INHTMF

One of the things that kept Ed and I amused during those long stretches in the van was back to back "This American Life" podcasts, 100s selected and downloaded prior to departure. Molly intro'd me to this show about 9 years ago (I know! We're getting old!) and its one of those particular flavors of which I never tire. Like Saltines, kind of.

Ed had never heard the episode "Frenemies" and I was more than happy to re-listen. Fans will recall the interview with Rich Juzwiak who talked in-depth about the line "I'm Not Here to Make Friends" and its over-usage on reality TV. His annual montage of these moments can be viewed here:
http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2010/07/happy-im-not-here-to-make-friends-day.html
Why do I bring up INHTMF? Because the evening after we listened to the ep, the 3rd traveler on our tour arrived. She had visa conflicts and joined 1 week into the 3 week tour. We'll just call her A, which is short for Asshead, which is what we actually called her. She is a Danish pastor in her 50s and that's all I'll reveal about her identity lest her offspring stumble upon my blog. Although I don't think I'm going to say anything that would surprise them.

A had at least 2 personalities. These two were the strongest, there may have been more. #1 was an engaged, neurotic, bookish, manic, know it all. The second personality was withdrawn, brattish, obsessive. We guessed bi-polar, which I imagine is a real treat when she's christening your baby. We can ignore the second personality because, well, we ignored it. But when A was manic, she was hard to overlook.

Like all tourists, she took a lot of photos. And like some tourists, she had no qualms about racing up to a nomad child or wild animal and snapping away in its face. Or, about walking through center stage of the Nadaam festival so she could photograph the wrestlers (during a match) from 3 or 4 feet away. And, like all tourists, she didn't want
to miss a photo-op because of an uncharged battery. She hadn't figured on the whole no-electricity thing and therefore didn't bring backup batteries. So on the nights we stayed in ger camps with generators (used only at night), she would jet from the van to an employee and harass them about what time the electricity would be made available to her. If the generator went on 12 minutes after she was promised, you could hear the rant from across the camp.

One powerless evening, her camera battery actually did die just before we headed to see the yak-herder family. She cursed the entire way (Armageddon had come), and then asked if we would email her our not-yet-taken-photos from the evening. Of course we would, and please shut up about your camera. What we didn't bet on was her shadowing us so she could helpfully point out photo ops. As you might imagine once I was holding the camera this behavior ended.

There were several other incidences involving the camera/battery/electricity paradigm, but I think you get the gist.

I've mentioned before that our tour guide was a freaking dolt, yes? A picked up on this pretty quickly as well, and yet, personality #1 chose to inundate Undraa with questions, firing squad style, at least a few times a day. Did Undraa have the answers to these questions? No. Did she understand the questions? Only after they were repeated at least twice. Did the questions even have answers? Let's review....

Sample questions actually posed by A to Undraa. When each inquisition began, Ed and I could be heard muttering "Is it bigger than a breadbox?" to mark the beginning of another Q&Q sesh.
- When will the rain stop?
- Where is that nomad going?
- Does that cow [pointing to solo cow in field] belong to the family
we saw earlier?
- How long until this road becomes pavement?
- What will they serve for lunch?
- How many people will be staying at the camp?

Completing the triumvirate of A's worst traits was her role as Hector-the-Corrector. Anything that Ed or I said was immediately and summarily corrected or contradicted. Topics ranging from the mining industry to whether the tent was big or small to what kind of fruit was in the jam at breakfast were open for debate. Usually, the conversation would go something like this:
A: Do you know how much the ticket is for tonight?
R: I believe its 10 thousand Mongolian
A: So what is that?
R: Around 8 US
A: NO, that's too high.... Undraa, how much is 10 thousand Mongolian in US? Undraa, of course, goes to ask someone at the restaurant.
U: About 7.50 US
A: See? I knew that was too high.

And thus a dinner would conclude and Ed and I would pretend to go to bed only to circle back to the restaurant at the ger for big Mongolian beers and card playing without her. We would remind ourselves that we went on this tour to see Mongolia, not to make friends, and that soon enough we would be rid of A.

And though I loathed her, the day we headed back to UB, a little seedling of generosity sprouted in my heart. We knew that A hadn't yet been to the capital and we warned her of the pickpockets and theft we had seen and heard of and cautioned her to take care of her stuff.  We ran into her in the hotel restaurant the next day where she let us know, triumphantly, had been out for hours, hasn't seen any pickpockets, and that UB was perfectly safe. We were, obviously, wrong again.

The day after that we saw her in the lobby. Red faced and panting, she had just been robbed. Her camera, with all the photos from the trip, was gone. And could we please email our photos to her?