Departure!!

Wednesday was the D-day. I was eventually leaving! To be honest I had a lot of apprehension about this departure, but having to wait, and the false start had transformed all that into a real excitation. But traveling there is not as easy as flying to the US!

First I had to take an overcrowded subway to reach the train station, where I was taking a night train to Berlin. Evenings can be long in trains, but I was lucky to meet 4 very nice people with whom to rethink the world and to discuss philosophy.

Arrived in Berlin, I reached the airport, and waited the 5 hours for the twice weekly flight to Ulaan Bataar. So you can ask yourself, who goes to Mongolia? So first many Mongolians. While queuing for check-in I was even told “For New-York it is the next line”. There are special relationship between Mongolia and Germany so that many Mongolians have studied there, and this makes Berlin a usual travel destination.

A Mongolian woman and her daughter.

I saw also a lot of Russian waiting. That was strange at first, but I realized that the flight was actually doing a stop-over in Moscow. So apparently Air-Mongolia is a cheap way to go to Russia from Germany. Otherwise among foreign visitors there is the typical explorer-type guy

The African gold-hunter, a Tibetan Monk (Tibetan Buddhism is th main religion in Mongolia)

After 2 hours to Moscow, 1h30 stopover and 6 more hours flight I arrive to Chinggis Khaan Airport of Ulaan Bataar (I am sorry I have no more pictures of this day. I played to much in trying to catch people without them to notice, and emptied my battery).

My colleague Odonchimeg is here to pick me up and driving me to the city. The road from the airport is in a very bad state. It is narrow with loop-holes everywhere, which force to slalom (since there are cars coming the other way, and minibus trying to overtake on the right, you can imagine it is a little bit dangerous).

Eventually, at 10 a.m. Mongolian time after 31 hours of travel I arrive to my apartment just facing the German Embassy.

A lot more is coming soon!