The weather strikes back

I walk through the small roads and trails towards the main road. On my way, I pass lanes of cherry trees blossoming into white and pink wonders. There are also bamboo forests and mandarines and oranges from time to time. I pass small villages built in the difficult mountain terrain. Yet the roads leading to them are as comfortable as a highway except they are about ten times smaller.
If it were in Kyrgyzstan, these houses would be lucky to have electricity, forget about running water but here they probably have internet.

The narrow road goes between villages

Sakura

Bamboo

Cherry blossom again

On the road I cross the path of many pilgrims. They are dressed in light white fabric with a pointy hat, like the rice workers in Vien-Nam. On the main road I get a ride to the intersection just before Kamiyama. It's a university professor and his family who speak english. It's a joyful ride with their children in the back. At the intersection they give me some shrimp chips, some rice food, then I meet the grandmother who gives me a can of juice, presents just pour from everywhere, I think I won't be hungry for a while.

Classic hitchhiking photo in Japan

Behind the shop where they leave me is a trash bag full of electronics. I really have to check it out and surprise surprise, I find a perfectly functioning PSP game console. It's an obsolete item alright but it has a 16 gigabytes memory card in it, a wifi antenna and it can at least serve as a portable mp3 and video player. And since I am travelling alone, I do need an mp3 player.

You find all kinds of things in the trash in Japan

At this intersection, an old farmer gets out of his way to bring me in the direction of Naka. I get coffee. Looks like nobody is going my direction and I can't blame them since the road gets more perilous by the meter.
A jeep stops, inside two young guys and two girls. Everyone is really shy but willing to communicate, and one of them, Yuna is really sweet. We talk for a while and I forget to watch the direction and soon I end up in the middle of small mountain roads. We stop to meet some of their friends who are all shy but really cool. Except Yuna (another one) who looks like a stunningly beautiful princess-class bitch which would scare me to death if I were in high school but now she was really fun to talk to and a really nice person. I could tell that japanese boys were quite impressed by her, they much preferred the type that you can step on easily.

We stop in the middle of cherry blossom trees

In japan it is so fast to make friends

Yuna

We get back into the car and talk more and I forget to watch the direction again. After a while I notice that we are passing Kamiyama and we are now heading back to Tokushima! Oh no! I get out at a parking lot and Yuna buys me a bottle of tea; I really get something from every ride.

Getting back to the intersection is not a problem and someone even finds me a truck to drive me 2 kilometers in the right direction. Afterwards however, really nobody goes there. Civilisation is getting sparse, the road is still good but very steep. I get a few rides but they definitly stop after I reach the top of the mountain.
Night starts to fall, rain too and the wind is getting stronger. It's so strong that it breaks my wonderful umbrella. I just can't seem to reach any civilisation and the few cars going through that road all head the opposite direction. I don't want to camp outside in this wind, it wouldn't be comfortable even with a tent so I must reach some civilisation and sleep under some roof. Unfortunately, there is nothing, who would have thought that you can be in Japan and still feel in the middle of nowhere.
Fallen rocks on the road prove that the warning sign is not just paranoia as I always tend to assume (especially in east asia).

The night is pretty thick when I stumble upon a wooden cabin. It was left here by some construction workers, it's built on a small cliff just over the river. It stands on sticks but it seems to hold on against the wind quite well altough I just can't shake the thought of the cabin falling down the cliff during the night. I don't sleep that well as a result but this of course was sheer paranoia; the cabin has been there for weeks, why would it fall apart now?

I loosely repair my umbrella with pieces of bamboo and I continue downwards, to the south of the island. I get a few rides and I also walk a lot. My key ride is Shoko, a woman in her fourties who looks really hot, you can easily cut off ten to fifteen years from every japanese woman. She is a massage therapist who also makes some kind of traditional jam. She has a friend who owns a hostel and tries to get me stay there for free but it's fully booked beause of a festival.
She is going to Kobe which is only a little while in the same direction as me. But she deviates towards Mugi and I have the bad feeling that she is going out of her way out of politeness.
We stop in front of a phone shop she introduces me to a friend who speaks decent english. We talk to a while and then her friend says that Shoko has to go, I should wait a few moments and then get into her car. I don't really know why she wants me in her car and what she intends to do but I have nothing better to do and I am open to all opportunities. So I get in.

Experiments in Korea

8 hours. That's the average hitchhiking time in Korea... to get a free plane or a ship.
4, that's a number of nights that I have spent in a tent, that's an average of 2 nights per months.
I can't count the number of times I have been ofered food by people or restaurants. Lost count of english speakers.

Korea is easy, Korea is so easy that it gets boring. People are so kind and law enforcement is so harmless that I end up breaking the law just for sport.
Such nationwide exagerated support of my little self raises the question: how far can Korean hospitality and kindness go? I'll try to put some institutions to the test.
But before that, let's rewind to where we last left. I just hitchhiked the ferry from Jeju-si to Mokpo and I am about to make my way to Seoul. My radio interview is waiting for me, scheduled for next week.

First, I get to Daegu where I try to find my ASUS charger. Nobody has heared of ASUS in Daegu despite me visiting the biggest electronic center there. Some guy takes me to his atelier where we try to repair my data cable but it still doesn't work. Some people are telling me that I can't find an ASUS charger in all of Korea. This sounds unbeliavable but I am ready to believe it.

From there I head to Seoul. It takes longer than usual, I am lost in a myriad of little streets about a hundered kilometers before the capital. I am not short on food which I could be because I am relying merely on invitations now. In fact recently, I have gotten way over-budget and if I am to respect my 2 euros/day average then I must stop spending money right now. From now on, I decide not to spend anything, zero-budget. It's not the first time I am doing that, I did it once in China where I put all my money into telephone to call Janela so I relied on people inviting me to restaurants. While in china it was pretty random (it still worked though), in Korea, there is a method for this. There are service areas everywhere on highways and each service area has pretty much every facility needed. There are fast food shops, gift shops, restaurants, toilets, coffee machines. If a car drives by a service area between noon and 2PM, it is a sure thing the driver will stop and buy himself and you lunch. Same goes for dinner and breakfast.
Today I got breakfast in Mokpo, lunch from Mr. Han's provisions and dinner from my late night driver. He didn't speak a word of english so the conversation was pretty much non-existant but he insisted on finding me a place to stay. He drove me to his office where I could check the internet a bit because there was a computer. Next day he got ma a bag full of donuts and put me on my way. I couldn't dream a better breakfast than a bag full of doughnuts.

The office where I sleep is full of wigs

Some bus driver gave me 3000 won (about 3 dollats) to take a bus out of this maze of roads because he didn't believe I would hitchhike out of it. I did nevertheless with a group of military. Then I got a ride to Seoul, to the electronics market where I am supposed to find the charger.
And I did find it! With the help of a complete stranger who took it upon himself to ride his bike throughout all the neighbourhood and bringing me a new data cable.
Now my tablet can charge itself and I don't have to twist the data cable in all directions before the charging light turns orange.
I stay at Yongjin's house again. I tried couchsurfing but no one replied. Couchsurfing is too organised anyway, it's not suited for independent travelling.
At yongjin's, I had all the rest and care that I could dream of. My own room, great food. I also went to my first wedding ever. I never thought that the first wedding I'll ever see would be a korean one. Everything was very neat and clean, there even was a lady who adjusted the bride's dress everytime it folded in an unwanted direction.
Janela got her visa refused the day before I was supposed to give an interview with TBS, a korean radio. I worked hard so as not to be affected by this but the fact that the french consulate considers my girlfriend to be a prostitute based on her ethnicity is quite a drag. It's discrimination plain and simple but consulates live way above the law for the simple reason that no law applies to them: they can officially do whatever they want.

Janela was a great support, she showed herself less shaken than myself and the interview went as well as it could.
I arrived in front of the building. I thought that it was a small radio station but this was a huge building with national television, radio stations, you name it.

TBS building where I will be giving my interview

The studio was divided in two parts. In the first part, I was welcomed by Jamie, the girl who has been communicating with me by email some time. She and her friends walked be trough the questions that Ahn will ask me. They asked me the questions in a casual conversation, I could barely tell they were having me rehearse. Very tactful professionalism.
A week before the interview, I had recieved an email from jamie with all the questions that will be asked. Not so much is left to chance, it's Korea, isn't it? However, when I read the questions I sensed real commitment. These people actually read my blog, they were informed about my trip, they asked almost all the interesting questions. If I were to interview myself, I would not have prepared a better interview.

Me and Jamie at the radio station

They asked about Nata, about the key countries, about the philosophy, the before, the after. The interviewer was carefully watching the time, guiding my answer through the clock (we had 20 minutes for 20 questions) but she managed this without being intrusive. I was stressed but it was a great experience.
Everything is going so well in Korea, really. I still have a week before I have to be in Busan but no stress, it's Korea, I'll get there in time. First, I want to visit Seorok mountain and the east coast. That's when I started to experiment. I arrived to the Kensington hotel, just below the mountain. A giant construction with a stunning view.
I'ts 3PM, too late to start the ascention and the weather sucks too. It might rain tonight. I don't have a tent anymore so that's a slightly bigger problem than before. However, there are lots of abandonned cabins or shelters in the area so my night is not really in danger. It's more about my curiosity.
In the interview I say that I don't ask for accomodation. That is only partially true. I sometimes do ask for it but always institutions that make a business of it, never individuals. I ask a hotel to give me a place to stay for free the same way I ask an airline for a free plane ticket.
I describe my situation to the reception lady. She has perfect english. She goes to find her boss and after a while, they find me a place to sleep in a double-decker bus in front of the hotel. It serves as an exposition item brought back from London. It's really confortable on one of the front seats and I spend my evening watching TV series while eating some food Yongjin has given me for the road.

My magic bus

When you start watching TV series on a hitchhiking trip, it means that the country you are in is too boring and you have to seek adventure elsewhere as many people do in the civilised world.
The next day, I sneak into the national park. There is an entrance fee so I have to go around over the hill. It's not an easy climb, especially in the dark at 6AM.

At 6AM there is nobody in front of this very touristic Buddha statue, just under Soroksan

The path to Sorok montain is closed but I ignore the warning and climb anyway. I soon fall in deep snow until the waist. My shoes are soaking wet and I have to climb through stones and stone walls until I get to the a ridge. There the trail continues but the snow is too deep, giving up the ascention is the wise thing to do. I spend a while looking for a way down, cursing myself for not having giving up earlier. It is a small mountain but it feels like a huge one. Size really doesn't matter, mountain-wise.

Here I got kind of stuck

View from a cave monastary in the mountains

Three times I try to go down and thee times I go back: the way is too hard. At last I find a path suitable for descent and I make it back to my magic bus. From there, I hitch to the east coast, to a place called Ganeug. It used to be an old olympic village which rhymes with abandonned places. I spend a good part of the days sneaking into various places in hotels, abandonned or not.
I am a bit hungry these few days. I don't hitchhike a lot which means nobody offers me food and since I am on zero-budget now, it just means I don't eat.
My last meal was the driver who drove me to the toll station and invited me to dinner there. He then bought me a big bow of chololate cookies which are my rations until someone gives me something else.
Finding places to sleep is a bit more difficult too since I don't have a tent anymore. I have noticed a cool watchtower right on the beach. It protects me from the heavy winds so I can spend the night there. I have checked it beforehand, it was empty and it even had a room with a door and electricity still running.
I download the Hobbit - desolation of smaug to watch before I go to sleep and I slowly make my way to the tower.
"Hey!" I hear from up there. A soldier is pointing his gun at me but in a very polite way, it is clear that he is very sorry to do this and soon, he is helping me find my way back apologizing that I can't sleep in his watchtower because it belongs to the Korean military.
Even Korean military are really kind.

The watchtower I tried to sleep in

During my whole stay in Korea I never got the chance to stay in Churches. When I was in China, I thought Korean churches would be my main means of accomodation but I never got to try them, everytime a better solution came up. Either people or double decker buses or offices, whatever else.
With my military watchtower out of the picture, I decided to test god's sheltear. If Koreans are so kind, so hospitable, if even hotels whose business is to take your money for housing let you stay for free, a church will probably cover you in love, food and blankets.
Actually, not really.
"I can't help you," says the lady in the Church, "my boss is not here, I can't make that decision."
I naivly thought that her boss is God and god approves hospitality or so the Bible says but appearently, in Korea churches are a business and God is just a guest in his own home. I did get a yoghourt though.
Just to be fair for comparison I went to a hotel a few meters from that church, asked for a free place to stay and got a free room with a double bed, kitchen and shower. I guess God had gone into exile since churches are not a safe haven for him any more, he is just everywhere else.

The next day I make it to Daegu and meet with Tumur again. He lives in an apparment with 3 people per room. Not much privacy and comfort but he's here for the work and money so I guess that will do. I stay with a friend of his who lives in his parents house. He is also from Alcoholics Anonymous and his story is similar to his Mongolian friends. I guess alcohol screws everyone in the same way, no matter which culture you are from.

Lee is very kind to me, he lends me his computer to make a promotional video for my trip. I wanted to make this video for a long time but I never had the chance to do it because it requires a real computer, my tablet is just not powerful enough, I barely could make Janela's video and it took ages.
I won't reveal why I made this video... yet but you should know that it serves a higher purpose, it's more than just a video about my journey, it has a goal. I don't know if this goal will succeed or fail, everything depends on my uninformed image of the upcoming japanese culture.

On March 25th, I leave Lee's house in the direction of the toll station. Today, if everything goes well, I will be flying to Japan.

Climbing the Halla mountain

I can camp on Jeju island! And it's not cold, that's some great discovery. I like it so much that I just pitch my tent in the first foresty place that I find. It should be noted that forests and real wild nature is not that easy to find in Korea. It is slightly easier on Jeju island but still, not as obvious as walking in a random direction for a long time.
I came to think that South Korea is quite similar to Turkmenistan in terms of describing the country's landscape.
"Come and take a look at our grand buildings!," the Turkmen people were saying with pride. But besides a few buildings the country is a great landscape of wild desert which natural beauty is undoubtable.
"Come and take a look at our nature!," say the Koreans locked in their landscape of urban constructions.
So Turkmenistan is the beacon of modern civilisation and Korea that of nature and wilderness and everybody is just living in their own fairy tale.

Anyhow, I end up finding a nice place on a small hill above the sea in the north of Jeju island and set camp. I also buy a lot of candies and I'm set for the night. I have no mission here, just rest.
The only annoying thing about Jeju island is the weather.

Jeju harbour

statues

It is cloudy and raining from time to time. The beautiful colors are faded a little bit by the grayish mist.

Soon I realize that I can't live like that forever. Some of my clothes are wet, some are dirty, I'd better find some civilized place to get myself into shape. The best candidate is Jamie and Leah's place, these two people were amazing enough to reply to my panicked couchsurfing request just a few hours after I sent it when most people take three days to a week.

Since I've discovered camping is possible and Jamie and Leah are living on the other end of the city, I decide to climb the Halla mountain, highest peak of the island.

The Halla mountain or Hallasan is the highest peak of Jeju island and of Korea overall. It's not really that high, just under 2000 meters but since it's in the center of a small island, you climb it from zero and you have infinite visibility in all directions, you can see the sea.

My plan however is not just to climb Halla mountain but to see the sunrise from it. Therefore I have to camp there. I didn't read all the regulations but my general impression of Korea so far tells me that this is probably not allowed. If you believe the inscriptions and signs you will have the impression of being about to climb mount everest.

I start by ignoring them, interpreting them as casual Korean over-safety but after a while of Hallasan propaganda, I too, start wondering weather I should also take crampons or at least decent walking sticks.

As I make my way a bit higher, snow begins to appear and I am not even in the national park. I didn't expect so much snow so fast. And the snow quickly grows as I follow the road up.

The night falls and the moon shines.

The moon shines

 A car stops to see if I'm allright. That's a nice and caring thing to do. After a good deal of walking I arrive to the base camp. Yeah, there actually is a base camp for a 2000 meter mountain. But since you can start from zero that makes sense. A korean-style base camp has little to envy to a five start holiday resort. Not only is there sleeping accomodation, electricity and wifi but also a small shop, kitchen and drinking fountains. I also see a ticket office. Everything is closed now and I don't want anyone forcing me into that ticket office, whatever it is for.
I pass by the base camp and build my tent a bit further, in the middle of the trail.

The roughest of all trails, warns the sign.

The trail looks as if it were built for my grandmother. Well-maintained path with rope ramps in  case you lose the trail and instructional boards reminding you where you are every 500 meters as an encouragement that: you can do it!

It is a beautiful trail, no doubt about it but your individuality will be crushed by it. You, as every other person climbing that trail will see exactly the same thing, walk texactly the same path in the exact same timeframe (there is only a certain time when the mountain is accessible). Nothing is left to chance. Korean turists push the dehumanisation of hiking one step further by wearing exactly the same clothes. Pictures taken on Hallasan also loo all the same. There are special, carefuly selected spots from which the view is nice, there is a little wooden accomodation that allows you to take a picture.

So you might either hike mount Halla or ask any other person who has hiked it; you'll have the same result. Because your experience will be the same as his or hers with the precision of a milimeter.

The trail is well organised

I go to sleep in my tent in an attempt to test the temperature. I want to see the sunrise on mt. Halla so I have to sleep near the top. If I am to sleep at the top without freezing there then I should be able to withstand the cold at the bottom with half of my warm clothes on. I can expect a -10 temperature drop because of the altitude and another -10 temperature drop because of the nightfall, bringing the temperature to a total of -16 dregrees celsius. While this is a reasonable temperature to sleep in and I have done it in the past, I have to test the wind and humidity which also comes into play. So I am sleeping on this trail, let's see how it goes. The night isn't so bad, I get a little cold during the coldest phase but overall, it is allright. I get woken up by tourists at 6:30 AM. I thought nobody would climb that mountain winter; in fact, after reading all the warnings and seeing the too organised trail I started wondering weather Koreans were really pussies but turns out that they were braving the cold, wind and morning to climb fast and tirelessly, like a column of extremely well-fit, nuclear-powered grandmothers; I could hardly follow. Actually, with my heavy bag, I just couldn't follow and I got outran by everyone.

Walking the snowy trail

On the trail, I was quite a funny sight. Everybody was wearing crampons and carrying light walking sticks and small backpacks and I was there with my more than 20kg bag filled with random stuff (some stuff was even hanging from the sides), a wooden stick and my trekking cramponless shoes.

Needless to say that I recieved encouragements from everyone as well as an endless flow of deliscious candies. As I was approaching the top, a man going down gave me his walking sticks.

A man gave me his walking sticks

The views get really beautiful, shame the weather is so bad. Trees covered in snow dissapear into the clouds and behind them is the endless blue sea.

Almost at the top

Trees covered in snow

The weather is getting worse and worse and I am approaching the top. People are all going down now arguing that it's passed 13:30 and therefore the mountain closes.

You can close a door, a window but in Korea appearently, you can close a mountain. I wonder how would a closed mountain look like. Probably like in the lord of the rings, with a heavy stone door and a riddle written in runes which only the worthy can open.

The top of mount Halla

View of the sea.

So I'm going to get kicked out, no big deal. If the kyrgz didn't throw me into prison, if the chinese didn't force me to pay hotels, I won't get my plans disturbed by a bunch of law-abiding Koreans.

On the top of the mountain there is a shelter. It has electricity and free wifi. Damn you Korea, seriously? The most inaccessible place in Korea has high-speed internet.
A friendly guard comes to me and asks me, in a very polite way, to get down the mountain.
"No. I am going to camp here."
"Whaaaaat?"
"I am going to camp here. I want to see the sunrise"
"Sorry sir but it is impossible."
"Why? Is the sun not rising tomorrow?"
Pitching a tent sounds like a very possible quest for me. In fact, I have done it a number of times and the snowy ground provides a soft mattress to sleep on. I wonder what could make putting up a tent impossible.
"It's against the law."
"I know it is against the law!" I reassure him, "But I am going to do it anyway."
"You can't do it!"
"Why?"
"It's against the law!"
Appearently the concept of being against the law is so strong here that it should put an end to any argument. While being unaware of the law may be a possible outcome, knowing and ignoring the law is something Koreans don't seem to understand.
Usually when dealing with the authorities, I try to play dumb, pretexting that I don't know the law but in this case, it would make an already unclear conversation even more foggy.
So I put in some good will and I try to clarify the cultural difference between us.
"I know that it is against the law. I understand that by pitching up a tent I am breaking the law. However, I stick with my decision of pitching up a tent."

Appearently, this kind of statement doesn't compute.

He calls his superiour with whom I have the exact same conversation. Except she gets a bit more inventive.

"If you do not get down, you will get a fine."
"But I don't have money."
The woman on the phone seems embarassed, I feel sorry to have put her in such position; she seems like a nice and polite lady but as many koreans, she lacks imagination. So I try to help her out.
"You can call the police on me, maybe you can arrest me, put me in prison for example"
That's the kind of threat the corrupt Kyrgyz cop would use. Unfortunately, the poor lady is thrown off balance even more.
"Do you want to get arrested?"
"No I don't but that's the point. It's a better threat than just saying it's the law. That just will get you nowhere."
"Ok, we will arrest you."
"Allright. Come and get me."
This whole conversation is both amusing and extremly ironic. I am just sorry for the guards of the national park who really feel bad and embarassed about the whole thing.
"The police will arrest you"
"Will they shoot me?"
"Of course nobody will shoot you! Don't worry about such things!"
"Ok, I'll build my tent then."
The lady pauses for a bit.
"If you don't go down, he'll lose his job."

Damn she got me. Here I was, thinking that I am so smart, that I can face any threats. In many countries including and especially the western world we have power-hungry security guards who like to place themselves above their victim, to show their strenght and legal and physical superiority. They'll point guns at you, beat you, scare you, it boosts up their ego. But here in Korea, security forces don't have this small penis complex. They are ready to communicate, they can get things done and today, they just got smarter than me.
Maybe it is true that this guy would lose his job, maybe not but I can't take that chance and she knows it.
She has read me, she understands that I like to play american hero and martyr facing forces stronger than me and the real way to win is to put the security forces in the victim position. Today, I am the bully and I hate it.
"Allright, I am considering going down but can we find a compromise?"
"You can go to the Jindellabat shelter and we will accomodate you for a night. This is already exceptionnal treatement."
I get accomodated in the radio communication cabin. It is heated by a small electric heater, I have electricity and a confortable bed. Last but not least, I get deliscious dinner with a room with wifi.

My room on Hallasan!

In the morning, my cabin is lost in deep snow. It's snowing, the tracks are covered in white and the visibility is really bad. I feel that I am not seeing any sunrise today. There is still hope that the peak will be above the clouds or that the weather changes but hopes are slim.

My cabin is covered in snow.

It is dark because it's 5:30 AM, my light is out of batteries but the markings on the paths are so obvious that I can still follow it. Up there, the wind is insane. I just build my tent next to the shelter which is now empty and locked and I hide inside. the wind completly dismantles the tent, the sticks that support the construction freeze, it's just a big mess. I wait in there a couple of hours until I decide that it's not going to get better: I am packing my stuff and going down. I am seriously frozen at that point. It's not too cold but the wind and wet air isn't doing me any good.

Just as I prepare to get down, the rangers from Jindelabat reach the peak and open the shelter. I get in and warm up a little.

Shelter at the top

After a while, I hear voices. I can't believe my ears. Endless columns of korean tourists with their crampons, bags, sticks and shiny ugly clothes are going through the hellstorm with nearly zero visibility, taking a useless picture on the top of the white peak (they could as well photograph a whiteboard)  and going down.

I thought I was the only one crazy enough to get up there in this weather. Not by a long shot. Korean people are capable of way crazier and more extreme things than me. The reason they don't do it is that sometimes it's against the law. And what's against the law, well, that's impossible.

Me and a snowy tree

The failed ride

Tumur's cousin takes us back to Tsagaanchuluut. The big question is: is there a car. We are not even trying to find a free car, just a car. It is a luxury to get our of here. After new year, a bus is going to take the children back to school, to Ulaistai. I don't get to choose my destination; I wanted to get to Altai which seems to be on a closer road but I only got Ulastai. At least it's a big city, I can get a bus to Ulaanbataar from there if everything else fails. But will I do that? Will I confirm the rumour that Mongolia is a country that you cannot hitch? You might be able to hitch Ulaanbataar but you cannot hitch the countryside. I'd rather debunk that myth.
Tumur paid for my bus and here I go direction Uliastai. Here is go is a bad expression because we don't really go anywhere.
We just drive all around the village trying to fill our bus with schoolchildren and several random people. Mongolians are not really good with deadlines. The bus was supposed to leave Tsagaanchuluut in the morning but we are way into the afternoon and everybody is happy, nobody is stressed, as always in this country.

The only stressed person here is me. I need to arrive in Uliastai before nightfall. What the hell am I going to do there? Damn.
We finally leave at half past three in the afternoon and I sit in between two annoying children who try to communicate with me but don't know a word of english. There is a girl who is more mature and can speak some english worlds so I talk only to her. Not because of the language, just because she is more mature. I really think that they should not put 14 year old boys and 14 year old girls in the same class. A 14 year old boy has the mental age of a 9 year old girl, so they should shift everything by 5 years it would make everybody happy.

The bus drives through the void I can't tell weather there is a road or not, we are just going somewhere through the snow; how the hell do these people orientate themselves? We pass a lonely yurt from time to time and we also stop at one to take some passengers. There are some people catching horses with a lasso and a ton of horses running everywhere.

The bus stops at a horse farm

We arrive in Uliastai at nightfall. The driver drops me at the end of the city and drives away. There is nothing but a yurt and I have no place to sleep as always.
Knock knock knock.
No answer. The guy is busy calling someone on the phone. I knock again.
"Come in."
No chinese fuss here, I am going to sleep in there, it is automatic. I don't even have to ask. Mongolian people understand the simple equation freezing "cold + no money = death", they have sufficient deduction skills to figure out that no money implies no hotel and so on.
That guy lives alone in a yurt. He offers me a lot of food, some great horse meat and soup. His yurt is richly decorated, it has medals and trophies of his achievements as well as several types of jewellery. He was a former police officer, no idea what he does now and he is also the first mongolian gay that I meet on my trip. He is dating his korean boyfriend who lives next door and they don't seem to have any complexes about it. So I guess being gay is more feasable in mongolia than other countries like Kyrgyzstan.

Happy colors in our yurt

 Everything is fine except that the guy drinks a lot of vodka which puts my guard up everytime but he is one of the harmless drunks that I've ever seen. He doesn't force me to drink, he just goes to sleep.
Everybody told me how mongolia has a problem with alcohol, I really don't see anything alarming so far. I'm not saying it hasn't but if it has, it is at a whole different level than Georgia or Armenia. At least in Mongolia, people are aware that Alcohol abuse is a bad thing.

Drinking vodka is a ceremony too

In the morning the good former policeman decided to help me: he will find me a ride to Ulaanbataar. Are all my worries over?
It seems like this. He tells me to wait until 10AM his friend the chief of police will come and will find me some car to the capital. Easy. I show him a note that Tumur has written me. It is a hitchhiking note which I have no idea what it says but it is supposed to help me get rides. It should be obvious from it that I am going for free. Me, the guy and the chief of police drive towards the city center to see some family. We eat breakfast, the father of the family counts us his days as a wrestling champion. My host tries to set me up with his daughter.

My host's friend is a wrestling champion

 We go further in the city, I don't like this, it almost seems as if they are taking me to a bus station. And that is exactly what they do. The bus demands 50,000 Tugriks which is a fair price, 30 dollars for more than a thousand kilometers of hard terrain; the french train would take three times as much.



Of course I refuse and I am angry that I trusted this guy to help me, I should have insisted on my initial plan, that is hitchhiking in front of his yurt. Now I have to walk all the way from the city center to his yurt again and hitchhike from there. All cars to the capital leave in the morning and it is already 10. I was up at six, I have wasted so much time! Now I'll  be lucky to catch anything at all. The road is empty and I walk on it for hours. I am not hoping to walk to the next city several hundered kilometers from here but at least to the middle of nowhere where every car which passes by just has to take me because it would just be too dangerous to leave me there. Mongolian people have good hearts and a sense of humanity, therefore I am not really putting myself into danger here although it would not be wise to try the same stunt in china. you could be left where you stand with your stupidity as only companion.

There are cars on the road from time to time but always going towards Uliastai and never my way. I am starting to wonder weather the preferred road to Ulaanbataar from Uliastai really goes north, weather most cars don't just go through Gobi-Altai because the road is just easier.
But it is too late to try the other way, if I don't get a car today somewhere, I'll have to get on that bus tomorrow. If I don't do that, I will not only be putting myself in danger but Janela too. She will arrive to mongolia underequipped and without money, she will freeze.

At last, a car stops. They are going to Tosentsengel, 180 kilometers from here. It is the closest any car can go but I gladly take it. They drive fast, or as fast as you can on these roads. They average 60km/h and it's not even a jeep. At first, the road goes through the mountains. Steep snowy slopes. Sometimes the road is not so bad, it is a newly constructed dirt road, you don't have to have a jeep to drive on it. Sometimes we just drive through patches of desert losely following some tire tracks.

Landscape between Uliastai and Tosontsengengel

Tosontsengel, it is 4 PM. I can still hitch something, maybe to Ikh-Uul the next city 50 kilometers afar. I am in the coldest place in Mongolia during the coldest month of the year, am I not lucky. Not a good time to be there, not a good time to sleep there. On the other hand, if I survive this, I just might survive everything. Locals talk of temperatures of -50, sometimes -60. Crazy. Today is obviously warmer but the cold is still quite bad.
The only thing is it is already late and there are no cars on the road. I walk to the end of Tosontsengel wondering where I will sleep tonight. Outside is obviously not an option. There is a gas station, some yurts, a hotel also. But my motivation of negociating a place to sleep is low, I would welcome if the situation could solve itself without me doing anything.

I got dropped off in the coldest place in mongolia in the middle of winter

I could pray to god of course but that would be cheating and also I like not to bother people and godunless it is really necessary. Anyway the situation kind of solves itself.

"What are you doing here? Do you need a hotel?", asks a tall, strong looking guy. He speaks in mongolian but I manage to make out the sense. They all ask the same thing.
"I don't need a hotel. I am going to Ulaanbataar."
"By foot?"
"Yes by foot."
"I am also going by foot. I have a yurt 22 kilometers from here. My car is broken, I am bringing oil from the city. If we reach the yurt, we can sleep there."
"What do you mean if we reach the yurt"
"The region is dangerous. Wolves and bears everywhere. And temperature is dropping fast. But it is a little bit less dangerous if there are two of us."
I guess that guy must have some kind of survival instinct, he doesn't look suicidal or utterly stupid and he solves my housing problem only requesting a 5 hour walk
"Let's go"
The tread of my right shoe has unglued itself and fallen down. The cold is too strong for the glue to hold. The only shoes which seem to withstand the cold are the mongolian traditional snow shoes made of sheep wool.
Anyway, even with the broken shoe I can still walk and we start our long way into the wilderness.

The main road running through the cold, 20 km east of Tosontsengel

I am starting to wonder weather or not this is a little stupid, maybe I should turn back while it is still time, pull myself together and negociate some free housing, I am good at it damn I managed it in China, why not here?

But another idea goes through my mind. In the countryside, it is hard to get free rides; it takes a lot of explaining and persuading. It would be way easier to convince the mongolian drivers to take me for free if I put myself in a situation where not taking me would seem like condemning me to death, something like in Uliastai but more extreme. I need a thousand kilometer ride, the appearent despair of my situation must be equivalent to that distance.

I will walk to that yurt, I will sleep there and in the morning I will appear to the dirvers, in the middle of nowhere, in the coldest place in mongolia, hitchhing for a ride to Ulaanbataar. It is a psychological trap but I never ask for anything, I do not activly force anyone to help me; it counts as hitchhiking.

We would never have covered the 22 kilometers through the snow. Not on foot at least. Behind us I hear the roar of a car. A minibus is going through the snow in our direction. I stop it, the driver seems to say it is going to Ikh-Uul. We both get in. I have a choice: I can continue to Ikh-Uul, a little bit firther and my next ride in the morning will be at worst to Tetserleg, the next city, very far away. From this city the road is likely to be paved or at least better and many cars going to Ulaanbataar. I can also stay at this guy's yurt which saves me the trouble of finding a place to stay in Ikh-Uul and play my poor freezing guy's stunt in the morning. I also risk getting stuck in this yurt forever.

I decide for the latter option and I exit the minibus with my newly found friend. Everybody in the car is looking very surprised.

"You really want to come with me?," asks the guy

"Yeah, why not?"

"But car go Ulaanbataar"

"Yeah, there are cars going to Ulaanbataar but not tonight, it is too late, I'll catch a ride tomorrow"

"Car go Ulanbataar"

He is pointing at the minibus

"This car? It is going to Ikh-Uul"

"No! Car go Ulaanbataar!"

Oh my god. I have just traded a ride going straight to the capital city for a night in the middle of the mountains in the coldest and most wolf-infested place in mongolia. I just didn't understand what the people were trying to tell me! I thought we were going to the next city, I was so stupid! Why didn't I communicate more, why didn't I make a bigger effort of learning Mongolian? It is my faul and my fault alone, I should have learned the language, there is no excuse for that. And now I am paying the price for my laziness. I could be riding to my fairy's arms, all my worries over; instead; my head is full of them and I am in the middle of mongolians mountains for god knows how long.

"Hey! Heeeeeeey!" I scream at the bus but not even the echo answers. The landscape is too vast for echo. The bus fades away into the white darkness.

"Yeah, you screwed up," says the guy who obviously has some empathy, "want chocolate?"

"Yes, thanks"

"Come one, we have a long way to walk."

We walk silently through the deep snow, eating chocolate. My morals are as down as ever but at the same time a new emotion appears: curiosity. How the hell am I getting out of here?

The yurt is far, far into the mountains and there is no road going there from the main road. Actually, even the main road isn't really a road. The yurt is barely visible; from here, it could be mistaken for a rock. Perfect place to stage my appearent suicide. So perfect actually that I should be careful not to stage a real suicide.

It takes us an hour to get there, I realize how unrealistic it was to plan these 22 kilometers on foot. We are now exactly in between tosontsengel and Ikh-Uul, at some yak farm because ordinary cows would die in that cold. Yaks, with their long hair survive and thrive unless a wolf attacks them.
For the latter case, my new friend owns a gun which he says is very good except for the aiming system which is "chinese shit".

"The place is infested by wolves," says my host

My host owns a Yak farm

He lives there with his mother and sister and the sister likes me very much. They all try to up my mood as much as possible. I get chocolate, horse meat and everything the small farm can provide bit there is no substitute for a ride to Ulaanbataar.

"There will be cars to the capital," they reassure me, "everybody is going there"

In the morning I get a bottle of Yak milk and wishes of good luck. The sister takes my hitchhiking note, intially written by Tumur and writes a lot more of stuff in mongolian language. I have no idea what she writes about but judging by the expression on her face, she probable begs the good drivers to take me to Ulanbataar and swears to every corner of the world that I am a good person.

The bottle of yak milk freezes before I reach the main road, the temperatures are crazy. I look to the sky and see the reason for this: the sun doesn't go up. Or it does but it rises behind a thick cloud, I can barely see it and it doesn't heat anything.

My feet are frozen before I start hitchhiking.

It is 10 AM and now I wait. For how long? An hour, two? The road is empty, the landscape is silent. Is there anyone going there? How can I know? How can I know what the people are thinking, how can I know who wishes to go to Ulaanbataar? Do even people dare to go in this weather? The road is bad, it goes through the mountains, it is not wise to drive in these conditions. Maybe there will be no cars on the road today. I should get back. The sky gets cloudier and cloudier.

I'll wait a while; I'll get back only if it starts snowing. It starts to snow. Just a little bit. My feet are too cold now, I should do something. I can't cover the distance back to the yurt. It is only 3 kilometers but in this terrain and weather it takes an hour to get there, maybe one and a half. I put out my sleeping bag and put my feet in there. It will keep them warm. It works fine, I am not cold but the snowflakes are falling on my sleeping bag faster and faster. It is very cold so the snow doesn't make the sleeping bag dry but still, I don't like it.

Hitchhiking in temeratures nearing -40°C inside a sleeping bag

I make a final decision: if the weather doesn't become better before noon, I am going back. In extreme situations, we should know how to make hard decisions.

And there I see a car. It goes my direction, it goes towards me but never reaches me. It passes in front of me, about 100 meters further and I realize that I am not on the main road. There are several snow paths that look more or less the same and one of them is the true main road. I leave my stuff behind and I start running towards what appears to be the road taken by that car and that's when I see it: a small white car makes it way through the snow. It has lost its way somehow and has ended up on the same alternate road as me. It stops.

"Do you go to Ulaanbataar?"

"Yeah."

"Can you take me for free?" I show them the hitchhiking note.

They don't like it. "Do you have dollars? Yuan?" They examine my hitchhiking note from all sides, they shake their heads in surprise.

With my sleeping bag and mattress, it appears as I have spent the night there, in the snow, in the middle of nowhere, in the coldest place in Mongolia. In this weather the Yurt is completly invisible, they just don't understand how did I manage to survive.

And they are right. I wouldn't.

"I don't have money. You take me for free or not at all."

"Just get in."

They ask me for 50,000 turiks, they tell me they are going to take me only to Ikh-Uul but they come to the conclusion that if they do this, I'll probably walk to Ulaanbataar and freeze somewhere.

Turns out there is a second car. There are 8 people in total, divided in two cars. The second car got stuck in the snow and we have to push. My feet freeze instantly as they touch the ground, my shoes are really bad for this. The people from the second car are really nice, nicer than the first ones. The driver gives me a pair of traditional mongolian shoes, I feel the difference at once. My feet are frozen but they are not freezing more.

The people who took me to Ulaanbataar

We drive to Ikh-Uul, I wonder if they are going to leave me there. They don't. If they don't leave me here, they won't leave me anywhere. The next city, Teserleg is too far, we will arrive there at night and they will not leave me at night.

Instead, I get free lunch in a restaurant in Ikh-Uul and we continue our way.

First mountains, then desert, dirt roads, no roads, different types of terrain. Overall, I think I just found a country with worse roads than Kazakhstan.

Our car overheats one time, we change tires four times

Overheating car, it cools down pretty fast though

The tires don't actually break, they just lose their pressure very fast because of the difficult terraint and many bumps. Everytime we change a tire, we drive to the nearest settlement, find a tire repair facility and fill the tires with air there.

When the new tire goes flat, we replace it with the old one and we switch tires that way all the time.

Those kind of repair facilities are common on the roads, as common as flat tires, people are used to it.

The road is long in front of us

We drive, we drive, for a long time, we eat and then we drive again. The guy next to me, the one who asked for the 50,000 dollars keeps trying to get money from me but it becomes more or less a joke as time goes by.

"And can I get your camera? And your computer?"

"Yeah, just give me your car"

We drive through the night and arrive in Ulaanbataar in the morning. I am frozen again but I have made it. We disembark in west Ulaanbataar, in their yurt filled with many happy people and get food and more food. Everything is fine.

These are good shoes for this weather

So I pack my things and as soon as the sun goes up a little bit, I make my way to Tumur wife's place. It is the nearest home I know to the train station and tomorrow, Janela is coming. I just hope she makes it. She has to. I took some risks to get here, I don't want them to be for nothing.

Back in Ulaanbataar, pollution ahead

Lonely yurt

Turns out that Tumur's uncle wasn't Tumur's uncle once more, he was another cousin of his. Actually turns out Tumur's uncle is dead but he was a great man in his time.

So Tumur's cousin came for us in his truck. It was a powerful Korean truck, anything less could not ride through this terrain.

We rode away from the village through the snow. Besides me and Tumur riding in the truck, there was also a boy about twelve, appearently the cousin's son.

When we stopped, there was nothing. White snowy plane and mountains around. Wherever you look, wherever you make your mind wonder, you will find white and rocks. While it is freezing outside and anything that falls from the sky may only be snow or ice, the patch of snow remains thin under our tires. The sky is blue, where could the watercome from in this desertic mongolian steppes?

Why does this man and his family live here? You already feel lost in immensity in the closest village, why isolate yourself even more?

Turns out the cattle needs space to feed. The winter grass doesn't contain a lot of nutriments so they compensate by eating a lot. And it takes a lonely yurt in the middle of nowhere; nothing less, to take care of a whole herd. Everyday the twelve year old boy jumps on his horse and takes the herd to the good patches of grass. The grass can't be too close to the yurt otherwise they would eat everything too fast but not too far either because the physical activity needed to get there would burn out their fat and render the food intake useless.

"My cousin is a very good shepeard." says Tumur and I realize that it is not an easy job; you need a good intuition.

His cousin is taking care of a whole lot of goats, three little yaks and some sheep.

The yurt in the nothingness

It is almost hidden behind the sheep

Four people live there. Tumur's cousin, a man a bit broken down under the weight of loneliness, his wife, a happy gal who can even speak some russian, the twelve year old boy full of life and dreams but who will probably be a sheppard too and a small girl. I think the small girl is the one who illuminates the yurt most.

The smallest inhabitant of the yurt

I spend the day walking around the place, losing myself in the void. I have to be careful about how far I go and for how long I put my hands out of my gloves. If the wind is blowing, I feel my skin burn as I had put an iron on it except it is from the cold.

On the mountain, just above the yurt

I spend 31st of december in that yurt under the stars and woke up on January 1st, 2014.

"Let's see the sunrise," says Tumur.
So we decide to climb on the highest hill in the region, about 2500 meters high and see the sun rise from there. I realized throughout this small trip that this meant more to Tumur than to see a nice landscape. It has a profound meaning, a religious one. One should pray in the rising sun, it is a special moment.
That is why we rushed from one peak to another until we reached the highest mountain, the one from which we could see the landscape to all sides.

Tumur rushing towards the highest peak to see the rising sun

By coincidence from my side, by god's will from Tumur's, the sun rose at the exact moment when we reached that top. And it was really beautiful.

Tumur praying in the rising sun

 As Tumur prayed in the sunrise, I went on jumping on the mountain top. But I really wished for one thing: to return safely to Ulaanbataar to meet Janela.

Me jumping on mountain tops

So we slowly descended the mountain to the yurt one last time, I said goodbye to the family and we went to Tsagaanchuluut.

The lonely yurt

Tomorrow I'll have to get away from this place and I have no idea how. If I don't Janela will arrive in Ulaanbataar alone at 5 in the morning. She will not know anybody, she will be underequipped, she will not know the language. She might underestimate the cold and just freeze there. What have I done?