Mongolia, July 2024

  Wednesday-Thursday, July 24-25 Return to Ulaanbaatar, a Concert, and the Flight Home It was a full day’s drive from southern Mongolia back to Ulaanbaatar, but we arrived at pavement early in the day and drove on a nice two-lane road back to the city.  After checking in to our hotel we went to a “cultural show” put on for the tourists.  It was mostly forgettable, as these things tend to be, with the exception of the music.  They had an incredible throat singer who performed both solo and with an orchestra of Mongolian instruments.  Recognizable as having Western counterparts were a flute and two cimbaloms, and there were similarities to other instruments familiar to us.  We then went to a restaurant in an upscale mall, where the selection of dishes included some which you won’t see on American menus:  The next morning we went early to the airport for the Turkish Airlines flight from Ulaanbaatar to Istanbul (9 ½ hours), connecting to a flight fro...

 July 22-23, 2024 Altay Mountains As we are leaving the desert and going into the Altay Mountains, I took a screenshot of the problems Google Maps was having on my phone.  Before coming I had downloaded the map of all of Mongolia, so the app knew where we were.  The problem was, there are no roads on the map, and we’re not following any real roads either.    We passed into the beginnings of grasslands again, and came across a well which had been dug on the border of the desert.   Buckets of water are pulled out of the well using a rope, and poured into a trough.   A man with a herd of horses was watering them as we arrived:  We arrived at Yolyn Am, the “Valley of the Eagles” and stopped for a hike:  It was quite beautiful.   There were enormous spiders (palm-sized):  And enormous butterflies:  The views were stunning:  We stayed that night at the Khanbogd Tourist Camp, and broke out the Chinggis Vodka we had bought...

 Sunday, July 21 The Gobi Desert At breakfast this morning, there was a large pot of soup with a label in English:  Despite being in soup, the meat was dry, almost crumbly, and devoid of any flavor.  We set out to go to a Soum Center where we could buy gasoline, and arrived:  We discovered that there was no electricity, and therefore, no way to pump gasoline.  We wandered the tiny village, and waited, and after a few hours a generator was hooked up to the gas station, and we were able to fuel up.  We went on, and stopped at a tourist restaurant at another Soum Center for lunch, which was goat barbeque. The flat food above the goat in the photo was a sort of slimy bread-like thing.  We were behind schedule, and continued our journey to the sand dunes of Khongoryn Els, known as the “Singing Sands.”  On the way we passed some ibex:  We eventually arrived at the Gobi Anar Ger Lodge:  As usual, the toilets and showers were in a separate...

 July 19-20, 2024 Ongiin Khiid and the Gobi Desert   We began a long couple of travel days as we headed for the Gobi Desert in southern Mongolia.  Along the way we came across another UNESCO World Heritage site, a series of Bronze Age tombs:  We came to the Uurtiin Tokhoi Cliffs over the Orkhon River, a site at which, so we were told, 10,000 Buddhist monks were murdered by the Soviets.   I’ve not been able to find confirmation of this legend.  A word about government services to nomadic peoples.   The Mongolian government has funded 333 “Soum Centers” which are tiny villages scattered around the vast country.   Each has a small market and a residential school, and the children of the nomads go to school during the week at the center, returning to their nomadic families for weekends and summers.   We stopped at some when they were on our route; most had electricity and some had Wi-Fi (as slow as the old dial-up we used to have—a picture ca...

Thursday, July 18 Orkhon Valley   We spent some of the day with a nomadic family, primarily with the woman of the family,  She has a remarkable range of skills!  She farms yaks, sheep and goats, and we visited her as she was beginning her day milking her yaks:   We then went to a lovely canyon for a hike, and Leah climbed some rocks again:  Back to our ger village to make our lunch, meat filled dumplings.   Some of us were better than others at the task: Before returning to the nomad family’s ger, we watched as our dinner was prepared.   Mongolian barbecue, but authentic.   A large fire had small rounded stones put into it, and the fresh goat was cut into pieces and seared in the bottom of a large pan on a stove just like the ones in our gers: The very hot rocks were then added along with a few carrots and potatoes:  When all the meat and rocks were in the pot, the pot was sealed on the stove:  While it was cooking, we went bac...