On the Road from UB

After returning from the Horse Trek, I had a day to finalise my visa and hit the road. Cruising along to bad pop tunes and tales of his 'very fat but delightful' wife, I rocked up to Immigration with my super driver, Ganbat. Sans interpreter, I walked up to counter and requested my passport only to be told they had no record of it. This was the start of my worst day in Mongolia to date. After an hour of much smiling and then arguing, we eventually sorted it out. I left with my passport and adrenaline pumping.

Ganbat and I raced around to find medical scrubs, apparently essential and not hospital provided. I was eventually dropped off at the bus stop. In the midst of carrying a stupid amount of shit, I had my phone pickpocketed. Fuck. While this is a current occurrence at the UB Bus Centre, it posed several problems. The biggest being I had no way of contacting anyone, including those at the other end. I was furious at the world and myself for the first hour of the bus trip. But over the next seven hours, the insanely stunning landscape, yup more rolling green Steppes, and the fact the girl next to me was transporting baby goldfish in a jar from the big smoke, got me back to human.

I arrived to my new home, a kilometre out of town in the pouring rain. There was a white guy. Leah and Andrew had been stuck out country in the rain whilst hiking, another common occurrence when there are only dirt tracks everywhere. They had sent Jason to come meet me. Needless to say, the guy's a winner.

The next day, I decided to be independent and sort out my business before Leah got back. I trotted off the local Police Station to report my phone loss for insurance. Mongolian is not a language that rolls off my tongue or any other body part. There is also minimal English around. Things started to get interesting when the Immigration guy rocked up. Before I got deported, we all quickly decided dependence was the way to go and I could sort it when Leah got back.

Phone loss is becoming a recent feature in my life, this being the second Iphone I had lost in 3 weeks. It was disturbing how much I craved crap communication without it. Over the last few years, it has become an additional limb and not one that does anything useful like gesticulate wildly or feed me. I decided it was time to shed. 

(This zen lasted two days. I tried. I am just saving off grid for another day. I now have a glittery, strawberry throw up pink cheapy. Anyone pickpocketing this monstrosity is giving it straight back.)