Mongolia

Mongolia. Quick, point to it on the globe in your dad’s study. Stumped? Ok, find China and look in the Northwest just below Russia. There you go. I got off the Trans-Mongolian Railway for a week and visited the country at Elstei, and the city at Ulaanbaatur. You don’t have to go far to reach the country, about three miles out of town is as empty as the moon.

Stories

Favorite Photographs

Views
We came face to face with the world’s most renowned spitters. But they were docile as could be.

We walked for mile is the flats, and saw either incoming, or outgoing electricity, though none of it got to our goat herder family.

There was a  good luck pile of rocks and flag. Traditions explain that if you walk three times around the icon in a clockwise fashion and place a stone on the pile at each pass good luck will befall you

Elstei

Only just outside of the country’s largest city is a vast expanse of rangeland in every direction. Elstei is about an hour’s drive over dirt roads and sits in the middle of low mountain ranges. It is truly inspirational, all green and gentle, spotted with gers and livestock. From our tourist camp we ventured by foot and on horseback to the surrounding families who work the land for a living. The light in the Summer is spectacular, and doesn’t fade until late in the evening. Watch out for the fermented goat’s milk. It packs a wallop.

Family
We were treated to a visit with a family outside Elstei. Goat herders by trade, and no a tourist destination. They were more than friendly. They even shared fresh goats milk with the squad of us. Of course those who sampled it were sick for a couple days afterward.

Visits

Ulaanbaatur

This is what I imagined a Soviet city would look like. The buildings are grey concrete, the streets are gritty and cold, the traffic is equally divided between old Russian-made vans and new Japanese sedans. The industrial center is filled with smokestacks, some belching coal smoke for power. This was the first place I’d been with a smattering of Anglo-saxon folks strolling around in large numbers. The Russian population here is quite high, with the bulk remaining Mongolian, still distinctly Asian, but taller, and lighter complexioned than those in Southeast Asia.

Ulaanbaatur is not without it’s surprises. The young population is decidedly Western in it’s clothing styles, huge platform shoes being the most noteworthy soon-to-be-forgotten fad, along with florescent tops and skirts. the largest, most hi-tech, glitzy disco I visited on my entire trip was in Ulaanbaatur. The Top Ten had all the state-of the art lights, soundsystems, and lip-syncing Spice Girls wannabes.