I’ve been taking time off from doing nothing in my spare time, to get back into my writing. So since I’ve last written, not much has happened or changed. It’s still work, eat, bed, followed the next day by work, eat, bed, with the occasional day of work, eat, DRINK, bed, followed by a day of wishing I was still in bed. And in case you have all forgotten, my bed was designed for an anorexic midget, and is several feet off the ground so no midget could actually get in it, real logical, I KNOW, but I shouldn’t complain too much since one of my buddies here is 6’4 and has to sleep like a ninja in his own bed every night just to fit.
But with all kidding aside, let’s get serious, I’m assuming some people are actually reading this blog to learn a little about Mongolia and if I actually ever get to see the Mongolia that exist outside of the Gobi desert I’ll let you know, till then you will hear about life in a mining camp that happens to be stationed in Mongolia.
I last left off talking about my trip to China and talking about free speech, after several complaints from friends about how crazy I am to believe such a thing, and the fact that all these people missed my settle art of sarcasm, it is safe to assume, if in any way I offended you with my opinion, that I don’t care. Now that we have gotten that out of the way, I can tell you what it is like travelling to and from oblivion.
My current home is somewhere in the south Gobi Desert, that’s about as detailed I can really get, I’m somewhere between a rock and 100 miles of horizon. A few miles outside of camp, there is a little airport where we catch a little prop plane that takes us to Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia. It’s always nice travelling to Ulaan Baatar, stepping out of the airport and taking a deep breath, the taste of burned coal mixed with sand paper always reminds me that I’m indeed not home. The little prop plane-leaving site is a little rough; basically it feels like someone is shaking me for the entire eighty-minute flight. But that’s not the worst of it. I’m not sure why the locals here don’t understand the concept of turning off their cell phones during a flight since it has been basic instruction for plane travel since I was 15. But everytime I’ve been on this plane and as the plane is coming in for landing and are still several thousand miles above earth, you start hearing cell phones ringing, not one, not two, but like 6 or 7 different phones. It makes me think if the plane doesn’t plummet to the ground, I really should find out who their provider is, impressive coverage.
From the Ulaan Baatar airport (ULN), a traveler has three cities that have daily flight in/out of the capital. Your options are Beijing, Seoul and Moscow, and since for the last year or so, planes have been falling out of the sky in Russia, you really have two options leaving Mongolia.
On my first trip out of Mongolia, I flew through Beijing, and arrived with no problems, at this point, I had NOOOOOOOOOOOO idea how lucky I was. Someone or more accurately a group of some ‘people’ decided to build the ULN airport right in a valley that happens to be surrounded by mountains, not sure how this group missed the endless landscape of flatness, which I have come to know as Mongolia, but it must have been an oversight. All but one side of the ULN single runway has mountains surrounding it, on a positive note; a pilot has no doubt what direction to land the plane in. Great thinking, its a little known fact that planes are built to avoid hitting mountains. So now that it is crystal clear what direction a plane can come in and out of, let’s discuss the next problem this design has created. When wind is blowing in a westerly direction the mountains shield the SINGLE runway very nicely, unfortunately 50% of the time the wind is blowing easterly, and the nice sheltered valley turns into a turnpike that can have 30-40 mile per hour winds. Bloody brilliant!!!! The first thing I want to do on my way home after working 56 days, is sit around and wait for the wind to stop blowing.
Once you actually take off out of ULN, you are on your way home, Woo Hoo!!!! And for 12 days you live happily till on the 13th day you are on your way back to the airport. On my first trip back to camp, I learned firsthand what it is like not being able to get back to site. I am still thankful this happened on my way back and not on my way out, some of my co-workers are not that lucky, just ask my buddy D who spent his Christmas in the Ulaan Batar airport, if you need convincing. I got to the Beijing airport at 6am for my 8am flight, which at this point I was told will probably be late, by 9am, I was convinced this was the case, and by 10am they had moved our flight to 8pm, saying the winds in Ulaan Batar are too strong to land, so I waited. It was safe to say I was going to miss my afternoon flight back to site. The airline did put us up in a hotel, but still, we waited. Originally, I was suppose to land in UB at 10am, I landed at 1am the next morning. I was so tired and I was five hours away from being back at the ULN airport to catch my morning flight to site. So I went to my hotel, slept 3 hours and was back on a bus to the airport. By 8am, we took off, woo hoo, I was so looking forward to my midget bed at this point, I needed sleep. It’s a short flight back to site, and before I knew it, the pilot was telling us to take our seats and prepare for landing. I had a window seat and I could see the runway in the distance, we were coming in on our decent when all of a sudden the plane starts ascending again, I looked around, I was not the only one a little surprise, what was going on? Did a camel all of a sudden run across the runway or what? A minute or so later the pilot was telling us due to cloud coverage he was unable to see the runway, and we are currently being diverted to DZ. HOLD ON… First off, what the hell is DZ? and SECOND, are you blind? I can see the runway right through my window, if you are going to lie, atleast say it’s the wind, since I actually can’t SEE the wind. I wasn’t sure what I wanted more, a blind pilot or a lying one. Never the less, we didn’t land at site and we were diverted to DZ. My co-worker sitting beside me on the plane was kind enough to let me know that DZ was a town six hours outside of site that has a small airport (well the largest in the Gobi). And yes, it was small; it was so small and insignificant, that they felt they didn’t even need to heat it.
So here I am, standing in a shed (I mean airport) in the middle of the Gobi Desert, freezing my ass off cause I thought it would be smart to put my winter jacket in my checked luggage, (after all it was still fall, a word to the wise, fall in Mongolia is winter in Vancouver), which was still on the plane. As time went by (3 hours to be clear) they finally unloaded the plane so I could get my luggage and warm myself up. They decided that the sky was not clear enough for the plane to land (did I already mention that I needed to wear sunglasses cause the sun was hurting my eyes, take a look at my photo), again, Are these guys F**king Blind?????????????? Yeah, I was a little mad at this point.
After everything I have said….. I haven’t even told you the worst part yet. Since the Gobi Desert has no roads and hardly any infrastructure, the only way to get back to site is to drive in a Kamaz, if you don’t know what a Kamaz is, google them……. They look cool, right? WRONG, they have big wheels and can drive through everything, but they have no suspension, so you bounce in them like a pong in a ping-pong machine. You feel every bump, I mean every SINGLE bump! I’ve played hockey for a good part of my life, so I’m use to a little trash talk, and I have on several occasions told a few referees and fellow hockey players, I quote ‘to take it in the ass,’ I think this trip was karma, cause trust me, when you rid a Kamaz for six hours through the Gobi, you really Do take it in the ass, and that shit hurts!
27 hours after I was suppose to report into work, I arrived at site.
In conclusion, lessons learned when Travelling to Oblivion:
1. Always have a cell phone on you; In Mongolia you can even call from a plane in midair.
2. Always have a warm jacket with you, cause sometimes you have to wait out Mother Nature.
3. Karma can be a bitch!
4. Remember when you complain, something will shortly come along and make what you just complained about look like Mother Teresa holding a puppy.
5. Even a midget bed standing on stilts can look good after 27 hours of delays.
The End.
Whoah. At least you didn't have to ride a camel back!
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