Riding the Iron Rooster

Then we left the dead center of Mongolia and headed south. The train climbed the brown hills outside the city, and after folding itself double on a series of hairpin bends, it rolled into the grasslands—the grass, and the whole landscape had the look of a fine sheepskin of carefully clipped fleece, the same color, a yellow that was whitish and then golden. It was the texture of the grass, it was the wind and sun. This seemingly barren gobi was full of live creatures—I saw gray cranes, herds of wild camels, eagles, hawks, buzzards, and brown, long-bodied, gopherlike animals that were probably marmots. But no yaks. Every time I looked out of the window I saw something living, and when there was not a wild animal there was a Mongol—one of those middle-of-nowhere horsemen, heading into the wind.

It was clear and sunny. Every day is clear and sunny in the gobi, every sunset is spectacular, the sun softening and sliding down in a red mass and soaking into the ground; and every night is cold.

That night, at dinner, we were served Chinese food.

"Tomorrow we'll be in China," Miss Wilkie said.

"And there I'll have to leave you, I'm afraid," I said.

"Whoever you are," Ashley said. 'Those French dicks call you 'lom mistair.'"

'That's me."

I looked around the dining car at sedate tables. After three weeks of steady travel the mood in this group had changed: it was slightly more irritable but less rambunctious. People knew exactly who to avoid, and which subjects were unwelcome in conversation, and who was crazy and who was safe. Gut also they kept pretty much to themselves: French, American, Australian, English, and the ones left out—Wilma because of her baldness, Blind Bob because he couldn't see, Morthole because of his obsession with rocks, Miss Wilkie because of her sharp tongue—made up a foursome.

I listened to my shortwave radio and learned that many of the earlier scare stories about Chernobyl had been wrong. But it was very bad and still dangerous; the fire had not yet been extinguished.

I slept fitfully, because of the cold, and just as I dropped into a slumber, there was a knock at the door and the Mongolian attendant demanded my bedding. When I hesitated, she employed the grip-and-snatch technique, removing everything from the bed except me, in one pull.

We were just outside the Mongolian border post at Dzamïn Üüd. It was the perfect distant frontier: sandy desert, blowing dust, nothing growing, a desolate wreck of a town looking absolutely on the edge. The railway station looked like the plaster version of a German town hall. But there were no formalities. I waited, watched birds, and four hours passed; the sun climbed to noon. So much of travel is waiting or delay.

The small blue thing in the desert was a Chinese engine. It chugged up the line and rammed us and was coupled, and then it took us across the border, in bright sunshine, from Mongolia into China.

2. The Inner Mongolian Express to Datong: Train Number 24

Whenever I heard the Chinese word for railway I thought my name was being mentioned. Tielu (literally "iron road") sounds something like a Chinese person attempting the French pronunciation of Theroux. The word never failed to turn my head. What were they saying about me?

The word for train is huoche ("fire wagon"). This one took us across the border to Erlian. I was aiming to go through the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. Xanadu is in Inner Mongolia, but Kublai Khan's stately pleasure dome exists only as a few acres of broken mud walls. Inner Mongolia is an immensity of grass, and is such a quiet place that the arrival of the train makes Mongolians stare.

Erlian is only a few miles from the border town of Dzamïn Uüd in Outer Mongolia, but the places were very different. Dzam¨n Üüd was a wreck of a town set on glaring sand and was so lacking in events that when a camel went by everyone watched it. But Erlian was a tidy town of brick buildings and flower beds. New saplings lined the streets. The post office was open, the telegraph office worked, the shirt factory was in operation, and the hotel welcomed us. It was not an elegant place, but it was orderly. A work gang was painting an iron fence green.

"Look, Rick. They're smiling. They're waving!"

"Hi there!"

"It's been ages since anyone smiled. The Russians never smiled. I'm going to get a picture of that."

The travelers on the train were completely won over by the smiles. But were they smiling? It seemed to me that this work gang of Mongolian painters was simply dazzled by the sun, though they might well have been smiling in recognition at our exact match of the Chinese slang for foreigners: dabidze ("big noses").