A Visit to the Original MO Town - Mongolia + my life traveling around China
Jul 7, 2018, 9:56 am
#16
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mogolia day three - monks and hot springs!
Day 4 of this trip is probably my favorite or atleast a tie for the best day of this trip. In the morning we did a wee bit of hiking, followed by visiting the local Monastery built from the ruins of Karakorum, followed by an offroad journey to a hot spring complex in a spot that reminded me more of Jackson Hole than of Mongolia.
After waking up and having some instant coffee we were taken up the side of a large hill to see a monument called the "The Kings Monument", and was a recent piece of art dedicated to the Mongol Empire. There is a similar map like this in Rome, saluting the Roman Empire, and nothing personal but the size of the Mongol Empire was the largest contigious empire in history, I mean its huge! Even Bigly:
Here is the monument, with great views of the valley along with maps of the empire at various stages.
The view was great and this is an area where the great Ghenghis Khan once hung out.
This is the largest extent of the empire, basically from Manchuria to Poland, and down to middle Turkey and Vietnam. Around 500 year later the Mughals took over india, who were descended from the Mongol armies but considered a different tribe. Basically we got China, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, and about half of Turkey. This was a big empire.
This is a stone pile dedicated to a famous horse... whose skull is now ontop of it.
Serious views, in the river are some horses bathing.
A loan stupa
A great view and monument to some more horses
Now a short 10 minute ride to the Monastery
Some ladies at the entrance to the Karokurum Monastary, known as Erdene Zuu. This is surronded by 99 stupas, and was built from the remains of the City of Karokurum. When had a silver Tree that would distribute Milk, Beer, Honey, and some other stuff. Say what you like about the Mongols but they had good taste. Unfortunatly after the Mongolians lost strength some people got revenge and Karokurum was destroyed by China. The remains were made into Erdene Zuu, and was in business for around 500 years until Stalin decided to trash it and slaughter all the monks. Luckily a few key temples survived. The cool part is it is still an active site, so there are Monks hanging out in their natural habitat:
The wall to Erdene Zuu
Some of the temples, the white one contains a spectular museum with no photos allowed
Old statues found in the ruins of the city. As the city gets more and more excavated expect more cool findings
Old stone tablet
A large Stupa
In this temple you can make a donation and get a blessing from some monks. We got my wife some luck on her thesis, and for me to get a timely end to my project!
Tibetan Art - note Mongolai and Tibet engage in the same variety of Buddhism. The LLama of Dali Llama fame is a mongolian term....
Monks doing their thing. we got a blessing which was pretty intense, and was a good ten minutes. Lots of incense was lit, chanting, and some other stuff. Hopefully it works!
Note we're still in the Monastery, note that this is the destroyed section
And this is a tiny temple for self prayer
And now for the museum area which is avery old temple with cool art and secret areas. This was saved from the Stalin Purges.... no photos allowed so if you want to see it get your ... out to mongolia
This is an ancient turtle to mark the old border of the city. Very cool There used to be 4 but not anymore
A loan temple
Next we left the temple to go find the other existing turtle... and a giant stone penis. More on this later, but when your guide says "hey you wanna see a penis" you need to say yes!
But first we had lunch and they made us build a Ger
Luckily we had goat power to enspire us
We also found this large stone pile with many horse skulls. One thing in Mongolia is there are animal bones everywhere.....
The other turtle.... they think there was once a palace here and are looking into digging up this area
A view of the modern "city". Not much to look at but there were some swanky looking hotels if you don't want to stay in a Ger Camp
This is the famous penis stone. Basically the Monks were busy getting laid instead of praying, so the head monk had this stone penis built to shame them into staying on top of their studies. Even better is it is built in a setting that is to bring up ideas of the female anatomy.....
This is the "leg spreads / vagina valley". I sort of see it, but tell me, find the clitoris for me!
And here is asmall canyon that is slowly opening up.... maybe some day it will swallow up the stone penis and make stone mongolians
See no ........ from SteveO
Now off to the Hotsprings! This was a wild drive up a large valley with horses, Yaks, Goats, and Nomads. A total badass, wild journey:
training race horses
driving through a creek
MOO!
Yaks!
Finally we had to cross this river and we were too the springs! More on that in the next episode
After waking up and having some instant coffee we were taken up the side of a large hill to see a monument called the "The Kings Monument", and was a recent piece of art dedicated to the Mongol Empire. There is a similar map like this in Rome, saluting the Roman Empire, and nothing personal but the size of the Mongol Empire was the largest contigious empire in history, I mean its huge! Even Bigly:
Here is the monument, with great views of the valley along with maps of the empire at various stages.
The view was great and this is an area where the great Ghenghis Khan once hung out.
This is the largest extent of the empire, basically from Manchuria to Poland, and down to middle Turkey and Vietnam. Around 500 year later the Mughals took over india, who were descended from the Mongol armies but considered a different tribe. Basically we got China, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, and about half of Turkey. This was a big empire.
This is a stone pile dedicated to a famous horse... whose skull is now ontop of it.
Serious views, in the river are some horses bathing.
A loan stupa
A great view and monument to some more horses
Now a short 10 minute ride to the Monastery Some ladies at the entrance to the Karokurum Monastary, known as Erdene Zuu. This is surronded by 99 stupas, and was built from the remains of the City of Karokurum. When had a silver Tree that would distribute Milk, Beer, Honey, and some other stuff. Say what you like about the Mongols but they had good taste. Unfortunatly after the Mongolians lost strength some people got revenge and Karokurum was destroyed by China. The remains were made into Erdene Zuu, and was in business for around 500 years until Stalin decided to trash it and slaughter all the monks. Luckily a few key temples survived. The cool part is it is still an active site, so there are Monks hanging out in their natural habitat:
The wall to Erdene Zuu
Some of the temples, the white one contains a spectular museum with no photos allowed
Old statues found in the ruins of the city. As the city gets more and more excavated expect more cool findings
Old stone tablet
A large Stupa
In this temple you can make a donation and get a blessing from some monks. We got my wife some luck on her thesis, and for me to get a timely end to my project!
Tibetan Art - note Mongolai and Tibet engage in the same variety of Buddhism. The LLama of Dali Llama fame is a mongolian term....
Monks doing their thing. we got a blessing which was pretty intense, and was a good ten minutes. Lots of incense was lit, chanting, and some other stuff. Hopefully it works!
Note we're still in the Monastery, note that this is the destroyed section
And this is a tiny temple for self prayer
And now for the museum area which is avery old temple with cool art and secret areas. This was saved from the Stalin Purges.... no photos allowed so if you want to see it get your ... out to mongolia
This is an ancient turtle to mark the old border of the city. Very cool There used to be 4 but not anymore
A loan temple
Next we left the temple to go find the other existing turtle... and a giant stone penis. More on this later, but when your guide says "hey you wanna see a penis" you need to say yes!
But first we had lunch and they made us build a Ger
Luckily we had goat power to enspire us
We also found this large stone pile with many horse skulls. One thing in Mongolia is there are animal bones everywhere.....
The other turtle.... they think there was once a palace here and are looking into digging up this area
A view of the modern "city". Not much to look at but there were some swanky looking hotels if you don't want to stay in a Ger Camp
This is the famous penis stone. Basically the Monks were busy getting laid instead of praying, so the head monk had this stone penis built to shame them into staying on top of their studies. Even better is it is built in a setting that is to bring up ideas of the female anatomy.....
This is the "leg spreads / vagina valley". I sort of see it, but tell me, find the clitoris for me!
And here is asmall canyon that is slowly opening up.... maybe some day it will swallow up the stone penis and make stone mongolians
See no ........ from SteveO
Now off to the Hotsprings! This was a wild drive up a large valley with horses, Yaks, Goats, and Nomads. A total badass, wild journey:
training race horses
driving through a creek
MOO!
Yaks!
Finally we had to cross this river and we were too the springs! More on that in the next episode
Jul 9, 2018, 3:48 pm
#18
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The rest of Day 4 - The Duuk Resort
After about 4 hours worth of driving, with two of them being on a "road" trans-versing a valley we suddenly ended up in a chill resort town! This hotspring complex was developed by a Japanese businessman, and there were several hotels in the area. We were at the Duuk resort, and it was what we needed after two very dusty days in Mongolia. All cool as the resort was, the journey was spectacular with encounters with horse, yak, and some of the best scenery on the trip to this point (the next day could arguably be better but was a whole different landscape). In fact I felt more like I was in western Montana than Mongolia.
Here is the town, a couple of Ger camps. The Duuk resort had a combination of gers, cabins, and had a pretty swank main cabin with dinner, showers, and bathrooms. Electricity was spotty. There were also hot springs in the back. Now these hot springs required you to wear a bathing suit, however the Mongolians did not get the memo and preferred to go nude. Someone did make them put some lingerie on to cover up which was an add scene. Of course coed mongolian nudity would have been cool, but hey this is a family blog......
The resort cabins, would have loved to stay in one, but we stayed in a ger instead. Book in advance!
Cow wandering through town
The ger camp and mongolian women moving my stuff
Inside the Ger.... note that they do not believe in the saying "When the Yurt is A Rocking DOn't Come a Knockin...." Actually they do believe in this because they opened the door wide open to load the stove with wood while I was in the busy in the process of making sweet love. Eh, they didn't seem to give a damn and hopefully got a good show!
Next we took a hike around the surroundings, and had this friendly dog escort us.
source of the spring
Mongolian Shaman formation
Beautiful scenery
And of course a herd of horses hanging out and enjoying the beautiful area
Still looks like Montana right?
Cows grazing
The dog finally decided to leave us when it found this huge leg bone to chew on! This is a great place to be the dog
A view of a different ger camp
After dinner a soak, and a few beers we were relaxing in our ger, when someone showed up to deliver us this random hunk of meat! Very tasty
Enjoying the great view and sunrise
One last view of camp
And here is the hot spring area. Its a little small but there were only around 10 people in the area at a time so plenty of time and room to enjoy it
And an empty pool
A great way to wake up!
One of the luxury cabins you can rent
I love these mongolian women....
digesting his giant leg bone
Some horses grazing outside of the camp
I tell yea, theres bones all over this country!
And back to the more stereotypical mongolia
looks dangerous...
Here is the town, a couple of Ger camps. The Duuk resort had a combination of gers, cabins, and had a pretty swank main cabin with dinner, showers, and bathrooms. Electricity was spotty. There were also hot springs in the back. Now these hot springs required you to wear a bathing suit, however the Mongolians did not get the memo and preferred to go nude. Someone did make them put some lingerie on to cover up which was an add scene. Of course coed mongolian nudity would have been cool, but hey this is a family blog......
The resort cabins, would have loved to stay in one, but we stayed in a ger instead. Book in advance!
Cow wandering through town
The ger camp and mongolian women moving my stuff
Inside the Ger.... note that they do not believe in the saying "When the Yurt is A Rocking DOn't Come a Knockin...." Actually they do believe in this because they opened the door wide open to load the stove with wood while I was in the busy in the process of making sweet love. Eh, they didn't seem to give a damn and hopefully got a good show!
Next we took a hike around the surroundings, and had this friendly dog escort us.
source of the spring
Mongolian Shaman formation
Beautiful scenery
And of course a herd of horses hanging out and enjoying the beautiful area
Still looks like Montana right?
Cows grazing
The dog finally decided to leave us when it found this huge leg bone to chew on! This is a great place to be the dog
A view of a different ger camp
After dinner a soak, and a few beers we were relaxing in our ger, when someone showed up to deliver us this random hunk of meat! Very tasty
Enjoying the great view and sunrise
One last view of camp
And here is the hot spring area. Its a little small but there were only around 10 people in the area at a time so plenty of time and room to enjoy it
And an empty pool
A great way to wake up!
One of the luxury cabins you can rent
I love these mongolian women....
digesting his giant leg bone
Some horses grazing outside of the camp
I tell yea, theres bones all over this country!
And back to the more stereotypical mongolia
looks dangerous...
Aug 14, 2018, 7:52 pm
#19
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A quick update, I do intend to finish this report but the upload gods of CHina are blocking my uploads. I'm off to Munich next week for a little rest and relaxation, and hopefully will have some success in uploading then!
Aug 25, 2018, 8:01 am
#21
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Today we visited Hugnu Khan national park. Initially we were going to visit a nearby lake, but it was cancelled due to an outbreak of some sort of horse disease! Good thing too because instead we did some awesome hiking, horseback riding, and practiced our archery skills. The other good thing is that we were able to drink lots of good beer while enjoying the stars at our modified yurt camp. Here are some photos:
Stupas on a huge hill mark where we went offroad to cover the final hour of the drive. Best part in Mongolia is the random driving to cool places
The plains....
Next to the mountains!
But more plains.... despite this the drive was beautiful ... after being nervous that we were being driven out into a desert to go die we found this awesome Gur Camp where we spent the night:
First thing was a visit and a hike at a local monastery. Uvgun monastery was the name. Interesting site where we were shown around by an old lady.... who turned out to be the Lama for the area.... you know kind of like the Dali Lama.... and not a Llama. Most of the monastery was destroyed by Stalin and has been rebuilt. There is also a ruined temple that was destroyed by the chinese several hundred years ago. If you are ambitious there is another extra ruin that is about an hour hike away. This was a hidden temple that avoided the initial attack. However the monks were celebrating not getting attacked which alerted the chinese hoards and they came back, trashed the temple, and cut off everyone's head. As you can see there is a fair amount of climbing to reach some of the temples.
Next we went horseback riding.... we had this guy in the green suit show up... oh ....! Luckily he was proffesional. Interesting fact is that the horses are semi wild and he harvests them when he needs them for a ride. Otherwise they hang out and eat shrubs.
This giant rock is a natural spring
OVerall a great day! Tomorrow we will go to see the Wild Horses and get out of town - which was quite a disaster....
Stupas on a huge hill mark where we went offroad to cover the final hour of the drive. Best part in Mongolia is the random driving to cool places
The plains....
Next to the mountains!
But more plains.... despite this the drive was beautiful ... after being nervous that we were being driven out into a desert to go die we found this awesome Gur Camp where we spent the night:
First thing was a visit and a hike at a local monastery. Uvgun monastery was the name. Interesting site where we were shown around by an old lady.... who turned out to be the Lama for the area.... you know kind of like the Dali Lama.... and not a Llama. Most of the monastery was destroyed by Stalin and has been rebuilt. There is also a ruined temple that was destroyed by the chinese several hundred years ago. If you are ambitious there is another extra ruin that is about an hour hike away. This was a hidden temple that avoided the initial attack. However the monks were celebrating not getting attacked which alerted the chinese hoards and they came back, trashed the temple, and cut off everyone's head. As you can see there is a fair amount of climbing to reach some of the temples.
Next we went horseback riding.... we had this guy in the green suit show up... oh ....! Luckily he was proffesional. Interesting fact is that the horses are semi wild and he harvests them when he needs them for a ride. Otherwise they hang out and eat shrubs.
This giant rock is a natural spring
OVerall a great day! Tomorrow we will go to see the Wild Horses and get out of town - which was quite a disaster....
Oct 13, 2018, 2:15 pm
#22
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Horse and Consequences
On our final full day in Mongolia we went to see the Przewalski Horse, which is the only breed of wild horses that are still in existent. Now a smart Texan might tell you about Mustangs, which are also wild horses. However the big difference here is that the Mustang are escaped captive horses, while the PH is a distinct species. They were practically extinct and got saved by captive breeding programs and re introducing them to the wild. They are a fascinating species, and sort of look like a donkey. Horse culture is also vicious! In order to see these we visited Hustai National Park which is a few hours outside of UB. Read up on this species here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przewalski%27s_horse
Now the cool part is the park has a large visitors complex, and had the most international tourists and even people I've seen in Mongolia outside of UB. They have a cool museum on the horses where we get to see the details on the "horse culture", which has a lot of fighting among the horses, which is why most male horses get their testicles removed. Otherwise they beat eachother up for the opportunity to have sex with lots of lady horses! You know, the original stud : ) We toured the facility for around 3 hours, and did eventually find the horses. I recommend visiting late in the day or early morning (they even have a Ger Camp to stay in). There are also some ancient tombs, deer, marments, and plenty of other cool critters to see.
Ger camp and visitors centre
entrance
First thing we did was seek out the ruins, and we did see some deer but no horses.
The landscape
This photo contains the horses at the very top of the ridge... yes they were really far away, and no we are not allowed to approach them or they might bite us apparently.
SOme very old stone columns
Some more statues... this area had a trail several km long of stone structures. PRetty cool stuff.
And finally we got this great view and a nice stone mound on our way out of the park back to UB.
Back to UB we stayed at the Kempinski Hotel. And excellent hotel, and was much better after staying in Gers the last few nights. Having TV again was excellent, and we had a great evening strolling around UB.
The Khan Square
Entrance to the Black Burger Factory. I had something called the "Chicago Burger" - which had pulled pork, and nothing in common with Chicago!
Overall UB is a very pleasant city, once you get to where you are going. The traffic is terrible, but there is a vibrant international scene with friendly, sexy locals. Would be a fantastic place to do an expat assignment. I might even visit again if I'm stuck in China longer!
Now the cool part is the park has a large visitors complex, and had the most international tourists and even people I've seen in Mongolia outside of UB. They have a cool museum on the horses where we get to see the details on the "horse culture", which has a lot of fighting among the horses, which is why most male horses get their testicles removed. Otherwise they beat eachother up for the opportunity to have sex with lots of lady horses! You know, the original stud : ) We toured the facility for around 3 hours, and did eventually find the horses. I recommend visiting late in the day or early morning (they even have a Ger Camp to stay in). There are also some ancient tombs, deer, marments, and plenty of other cool critters to see.
Ger camp and visitors centre
entrance
First thing we did was seek out the ruins, and we did see some deer but no horses.
The landscape
This photo contains the horses at the very top of the ridge... yes they were really far away, and no we are not allowed to approach them or they might bite us apparently.
SOme very old stone columns
Some more statues... this area had a trail several km long of stone structures. PRetty cool stuff.
And finally we got this great view and a nice stone mound on our way out of the park back to UB.
Back to UB we stayed at the Kempinski Hotel. And excellent hotel, and was much better after staying in Gers the last few nights. Having TV again was excellent, and we had a great evening strolling around UB.
The Khan Square
Entrance to the Black Burger Factory. I had something called the "Chicago Burger" - which had pulled pork, and nothing in common with Chicago!
Overall UB is a very pleasant city, once you get to where you are going. The traffic is terrible, but there is a vibrant international scene with friendly, sexy locals. Would be a fantastic place to do an expat assignment. I might even visit again if I'm stuck in China longer!
Oct 13, 2018, 2:32 pm
#23
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flight back
Sadly it was time to leave Mongolia. Initial plane was to leave on CC902, an Air China 738 direct to Beijing. Overall an easy 2 hour flight, covering 725 miles leaving at 11:50 am. Unfortunately it was raining heavily as we woak up that morning We proceeded with our plan and headed to the airport. We already had a driver and Mongolia has a massive taxi shortage. To no one's surprise we go to the airport and it looked like this:
And yes, that is Ghenhis Khan Airport... not all the mighty? I should have stayed in bed and taken a horse to the airport.
We got to hang out in the airport for the next 5 hours! It was great (not). There are a few Mongolian art stores where we got some gifts... all the prices were in US Dollars. As the day progressed the Price of Ghengis Khan Vodka slowly dropped and I picked one up, and is proving to be great decorations for my ...... chinese apartment. We also got some tasty dumplings and checked out the star alliance gold "lounge: - pleasant staff, comfy seats, some crappy snacks but atleast they let us in without a hastle. Overall this was a great airport to waste about 30 minutes in, not 5 hours.
The lounge
Mongolians like big things.... if you recall earlier we also saw a giant boot
ORD could use something like this
And thank god we found these dumplings. They were not fresh, but atleast heated up, tasted, and full of "meat". And good things too... because it was time to board the air china flight:
AIR CHINA CA902, ULA - PEK 738, 725 miles... actually routing a lot more!
This was your classic air china flight. Completly packed. Luckily got an aisle seat. Left about 5 hours late, and took much longer than 2 hours to get to Beijing because of "restricted airspace". That is when China likes to fly their bad ... jets around and we get rerouted around them so they don't pull a Putin on us.
For some reason they served this "meal"
A close up. I figured next time I need to do some heavy Caulking I'll ride this flight and capture some of this material.
Luckily soon enough we were back to China, where a Singapore and Emirates A-380 just landed. After a good 3 hours in customs we headed back to Beijing. Overall Mongolia was an awesome country to visit. And notice how there was no one else in our photos - this is not because of my mad skill but because this country was empty. This was also my first trip to Central Asia, and I really liked it. Would love to hit Lake Baikal soon. Thanks for reading!
And yes, that is Ghenhis Khan Airport... not all the mighty? I should have stayed in bed and taken a horse to the airport.
We got to hang out in the airport for the next 5 hours! It was great (not). There are a few Mongolian art stores where we got some gifts... all the prices were in US Dollars. As the day progressed the Price of Ghengis Khan Vodka slowly dropped and I picked one up, and is proving to be great decorations for my ...... chinese apartment. We also got some tasty dumplings and checked out the star alliance gold "lounge: - pleasant staff, comfy seats, some crappy snacks but atleast they let us in without a hastle. Overall this was a great airport to waste about 30 minutes in, not 5 hours.
The lounge
Mongolians like big things.... if you recall earlier we also saw a giant boot
ORD could use something like this
And thank god we found these dumplings. They were not fresh, but atleast heated up, tasted, and full of "meat". And good things too... because it was time to board the air china flight:
AIR CHINA CA902, ULA - PEK 738, 725 miles... actually routing a lot more!
This was your classic air china flight. Completly packed. Luckily got an aisle seat. Left about 5 hours late, and took much longer than 2 hours to get to Beijing because of "restricted airspace". That is when China likes to fly their bad ... jets around and we get rerouted around them so they don't pull a Putin on us.
For some reason they served this "meal"
A close up. I figured next time I need to do some heavy Caulking I'll ride this flight and capture some of this material.
Luckily soon enough we were back to China, where a Singapore and Emirates A-380 just landed. After a good 3 hours in customs we headed back to Beijing. Overall Mongolia was an awesome country to visit. And notice how there was no one else in our photos - this is not because of my mad skill but because this country was empty. This was also my first trip to Central Asia, and I really liked it. Would love to hit Lake Baikal soon. Thanks for reading!