chapter two - Jimmy

There we were, three English people, one Norwegian/German and an American sitting quite pleased in the back of a microbus thinking the second part of our journey was about to begin. This was around 10 am. We expected to be out of Erdenet by 10:30 or 11.

We made a mysterious stop at some official building and our driver exited quite hurriedly and disappeared inside. To this we didn’t give much thought and continued whatever conversation we had been having. During this time I learned that Ed has an answer for everything – whether it is true is another matter. For example, when I asked the meaning of ‘dactyl gram’ (a random word that came up at English camp), Ed’s answer involved something about a winged dinosaur. Later he would explain to us about giant Mongolian moles and how Murun got its name.

About half an hour later, our driver returned sweaty and distracted and off we went. Not long after we had left the mysterious official building our driver parked the bus on the side of the main road next to some buildings and other microbuses. Suddenly there was a swarm of bus drivers hovering around us, peeking in through the windows and staring at us. Then some kind of argument erupted between our bus driver and another so he got out, taking the keys with him. We watched him walk away amid a scrambling group of drivers.

Thoroughly confused we sat and stared at each other wondering what was happening. Other drivers began calling English speaking friends in order to translate for us about the current goings on. Ed was given multiple phones and told there was some “problem” but was given no clarity as to what the “problem” was. Finally we somehow figured out that we could no longer take the bus we were currently in as our bus driver did not have the proper documents to make such a trip (hence the stop at the mysterious official building). We had to locate another driver and bus.

Enter Jimmy. Let me paint you a picture if I can: our next driver was nothing short of extraordinarily obese. Pudgy jowls, sausage fingers, man boobs, a belly that would put several sumo wrestlers to shame – our driver had it all. And if he wasn’t proud of much, he was absolutely proud of his belly. Many times we observed him hiking up his shirt to his chest and contentedly rubbing it like a pregnant woman**. Jimmy, by the way, is not his real name. It was the nickname bestowed upon him by us, linked to an English footballer who had a friend named Jimmy Five Bellies – so named for his extreme roundness.

At any rate, Jimmy became our new driver. So we yanked all our stuff from bus number one and stuffed it into Jimmy’s bus after discussing with him that the agreement should remain the same: us and three other people for the same amount. Jimmy seemed ok with this.

After what seemed like 800 different stops at various places to pick up various needs for our journey ahead (extra car battery, oil, spare tires, gas) and picking up not three, but six extra people, we were on our way to Murun.

It was 1:30 pm.




**culture note: Mongolian men – or just Asian men in general, will often hike up their shirts to chest/armpit level on hot days and spend the day walking around like that.