“Tolai Hare, Mongolia” is available on a range of products for rabbit and hare lovers….prints, pillows, tote bags, clothing, mugs and more. These lanky hares are found in many of the drier areas of the country, including the Gobi, where I saw one in 2016. They are the […]
I returned on July 31 from my twelfth trip to Mongolia since 2005. I traveled to a number of places, starting with Arburd Sands ger camp in Bayan-Onjuul Soum, Tov Aimag, about two hours south-west of Ulaanbaatar. The area features a 20km stretch of dunes running east-west, the […]
In a country where 100km is a good day’s travel on the earth roads that serve most of it, we had just learned from locals at Baruunbayan-Ulaan, a soum center where we had stopped to get petrol, that the heavy log and plank bridge we heading for in […]
I’ve said for many years that in Mongolia, more than in most places, the journey really is the destination. It’s something most visitors miss with the usual emphasis tour companies have of going from sight to sight on paved roads. Eleven trips in twelve years and I’ve […]
Batmaa, one of our drivers, who grew up in Gobi Altai Aimag, asked if we were interested in visiting a vegetable garden. I had heard on a previous trip that it was well-known that the sweetest vegetables grown in Mongolia came from from the Gobi. This might be my […]
After a wonderful stay at Arburd Sands and Bayan-Onjuul Soum, it was time for the Expedition to start in earnest. Our first destination was Boon Tsagaan Nuur, a lake deep in the Gobi that is known for the excellence of its birdwatching opportunities, both in the number of […]
These two Mongol horses were part of a large herd that I saw at Gun-Galuut Nature Reserve in August of 2011. The mosquitos were pretty bad, so they were spending the day standing in a large shallow pond surrounded by a wetland area. Although it is a nature […]
Thanks to my Mongol friends on Facebook, I’m picking up some Mongolian here and there, like the phrase in the title. I see written Mongolian in both the Latin alphabet and Mongolian cyrillic every day and sometimes I can read all or most of a sentence now, which […]
I grew up in forests. Redwood forests, to be exact. Camping out meant drippy, foggy mornings and warm sweatshirts with, maybe, sunshine in the afternoon. In August. None of it ever bothered me because I loved being enclosed by those wonderful trees. My mom always loved the desert. […]
There’s a certain rhythm to creating paintings. I usually have a number of them underway at various stages of completion. Of course, most of them are hanging around unfinished. Then I get to the final sitting on one of them and pretty soon, Ta Da!, it’s done! I […]
