Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

Here is a picture of the view from our window (door, really) at the Eagle Ger Camp in Ulgii in Western Mongolia:

We stayed in Gers (the round white structure on the left side of the picture). These are the homes for many Mongolian people, who are traditionally (and many are still) nomadic. The Gers are quite large and can be constructed and deconstructed quickly (by a professional; certainly not by us).

– Meredith

Sometimes things don’t go according to plan in Mongolia. Our trekking guides, Eddie and Amy, call this the Genghis factor (as in Genghis Khan).

Today, our flight to Western Mongolia was supposed to leave UB at 10:45 am. But at 1:00 am, the flight schedule changed to 6:40 am because of forecasted weather at our destination. Our tour leader wasn’t notified by the airline until 6:20 am. We made a mad dash for the airport, while our local guides tried to pull strings with connections at Aero Mongolia to try to hold the plane. Within one hour of being told to hustle, we made it from our hotel to the airport, checked in 15 people with outdoor gear and most of the food for the trip (with a paper ticket system!), got through security, and onto the plane which was being held on the tarmac for us for an hour and 10 minutes.

The people at the airport were so efficient. This never could have happened in the US. Of course, I’m not so sure a flight would be rescheduled to 4 hours earlier in the US either.

The kicker? Perfect weather with blue skies and no wind at our destination in Western Mongolia. 🙂

– Meredith

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

After Venice and northern Italy, we traveled with our friend Petra to Munich and stayed a few days there before flying home. It was a great place to mellow out and wind the trip down. We did get out and see a few things though. We drove down to Castle Linderhof one day. The castle was the favorite castle of Ludwig II. It’s as well known for its grounds as it is for the buildings.

Above: Castle Linderhof with the fountain and pool in front.

Ludwig was a little bit crazy (or maybe just lonely) and he built a man-made cave under the top of the hill behind the castle. It was heated, had a heated lake, and had a small boat where his servants would row him around. The grotto is set up like a theater and Ludwig liked to have shows performed for him. There are no seats except a box seat for him.

Above: the boat on the grotto’s lake. It looks like an amusement park but seems sad once you know the full story.

A shot of the countryside near the castle.

Ludwig also started construction of the famous Neuschwanstein castle during his life but never saw it to completion. We were running late so we only had time for a drive-by instead of going up to the castle. Also, there are supposedly almost 200 steps leading up to it and that was a no-go for us at the time.

Above: the fairy-tale castle Neuschwanstein.

The drive we took from Castle Linderhof back up to Munich was incredibly beautiful.

Above: some scenery from that drive.

That night was our last so when we got back to Munich, Petra took us out to dinner at a restaurant on a lake with excellent food.

Above: Meredith with Petra after dinner.

And that’s it for Munich, folks!

– Dave

With apologies to Bon Jovi.

This is how Meredith rolls. Or at least how she rolled in Venice.

(Yeah, it’s old news but I couldn’t resist 🙂 .)

– Dave

We’re leaving for the airport in an hour to fly to Mongolia so I have just a little time to polish up some blog posts that have been sitting around in half-baked form and publish them before they become old news. 🙂

One of the things I always like to do after visiting a new destination is to compare it with my preconceived notions. (For example, one of the things that struck me when I went to East Africa was the prevalence of Coca-Cola, even in the most remote village.) So, in no particular order, here are a few items of that nature from Italy:

– The preserved colors in Pompeii and Herculaneum. I knew to expect complete cities with buildings, cooking pots, and mosaics but I had imagined it would all be gray like most ruins. There was plenty of that but the surprise was that the frescoes and mosaics still had rich and vibrant colors.

Above: a richly colored mosaic in Herculaneum

– The omnipresence of gelato. You saw gelato vendors more frequently than you see Dunkin’ Donuts in New England. There was a gelateria on every block and the restaurants on each block sold gelato too. People everywhere walked around with cones of it. So why was everyone there so thin? We saw tens of thousands of people there and I think only about 4 fat guys. And they weren’t the ones eating gelato. Hmmm, I may have gained back the weight I lost in South America…

– The exchange rate. We knew the dollar was terrible but it was truly painful. We saw a $35 hamburger one day (admittedly that was at a gourmet restaurant). If we got away with a lunch of pizza and drinks for less than $20, we were happy. Luckily the villas we stayed at have kitchens and we saved money by buying groceries.

– Before the trip, Meredith (the Art History minor) kept warning me that she was going to inundate me with churches and museums. Then one afternoon in Florence she said she was “art’ed out” and I wasn’t yet. A dubious victory, but a victory nonetheless.

– Breaking my little finger in Pompeii. The streets there are uneven rocks, they’re covered in dust, I wasn’t looking where I was going, and after I started falling, my instincts made me hold the camera in my right hand up in the air so I landed with all my weight on my left little finger instead of both hands. It felt like slow motion, watching it bend back and unable to stop. Of course, people were all around me including a group of school kids. I got right back up, dusted off, and walked away as if I meant to do that. When we were 20 yards away we took a look. It seemed ok but it hurt a lot. By the next day, it was swollen and red, black, and blue. The colors are gone now but it’s still a little swollen and hurts when it rains. We tried taking a picture of it but it didn’t do it justice. Yes, between this and Meredith’s accident, Italy is truly a dangerous place to have a vacation.

– We went to an Internet cafe to have them print a museum voucher for us. I gave them my USB key with the PDF on it. The girl at the desk put it in her machine, pointed to another file on the key and said it was a virus. That was pretty surprising since I’m pretty diligent about that stuff. I did some poking around my machine that night to see what was going on. It turns out the virus was copied onto my key 5 minutes after we entered the Internet cafe – about the time she put the key into her computer. Uh, yeah…if they discovered the virus on their machine later that day, I’ll bet they thought I gave it to them instead of the other way around.

– A few times we saw people popping other people’s zits right in public. A girl went to work on her boyfriend’s face right at a crowded bus stop where we were. Another time a girl was “helping” her friend in public view. Sorry, no picture…

– One of the more interesting day-to-day aspects was watching the mix of old and new. We expected this of course but some times it struck you in odd ways. There were Internet cafes with WiFi next to a 1500 year old church. And sometimes, instead of seeing everyday, modern people living around such amazing history, you saw it the other way around:

Above: Monks at an ATM in Rome

– The house wine was always at least good and was always cheaper than soda. There was that 8 Euro ($13) Diet Coke that one day…

– Dave

After talking to my doctor as well as an orthopedic doctor here in Boston (who very responsibly informed me of the potential risk of traveling before my ankle is fully healed, and who also gave me lots of good advice to help keep the healing process going while I continue to travel), I’ve decided to go to Mongolia.  We’ll be there for about three weeks, mostly on a horse trek in a National Park in western Mongolia.  Since we’re flying through Asia, we’re going to go to Hawaii for 2 weeks on the way home, which should be a nice contrast to roughing it for the prior weeks.

We’re leaving on Saturday morning.  I wish we had a few more days in Boston between trips to catch up with people.  Of course I am enjoying my travels, but I really miss my friends.

I’ve updated the itinerary pages so anyone who’s interested can see an overview of where we’re going.

– Meredith