5-6th of September: Beijing -> Ulaanbaatar
Flew to Beijing and stayed at the god awful Green Hotel because it was near the airport. Only slept 4 hours because the hotel clerk told me to get to the airport by 4:30am for a 7:30am flight. Stupidly, I listened, and ended up sitting at the nice BJ airport for 1.5 hours before the Air China counter even opened! Flew to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, also known as "UB" with only 20,000 miles from Star Alliance. Bennet and AlanC had gone off hiking already so I was by myself at the mediocre Bayangol hotel. Basically walked all around UB for next 1.5 days. Highlights were Sukhbaatar Square where Parliament house is guarded by Chinggis Khan; the National History Museum; a very good folk dance and music show; and watching the Chinggis Khan movie in Mongolian! BTW, Genghis Khan is pronounced with a "CH" sound, not "G". Ted introduced me to a local Zolboo who was kind enough to take me to the Winter Palace of the early 20th century theocrat ("Bogd Khan Palace Museum, Built between 1893 and 1903, the Winter Palace of Bogd Khan was the home of Mongolia ‘s last king Javzan Damba Hutag VIII. This complex of temples and houses contain a number temples and houses collection of Javzan Damba Hutagt composed of gifts of rulers and kings from all over the world."). Zolboo also took me up to the top of the hill to see all of UB.
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7-th of September:
"Drive to GORHI TERELJ national forest park, 80km to Ulan Baatar in KHENTII mountains. Wonderful landscape---hills, cliffs, pines and cypress are everywhere wound clear creeks…like real paradise. On the way there to visit a 1000 monk cave and turtle rock. Horse riding tour. Overnight stay in ger tourist camp." So sayeth our tour operator.
This was probably the best part of the trip. Relatively short ride out from UB. Gorgeous ger camp ("gers" are those round tents). Beautiful weather. Great experience riding the smallish Mongolian horses through the wonderful valley to the monastery on the mountain. But the horse gait was very fast, I'm guessing due to their smaller size; thus, I found them very hard to ride and ended up just sitting on the hard saddle for hours. All of our rear-ends paid for it over the next few days.
To avoid being egged into wrestling with our horse guide, AlanC rubbed horse hair into his eyes. His eyes immediately swelled up, and only by overdosing on Russian anti-histamine was he able to recover his eyesite. It was amazing that he was able to send an email to his NY ophthalmologist and get a response by morning.
We had a nice dinner. I liked the cold sides - pickled vegetables like cole slaw. Then went to sleep at 8:30 because Bennet and Alan were so wiped from their hard hike the day before.
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0809_mong... 442 kB we rode hours out to this monastery on the mountain |
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8-th of September: Terelj Karakorum
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"After breakfast drive to KARAKORUM, the ruin of the capital of ancient imperial Mongol in 13th century, which is 390 km to the west of Ulaan Baatar. The site became the capital of Chinggis Khan’s imperial kingdom in 1220 and at that time it was the most prosperous metropolis of trading in the world. Beautiful Hugnukhaan Mountain and Sand dunes named “Elsen tasarkhai” will be the view along the travel. For dinner, enjoy the Roast-Lamb-on-Stone, one of the oldest flavor in Mongolia and also being said an imperial style of cuisine for palace men. Overnight stay in ger tourist camp."
This was the craziest part of the trip. Driving 390km doesn't sound like a big deal, but it is when the roads aren't paved. We bounced around for 9 hours on horrendous dirt/mud roads. We passed the time listening to AlanC reminisce of their UVA fraternity antics. The sand dunes were essentially a strip of sand in the middle of the steppes - kind of weird. We didn't have the roast-lamb-on-stone until we returned to UB. Lunch was at a truck stop - but it's big enough in Mongolia to warrant a mark on the map. The lonely outhouse describes the situation well. We stopped in a nomadic family's ger camp, which was the same as our tourist camp one. The only thing different was the satellite TV. AlanC and Bennet were brave enough to try the horse milk, which supposedly would get you drunk if you drank enough. I used my lame "lactose intolerance" justification to avoid the unpasteurized milk.
We were so happy to finally arrive at the really nice ger camp with picturesque views. We hiked up the nearby hill to see the monument to Mongolian khans. Another good dinner, surprisingly since most blogs say the food is horrible in Mongolia. Then we watched a show of throat singing and folk instruments. There was a very young female contortionist as well but my camera failed during the video. That night, we started playing a Chinese card game that I had played with JMX and Calvin during my Yunnan trip. We played a lot more of this game for the rest of the trip, including during the nauseating 9 hour drive back to UB.
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9-th of September: Karakorum Khustai
"See prairie sunrise then breakfast, morning visit to ERDENEZUU temple, the oldest and biggest lama believing, built in 1586 and preserving in the paintings of 15th -17th century, ornaments, embroideries and plenty of precious sketches, wood carvings as well as stele rubbings etc. The temple circled by high earth walls covers an area of 0.16 square meters and 108 seats of white stupas are found on it. Apart from these the ruin of Wonderful Palace, huge turtle-like rock and some other hot spots will arouse your imaginations as well. After lunch drive back to “Khustai” national park. Transfer to tourist camp Sightseeing around national See the “Takhi”, Przevalsky’s horse. Overnight stay in ger tourist camp."
Ger camps are kinda fun. They're decently comfortable but the biggest issue is temperature control. The wood stoves only have ON/HOT and OFF. Our guide was kind/crazy enough to give us a hand-held blow torch to light the stove. Hmm, not a good idea to put this thing in Bennet's hands in an extremely flammable tent!
Erdenezuu was ok, but probably not worth the 18 hours of grueling driving to get to. It's a top 10 destination in Mongolia, but after seeing the ruins of monasteries in China, it's hard to get to excited about this site. I know I sound really jaded, but it truly is a tough drive out.
The funniest part was after Erdenezuu, we drove up the nearby hill to see "Dick Rock" (or "Phallic Stone" as the guide books call it). The guide explained to us that the head monk brought dick rock to the nearby "undulating hills" to remind the monks of their commitment to abstinence. We were expecting some massive structure, but this famed rock turned out to be about the size of a big dog.
Then we embarked on our 9 hour drive back towards UB, staying overnight at Hustai national park where they are trying to reintroduce the wild "Takhi" horse back to Mongolia. Again, not to be too rude, but these horses just weren't that amazing. We applauded the effort to reintroduce them back to their natural habitat, but there are plenty of others things I can think of seeing that may be more interesting.
