Due to a visa issue, I had to travel to Erenhot, China in Inner Mongolia on the border with the country of Mongolia, located in the middle of the Gobi Desert. It is a flat, hot, and sunny city of about 100,000. Like other adventures I've had in the region it was both harrowing and relaxing. Fortunately, my boss's daughter, Miki, and her friend Erka came with me. Erka's sister lives in Erenhot with her Chinese Mongolian husband and showed us around town. The city is undergoing an economic boom as a major trading center. The wide boulevards have spare traffic, but plenty of rickshaws. The markets were a sight for sore eyes with so many fruits and vegetables. The food was delicious.
I thought we could just take the train from Erenhot back to Ulaanbaatar, but no! We had to hire a jeep. The five-person jeep carried all nine of us--with me holding the front passenger door closed with a strap through two border crossings and one health inspection stop. After some miscommunications and the purchase of 'VIP' train tickets (a.k.a. a small bribe) Miki and I made it onto the Zamin-Uud to UB train. On the train we shared our cabin with a Mongolian business man who was both a great Mongolian teacher (he spoke slowly and clearly with a basic vocabulary so I could understand) and very generous.
Although it was a fascinating place, with signs in Chinese and Mongolian (Cyrillic and the older script) and Mongolians speaking with an accent even I could hear, I was happy to get back home to UB and prepare for my trip to the countryside (photos to be posted soon).
Here are photos from day 1 of July travels with Noah in the Mongolian countryside.
Due to a visa issue, I had to travel to Erenhot, China in Inner Mongolia on the border with the country of Mongolia, located in the middle of the Gobi Desert. It is a flat, hot, and sunny city of about 100,000. Like other adventures I've had in the region it was both harrowing and relaxing. Fortunately, my boss's daughter, Miki, and her friend Erka came with me. Erka's sister lives in Erenhot with her Chinese Mongolian husband and showed us around town. The city is undergoing an economic boom as a major trading center. The wide boulevards have spare traffic, but plenty of rickshaws. The markets were a sight for sore eyes with so many fruits and vegetables. The food was delicious.
Last weekend I went hiking again with my friend Laura and many of her students to the south side of Bogd Khan Mountain (the other blog post was from the north side). Pictured below you will see, aside from austere but beautiful Mongolian nature, a cauldron made to feed 1,000 people, Laura's students, colleagues and some of their families, ovoo (ritual piles of stones, scarves, and other offerings), vodka, and the Manzushir Monastery, which was destroyed during the Soviet purges along with hundreds of lamas during the 1930s. There was also lots of singing and I will make a post dedicated to Mongolian music at some point in the not too distant future.
Last week Maria from Moscow/Seattle came for a visit and we spent a long weekend at Khustai National Park. Special to the park are the wild Takhi (Przerwalski) horses who have been reintroduced over the last 20 years or so. According to the people at the park they are the only trully wild horses living in the wild. Also shown are domesticated horses, a ger tourist camp, mountains, and rain clouds.
There have been many events this spring for the 50th Anniversary celebrations. During the party a video was shown that had old film and photos from the Socialist era. Among other images, there were photos of faculty standing in front of portraits of Stalin. Unfortunately, I don't have images here...only of the guests and presentations.
