Have Mercy

With just a few hours sleep, we were up and back on the road at 5am this morning to make up for time lost breaking down before Dundgobi. Jean, Amy and Yasmin were off in the Land Cruiser with Tom, Kim and I following in the Russian jeep. Zaya said it the best, “Russian jeep is built well, but not designed for anybody to ride inside”. The thing is a tank, with its awesome Russian nuclear submarine gauges, and the brutal road can do no harm to it. But the same can not be said for its inhabitants. As much as the road was shaking us and the Fiat to bits, the jeep took its blows and just passed them along to us. For several hours the seat was punching me in the back until I got sick. We rotated for a while, I took the front seat until somebody, I think Zaya, wisely put me into the Land Cruiser. I was finally able to sleep until the 5 hour drive to Dalanzadgad was complete.

The Mercy Corps office in Dalanzadgad treated us to breakfast before we set out to see the project sites around the city, and we all recovered from the drive with a well needed energy boost.

The first site we went to was a community wood working group that custom makes parts for Gers. With a grant of several hundred thousand Tugrik (a few hundred dollars) which came from Mongol Rally fund raising, they bought a table saw and some of the raw materials they needed to kick start the group. They are already building a reputation for the quality of their work and it was awesome to see that they are creating a sustainable business to benefit themselves and their community.

The next site was a similar set up, but this time making bricks out of recycled ash, to be used as construction material. Mercy Corps had helped them with a loan guarantee for some equipment and was providing business oversight & advice. They are already looking to expand production due to their success.

A few blocks away, we visited a building where women were making the canvass Ger covers and growing their business with grants from Mercy Corps.

We continued to a few more sites, one which made handicrafts for sale in UB, and another which made felt and clothing for school uniforms. These uniforms are a little funny to us… today was the first day of school and we could see the kids strutting all over town in their new duds. The girls uniforms look like French maid outfits, and the boys wear these suits that are straight out of a 1920’s gangster film… all shiny with pin stripes. It was a total crack up for us. At many of these project sites we would see the Mercy Corps contracts proudly displayed on the wall with Mongol Rally logos stamped right above them. The fourth site we visited was operated by a group of women who were all struggling to pay to care for their children with cerebral palsy. With the grants from Mercy Corps they were able to start a business that now affords them the ability to better care for the special needs of their children, creating a steady and recurring income that far exceeds the minimal amount the government was providing for assistance previously. It was awesome to see that for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, the fund raised from the Mongol Rally could set these groups up in the community to start sustainable businesses. Just the fund raising from Baatar Hero could create several of these grants next year, and we only saw 5 projects in one town. I can only imagine what the impact is in aimags across the country from the funds of the entire rally.

After yesterday’s horrible day of driving and final break down, it felt completely worth it today seeing how the rally positively impacts these projects. It was incredibly touching when these women told us how much the rally funds help them and thanked us personally… their parting words, “Tell people at home about our work here”. So, while you may not all be able to do something like the Mongol Rally, you now know the impact that Mercy Corps is making in these people’s lives.

While it seemed our day couldn’t get much better, it was only just beginning. Zaya took us to a great restaurant for lunch, and after a few hours drive one some really nice dirt roads for a change, we found ourselves at the Flaming Cliffs just in time for sunset. The view was stunning… words can’t do it justice and I’m not sure photos can either. Tomorrow morning we’ll wake up early from our nearby Ger camp and look for dinosaur fossils at the foot of the cliffs before heading West to sand dunes and then North to visit some more Mercy Corps projects. If their is time, we may even be able to drive through Karakorum and visit the Erden Zuu monastery on our way back to UB on Friday.

Gobi Breakdown

It’s 8:30 at night, the sun has already gone down, and I’m chasing a Russian jeep through the Gobi desert with rally fog lights and high beams lighting a path over rocks and sand berms just begging to take me out for good.  I find myself asking again, as I did at the top of that Russian ski resort… “how did I get here?”  Only this time I am in the rally milieu, this is exactly where we planned to be.  Well, “planned” is a strong word.

Our original route had us blazing through well paved Russian roads for the Altanbulag border in the North of Mongolia, and then heading west before ever entering Ulaan Baatar so we could visit Chinggis Khan’s old capitol at Karakorum and do a loop south to the Gobi desert, riding triumphantly into UB across the finish line.

You all know at this point how amazingly well the blazing through Russian roads and crossing at Altanbulag went.  And of course now we were already in UB reuniting with Kim and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of our week before this is all over.  I am wondering if we are the first Mongol Rally team to drive into UB, *NOT* cross the finish line, and leave before returning successfully.  I can’t say for sure, but I do know one first we accomplished.  According to Mercy Corps Mongolia, we are the first Mongol Rally team to ever visit their office in UB in person!

Not knowing exactly how we would head out of UB, but knowing only that we wanted to go to the Gobi and that we wanted to visit some Mercy Corps project sites, we contacted Mercy Corps to see what projects we could see on that route.  Not only did they have a list of sites we could go to, they generously offered to send one of their staff and a driver along with us in their Toyota Land Cruiser to personally guide us around their projects.  How sweet is that?  Bonus: we are following somebody who knows where they are going, they also offered to show us to some sites we wanted to see (the Flaming Cliffs and some famous sand dunes), and we would have instant help in the event of the inevitable mechanical mishap.  Given that #201 was really struggling with a torn off muffler (did I forget to mention that it basically just fell off on the way to Irkustk?) and some very sketchy steering shake at around 40mph, we decided to leave her parked at Mercy Corps.  On the other hand, #206 had new life breathed into her in Krasnoyarsk. With a rebuilt front right strut, exhaust, and radiator fan, she was driving smooth as ever and ready to take on the Gobi.
And she was freshly cleaned!  Surprise of the day was Monday morning when we walked out of our guesthouse to see UB, and we noticed our windshield wipers were flipped up.  After hearing about all the theft in UB, we were worried about a break in, and had cleared the car of all valuables the night before… but with the wipers flipped up we assumed somebody had broken in anyway.  To our great enjoyment, not only were the cars not broken into, they were spotless.  We had acquired a new paint job of mud and smog after the rainy drive to Irkutsk, but that was now gone.  The cars shone again, cleaner than they were when we left Goodwood (Tom and I did a good job of dirtying them up during the prep week).  Certainly we couldn’t cross the finish line like this.  We would have to remedy this right away.

Tuesday morning, we drove both cars over to Mercy Corps’ office on Peace Ave, and stripped everything out of #201 we thought we would need for the journey.  Most of it went into/onto the Land Cruiser, and the rest we piled into #206. Our new friend, Zaya, a project manager for Mercy Corps, would accompany us from their office to project sites, educate us about their projects, and translate for us along the way.  Another bonus for us: she’s a part time tour guide and her family is from the area of the Gobi we are visiting!  The drive south out of UB was fairly uneventful for the first 100k, with only slightly degraded pavement we passed the airport, a new stadium being built, and some herds of sheep and camels.

Then, the road just… ended.

No fanfare, it just turned into dirt.  We bounced along for a few hours, trying to keep up with the effortless pace of the Land Cruiser.  Taking our fair share of scrapes we would stop every once in a while to look for leaks, but the new shocks and sump guard seemed to be doing their jobs.  Kim expressed some concern… but I assured her this was all “normal” and that the car could handle it.  Then, as if to spite me, the road turned absolutely evil.  Now, I can only assume that the roads from the West are just as bad, but if that’s really true I have a hard time understanding how any of these Mongol Rally cars can make it.  Maybe it was just the pace of trying to keep up with the Land Cruiser, but our newly rebuilt car was taking an complete thrashing.  The words “pot holes” do not do these exploded mine fields justice.  And when the road was “flat”, it was covered in cat tracks left by Russian construction vehicle treads, the spacing and depth of which are perfectly designed to shake a Fiat Punto with 14″ tires, and it contents, completely apart.  “Don’t worry, we’ll be ok” I confidently reassured Kim as we scraped against every rock, bush and cow skull on the road.

And it was ok.  Until the muffler came off.  This wasn’t so bad actually, it came apart right at a U-bolt and we were able to reattach it somewhat, but during our exhaust reconstructive surgery we noticed something else… something bad.  Oil was flowing pretty steadily out down over the sump guard.  Crap.  We were done for.  The car would not hold oil long enough for us to get to the next town, let alone the South Gobi and back to UB.  Thankfully we handily had a Toyota Land Cruiser with an experienced Mongolian driver ready to tow us.  I attached the tow hook to the front of the Fiat and before you could say Chinggis Khan we were being dragged through the sand 10 feet behind  a screaming dust machine.  A thick layer of sand and dust was making quick work of the car wash we’d never asked for in UB.

When we arrived at the next town, Tom and I quickly went to work pulling the sump guard off so we could see what had happened to the oil pan.  The town mayor or governor came out and offered his help.  Zaya called the Mercy Corps office in the next town to start arranging for a backup plan.  After we got the sump guard off, we could clearly see where one of our brutal pounding scraps had pushed the guard up against the oil pan creating an indentation which was weak enough to leak oil through a small hole.  This is a risk with every rally car, but we knew from the start that this one was susceptible since we’d seen an oil leak there in London.  We had driven out to the Fiat dealer in Slough and briefly purchased a new sump, but when we tried to get a local mechanic to replace it (a long job) he insisted he could patch our leak cheaper.  He slathered epoxy resin all over the sump, gave us a batch of quick steel, and sent us on our way to return the new part and protect the whole bit with the custom made sump guards Tony made for us in North London.  Well this new hole was just below where the resin patch was, and it was time for the quick steel to do its job.  Tom cut off a bit of metal from the exhuast foil repair kit so I could push it up against the hole and create a flat dry surface for the quick steel.  We pasted over the whole business with the quick steel and in 5 minutes my work of art was complete.  We poured in 3 liters of oil, started her up, and low and behold… NO LEAK!

While we were pretty impressed with our amazing mechanical skills, we were also certain that our little Punto couldn’t take 3 more days of this abuse, and leak repair aside, she was starting and running pretty rough.  The kind of vibration we were taking can’t be sustained for long, at least not by this fine example of Italian engineering.  So when the Russian jeep arrived, we followed as far as Mercy Corps’ office in Dundgobi where we left #206 to catch a ride back to UB on the back of some monster trailer.  Zaya said Mercy Corps could arrange to return the car to their office while we continued on our route with the Land Cruiser and the Russian jeep!  We’d have to pay for fuel (which we would have anyway), and to send the Fiat back to UB. Other than that our rally dreams continue!

Tomorrow, on to Dalanzadgad!

Together Again In UB

Quick update: After several more hours wrestling Mongolian customs bureaucracy yesterday morning, we finally cleared at about 1pm and raced towards Ulaan Baatar.  We entered the city at about 6pm, navigated this huge maze of traffic and finally arrived at the guesthouse Kim had arranged after 7pm.

We are finally all together again, taking a day of downtime to recuperate and evaluate what we want to get out of this next week.  Will post more update later, but wanted to let everybody know we’re here.

Cell phone does not work in Mongolia, so txt message updates to eKit & map won’t work… we’ll be using WiFi and sat modem for updates until we get back to Seattle.

We are in UB, Mongolia, but the adventure is not over yet!

A Grand Don’t Come For Free

Sheltered by a stand of trees, we didn’t quite wake up as the sun rose over the eastern shore of Lake Baikal this morning, but we were up and back on the road as early as we could muster after a full day of driving the day before. Driving along the lake reminded me a lot of driving north up the Puget Sound, with lots of evergreen trees surrounding us. By 9am we were speeding our way to Ulan Ude. Well paved roads allowed us to cross nearly 400 klicks in 4 hours.

Turning south to Kyaktah at lunch time, the landscape changed as if we had crossed a border, but we still had more than 200k to go. What was happening was Irkutsk Oblast giving way to the Buryat Republic… both states inside Russia, but with Buryatia really having the feel of Mongolia already. The Buryat people are Mongolian and we started to see Mongolian writing, Ovoo’s (rock shrines with blue banners tied to them) and the odd Ger or two. The flat expanse of Siberia lay behind us as the rolling hills opened up, lined with evergreen trees where the road cut through the forested hills. The road was good enough that we could go pretty fast, but not so good that we didn’t have to avoid pot holes and animals… this was real rally driving again. We only slowed down a few times for towns & police checks (”documents please, ok, carry on your way”), and by 3pm we were exiting the Russian border at Kyaktah.

Everyone was pretty thrilled with excitement. We had just completed this really amazing driving section of the rally, and now we were finally about to cross into Mongolia, our last crossing before going home, and make our way to Ulaan Baatar to be re-united with Kim. I couldn’t wait to see her and hold her in my arms again, and everything was going amazingly to plan.

Until we hit the Mongolian border that is. The Mongolian border was necessarily a little trickier than the rest, because now we are importing the vehicles for donation, and have to make sure all the right paperwork is complete before we can move on. We couldn’t do that however, because we were told we couldn’t “make declaration”. We tried and failed for about 30 minutes to find out *why* we couldn’t make the declaration today… and were constantly told we had to come back tomorrow… come back from where!? Were we camping out at the border or what? Well, we’d find out later that we could not camp there, but that’s beside the point. Eventually we were told that the customs agent who does the declaration was “absent”. Why? The border is open! She was “on holiday”. And there is nobody who can do her job when she’s on vacation or sick? Does all traffic from Russia wait on the word of this one woman? It seemed like there were other people who could in fact do the job, and as we talked to more people we were told they could but they were “too busy”. Really frustrating. We begged to call her or find somebody who could process the customs declaration, when out of the blue she just shows up! With all the time wasted, it was getting late and the border was almost closing. Even though she was finally present she tried to also tell us “tomorrow, tomorrow”, because the border was closed. We explained we’d already been here for 3 hours and pointed at the clock because the border was not in fact closed yet. So she reluctantly started doing the paperwork… hunting and pecking at the keyboard, laboriously entering our car details into the computer one painstaking letter at a time.

Then there was a new twist. Only one of the cars had customs duty paid. It seems the Adventurists neglected to pay duty on both of our cars!! Why? I have no idea. We paid them our registration at the same time, our deposit at the same time. There is absolutely no reason duty on both cars should not have been paid at the same time. Somebody’s clerical error somewhere was keeping us at this border. Thanks a lot guys. I called the Adventurists and was told that if we paid the duty ourselves in cash, we could be reimbursed. Customs duty: $1007. Tom and Jean and I scraped together our emergency stashes of cash and had $1k ready to go. But this had to be converted to Tugrog, so we ran down to the exchange desk to get 1.3 million Tugrog… bank closed, come back tomorrow. Seriously!! This was the deal breaker. They absolutely would not exchange our money after 7pm, and we could not pay for the duty in dollars. No negotiating. We begged her to take our money and exchange it herself in the morning. We offered to pay “extra fees”. We tried everything. Anything to get through this border and make it to UB tonight. Nothing doing. The border guards had all gone home, and nobody would even look at our paperwork to let us through even if we could pay. Truly, a grand don’t come for free.   The day started out so well, only to lead to such disappointment.

Hastily we packed some of our gear out of the car (laptop. satellite, sleeping bag) and walked a kilometer into town for a cheap hotel and a bite to eat. I was able to get a hold of Kim at her hotel and explain this miserable situation. We’ve had a few hours sleep and it’s time again to head back and start all over. I can only hope there are no hangups due to it being Sunday now, and they can process us and get us on our way.

Naadam In Seattle

Every July 10th/11th Mongolians celebrate Naadam, a Mongolian Olympics of sorts.  Naadam is a celebration of the 3 “manly” sports and the military traditions they represent: archery, horseback racing, and wrestling. Tom, Jean and I were joined by some friends out in Redmond’s Farrel McWhirter park last Sunday to check out the competition.  When we were originally planning our trip to Mongolia I was really looking forward to Naadam, but the rally schedule obviously has us leaving after it’s over, so it was a treat to experience the event at home before we depart.

We didn’t see any archery or horseback racing… but we think Muugi’s son pictured above is just about old enough to be a champion racer.  Seriously, little kids just a little older than he is do compete in horse racing… and win.  Just ask our friend Urtaa, he was a champion racer at 5 years old! It was great to see Muugi and Urtaa one last time before Tom and I fly off to London (tomorrow!!).

We’re Rich!

tugrik

Originally uploaded by autarken

Well, rich in our friends and experiences that is.

We’ve been lucky enough to befriend a former rallier, Chatham, from last year’s rally who lives in Seattle, and he kindly donated some of his Mongolian tugrik to us… then Joe Sabia, a SanFran rallier who also completed the journey last year (in his Fiat Seicento!), sent us his unspent tugrik too!! We are awash in tens of thousands of tugirk. Ok, so it’s a total of about $50, but still it reminds of being a millionaire in Italian lira when I was last there about 10 years ago, before they converted to the Euro.

I can’t wait until we have piles of Uzbek som that may barely buy us a meal!

Big thanks to Joe & Chatham for their donations to the cause.

And check out Joe’s now famous video from last year’s rally, Tupac in Kazakhstan!

Mercy Corps Mongolia Update

A big thanks to the Mercy Corps Seattle office and Dominic Graham, Mercy Corps’ country director for Mongolia, for inviting the team to a wrap-up meeting regarding their work in Mongolia.  Oidov Vaanchig, project officer for Mercy Corps (MC) in Mongolia, put on a great presentation summarizing their hard work which focuses on civil society empowerment, economic development, and natural resource development and management.  We wanted to provide this update to the friends and fans of Baatar Hero as a reminder to where all your generous donations are going.  We, and most importantly, the people of Mongolia, can’t thank you enough.

There are many NGOs working in Mongolia, and most pour all their efforts in the capitol, Ulaanbaatar.  But MC is different.  Working in Mongolia since 1999, MC focuses on improvements in the countryside where one-third of Mongolia’s population still lives.  MC’s basic aid philosophy is to empower the people to help themselves to the point where outside aid is no longer needed.  How many companies strive to work themselves out of a job?  MC does, and they do it by employing 95% of their 3500 staff members in the country for which they work.

The meeting started out with the announcement that MC Mongolia recently won the 2010 Disability Inclusion Award given by InterAction and Mobility International USA.  People with disabilities are one of the most marginalized groups in rural Mongolia and the MC team has had impact throughout the entire country through policy change and encouraging a culture of inclusion.  Eighty-nine percent of Mongolia’s persons with disabilities are unemployed and a mere 29% of children with disabilities are in school.  MC’s team envisioned solving both of these problems with first addressing Mongolia’s infrastructure inaccessibility.  They aimed high by proposing to the Mongolian parliament an improvement model based on the U.N. Convention on Rights for People with Disabilities with special focus on transportation, education and construction.  Their diligence paid off!  Starting in February 2010, the Mongolian government now enforces new accessibility standards, the first ever in their history.  Congratulations to MC!

Regarding MC’s economic development efforts, they are creating market opportunities for rural entrepreneurs – work highly regarded by both Mongolian government and non-government agencies for MC’s efficiency and success.  In particular, the Mongol Rally has been instrumental in these efforts by providing capitol for grant programs for the rural self employed.  MC is also helping communities obtain fair microfinancing and creating agribusiness support systems, such as transporting goods to market.   To date, 5 Mongolian banks are now involved in providing fair micro credit with loans totaling $2.66 million.  Another example of MC’s most successful programs for rural entrepreneurs is a computerized grazing predictor model.  With 90% accuracy this program predicts grassland conditions for livestock grazing 60 days in advance for nomadic herders.  It proved so successful that it is now funded by the World Bank.

Finally, an update on the recent disastrous cold weather, called a Dzud, was provided.  Although not consistently cyclical, Dzud’s can occur once or twice a generation with devastating effects.  An estimated 15-20 million livestock have been lost in this year’s Dzud and with it the livelihood of thousands of nomadic families.  As a result, approximately 20,000 Mongolians will move to Ulaanbaatar in attempts to make a living in a city that does not have the infrastructure to support them.  Additionally devastating are the health implications of millions of rotting livestock carcasses.  The Mongolian government provides cash incentives for herders to gather and burn the carcasses, but sadly this time around the funds are slow in reaching those who need it.   Therefore, MC rapidly raised $25,000 to distribute directly to herders to help them get back on their feet.

Thanks again to Mercy Corps and our donors.  The team is looking forward to volunteering with MC while traveling through Mongolia this summer.  Let’s keep working hard together!

Some “Bizarre Food” in Mongolia

“It’s a far away land of meat, meat, and more meat!”  That’s  how the host of The Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods” started out this week’s episode about Mongolia.  I admit, I was both excited and a little apprehensive about watching.  I’ve watched Mr. Zimmern eat bugs, intestines, stinky tofu, worms, and more bugs the world over.   And since I know that the Mongolian diet is all about meat and serious resourcefulness, I settled in for an hour of blood and guts…my soon-to-be diet.

The show started out in Ulaanbaatar and the gigantic “Black Market.”  On a busy day 60-100 thousand people shop there for anything from clothing to food.  The animals are slaughtered just on the edge of the city and trucked in to the market where people buy the whole carcass and carry it home over their shoulder.  Sheep’s head is quite a treat, just like a turkey dinner is to Americans, and you’ll conveniently find a whole pile to choose from in the back of the market.  Not so easy to find are vegetables and if you do find them they are smartly pickled for long storage.  In fact, a few pieces of pickles veggies will cost you about $0.40 which is about the cost of an entire sheep’s head!  As this meal is reserved for special occasions and guests, here are a few tips for all my fellow Mongol Rally adventurers if you’re so lucky to be invited to partake in a sheep’s head dinner:

(1) After the hair is burned off, the head will be boiled for a few hours in a pot of root vegetables, which will probably be the only vegetables you’ll see the entire time you’re in Mongolia.

(2) The group elder will divvy up all the goods.

(3) Don’t be a pansy and ask for utensils.  Just dig in with your hands.  The only way to really get all the good bits is by gouging away at the crevices with your fingers.

(4) If offered the eyes, you must eat them both.  You can’t share, it’s really not proper.

(5)  Sorry boys, the palate is always given to girls.  Apparently you’ll really miss out, but you can have some of the tongue.

Mr. Zimmern then took to the Gobi – in a rather comfy looking Toyota Land Cruiser (what the…?) – to experience real country fare.  Upon arriving at a gracious family’s ger he was offered the traditional fermented mare’s milk.  Who needs refrigeration when you have fermentation?  According to Mr. Zimmern, who quite liked this drink,  it tastes like thin sour cream mixed with lemon juice; good to know.  This was followed by snacks made of cheese in just about every form imaginable.  They even had crunchy cheese curds fried in their own fat.  This particular munchie was something soldiers thew in their packs before heading off on a campaign, and it’s still carried by today’s herders for a long day on the steppe.

But even more ingenious was the lunchtime meal preparation.  Okay, this was a little gory, but I found myself marveling at this perfect example of how resourceful the Mongolian people are.  A goat was slaughtered and cleaned out reserving the body cavity.   All the innards were rolled in the goat’s fat and then wrapped and tied with intestine.  The hot stones were placed alternatively with the little packages of goodness inside the body cavity to cook, like an oven.  After the final touch of burning the hair off, the whole goat was opened up and devoured.  Everyone in that ger, including Mr. Zimmern, happily feasted with nothing going to waste.

Of course this isn’t an everyday Mongolian meal.  A family might go 1-2 years before preparing and eating an entire goat in one sitting like this.  But again it is this resourcefulness, even during an apparent day of gluttony, that is so intriguing.  And for a few minutes I traded my Western tendency to be squeamish for the great respect the Mongolians pay to the land, their animals, and to each other.  Their tradition of not having stakes for their gers or heels on their boots so that they don’t pierce the land is both a wise philosophy and a beautiful metaphor.  In a few months I’ll excitedly be packing my bag.  And although I’ll be sure to bring along wet wipes and Lactaid, I will leave my heeled shoes at home.

Click here to watch a few clips of the show.

Autism, Horses and Mongolia

If you listen to NPR  then you might hear some news on the possible healing power of horses for autistic children. This week on “To The Best Of Our Knowledge”, Rupert Isaacson, author of last year’s bestseller (and now documentary) “The Horse Boy” is interviewed about his trip to visit Shamans in Mongolia to help treat his son’s autism.

It is a nice segment showing how the empathy and kindness of the Mongolian people are able to reach through to the seemingly unreachable autistic child and how finding ways to listen to Rowan’s needs turned his family around.

Btw, Baatar Hero will also be visiting Lake Hovsgal where the Dukha reindeer people live in Mongolia. We can’t wait to show it to you!

NPR interview with Rupert Isaacson (forward 13 minutes in):

http://broadcast.uwex.edu:8080/ramgen/wpr/bok/bok100425a.rm

Recommended Reading

We’ve been doing a lot of research for the trip and have enjoyed most of the reading and some video during our prep.  You all might enjoy these as well, and have a better sense of what we’ll be experiencing along our route if you pick up some of this stuff.

Chasing the Sea by Tom Bissell was an entertaining and educational read. He adeptly blends history with his own experiences traveling through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on his way to report on the Aral Sea disaster. Bissell plays himself as a self deprecating Peace Corps dropout returning to the region on assignment, somewhat haunted by the ghosts of both his own past and the region’s. Now I’m inspired to visit “The Bug Pit” at The Ark in Bukhara (if you want to know, you’ll either have to read the book, do your own research, or wait until we are there to report back on it!). This was a great gift given to me by Kim’s sister, thanks Christina!