Dave & Meredith’s Travel Blog

I had two days in Ulaan Baatar before flying back the States. I mixed it with some souvenir/gift shopping and some sightseeing.

A Mongolian band playing on the side of one of the bigger cashmere stores in Ulaan Baatar. They were pretty good and the guy was really good at different kinds of throat-singing.

I went to the black market which is huge and has everything you can imagine: clothes, saddles, electronics, furniture, etc.

A shoe vendor at the black market.

My guide from the lake took me to a new entertainment complex that Mongolia is building a few miles outside of UB. He said it had a status of Genghis Khan and kept smiling as if it were some joke on me. It was definitely a surprise when I got there. It’s over 40 meters high not including the building that is its pedestal. It’s (currently) the world’s largest status of a horse with a rider.

The view of the statue as we walked towards it.

The statue from below.

Here I am on a viewing platform on the horse’s head. You can take an elevator inside the statue and then stairs to get outside.

And in the completely random and unexpected category, here is a door we saw while walking around UB: its the main office of the Mongolian National Beatbox Association.

And that’s the whole trip. Late that night, I flew out of UB and after 30 hours of travel, I was back in Boston. I loved the trip and am sure I’ll go back again but it felt great to come home.

- Dave

Now that I’ve been home a week and I’m getting back into some routine, I have some time to write a few posts about the trip. After about 30 hours of flying, I finally got into Ulaan Baatar and a solid night’s sleep in the hotel. We spent the next day or two there exploring the town, running some errands, etc. Like last year, we went to a show one night with lots of singing, dancing, music, etc. There were contortionists again as well:

Impressive. Ouch!

After we were done in Ulaan Baatar, we flew another flight 3 hours west to Ulgii, the westernmost airport in Mongolia and the capital of that region. We stayed again at the Eagle Ger Camp along the river:

The river that runs next to the Eagle Ger Camp.

Our gers. Mine and my…ger-mates…is in front.

We were in Mongolia during naadam which is the time of the annual Mongolian games. Although the games in Ulaan Baatar are best known, they are heavily commercialized and it is tough for spectators to get close and really experience them so we went to local naadams instead. The naadam is made of “the three manly games”: wrestling, archery, and horse racing. In Ulgii, we only had time before we left to watch the archery portion of the games although we did see more later.

Focused before shooting. The goal is accuracy, not distance.

Before leaving Ulgii, we had time to visit a man who owned and trained 3 golden eagles used for hunting. We spent some time there interacting with the eagles and most people got a chance to hold them on their arm. I of course was too busy taking pictures to remember to get IN one. Oh well…next time.

Looking one of his eagles in the eye.

After leaving Ulgii, we drove about 6 hours over really bumpy roads to get to the park. Along the way, we stopped for lunch in a town called Tsengel and watched the wrestling part of their naadam:

The two wrestlers size each other up.

Then they lock in a grip. They stay like this for a while and it looks like nothing is happening but you can see the leg muscles are flexing.

One of them is thrown off balance…

…and goes down. All it takes is touching an arm or leg to the ground to lose.

At the end of the day, we arrived in Altai Tavan Bogd National Park at the lower end of the lake called Khoton Nur (nur = lake in Mongolian). It’s a beautiful location and it was even nicer to see our tents already set up for us since some of our guides had arrived a day or two earlier:

Our camp site at Lower Khoton Nur.

We spent a few days here, meeting our local horse and camel wranglers, getting used to our horses, etc.

More to come…

- Dave

I’m very disappointed that the elevator warning sign that I posted about last year has been replaced in the meantime by one that is properly translated. While the sign outside that says “Do Not Recline For Dangerous Fall Down” is still there, the big one inside described in this post is now completely rewritten in correct English. That said, there is still plenty of fodder around. One of my favorites was before I even arrived. On the flight to UB from Korea, I saw in the airline magazine for MIAT (the state airline here), there is a interview with a Mongolian investment banker who claims that “Mongolians have a very rich endowment.” Hmm.

The other day, several of us went to the black market here in UB and my mission quickly became finding items (shirts, hats, luggage, whatever) that had botched translations on them. One of my favorites was a shirt with Snoopy and Woodstock on it. It had Snoopy saying “What am I?” followed by him reaching the conclusion, “I am a doog” [sic].

And although not incorrect, a funny ad I saw for a hotel had the tag line, “The Best Value. Superb Services. There you go.”

So there you go.

- Dave

I’ve been back in Ulaan Baatar for a couple of days and it’s been great to get full nights’ sleep in a bed followed by long, hot showers. After some shopping and dining out with new friends, it’s now time for a quick side trip up to Lake Khovsgol and I leave for the airport in 6 hours. As usual for Mongolian airlines, schedules have changed and the flight I was supposed to be on returning on Wednesday was canceled so I’m returning to UB on a Tuesday flight. Since this cuts things short and leaves me with an extra day, I’m spending that day/night at a camp in Terelj National Park which is about 80km northeast of UB. This may be a blessing in disguise since it gives me more exposure to different regions and types of landscapes within UB. Once back from Terelj, I’ll have a day here in UB to run a few errands and then get ready for the long journey home. I won’t have Internet access while away. I hope to post more on the blog when I’m back about events from the trip and also some new photo galleries. Ciao…

- Dave

It’s taken longer than I would have liked but I have just uploaded picture galleries from our trip to Mongolia. You can click here to see pictures from Ulaan Baatar, here to see pictures from western Mongolia (Ulgii and Tavan Bogd), and here for pictures from the Gobi Desert. As usual, the Photo Galleries page has also been updated with these links.

The pictures posted are a larger size than previous galleries which I think looks much better but download times may be longer. Please let me know if there are any issues.

I’m now working on some of the panoramas that I took on the trip and will post again when they’re ready. As always, feedback is welcome. Enjoy!

- Dave

The day we returned from our trek to Ulgii was election day in Mongolia. The next day, when we were back in Ulaan Baatar, we saw news on the TV in the lobby. There was coverage of a violent protest going on with people throwing rocks at buildings and reporters excitedly talking into a moving camera. It had all the signs of live TV. The Mongolians working for the hotel were all watching the TV intensely. We found out from them that this protest was in Ulaan Baatar in front of the Communist party headquarters which is just a few blocks away from the hotel. The protesters were from the party that lost and they felt that the Communist party (the incumbent party) had tampered with the elections. We felt safe (and were safe) even though it was so close to us but it was interesting to learn more details in the next few days.

Mongolia is a young democracy (starting in 1990 when the USSR dismantled – no, Mongolia was not part of the USSR but it was heavily dependent on it) and all the Mongolians we spoke with were very concerned that this happened. They said this has not happened in Mongolia before. While we only saw rocks thrown on TV, it turns out that the Communist party headquarters was burned. Five people died, more than 300 were injured, and about 700 people were arrested.

Above, the burned Communist party headquarters in Ulaan Baatar

Especially interesting were the measures the government took to try to calm the situation down. For one, we got a different story depending on what TV channel you watched. During the event, the state-run channel showed what seemed to be a smaller protest with some people simply throwing rocks at a building. Other private channels, though, showed the building being burned as well as police hitting protesters. The following day, private TV channels were off the air, a state of emergency was declared, and sales of alcohol were banned. Also, major roads to the center of the city were blocked off.

We went to the Gobi for a few days and by the time we returned, things had returned mostly to normal. Unfortunately, an innocent bystander in all this was AeroMongolia whose offices are in the same building as the Communist party. All of their paper records, manifests, passenger lists, etc. were lost in the fire and from what we learned, they were scrambling to piece their business back together as fast as they could. We found this out because the next horse trek with our guides was leaving in a couple of days and their flight west was booked on AeroMongolia so they were involved in the mad scramble to piece things together.

If you want to learn more from an official news source, here are four articles on BBC World News as events progressed:

Mongolia votes in key elections

Mongolia calls state of emergency

Fatal clashes in Mongolia capital

Streets calm in riot-hit Mongolia

And if you want to learn some background about Mongolia, the CIA World Factbook (a great place to learn basics about any country) has their Mongolia page here.

- Dave

Well, I’m happy to report that I managed to get through our trip to Mongolia without injuring myself.  Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing for Dave.

While we were in the Gobi, Dave started complaining that his finger hurt and seemed swollen.  At first, it looked a little like it does if you have pulled a hang nail when you shouldn’t have.  But by the next day, his whole finger was swollen, and the back of his hand was red.  By the time we got back to UB, the lower half of Dave’s forearm was swollen and red, and he seemed a little feverish to me.

Our guides from the Western Mongolia trek were still in UB and both have extensive emergency medical training.  We saw them when we returned and before we asked what they thought Dave should do, they said, “You have to go see a doctor.”

So, we called the SOS Medica Mongolia International Clinic, where they have an English speaking doctor, even on weekends, when we needed to go.  There was no ambulance this time, just a cab ride with a driver who overcharged us to go to the clinic.

When we arrived at the clinic, I sat in the waiting room while Dave saw the doctor (based on Dave’s description of what happened inside, I’m glad I waited outside).  Apparently, there was lots of iodine, a big lance making a sweeping movement between Dave’s fingernail bed and skin up to his knuckle, some oozing, etc.  When Dave came out to the waiting room, he looked like this:

Remember all those pictures Dave took of me and my ankle?  Well, turnabout is fair play.

The doctor gave Dave the sling to keep his hand elevated.  His finger is wrapped in gauze and he has to keep the bandage moist “to promote oozing”.  He’s also now on antibiotics for the next week.

The big question is, “What happened?”  Clearly this could not have been a hang nail gone awry.  We wondered if he got a bug bite of some sort, but couldn’t find bite marks anywhere.  I guess it will remain a mystery.  Dave simply calls it his “Gobi Finger”.  The good news is that he got on antibiotics before the infection moved further up his arm.

The patient leaves the SOS Medica Mongolia clinic, clearly in intense pain, but putting on a brave smile for the readers of this blog

- Meredith

We’re back from the Gobi.  Here is the view from our window at the Bayangol Hotel in Ulaan Baatar – it’s our last stay here before coming back to the US.

- Meredith

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the things I enjoy about traveling in countries where English is not the native language is the little nuggets of bad translations you find that end up being pretty funny. Most that you find are small and simply make you smile such as the homemade sign in our hotel’s lobby that says “The Post Office Works Here.” On the outside of the hotel elevator doors are the more amusing warnings:

- WARNING: DO NOT BY TOUCH HAND

- WARNING: DO NOT RECLINE FOR DANGEROUS FALL DOWN

Above, the warning stickers on the outside of the elevator doors

There is a sign, though, inside the hotel’s elevator that has become legendary among our trekking group. Apparently the Sigma Mongolia Company makes elevators and someone there was tasked with creating a sign of safety rules written in English. It seems like a classic case of some hapless person sitting down with a dictionary and doing a word for word translation. It also uses color and all-capitals to stress words or phrases that don’t make sense (at least to me). The picture of the sign is below but in case it’s hard to read, here is my transcription of it. All use of color, capitals, etc. is preserved:

SAFETY WARNING OF THE ELEVATOR TRANSPORTATION

- It is dangerous RECLINE and PUSH, to the elevator’s floor doors.

- You must to take CHILDREN in to the elevator cabin.

- You should carefull from getting door tuck your CLOTHES and OTHER THINGS.

- Before go to the elevator you should check ELEVATOR CABIN LEVEL to FLOOR LEVEL.

- If derive THE FIRE, you use BREAKAGE ON FOOT STAIRWAY

- Do not to do JUMP and OBSTRUCTIVE inside the elevator cabin

- Do not transportation TO OVERLOAD.

- Do not use BY THE IMPROPER PURPOSE.

- If the ELECTRIC TO GO OFF, the elevator has A BREAK you don’t act any movement, and press the button with FIGURE OF BELL and call up HELP.

At the bottom, apparently the company motto translates to “150 years were together, will together 150 years”. The tag-line in the lower right claims “The world best product, repair, service, assembling.” Some day they may add “translation” to that list but today is not that day.

Above, the warning sign inside the elevator

- Dave

Back in UB at the Bayangol Hotel. Here’s another picture from the window. Different room.

- Meredith