At its best
Barclay Price
At its best, travelling to other cultures and places brings unexpected insights and from my many travels one that stands out for me took place in Ulan Bator almost thirty years ago.
Since reading 'Biggles and the Gobi Desert' as a teenager I always had a hankering to see Mongolia. In nineteen seventy nine my wife and I heard that after forty years of the border between Russia and China being closed to all travellers, a travel company had negotiated a train trip for a group of twenty people from London to Hong Kong. The itinerary included Mongolia. We took the decision to blow all the money we had saved for a deposit on our first flat and booked for the expensive six week trip. We set off from Victoria Station in London on a Tuesday morning at nine fifteen and to the amazement of arriving commuters, a friend marked our leaving by setting off Roman Candles in the middle of Victoria station. We travelled to Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and on to Moscow for the October Revolution Parade. After a memorable day celebrating the Revolution, including many toasts with a group of Bratislavan Power Workers, we set off with light hearts and heavy heads to cross Siberia. At Irkutsk we took a right turn and my ambition to see the Gobi Desert was achieved as our train rolled across the empty, stony expanse.
The original itenary included spending two nights in Ulan Bator but due to confusions over train timetables, we only had one night in Mongolia's capital. Top of everyone's list of things to do was send friends a postcard from the then exotic and seldom visited destination. Our tour guide explained that it was too complicated to change money and that the hotel shop would happily accept any currencies we might offer. So a number of us crowded into the basic shop to buy our postcards and stamps.
The card with a picture of a 1950s concrete building entitled 'Government Building Number 2' was no more to our taste than the one showing 'Government Building Number 1', but fortunately there were sufficient supplies of the card with a three dimensional photo of a camel and the one showing a two dimensional yurt to meet our needs. We gathered up our cards and queued to get stamps and pay.
In front of us an elderly American couple placed their cards on the counter where a smiling young Mongolian woman stood. The wife pointed at the nine cards and pointing at the address part, said in a loud voice, 'America. Unites States.' The shop assistant nodded and took from a book the required number of delightful triangular stamps showing a richly attired Ghengis Khan. She placed the postcards and the stamps in a pink envelope and handed it to the American woman. With no idea of what money was required for their purchases the husband of the couple simply emptied his pockets on to the counter. Assorted coins, mainly American, but some from the other countries we had passed through en route, clattered and rolled in front of the smiling assistant. Along with the coins tumbled out a bright yellow five pack of Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The Mongolian shop assistant's eyes lit up. She animatedly pointed at the pack of gum. It was clear that this was a decidedly desirable object. The husband indicated that the young woman should take whichever coins were required in exchange for their cards and stamps, and also gestured with a smile that she should take the chewing gum. The shop assistant separated the required number of coins from the pile equivalent to the couple's purchases and collected up the other coins and handed them back to the man.
He put the coins back in his pocket. His wife and him smiled, said thanks and turned to leave the shop. They had taken only a few steps when the Mongolian woman agitatedly called out. Her gestures indicated that they stop. Something was amiss. The elderly couple turned back, concerned that they had made a mistake. As they, and we, looked on with growing disbelief, the young woman carefully tore open the Juicy Fruit pack and extracted the five sticks of wrapped gum. With a smile she gave the perplexed couple their two sticks change and the financial transaction was then complete.
