Une image vaut 1000 mots...

And we are too lazy to write! Those pictures are from Suzhou, Shanghai, Xian and Chengdu, before we set off for the mountains. More to come!

Contraste

La Chine...quel contraste avec la Mongolie! Les pays sont voisins, mais ils s'opposent à tous points de vue! Les foules constantes, l'omniprésence de gens, de lumières/néons, musiques cacophoniques ou vendeurs ambulants avec micros harcelant dans tous les lieux publics imaginables, klaxons, partout, tout le temps. Le smog, l'absence de vraie nature. Mais d'un autre côté, les transports organisés et hyper accessibles, la bouffe à toute heure du jour ou de la nuit sur le bord des trottoirs. En arrivant à Beijing nous avons eu un choc, mais différent de celui vécu à notre arrivée au mois d'août. On était plutôt ébahis de pouvoir manger des dumplings aussi facilement au bord de la rue en allant prendre...le métro?! Peu à peu, la densité de population et la dichotomie à tous les niveaux nous a rattrapés pour nous rappeler que nous n'étions plus en Mongolie!

Je me suis souvent fait dire durant le voyage qu'après un séjour en Chine la plupart des gens développent une relation d'amour-haine avec le pays et nous comprenons maintenant exactement pourquoi, après y avoir passé 3 semaines et des poussières. Le gouvernement prétend être communiste mais il est si évident qu'il ne l'est pas! Les gens n'osent soit pas en parler ou n'en sont pas au courant. Les jeunes s'ouvrent au monde mais avec une perception biaisée et une confiance impressionnante en leur pays. Les ''manières'' si différentes: il est convenable de se racler la gorge bruyamment, de cracher partout, de fixer du regard beaucoup trop longtemps comme si nous étions des extra-terrestres. C'est drôle au début mais ça devient insultant à la longue. D'un autre côté on rencontre des gens locaux sur notre passage qui adoucissent notre impression et nous offrent leur temps par pure générosité.

On se rend compte que les sites touristiques sont les sites historiques d'une Chine qui n'existe plus. La culture actuelle de la Chine est très peu élaborée. Un ami rencontré à Nanjing m'expliquait qu'il y a peu d'auteurs contemporains depuis la révolution culturelle suite à laquelle plusieurs auteurs ont ''disparu''. Le musée de Lao She à Beijing nous a fait réaliser l'ampleur de cette révolution et ses implications.

Mais nous sommes constamment fascinés par le ''chaos harmonieux'' qui règne et la culture du thé, de la bouffe. J'en apprends constamment sur l'histoire de ce vieux pays et j'en suis en tous points fascinée! La muraille de Chine, le site archéologique de l'armée de terracotta (terre cuite?), près de Xian. C'est l'idée de grandeur que les empereurs avaient qui est fascinante. Un peu mégalomane par moment...

Shanghai, une ville contrastante avec le reste de la Chine par sa modernité et sa culture internationale due aux anciennes concessions. La grosseur de la ville nous a marqués bien sûr, mais aussi la richesse apparente avec le centre ville extravagant et les "high end tourists" dans les magasins de marques, en contradiction avec les centres d'achat vendant ces mêmes articles de marques, copiés, pour presque rien.

Nous terminons maintenant nos arrêts dans les grandes villes (on n'en peut plus!) et venons d'arriver dans la province du Sichuan. Nous pensons passer le reste de notre temps en Chine dans le sud ouest, où les villes sont de taille plus ''raisonnable'' et où l'impact du gouvernement se fait moins sentir. Aussi repartir à l'aventure dans l'ouest du Sichuan où l'on pourra vivre le Tibet sans vraiment aller au Tibet, puisque cette région en faisait originalement partie.

China so far

China has been a total contrast to our adventures in it's neighbouring country. The transport for one is a lot easier here. There is also about 100 times the population here. This fact has a couple implications. One is that it makes the transport a lot more comfortable to accommodate the population. Another is that the cities are overrun by people, who spit, snort, slurp and either are completely oblivious of their immediate surroundings or stare at you like you are from another planet. I imagine though that if everyone took everyone else into consideration in their actions people would go crazy because some cities have populations of nearly Canada. It's not always terrible but it does get on ones nerves periodically when coming from such a vast and unpopulated place such as Mongolia. Another result of the population is that every touristable location has a thousand shops selling a million things you don't need. Or ever will. It is a fascinating country though and I quite like it here. The food is great and moreover, some of the people that we have had the pleasure of meeting (Ada, Carter, Luigi and clan and others) have been gems along our travels, giving us insight into the mentality of their specific groups and personal insight into their experiences in China.

I have no control over the order of the photos as this is being posted from my phone. Sorry.

Deep thoughts on Mongolia by Jon Derpak

We are in Ulaanbaatar getting ready to leave and I feel already that I will miss this country. The travel itself was hard, on the body and the mind for many reasons, amongst which the average speed of transport is around 35kph making some of our legs (300kms +) nearly unbearably long. But that is the way they move here. The roads are terrible and include river crossings and incredibly vast landscapes to cross. Some of our experiences left us with bruises, but mostly just sleepless nights bouncing across the steppes and through. That being said, it wouldn't be the same if it were easier. I get the impression that the identity of this country would change if moving via buses and such became easier. Of all recorded history here, the people have been nomadic, and their toughness and complete disregard for the harshness of the climate is the result. There were moments where we would be freezing our asses off, while the mother of the family where we were visiting or staying would be outside with her sleeves rolled up picking up cow shit for the stove. There are roads being built though, pretty well everywhere which will make moving around the country much faster and making it much much more accessible. So if you want to have it the hard way, make it quick.

Let's go back to the cow shit stove. The lack of trees makes it hard to heat using wood or coal or any other combustive, so they use what is in abundance. Shit. And it is abundant. I think that the one thing that I saw the most here was just that; shit. The horse to human ratio is 13:1 and sheep to human ration is 5:1. Needless to say they produce a lot of shit. The stove is also the center of life in the ger, producing heat for warmth as well as a cooking surface and a social center around which everyone (travelers, neighbors and family alike) gathers. This also become important because of the lack of refrigeration in the countryside. To account for this they boil their food on the stove for really long periods of time. To preserve the meat, they tend to do their slaughtering all at the same period of the year, just as winter is falling. Then they dry their meat to be kept and used for the rest of the year. They also use the milk from yaks, cows, goats, and horses for different purposes. They dry cream, make cheese and ferment the mares milk all to be able to preserve these products for the year. Most of these products are barely palatable to the western taste buds, but you get used to it. I almost enjoyed my last experience with airag (fermented mares milk).

The lifestyle in the countryside i found very peaceful and informative. The way they manage their livestock, following the herds to allow them to d\seek their own needs as well as the fact that they waste nothing of them when eaten, also the simplicity of their living quarters in the intense climate and many other things are a lesson to the west as to how things can be done much simpler. I find that we over complicate our lives with things. We create needs that don't exist with all the useless junk that we have access to.Not to say that they have no problems out here, because they do, and plenty with the corruption in the government and massive poverty, amongst them. Yet as much as we have at home, I think I saw more genuine smiles of happiness here than anywhere else I have seen at home.
Being back in the city now is a bit of a shock after being in the country side for 7 weeks and we are ready to continue on our way through China. Even after 2 months here though, we feel like there is so much more to see, we only managed to see the west, the north and part of central Mongolia so there is much more to see and to see. 2 months seems long, but is never enough to experience any country properly. See you in China!

In the ''Muj mobile''

After our time on horse back, getting sick in a squatty, and an overnight "bus" (which was a minivan as it turned out) to Erdenet we met up with our friends Pascalina and Philipp (from Switzerland) that we had met in Olgii, who have been on the road for the last year (on bicycles). They picked us up in Erdenet in a kick ass Russian van called a Waz Furgon. From there we took off to camp and check out a couple of things in the central region of Mongolia, to finally meet up with our other friends Aritz and Esti ( from the Basque country, Spain), in Bulgan City who biked from the last time we saw them in Olgii. Together we toured the countryside drinking airag and camping in the cold with our local driver Muj. We had a really good time because we found that we had made some excellent friends in these two couples and look forward to seeing them again, either on the road, at our home or theirs.

Et, comble du bonheur après 2 mois dans le country side de la Mongolie, un cappucino et un croissant entre amis pour célébrer notre retour en ville, à Ulaan Baatar.