Final Mongolia Blog : Terelj National Park and last afternoon/evening in UB

We drove out of the Hustai Park area toward UB which we had to pass through to get to Terelj which is on the other side. Heading for another night in a ger and trying to see more unknown places. The drive was bumpy and not comfortable as we careened around broken roads and unpaved paths. Reaching the city, we then careened around potholes, as we bumped and grinded through the urban core and then back to the country on the other side so we could careen around other broken roads.
Arriving in Terelj, I knew it would be a different type of treat, very nice lodge where the gers are. Huge rock formations that defy size and weight estimates and long open areas to walk or ride a horse through. After a very tasty lunch, we walked through the hills and found something called Turtle Rock that is quite large, to understand the size look at the guy on horseback in the foreground.


I guess the name is an accurate representation.

Now, your vocabulary word for the day, or maybe just a fun scrabble word to use. It is Ovoo. Wikipedia say this about that... "An ovoo (Mongolian: овоо, heap) is a type of shamanistic cairn found in Mongolia, usually made from rocks or from wood. Ovoos are often found at the top of mountains and in high places, like mountain passes. They serve mainly as religious sites, used in worship of the mountains and the sky as well as in Buddhist ceremonies, but often are also landmarks.When traveling, it is custom to stop and circle an ovoo three times in clockwise direction, in order to have a safer journey. Usually, rocks are picked up from the ground and added to the pile. Also, one may leave offerings in the form of sweets, money, milk, or vodka. If one is in a hurry while travelling and does not have time to stop at an ovoo, honking of the horn while passing by the ovoo will suffice" I guess next time I don't want to go to religious services, maybe God will let me off with just a honk or two.



Then we walked over to the temple in the distance where I rediscovered my train friends from Canada and Australia. They were on a day trip from UB and ended up fairly embarrassed when they rented horses but no with a walking guide. I guess the horses are well trained. They went approx. 200 meters and then refused to take another step. Finally, after much coaxing, the horses turned around and went right back to where they started and the group had no choice but to dismount and leave. That Canadian guy is bad luck, he’s lost a train ticket, couldn’t cash his Canadian traveler’s checks and then horse goes stubborn. Unfortunately, I would meet up with him again and find he brought me some bad luck.

As a side note, every group of survivalist, like the Mongol nomads have measures they use to maximize their benefits from nature. This is something that is used to either burn as fuel or help winterize the ger roof to protect from the cold...

Yes, it's cow dung. I can just hear my brother, Howard, in the background saying, "He who smelt it dealt it!"

After a great dinner, freezing night sleep and breakfast, it was off to my last official stop at the Chinngis Khan statue that was erected in 2009. In the depths of my memory, I remember Ghengis Khan as a conqueror who stormed through Asia and into the mid East, but who is this Chinngis Khan guy? Well, it’s the same dude. Around here, the name is Chinngis so don’t say Ghengis or they don’t know what you’re talking about. And there’s a lot of pride in him. For those of you too disinterested or just lazy, I’ll post a quote from the article referenced below about Khan.
“He was a cruel man but he led our country to greatness. If you look at Lincoln, Hitler and Julius Caesar, it’s kind of the same thing.”
What? How did Lincoln get in this group? Cruel man? Not quite sure what the history classes are like here but someone got a name misplaced.
A NY Times article about the statue and park can be found here… http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/world/asia/03genghis.html
There’s a lot of pride in this statue which is the base for a $50M park they want to build here. The statue and gate cost $4.1M so they are only $46M short of their goal. (Not gonna happen). So I took a few photos to try and make this place memorable and here are my favorites…


Yes, this thing is all stainless steel; no rusting their version of Lady Liberty

This next picture is another one of perspective. Can you make out my guide on the front steps looking back. I hope you understand the enormity of the statue.



One last comment on Chinngis Khan. His goal in “conquering” lands was to also leave a living legacy of himself everywhere he went. Let’s just say, every female was “allowed” to consort with him at his whim and he left a fairly large legacy behind. Close your eyes and take a guess how many offspring there are currently in the world with his unique gene in their gene pool. Ok, so he started around the year 1200 and continued for 25 or so years. From there the branches of the tree spread very wide. So what’s your guess, how many descendants does the Great Khan have? You need to read to the bottom to find out what the number is.

Back in UB, for a goodbye lunch with my guide and driver. They took me to a traditional Mongol restaurant where the lunch choices were like this…


One interesting observation I had was about how much Mongols love their children. They try to make it convenient for them to use the toilet. I’m sure most of you would love to see this item on a toilet seat just waiting for your little child to put their butt on!


I had to wash my hands after taking the photo!

For my last afternoon (and praying that my plane gets me out of there), I decided to go to the famous Black Market which is similar to fake markets around the world with unauthorized product containing brand names and no real quality. There are two like this in Shanghai so it wasn’t a big deal. Many people warned that the pickpockets, bag slashers and other creeps would bother me but maybe I look too much like them so I was left alone all day. It was way less interesting than I had hoped so I focus on people photography to capture the locals in their everyday attire. (Get the joke? Focus on photography? I’m a riot.) Some examples...




After discarding the advice I was given about not walking around outside the black market, I realized I couldn’t find a legit taxi and wasn’t going to take one of the gypsy cabs, so I walked all the way back to my hotel (4 miles?). I dropped my stuff and went to scout for a place to have dinner. On my way down the street, I was following a car that was moving really slow, starting to turn and stopping, speeding up and then slowing down, such that I had to slow down my walking gait. It’s then that Bruce Willis popped in my head and said, “Who’s driving that car, Stevie Wonder?” (From the first Die Hard movie).

A short while later, I met the bad luck Canadian teacher again and we walked a bit and tried a new restaurant before I went off to buy some special items and finally to an Internet center to copy my photo files to an external hard drive. After finishing my business, I paid for the service ($1) with local currency worth $4. The guy gave me back a huge wad of bills which I proceed to count at the register. Of course, he was trying to rip me off and then said here’s the rest of your change. I said, “I appreciate your dishonesty, sorry, but I didn’t bite. I hope you enjoy the virus I just downloaded on that computer I was using. Have a nice day” He was not too happy with me.

The next morning it was off to the airport and I got there with the $3 in change from the internet store and spent that in the coffee shop in the airport leaving all my togrogs in Mongolia.

So the Chinngis Khan update? Here’s National Geographic’s take… http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html
For those who don’t want to read National Geographic, Chinngis Khan is supposed to have 16-17 million direct descendants alive today. Wow! Pretty good work in those years before Viagra was around.

Can you believe I really miss China and can’t wait to get back there? So it’s back to Shanghai where the temperature is a nice, seasonal 75-80 degrees with clouds or rain most days, but I’m not complaining. After a few days of work, I head to Chengdu, China to visit the pandas and climb a mountain sleeping in monasteries along the way. Chengdu is in Sichuan Province and if you’re ever bitten into spicy red peppers in a Chinese food dish by accident, well, this is the place that they originated from and are part of the daily staple in everyone’s life.

Now if I ever want to go back to UB and “enjoy” one of their winters, I know where I might get a job…