Ulaanbatar

After a good nights sleep and a nice breakfast , we struck out to explore the largest city in Mongolia on foot.  At slightly over a million people, this is not like tackling NYC or even Dallas.

Our first stop was to take care of gifts for loved ones back home. Spoiler alert: if you normally get a present from me between now and Christmas, I hope you like cashmere.  Much better than a key chain, the cashmere made from the Mongolian goats (it can also be made from yak and camel) is beautiful and soft and probably will be a favorite of our families.  

After a leisurely lunch of Italian which seems to be a universal food, we went to the State Department Store.  Think of a multistory Macy's and you'll have a pretty good picture of our shopping experience. School starts on September 1st so it was packed with back to school shoppers. The store had everything you might need from clothes to camping gear, books to groceries.

On our stroll back we went into the Zanabazar Museum which houses historical art mainly from the Buddhist period.  It was all very zen with bronze Buddhas and temple rubbings with a few weapons thrown in for good measure.

Crossing the Chenggis Khaan square, the main square of the city, we saw people enjoying their final days of summer.  Children rode power wheel cars while parents filmed them on their phones.  Others roller skated and skate boarded in the wide open space.  Some just sat holding hands as the sun set, not unlike a scene we might find at our local park.

Our second day in the city found a little rainier weather so  we visited the Temple Museum.  This former Buddhist Temple has been converted to a museum where you can wonder around the former temple to get an idea what it was like before the communist rule ended Buddhism in Mongolia.  You can tell that at one time it was quite a beautiful complex.  It still is quite interesting.

The rain brought the umbrellas out in Chinggas Khaan square.  Gone were the children from yesterday, replaced by business people hurrying to their jobs.

Tonight we met up with the rest of the group.  Everyone's a little tired from travel, but it seems like a group we'll enjoy.

Tomorrow: Out to the Gobi Desert

Land of the Nomad

Since catching the photography bug, life has taken me to some pretty interesting places (Morocco, Istanbul, Myanmar) but this one may take the cake.  Mongolia, tucked between China and Russia, has a population of 3 million people which makes it the one of the most sparsely populated, fully sovereign countries in the world.  The capital of Ulaanbatar has about 45% of the population of the whole country!

This is the land of the nomad living with harsh conditions in the winter and trying to make up for it in the summer.  Many live in gers which you might better know has  yurts.  These structures are easy to move as the sparse grass is grazed by their herds of horses, sheep, yak and goats.  I'm sure I'll have some great pictures later on to show exactly what I'm referring to.

The country is mainly Buddhist, which has come back into favor after the fall of communism in 1991.  Thousands of monks were killed and temples destroyed during the communist rule.  Russia had a great deal of influence over the government at the time and we all know how the communists felt about religion.

Mining is the number one industry in the country, with deposits of copper, coal, tungsten, tin and gold making up a majority of the mining activities.  Herding (thus the nomads) is number two and the activity we will most likely come in contact with during the trip.

Enough about things you can find on Wikipedia.  Your real questions is probably why would we find ourselves heading to Mongolia.  We have a joke around our house that we're leaving our vacation planning to our photography friends, Liza and Ira.  These should be familiar names from previous blogs.  They do a great job of finding interesting spots with the type of planning an accountant feels comfortable with.

The other question I've been asked is how will we get there and how long does it take. We'll leave early Friday morning for a flight out of Dallas to Seoul.  From there we take Mongolian Air into Ulaanbatar.  Pretty simple routing (I've seen worse trying to get to locales in the US).  What's not so great is the 24 or so hours it will take to get there.  I see lots of movies and naps in my future.

So, I invite you to tag along with us as we explore Mongolia.

Next: Ulannbatar