One year, 25 countries–Mongolia was the first country our family traveled to. Going to Mongolia was a unforgettable experience. The car ride was rough, long, and kinda scary.
The journey began in Inner Mongolia at 7am. We took two taxis to get to a place call Dinosaur Square. That square is the place where you have to take a special jeep to the border between Inner and Outer Mongolia. The difference between inner and Outer Mongolia is that Inner Mongolia still belongs to China while Outer Mongolia is another country. In addition, Outer Mongolia only speak Mongolian.
Once our family got to Dinosaur Square we found a Mongolian jeep. While we were waiting for the jeep to leave, another Mongolian wanted to take us to the border. When our Mongolian driver saw the other person, she threw all our backpacks on her jeep and pushed us into her jeep. For us it felt like a crossfire between the two arguing Mongolian driver because they were shouting and yelling at each other like shooting bullets. That was a scary scene. After that we got to China’s border and passed smoothly. Then we arrived at Outer Mongolia’s border. However, once we got to the Outer Mongolia’s border we used our brand new, never been stamped American passport. Using that passport was very confusing and difficult. In the end, after a long process of police talking in Mongolian and us going to a special room, we finally got our passports stamped and left the building. But that wasn’t our roughest journey yet. Once we got out we went back on our jeep. Suddenly, the trunk of the car opened and they started to put more and more luggages into the jeep. Then our driver roughly squished my dad, my sister, and I in one front seat. And shoved five people in the back seat. In the end there was 9 very uncomfortable people in a five person car.
That was my first impression of Mongolia. It was a very rushy, squished, long, and scary car ride. I hope the longer we stay in Mongolia the more we will get use to their culture.
