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GROUP
JOURNAL FOR
MONGOLIA, CHINA, KIRGYZISTAN, KAZAKISTAN
THE SILK ROAD
Aug.28, 2003 - Sept. 15, 2003
Day
04 SUNDAY Aug. 31, 2003
Submitted by
Diane Divelbess
ddivelbess@hotmail.com
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
(Gerel says it is pronounced Ulan Bah ta)
Because we
were going to stay overnight in a ger resort we checked
out of our hotel rooms completely and had our luggage put in hotel
storage until wereturned. Our bus left at 9:00 AM and arrived
at the Gobi Cashmere factory and Outlet Store by 9:15, but we
were too early for their staff's
Sunday morning schedule. |
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While we waited Meli talked about her plans for a two week tour of the
Gobi Desert in 2005. (300' high sand dunes - fantastic!).
Meli also said that terms like"black market" and/or "Sunday Market" are
not entirely correct - that is a market may be neither
"black" nor held only on "Sunday". A better term is "bazaar" which comes
from the Turkish word "Pazar."
Then the Cashmere Outlet Sore opened and for two hours we were taken up in
a shopping frenzy. Such fun!.
On our way again by 11:45, we passed a Russian District with a WWII
monument, a large dome-topped building being built
by the Vatican in Rome
andscheduled to open in October and many gers with TV antennas. Gerel (our
guide) said that
yesterday was an auspicious day in the Buddhist calendar
and therefore many weddings were held and many fireworks
displays occurred
last night.
During our bus ride to the ger resort Meli commented on the importance of
the snacks which we all shared;
"lunch is not lunch." In other words, go
with
the flow. Meli entertained us wonderfully with her Train Story-an
epic
involving a British photographer of trains, David Thornhill, and his
desire to bring
64 British photographers to Turkey on a tour - Could Meli rent a train?
So Meli went to Ankara to
discuss a private train; she arranged for a
steamboat
cruise of Istanbul by night and a TV crew at the
train depot for what she
thought would be some glamorous photos with her and the train. But Daniel
Thornhill and his friends wanted photos of Meli in overalls, with smoke
belching from the engine -
The photo op was very long and eventually
officials
of the railroad showed up and informed them that
because there was only a
single track available, they had managed to hold up the entire Turkish
RR!.
Later, Meli said she bought a locomotive and had it shipped to the UK.
(!)
We entered a national park, Gorkhi Terelj, and saw several camping/resort
sites. The first camp,
which was privately owned, had a large area in
front for an installation of large tree roots as sculpture.
I loved it! We
passed the decorated tent and grounds of the Blue Sky Circus and photo ops
of
sheep, goats, cattle, yaks, cowboys on horses and even one dude posing by
leaning on the side of
his sitting camel.
Our "late" lunch was enjoyed at the lodge-restaurant at our ger resort.
We not only had soup and salad
and meat dumplings but also a Kit Kat candy bar and western music over the speakers. We were given
instructions on
how to open the top flap of the gers (walk the rope clockwise (?) around
the ger).
In the early evening Beau Beaudry could be seen on the roof of a
neighbor's ger helping unsnarl their rope.
Then back on the bus for the ride back to the performance of the Blue Sky
Circus at 4:00.
On the way we stopped for a photo op of men cutting and
pitching hay onto a wagon. Meli's lens cap
was lost at this spot, but was
located later by a group "sweep" (Anita was the one who actually spotted
it).
The circus ticket cost 9,000 Tigrit and was a real bargain. We saw a
variety of talented acts in a
single ring setting: a musician played the
horsehead
fiddle and a female singer (not yet, Mary)
doing traditional Mongolian
songs; a dazzling female magician wearing a skirt of panels over
cross-slit leggings,
high heels and a pointed hat (of course a bodice of some sort); a male
dancer in a white shiny costume
with black trim doing a Mongolian national
dance;a 23 year old female contortionist - unbelievable -
who has been training
since she was 3 years old; three strong men, weight lifters/wrestlers, who
lifted
bars and tossed weights around (remember their catching the metal ball on
the back of the neck?);
and finally the speeding horses with the daredevel
trick riders astride them. Fantastic skills, fabulous show.
Afterwards
we mingled with the circus performers and that was very special.
After the circus Meli was able to locate the ger of a woman and her
husband with whom the previous tour
group had visited. We arrived a
little too late in the day for the woman to be completely relaxed because
she was expecting her husband home soon and she would have to be
milking the animals.
Nevertheless, she was very gracious and offered us
samples of sheep cheese which is dry, hard and salty,
sips of very thick
cream, and "vodka" which is the liquid which rises to the top of yogurt.
She served this
in her husband's silver bowl; her bowl is copper. In the morning, before milking the animals she sprinkles
tea to the four
directions; breakfast is usually a cheese product in the summer, meat in
the
winter.
She and her husband have five grown children - a daughter in Vancouver,
BC, one child in Russia and three in
Mongolia. She has worked as a
librarian,
so she was city-wise and sophisticated, also reserved and dignified.
Her husband arrived with his large herd of very beautiful goats. So the
evening work
was beginning. Another man tied up the front left leg of a mare and began
milking her.
And so we left the small cluster of gers - at least one of
which had
trays of cheese or yogurt curing on the roof - with the milling goats and
working dogs.
We found one last photo op, a herd of yaks. But the animals kept slowly
walking away and
Meli could be heard "stop going away, dammit!".
Was it at this point that Roma, Annette and
Louise decided to walk back to
our ger resort? It was a 65 minute walk!
We enjoyed an excellent dinner of hot rice, cold cooked potatoes,
tomato/cucumber/ onion
salad and a huge platter of meat. At this remote
spot
somewhere in the vastness of Mongolia our table also enjoyed a French
wine-not the greatest, but hey!
Our ger pot bellied stoves were lighted and after a very few minutes the
gers were hot. I went outside
to cool off just as Ze rushed by saying
"Mars is rising!" And indeed it was - the red planet ascending over the
jagged Mongolian mountains.
What a day-
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