Roadkill

Running has been slow the last two weeks.  I blame Vice President Biden, who was here on Monday.  Most of the embassy has only vague recollections of what a "weekend" or "relaxation" is.  I've been mostly still dragging myself out for 5 miles in the morning, if only because it makes me much less grumpy the rest of the day and I feel a nice sense of accomplishment.  This is not helped, however, on mornings like Tuesday, when at one point I had both a hawk and an eagle circling me as I trudged along.  Thanks, guys.  I wasn't going that slow....

Two White Things

After nearly 15 months here, my Mongolian has progressed to the point where my kind-but-strict language teacher Bayasmaa thought that I could tackle a short story.  The excitement!  The language text books we use here aren't bad, but they do have their limitations.  For example, many, many exercises involve me identifying and talking about government buildings from a series of small black-and-white ink drawings.  The problem is not so much the language, but the fact that all Soviet-era Ministry buildings look more or less the same, particularly without color.  And honestly, do I care to differentiate between the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture, or the Ministry of Economics and Finance?  Honestly, no. 

But, I digress.  So, today I was given a simplified version of an apparently famous Mongolian tale called "Two White Things." I just now realized what the two white things are, but won't spoil it yet:

A boy and his grandfather are riding their horses along a dangerous mountain path.  The grandpa's horse is fast, but the boy's is slow.  He keeps whipping it to make it go faster, but it's not working.  He calls to his grandpa to slow down.  Grandpa looks behind him and sees the boy beating his horse.  "Oh no, my boy.  You should love your horse, not whip it.  Let me tell you the story of Gombo.   So, Gombo was a bad angry man who was notorious for beating horses, sometimes to death.  His neighbors didn't want to sell him any more animals because he was so mean to them.  After a long time, he showed up in the neighborhood with a new horse.  The townsfolk advised him to love this horse, and not to mistreat it.  Gombo had trouble with that, and ended blinding the horse in one eye from beating it so much.  Oops.  One day, while riding along a mountain trail, a man came up behind him on another horse.  This man was carrying a long whip/lasso.   When Gombo's poor horse saw the stick out of his good eye, he was so scared that he jumped over the cliff.  [Hence two white things - the two skeletons at the bottom of the cliff face.]  The End.... and so, my son, that's why you should not beat your horse, but should love him."  "Okay Grandpa!"

My question for my teacher after this tale:  "So, how does the boy make his horse go faster then?"    Her reply, "Oh, he should still hit him, just not very hard."

There you go. 

Ignorance is bliss?

My musing of the day:  is it better or worse to not understand the heckling, teasing, and catcalls that you get from passerby?  By not understanding, I can sometimes pretend that the comments are more benign and encouraging than stupid and insulting.  But on the other hand, you do understand it, because a certain kind of man (usually, though not always, it's men) makes certain kinds of comments to women, and language doesn't really matter.   I find an icy stare and blowing by them in superstar running fashion to be the best response, though I often wish I had a choice profane Mongolian response instead....  Perhaps a task for language class this week. 

You know you're in Mongolia when...

... a typical lunchtime conversation turns to the best ways to kill sheep, and without batting an eye the whole table discusses happily how great a community event it would be to have a sheep slaughtering & barbecue.  Who says we don't have a variety of entertainment options here?

What you need to know to hike in Mongolia

Here we begin a journey to hike all the way through Bogd Khan.  We made it - barely.

Hiking is easy.  The most simple of human activities.  All you need is a pair of shoes (some people are known to even forgo those) and the willingness to be on your feet all day.  You may also want (in no particular order): a compass, a marked trail, a destination, some hiking partners, and don't forget your camera.

Hiking is one of our favorite activities during the summer in Mongolia.  The Bogd Khan Protected Area is just south of Ulaanbaatar and offers many great places for hiking.  You just need to know where to go, which can be more of a challenge than you might think.  You see, in Mongolia there are very few marked trails (we have seen one so far), and the trails that do exist tend to meander and disappear at times.  Some are used by Mongolians who know their way around and do hike, though hiking is not a very popular activity here.  Others, and this is the case with many of the trails, are actually animal trails and so they are beaten down well for a while, but have no destination in mind other than a field of grass.

So, it is best if you go hiking in Mongolia to go with someone who knows where they are going, and a general sense of direction (which sadly over the years, I have proved to be lacking).  Cause hiking is a lot of fun until you get lost and find yourself walking in circles.  Tumi is our Mongolian hiking guide, and he has brought us to some great destinations in Bogd Khan.  Below are just some of pictures of our Mongolian hiking adventures.

The payoff.  Enjoying the view on our through hike.

On the top of the ridge on an overcast day

Soaking wet, but still smiling with fresh wildflowers

Enjoying the view during a short hike in Terelj

Tsetsegun, the highest peak in Bogd Khan.  There is even a real trail to follow the whole way.

Our guide Tumi scoping out the terrain because, once again, there is no trail.

The view from the fire tower shows rolling hills almost as far as you can see.

On our way to Nukht with no trail, Mongolia-style

Storms on the Steppe

This is going to be a post about weather.  It will be more exciting than it sounds, I promise.

Look, double rainbows! 

No, not rainbow exciting.  Massive destructive storm that leaves you keyed up and slightly shell-shocked for two days kind of exciting. 

"Before" photo.

Andy and I decided to get away for the weekend to our favorite ger camp, about 3 hours outside of UB.  We've been there at least 6 times since we came to Mongolia (so many that we're losing track, anyway), so I feel that I have a claim to call it "our" ger camp.   We had a good day Saturday with a leisurely breakfast and then a mostly successful double kayak trip 10k down the river.  Then evening hit.  We saw a storm moving in across the mountains just over the river.  I love riding out storms while snug in a ger, and enjoyed watching the dramatic sky moving towards us.

"During"

Then the storm came on like a freight train and we ran for the ger.  It was so fast and intense that it's a bit of a blur.  Never mind that rain and dust were somehow pouring through our ger roof (a dwelling, it must be pointed out, that Mongolians have lived through storms in for thousands of years), but the whole thing was actually starting to lift off the ground and buckle over.  We grabbed the two center posts and hung on.  Meanwhile, the next aspect of the storm hit as hail - ranging from pea-sized to large cherries - came thudding down.  We had left the door open, and so we had hail projectiles rocketing into the room.  Lots of fun

This was just one ger over from us.

It was over as quickly as it started.  And then we saw how lucky we were.  Of maybe 30 gers at camp, all but 3 had significant damage.  (Ours was one of three).  The roof was torn off of the lodge building.  The hills were covered in hail, looking like we'd had snow in July.  The road out of the camp had washed out and developed a 4-5 foot ravine down the middle.  The brand-new restaurant building was flooded and had broken windows and destroyed furniture.  Miraculously, no one was hurt at all.  We wandered around stunned for awhile.

Roof torn off the lodge.

 

Hail on the hills.

The general devastation at camp.

I can't even say how glad I am that this one wasn't ours.

 There was nothing really to do, as night was coming on fast.  We had a dry, safe place to sleep (if very musty and dusty), and went to bed.  Our car came through pretty well, except with 4 holes punched in the window splash guards.  I think we got off easy.    The next morning, the staff had rustled up a crew of Mongolians and were cleaning, sorting, drying, and getting the camp back in order.  I'm still not sure I believe that that happened.  Hopefully riding out a hurricane/hail storm in a felt tent is a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

UB's Playground

 

Terelj National Park is known as Ulaanbaatar's Playground.  It's a short ways away from the city geographically, but miles away in temperament.  Because it's so close, we haven't really done much there - when we have the time and enthusiasm to get away, we try to go further afield.  But feeling lazy over the Naadam holiday, we thought it was time to dip our toes into Terelj.  

It's a fun area of fields, rivers, and rock formations.  The most popular formation is Turtle Rock, which is what we chose as the starting point for our ramble.   

Andy plays mountain goat.

Yup, looks like a turtle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made it right up to the rock at the top, but then bailed in the last ascent rather than face possible death.

 At the end, I had the brilliant idea to take a short cut through a possibly boggy section back to the car.  Any other year, and we'd have been fine.  This year, one of the rainiest on record?  I'm just thankful I kept my shoe on.