Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

We spent the first two days of our time in the park getting used to our horses and meeting the local Kazakhs who would be our horse and camel wranglers. They all lived in the area – one family’s group of gers was a short distance behind our site at the bottom of the mountain:

A group of gers from a local Kazakh family

Per local custom, we were invited inside and given food such as tea, cheese, yoghurt, etc.

The head wrangler named Karbai sang a song for us while playing the dombura.

Afterwards, we went outside where they put new shoes on two of the horses we would use.

Karbai hammers a shoe into shape while the other wranglers tend to the horse. Not easy to see here but the wrangler in the center of the picture is wearing a Hawaiian aloha shirt with surfboards and 1940’s cars on it. Very stylish.

Putting the shoe on the horse. These guys work pretty hard.

The next day, like last year, many of the locals – easily over 100 – came out and staged a Kazakh version of naadam for us. There were horse races, tug-of-war (usually with a goat carcass but they used a pair of jeans for us), and a game where they have to pick something up off the ground while staying on a moving horse. One of our guys named Sarkut won that one.

Two Kazakhs in the horse race next to the lake.

The next day, we hit the trail on our horses to head to the next camp site. More to come…

– 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

I’m heading back to Mongolia tomorrow (Monday) morning and I’ll be gone until the end of the month. The itinerary is almost the same: last year we added an extension to go to the Gobi Desert. This year, after the horse trek out west, I will head north to Lake Khövsgöl which is visited more often by tourists and has a very different landscape – trees, mountains, and of course, the lake itself. If all goes well,  I will have a more complete photo portfolio from Mongolia to show for it. I’m pretty excited about the trip but a little anxious too since it’s an investment in what could be a career change so I hope things go well.

I will blog and post pictures when I can. I’ll have Internet access while I’m in the capital city of Ulaan Baatar which is a sprinkling of days here and there. I’ve added a new itinerary page with a summary here.

– Dave

‘Nuff said.

I’m sure some of you are surprised to read the title of this post.  Perhaps you remember my story from 2002 when Dave and I took a “Discover Scuba” class when we were in Australia.  I’ll spare everyone the details, but suffice it to say, Dave loved it so much that he got his diving certification the next year.  Me, not so much.  I seem to remember a bunch of sobbing and swearing that diving wasn’t for me.

I’ve never felt like I’m missing out when Dave goes diving.  I’ve either tagged along and snorkeled, or chilled out at the beach.

Fast forward to today.  The place we stayed on St. Thomas had a dive shop that offered a free “Discover Scuba” course.  I’m not sure why I decided to take the class, but I did.  Maybe because it was free.  Or maybe because it was in a swimming pool instead of the ocean like the time in Australia.  Or maybe because I was a little tired of hearing Dave say things like, “I really think you’d be fine with diving if you tried again and learned in a pool.”  Or maybe because I wanted to push myself.  Probably a combination of all of these things.  Anyway, Dave was off doing the morning dive out on the ocean, so I took the opportunity to take the class.   

I had a mild freak out at the beginning of the pool session, but my instructor, Jessica, was amazing (there was another instructor that worked with the other people taking the class, who were decidedly not freaking out).  Jessica basically gave me a private Scuba lesson.  After what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was probably 5 minutes, I finally got comfortable sitting on the bottom of the pool just breathing through the regulator (Jessica was sitting right across from me, very patiently waiting until her zen-like calm permeated through the water and reached me).  And after that, I practiced skills that I thought I would find difficult, like clearing my mask, equalizing my ears, and taking the regulator out and putting it back in under water.  They were actually pretty easy.  Then I put on my fins and went down to the deep end and swam around under water.

That afternoon, the dive boat went out to a spot that was good for divers and snorkelers.  I originally thought I would snorkel, but I decided to try diving.  The other people who took the morning class went too, so they had extra instructors there.  My new best friend Jessica stuck with me, and Dave documented the event that I’m sure he thought he’d never witness by following us around with his camera.  At first, it took a while for me to get down to the bottom because I didn’t have enough weights in my weight belt (I’m sure I looked hilarious – my legs kept floating upward no matter how much I tried to move downward).  But then Jessica put some more weights on my belt and I was in business.  Then, we started swimming around at depths between 15 and 40 feet.  I found it a little challenging, but overall, I was pleasantly surprised I was actually diving!  Here’s proof:

Taking the plunge.

It might be difficult to see in this picture but Jessica is holding my hand.

Comfortable enough for Jessica to swim a short distance away from me.

We did two dives that afternoon – the second one was a lot easier.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get certified, because it seems like a lot of hassle (there’s a lot to remember, there’s a lot of equipment, and I’m sure I won’t have someone as patient/attentive as Jessica next time).  But I’d like to try it again sometime.  It was very cool.

Here’s a picture neither of us ever thought would happen.

– Meredith

I spent all of Saturday diving – 2 dives in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. It was a clear day which meant lots of sunlight down below for better pictures. In the morning, we dove near Little St. James and a rock called “Cow” which apparently is well known (shows how hard-core a diver I am). In the afternoon, we did two dives including a wreck drive near Buck Island. Here are a few underwater highlights:

Checking out a small wreck.

For someone this is the one that got away. Who knows how long he’s been hauling that sinker around.

A live conch in its shell. In a bigger version of this, you can see an eyeball peeking out.

A big school of Southern Sennet.

The least skittish turtle I’ve seen. He swam up to us to check us out. Probably about 2 feet from my mask.

Our group  swims around the Cow.

A well hidden spiny lobster. Almost didn’t see him.

Squid. Mmm…calamari….

A squirrel fish.

And finally, yours truly.

– Dave

Today we took a day trip to St. John on a catamaran. It was beautiful.

We dropped anchor in a small cove and snorkeled and ate lunch.

In a few hours we turned around and sailed back to the hotel. 

– Dave

We arrived on St. Thomas on Wednesday afternoon to beautiful 80 degree weather.  Since we are only here for a few days, we wanted to maximize activity time but not feel too rushed.

On Wednesday night, the beach bar near our hotel was hosting a carnival night.  The food was a West Indian buffet, and we enjoyed the entertainment – a steel drum band made up of local school children, a stilt walker and some music.  We downshifted quickly to “island time” while waiting about an hour for our table.  Don’t feel bad for us – we were drinking piña coladas.

A Moko Jumbie (stilt walker) dances with children at the beach bar

On Thursday, we rented a car and drove around the island.  Everyone says St. Thomas is really crowded.  We didn’t think it was that bad – maybe it was because our expectations were set in advance, or maybe it was because there were only 2 cruise ships docked on the island that day.  We got acclimated to driving on the left side of the road, and off we went on a tour of the island, complete with wrong turns and a little bit of getting lost.  During the day, we went to Magen’s Bay beach, which really is a beautiful beach:

View of Magen’s Bay from the hills above

We also stopped for lunch at a place in Red Hook on the eastern end of the island.  Lunch was good, but my favorite part was the iguanas that hung out near the restaurant:

This guy was huge! Including the tail, he was probably 4 feet long.

Driving around the island was a beautiful and relaxing way to spend the day, and a good way for us to get oriented.

– Meredith