We agreed upon a 9am start to our day, and our guide was waiting for us in the Ibis lobby. We sat in traffic (as one does in this city) for about 35 minutes or so before breaking out into the countryside. Our first stop was the Chinggis Kahn statue. It is the largest equestrian statue in the world. We were able to climb up inside that rather narrow stairwells to a viewing platform near the top of the statue. This was a popular place for tour groups, so we had to share the confined space, but one could get a clear picture if patient.
Our guide led us around the small museum inside the base as well. There was a map at one point showing the limits of the Mongol empire at its furthest stretches. It reached Krakow in Poland and covered most of Asia over to the Korean Peninsula. Impressive, but not without cost. Clearly the Mongolians think he was an alright guy — they erected the largest equestrian statue in the world of him. His legacy, however, is a bit more controversial. In his conquests of such territories, millions were killed. But I suppose as long as you’re not in his crosshairs, it’s all good. Outside of Mongolia, especially in China in the Middle East, he’s basically regarded as the devil. Maybe it’s like some red hat-wearing bootlickers who think life is good because their guy is in power, right up to the moment he turns on them too. And men like Chinggis seem to have had very fragile egos and could easily turn on you.
Outside the statue, a crew of horsemen materialized doing a bit of cosplay with some birds of prey. I was able to capture the photo below before a tour group started posing with them. As our guide said, “Did you get it before the white guy got in the shot?…well, it was good while it lasted.” From there, it was another 30 minute drive or so into Gorkhi Terelj National Park.
The landscape was filled with resorts with yurts, which looked like more of a novelty than anything else. The focal point of our visit to the park was a rock formation called “Turtle Rock.” As far as rock formations go, it did actually resemble its namesake. We also stopped at a souvenir shop inside a yurt where we got some tchotchkes including a chess kit. Nicole is fixing to teach herself using Duolingo. Great. Now that bastard green owl is going to be up our asses again.
Near Turtle Rock, there were some eagles perched on some stands. As part of our tour, we had a photo op included where we could wear a big glove and the eagle would perch itself on the glove. Their wingspan is quite expansive especially when they’re trying to balance on the glove. But without further ado, here’s Nicole and the eagle looking majestic.
We had one last stop on our itinerary — the Aryapala Meditation Temple. It is a Buddhist temple situated on the side of a hill and up numerous steps. By this point, we didn’t see any other tourists. We had elected to skip lunch because we weren’t sure what that would entail and Nicole can’t eat anything to unusual because it won’t sit well in her tummy. Maybe all the other tourists were having their lunch while Bricole were enjoying the sights.
Our guide was a little bit slow climbing the hillside, which made walking awkward. He was also a smoker, so perhaps this was impeding him as well. Eventually we reached the temple which was partially refurbished after a fire destroyed a good portion of it. Mongolia used to be a Soviet satellite state and followed a very similar path of the Soviet Union including the Stalinist-style purges of the 1930s. During this time, Buddhism was effectively banned and wouldn’t gain much resurgence until Mongolia’s transition to parliamentary democracy in the early 1990s.
Like many things we find ourselves doing last minute, like flights to Mongolia, we didn’t know as much as we should have prior to touching down. In fact, I didn’t know Mongolia was communist. But when we wake up this morning and I looked out the window, I remarked, “I feel like I’m in a communist country.” Smoke stacks were belching above factories just blocks from major apartments and high rises.
Anyway, now it all makes sense, but the whole Soviet/Communist thing ties in nicely with the next 2.5 hours of our day — sitting in traffic and getting nowhere. As our guide explained, in the Soviet-era, only certain people could live in the city. Herders stayed in the countryside, factory workers might live in the city, but you had to meet a specific set of criteria and access roads in and out of the city were controlled. Thus, traffic wasn’t really an issue and not everyone could buy cars anyway.
However, once Mongolia transitioned to open market capitalism, everyone could buy cars who had the means. And because walking to work in the winter in Mongolia sounds dreadful, everyone bought a car just to stay warm. Now you have a gridlock like I have never seen before in my life. Remember, we are both from Los Angeles. We have sat on the 405 or the 10 or the 110 freeways and traveled a few miles over 20 minutes and been annoyed. Compared to traffic in Ulaanbatar, that’s the autobahn. You cannot begin to understand the frustration of seeing a building in front of you not get any closer and knowing full well that you could be walking faster. Eventually this is what we did. We gave the driver and our guide their tips, hopped out without much hurry (because traffic wasn’t going anywhere), and walked to our hotel without the car ever catching back up to us.
Around 2 million people live in all of Mongolia, but virtually all of them seem to live in Ulaanbatar (or UB as some might call it). Beyond a fix to the poor urban planning, Nicole suggested they build some more towns — maybe a suburb. They have high rises upon high rises and then just vast steppe where there aren’t even any trees visible for miles. It is frankly a weird place, but hey, that’s why United Airlines now has flights here from Tokyo Narita. “Greg” could have been on it.
After walking briefly around a covered street/mall that had a New York-themed restaurant and a karaoke place, we had dinner back at the hotel and toasted to Mongolia being Nicole’s 100th country (with some asterisks in there because of debatable “countries” such as Greenland). “Greg” was there. Anyway, tomorrow we have an early morning because we elected to take a 6am flight to Beijing after previously thinking we were going to Korea. The standby game is back in flux and there’s a chance of business class from Beijing to LAX, but it’s the hope that kills you.
passports & pepto bismol 