Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set

by Twead, Victoria

  “What`s happening?” I asked from my window to Baagii who’d jumped out of his jeep.

  “He is police,” he said, dropping his aviator sunglasses into place.

  “Seriously?” Bree said, scuttling up from the back seat to look at him.

  “Of course,” Baagii laughed. I was sure he was checking Bree out thoroughly behind his shades, and I did the same with these so-called cops. The first man’s military cap tilted to one side of his head was the only sign of officialdom we saw; he was otherwise dressed in very plain clothing. He maintained a very serious stance, but not with a “know-it-all,” power-trip kind of attitude. Rather, he looked as if he were merely playing a role. He stepped to the side and directed both drivers to pull over. The other two cops acted as if they were rookie football players who had finally been called off the bench to play in their very first game.

  Who would think to set up a checkpoint miles and miles from any form of life, out in the middle of nowhere? Surely, they could only expect a dozen or so cars in an eight-hour shift, and that’s assuming they even have shifts!

  “What is he doing?” I asked Baagii, who was walking alongside our van.

  “They ask him why he stops in the middle of the road and tell him he must pull over or he’ll block the traffic.” The first cop’s attempt to prevent us from blocking the completely non-existent traffic was so ludicrous that it did nothing to clear up my confusion, but he seemed very proud of himself as he giggled and slapped Bimba on the back the moment he stepped out of the van. Baagii laughed right along with him, sporting a big, toothy grin. I could only shake my head. Maybe the reason they’re so anxious to make a kafuffle is to distract themselves from sheer boredom. Who assigns these guys? I wondered. Like actually, really, who is the person in charge? And where is the police station? Everything was one big mystery, even with a translator along.

  Once they’d all shared a good laugh, one of the officials walked over to their little pink-tarped shelter and came back with a hot pot of tea. The two drivers, the three policemen, and Baagii sat together in the dry grass to have a little chat, with not so much as a mat to sit on. I tried to imagine what they might talk about. “So how is Billy Bob, and that guy who had that ugly goat? Oh man, and remember that kid who kept falling off his horse? Like, who does that?” After their short tea break, we continued our journey, the police not having accomplished much of anything that I could see.

  But maybe they were just being friendly. Everyone in Mongolia seemed to approach one another like long-lost friends pleased to have the chance to catch up. That was the norm when driving. Everybody waved to oncoming vehicles. They’d often stop to say hello and have a quick chat in the middle of the road before carrying on. Perhaps because they are so few in number, they really stick together and look out for one another, almost like family.

  Faint dirt trails often branched off into several forks veering off into the distance, making it nearly impossible to navigate. It was now obvious why Ammon had broken down and paid for a guided tour, something that puzzled me before we started off across Northern Mongolia. There couldn’t have been another explanation for spending our cash on a tour, although a couple of young, carefree drivers and torn up Russian 4x4s were a far cry from the GGTs (Grandma Glayde Tours) our grandmother took regularly. We had coined that nickname to describe the kind of tours where old folks pour out of their big, air-conditioned buses, their overly large, protective hats and glasses both secured by strings around their necks. A GGT could actually be a somewhat bearable way to travel, despite Ammon’s insistence that they were mere vacations and not genuine travel. “Travel is not meant to be comfortable!” he’d say, and he’d made that crystal clear throughout our journey thus far.

  With no GPS, maps, or road signs, it was a wonder our drivers had any idea at all where they were going. As far as I could tell, a local transport system did not exist. Even in the city, taxi drivers were just local citizens moonlighting to make a few extra bucks. Mongolian taxis could be anything from small Toyotas driven by clean-shaven men to a mother driving a station wagon, her children in tow. A bus stop in the countryside seemed a more than slightly farfetched notion. But then I remembered those local families departing from the train, burdened by sacks and taking off on foot into the emptiness. I wondered where they went. How can they tell that a certain bump or rock is going to lead them somewhere that was still miles away? Had they mastered the art of teleporting, perhaps? We spotted the occasional group of children along the way, playing in the fields with a sibling or two and often accompanied by a herd of goats. The eldest of these young shepherds seemed to be around ten years of age, and they wielded little sticks to control their family`s livestock. We’d wonder every time we saw them how they found their way around and where their homes were? They never seemed troubled or upset, although we could never see anything for miles and miles. The children wore familiar-looking pants and t-shirts, and the girls most often had braided hair, wisps of which hung loose in their faces after what appeared to be a day of rough, robust playing. We saw no toys aside from their stacks of rocks, but they all smiled as we passed, their round, sienna faces smudged with dirt. Everyone seemed to be relaxed and carefree.

  “Whoa! Maybe they`re, like, people who live underground and come up out of the quicksand every once in a while,” Bree let her imagination run wild.

  “Nice theory,” Ammon said. But it seemed Bree’s conjecture could almost be true. We’d stopped at a very small sand dune and found a group of children ranging in age from four to thirteen with no animals, cars, bicycles, homes, or parents to be seen. Suddenly the random stop signs in the flat plains didn’t seem so random after all. Perhaps the expected is actually the unexpected in this strange land?

  Whatever the case, the faster and rougher the ride got, the bigger Bimba’s smile seemed to become. Every once in a while, he howled with delight, and more and more often, he turned in his seat to check whether he’d yet managed to splatter his passengers against the ceiling. The thought of this exaggerated cartoon buggy with socks, bras, and t-shirts spewing out of the creases of the suitcases in the open trunk made me laugh nervously. Luckily, though, my luggage was in no way, shape or form a fragile little suitcase; it was a strong, bulky pack that had yet to see enough wear and tear. I hope you’re having fun! I thought, glancing into the back where the rest of the family were bouncing about, but I was glad my pack was starting to look like a real traveler at last. It had built up some calluses and a fine coating of dirt. I felt totally ridiculous meeting people who had flag patches sewn to bags dirty enough to send germs screaming for the hills. One Belgian couple we’d met on our three-day cruise down the Yangzi River had been out for seven months already. Seven months!?! Their exploits made our measly seven weeks seem insignificant, and we quickly dubbed them our idols. And all I’ve got is a lame sprinkle of dirt, I`d think, realizing other backpackers would rightfully consider that pretty pathetic.

  My hair was blowing and twisting in the whirlwind that whooshed past my dry cheeks. Out of nowhere, a cloud of winged bugs appeared, and I had to tuck my head back into the 4x4. The calm air caressed me as I shut my window and looked wide-eyed at all the hovering bugs, their little wings flapping steadily against the glass. It was as if we weren’t moving at all.

  “So what is Jiminy Cricket anyway? A grasshopper!?” Ammon teased at one point when the bugs reminded him of one of Bree’s classic misinterpretations.

  We continued to fight to stay upright as we rode roughshod through forested patches lined with rivers and streams, occasionally coming close to tipping sideways in a river or getting stuck in a crater of mud. We stopped often to analyze different challenging passages or to test how deep the rivers’ waters were. The 4x4s turned out to be a real godsend.

  We had a few opportunities to slip off into wooded areas to pee while the men were occupied with their trucks. And while the experts studied the best way to navigate a river crossing, we washed ourselves off a bit and cooled the bac
k of our necks to relieve the intense heat.

  “I’m so dirty! Do you think they have showers inside those little tents?” I asked.

  “You mean, inside a ger? You’ll find out tonight!” Ammon said, as he knelt by the river to fill our empty water bottle. The impossibility of getting an affirmative answer came to me the second after I voiced the silly question. Of course there isn’t a shower. How could I be so naïve?!

  When we walked into our very first traditional ger, I half-asked, half-stated, “This is really what they live in?” Without warning, the memory of the five-bedroom apartment we’d looked at on our last house hunt came to mind. I remembered how much I’d whined and bitched over the notion of moving into an apartment. I detested Mom for it, insisting I’d rather move out than live with hundreds of people in the same building and possibly even have to share a washing machine. Disgusting! I’d thought. I won’t even be able to say “come hang out at my house.” What would I say? “Let’s go to my apartment?!” Nobody will want to be my friend. Only homeless people live in apartments! I could remember my feelings about it as if it were yesterday. I still had never lived in an apartment, but when I stepped into that ger, the memory of how skewed my perceptions had been shamed me.

  My first visit to a local Mongolian home was a bit shocking. The ger was completely open inside, consisting of just one big, round room that held a sink, a colourful dresser, four metal-framed beds lining the felt walls, and a fireplace/stove in the middle. The roof was supported by reddish-orange poles in the traditional Mongolian style.

  “So wait, how do they shower, then?” I asked, coming slightly out of my daze. There was no plumbing that we could see, only an upside-down bottle of water mounted over the sink.

  “Probably from the same place where they got the water to fill that sink over there,” Mom said, pointing at the hobbit-sized hand basin in the corner. “From a well or something.”

  “This place looks like a fat teepee!” Bree said, really feeling the change in atmosphere. I sat on one of the simple metal beds placed along the wall and watched the flames in the tiny stove that had been lit before we’d arrived. The skinny, black chimney poked out of a hole in the circular ceiling. I enjoyed feeling its warmth.

  “Very good! Strong built houses, but very light. Easy to take apart and rebuild,” Baagii told us as he crouched to add more wood to the little black stove. It would get significantly colder as the night wore on.

  “How long would it take to assemble one of these gers, then, if they’re nomadic and moving all the time?” Mom asked him.

  “It only takes one to three hours to build,” Baagii told her, turning on his heels to face us after placing the last stick in the smoky fire.

  “Wow, that’s quick! Can you imagine being able to pack your whole house onto the backs of a few camels?” Mom reminded us about seeing a nomadic family in travel mode a few hours before. They had been transporting their ger on a couple of camels loaded with the orangey-red support poles and the ger’s felt cover. Horses, goats, sheep, and a couple of dogs had trailed along behind them.

  “So those camels with all that stuff... that was a ger?” Bree asked, finally piecing it together.

  “I think it’s so cute! I want to take one home,” Mom said, excited by the prospect. Geez, I should’ve settled for the apartment!

  “Cute? Sure, but our bathrooms were almost as big as this,” I said, noting the whole five bits of furniture.

  “So you should be grateful!” Mom and Ammon chimed in together. I hate it when they pull that grateful, hippy-era stuff. I thought, resisting their forceful tone. I’ll draw my own conclusions, thank you very much!

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  That night I lay on my stomach on the colourful woollen rug explaining the day in my journal, even though it was hard to write when there was so much conversation going on around me.

  June 28th, 2005, I always started neatly at the top left-hand side with the date. The top right was for the day count – Day 55. Only three hundred and ten days left. I wasn’t aware of any actual return date, but a year was what I had decided to use for the countdown.

  Noortje, the Dutch gal, was a writer, and she also kept a diary. I really admired how neat and precise her writing was.

  “What kind of paper is that?” I asked her that night.

  “It’s just graph paper,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Wow.” I leaned over to Mom lying on her bed and said, “I need some of that.” Graph paper was much better suited to my particularly tiny handwriting. I hated how my writing looked on paper with regularly sized spacing.

  Earlier that day we had stopped for lunch in a town which was like a very large camp of round gers, some surrounded by simple wooden fences. The town that stood out most in my mind was called “Moron.” I made sure to note that in my journal, along with Bree’s immediate reaction to its moniker.

  “So this is where all the mongoloids and morons came from!?” she’d exclaimed.

  “Breanna!” Mom scolded.

  “I don’t get it, though,” I’d been sincerely confused, “Why are those words used as insults when the people here are so nice?!” I’ll think twice before I use those words again, that’s for sure!

  After I wrote Visited: at the top of the page between the date and the day count, I asked Ammon, “What was the name of this place again?” We were staying just outside the grounds of an old Buddhist monastery that was once one of the three most important in Mongolia. The monastery was surrounded by a few gers, some for the locals living there and some for visitors. Baagii explained that Buddhism was brought to Mongolia by the Chinese when they ruled the country.

  “Amarbayasgalant Khild,” Ammon answered very slowly, so as not to leave any letters out.

  “Wow! That’s so long?! Why would they need such a long name?” Bree asked. Given how small the villages we’d passed through were, they’d sure had long and important sounding names.

  “I bet it’s the first letter of everyone’s name in the village starting from oldest to youngest.” I suggested. Baagii laughed at this idea.

  “Can you spell it for me?” I asked, hoping to record it before another conversational tangent started, but it was already too late.

  “What kind of grand name is amambbdjakilt anyway?!” Bree jumped in, to my dismay.

  “Amarbayasgalant Khild,” Ammon repeated.

  “Like I said, amammaaKILT. Oh, and I want to go to Scotland and see the men in kilts!” she continued.

  “What kind of random---?!” I blurted.

  “Yah, yah. That won’t be for a while!” Ammon said, already stressed enough by the task of negotiating our passage through the next country on our itinerary.

  “Yah! Why don’t we go to Europe?” I wanted to visit all the blue-eyed hotties I imagined might be waiting for me there.

  “Oh man! There’s a lot more to it than just ‘let’s go to Europe’. It’s not like you can just walk over there, you know. There is a LOT of planning involved!”

  “Hey, yah. That would be fun!” Mom said. “But I thought we were going to Africa!”

  “Nooo!” I objected.

  “Why don’t we all just enjoy where we are for now?” Ammon fussed.

  “I am. It’s great! I just want to see everything now,” Mom exclaimed, reminding me of a deer that had just spotted the first tips of green grass sprouting up after a long white winter. Ammon cupped his forehead in his hand and shook his head ruefully.

  “Aye, yie, yie! You guys are nuts,” he groaned.

  “You mean those guys. I’m the only normal one here,” I said defensively.

  “Could we go overland to Egypt?” Bree asked.

  “Egypt? EGYPT?! How does Egypt even come in to this? Do you realize that would involve places like Iran, Syria, Afghanistan---” he tried to explain before I cut him off.

  “Whoa! Now that would be something worth talking about,” I said, surprising even myself.

  “I wonder what kind of things we�
��d see there. What would the culture be like? What kind of architecture do they have?” Mom pondered those and other possibilities.

  “Let’s just get to where we’re going first,” Ammon said again, but started pulling his map out nonetheless and forcing my journal to the side.

  “Sky would completely kill us!” I said.

  We hovered around the tiny world map at the front of his guidebook by candlelight that flickered on our faces as we came up with all sorts of wild ideas and dreams, none of which had originally been my dreams.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  With my journal lying neglected beside me, I continued to reflect upon the day. I stretched out as best I could on my short bed. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours that I’d become exhausted to the point of restlessness, like when you lose your appetite after being hungry for too long.

  The monastery’s incense and candles had been overpowering, but as with most of the monasteries we’d visited, I’d rather liked it. In a strange sense, it had made me feel somewhat nostalgic for the Chinese monasteries we’d stayed in. It was as though the thick, smoky air was filled with spirits that surrounded me and I was inhaling them, welcoming them in one by one. I just hoped they were good spirits.

  With the day’s sights and smells still vividly real, thoughts poured in a mile a minute. I thought about whether the monastery had produced the smoky candles in our ger. Did they get them from China like most of the world probably does? Or does their deep-seated dislike for each other run deep enough to prevent that kind of trade? I wondered who brought them all the way from the capital. Was there some nomadic candle maker who carried his wax on camels and set out on voyages like the uncomfortable, ten-hour trek we’d just made to deliver his supplies? Then again, maybe the monastery makes its own candles. How would you do that? Is it like bees’ wax? What the heck, where does wax come from, anyway? Do they even have bees here? They must, I concluded. They have humongous fields of wild flowers. But does that mean there HAVE to be bees if there are flowers?