So, when we arrived in Ulaanbaatar, we went straight to our hotel. For some reason there was a brown-out at the hotel so there was no power when we got there – we all brought torches (that’s the un-American name for flashlight) for a reason. No big deal – there was still a little bit of warm water… While I was inspecting the room, I found this in the nightstand. Whaddya know?!? Just like at home!
We cleaned up and headed out to catch a “cultural performance”. It was actually really good. It consisted of dance, instrument-playing, contortionists and – my favorite – throat singing. I wish I had gotten a video of it myself – it was really interesting. Here is a video of a similar thing that I found on YouTube:
These three girls were AMAZING! They had smiles on their faces the whole time and made some really crazy things look really easy.
After the cultural performance – we went to dinner – and since we were in Mongolia, we had to have Mongolian barbecue! Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures – but some of you know what Mongolian barbecue is, because we used to have two here in Charlotte – bd’s and Planet Grille. Both have since closed – and the interesting thing is – there is a bd’s in Ulaanbaatar (which I just looked up – it is an American chain and it opened up a UB store that partners with a charity there as well). Mongolian barbecue works this way – there is a big buffet with raw meat, vegetables, pasta, sauces and spices, you get a bowl and make up your own creation and then take it over to this giant round hibachi-type grill, where you give it to the grill master and watch while he cooks your food. He uses these nifty metal spatulas to move your food around. We totally pigged out at the restaurant – it is buffet, so all you can eat – and you can have something totally different every time you go. Some of the meats on the buffet – chicken (it looked like it had been dried and was sliced really thin), pork, horse and sheep’s tail. Yeah, you read it correctly. I actually contemplated doing the sheep’s tail but for whatever reason (since I’ve already had Seabiscuit before), I played it safe and stuck with pork.
So, while I was having my dinner, I read in my guidebook that there was an English pub that has pub quiz on Wednesday nights at 8pm. And since I realized that it was Wednesday, I persuaded Carol to come along – we had no idea where we were, and I think we were given bogus directions (our tour leader seemed to get lefts and rights mixed up constantly) – but we managed to find it. It was a tiny pub in the basement of one of the buildings in the main square and it was called Dave’s Place. One cool thing about it – it is the end point for the London – Ulaanbaatar Mongol Rally. This is us, feeling like we could have been in London and most certainly not in Mongolia! PS – we didn’t win – but since the other teams that beat us had >6 participants, we feel that we had a respectable showing and that our points-per-person was much higher, so in our own minds, we won. 
The next day, we stored our big backpacks and headed out into the Mongolian countryside to Terelj National Park. The roads were actually pretty well paved, and we made a couple of stops along the way. While the sun was out and there were only a few clouds in the sky, it was VERY windy and chilly.
This is an ovoo. It is a sacred place for the Buryat people (the ethnic group I talked about before that includes some Siberian Russians and Mongols). We had to walk around it three times in the clockwise direction. When you are done, you find a rock and toss it on the pile and make a wish. Ovoos are sometimes used as landmarks and it is customary for travelers to stop at them, in order to have a safer journey.
Another stop – there were some Mongolian people that had camels you could ride and some sort of eagle you could hold. I get a bit disgusted with things like this and the welfare of the animals (you should have seen how they handled the bird) – so I stayed away. But Pam & Wayne (New Zealand) had a ride on the camels. Our local guide, Nyamu, is in the picture too.
I couldn’t resist taking a picture of this happy little fella. He even smiled for me!
At this point, we are at our Ger camp. A stay in a Ger camp is compulsory if you are going to visit the real Mongolia. Gers are the traditional homes for the Mongolian nomads. It consists of a lattice frame with an outer covering made of felt. It is made to be portable – which makes sense since nomads use them! Nyamu says that in Mongolia, GPS means “Ger Positioning System”. This is how it works – you go out to see your country relatives and in order to find them, you start in their general location and must rely on going from ger to ger to inquire as to where your relatives might be. 
Gers are known as yurts in other countries and are similar to Native American teepees. Gers are still in use today – we saw many of them from the windows of our train as we crossed Mongolia. What it must be like to live in one of those in the winter…
In all, there were probably 10 gers set up at our camp (with sites for a few more in high season). Each ger had 4 beds, a small table, a gravity sink (for handwashing), and a wood stove. The beds were awesome – very cozy. Probably the best beds of the whole trip.
One ger was the ‘dining ger’ where we had all of our meals around a big table. We got there in time for lunch – we had the BEST beef (at least, I tell myself it was beef) and vegetable soup (even though nomads would not ordinarily have vegetables – becuase you can’t grow a garden when you are moving from place to place with your animals). It definitely hit the spot for a cold, windy day.
Here’s Petr our leader and our local guide Nyamu. Even though Petr is Russian, both men are Buryats. Petr kept saying things like “I love Nyamu, he is my Buryat brother!”, to which Nyamu would say “I am not gay!”. This was one of those moments…
This is me laughing while Carol walks up to the wrong ger AGAIN.
These cute little kids lived at the camp – I think their mother worked there. This little girl wore me out playing ball (mostly her throwing it at me and me chasing the soccer ball down the hill). And look at the Mongolian kitty! He was very vocal and was very loud – reminded me of a certain loud, fat, yellow American kitty at home…
The time at the ger camp was relaxing – even though it was pretty windy out in the open, our camp was in a valley that protected us from the wind, so it was great to get a little sun.
Or play golf. This is the Tiger Woods of Mongolia! A lefty playing with righty clubs (and actually doing ok). Nyamu had Barry going for hours playing “golf”. They even went to a golf course the next morning before we left.
The ger camp was relaxing for the cat, too.
Our Mongolian horseman, rounding the horses up for our afternoon ride. There are no fences – the horses just go wherever they want, for the most part they stay together. Whenever someone needs them he rides off to find them and round them up. The horses were a bit smaller than what you would find in the U.S. And I have no pictures of myself on my horse – someone else has some. Apparently I had a wild horse, because I was not allowed to control it – instead, some young Mongolian boy lead me on foot, since there weren’t enough horses to go around, which was a bit awkward – since we lagged behind the rest of the group. Then he would break out in a full run, with the horse and me in tow – horseriding just isn’t my thing…
Back at the camp – this is the Green Room, which is at the end of the Brown Mile. Also known as The Long Drop. Once we got back from horseriding, I went to use it. As I walked up, the door on the left cracked open and this old Mongolian man stuck his head out and looked at me and then shut it. I had a bout of stagefright after that – ha! Also – just a hole in the floor – so you had to be very careful in the dark (or after a few vodkas).
Our dinner that night – mutton! “Your salad’s got nothin’ on this mutton!” That Seinfeld episode kept playing in my head. I actually liked it – and didn’t have to use the napkin to spit it out like Seinfeld.
This was our driver, Mia. His was a sad story. His wife had stage IV brain cancer – and during our time in Mongolia, she was on her last few days. But, he needed to work, so he was with us at the ger camp. You could tell that he was a very special man, even though he had lived a hard life (he was in the army during Soviet times). He spoke a bit of English and was a joy to talk to. Later on our trip, we found out that his wife passed away the week after we left Mongolia. Everyone in the group really liked him and we definitely all got teary eyed when we heard that.
This is the setup for *one* of our vodka toasts…1) The shot glass has to be on the table when it is being poured and 2) once you pick it up you can’t put it back down…
Even though we were hanging out in the dining ger, we constantly had to go back and check on our fire, so that our ger would be nice and warm when we finally got to bed. This is me and Sarah working on getting the fire restarted – I finally got it to work by using some paper I had in my backpack!
The next morning, as we were getting ready to leave, we had some visitors. I don’t remember if this was a kind of hawk or a kind of eagle, but he flew around our camp – and we got to watch as Petr threw some bread up in the air and the bird would swoop down to catch it. Wow. He didn’t like the bread much – too bad I ate all of my mutton the night before…
Here’s a whole gaggle/flock/whatever of the same bird – they were huge.
We drove back to Ulaanbaatar – and the rest of the afternoon we spent shopping (some folks went to a wrestling match and I opted out – now I wish I had gone…). That night a few of us went to dinner at an Italian restaurant where we ended up having a few toasts with a neighboring table (of execs in a mining company, some of them were from Kazahkstan and all I could think of was “This suit is black….NOT” – sorry, Borat reference). When we finally managed to tell them that “No thanks, we don’t need anymore of your Johnnie Walker Blue Label or Chinggis Haan vodka”, we took off for Dave’s Place again for some beers.
The next morning we got up and headed out to see some sights around UB. Below are pictures from the Gandan Monastery compound, the largest and most important monastery in Mongolian. It is Tibetan. When we visited, we got to observe some monks chanting prayers.
This building contains one of the largest Buddha statues in the world – 25 meters – and it is covered in precious stones.
Notice the mani – prayer wheels – at the bottom of this structure. Buddhist mantras are carved on them and spinning the wheels is as good as chanting the mantra written on it.
After the monastery (and some other sights) – we headed up to Zaisan Memorial. Here is a great view over UB.
Carol and I walked up the final 300 steps to the top of the monument. The monument commemorates the Soviet-Mongolian cooperation in World War II as well as the Soviet space program. Many Mongolians come here to celebrate important occassions like graduations.
Speaking of graduations, that is exactly what we encountered. When we got to the top, there were a ton of Mongolian soldiers that had just graduated (from boot camp I guess). They were watching us and when I signed “Can I take your picture?”, these guys smiled, got up, put on their hats and saluted me! How nice!
This is the best story – There was this artist at the top of the hill that started talking to Carol. He had a few things for sale – namely, these really cool silohuette cut-outs. He was a high school art teacher and spoke English very well. Both Carol and I kind of assumed that he was going to try to get us to buy something – so Carol said something like “I don’t have any money.” To which he responded “I don’t want your money, I just want to talk.” Moments like these teach you to listen to people and to not jump to conclusions. Then he took out a piece of black paper and within a minute he had cut out two perfect horses. As soon as he finished and showed it to us, we were mobbed by the Mongolian soldiers – apparently they had been watching us from above and were interested as well. They were so excited, they grabbed the horses out of our hands to examine them themselves.
This is my favorite picture from the whole trip. Blue sky, grubby hands, and look of wonderment in his eyes.
Then they took off with our horses. Carol said “hey!” to them and we figured out from their sign language back to us that they wanted to show the others and that they would bring it back.
We had a bit of free time in the afternoon, to hit the grocery store again (as well as the Mongolian bbq) – and then we had to board the train to Russia. The train was a bit nicer than the last train but the conductresses were b*tches. I’ll pick up with this train journey in the next installment…
…to be continued…
