I’m now one month from departure for my next trip to Mongolia. I don’t have a specific itinerary yet, and probably won’t until I arrive, but here’s some of the things I hope to do and see this time around:

-I’m one of the administrators for a Facebook fan page called “Buuz”, which are dearly beloved steamed meat dumplings. Mongols make and eat zillions of them for Tsagaan Sar, the Mongol New Year. When you ask a Mongol living in another country what they miss most, “buuz” is often the answer. We have over 700 fans now! And it turns out that the person who started the page, an Italian guy who is married to a Mongol woman, is going to be in Mongolia the same time as me. So we’ve announced a get-together for “Buuz People” in Ulaanbaatar on July 13 at the (no fooling) Grand Khan Irish Pub. Who knows who will show up, but it should be fun.

-It appears that the first weekend of August that there will be a Yak Festival somewhere in the Khangai Mountains west of Ulaanbaatar. Now, how could I miss that?

-I would like to get to a number of Naadam horse races, both the national one and at least one or two local ones to get more painting reference. I also want to get a lot more photos of the herders and their horses.

-There’s not much left of the ancient Mongol capital of Kharkhorin. It was sacked by a Ming Dynasty army and then most of the remaining stone was used to construct Erdene Zuu Monastery. I would like to visit both.

-For wildlife watching this trip, I want to go back to Hustai National Park and see the takhi in the summertime. I didn’t have time to go there last year. And I plan to return to Baga Gazriin Chuluu Nature Reserve and Ikh Nartiin Chuluu Nature Reserve for argali, ibex and whatever else comes within camera range.

I’m tweaking my equipment for this trip and will cover that in future posts. At the moment, I’ve gotten a new wind and moisture proof fleece jacket from REI that I really like so far and a new Kata daypack for carrying my camera equipment in the field. More on both next week.