Dave & Meredith’s Travel Blog

We went to see a cultural performance by the National Song and Dance Ensemble in UB. It was outstanding. We saw traditional performances from different parts of the country, including throat singing, folk dances and contortionism. Here are some pics:

Dancers in costumes of religious and folk figures

A Khoomii throat singer

Folk dancing

Part of the music ensemble playing traditional Mongolian instruments

Three contortionists in an impressive pyramid

- Meredith

As I mentioned earlier, we took a nice tour of Ulaan Baatar today.  It’s the capital of Mongolia, and the country’s largest city, with a population of just over 1 million people (for some perspective, that’s larger than the population of the city of Boston proper, and about 1/4 the size of the entire Boston metro area).  During the tour, we visited the Gandan Monastery (the city’s principal Buddhist monastery), the Bogd Khan Palace (the summer and winter palaces of the political/religious leader of Mongolia who ruled in the early 20th century), the National Museum of Mongolian History, and the Zaisan Memorial (a hilltop memorial to the political alliance between Mongolia and the Soviet Union, from which we had great city views).

Dave got some great pics, of course:

View of UB from the Zaisan Memorial

The outside of a temple at the Gandan Monastery

Buddhist monks at the Gandan Monastery

The giant statue of Avalokiteshvara-Janraiseg inside a temple at Gandan Monastery

The Bogd Khan’s Summer Palace entrance

More of the Bogd Khan’s Summer Palace

The Zaisan Memorial

- Meredith

This is the view from our window in our hotel in Ulaan Baatar when we first arrived in Mongolia:

FYI, this is dated to June 16, which is when we were in Ulaan Bataar (UB) the first time. It’s now really July 1, and we’re in UB again for a day and are going to post as much as we can about our trip to date - all posts will be back dated to the time we are writing about. Hope this doesn’t get too confusing.

- Meredith

We’re in Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia. We did a tour of the city today, but we won’t be able to upload pics for a while.

Ulaan Baatar is a very interesting mix of old and new. They became independent from the Soviet Union in 1990, so there is a lot of development going on now. There are still a few Bhuddist monasteries and temples that weren’t destroyed by the Soviets, and they are beautiful. You’ll love the pics when we post them. We also saw a Mongolian cultural performance with dancing, music and contortionists - a great welcome to the country for us!

Okay. So, it’s very likely that you won’t hear from us for about two and a half weeks. There might be an internet cafe in the town we’re visiting tomorrow (Ulgii), but we’re not counting on it. Then after that, we’re off to the national park, and there’s not anything there except us, some camels, and some nomads. Sweet.

I’m sure we’ll have a lot to post when we get back to Ulaan Baatar - stay tuned.

- Meredith