads. In the ten days, we totaled close to 2500km and although the paved roads occasionally allow for speeds over 70 km/h, most of the time we weren't going over 40 and many times even much slower. Salutes to our driver, Ugi, for being able to maneuver his UAZ van over the most difficult terrain. The bad roads mostly not even allowing for reading a book while driving, although we got more and more adept at keeping our reading material as steady as possible.

Musing

June 30, 2003 • Blog

World » Mongolia » Khovsgol

When the forefathers of the Native Americans crossed the Bering strait, the Mongolians still were shamanistic and pitched tepees, not gers. Without outside influence until Columbus rediscovered the Americas, the native Americans remained shamanistic and kept on pitching tepees, whereas Mongolians went through a number of religions and at some point traded the tepee for the ger.
I don’t remember reading whether the ger is a Mongolian or a Turkic invention. What is more amazing is that at some point, someone decided that a different kind of tent was needed and proceeded to completely re-invent the wheel. And not only that, over time, that new type of tent, the ger, proved to be so much better that everyone pitching tents in central Asia moved to the ger as their favorite dwelling.
Gers are very easy to set up, it taking only about two hours to build one from scratch. Several layers of felt, depending on the time of year, form the outer layers of the tent, the roof being carried by 100 to 200 wooden beams, resting on the top of the outside wall and supporting a wooden open hole in the top of the ger (although in Erdene Zuu the monks used a ger that was supported by no less than 1500 beams). A ger also has two large beams supporting the roof from the ground, but they are not strictly necessary, the ger being strong enough to support itself without them. The open hole in the middle can be covered if needed, but also generally allows for the chimney of a stove to go through to let out smoke.
Gers keep the inhabitants warm in winter and cool in summer and is also relatively cheap to produce. Depending on the amount of decoration in the wood used, a regular ger costs between 250 and 500 euros.

Drinks

June 27, 2003 • Blog

World » Mongolia » Ulaan Baatar » Shared apartment

The past seven days, I almost went completely without drinking alcohol. That is, Jocie believed I wouldn’t be able to and dared me. Since I know I can, I wasn’t interested in not drinking for the fun of it, so I wanted to wager a bet. If only she could come up with something worth betting over. She didn’t, and there was no bet. Still, I figured I had been drinking quite a bit over the past months, since I averaged about half to a whole bottle, every day.
It’s a good thing there was no wager though. Friday night, the birthday of the queen was celebrated at the Steppe Inne, the bar at the British Embassy. Besides free samosas, they also had free drinks. For me that meant a pleasant quantity of whiskey. Then, we had a hash weekend. Which meant beer and several bottles of vodka. It was one bottle of vodka that kept me on my legs during our Saturday morning, five our hike.
But I decided not to drink for the rest of the week, until our departure for Khovsgol, giving myself an exemption for the Tuesday hash, where I drank two cans of beer.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been so bored. Nothing really interested me and the biggest kick I got was from working; programming and designing. Worrying, perhaps, but interesting.
I finished the intranet application for Capital Bank today and the Internet application should be a breeze. FIFTA isn’t going as smoothly however, It is simply too much work. I might have to reconsider the goals and see where I can get them over the next six weeks.

Terelj, again!

June 26, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Mongolia » Terelj

Note: All the pics with this article were either shot by Dave, Agi or Brigitte.

So I visited Terelj again. I came prepared and brought Gin's camera (remember, mine has gone to meet its maker), with two spare batteries. Turns out that all batteries were dead so I ended up, again, taking no pictures whatsoever. Thank god for digital cameras because everyone else DID seem to have brought his camera along.
My knee did well, although it was put to the test on Saturday afternoon, when we ended up doing almost a five hour hike. With the walkers, I first walked up to Turtle Rock. A rock that resembles, yes you've guessed it, a turtle. After climbing the rock, together with Henry and Rich, we ended up with the runners. That is, with Agi and Dave. Not that there was that much running, but the hiking was pretty bad, climbing range after range.

The trip was organized through the Hash and although it was only advertised 36 hours before departure on Saturday morning, a grand total of 20 people showed up. And it seems my several weeks of RA and stand-in GM has paid off: over the weekend, the first Hash handles were finally awarded. Mr. Yamada, always harassing Brigitte almost to death is now called The Terminator, Henry, for reasons only known to himself (well, not really, but hey), IS Trust Driver. And Agi, could it be any different, is Mountain Goat. Last Tuesday, I brought a nice bucket of ice, hoping that Dave, our GM, would be there so that I could focus on the bucket. But alas, Dave didn't make it and the bucket got lost on our transport somewhere.

Late July, the UBH3 300th Hash will happen, probably also in Terelj. Two days of food, drinks, runs, sex and violence. Wait. Leave out the food, drinks and runs.

And, finally, I'll be really going into the countryside. Tomorrow the five of us (Henry, Bec, Jocie, Sarah and I) will be going on a ten-day trip, visiting places like Khovsgol, Kharkhorin and Erdene Zuu. I'm expecting none of the cameras to work.

Entertainment

June 17, 2003 • Blog

World » Mongolia » Ulaan Baatar » Shared apartment

The cut on my knee seems to have made up its mind. It started healing fairly well but later in the week it needed stitches, healed well, needed stitches and now seems to have settled on healing well. Last Saturday, Jocie had taken me to the hospital for stitches but when the bandages came undone, everyone (there were three doctors hanging over me plus some additional nurses here and there) seemed to radiate happiness. It was ok and didn’t need stitches. Not that they were easy on me. I was dragged through the hospital twice, first to the second floor, then to the fifth. Initially to find a place to take off the bandages, then to a place were the doctor that was set to stitch me now applied ‘happytape’.

In the afternoon, we visited a show of national folk music and dance. The extensive mix of throat singing, orchestras, dances and contortionists was very good. The two only misses being a forty piece orchestra doing a waltz and a march and the opening act: some 30 men and women dressed up in animal skins dancing to modern techno music.

Saturday night, as something of a precelebration to Bec’s birthday on Monday, we started drinking at Gin and Bec’s place. Guanz, a tour guide who will probably take us up to Khovsgol in a couple of weeks was there too at the beginning of the evening and he talked Henry and myself into going to a wrestling match at the wrestling palace.
Wrestling is NOT as exciting as you might think. They start of with some 64 wrestlers, traditional costume and all, until three hours later or so, through a knock-out system, only one wrestler is left standing. Today, ‘Tree’ won.
The first couple of rounds were the most interesting. Wrestlers took chances, differences in strengths were obvious and occasionally resulted in spectacular crashes. But what was most interesting, was that many matches were taking place at the same time. Groups of wrestlers would constantly bump into each other or into the wooden fencing built around the ring. Henry and I were clearly not the only ones who weren’t enjoying ourselves to the max. This five year old kid sitting next to me started to punch me in the side halfway through and kept going for an hour or so. Then again, maybe he aspired to be a wrestler.

Striptease, Webawards, Children’s day and a burning ger

June 10, 2003 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Mongolia » Terelj

I know, it's been a while. Betsy, my girlfriend, has been here over the past two weeks and every moment I had a little bit of time, say to write some for my blog, she came in and claimed that time. And rightly so. And to be honest. I already miss her.

Hardware seems to be vexed in this country. After my modem, network card and sound card, my diskette drive now also seems to have stopped working. What's worse, my digital camera has died. After it gave off an early warning in my first week here, which was solved by dropping it on the floor, the pictures accompanying this entry will probably be the last ones ever taken with my good old Canon Powershot Pro 70. I bought it near the end of 2000, just before my trip to Ghana, also for Geekcorps and it has served me some 20.000 pictures.
Just before leaving for Mongolia, I almost bought an inexpensive video camera to play with. Ah, hindsight. Luckily, Gin borrowed me her Concord (what brand?) digital camera. It's better than nothing, no?

Since two weeks or so, Gin, one of the Australians here through AYAD (Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development), and Henry have been more or less dating and Betsy and Gin became real mates. A good thing since last week the four of us and Andy went to Marco Polo, according to one American, one of the better strip clubs in town.
And it was good, although Betsy and Gin unanimously decided that the girl with the perfect boobs had them surgically altered. The best show of the evening, easily, was Gin and Betsy doing a table dance for us boys. Without a doubt, they beat the very impressive contortionists who have a show at Marco Polo's everyday at 12am.
Later, Gin had an interview on Australian national radio on Mongolia's transition from a communist economy to a capitalist one. In it, she claimed that the strippers at some strip joint some of her American friends had gone to hadn't really understood the new economy yet, since they weren't wearing any garter belts to accept tips in.

After the exciting Saturday night, the Sunday was for the kids. That is, 'Children's day', being renamed to 'Mother and child day' a while ago, had now been renamed to 'Children's day' again. For some reason, the Nairamdal (friendship) park, which is normally quite empty, was littered with people. It made me wonder were these people normally hang out on a Sunday. The line for the ferris wheel was some 150m long.
The good thing about the celebrations was that we got to see children's sumo wrestling. I'm not totally sure if this sport is very healthy to a kid's physique, but at least it was a spectacle.

Last Tuesday, it was finally time for the awards ceremony of the 'All Mongolian Web Awards'. As you might recall, I was a judge for that back in my first week here in Mongolia. Because of SARS and the ban on public events, the final ceremony was postponed a number of times but now, it seemed, it was finally happening. On Monday night, I got a call from one of the organizers, if I could please give a speech on my experiences as a judge. No problem. Almost needless to say, I gave them a good verbal beating. I was only impressed by one of the six winners, a comprehensive guide on how to obtain certain effects in Photoshop. Most of the other sites were as good as your nephew's.
Claudia and Ryan also showed up at the occasion. The master of ceremony, Ian, a Brit working in Mongolia as a UNV, had supplied them with invitations. Or was it only Claudia showing up, since I can't remember talking to Ryan at all. In fact, I can't remember talking to Ryan over the past five weeks or so.

This weekend, Betsy and I staid at UB2, a ger camp in Terelj, one of the natural reserve areas close to Ulaan Baatar. Although the area supposedly is great for hiking and has a very tacky disco, we discovered neither. I still had a blister from the previous week's hash and Betsy isn't really into hiking at all, so we mostly staid close to the town and the ger camp, reading books in the sun, next to the Tuul river and enjoying the food at the hotel restaurant.
On Saturday night, when we were both in bed, ehm, reading. Betsy asked if ever these gers catch fire from the stove inside the gers. I suggested that, probably, occasionally, a ger actually would catch fire. And an hour later, ours did. I was lucky enough to notice it shortly after it happened. But what was better, some of our neighbors had noticed it too and were already banging our door down before we could get dressed. Before we knew it, one of the guys had gotten some of the wallpaper we had found lying around, which we used for getting the fire started, and climbed up on the ger to beat out the flames. Shortly after him climbing up, people were throwing bottles of water at him to use that to kill the flames. We thanked the man, who turned out to be Korean. Over the next two hours, every ten minutes or so, we had people walking into our ger without a warning. From receptionists, to children to neighbors. I still do not know why.
Not that THAT was a real surprise since, in the afternoon, we already had a cleaning lady walk in on us when we were having, well, an intimate moment together.

After getting a really good deal on a trip back to town on Monday, we mostly just chilled. It being Betsy's last day in town. Fate, as these things go, had other plans. During an afternoon nap, my phone rang and I jumped up to pick it up. Being to late to answer the phone and still groggy, I stumbled over to the bathroom to take a pee, only to almost faint. I got up again and stumbled back to the bedroom, realizing that my right leg was really sweating a lot. I looked down and noticed blood running down my leg.
I somehow had gotten a long and deep cut across my knee. Almost fell to the ground, started sweating, and called Jocie, one of the Australian nurses in town, while Betsy was starting to take care of my leg.
Jocie, working at the city's children's hospital, dressed the wound nicely but considered stitching it up the next day. In her office, taking off my pants, her office help almost went into cardiac arrest for me doing so. That was a hospital for chrissake! What a country.

×