A thoroughly misleading photo made to make you read on but it's cold alrightAs I leaned over the radiators that have been cold iron for 4 months now to peer out of the window (funny drunks again?), I was in for a shock. It (radiator) nearly burnt me again after 4 short months of metal cold. Outside at 7 in the morning it was 4°C and a windchill of bout 14 km/ hr straight from Siberia. The cold set in quick. I'd forgotten cold in all the +32 summer days we've been having. It's been 11 months since we first pulled into Ulaabaatar, me a mere 54 kilos that time, 60 now and Ced double digits heavier. We've stayed a long time and done what?? A bit of work here there, Ced a Volunteer consultant for a World Bank livelihood project, me a stringer, drifter, freelancer, teacher picking up little assignments here and there. I doubt it's been all good but guess the only other thing I'd trade time we've spent here would be to be in a sunny Caribbean Island where's there's music all day. I miss the sea. I miss oysters. I miss Kerela style banana leaf unlimited meals. I miss tall 7000m+ mountain peaks. I miss masala chai. I miss coconut trees. I miss everything that we can't seem to find in this land locked nook. But I don't miss jostling with 13 million people in a sweltry Indian city. No not that. And I also miss long inane keyboard posts. The toughest thing about living in Ulaanbaatar is knowing you're stuck in a concrete hole when wild swathes of green and blue beckon all around.
As a reader might know most of the dairies are here, where I shifted after not being savy enough to figure out the proxy code to access prohibited sites that encouraged freedom of speech in China. Funny thing is it's in the Chinese sites you'll meet the one raging against the machine hardest. But now growing fat and dissolute in this free wide land, I might as well make the best of bandwidth space.
So, today I went to check the guys from the Peking - Paris Vintage Car Rally. The first race was run in 1907 and this is the 4th time folks have tried to recreate it, driving only vintage cars.
a very same model of the italian car that won the 1907 raceAs remote and tucked away Mongolia might be, it does seem to be the playground of a mighty lot of adventure seeking, money hauling folks. But I liked the cars, and I liked the excited locals milling about. What I didn't like was the wistful feeling that settled down seeing them leave knowing that I could be off across the wide steppe, crossing borders, lands, people, mountains, rivers, lake. I feel grounded and my bicycle chain's rusty. But some pics here. I like it that traffic is a bigger foe to the motored than to the bicycle bound.
All are equal in the rush hour rule
yea! Chinggis looks on the mighty playground he make 
I also like spokes
4 comments:
I am not a big fan of 13 million people either.
But Good? Bad? At least you're getting good pics out of it :)
not that bad 'tually. We all need to gripe some, sometime...yup the cars were lovely though I don't find myself slobbering over HP too often.
nice vintage cars.
hi mamma, yup they were...must have each cost some but I like the way they need to get a lot of grease on their hands to keep them running.
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