• Arden & Bobby Travers – Thanks for planting the seed.
• D. Fitz – Without you as a planning partner I never would have gotten off the launching pad.
• Lilis – Thanks for being my first friend in Asia.
• Adam – Thanks for copiloting the first Asian manventure.
• Taylor Hurt – Coming directly from budget Third World Indonesia, your luxurious Singapore sanctuary was more appreciated than you could ever imagine.
• Tun Tun – Thanks for giving me my most authentic family experience of Asia.
• Maaike & Roger – Thanks for making the walk to Inle Lake a walk to remember.
• Lucius Polk – Thanks for being the best adventure wingman of this journey.
• Triple-J & Lauren – Southern Thailand and Thanksgiving were something special to remember thanks to you two.
• Meghan – Thanks for taking a giant leap.
• Mary Moses – You were the invaluable key to Hanoi, Halong, and Saigon. Thanks for making Vietnam so special.
• Tom O’Neil – Thanks for being predictably reliable and traveling half way around the world to visit your brother.
• Mumbai James – Thanks for the week that was.
• Imi & Ali – Without you two the Silver Tuna would never have been.
• Mukesh & Rakesh – Thanks for doing honest bike work for an honest price.
• Teenager who fixed my broken clutch cable – Without you I might still be in India.
• Priyangsha & Meetu – Thanks for reminding me how comforting a family environment can be. I needed it at that moment.
• Moniek & Rick – Thanks for disposing of the Silver Tuna and checking a huge box off my To Do list.
• Reggie & Clay – Thanks for being the best climbing partners I could have asked for. The mountains of Nepal would never have known the sound of my laughter without you two.
• Melissa & Brian – Thanks for opening your doors to provide a home away from home in Kathmandu.
• Cathie, Dina & Gerard – Thanks for the most comfortable couch in Asia and reminding me what it’s like to enjoy a night on the town.
• Dirk – Thanks for providing a familiar face when I needed one badly.
• Jasoulan, James, Vicesa & Vladimir – Thanks for giving me the single most surreal and unexpected day of my journey.
• Lady at migration police in Almaty– Without you I might still be in Kazakhstan.
• Marc Fletcher – Thanks for being a great travel companion and friend. We will meet again.
• Ingrid, Andre & the Tomsk crew – Thanks for reaffirming my belief that hitch hiking is the ultimate adventure.
• Markus, Markus, Markus & Peter – Thanks for my best day in northern Asia.
• Peter – Thanks for driving straight.
• Lucas de Vilmorim – Thanks for the endless banter. Ulaanbaatar and central Mongolia would not have been the same without you.
• Daniela & Gailius – Thanks for leaving the back door unlocked in Beijing.
• To everyone that visited this site – Thanks for making me feel connected and never far from home.
• Dad – Thanks for being my most ardent reader.
• Mom – Thanks for the prayers. They helped.
• Uncle Sam – Your generosity made this trip possible. Thanks for picking up the tab…the entire tab.

Southeast Asia will always be the holiday, the Subcontinent the adventure, and northern and central Asia the experience. So to the people of those fourteen fine countries I say terima kasih (Indonesia), thank you (Singapore), terima kasih (Malaysia), chezu be (Myanmar), khawp khun khrap (Thailand), khawp jai (Laos), cam on (Vietnam), ar kun (Cambodia), shukriya (India), dhanyabaad (Nepal), xie xie (China), rakhmet (Kazahkstan), spasibo (Russia), and bayarlalaa (Mongolia).

Asia: Check. Done. Out.

———————

Of all the things I’ve accomplished and experienced in these last nine months I am most proud to satisfy the lone request of my father:

Dear Steve,

You are about to embark on another of your great adventures. I really don’t have any fatherly words of wisdom to impart because I’ve seen you do this before. As usual you have planned well and are as organized as one could be so I have every confidence you will have a successful journey. … I have but one request of you – come home to us safe and sound.

Dad

Mom, Dad…I’ll see you tonight.

Blog This When I board that plane on Wednesday I will have filled well over two hundred pages worth of blathering nonsensical ramblings, so I begin this recap with a look back at some of my personal favorite and finest.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles…and Ships

• Shirtless, shoeless, salty, and sandy, with the turquoise Indonesian water not 100 steps away, I was in a very good place both physically and mentally while writing this.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/planes-trains-automobiles-and-ships/

Kiefer Sutherland, The Rolling Stones & Central Java

• This one just flowed off the fingers.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/kiefer-sutherland-the-rolling-stones-central-java/

Trans-Sumatran Highway: A Game of Inches

• I did my best to scribble down memorable quotes and key descriptors late into the night while the bus lurched from side to side. The notes were almost illegible but the write up was one of my favorites.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/trans-sumatran-highway-a-game-of-inches-sadily/

Day 51

• Of all the writing sessions I logged none matched the satisfaction I felt afterwards while walking home down an empty dirt street through the black Burmese night. I felt I descriptively nailed the experience in every sense and did complete justice to both the events and emotions. Perhaps my favorite of all.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/day-51/

Planes, Trucks, Bikes & Whiskey – An Epic 24 in Asia

• I was tired, it was late, and I was a good twenty minute bike ride from the closest computer, yet I knew I was in the perfect mindset to do the ‘Buddy Movie’ events justice. Writing about my Third World travels with a best mate until 2am was very easy that night.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/planes-trucks-bikes-whiskey-an-epic-24-in-asia/

From Prison to “The Beach’

• I scribbled out most of this on the ferry from Ko Lanta to Railay Beach in the company of the great trio: Devin, Jane, and Laura.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/from-prison-to-the-beach/

Southeast Asia on a Shoestring

• I knew my departure from Southeast Asia would mark a line in the sand. I knew India would be different from everything I’d experienced in SEA, and I wanted to bring closure to the region. It took hours of reflection and writing in a Khao San Rd café in Bangkok before I could comfortably put a stamp on the First Act and lower its curtain.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/southeast-asia-on-a-shoestring/

Holy #@!&ing &%(!

• Composed in two parts, the first from a window seat above the Bay of Bengal and the second from a gnarly hostel room I’d come to love. The emotional high I experienced come through loud and clear.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/holy-ing/

Pomp, Circumstance & Pakistan

• The settings in which I wrote drove the writings almost more than the events themselves. PC&P was composed on the roof top of a hotel at the foot of the snowcapped Indian Himalayas, as the sun sank into the flat Indian breadbasket below. The events I had to describe were as colorful as the setting in which I wrote them, and the words flowed.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/pomp-circumstance-pakistan/

Soul of India

• I labored with this one for awhile. My experience in Agra was exotic and romantic, almost spiritual in a sense, and I wanted to do more than just recount the events. I was eventually able to capture the way Agra magically checked off every Indian box.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/soul-of-india/

Morning Extractions

• Light on events but heavy on sentiment, ME was ultimately my homage to riding a motorbike across the subcontinent.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/morning-extractions/

An Everest of a Man

• Compelled to articulate the life of a great man I drew heavily from my father’s eulogy of his father, which he emailed me days after his death. If not for his passing I never would have visited Everest.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/an-everest-of-a-man/

Urumqi Surf Forecast: Flat

• From the comfort of the warm Islam Hotel, with nothing to do but wait from my Kazakh visa, I fondly recall doing my best to capture the logistical juggling act that was Urumqi. Islam Hotel: perhaps the best hotel value in all of Asia.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/ulumqi-surf-forecast-flat/

What I Learned About Russia Today (Part I)…

• Nervous as hell about Russia, after three days my fears had subsided and the legs did all the writing. I posted this at 2am from the subterranean internet lair of a pack of nerdy online Russian gamers, after which I enjoyed a surreal and satisfying walk home through the cold and empty Siberian streets of Tomsk.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/what-i-learned-about-russia-today-part-i%E2%80%A6/

With East In Mind

• Mongolian steppe. Enduro motorbikes. Four globe circling Swiss. Yes, yes & yes.
• http://indefinitewalkabout.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/with-east-in-mind/

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Days & Dayz In case you haven’t realized by now I’m a bit of a meticulous and nerdy historian when it comes to travel detail, so the following should come as no surprise. Here’s what my three quarters in Asia look like:

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Getting Around The navigation of fourteen countries in nine months required planning and patience, but most of all endurance. Asia is overflowing with creative means of moving people and I’ll be damned if I didn’t test just about every one: jets, prop planes, trains, tuk tuks, rickshaws, marshukas, sedans, trucks, buses, vans, SUVs, motorbikes, canoes, skiffs, ferries, junk boats, horses, Dutch Fokkers, and one Silver Tuna.

Flights (within Asia): 13

• Longest: Kathmandu to Shanghai
  • Give it up for the birthday flight.
• Shortest: Lombok to Bali (Indonesia)
  • A 777 for a 25 minute flight? Strange.
• Most Unforgettable: Kathmandu to Lukla (Nepal)
  • Prop plane. Himalayan airstrip. Yeah.
• Most Surreal: Heho to Kengtung (Myanmar)
  • Flying high over the prohibited eastern region (think opium production) while playing low-stakes blackjack with Lucius Polk for handfuls of Burmese kyat.

Trains: 12

• Longest: Ulaanbaatar to Beijing (31hours)
• Shortest: Yogyakarta to Jakarta (Indonesia)
  • The calm before the Jakarta storm.
• Most Unforgettable: Bikaner to Jalandhar (India)
  • Stuffing a 500lbs Royal Enfield motorbike into a packed freight car at 2am at an obscure railway station 70km from Pakistan.
• Most Forgettable: Xi’an to Urumqi (China)
  • Three words: Instant. Noodles. Slurping.

Boats: 7

• Longest: Bali to Gili Trawangan (Indonesia)
  • Two hour ferry ride across the calm blue Lombok Strait. So good to leave Bali.
• Shortest: Thailand to Laos
  • Two minute skiff ride across the murky brown Mekong.
• Most Unforgettable: Huay Xai to Luang Prabang (Laos)
  • Two day slow boat ride down the Mekong.
• Most Forgettable: Bali to Java (Indonesia)
  • A traumatizing claustrophobic ferry ride experienced with inside a locked bus.

Motorbikes (countries ridden): 8

• My love of the two wheels was born on the roads of Bali, Java, Sumatra, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, but matured on those of India, Nepal, & Mongolia.

Anything Containing Three or More Wheels: too numerous & painful to count

One last time: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&start=0&num=200&msa=0&msid=113857108228539669434.000475cd617df8978ac81&z=3

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Nine to Remember The only dependable constant in life is change, and perhaps nowhere is that change more constant and tangible than living on the road out of a bag. Change has come in many different forms to my experience: company and currency, language and latitude, faces and food, and through that change comes with it the ebb and flow of travel highs and travel lows and the eventual realization that your best or worst day is always just around the corner waiting to be discovered. That said here are the fifteen best and worst of my nine months:

Day 14 – Gili Trawangan, Indonesia

• The perfect Robinson Crusoe fantasy come true on a heavenly droplet of sand just under the Equator’s belt…somewhere in the Indonesian archipelago.

Day 51 – Bagan, Myanmar

• Touring the ancient temples of Bagan from the back of a local teenager’s motorbike before serving as honored guest at his family’s primitive dwelling for a traditional Burmese dinner by candlelight. It never got more authentic and real than this.

Day 68 – Kengtung, Myanmar

• Lucius and I relished two pickup trucks, two motorbike taxis, and three separate take-offs/landings during an epic travel day from Inle Lake to the heavily restricted Golden Triangle. The day ended by shaking hands with the police chief…from inside Kengtung police station. Male hijinks at their absolute finest.

Day 75 – Phi Phi Leh, Thailand

• Living the ultimate Southeast Asian backpacker beach fantasy with an overnight camping session on an empty “Beach.”

Day 91 – Luang Prabang, Laos

• Ascending the stairs in near darkness from the Mekong’s edge having just spent two long, slow days drifting down it, neither Meghan nor I could contain our excitement at the overwhelming beauty and serene charm of Southeast Asia’s most romantic locale.

Day 138 – Mumbai, India

• The day I awoke in Bangkok and fell asleep in Mumbai might be the day I’d choose if given the chance to relive just one. It had everything: crossing oceans, tears of joy, crippling sensory overload, and much more that will forever remain on tour.

Day 199 – Lukla, Nepal to Shanghai, China

• The emotional rollercoaster of events that transpired between when I awoke at the mountain airstrip of Lukla to when I fell asleep on a Shanghai-bound plane ultimately conspired to produce the best birthday present I could have received: a standby seat to China.

Day 220 – Sarykemer, Kazakhstan

• Where did the rabbit hole ultimately lead? To an unforgettable twenty-four hours of Kazakh hospitality alongside an Uzbek, Kazakh, Russian, and Afghan.

Day 250 – Arvaikheer, Mongolia

• Tagging along for a 230km slice of an around the world motorbike journey. The stuff of dreams. Well, at least my dreams.

Six to Forget

Day 31 – Overnight Bus to Bukittenggi, Indonesia

• The original long distance overnight ride from hell. There would be longer and more uncomfortable bus journeys, but you never forget your first.

Day 49 – Overnight Bus to Bagan, Myanmar

• Crowded, hot, and miserable. Fifteen hours complete with smelly feet in close proximity.

Day 71 – Chiang Mai, Thailand

• Coming off the travel high of Myanmar, the tourist-heavy landscape of northern Thailand made for a rude & unwelcoming transition.

Day 95 – Vang Vieng, Laos

• After four incredible days in Luang Prabang, Meghan and I suffered an agonizing five hour bus ride through the pot-holed roads of northern Laos only to arrive in ugly, hot, and tourist-manufactured Vang Vieng. Heighted stress on my part, ants in our room, and a Lao football loss to Malaysia in the Southeast Asian Game semifinals set the stage for a near altercation with a fiery hotel staff member. Perhaps the most forgettable day of them all.

Day 156 – Jaisalmer, India

• One jolly hotel owner and two bottles of military grade Royal Stag whiskey later, I’d find myself horizontally incapacitated for an entire day. Alcohol poison be damned! Day 156: the hangover of all Asian hangovers.

Day 247 – Overnight Van to Bayankhongor, Mongolia

• The ultimate long distance overnight ride from hell. 800kms. 30 hours. 200% occupancy.

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Q & A

I’ll save myself some air and jump the gun on a few questions:

Favorite country?

• What I accomplished and experienced during my thirty five days in India (most in any one country) is ultimately impossible to top. I gotta say it really is !incredible India.

Easiest country to travel in?

• Got to go to Thailand. The tourist infrastructure and systems are so well established and in place you get the feeling you’re more cattle than tourist after awhile. Everyone speaks English and you can’t walk more than a kilometer in any one direction before running into a booking agent who can get you a flight/train/message/tour/ship/joint/room. All of which helps make Thailand my least favorite Southeast Asian country.

Hardest country to travel in?

• Got to go to China. For a people who count to ten on one hand, the Chinese can’t communicate in the most basic of universal sign language. Nothing is written in English and no one speaks it. Caution: China Ahead.

Best value?

• Got to go to India. No country packs in as many sites, sounds, & smells and delivers a more rewarding cultural punch than India. Despite its size it’s relatively easy to navigate the one-third of the country which most tourists visit, and no country tastes better and can accommodate you for as little. India delivers.

Worst value?

• It was more expensive to eat, drink, sleep, and travel in Russia than in any other Asian country (the solution: a Trans-Siberian railway journey). Also in the running is Kazakhstan. It’s not Russian expensive, but it’s not Chinese inexpensive either.

Return to first to?

• I would return first and foremost to central Asia, as the ‘Stans hold great appeal. Next would no doubt be Indonesia, as the warmth of its people coupled with the ability to completely lose yourself among its 10,000 islands makes for an unrivaled experienced in Asia. With enough time and means you could visit islands where no tourist has ever gone. That’s something special. Third, I would travel back to Vietnam. Incredible food, incredible history, incredible service, and incredibly cheap. Motorbiking through Vietnam definitely finds itself on the Bucket List.

Strangest food?

• Drinking horse milk in Kazakhstan only later to learn it was horse milk takes the cake over fried duck head. Sorry, no scorpions, spiders, or snakes.

Biggest Regret?

• No regrets but if I had to do it over again I’d have shaved off two weeks out of China and Mongolia and dipped in Uzbekistan.

Top 5 favorite countries (in order)?

• India, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Vietnam.

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If I had a nickel for every time I…

• Used my jacket as a pillow cover…
• Unzipped my camera case…
• Made a green handkerchief disappear for an Indonesian child…
• Unscrewed my malaria pill bottle…
• Retrieved my passport since I can’t for the life of me remember its ­nine-digit number…
• Listened to a Dutch, German, or Swiss traveler incorrectly say “make a picture” instead of “take a picture”…
• Listened to So Cool…
• Squeezed a clutch…
• Pointed to a stranger’s plate of food to order a meal…
• Was asked to pose for a photograph…
• Buckled my pack’s waist belt…
• Watched Fashion TV because it was the only English language program…
• Pressed on a bed mattress to inspect its give…
• Watched Inglorious Basterds (Inglorious Walkabout? Indefinite Basterd?)…
• Toggled to my phone’s calculator function…
• Placed a bottle of water on a sales counter…
• Slept in my jeans, just because…
• Recounted my in-country travel route for a local…
• Shook the unsanitary extended hand of someone I really didn’t want to…
• Incorrectly changed tense, inadvertently omitted a word/letter, or unnecessarily used a comma, semicolon, or parenthesis during the construction of these blogs…I’d have:
  • US Dollars: 664
  • Indonesian Rupiah: 6,144,313
  • Singapore Dollars: 930
  • Malaysian Ringgit: 2,192
  • Burmese Kyat: 664,250
  • Thai Baht: 21,920
  • Laos Kip: 5,526,560
  • Vietnamese Dong: 12,620,750
  • Cambodian Riel: 2,793,171
  • Indian Rupees: 31,220
  • Nepalese Rupees: 49,155
  • Chinese Yuan: 4,537
  • Kazakhstan Tenge: 96,981
  • Russian Roubles: 20,392
  • Mongolian Togrog: 919,986

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Theft, Loss, & Health There were scores of ‘______ almost happened’ on this journey. I almost dumped my motorbike on a sandy road in Sumatra when I took my eyes off the road to look at a waving child and the front wheel went sideways (it was the closest I came to a vehicular accident in nine months). Almost. My film project was nearly compromised at the thieving hands of Thai scumbags had I not heeded the advice of an old lady who advised me not to leave any valuables in my bag during a five hour bus ride. Almost.  I almost slipped on a bathroom floor in India, which would have resulted in blood and a trip to an inadequate hospital. Almost.

There were countless occasions where the almost could easily have turned into a crippling disaster, but through good judgment, a lot of luck, and Pam O’Neil’s daily prayers I was thankfully able to avoid any serious hiccup. I’m proud to report my injury list as follows:

• Stolen: One bottle Listerine mouthwash (Thailand)
• Lost: One USB transfer cable/one pair socks (Mongolia), one t-shirt (China)
• Health:
  • Stomach viruses: 0
  • Head colds: 0
  • Fevers: 0
  • Bouts of diarrhea: 1 (Bangkok, Thailand)
  • Broken bones: 1 (left pinky toe – Jungle Beach, Thailand).

The Sum Total I learned more than a few things about the way the Asian world works and in the process a few things about myself, but at the end of the day it all boils down to seven lessons or truths:

• When all else fails the solution can be found at a fancy hotel.
• Asians don’t rock the boat, they avoid conflict at all costs.
• Mobile phone technology has penetrated every corner of the world.
• Asians hold hands. A lot.
• Sometimes you can’t put a price tag on the value of a hot shower.
• No one particularly cares for China.
• The naïve and curious innocence only found in children is universal the world over.

…my Asian experience in a nutshell.

(Indonesia)

———

(Malaysia)

———

(Myanmar)

———

(Laos)

———

(India)

———

(Nepal)

———

(China)

———

(Kazakhstan)

———

(Mongolia)

• There’s that little old infrastructure project that can’t be seen from space: The Great Wall
• There’s that small urban gathering space (OK, it’s the largest on the planet), where no less than 50 surveillance cameras monitor your every step. Tanks are allowed but bikes are off limits: Tiananmen Square
• There’s that modest piece of central real estate that happens to have been off limits to the world since before Columbus landed on San Salvador: The Forbidden City

There are the ever present reminders of China’s discipline and muscle: the legions of baby-faced young military men standing stone still at attention outside most every municipal building. There’s the technology. I can only recall three moments in which a visual stopped me dead in my tracks. Call them Wow Moments. First, watching an elephant split rush hour traffic in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Second, stumbling across the outdoor pool ‘hall’ in Olgii, Mongolia. Third, observing a digital ad projected from our moving subway train onto the concrete Beijing subway wall. Didn’t see that one coming. There is the food. Over the last three days I’ve downed steaming noodles, street dumplings, the most incredible duck on the planet, and loads of other delectable morsels. And that’s not getting into the various street snacks I could have enjoyed: scorpions, beetles, worms, and snake. Snake? Snake. A choice exchange from the Dong Hua Men night market last evening:

Me: What’s that on the stick?

Him: Lamb testicle.

Me: You got to be kidding me.

Him: How many would you like?

Me: None.

Him: OK, just one [as he reaches to grab a skewer].

Me: Stop!

Unlike the high-rise cityscape and commerce-centric feel of neighboring Shanghai, Beijing truly looks and feels like the historic and political beating heart of the country. It looks and feels like China at its finest, at its most mesmerizing, most ordered, most charming, most friendly, and most captivating. I’ve had more than a few moments standing still surrounded by hordes of tourists from the globe over, where I’ve truly felt at the center of the Asian universe. I feel like I’ve just tattooed North America for the first time and I’m ending in Washington, D.C. on the 4^th of July.

Early June in Beijing: simply fantastic.

———

It’s 10:32pm on Monday night on my 270^th day in Asia. I’m inside 48 hours and counting so here’s a question: How the hell am I and where the hell is my head at? To start I’ve had more than my share of Steve-O moments while wandering Beijing where everything kind of slows down, I slip into a momentary trance, and the gravity of what’s about to happen hits me…hard. At those moments I get that heavy sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, the kind you get while watching your last sunset of the summer. It’s the feeling of ending.

I first experienced this sensation about a week ago in Ulaanbaatar while wandering among the thousands at the city’s largest market. Without warning I was overcome by a flood of emotions triggered by the realization that my world of Asian chaos was rapidly slipping away. I got choked up and hid a few tears behind my sunglasses as the river of human traffic swept me through my final market. That feeling of ending has reared its head numerous times here in Beijing over the last four days, but I don’t fight it because I’m ready and its time. For eight months, three weeks, and five days my world has been as different from yours as black from white, so there is no way I can prepare myself to leave Asia and simply slide back into America overnight. It’s just not going to happen. So I’ll savor what’s left over here, and play it by ear over there. I’ll savor the final dumpling, the final sunset, the final hostel bathroom, and most certainly the final tears. I’ll savor and smile, but the reality is I’ve been savoring for a long time now…eight months, three weeks, and five days to be exact.

(Indonesia)

———

(Myanmar)

———

(Vietnam)

———

(India)

———

(Nepal)

———

(China)

———

(Kazakhstan)

———

(Russia)

———

(Mongolia)

(Chenghis Khan: the original pitchman, long before George Foreman.)

(Markus x 2)

My final four days in Ulaanbaatar were surreal and leisurely. I wrote, hung around a crowded hostel, visited a museum or two, enjoyed a pint or two at the Grand Khaan’s Irish Pub, enjoyed a brilliant Indian meal with a Frenchman and German, marveled at the national holiday spectacle that was Children’s Day, visited one of Asian’s largest markets, reunited with Swiss friends, and said many goodbyes. When it was time to leave I boarded a 7:30am train and set in for one final long haul transit journey, but the thirty-one hours from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing couldn’t have been sweeter. Brand new train, well stocked dining car, solid company, and all the golden Gobi scenery one could handle. So, what else do I have to say about my time in Mongolia? Well, lots but my tank is nearly empty so I’ll close with these final findings:

• At the end of the day Mongolia is one big empty nothing.
• The west is mountainous, cold and rugged. The center is postcard beautiful. The east is flat as a table.
• The people don’t haggle over price or attempt to rip you off. The price you get is the price everyone gets.
• The Mongolian language has been described as sounding like two cats fighting until one throws up on the other. This description couldn’t be more fitting. The sounds are unlike anything else in Asia and simply amazing to listen to.
• Mongolians enjoy a surprising degree of sass.
• From my observations I’ve concluded there are no spiders in Mongolia.
• If China is a rice & noodle country, Mongolia is undoubtedly a meat & potato nation.
• It may be east by geography, but Mongolia is most certainly west by temperament.

(Indonesia)

———

(Myanmar)

———

(Thailand)

———

(Laos)

———

(Vietnam)

———

(India)

———

(Nepal)

———

(China)

———

(Kazakhstan)

———

(Russia)

———

(Mongolia)

SUN…

(Rise – Indonesia)

———

(Rise – Indonesia)

———

(Set – Myanmar)

———

(Set – Thailand)

———

(Set – Laos)

———

(Rise – Vietnam)

———

(Set – Cambodia)

———

(Set – India)

———

(Rise – India)

———

(Set – India)

———

(Set – Nepal)

———

(Rise – China)

———

(Set – Kazakhstan)

———

(Set – Kazakhstan)

———

(Set – Russia)

———

(Rise – Mongolia)

———

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_IKcMl_a9A

Total stud.