Mongolia 2008

Out and About in Ulaanbaatar

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Back in the room after dinner and wanted to post a few images from today. This is the first time that I have taken my laptop on one of these “adventure” trips and, with David to sort out the technical issues, I’m able to blog, check email and follow the news for the first time. Tomorrow afternoon we go out to Hustai National Park, about two hours from UB. Then we’ll have three days to watch the takhi (Przewalski’s Horse) and tour around the area. Although there will be electricity available in the gers, there is no internet connection. In fact, the park has no phone, but uses a radio to communicate.

We walked up to the Nomadic Journeys office this morning and got some trip details sorted out, then went to Le Bistro Francais for lunch. Chicken in white sauce and Mongol beer for two. Afterwards, we walked over to the Zanabazar Art Museum, which had been closed my last trip. Zanabazar was a Buddhist monk who created extremely fine bronze sculptures of Buddhist manifestations like White Tara and Manjushri. He is a national hero to the Mongolians. Unfortunately, the sculptures are under glass and I couldn’t get decent photos, but there are some on the museum website http://www.zanabazarmuseum.org/.

I did get some images of one of the incredible cloth applique thankas. I’ve done various kinds of embroidery for years and have never seen anything like this. The streak is a light reflection in the glass.

Applique thanka
Applique thanka

And a closeup of the figure in the lower left hand corner.

Applique closeup
Applique closeup

Downstairs at the museum is the Red Ger Art Gallery, where one can find contemporary Mongolian art for sale. We bought a couple of pieces of original calligraphy, including one that says “Chinggis Khan”. And then there were “the horse shoes”…..around $300 for the set. I did say that the Mongolians are a horse culture, didn’t I?

"Horse Shoes" from the Red Ger Gallery

Finally, some of you may have heard of “Engrish”, which is the term given for writing that closely resembles but doesn’t exactly cut it as standard English. Product directions are notorious in that regard. Then there is this notice in the elevator at the Bayangol-

Bayangol elevator sign
Bayangol elevator sign

So, before I commit an improper purpose I’ll sign off and hope to come back with tales of Hustai takhi.

UB to Ikh Nartiin Chuluu

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We left the hotel on time, a quick stop by the Nomadic Journeys office, and we were on our way. All the way to the edge of UB, where we pulled into a gas station because….a hose had split. Cell phone call went out to the driver’s son. Two attempts to epoxy it back together. Wouldn’t hold.

Can we fix it?
Can we fix it?

So we swapped cars with the son, who drove us to Ikn Nart in record time in order to get there before dark. The camp cook who was with us knew the way, which was good, since the dirt track in only had some rocks with rough arrows on them for direction. We arrived to a beautiful warm summer evening. Balmy, in fact.

At around 3:30am, David heard the camp guys outside the ger, pulling the top cover closed because of howling wind and rain. For the next 26 hours, on into the following night, it almost never let up. The toilet was around 50 yards from the ger, so we just changed back into the wet clothes when we needed to go up there. I was still feeling punk from the cold I wasn’t quite over with when we left, so a day of enforced rest wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

It wasn’t particularly cold, but as the day wore on, we saw damp areas start to appear in the cloth covering that faced the wind. Finally some water started to drip in in spots. The gers are covered with what our guide called “Russian canvas” for waterproofing and it mostly worked. Tuya, our guide, came back to the ger to chat after dinner and we could see that it was getting worse and worse. One of the camp guys came in and said that one of the other gers was dry, so we pulled together our stuff in about a minute and moved. A fire was quickly lighted in the stove (wood and dung) and we settled in for the night without any idea of how long the storm would last. For all we knew, we had driven six hours to sit in a ger for three days.

But the next morning was sunny, cold and windy and we went on our first trek after breakfast. Amazingly, we encountered the ranger who I remembered from the Earthwatch project from 2005. He had been out all night in the storm and had lost 10 sheep and 3 goats, which we calculate was about 15% of his animals.

By afternoon, it was warm, sunny and blue skies and the same the next day. Here are some photos from the rest of our stay. We came back to UB yesterday and are at the Bayangol Hotel. It’s now 10:30am Tuesday morning and we are headed out to wander around and museum hop. More this evening (my time). Also, I’ve inserted some photos in the previous posts.

Before the storm
Before the storm
Red Rock Ger Camp
Red Rock Ger Camp
Maikhant helping sheep after storm
Maikhant helping sheep after storm
Horses grazing near ger camp
Horses grazing near ger camp
Argali, what I came here for mostly
Argali, what I came here for mostly
David enjoying the sun in front of our ger
David enjoying the sun in front of our ger
Me and the cook's kitten
Me and the cook's kitten

Sain Bain Uu from Ulaanbaatar!

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We made it! Our flight from Seoul was rescheduled to the following day due to high winds in UB. (Luggage drama story to come). So, instead of arriving Monday, we arrived Tuesday. Yesterday, Wednesday, was spent sorting out the intinerary with Jan at Nomadic Journeys for a variety of reasons I’ll go into later since I’m on battery power at the tour office right now since the internet connection was down at the hotel. We did get out in the afternoon and walked to Sukhbaatar Square and saw the new improved Government Building that now has an incredible Mongol facade with a huge statue of Chinggis Khan. I’ll post photos later if I can.

UB is looking noticeably spiffier since I was here two years ago. More prosperous, too. We are staying at a hotel called the Bishrelt Plaza. Very friendly staff, good food in the restaurant, room big, a little tatty around the edges but perfectly useable and there were renovations going on while we were there.

It is now 10:15am on Thursday, August 28. At noon, we leave for Ikn Nartiin Chuluu. Back to UB on the 2nd.

Weather yesterday was sunny and warm. Today cloudy and warm.

It’s great to be back and less than two hours from the trip really getting under way.

In front of the Chinggis Khan memorial, Sukhbaatar Square, Ulaanbaatar
In front of the Chinggis Khan memorial, Sukhbaatar Square, Ulaanbaatar

Hurry Up and Wait, Part 2

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To resume, we were just starting to discuss options in case of a missed connection when they called our flight. Down to San Francisco and onto the SF to Seoul leg with no muss or fuss. Snoozed for awhile, as per the anti-jet lag program that I follow, which is from the book “Overcoming Jet Lag” (available through Amazon; 5 stars based on 24 reviews). Then rediscovered crossword puzzles, thanks to the United in-flight magazine. What a great way to help a ten-plus hour flight go by. Arrived in Seoul around 4:45 Monday afternoon and the plot thickened immediately.

We went to the departure board to find our gate number for the UlaanBaatar (UB) flight and it was blank. Went to the Transit Desk, where we were told that the flight had been canceled due to high winds in UB, which surprised me because my impression was that wind was a problem only in the spring. But, the friendly staffer said, she would rebook us on the next flight…at 6:30 pm the following day. Oh, we said. There is a “transit hotel” at the airport, but next to us was someone in the same pickle and I heard him say what turned out to be the magic words “Hyatt”.

The wonderfully helpful United staff extracted our checked-through bags from the storage container down in the bowels of the airport in less than 30 minutes, which ensured that we had all our stuff, including clean clothes, which we desperately wanted and needed.

So, here we are at the extremely comfortable Hyatt near the airport and it is Tuesday morning about 11:30. Check out is noon, so we will go over to the airport and hope the UB flight goes. If not, back to the Hyatt, where the restaurant is called “Eight” because it is divided into eight different country sections as is the dinner menu. Last night, although kind of in a fog, we paged through French, Korean, Japanese, other Asian and grilled items. I had Quiche Lorraine and David had a Malaysian noodle and prawn dish.

Breakfast this morning was the buffet, where we could choose breakfast items from all the countries named above. I had an omelet, liche juice and bircher musli cereal. There was also bacon, chicken sausage, three kinds of kimchee, small slabs of smoked salmon and sliced cold cuts, a whole section of “continental” breads and pastries. It’s the kind of thing that we have always enjoyed finding at the big international business-oriented hotels.

Pack up and pull out time. With luck the next post will be from UB.

View from our room at the Hyatt, Seoul, Korea
View from our room at the Hyatt, Seoul, Korea

Hurry Up and Wait- Departure Day, August 24

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Sitting in the waiting area at the Eureka-Arcata Airport, which is less than ten minutes from our house. The ceiling, due to our “summer air conditioning” aka ground fog, is well under the minimum of 500′ for planes to land. Our plane is en route from San Francisco, which is good news. Our flight on it was scheduled to leave at 8:46am. Current estimate is around 10am. San Francisco to Seoul leaves around 1pm, so we should be ok.

Neighbors and friends who know about the trip have asked the last few days or so if we’re “excited”. Well, sort of. David and I have done a fair amount of international travel. We’ve both had to be focused the last week or so on trip prep. I came down with a minor cold last Monday afternoon and had to perform triage on what I could get done before departure. He had to get his business work in order to be able to leave things in decent shape. And then, especially these days, one doesn’t really know how “challenging” the “travel experience” is going to be. So here we are, starting our grand trip to Mongolia with an hour + delay. It reminds me of the scenes in Star Wars where Luke, Leia and Han anxiously anticipate the Millenium Falcon’s jump to light speed and…….nothing happens.

I’ll get excited when we’ve settled into our (thanks to frequent flier upgrades) Business Class seats and are rolling down the runway in San Francisco.

However, with free wi-fi at the local airport, life goes on. Off to get a cup of coffee.