Under the stars...

Finally, the opportunity came to me! After too many days of " learning the hard way" I have finally deserved some fee-time. As a friend just told me, we scandinavians always need a "good opportunity" to deserve time off and I happened to fall under that category I`m afraid. Well; on my journey I met this amazing people. Its a family with a some swedes and some mongolians. I got to know this guy, Joakim (works at Uppsala University) when David and me were on our way to Stockholm. We were going to meet another guy in Sthlm in connection to my visit to Mongolia, and this guy happened to sit next to us on the train and could tell that he has lived and worked in Mongolia and were going there this summer. As I didnt know anyone there, he asked if he could help. This guy and his family shows to be one of the nicest people I have ever met. First I went with them to a summer/health resort. Yes, I had thousand different images in my head on how a Mongolian summer resort would look like, and off course it was nothing as I had imagined. Among dry steppes, hundreds of kilometers and between lots of Ger`s, a paradise appeared! I could not believe my own eyes? Imagine kind off french riviera, not sea but a big lake, free spa, lots of space, bright sun, delivered food (!), oil that is healthy for the skin, no dirt and no tourists! And so cheap! Crazy feeling. Well, we stayed there two nights, had wine and enjoyed the spa feeling.

After one day in Ulaanbaatar, the same family asked me if I wanted to go to the Gobi Desert with them. And, off course, as my time in Mongolia was quite rough and I really needed to do something else this was not even a choice for me. Five days in the desert was amazing. 1200 km south east from Ulaanbaatar to a place called Sainshand which is the capital of the Dornogovi Province in Mongolia. Our goal on the tour was an energy centre, which is suppose to be one of the most magnetic and energetic places on earth, different rituals and buddhist practices were carried out. Well, we slept without our tents ("under åpen himmel") that night to inhale all energy possible. My first time to sleep out in nature in that way. It was amazing. So many stars! I now understand why the country is called "the blue sky". I woke up at 4 with a layer of sand in my face, and just came across my dream that was about rubbing in my face with body lotion the whole night because of the dry air :D We took off and the monk met us at the entrance. Just after 5 we could see the horizon covered of a bright, warm light that got shaped as the sun after only a few minutes. Sutras and yoga-like-practices were done to welcome the sun and to start the day constituting of various buddhist rituals. The moment were breath-taking.

Well, after miles on a bumpy road we found a Ger to sleep in that night. It was raining. I slept many hours that night, compared to the nights before. Finally some good sleep, even no dreams?! I always used to dream? Maybe the meditation made even my brain sleep that night. The next morning I was ready for new bumps, hours with traditional Mongolian music and endless landscape

Nomadic Lifestyle

Forgot to write in english last time, sorry :) A month has passed. Already? Well, even though the first month went really fast does it still feel that I have a lot of time left. I miss Norway, my friends and family. Now more than before when I have been out traveling. Well two years since I have experienced norwegian summer and norwegian national day. Two years since I have tasted norwegian strawberries, half a year since I have seen my sister...and even longer since I have seen many of my other friends. This, due to studying, hard work and not much vacation. Not only am I studying nomadic lifestyle, I have adopted it myself as well?! A lot is learned the last two years for me, something the easy way, other things the hard way.

Now, this was not meant to be a blog that summerize my two years, neither a blog for tears and sorrows. This blog was dedicated to actually show you some of the pictures I have taken the last month. You have seen some already, but here are some more.

Another funny thing that happened the other day. I went up the stairs of Cafè Amsterdam (where I used to sit), in the moment I was approaching the counter; I saw my teachers from high school! Haha, I couldnt believe it. My norwegian teacher and biology teacher form Gerhard Schøning School. I went straight over to them. The moment she saw me, she almost fainted :D They were a group of 4 women, and took the transsiberian railway with target on Tibet. I was not the first known person they had met on their trip though. Inger could tell me that she even met her teacher! And she was 92! They said; now its only left to meet one of our students. And what happened? I had dinner with them at night and we talked about the "old days" ;) Very nice to meet them.

Well, this weekend? Yes, I am going to a summer resort just outside Ulan Bator with some swedish and mongolian friends. One guy from Uppsala University and his family. So cute kids! And a mongolian girl that has lived in sweden for 7 years, together with some of her friends. Cant wait to put my bikini on, swim in the lake, finally have some time off and relax. 40 degrees and sandstorm here :P

Hope you are all good back home :)

"The Blue Sky"

Nå har jeg vært her èn måned. Er ferdig med feltarbeidet og nå er det mest skriving og tolkning som gjenstår. Ja, hvordan var det i felt? Den første tiden var fantastisk. Kom til en familie som hadde 3 barn, så utrolig søte! Fikk god kontakt med de og de andre i familien. Gjorde de daglige tingene som de gjorde, hugget ved, melket kuer og gjetet 800 sauer og geiter på hesteryggen to timer om dagen i førti grader. Tøft, men utrolig opplevelsesrikt. Mye vanskeligere enn jeg trodde å jobbe med tolk. Jeg kunne jo ikke snakke med dem! Og det var jo det jeg ville. Ble liksom ikke det samme å snakke gjennom tolken. Men det er jo min første opplevelse å jobbe med tolk så man venner seg jo til det. Og det gjorde jeg og. Etter noen dager bare hadde jeg mistet alt tidsaspekt, alt gikk etter sola. Stod opp 5 og la oss 9. Alt handlet om dyrene og de daglige behovene deres. Produksjon av melkeprodukter, klipte sauer, hentet vann og laget mat. Våknet til soloppgang og tidløse sletter med vrinsk av hestelyder i det fjerne. Jeg forstår nå at landet blir kaldt "the blue sky". Jeg kommuniserte gjennom peke-boka mi, jeg pekte på figurer i boka og den 5 årige jenta sa hva det het på mongolisk og jeg skrev ned. Håinn=sau, schåvåå=fugl, åz=vann...lærte meg en del mongolisk. Jeg heter...=mini ner, god natt= sæchenambrarè, god dag=sen beno, takk=bairla, hadebra=bairltæ, ja= kiim, nei=ogoi, timon= jeg forstår. Vel, dagene gikk. Hver dagen kjentes som en liten uke. Så mye å gjøre. Mye intervjuer, filming, prating og bilder. Alltid noe som foregikk. Utrolig å møte en sånn kultur så nære. Oppholde endte uforventet, så vi dro hjem. Mye var observert allerede og det var som sagt utrolig varmt å ligge i telt i 10 dager uten å dusje :) Nå er jeg tilbake på cafeen i Ulan Bator og en ny epoke er i vente med mye lesing, skriving og tenking...

Squeezed sheep-legs :D

A lot of things have happened lately. So many things going on. My trips is settled. Got all the stuff I needed on the local market (Black Market) Sleepingbag, tent, matress, gas-stove, wool socks and now its only the food left. On tuesday I am buying 24 liters of water, 12 kg rice, 10 kg wheat and a tun of nudles :D

In general I really like it here. So here you can read some stories:

I walked on the street here one day, and could not stop paying attention to this tiny detail. Back home, people are sometimes, after their dinner or so chew on a toothpick (of tree of course). Nothing very much to pay attention to really, but on the street one day I saw a man with a metal pin in his mouth? Really weird, the same size of a toothpick. Chewing on it! And it really made me think of that it reflects the people here. Very harsh in a way. In a good way. A metal pin!

Yesterday I did some grocery shopping, and went by the "fresh food" section. Which is, in NO way, like the one`s at home. There was sheets laying in the storage, legs everywhere and the people working there did everything from (not slaughtering the animal), but not far from that!

On friday we were watching the soccer game between South Africa Mexico. The interest of football here is amazing and very surprising. They don`t cheer for one team, but for the goals. There were about 200 people at the Grand Khan Irish Pub on Friday. For each goal, independent on which one that scored, they cheered like I have never seen before. Crazy screams and joy every time either of the teamed scored. Very different from back home. Like they just enjoyed and empathized with the happiness of that person in a way.

I also, because of economically constraints and work, chose to stay home saturday night (yesterday). Even though I got the offer of going out. I haven`t been out yet here since I have arrived. Too much work, and too tired. I was home alone, and really felt for going out, but used my small grey brain cells and thought it over. I stayed home. In the beginning I was a bit restless, but after I got started on my work it was okey. I took some pictures in my state of thinking "I have turned lonely, boring and almost can identify with a geek" Oh no! Haha. I took some pictures of the variables that made me come to this statement. (I am not really afraid of that, but the state of mind was hilarious :D)

Today I met Batmunkh. He is a guy I met on the horse-riding in Altanbulag Soum. He wanted me to learn him english. His english was really bad, and its fantastic how much one can learn from each other only by really trying and by "body-language" (...no its not what you`re thinking) So I met him today at the Cafè Amsterdam and tought english for an hour. I felt it was a really good thing to do, and he tought me some Mongolian. I told him to get an english-mongolian teaching book with a CD (Marthe- was thinking about your experience in Japanese :D) Well. It ended up with him only wanting me to write sentences like: "Do you want to have dinner with me?" and "Can I take you to the movies" So, that was kind of a natural closure of our conversations/teaching process and I politely said I had to work and went off :)

Update on the climatic variations in this country. Weather update: Yesterday - 4 degrees and rain. Today: sun and 30 degrees. I dont know, but I really tried to prepare myself for this climate, but it seems impossible...

From the "Fresh market", to the left of the guy you can see the leg of the sheeps. Whole sheeps where laying in a basket, where the meat were squeezed out of the sprinkles of the bin. Very "from nature"

This is from a "Guld-sme" where Munchkjargal took me. She is a Mongolian girl that I met couple of days ago. She can speak swedish!? Really nice girls! Her friend was going to make a ring, red-gold, because she got an Indian pearl (from her brother) that she wanted to melt into her old ring. It costed 60 SEK. Crazy, they are seriously good in hand-crafts here.

Well: This is Ida going nerdy! OÆÆÆ! :D Oh no! :D

Cello og fløyte!

I de siste dagene har Hanna og jeg spilt sammen. Det har vært så fint! Hanna spiller fløyte og jeg cello. Første gangen vi spilte sammen hørtes det HELT SYKT jævli ut. Falskt og med ulike note-nøkler (om det er noe som heter det...). Men nå har vi skrevet om Hannas noter og vi kan spille sammen. Dog litt kjipe låter, mest folkeviser. Men mange er veldig fine også. Nå kan vi hvertfall "Hvem kan segla for uten vind" og "Bussanlull". Fint!

To uker til jeg drar. Føles veldig rart på mange måter. Dagene mine her i Uppsala blir mer og mer absurd og kontrast-fylt. Igår hadde jeg intervju med tolken for prosjektet mitt, føste gangen jeg pratet med noen fra Mongolia. Det fikk bra. To minutter etter fikk jeg en telefon; vi ringer fra Stureplan (brat/stekare-området i Stockholm) å lurte på om jeg ville ha en dag med hår og make-up styling med gratis drikke for en photoshoot. Først holdt jeg på å bare legge på røret fordi jeg fatta ingenting. Men så fatta jeg å tenkte, "det må være en bak-tanke med dette" (typisk meg...) vel det var ingen bak-tanke, min venninne Sanne hadde gitt dette i gave til meg. Jeg kunne ta med to venner, perfekt når Mette og Linn kommer den 17 Sept! Vel, så fikk booka inn det. Fem minutter etter sitter jeg på vaksinasjonskontoret å tar vaksine mot Rabies. Ti minutter etter, på utviklings-samtale på jobben. En time etter, middag med Anders. Puh! Hvilken dag!

Disse bildene skal jeg prøve å bruke på en måte, kanskje på min rosa skisse som synes under. Det er fra Klimateksistens konferansen i 2008. Nå er det ny konferanse i November. Skal bli ferdig med det til da tenkte jeg. En tanke er også å skrive noen sitater som jeg ble inspirert av på ESD (Education for Sustainable Development) konferansen vi hadde i forrige uke.

Reise til Monglia

For de som er interessert i en tur med den trans-sibiriske jernbanen i sommer; her kommer litt info. Som dere ser på kartet tar man den trans-sibiriske jernbanen fra St:Petersburg eller Moscow til Vladivostoc, så videre med den trans-mongoliske railway til Ulan Bator (Mongolia) ...og så videre til Beijing for de som vil det. Jeg vet ikke enda om jeg skal fly eller ta toget begge veier, men jeg skal hverfall ta toget hjem fra Ulan Bator til St.Petersburg i starten av August 2010.

For dere som vil reise med meg, er det kanskje best å fly til Beijing (eller ta tog begge veier), så komme til Ulan Bator den første uka i August - så ta toget "hjem" til St.Petersburg og videre gjennom Finnland, Sverige så Norge med meg.

Se bilder her, også ulike prislister finner du her. Jeg har sjekket en del blogger. Det kommer veldig an på hvordan man vil reise hva det koster. Om man reiser direkte uten å stoppe mellom Moscow og Beijing tar det 5 dager ca (anbefalt er mellom 10-14 dager inkl stopp etc). Det tar 8 timer fra St.Petersburg til Moscow, og 30 timer fra Ulan Bator til Beijing. Om man ikke stopper har jeg sett priser på rundt 4000 SEK, om man stopper blir det litt dyrere. Dette er for andre klasse, og på bildene ser dette helt ok ut.

Det med visum viser seg være litt komplisert. De som reiser og booker med et byrå (som kanskje er enklest, men også dyrest), gjør dette byrået dette for deg. Altså de fixer russisk, kinesisk og mongolsk visum. Erfaringen med dette er at de tar veldig overpris og at man lett kan fixe dette selv for en mye billigere penge (visum og billetter etc) Jeg må ha speial-visum fordi jeg skal være i Mongolia så lenge, men i Russland og evt Kina trengs kun Transit/Turist visa om man kun skal være der i mindre enn 30 dager.

Her er en del info om visum etc på denne bloggen. Her fins også en del visum info.

Det ser ut som man kan få en riktig billig reise om man ser på denne bloggen.