Trip to Mongolia 2009

Ger just outside Gorkhi-Terelj National Park

I suppose I ought to give a more coherent account of my trip to Mongolia with Tom & Ed, so here goes.

We left on Thursday afternoon after our last classes ended at 4:10. Tom had everything planned out in terms of the logistics. We took the bus to Incheon International Airport and then a Korean Airlines flight to Ulaanbaatar, arriving at 11:30 or so local time. It was a three hour flight from Korea. After clearing immigration and customs we hired an official taxi, one of the only ones in the parking lot with a real, true taxi sign on the top, to take us to the Ulaanbaatar Hotel for $10. We had reservations for "superior"rooms, but apparently they were all taken so we were bumped up to "junior suites". The hotel was quite nice. A bit old, but it had free high speed internet which Ed needed for the online class he taught on Friday morning.

Remains of the Revolutional Party Headquarters outside my hotel window,
burnt out in July 2008 during anti-govenment demonstrations and riots

Tom and I went walking about town in the morning, though we did so independently. I walked over to the main square in front of the government palace. It is called Sükhbaatar Square and is named for Damdin Sükhbaatar, leader of Mongolia's 1921 revolution. There is a statue of him in the center of the square and there are huge statues on Genghis Khan and two of his generals on the front steps of the government palace at the north side of the square. It has the look and feel of a smaller version of Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Statue of Lenin in front of the Ulaanbaatar Hotel
Apparently, hookers congregate here in the evening

Government House on the north side of Sükhbaatar Square

We met our guide, Tselmeg Erdenekhuu, who goes by Meg in English, at the hotel at 9:30 and headed off for Gorkhi-Terelj National Park which is just northeast of Ulaanbaatar. It took us about an hour or so to get there in her uncle's two-door Toyota. We stopped at an ovoo, a shamanist rock cairn, just outside the park. We did some shopping at a couple of ger (traditional felt tents) and then drove into the park to a formation called Turtle Rock, which really does look like a turtle from the right angle. We ate lunch there at restaurant near a tourist camp, right next to the rock. We had fried noodles, steamed buns, and fried stuffed flat pot-sticker thingys. The food was excellent, much better than Tom's fried mutton chest later that evening!

Ovoo just outside Gorkhi-Terelj National Park

Afterward, we rode horses up to a local monastery and back. We got caught in the rain coming back, but I don't think any of us really minded. We then visited a nomad ger home in another part of the park. The family had a couple of extra ger and Meg had placed two of her other clients there to sleep for the night. We shared some salted-milk tea and then headed back to UB (Ulaanbaatar). By this time the rain was quite heavy and we learned later that the flooding in and around UB killed 23 people. There were a couple of places on the highway coming back where the runoff washed some pretty big rocks and a lot of mud and muck onto the road. In UB itself we drove down a major road for several hundred yards through 5-6 inches of water. We arrived safely back at the hotel nonetheless.

Two members of the nomad family we visited
The guy in the middle spent two years working in Incheon, Korea

For a first day's outing it was perfect. I fell in love with the country that day and the next day sort of reaffirmed it.

To get a feel for what Mongolia is like, imagine taking the states of Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, North & South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa. That's just about the right mix of terrain and roughly the right lattitude, though Mongolia is a bit further north on average. Now, settle this area with a population of just under three million. The capital city would have a population of about a million and would have about the same land area and in about the same geographic setting as Laramie, Wyoming. Farming would be a very small industry, most people living in the countryside would raise sheep, cattle & goats on unfenced grassland. There would be a few paved highways around the capital and also a pair of paved two-lane roads one running north-south and the other running east-west. One major railway would run north-south. Most other roads would be unpaved dirt or gravel. There would be more horses than people.

We walked around UB that evening and ate dinner at a Mongolian "fast food" restaurant. Well, Ed and I ate anyway. Tom was too traumatized.

The next day we hired a car and drove to Bogdkhan Uul Strictly Protected Area to hike and visit the ruins of Manzushir Monastery. Meg was supposed to arrange for a driver to take us, but no one showed up. Tom did an excellent job of negotiating us a ride at the last minute and off we headed. We passed through some truely stunning rolling green hills on our way to the town of Zuunmod which is just south of the temple and hiking trailhead. Somehow we ended up on the wrong road and we had to cross a meadow to the other side of the valley to get onto the right one. In a couple of spots it was easier to get out and walk. That lightened the load on the car and it made it across without any damage.

According to Wikipedia:

The monastery was established in 1733 CE. Over time it grew to a complex that was 20 temples large with more than 300 resident monks. During the stalinist era of the 1920's and 30's, the monastery was completely destroyed and all the monks either killed or exiled. One temple has been rebuilt.

Ruins of Manzushir Monastery

We visited the temple ruins and hiked up the mountainside behind them. There were several shrines and Ed saw a large ovoo on top of the peak/hill we were climbing, so that sort of became our objective. Unfortunately, we couldn't find anything that looked like a safe approach to the summit. The south side was a cliff, so we tried the east side first, but couldn't find any place that didn't require significant exposure. So we walked around and tried the west side, but as we approached it became clear that it also had some sheer cliffs. We could've climbed over a boulder field below the cliff and taken a look at the north approach, but we all felt it wasn't worth the effort. The view from our highest point was just spectacular. Looking south you could see rolling green hills that seemed to go on forever.

Looking south from the hill above the ruins of Manzushir Monastery

After climbing back down to the temple we tried to find a place to eat, but the only restaurant at the tourist camp near the trailhead was filled up with a group or unavailable for some other reason. We tried driving back to Zuunmod for lunch, but the driver didn't trust any of the "fast food" places. They probably served mutton chest anyway. The one upscale place in town was closed. So we decided to drive back to UB for a late lunch/early dinner. On the way we stopped at a couple of factory outlets that sell cashmere fabric and clothing. The prices were reasonable given that we're taking cashmere.

For dinner we went to a Mongolian Barbeque. I don't think Mongolians would have recognized it as a domestic establishment. The name was "bd's Mongolian Barbeque," and it was definitely more upscale than the place from the night before. It's actually an American chain located mostly in the Midwest. Our driver, Agi, invited the guy who had set up the trip. The deal had been $80 for the day, plus we agreed to buy the driver dinner. We ended up buying them both an all-you-can-eat dinner at one of the better places in town, much to Tom's annoyance. He hates been ripped off too much. I am much more fatalistic.

That evening we went to the National Recreation Center to see a troup called, Tumen Ekh, the Mongolian National Song and Dance Ensemble. The program lasted an hourand was a nice mix of traditional singing, dancing & instrumental music. I was particularly impressed by the throat singing. I shot some video with Yeongmi's compact camera and I got some sound recordings as well that I will post later.

Tumen Ekh performing

Sunday was our last day and we spent the morning walking around UB. We found an art gallery called the Red Ger and found some bargains there. Then we continued hiking west and ended up at Gandan Monastery. This is large set of temples dating back to 1835 that were almost completely shut down during the communist era. The large Buddha in the main hall is 87 feet tall and is a 1996 gold-leaf-covered replacement of the original copper statue that was destroyed by the communists in 1938.

Gandan Monastery in Ulaanbaatar

We did some final shopping at the State Department Store and then headed back to the hotel to check out. After some trouble rekeying our rooms so we could actually get into them, we loaded up our bags, checked them into the luggage room and headed off for the best dinner of our whole stay at the Silk Road Restaurant. I had a most excellent lamb steak.

The State Department Store

The ride to the airport cost us $15 or so and we made it back to Incheon without incident. We came back on Mongolian Airlines and landed at a satellite gate somewhere way well away from the main terminal. It was somewhere in North Korea, I think. There was a lot of walking and then a train ride and them some more walking before we finally made it to immigration, baggage claims and customs. Ed got stopped by customs because he had 4 bottles of Mongolian vodka and the limit duty-free is 3. It turns out the tariff is 150%. Ed was a bit peeved, but he did pay the tariff.

We took a taxi from the airport so that we wouldn't have to climb the hill up to our apartments. It was a great trip!

I have posted some photos here if you would like to see more. Also some of the more artsy ones are at this webpage.