Breakfast at 7:30am. Everyone met in the lobby at 8:30 and then it was off to Sukhbaatar Square for the beginning of the day’s Naadam activities.
Costumed horsemen escorted the horse tail banners around the Parliament building and then on to the National Stadium, as did we.
Got there early enough to pick and choose our seats.
Opening ceremonies got underway at 11am. The whole stadium was a riot of color, both because of the costumes of the participants and also the umbrellas of the spectators since it decided to rain for a short while.
The horsemen came in with the horse tail banners and placed them in a stand. The President of Mongolia gave a short address. Then there were displays of horsemanship, children doing a ribbon dance and wonderful music by the orchestra.
When it was over we piled back into our bright yellow Nomadic Journeys van and drove about 90 minutes east to experience a local Naadam. It was raining pretty good when we got there, but stopped just as the horses came into view. We had gotten there in time to see the end of the horse race. Had some airag and watched the wrestling finals. Took many photos of horses and their riders. The jockeys are boys and girls under ten. The horses in this race were two year olds. Prizes go the the first five to finish and the last.
We went to a ger in the village and were treated to airag, vodka, aruul, cheese and khuusuur, fried mutton turnovers.
Stopped at the new giant statue of Chinggis Khan on the way back.
Got back to the hotel at ten till eight. A long, but interesting and worthwhile day.
And here are pictures of it all:
Note- due to time limitations, these are as I took them, no cropping or adjustments except for a couple which were on the dark side.
First, the national Naadam-
Horse tail standards being brought out of Parliament buildingHorse tail standards proceeding around Suhkbaatar SquareTwo ladies wearing del at Suhkbaatar SquareNational Stadium before the crowds arriveHorse tail standards entering stadiumFabulous costumesNaadam officialsOrchestra and conductorPresident of Mongolia addresses crowd; had to take photo through a supportListening to the PresidentRibbon danceHorsemanshipProcession of Mongolian national flagsDisplay of Mongolian flagsMaking Naadam memoriesBalloons for sale outside National StadiumMongol man kneeling outside of National Stadium
Then it was on to the 90 minute drive to the local Naadam-
Racers coming in; rain stopped shortly after I took this pictureAlmost to the finishGirls race right along with the boysA group coming to the finishHeading for the finish, but then it was time for wrestling....Local Naadam stadium with wrestlingMongol wrestlingEagle dance after wrestlingGroup of riders; took a lot of horse and rider pics while waiting for race resultsLocal familyLocal riderWaiting for the horse race results; then the winners started to appearA race winnerJockey won a rug for momOne of the racersThe winner of the raceLocal Naadam horses going homeTour group in ger for "snacks"Mongol snacks: mutton with fat; aruul stacked on bread
We stopped at this incredible statue on the way back to Ulaanbaatar-
Giant Chinggis Khan statue facing towards his birthplace to the eastChinggis statue detailChinggis' view
I woke up at 3:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Last effect of the minimal jet lag, I guess. Had breakfast, packed, surfed internet, iChatted with David. Jan finally called. Driver and guide picked me up around 12:30 and dropped me off at Bishrelt Plaza Hotel, where we stayed last year.
Needed lunch and dining room was closed because they were catering a large wedding. Went out and found an internet cafe with outdoor seating and menu in Mongolian only. I saw one item I recognized for sure, buuz. 300 tugrigs, about 25 cents each. Managed to order two and a beer in Mongolian. Was quite pleased with myself and the waitress got a kick out of it. The buuz and the beer hit the spot. Another place to add to the list. When she brought my check, the waitress, who was not Mongolian, spoke English and did very well. A successful cross-cultural exchange.
Back to room and resting. Hoping to get an internet connection. So close, yet so far. AirPort sees the hotel network, but says I need a password. Time to go to dinner now.
Update: met the rest of the Naadam tour group in the lobby at 6:45. Three Brits, three Swedes and one American besides me. All seem nice. Sat with the Brits at dinner, which was carrot salad, soup and very good mutton. Washed down with Chinggis beer.
Asked desk clerk about internet while getting my room key and Sean, the American says “I believe I can help you with that.” And he did. Told me which of the two networks worked best and, for some reason that I’m sure the universe finds extremely amusing, this time if fired right up, so I’m on until I leave for Gun Galuut on Monday.
Sean also is using Skype on his iPhone, so he doesn’t need a sim card. Went to download it myself, though, and got a AT&T message about how much it will cost per minute for data ($19.97!). Obviously needed to do it before I left home.
So here I am in Mongolia futzing with technology so I can email and blog. It really is a global village.
Kind of a quiet day today before the next phase of the trip starts. Spent the morning getting the last post with all the images up and then bringing The Journal up to date.
Spent part of the afternoon getting rained on while I hunted down an art gallery I wanted to visit.
Ulaanbaatar doesn’t use western style street numbers and addresses, so finding a place can be challenging. For instance, the directions in the What’s Up guide for the Xanadu Art Gallery are “on Juulchin Street, north of the State Department Store, beside the TEDY center.”
I knew the first two parts and had a vague recollection of the third part, but still wandered around some. In the end, I spotted the gallery’s sign around the corner off Juulchin Street proper. Not a lot of work on the walls, but most of it quite good. The space doubles as a coffee lounge with free wireless, which is worth remembering. They used to be in the same building as Millie’s, but that space has been taken over by the Valiant Art Gallery, owned by the wife of the president of Khan Bank, I believe. She buys the work outright from the artists and then re-sells it. I checked it out yesterday after lunch. Lots of good to excellent work. No wildlife art at either place, though.
Of course it had pretty much stopped raining by the time I got back to the hotel. I kicked back with a book until it was time to go to dinner, which was back to BD’s Mongolian BBQ. Went to a grocery store and finally scored a bag of Coffee King, which are three in one coffee packets. Peet’s it’s not, but I’ve acquired a taste for it, at least when I’m in Mongolia because it was all that was available for coffee when I was on the Earthwatch project in spring of 2005.
Most of the stores only have what is clearly the big, dominant brand, which is called MaxCoffee, which might be as good as or better, but I’ve developed a perverse loyalty to Coffee King, partly because it seems so much harder to find.
Went to BD’s Mongolian BBQ for dinner night before last. It’s quite popular with the Mongols even though there’s nothing authentically Mongolian about it. Apparently it’s a Chinese invention. BD’s does the same kind of stir fry on a big hot surface that you see in the USA. Mongols don’t do stir fry.
Real Mongolian BBQ involves killing a goat, slitting the body cavity open, cleaning it out, stuffing it full of hot rocks, putting the whole thing in a metal container and setting that on hot coals to cook. When it’s done, the meat is pulled out, along with the rocks, which are then passed around, hand to hand, for good health. And yes, I’ve had it, hot rocks and all, and it was good.
I don’t envision a real Mongolian BBQ place coming to your neighborhood anytime soon.
I’ll probably go back there again since for 6900 tugrigs I can get a heaping bowl of veggies, noodles and meat with Mongolian ginger sauce. A small Chinggis Khan beer is 2100 tugrigs. 9000 tugrigs at the moment is less than $8.
Plus the cooks show off by doing things like lining up four or five pieces of broccoli on the long sword-like turner and then flipping them all up into the air and catching them all on the plate. So it’s dinner and a show.
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This morning I had breakfast in the hotel, which is included in the price of the room. They’ve gone from a menu to a breakfast buffet with an egg cook, like you see at many hotels now in the states. It’s really sped up getting breakfast and one can skip the slices of mystery meat that I think they put out for the Germans.
The weather was nice and cool when I left the hotel around 9 am. I walked about twenty minutes to the Mongolian Modern Art Gallery, which is actually a museum since nothing there is for sale. There was a show that I had read about on one of the Mongolian news sites and today was the last day.
With all the Prop. 8 stuff in California and the civil rights issues concerning LGBT citizens that remain to be addressed, I wanted very much to see “Beyond the Blue Sky”, a “multi-media art exhibit for, and in collaboration with, Mongolia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community.
The people in the photographs have their faces covered by khadags, blue scarves, which are given as gifts, but are also used to cover the faces of the dead. It symbolizes the position LGBT people find themselves in in Mongolia since currently they cannot live their lives fully, but must conceal their gender identity or otherwise be vulnerable to prejudice, discrimination and violence.
It was a very powerful show.
Here’s the image that really struck me the most:
Image of man in del, face covered by khadag, “Beyond the Blue Sky”
I then went upstairs to see the main galleries, which house original Mongolian paintings, sculpture and fine craft dating from the early/mid-20th century. As a socialist state with close ties to the Soviet Union, aspiring Mongol artists often studied art in Moscow. This gave them a grounding in classical realism that allowed them to create paintings of great quality. And they’ve built on it ever since, adding their own unique interpretations of the world they live in.
Here are some examples:
Portrait- Orkhon, N. 2006 oilPortrait, detailThe Red Portrait- Nasantsengal Bayanjargal 2001 oilThe Own Portrait- Ulziikhutag, Yondon 1991 oilLord of Great Land- Ichinnorov, Choij 1981 oilIn Art Studio- Bold, Dolgorjav 1981 oilHorses Hoof- Tsegmid, P. 1986 oilPost Man- Tsembeldorj, Myatov 1997 oilThe Bullet of the Sky- Tumurbaatar, Badarch 2004 oilThe Guardian Spirits- Advabazar, Nyam 2001 oilThe Light of the Steppe- Sanchir, N. 2002 oil
There was also this wonderful ceremonial drum with deer painted on it..
“Deer Drum” leather on wood frame“Deer Drum”, detail
Finally, here are some views of the gallery spaces:
I had lunch at Millie’s, which serves good solid American food like burgers and sandwiches and is popular with the expat community of consultants and aid workers, along with visitors like me.
The next stop was the Hi Fi store, to see if I could get some of the music CDs for groups I’ve found on YouTube and Imeem. And I had some success. By the time I left, it was getting seriously hot, so I hiked it back, about 30 minutes, to the hotel to hide out until it cools down.
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An addendum to my comments about all the livestock I saw when I was coming into town. Looks like it’s not as charming and picturesque to the authorities as it was to me. This is from a Mongol news website, http://www.en.news.mn:
“Herders asked to move livestock away from Ulaanbaatar
Tue, 7 Jul 2009 17:07:49
The Metropolitan Professional Monitoring Agency has reminded herders that there is a ban on livestock entering Ulaanbaatar green areas, and another on trading of any form in certain areas. With demand for sheep rising in Ulaanbaatar just before and during Naadam, some herders come to the city with their livestock at this time and the reminders are aimed at stopping the move.
Some 200 herder families have brought 30,000 animals into prohibited areas. The law calls for confiscation of all income earned from trading in such restricted areas. Further violation of the law can lead to imprisonment.”
Having used the “Jet Lag Program” to re-set myself to destination time, it’s about 6 am and I’m feeling pretty good. Got a decent night’s sleep, which makes things ever so much more enjoyable.
Getting ready for the trip got a little crazy because I got sick a couple of weeks before and lost that time. I had to put my effort into prep and packing and didn’t get to write about it as much as I had intended. Fortunately I have a well-tuned packing list.
I don’t have to be back to the airport until 11 am, so I can catch up in this lovely, quiet room that isn’t moving 560 mph at 38,000 feet. Plus……coffee.
Here is my current itinerary for the trip, subject to the vagaries of traveling in Mongolia. I’ve provided links for each location.
Arrive and stay at Narantuul Hotel tonight and following two nights. I’ll try to post photos of the interior, which can probably best be described as Mongol Contemporary.
Then I will move to a different hotel to join the small group for Nomadic Journeys’ Nadaam tour. It will be kind of relaxing to just show up when and where told to for a few days and take in one of the major cultural events in the country, which is also the biggest national holiday. There will be competitions in the “Three Manly Sports” – wrestling, archery and horse racing.
On the 13th, I’ll be picked up by my car and driver and travel a couple of hours over paved road to the Gun Galuut Nature Reserve. It looks to have a classic Mongol holiday ger camp, complete with lodge (where I should be able to re-charge what needs re-charging. Otherwise, I have a converter that fits in a car cigarette lighter.). Besides argali, about 90 or so, there are wetlands known for their birds, especially cranes. I’ll be there three full days.
On the 17th, we’ll proceed to Arburd Sands, where I’ll stay one night. Some of you who followed the blog of last year’s trip will remember the memorable afternoon my husband and I had at the foal branding. That post is here.
Then it will be on to Baga Gazriin Chuluu and the ger camp there. While in the area, I’ll get to view petroglyphs and an old monastery tucked up into a mountain.
Back to UB on the 21st. As per previous post, meet up with Gana Wingard and get prepared for our meetings with the herder women at Ikh Nart.
Drive to Ikh Nart on the 23rd. Out looking for argali in the morning and evening, meetings during the heat of the day.
Back to UB on the morning of the 29th. Afternoon and next day free for loose ends, then fly home on the 30th.
Let’s see….my Flag Expedition page should be live soon over at Artists for Conservation. I have confirmed that the weather is likely to be hot, hot, hot. Unless it rains, in which case it could be cold enough that I’ll want my down bag.
I spent three hours on the phone last night with Gana Wingard, the scientist with whom I am working on the women’s craft cooperative. She sent me a great email this morning entitled “The Grand Plan” and then noted that, of course, it’s all subject to change. But we now have hashed out a way forward and know what we need to do, who we need to talk to over there and when and in what order it will probably happen.
It reminds me of one of my favorite exchanges towards the end of one of my all-time favorite movies “The Wind and the Lion”. The Raisuli and his men are on their way to a small village, returning Mrs. Pedicaris and her two children to a contingent of American marines and, after hearing their destination described, along with the myriad dangers likely to be lurking there and the possibility that he could be killed, The Raisuli says “It is good”. His right hand man says “What is good?’. The Raisuli answers “It is good to know where we are going.”
It turns out that Gana will be bringing radio telemetry equipment because she needs to find all the radio-collared argali or as many as possible before the next Earthwatch team arrives on August 2. There are plans to try a new population survey method since, at this point, it’s not really known how many animals are in the reserve. This is great news for me, since I will now be able to go out looking for sheep with someone who knows the reserve really well and is as motivated as I am to spot the animals.
Here are a couple of photos that I took on previous trips of the scientists using radio telemetry equipment. The research project now has some GPS collars, which send in the data via satellite, but those are relatively expensive, so there are still animals that need to be tracked the old fashioned way.
Amgaa doing radio telemetry just below an ovoo, Sept. 2006Jed Murdoch searching for a Pallas Cat he had captured and collared; he never got a signal and the collar was never found, April 2005My "grand finale" sighting in 2005; a mixed group of eight argali; note the ewe left front wearing a radio collar; one of the handy things about argali is their habit of stopping to look back, which provides an opportunity to get photos of something besides their butts as they run away
Our plan is to “game drive” in the mornings and evenings, when it’s relatively cooler (Gana said that temperatures went over 100F last July. Okaaay.). During the day we will have our meetings with the women, for which the groundwork is being laid by another of the scientists, Amgalanbaatar (which means “peace hero” in Mongolian; see above photo), who we all call “Amgaa”. He is now at the reserve and is passing the word about the meeting and the hoped-for dates. Everything is tentative because summer is when the women have the most work do to, milking animals, making aruul and airag and also felt. We don’t know how many will come, but we know that they are interested. They will need to arrange to have someone watch the children and will want to be home in time to make dinner. Gana expects that they will arrive both on horses and motorbikes.
There are about 100 families living in and around the reserve, depending on their livestock for their living. The women all know how to sew and, in fact, the country women are the repository of the skills needed to make garments like del (the long robes). The younger women who have been brought up in town don’t learn to sew anymore. The material to make a del, outer fabric, liner fabric and trim costs about $30. Some of the women also do embroidery and since that’s something I’ve done on and off for many years, I’m really looking forward to seeing their work.
Three Mongols wearing del; train station, April 2005
After talking with Gana, we’ve scheduled a third day for me to get together with any of the kids who are interested in art. I’m taking some sketchpads, pens and pencils. Should be a fun way to pass a hot afternoon.
We plan to go to Ikh Nart on the 23rd and return to UB on the morning of the 28th. That will give me a day and a half to tie up loose ends. Five days and counting………..
I’ve gone back and forth over whether to add some way of shooting video on the upcoming trip to Mongolia. I looked at “real” camcorders and finally decided that another $600 and hauling a third thing that is bigger than a Nikon just wasn’t in the cards. But I was very skeptical of the little Flip camcorders. Many times it’s better to skip something rather than settle for the minimum and then just be frustrated.
But I’ve watched a couple of people use them and saw how compact and light they are. Hummm. I went to Amazon over the weekend and poked around. The second generation of Flips are out and the price was too good to pass up, so, for $129 I got a Flip UltraHD and I have to say, I’m really impressed. Here’s my first ever video that I shot last night, all nine seconds of it:
I’ve already learned one thing and that is to let the subject go all the way out of the frame before stopping the shot.
This Flip will shoot 120 minutes of video and has 8gb of built in memory. It has a flip-out USB port that plugs into your computer. I also got the rechargeable battery pack and the padded case. The case was returned today. It was a $15 rip-off. Cheesy and no way to even get the camera in it since it was effectively sewn shut.
I have no idea what kind of wildlife footage I’ll get since there’s really no zoom to speak of, but for the national Nadaam events, especially the horse-racing, and domestic animals like the horses and camels, it will be interesting to have images of moving animals to work from when I get home instead of only stills. It’ll all be a big experiment and a fun one.
Spent a good chunk of Friday finally coming to grips with The Journal. I need a title page and a page with a map of Mongolia on it. The backstory on all this is that from 1976, when I was mumblety years old, until 1988, I was a freelance sign painter, graphic designer, calligrapher and generally a lettering and type nut. All that was peeled away as I decided to concentrate on illustration and then easel painting. But I have always kept my lettering and type books and also the late 19th-early 20th century illustrated storybooks and historic decoration books that I had accumulated way back then, always kind of thinking and hoping that maybe some day….
Well, some day is here. I was blanking out on how to approach the journal when I realized that it was time to do what I know- the lettering and stylistic approach of the Art Nouveau and Edwardian eras. I got out a stack of books for inspiration and to jog my memory. Here’s motifs from a couple of them, which helped get the juices going:
Then I needed to look at some lettering samples, once again to jog my memory. I have a number of old commercial handlettering handbooks. The sign painter I worked for and who taught me brush lettering used the same kind of letterforms for the basis of his sign designs:
The name of my Flag Expedition is rather long and when I came upon these pages, I realized that I could use that to my advantage:
I got out the tracing paper and started to scribble any ideas that occurred to me- thinking with a pencil. I liked the block in the lower middle of the page with the sheep’s head and decided to develop that further to see how it worked. This is half the sheet:
I did a rough layout next:
I needed to leave a space for the sheep’s head and also started to refine and design the lettering.
This is the final layout from which I’ll do a graphite transfer onto the Journal page.
I based the letters on the kind of thing I always liked and have done a lot of. I let the forms vary without worrying about consistency. I don’t want to and don’t have time to agonize over this for weeks, so decided to take it to the next step and refine the letterforms.
I settled on a more rounded small serif, used the curved cross stroke for the “A” and added the little dots in the centers of the “o”s, kind of a tribute to my old sign painter boss, since it was one of the things that made his signs instantly recognizable as being done in his shop. I’ll post the finished page as soon as it is done.
Here’s the deal. Mongolia is a land-locked country where there is no/none/zero marine influence to moderate the weather. I am from a coastal Mediterranean climate (the north coast of California) where the average temperature swing is from an average of 55F in January all the way up to 65F in August. Are we weather weenies here? Yes, we are.
I got on Weather Underground and checked the current six day forecast for Ulaanbaatar. The daytime highs and nightime lows read like this: 80, 30, 50, 32, 59, 33, 66, 42, 69, 37, 89, 44 with chances of rain every day. Not sure what it will like when I’m there, this being the first trip in the summer, but I’m going to be ready for heat, cold and rain. Thank goodness it looks like it cools down at night. I don’t sleep well when it stays warm. We pretty much always have a window open at least a little here at home.
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I’m now three and a half weeks from departure and I’ve dragged out the luggage and a lot of the stuff I’m taking. I’ve printed out my packing list. An extra camera battery and two additional memory cards are on their way. The failing MacBookPro’s battery has been replaced. New light hiking boots have arrived, along with a lightweight rain poncho. I have new, sturdy walking shoes. I’ll probably take the Teva sandals and a pair of nice shoes for when I’m in town.
David, my husband, and I went over everything that needs power this evening. The gear falls into two categories: stuff that needs juice to re-charge and stuff that runs on batteries only. I plan to do my re-charging either when I’m somewhere that has electricity or by way of an adapter that plugs into a car cigarette lighter. That will cover the MacBookPro, the iPhone and the Wolverine external hard drive, which will be my backup image storage. The iPhone can also be charged by way of the MacBook when it’s plugged in. The charger for the camera batteries and also the one for the Wolverine can be plugged in to a wall socket or the lighter adapter.
The immersion heater will only work when I can plug it in. If there’s no electricity, then I’ll use the little “stove”, which I also need to test run. A friend said that I’ll need to get a lighter, so that’s been added to the list.
I’ll also have a GPS, Tikka headlamp and a travel alarm which are battery only. I’ll carry one set of extra batteries for each.
This sounds like a lot of hassle, but once I’m on the road and organized, I have a routine that involves always charging things whenever I have the chance while I read or am at dinner or overnight.
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I dress in layers. No jeans. Too bulky. Instead I’ll have a couple of pairs of LL Bean ripstop cotton pants, plus a pair of loose pull-ons for on the plane. For town, I may take a sleeveless dress I got some years ago at Hilo Hattie’s in Hawaii in case it’s really hot and a pair of “town” pants. I have a Patagonia fleece pullover that I found at a outdoor equipment consignment shop in Berkeley for about $30. That, a jacket and a set of smart wool thermals will keep me warm. I’ll take two pairs of heavy smart wool socks, too, just in case.
Otherwise, a couple of field t-shirts, a couple of town t-shirts, my denim shirt, which can be a light jacket, a turtleneck and a couple of tank tops. I’ve really pared down the clothes over the years. I just want to have something clean to change into if I get hot and sweaty and while I’m washing the dirty stuff. The humidity is really low in Mongolia, but the insides of the buildings in UB can be sweatboxes.
I’m debating whether or not to take my grey Mongolian del, the traditional item of clothing. It’s kind of bulky, but it makes a great robe/lounge around/throw-on-to-run-to-the-toilet garment. I’ll probably try to squeeze it in.
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Still sorting out art equipment. More on that later.
The name of my Flag Expedition is rather long and when I came upon these pages, I realized that I could use that to my advantage:
Susan Fox, American Artist 