Outer Mongolia, June 2011

Ulaanbaatar or Ulan Batar or UB City

The middle of June we took a month-long trip to Mongolia and China, traveling with Overseas Adventure Travel. After a night in Beijing, we flew north to Ulan Batar (Ulaanbaatar or UB City), the capital of Outer Mongolia.

Genghis Khan

 Mongolia is a landlocked country with Russia on its north and China to the south, east and west. Mongolians are proud people with their history dating back to Genghis Khan, who conquered vast lands all the way to Europe.

Russia controlled Mongolia from the 1920s to the late 1990s when the Soviet Union fell apart. At that time Mongolia achieved its independence and became a democratic republic. We immediately saw the Russian influence in the stark buildings and deteriorating infrastructure.

We spent three days touring Ulan Batar, a city that holds 1.3 million of the country’s 1.7 million people. This visit included the central Sukhbaatar Square and the large statue of Genghis Khan, the National History Museum, a Buddhist monastery and the Fine Arts Museum.

 

Three Camel Lodge

We took a 2 ½ hour flight south into the Gobi Desert. When we arrived we were met by two drivers and older model Russian vans, which were our transportation for two days. It was a long drive to the “Three Camel Lodge” where we spent one night in a gere (the Russian name for them is a Yurt).  They were surprisingly colorful and comfortable inside although it was a long trek to the bathroom and shower facilities in the middle of a very windy night.

The next day we drove a long way on gravel roads, making two stops. The first was at the “Flaming Cliffs” where, in 1922 a team from the US discovered the first nest of petrified dinosaur eggs. There were also many full skeletons found in this area.

Camel Breeding

The second stop was to visit a family that made its living breeding camels. We watched them milking and had a chance to taste some products made from the milk. After visiting with the family in their gere, those of us who wanted rode the camels out into the dunes, led by members of the family.

We returned to the lodge for lunch and then drove back to the airport. This was a unique experience and the photo ops with the little camels were great.

 

Back in Ulan Batar we were met at the airport by our bus and driver who had with him our big luggage, which we didn’t take to the desert. There was another long drive on bad roads to Khankhar-Uul Camp in the northern mountains. This camp of geres sits tight up against the red rock mountains of Khogno Khaan. After a brief time to settle in we went to visit Ovgon monastery used by the local people and the ruins of a much older monastery destroyed by the Russians. The geres at this camp were not as luxurious as the first, but the bathrooms were closer and the food was good.

The second day we drove to an old monastery (a UNESCO site), which the Russians did not destroy, as planned, when the Mongolian people promised to turn it into a museum. This was in Kharkhorin, the city Genghis Khan had planned as the capital of his empire. 

On the way back to camp we stopped to visit a family that raised horses. Again we were welcomed into their home (gere) and had a chance to find out what their life was like. They were actually getting ready to move to another location the next day in search of better grazing land for the horses. There were three generations living together and the grandfather was smitten with me – and my camera. Again, there was a chance to ride a horse, which I did.

On the long drives from place to place we frequently would come across herds of sheep, goats, yaks and horses. They were tended and herded by both men and women on horseback.

The next morning we drove back to Ulan Batar. We stopped along the way at the Khustain Nuruu National Park to see a herd of wild Takhi horses; rare because they had almost become extinct. Some were protected in zoos and then brought back to Mongolia in 1992. The Takhi has a bigger head and shorter legs than a regular horse. We were fortunate to see one up close.

We arrived in UB City, as they call their capital, late in the afternoon, and had time to freshen up before the traditional “Farewell Dinner. The evening’s entertainment was a small group of musicians that played traditional instruments; a Morin Khuur or horse-head-violin which is played with a bow, a flute, and a Yatga or half-tube zither with a movable bridge and twelve strings which are plucked. Their performance included singing and an exhibition by a young girl contortionist. Very interesting.

After some free time the next morning we said farewell to Ganboatar Tsererdorj “Ganbo,” our guide, and flew back to Beijing where we were greeted by Qu Yi “Sally,” our guide for the three weeks in China. Mongolia was fascinating, the people delightful, and we were glad we had the chance to visit their vast country.

 

That's it for now. Grace and Paul