Our Trip home

For anyone that may still be reading this---we arrived safely home after a long series of flights early Saturday Morning. Finally clear of jetlag--let me share our final adventure with you----at least our final adventure this trip.

About 30 minutes into our flight from UB to Moscow, we were told we had to turn back due to a technical problem with the plane. We landed safely, but were delayed by about 8 hours. (MIAT air apparently doesn't have a lot of spare planes hanging around---so this one had to get fixed.)

We arrived in Moscow about 8 pm and were put up, by MIAT I assume, in a "hotel". Although the front of the hotel seemingly just that, with all your hotel trappings (lobby, restaurant, business center etc) we didn't have the opportunity to actually see or use any of these things. Being without an official visa, we were escorted by security to a back entrance of the hotel. Surrenduring our tickets and passports we were then led up to the 5th floor, and locked in.

The the hallway and room had a decidedly less "modern Russian" and more Soviet atmosphere. I spent some of the evening with other detainees (other poor souls with broken and delayed planes) in the hallway, which I nicknamed the exercise yard. To the family from France, the guy from Egypt trying to let his family know where he was, our Turkish "guide" who had experienced this same thing, in the same hotel, just a few weeks ago and to the father and son from Holland trying to get to Thailand---I hope you all reached your destinations safe and sound.

No food that night--but a lady with a cart and a bucket(!) of porridge came in the morning. And hour or so later---security came again (tall, dour looking men in black suits and smoking---guess former KGB agents need work too!) returned our passports and took us back to the airport.

This was all mildly unsettling at the time---but mostly funny--in that weary I can't believe this is actually happening kind of way. Now that I'm home safe and sound--I have to admit, the traveller in me LOVED that it happened, it makes for such a great story : )

Why I went to Mongolia.

For most part when I told people I was going to Mongolia the response was “why Mongolia?” And I would respond “there are no McDonalds in Mongolia”, not that I have anything against McDonald.

I wanted to experience and visit a culture of people who have learned to live in extreme cold and desert heat, who learned to adapt and survive, and utilize every thing at hand to the fullest, and some still do today. To visit a culture still fighting to become their own, a people who conquered many and have been conquered by several.

Although, Mongolia is stepping up to become like the remaining, high-tech, industrialized countries, I was not disappointed. The people are friendly, hospitable and for most part still have that old fashion; welcome stranger can I help you.

With most of the younger generation going away to college and learning new easier ways of living, the life as a nomad herder moving each season to greener pastures has fallen to a small percentage of the Mongols living in the county.

Only the city has paved roads the country side is still fill of dirt paths worn by horses, Russian motorbike and jeeps. You can drive for miles and see nothing but nothing, but then, you see the ger, the herd, the family working and I knew this is the Mongolia I have dreamed of.

Terri

Stuck in UB

Well, we took off on time at 8:20 am this morning but after about 30 minutes in the air...we were told there was a problem with the plane and we had to turn back. It is now 2:16 pm local time and we are keeping our fingers crossed for a 4:00 pm departure....but given we were told that at 11:00 am and 1:00 we are not super confident. For all of you that may be paying attention to when we were supposed to be back (the evening of the 17th) it is looking like we will be spending the night in the Moscow airport and we will be getting home sometime on the 18th.

Keep us in your thoughts for safe travels home!

Pics of Nadaam--Camping in Terelj

Hi all--before I get started on our little camping trip in the countryside---I first wanted to give you the link to the pics of the Naadam festival--which Terri wrote about earlier. You can see them here.

So after Naadam, we loaded up and headed out to Terelj National Park. It's relatively close to UB--but here, close is a really subjective term, mainly due to the infrastructure. Ready to stop breathing dirty city air--the six of us happily set off--accomplished driver and hardy Soviet Era Van in tow (called a Forgone) for the country.

The drive was beautiful and incredibly bumpy--just as they all have been. We had some extra adventure by crossing several rivers in the van--lifting our feet and bags to avoid any incoming water. We were following the family member of the place we were staying at -- but he was on horseback and could go places much easier than we could. Never the less, after lots of chanting and cheering on of the driver---we got to our destination--a family ger camp inside the park boundaries.

Boundaries, that's kind of a funny word here---seeing as there are (outside the city at least) none. Its strange for me--who is so used to trails, fences and velvet ropes guiding me through sites, to be allowed virtually anywhere. The family had set up shop inside the park. They had their own ger---and kept one for tourists, and also offered themselves as horse guides. We had a traditional Mongolian meal (Bowl o'meat, yogurt curd jerky, botz--a type of yummy dumpling filled with--you guessed it, meat, and vodka.) We spent the rest of the day hiking--chatting and playing scrabble.

The next day we hit the "non" trail and went horse back riding. Now, Becky was a little concerned about us going, she recently fell off of a Mongolian Horse, one of her interns fell of a horse when we first came to town and ended up going home AND we saw someone bite it when we were driving to the camp. Eleanor, Jerri, Terri and I were determined though, so Becky had a talk with the family---please go slow.

Mongolians don't do slow on horseback--at least they don't seem to like to --- the old man who was leading us kept teaching us how to say "go faster" (Choo) to our horses. We never did learn slow down or stop. It was great to be given free reign (sorry no pun intended) to guide our horses over streams, through valleys and across hills. Just knowing that, given the time and the ability, that you could go anywhere in the country was incredibly liberating.

We've settled back in UB now--couple of days for museum and souvenir shopping. We have had an incredible time. This will most likely be my last post in country---I'll do one more final thoughts, with pictures, once I get back home. For anyone that's been reading this--thanks for taking this journey with us--and please keep us in your thoughts for safe and speedy travel back home. Terlj Pics can be found here.

Take Care All.

Love,

Mel

Naadam Festival

We spent the last two days attending events at the Naadam Festival, this is sort of like the Olympics for Mongolians. The event started with a wonderful opening ceremony consisting of music, traditional Mongolia dancing, colorful costumes and a parade of athletes. We attending the events known as the 'The Three Manly events'; wrestling, archery and horse racing (archery did have women competing and the horse racing had children as jockeys) for centuries these events have been used in military training. We also found ankle bone shooting which is a new event, hard to describe but very interesting to watch. The horse racing was several miles from the town and in the middle of nowhere (as is much of Mongolia). The site was fantastic miles of gers, horses, people and some vendor ger tents selling food and drink, kites everywhere the eye could see. The whole experience was as I thought it would be from start to finish.

Hey, Mel we are in Mongolia.

We are off to the countryside today to visit a nomad family and do some horseback riding, I here there is some good fly fishing in the area, but I did not bring a pole.

Happy Naadam to all.
Terri

A few UB thoughts

More photos here
Hi all, Mel here. Just wanted to get a few thoughts out while the group (my travel companions Terri and Jeri, our fine friends that are putting us up, Becky and Kathy, and the recent edition of a great lady, Eleanor--Becky's first grade teacher, mentor and now lifelong friend.) are all hanging out chatting

We had quite a day of culture today. Becky was saddled with work again, leaving Kathy to run us around the city. She's a great guide and we were taken on a cultural tour of UB

The first stop was a giant Buddha statue near a memorial called Zaisan. The Buddha was gold (as most Buddhas are) and lived up to its bigness. It was a site to see, before heading to Ziasan, a soviet era memorial that was on top of a mountain (OK, large hill, but the climb up made it feel like a mountain)

Ziasan was worth the climb, the memorial commemorates the union between the soviets and the Mongolians. Mongolia is now, like Russia, a burgeoning democracy now, but this was a great reminder of a recent era. The view was incredible. Facing the city, you can see that UB is really a big sprawling city. There is tons of construction and too many cranes to count. Turn around though and you can see open land--with the exception some gers behind you.

Speaking of gers-just outside the city there are Mongolians version of the suburbs called the ger districts. Thousands of people, setting up their own streets and towns, yet still living completely off the grid, power, plumbing and water wise.

Anyway---after having a great chat and buying some art from an artist and throat singer near the top of the monument. We headed off to the Winter Palace of Bohd Khan.

The Winter palace was a huge temple/palace erected in the mid 1800's. The temple had a great mix of restored buildings and falling down structures that are currently remaining in an arrested state of decay. The artifacts inside were cool as well. The weirdest part though was the stuffed animal exhibit from the King. He liked collecting wildlife from various parts of the world and their was an whole room devoted to various old reptiles, mammals and fish that saw better days about 200 years ago.

After the palace, we fell into a great opportunity. Becky has great connections through her work and we were able to attend a pre-festival concert. We were waaaaaaaaaay under dressed, but it was worth the embarrassment. The opening was a bit slow--European type performances but with a Mongolian twist. The best was a duo who did "o solo mio" one in Italian and one in throat singing. Throat singing (and I mean this in the best possible way--because it does sound really cool) kind of sounds like your powerline is about to explode, but in a really melodic way. The remainder of the concert turned really Mongolian after that. Incredible costumes, full on traditional orchestra and amazing singing.

That's all for now---Terri or I will be back on to post about Naadam in the next day or so.

The Gobi

Land as God intended, vast open areas with more animals than humans. The Gobi is spotted with gers (Mongolian Nomad tents) and herds of animals; goats, sheeps, horses and camels. I came to the conclusion, 1 or 2 gers a nomad family, 3 or more gers could be a town or a tourist camp. We stayed at three tourist ger camps in the Gobi desert each similar with several guest gers, a bathroom/shower area, eating ger with an area for gathering. Each evening the guides would bring the tourist to the camps to clean up, eat, share their stories and sleep. All the camps had electricity by generator. After a day hiking or camel riding or climbing sand dunes the tour camp was perfect and the staff very helpful and friendly.

The vastness is indescribable, the sky wide open and the stars to infinity and beyond. We would drive for miles on dirt path and see nothing, then a ger or a herd appears. But yes technology has reached the Gobi and the nomad life, satellite dishes and solar panels appear out next to gers. Less than 25% of Mongols live as nomads.

Ulaan Baatar Mongolia

Ulaan Baatar Mongolia (known as UB) is the capital of Mongolia and the base camp for our 13 day stay in Mongolia. UB is a very diverse town with old buildings and alot of new construction everywhere, the streets are busy with cars and people walking all about. The town is very modern with people on their cell phones and ipods. I know everyone thinks we are roughing it but the truth be told, Kathy and Becky have a very nice 2 bedroom large apartment in the center of the city across from Sukhbaatar Square where we spent two nights. The square is the home of two status of Sukhbaatar (Axe Hero) and Chinggis Khaan (universal king), the square is used for celebrations and the building behind the square is home to the parliament. Around the square you can find just about anything; stores, government buildings, art venues and restaurants, just about any type of food you can think of, tonight we went to a Mexican/India restaurant followed by an Irish pub.

We are now house sitting for some of Kathy and Becky's friends, it's rough, 4 stories in a gated community, of yes did I mention our neighbor is the American Ambassador.

While in UB we hope to visit a few temples, a museum, attend the Naadam Festival.

That is all for tonight, will post soon.
Terri

Days 5-8 the Gobi

(Hi all---again if you want to skip the post and go straight to more pics just click here)


So--after a bit of a nightmare through getting the Russian airport. Our chances of making our flight back from Moscow to New York--given the time we allowed ourselves, is looking pretty dodgy. We boarded what was perhaps the oldest functioning commercial jet to UB. But after reading the in flight magazine about MAIT's proudly making international flight standards, for the first time, in November of 2007, I settled back and watched the in flight entertainment (Tom and Jerry Cartoons and a Spice Girls Video before the movie Fool's Gold, which I have seen three times on planes in the last month) We landed in UB on the morning of the fourth, saw a few sights, which I will save for a later post, and then took of for the Gobi Desert the next day.

We spent four days in the desert--and it was amazing. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to condense so many experiences into nice readable chunks, so I'm just going to leave you with the pictures in the hyperlink above. In the meantime---the morning rain has cleared and it is now time to go out and play

Days 1 thru 3 Moscow

Note from Mel---If you want to skip all my ramblings and just look at the pictures....go to the bottom of the post and click the hyperlink.

It's hard to sum up my feelings about our whirlwind peek at Moscow. It was a massive, confusing city. I've never been to a country before without knowing at least some of the language, or being around someone that does. Before our trip started I spent time learning a little bit of Mongolian, not Russian. I figured that since we were staying for such a short time, just under 30 hours in total, combine that with the fact that we were going to the super touristy Red Square and Kremlin, that we'd be able to get by .

So. Dead. Wrong.

First thing, everything was in Russian, and Russian only. I'm really not (or at least thought I wasn't) one of those "Why doesn't anyone speak English while I'm in their country" kind of people, but I had counted on some information being available at the tourist hot spots. Hell it didn't even have to be English---French, German, Japanese, anything to show that people from other part of the world came here. But nyet! In fact the only real English we did see, outside of our Marriott Courtyard Room guest services book, was hand painted on a van. It said "F@?K FUEL ECONOMY" Which brings me to my next observation, the vibe of the town....

You know how certain cities have a feel? Seattle actually feels cool. New Orleans feels alive...and a little tipsy. Moscow feels......dour. We were totally invisible there. Not a single person tried to speak with us while we were out. Really, no one would even look at us. I didn't feel necessarily disliked, but ignored. A first I thought it was because it was so obvious we weren't from there. But then I realized, no one really talks to anyone there. There was no small talk in lines, not a word exchanged on the subway platform----nothing outside of the small group that one is hanging out with. I don't think I saw anyone smile. My theory is that it's a holdover from the cold war era, you know, don't talk to anyone because you don't know who they may be sort of thing. Whatever the reason though, the only advice to people I'd want to give that are planning a trip there would be, definitely get some language under your belt, even better go with a Russian, and get out of the city : )

I'm not going to end on a low note---Red Square and the Kremlin (at least the bits we saw) were absolutely beautiful. The crazy colored St. Basil's Cathedral was a huge highlight. We were exploring inside, climbing up some insanely tall stairs, when we entered a large chamber. The timing was perfect, a Russian quartet started signing a traditional Orthodox hymn. With the height of the room, the acoustics were amazing. Combine that with the talent of the group and I can't begin to describe the beauty of the song.

Also learned on this trip that Terri's talent to annoy local law enforcement extends beyond the borders of the USA. We were heading down into Lenin's tomb. To see Lenin. A guy who has been laying embalmed under glass since 1924 against his wishes (he wanted to be buried with his Mama at St. Petersburg). After security, bag check and a bit of a wait in line, we entered the tomb which was unbelievably dark. Black walls, black floors, black stairs, dim lights. As we descended we were all having a harder time seeing---I reach out for Terri's hand, so we could steady each other. Terri let out one small nervous laugh. And then that's when she was SHHHHH'd by one of the Military guards at the tomb. The shhhh worked, hell, I think we all stopped breathing until we left place, Oh and for those that want to know---Lenin looks OK for a dead guy that's been sitting under glass for over 80 years, all things considered.....creepy but OK.
If you want to check out any more pictures from Russia. Check out the album on my picasa page by clicking here.

Back in Ulaanbatar--time for some writing!

Its (Wednesday?) morning and I find myself at a computer after 4 days of being in the Gobi Desert. It's quiet in the in our friends' apartment, but I can hear the ever present sound of honking horns in the city outside. The emergency ban was lifted from the city while we were in the desert, and Ulaanbatar (UB) is back to its normal bustling, honking, if you can't find a lane make one, self.

Since we've have a tone of adventures, I'm going to spread the information out, with some pictures, over a few posts. Hope you all enjoy!.

Arrived in Mongolia

Terri, Jeri and I will post a bit more information about the rest of our whirlwind Moscow Adventure, but before doing that, I wanted to let you know that we have safely arrived in Mongolia. For anyone that might have caught CNN or BBC in the past few days though, you may have heard of some trouble here as a result of the recent elections.
Eariler this week, elections took place and the results weren't well received by all. Protesters, fueled by alcohol and a bit of a mob mentality, looted and burned a few buildings. As a result, the capitol is currently under a state of emergency. There are no liquor sales and a strict curfew is in effect from 10 pm to 8 am in the morning. Police and armed forces are patrolling the areas to ensure the peace is kept.

As far as we can tell, things have now calmed down. Our friend Becky, who works pretty closely with politicians as part of her job, thinks that once the state of emergency is lifted in the next few days that things will be pretty much back to normal. Even better, Terri, Jeri and I are headed to the Gobi tomorrow....where we will be out in the in the country and away from any potential problems as the ban is lifted. As of now, we feel perfectly safe hanging out with friends Becky and Kathy, where I am sipping coffee while typing this to you at an Internet cafe.

That's it for now---I'll back track in a bit and get a pic or two up of Moscow....as well as a brief update of our synopsis our adventure. Just wanted to get a this news out first.

In Moscow

Hi All,

Wanted to dash a quick note and let everyone know that we arrived safely in Moscow this morning. Spent the day looking around town and checking out Red Square....Bad planning on our part though, as we just found out the Kremlin is closed on Thursdays. So, we will exchange seeing faberege eggs for embalmed dictators instead. Heading to Lenin's tomb and then off to a convent where Peter the Great stashed his unruly female relatives if time permits. Then its off to Mongolia. Can't post any pics now since I'm on the hotel computer and EVERYTHING in Moscow comes with a price (Having to pay to use a portable toilet, really?) Will check in again soon!