Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

Aloha! This is the view from the porch of the cottage we rented on Kauai this week (if you look closely, you can see a little of the ocean in the background):

We stayed up above Kapa’a town on the east side of the island.

– Meredith

A quick note to say greetings from the island of Kauai where we have been since Monday. The flights from Mongolia to here were uneventful and we’ve enjoyed the last 6 days here using the town of Kapa’a as our home base to explore. We’ll describe what we did here in a separate post. Tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon, we fly to the Big Island for 6 more nights.

One post we typically do once we’ve left a destination is a list of unexpected things. We struggled a bit to come up with this list for Mongolia because we knew so little about what to expect that, in a sense, we were ready for almost anything. That said, there were a few surprises:

• 3 locals mentioned the Celtics when we said we were from Boston. Apparently basketball is a popular sport here. They even knew that the Celtics had a great year this year. “World Champions!” said a Mechanical Engineering student going to school in UlaanBaatar.
• I thought for sure that one or both of us would get sick from the food we ate in locals’ gers, especially since most was served in a communal bowl and passed around. But there were no problems.
• The Gobi Desert is more semi-desert than what many think of. Yes, there are giant sand dunes and arid places but most of it (at least what we saw) was covered in a very low scrub that from a distance looked more green than brown.
• We thought we would see more wildlife in general on the trip, but especially in the Gobi. In the end, we saw two ibex in the distance but only as two dots on a hillside. Bummer.

Finally, a quick technical note/aside: I’ve always thought I was encoding Windows (WMV) video incorrectly when I post a video because, when it downloads, it doesn’t stream, i.e. you have to download the whole thing before it starts to play. The QuickTime videos always streamed properly. Then the other night on a whim I tried downloading the WMV video in Internet Explorer and it streamed just fine. A little Googling around and it turns out that the issue is that the Firefox browser doesn’t stream WMV out of the box. Microsoft makes a plug-in for Firefox to correct this that I’ve tested just fine. If you use Firefox on Windows and want to stream WMV’s (not just mine), you may want to install this: http://port25.technet.com/pages/windows-media-player-firefox-plugin-download.aspx (this is a Microsoft site).

– 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

There are 3 airlines operating in Mongolia today – MIAT, the state-owned airline, and relative newcomers Aero Mongolia and EZnis Airways.  We flew on all three during our time in Mongolia.

While on the flights, I took a look at the in-flight magazines.  Here are some things I bet you did not know (listed in the order in which I read them):

1.  Aero Mongolia owns 60% market share of the domestic flights in Mongolia.

That made me feel good about the plane I was on.  At the time, I only knew of Aero Mongolia and MIAT, so I figured MIAT must own the rest of the market.  However, when we flew to the Gobi, we took EZnis Airways, and their magazine said:

2.  EZnis Airways owns 70% market share of the domestic flights in Mongolia.

Hmmm.  That made me wonder.  Those two numbers add up to 130% market share.  I guessed that the statistics were from two different years, but that still left a question about what kind of market share MIAT owned.  I doubted that MIAT would report that they owned negative 30% of the domestic market.  For those of you who are more visual thinkers, here is a bar chart:

Then I thought, “Maybe MIAT only does international flights to and from Mongolia.”  That would help explain things.  So, when I read MIAT’s airline magazine, I expected to see information only on international flights (we flew them out of Mongolia to Seoul), but to my surprise, the MIAT magazine said:

3.  “In 2007, MIAT had 398 domestic flights providing service to 26,251 passengers.”

They didn’t include a percentage, but if this statistic is true, their market share could not be a negative number!  It would in fact be positive. I tried to revise the chart with these numbers but I couldn’t make the math work.

The only thing I can assume is that someone accidentally printed an error in their in-flight magazine, because why would any marketing person use statistics that are misleading?*

– Meredith

* This is a joke, but is not meant to offend marketing people.  I am, when I’m working, technically a marketer, and I have many friends that are marketing people.  So it’s okay that I make fun of them.  😉

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

After a couple of nights in Ulaan Baatar, we went to the Gobi Desert for a few days. Here are some highlights.

Our flight to the Gobi had been scheduled for 6:15am but we received notice the night before that it had been moved to 4:15. As if 6:15 wasn’t early enough. This meant we would be picked up at the hotel at 2:15am. Ugh. We arrived in the Gobi about 6am and on the way from the airport to our ger camp, we stopped at Yolyn Am canyon (named after the bearded vultures that are prevalent here).  We did a 2K hike into canyon.  The canyon is well known for having ice in its shaded/narrow parts even in summer. We weren’t disappointed:

We also saw two ibex from a distance, and lots of pika and ground squirrels.  After leaving the canyon, we drove about an hour to the Three Camel Lodge and chilled out.  Given our early morning start, it felt great to do nothing for a while. The lodge is really nice, with great staff and great food. Our ger was very comfortable and even had its own half bathroom. Here is a picture of the camp:

We were supposed to see a performance of traditional music that night at the lodge but when the musicians arrived, one of the musical instruments was broken so they apologized profusely and canceled the show.  We didn’t get a chance to see the performance on another evening because the activities we chose required us to be away from the lodge at that time.

The next day, we both got massages in the morning and then after lunch, we took a 4-hour drive to the Khongoryn Els sand dunes. It was a long and bumpy ride. We got a flat tire along the way but our driver (named Mongol Boy – seriously) changed it in no time:

We hiked a little ways up the sand dunes until it started to rain and get really windy. It was so windy that the sand stung when it blew against our skin. Our guide Badmaa said she had never seen it rain at the dunes before.  Dave got some nice shots and the rain made interesting patterns on the dunes as well as colors in the sky at sunset:

We got home at 12:30 am. Because the roundtrip was 8 hours, we heard the entire contents of Mongol Boy’s MP3 player about 4 times.  We started to learn some songs by a famous Mongolian singer named Javkhlan:

Here is a video on YouTube for one of the songs we learned.  It shows some aspects of Mongolian life that we saw when we were there.  His music sounds like a cross between traditional Mongolian music and pop ballads.  His voice is great – very deep and rich. It’s hard to believe he’s only in his 20s.

The next day was our last full day. We relaxed in the morning and then after lunch we drove to Bayanzag (The Flaming Cliffs).  We spent the afternoon with a herding family with seven children: 5 girls and 2 twin boys whom we quickly named Trouble #1 and Trouble #2. After eating camel yogurt, dried goat and noodle soup, and camel curd, we then went outside to watch the mother milk the camels. Thank goodness we saw this after we had eaten the camel products. 🙂 She was a real trooper. While handling 7 children and the chores, she was suffering from a broken rib but still had a beautiful smile on her face and was a gracious hostess. Here is a picture of us with the mom and dad:

Here is a picture of Trouble #2 and his pet:

After leaving the family’s ger, we spent sunset at the Flaming Cliffs, named because they turn an intense red at the end of the day. This day was July 4th and we were told that seeing the cliffs would be a good substitute for fireworks. It wasn’t. But it was nice:

On the way home, we listened to more of Mongol Boy’s music. Besides Javkhlan, he had some Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, Fergie, Michael Jackson, Elton John, and Alicia Keys on his MP3 player. Quite the interesting mix. It was fun when he started singing along with the Spice Girls song (Viva Forever).

The next morning, we had an early start to fly back to Ulaan Baatar.

– Dave & Meredith

We’re in the Gobi Desert at the Three Camel Lodge. Here is the view from our Ger:

– 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