Transmongolian Adventure

We arrived in Ulaanbaatar at 6:30am, about a half hour late, but our guide was there ready to meet us.  She was very friendly, but said they hadn't been able to find a car seat yet.  I started to get a bad feeling about this given our previous tour guide experience.  I had requested the car seat months in advance.  But, we didn't have whole lot of choice. 

6:30 am is about the only time of day when there isn't traffic in Ulaanbaatar.  Mongolia is home to about 3 million people and about half of them live in the capital.  I started to feel a little better when we got to our hotel to find it very comfortable with a nice view over the downtown area. We were grateful to have a couple hours to relax before heading out on a day of sightseeing.

I was also impressed that when our guide came back to get us she had indeed located a safety seat.  Once I installed it we were good to go.  Our first visit was to the Gandan Monastery, a very impressive collection of temples.  We were also fascinated by the enormous Buddha feet, which are intended to be the feat of the future world's  tallest statue, planned for construction outside Ulaanbaatar.

Inside was no less impressive, as we looked up to see the 26 meter-tall statue of Buddha that looms over everything.  Apparently the original was melted down and transformed into a weapon that was sent to Russia during the second world war.  Our guide explained that under Communist rule, Mongolia was basically a puppet state for the Soviet Union.

We then took a short walk to the main square, where the modern Parliament building is fronted by a very wide statue of Chinggis Khan.  The Communists were overthrown in Mongolia around the same time that the Soviet Union collapsed and they are fiercely proud of their democracy.

They are also very proud of their dinosaurs.  According to our guide, the first complete T-Rex skeleton was discovered in Mongolia.  I believe this is the one they are having a spat with the New York Museum of Natural History about.

After a delicious lunch of modern Mongolian wraps (filled with the most tender grilled meat every), we visited the 19th century palace of the last Mongolian king.  I was a bit annoyed to learn that the only way to take photos was to pay a $50 fee, especially since the place doesn't have any particular religious value (I try to be more understanding of photo bans in churches).  But I can also say that we saw very similar things elsewhere so I think I have it covered.  The only thing that was particularly unique was the rather morbid "zoo" of dead stuffed animals. They weren't in mint condition so other than the bizarre factor, not missing much there either.

We retired to the hotel to relax and enjoyed a nice meal of Korean food at the restaurant there (Korean is extremely popular in Ulaanbaater), and enjoyed a quiet night in comfortable beds even more.

One of the things I really appreciated about our tour company in Mongolia was their flexibility.  Our guide told us that there was a nomad festival happening during the first couple days of our trip and we could go there if we reversed the order a bit.  It cost a little more, but we figured why not, since we would still get to see everything else on the itinerary.  It also broke up some of the driving into more manageable pieces.

The next morning after a nice breakfast at the hotel, we headed for the Gun-Galuut nature reserve and checked into our Ger.  These are only called yurts outside of Mongolia, which is probably good since it seemed much easier for Aiden to say "ger".  They are surprisingly spacious inside and house several beds and a woodstove. The bathrooms are separate, which wasn't really much of an issue.

We quickly discovered that one of the best things about Mongolia is the wide open space.  It was wonderful that Aiden could just run around without us having to worry.  After we got settled in, we headed over for the start of the Nomad Festival, which corresponds with the Mongolian holiday of Nadaam, which is a sort of fall celebration before the winter.

While we were waiting for the festivities to start, we were treated to Mongolian staples like fried dough, dried cheese curd, and fermented mare's milk, which is surprisingly tasty and refreshing after a few sips.

We then got to watch a traditional greeting between to nomad families and then Stephanie got to help set up a ger with the help of the locals, while I was on Aiden patrol.

Once the gers were set up, we got to go inside to learn more about home life, like watching a rope making demonstration (they make rope from wool), sniffing the host's snuffbox (no idea what the point was, but it was interesting), and trying more foods.  We also were introduced to  pastimes, like games. The one in the first picture below is similar to rock paper scissors. They face each other and start singing a little chant, and the one who is leading says how many fingers he is going to hold up (he could be lying).  If I understand correctly, the other player tries to guess what number of fingers he actually will hold up. If he is wrong, he has to drink, if he is right, the other guy does.

I also got to try my hand at knucklebones.  This played with the actual knucklebones of sheep, goats, and antelope.  I could never tell, but apparently each side is distinct and there is a particular side that you want to land facing up so that you can move your knucklebone forward and try to reach the goal first.  It was actually a lot of fun, but I never found a place that was selling knucklebones.

We took a break for lunch and then went back for more festival.  This included a show of horsemanship.  They explained that tamed horses will go wild again after about a month of not being ridden and they showed us how they catch them from the herd and tame them again.  Particularly impressive was the way some of the riders could snatch a rope off the ground while riding a horse.

The last part of the day was a chance for the visitors to participate in a set of challenges.  Stephanie and I teamed up but did not make the top three.  But more importantly, we had a lot of fun.  They had to change the rules for us because Stephanie refused to do the poop-scooping, which was supposed to be a challenge for the women.  They made an exception and I got to do the poop scooping.

The first competition was ger construction and we had to go first so we had no one to learn from.  We were pretty bad at it.  Next, Stephanie had to saddle a horse, which was the men's competition.  She did pretty well, actually, better than the woman who got the saddle too far back and made the male horse very uncomfortable.

The last competition was the poop scooping, which I failed miserably.  I was supposed to scoop the dried cow patties over my shoulder and into the basket on my back. The women did much better, so maybe being tall is a disadvantage...

That evening, after dinner, we were treated to a folk show including dancing performances by children.  Aiden was so fascinated that he almost made it through the whole thing despite not having a nap.

We returned to the ger for bed and found that the stove was already lit and boy did it put out some heat! It was much hotter than the train from Ulan-Ude, it was like being in a sauna.  We actually had to open the door to let some cold air in until it died down a bit.  We spent the night comfortably under heavy blankets but the ger did get cold.  We were very grateful when the employees came in and started a new fire before we had to get out of bed.

Our second day featured our longest drive and it didn't get off to the best start. Our van wouldn't start and they got it moving by tying it to the back of another car and dragging it around until the engine started.  I hadn't seen that method before, but it worked and we were soon on our way.

We stopped pretty soon to visit a shaman religious site.  Shamanism is apparently on the rise in Mongolia and these piles of stones are everywhere, although this was one of the nicer ones.  The horsehair banners on top represent the nine tribes of Mongolia.  To this day, people know what tribe they belong to.

The shaman sites are a bit odd because the offerings can be just about anything.  People leave plastic offerings, money, empty liquor bottles, crutches, and even horse skulls.  Up close, it's a bit helter skelter.

After that, we visited the Chinggis Khan monument, currently the 2nd tallest statue in the world after the Statue of Liberty, according to our guide (until the Buddha is built, anyway).  We didn't get to see the museum inside because there was no power, although we did get to see a giant boot made from 110 cowhides.  We had to take the stairs to the viewing platform on the horse's head, but it was pretty darn cool and well worth the work.

The rest of the drive took about 5 hours that day and the weather was mostly rainy.  The odd thing we noticed is that when it was rainy and cool our driver and guide tended to open the windows, but during the brief periods of sun in between, they would roll them up and the car would get quite warm.  A bit odd, but we noticed that throughout the trip it was the same.

By the time we got to the next ger camp, we were more than ready to be out of the car.  There was time for a late dinner and then we were pretty much ready for bed. Well, we were ready for bed, but the ger wasn't.  They had forgotten to close the tarp on the top and it was raining pretty heavily inside, but once they got it closed, the heat from the woodstove dried things up nicely.

The next morning the weather was clear again and we felt refreshed and I went to take some photos of the ger camp, which our guide said was organized much the way a tribal camp would have been organized hundreds of years ago.

While I was snapping pictures, however, disaster struck.  I hit the wrong button when I tried to delete a bad shot and instead the camera started deleting all of my photos. I noticed it was taking awhile and stopped the process so I could take more pictures.  I didn't even realize what happened until we were in the car on the way to Karakorum and I noticed that the first picture, was something from Ulan-Ude instead of Listvyanka.  I looked frantically and then realized what had happened.  Everything from the first 4 days of the trip, everything from Lake Baikal was gone.  Needless to say I was devastated.  But the trip must go on and I switched out the memory card to preserve what I had left.  Luckily, this was exactly the right thing to do because when I got home I found a program that recovered all but about 50 of the pictures I lost.  If I had kept taking pictures on the same card, I would have likely lost all of them.  Of course, I didn't know that was even an option until we got home, so the message about frequently changing memory cards was hammered in pretty well by the end of the trip.

The other disaster that morning was that Stephanie came down with a stomach bug.  My guess is that it was probably from the fermented horse milk.  I guess after everything I was exposed to in Tajikistan, my stomach is pretty much immune to any gastrointestinal bugs, but Stephanie didn't have it so bad there and got caught with it in Mongolia.

I felt bad for her, but she was a trooper and forged on.  We got to Karakorum and went to the 15th century monastery there.  It was pretty extraordinary and there were even frescoes dating back to that time period.

Stephanie managed to see most of the temple, but when we went inside, the smell of the incense was just too much and she had to run outside before she got sick.  To add insult to injury, Aiden followed her and after observing her for a second, he bent over and started imitating the sounds she was making.  In hindsight it was pretty hilarious, I guess.  The best part of it was that Stephanie felt much better after that, although she didn't fully recover until after we got home.

After that we had lunch (except for Stephanie), and then went up to an overlook with beautiful views of the fall foliage, the town of Karakorum, and the river valley.

There was also a neat monument to the Mongolian Empire, showing it's extent at various time periods.  Interestingly, it reached its' greatest extent under Chinggis Khan's grandson, stretching from China all the way to Eastern Europe.

Stephanie wasn't feeling up to going to the museum, but I made sure to get plenty of pictures of it for her.  The most interesting part was a display of the items found in a 7th century tomb of a Mongolian nobleman, including clay figurines still in tact, and coins from as far away as Byzantium.

Given my current work with visas, I took a personal interest in a metal passport from the 12th century, which is apparently what Marco Polo would have needed on his visit to the Mongolian Empire.

Outside, there was a replica of the silver and gold fountain said to be at the royal court in Karakorum in the 12th century. It is constructed entirely based on Marco Polo's description and was said to pour water, honey, and milk from different spouts.

On the way back from Karakorum, we had to stop and pick up some French travelers who were stranded because their car died.  It didn't really slow us down much and I was just glad to know that the different tour companies are willing to help each other out.  There is plenty of wide open space in Mongolia and it would definitely stink to be stuck out there with no one to help.

Back at the ger camp, Aiden and I went for a nice walk in the countryside at sunset to give Stephanie some rest.

The next morning, we woke to an amazing full moon (pretty neat in the morning) and had breakfast before heading to see the Elsen Tsarkhai sand dunes, which are apparently a mystery to local scientists because they are quite far from any desert.  To Aiden they were just a giant sand box and it was a lot of fun to see him treat them that way.

On the way to our next camp, we stopped to visit a nomad family and gave them a (modern) traditional offering of candy in exchange for their hospitality.  We got to see how they milk the horses, which apparently has to be done every two hours, and then were invited into their ger to chat.

With our guide as an interpreter, we learned that this was actually two families visiting one another and they apparently just move from place to place and agree to meet at different times.  The neat thing was that they had a small solar panel to run a few small appliances and a satellite dish for TV.  Pretty efficient.  They also talked me into having some fermented horsemilk and vodka (a holdover from the Communist days).  It was a little early for me, but I got it down without embarrassing myself.

Then while we were talking (throughout guide as an interpreter), the master of the ger (on the right below), suddenly offered to swap wives with me.  We were a bit taken by surprise and I guess it showed because he laughed and said he was just kidding.  But then two seconds later, he said "But seriously, do you want to swap?"  I'm still not sure if he was kidding, so it was a little awkward, but it was mostly funny and he didn't push it too far, so we still had a good time.

We arrived at our final ger location around lunch time.  This time we had a solar water heater as an alternative to the woodstove and that gave a much more even temperature control, which was nice.  Aiden enjoyed running around the gers and reading the numbers on them.  Then he and I went for a little hike to let Stephanie rest.

We came back around 5pm and got Stephanie for a guided trip to find the Takhi, or Przewalski's Horse, which went extinct in the wild in the 1960's.  It was reintroduced recently thanks to a breeding program from captive horses in European zoos.  There are now over 2,500 of these horses in this park and they are beautiful to watch.  They are also not afraid of people, so you can get fairly close without disturbing them.

We also got to see some marmots, which for some reason got Aiden very excited.

Then, around sunset, which was incredibly beautiful on the grassy hills, we heard a bizarre noise floating down from the surrounding mountains.  We were all trying to guess what it was and I used the zoom on my camera to sweep the hills like a pair of binoculars.  Eventually I saw a couple pairs of antlers sticking up from the rocks. I showed them to our guide and she got very excited because these deer are rarely spotted.

The best was yet to come as on the way back we spotted a whole herd of the deer heading down the hills to water.  We were able to get some great shots of them before they noticed us and headed back up. The driver was so excited he made me promise to send pictures once I got home.

Back at the camp, the mood was a bit subdued because one of the cars hadn't come back.  It was apparently the one that blew past us on the very tricky roads.  About an hour later, though, they returned and said they had had a flat tire.  Pretty unnerving though since there really isn't anything out there.

It was hard to believe, but the next day it was already time to head back to Ulaanbaatar.  On the way we stopped to talk to some men who were organizing a horse race, which is very common during the Naadam festival time period.  We learned that children are trained to be jockeys because of their light weight, and also that for some reason they give the horses ridiculous hairstyles, which was kind of sad.

The traffic coming into Ulaanbaatar was ungodly.  We had seen it before, but this time we had to travel almost all the way through the city.  I think we could have walked faster than we drove. We had Mongolian BBQ for lunch, which was delicious and all-you-can-eat, which was good because after the traffic we were very hungry.

We had the afternoon free and passed the Marco Polo monument on the way to a souvenir shop to look for a Christmas ornament.  Although tourism is on the rise in Mongolia, it doesn't appear that souvenirs have caught up as there were slim pickings.  We did find a nice silver coin with Chinggis Khan on one side and the national emblem on the other that seemed to do the trick.

That night we had tickets to see a Mongolian folk show and our guide actually offered to watch Aiden so we could enjoy it. She had watched him for brief periods here and there throughout the trip and he seemed to like her, so we took her up on it and were glad we did.  The show was oversold and so we had to sit on the floor, where it would have been impossible to control Aiden.

The show was amazing, we got to see traditional dance, listen to traditional songs, hear live throat singing kind of unearthly), there was a shaman demonstration, an unbelievable contortionist, and then a traditional Buddhist mask dance. It was awesome.

Lots more pictures here.

And that pretty much wrapped up our time in Mongolia. We were extremely well taken care of and I would strongly recommend Selena Travel to anyone considering a trip there.

We left early the next morning for the airport to avoid the traffic and had no problems getting on the plane.  It turned out that our Aeroflot flight was being operated by MIAT, the Mongolian National Airline.  That made Stephanie pretty nervous until we saw the plane, which was pretty much brand-spanking-new. The service was also far better than we are used to and the beer was free.  It even had screens in the back of the seats, where as Aeroflot doesn't even have overhead screens.  We thought that would help entertain Aiden, but it wasn't quite enough.

About 2 hours before we landed, he got a little overexcited and tossed a magazine over his head.  It went all the way over the seat and landed on the people behind us.  It was the end of the snack service so I guess it may have spilled some water or something.  We felt horrible and turned around to apologize, but were shocked when the woman behind Stephanie, who was British based on her accent, started shouting at us.

Stephanie tried to apologize again, but the woman shouted that sorry wasn't enough and started throwing her trash at Stephanie over the seat - napkins, empty cups, even a plastic knife came over the seat.  We were so shocked that we forgot about being embarrassed for Aiden.  By comparison he was well behaved.  There were a lot of things I though to say to the woman, but I kept picturing an article in the Washington Post about an American diplomat being thrown off a Mongolian flight to Moscow for fighting with a woman and kept my mouth shut.

It just goes to show that after all the things we've seen in our travels, there are still plenty of surprises out there...