Through the magic door / Diary of an expedition dog
N 43°39'23.7'' E 111°58'07.2''
Me in the Mongolian Gobi desert.
(Photos of the diary entry can be found at the end of the text).
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The border crossing to China has long been a topic of conversation among my people. To put it bluntly, it was a huge thing to talk about at home whether my humans should actually take me on the trip or not. Entering China and the associated quarantine was actually supposed to be an obstacle to my life as an expedition dog. We weighed up our daily rounds in the forest. Tanja with her friends, me with mine. Tanja felt bad at the thought of being responsible for the fact that I could be locked up for a month. After we had marched through this emotional vale of tears for about 14 days, I noticed how Tanja’s strength returned. The strength that she had robbed herself of through her thoughts of fear for me. And that certain look she always gets when she knows her project is achievable. My human looked at me and said: “My little one, even if the Chinese want to lock you up for four weeks, rest assured, I’ll sit next to you all day and learn Chinese with the guards. In the meantime, I’ll teach you so many tricks that you’ll be able to perform in the circus afterwards!”. And so many ideas and plans were developed over the weeks leading up to the departure. Minfang, Tanja and Denis’ Chinese teacher, translated the official veterinary certificates and Tanja comes up with X ideas for the border officials. One of them was to suggest hotel quarantine to the officials. The funniest idea for me is the song my humans brought home from Chinese class: “I just want to be your friend.” Tanja planned to play this song to the border guards until they couldn’t help but wave us through… The further we got away from Germany, the more confident my people became. I heard Tanja say to Denis more and more often: “I can imagine Ajaci being allowed to enter China without any quarantine.” And yes, I am still a young dog. I don’t know much about life yet, but I’m quite sure that we can do good things with good thoughts. At least this theory is supported by the following events.
230 kilometers before the Chinese border we meet the “Graßhüpfer family”. They are traveling with a motorhome and their beautiful dog Lisa. The Graßhüpfer family has arranged to meet up with four other mobiles at the Mongolian-Chinese border. The group travels through China together for a month. There is another dog called Diego. And then everything works like magic. Tanja and I are allowed to ride with Jens. He loads our bikes into his van called Elton and Denis rides along with the beautiful dog Lisa. I get on with Jens straight away and while my humans have to go through passport control on foot, I am with Jens. In Mongolia, they ask me to jump out. The customs officer is obviously scared of me, but is impressed when I jump out of the camper van and sit down at Jen’s command. The Mongolian, forgoes a closer inspection of the car and I am allowed to hop back in. On the Chinese side I also have to get out and here too the officials show great respect for me. I present myself from the very best side and sit next to Jens practically in flight. He is amazed. I get friendly smiles and appreciative looks from the Chinese officials. Then we were suddenly through the magic door. I can’t tell you any more about it, except that my humans were happily hugging each other… I hope they don’t start looking for a new worry now, as we had been warned so often in Germany that dogs would be eaten here…
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