Page 14 - NMRA Roundhouse September-October 2019
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  to say, I was the first one there with my money. It was a fantastic experience.
We were then taken by ferry to an open air wooden architecture museum, sort of like Skansen Park in Sweden.There were many structures and stalls selling the usual stacking dolls and other local handicrafts.
After the wooden architecture museum, we went to the Limnological museum, which had displays about the lake, the animals and fish living in it and around it. It was quite interesting, but the exterior gave me a little pause.The grounds were surrounded by lilac bushes in full bloom, and they were beautiful.The only problem was they were the first flowers I gave my late wife, and would buy them for her every year when they were in season.
ULAN UDE
We were taken to a village of the “Old Believers” who had emigrated from Europe and established themselves here. We were greeted by some of them in their costumes, but the highlight was the wedding ceremony performed with a young couple from our train who were on their honeymoon.
The young lady was dressed in the traditional clothing, a layer at a time and when she was through, the young
man came out in his costume.There were many ceremonies, including a ritual beating of the bride and groom, then the groom beating the bride.At the end of the ceremony, a tray with vodka and pick- le slices was passed to a few of the men.
Later that evening, on the train, as we were heading to Mongolia, we had to go through first a Russian Border crossing then a Mongolian border crossing.
ULAAN BAATAR
Our first stop was at a Buddhist tem- ple complex that was restored after Stalin died and they were allowed more religious freedom.There was a ceremo- ny going on while we were there, that
I wish I could have understood more. There were drums and gongs and a priest taking something from a dish and wiping it on a circular disk. Many of the temples had prayer wheels on the outside for people to spin, which sent prayers to the gods.
From there we were taken to the main square which featured statues of one of the Mongolian heroes.There was a large statue of Genghis Khan on the other side of a fenced and covered area, but I found a hole that I could shoot through standing on my toes.
For lunch we were taken to a ger restau- rant, which was shaped like the huts the nomads lived in out in the countryside. With lunch we were treated to a show of singing and acrobatics. Some of the singing called “throat singing” was unique to Mongolia.
After lunch we were taken to the center of town for a shopping trip, but I searched out an internet café. It was really inexpensive less than $1 an hour,
but you get what you pay for.The letters were totally worn off some of the keys and they tried to fix it by writing the let- ters on the keys with whiteout! Anyhow, it was a little better than struggling with keyboards with Cyrillic characters on them.
There was a tour in the afternoon, but some of us did not want to face an hour ride each way, we were taken back to the railway station, but the train was parked out in the rail yard. It was kind
of exciting to be walking across active tracks and looking each way twice to make sure we did not get run over. When the rest of the group boarded the train, we left and headed back to Russia. We had to repeat the same exercise with border guards in Mongolia and Russia, except it was 2 AM when we had to do this.We then made a brief stop at Ulan Ude to change locomotives, and we were off to our last stop of Vladivostok.
VLADIVOSTOK
Well we finally made it! 9288 kilometres from Moscow,The post I am standing by has the number of the final kilometre on it.
That night we were put up a nice hotel overnight with a REAL king size bed. It was a delight after sleeping on one that was 30 inches wide! After we got settled, we were taken to a really nice restaurant for our farewell dinner.The next after- noon we were taken to the airport and got checked in, which was a little hectic, but got on the plane and flew to Inchon International in Korea.The flight home was uneventful, as I slept most of the way with my Bose headset eliminating most noise.
It took me about a week to get over my jet lag....!
Steve Goch
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