Mongolia

Mongolia was just what we needed after Russia. Where Russia was tourist-unfriendly, Mongolians couldn't have been more helpful. Most people spoke at least some English which was really nice. We were picked up at the Ulaan Bataar train station by the staff of our hostel, Golden-Gobi. If any of you ever go to Mongolia, stay there. It is a family run business with a mother, son, 4 daughters and two granddaughters. The mother spoke no English except: Tea? Coffee? Milk? Sugar? She kept us well caffinated! We stayed some time in the dorm ($5 each) and splurged one night for a double with shower ($16). We ate at the best restaurants in town for less than $10 a head. Twice we went to a great Indian restaurant which provided some much needed spice. Mongolian food was good and had more fresh vegetables than Russian, but was still quite bland and heavy. It was nice to spice things up a bit!

From Ulaan Bataar, we did a three day trip into the countryside with a group of 10 - us, a guide, a driver, 2 American 22-year old men, a young Italian couple and a Swedish father/daughter duo. The landscape is beautiful but barren, kind of how I would picture the moon or a strange planet. Most people live by ranching. We stayed with an elderly Mongolian couple who have 400 goats and many horses (we saw 5 but apparently more were off grazing). They live in a ger, which is a portable home something like a tent. Since they are nomadic, they settle down for the winter months and then move with the animals throughout the summer. It's hard to imagine how so many animals can survive on just grass in such a barren landscape, but they seemed quite healthy. Paul enjoyed chasing after wandering baby goats and caught a couple of them. There were a number of babies around and they were very cute! All animals in Mongolia are semi-wild in that they are rarely fenced in and graze freely with their owners following after them. They never eat from a human hand or eat on prepared food. We went for a long horseback ride on their horses with the old man as our guide. He said he was 70, but based on some comments he made, we think he was more like 80. He had enough wrinkles for 2 eighty-year olds! In exchange for letting tourists stay with them, they accept some money and it is expected that guests bring gifts. We brought chocolate, which he and his wife gobbled up happily. Our guides brought fresh fruits and vegetables and bottled water. He was a willing recipient of all and ended up smoking the Swedish girl's Marlboros and chugging her dad's coveted stash of Bailey's. Quite funny.

When we weren't with the Mongolian couple we were stopping off at Buddist temples and national parks. We got very lucky at the national park that is reintroducing Mongolia's wild horses to the wild. We saw at least 15 of the 180 in the park. They are truly wild, cannot be tamed and are genetically different from regular horses (66 chromosomes vs. 64).

It was a great trip, but spoke to the hard life of most Mongolians. No running water (or bathrooms), very rough roads and a diet of meat and milk for the most. We felt very lucky to meet nice people on our trip, both Mongolians and tourists. To this point we had met very few other English speakers.