Thursday, August 6, 2009
4th of July
After I got back to UB, I went home and showered quick, and then headed over to Star Apartments for the 4th of July party. I missed most of it since it was already 6PM, but did get to hang out and chat with people. That night Grace and I went out with some guys that she had met Kevin and John. We had some dinner and then went to this really awesome bar in the basement of a restaurant. I was Indian themed, so each "table" was like a bed kind of with a low table set up in the middle of it, and then it had curtains around it. After hanging out there for awhile we went to another bar, and then headed back to Graces. It was a pretty fun 4th in UB.
Hovsgol
Wow was that a long camel ride! Sorry it's taking me so long to post this. I finished up my intership, and then headed out to the countryside where there really isn't much internet. From July 1-4th I headed up to Lake Hovsgol, then I was back in UB for the night of the 4th, then the 5th-8th I headed out to Hustai National Horse Preserve, then we had the symposium, and the Nadaam Festival, and then I headed home.
7/1
I started my trip to Lake Hovsgol. I was most concerned about this part of my trip because it involved taking a taxi by myself. I was a little leary of doing this and so far had avoided having to do so. In UB there are some taxi companies, but usually you just stick your hand out and hitch a ride. People are always picking up other people in their private cars just to make some extra money. While this is nice, coming from the US I haven't exactly been told that this is a safe way to get around. Being a single white female plenty of people want to pick you up, because they charge white people more, but I'm still worried about being in a strange car and being taken out to the middle of nowhere where anything could happen to you. So after all of my worrying, I ended up being picked up by a man and his ~5 year old son. This made me feel a lot safer, even though I had just watched the movie Changeling. It was a nice ride out to the airport. The man spoke a tiny bit of English and his son did too, so we pieced together a little bit of a conversation.
After arriving at the airport I checked in. Then I wasn't sure exactly where to go. In the US it's a mad dash to make it through security. Apparently here you all just wait out by where you check in until right before the flight. Then they have you all go through security at the same time. While waiting I spoke to another American who was there. He was from New York and had just arrived to do research on water quality. The flight up there was good and uneventful. It was wierd to actually be served food on a 1.5 hour flight. That would not happen in the US. Finally I arrived in Murun, and met up with my driver.
He was not hard to find since the "baggage claim" was right inside the door of the airport, and he was standing right there. He (Bot) then drove me up to ger camp that I was going to be staying at. It was a beautiful drive for 3.5 hours. However it was incredibly bumpy. And I learned that if you get lost, don't worry just drive across the grass until you get to the road that you want to be on.
I had an entire ger to myself. They had to move me out of my original ger though, because the stove inside was faulty. The top of it wouldn't seal tight, so the smoke kept coming out of it instead of going out the pipe. That was fine, because I was actually moved to a bigger one.
When I arrived at the camp it was dinner time. They actually had pretty good food there, but I think they thought I was wierd, because I didn't eat my salad ever. The first night we had roast beef and french fries. After dinner I just went for a short walk down by the lake, and then it was time to go to bed. It was kind of wierd to go to bed since it was still light out, but it stayed light until 10:30 every night.
The whole time I was there it was pretty cold, it never really warmed up and only got sunny my last morning there. When I arrived the thermometer in the vehicle I was in said that it was 9 degrees celsius. It only got colder from there all weekend. When I left it was again 9 degrees.
7/2
My second day at the camp was really good. I went for a horseback ride the entire day. In the morning my guide and I rode over to his house and I met his family. They must have gotten a shipment of goods in that day, because we went over to the "store" and his son was trying to find some shoes. There weren't any that fit him though. Then he got a whole bag full of clothes and took those back over to his house.
They kept offering me food the whole time I was there. It was all dried milk products though which were disgusting. I kept taking little nibbles.
After that we went back to the camp for lunch. We then rode over to visit the "reindeer family". They are just a family who raises reindeer. I guess that the reindeer usually like to be higher up in the mountains, but the family makes money by having tourists come, so every other week they come down close to the camp with their reindeer. This was very neat as I have not ever seen a reindeer before. There were people set up there selling things as well for the tourists. One of them was a younger guy who actually spoke English. He really wanted to practice his English, so he came into the tee-pee while I was in there and was able to translate for me. I wish I had known that I was going to have a translator available, I would have had more questions. Also the grandmother of the family was a shaman, which I didn't know before hand, so I didn't really know what to ask. Had I known that I would have looked up more about shamanism, so that I had more questions to ask her. They had an entire shrine area set up in their tee-pee, and it was interesting to see. Once again I was offered dried milk stuff, and then they also made some tea which they put milk into.
After visiting the reindeer family we rode back through the woods over to the camp. By this point I don't think my butt had ever been so sore in my entire life, and I felt like I'd been hit by a mac truck because I'd been kind of trying to hold my butt up off the seat. All in all though it was a good day. My horse kept farting the entire day, but at least I was moving away from it so I didn't have to smell it :-). My horse also didn't want to move for me so my guide had to drag it by it's lead. No amount of nudging, kicking, or saying choo that I did would get him to move in the morning. My guide also didn't speak any English, but we had fun, he kept pointing things out and telling me the Mongolian word, then I'd tell him the English word, and when we weren't doing that he was singing Mongolian songs to me. The only bad part was in the afternoon when I had to pee. Their trees up there aren't very wide, and there wasn't really anywhere to go. So if you can imagine being on a horse and having to pee it wasn't very fun. Eventually we were riding through the woods and I saw a tree that had fallen over, so I stopped and was able to go with some privacy.
For dinner that night I went and sat with Jim from California. He was incredibly nice and we had a good chat. He's about 70 and has never been married or had children. So he spends his time travelling. He works as a teacher at a local community college so he has his entire summers off to travel. He had been in Mongolia with another group, but wanted to do some more traveling, so had hired a driver and translator and they were just driving around the country. If I ever go back to Mongolia this is totally what I will do. He was getting to go where ever he wanted and see what he wanted to see, and having a translator sure woule help. They served us Buuz for dinner, which is like mutton dumplings. It worked out nicely sitting with Jim, and his driver and translator (Eggi) because I guess his driver had been complaining about not having enough to eat ever, so he ate all of my extra food that I didn't eat.
7/3
The following day I went for a hike (read: leisurly stroll). I was hoping to actually hike up a mountain or something, but since I didn't have a driver to take me anywhere we just hiked by the camp. I was a little bit peeved, because it was the same well marked trail that we had ridden our horses on to get back to the camp the day before, and I really didn't need to guide to take me hiking on that trail. It was still pretty though, and for as sore as I was it was probably better that I took it a little easy. My guide wasn't really hiking quickly, and kept taking breaks. I would try to get ahead of her and pick up the pace, but then she'd hike quickly just long enough to get back in front and slow down again. It was kind of wet out that day still, but nice and cool.
After I got back from my hike we had dinner and I finally showered. That's right I didn't shower for 3 whole days. I know you can get up off the floor now. It's so dry there though, and it was cold on top of it, so I really didn't feel gross. Then they had a little show up at the camp. There are students who come up from the University in UB for the summer, and they are the ones who light the fires in the ger's at night and in the morning. In exchange for that they have their room and board paid for at the camp, and then they put on shows. They use the money that they make from the shows to pay for their next years tuition. The show we really neat to see, especially since it was such a small audience. The other people in the audience also had a translator with them, so they kept asking what the songs were about and stuff so that was fun to hear. Afterwards one of the guys in their group asked if the one guy had a guitar. He did, so he brought it over. So then this guy (from Wisconsin) and another guy in their group (Rob from Australia) were playing American and Australian songs and teaching them to this Mongolian guy who spoke no English. It was very neat to see.
7/4
The following morning I ate breakfast with this other group since Jim had left the previous day. They were with a tour company, and traveling together. They also were the ones who had the translator and were playing the music the night before. It was 2 families from India (the mothers were sisters), and then 4 Americans from Wisconsin, and then Rob and Carmen from Australia. It was fun to sit with them and talk with them. The families from India run an adventure travel company there, so they themselves travel all over the world. And the one American guy owns a music store in Milwaukee (I didn't ask what the others did). Then Rob is a firefighter, and Carmen works for a company that makes LVADS (Left Ventricular Assist Devices, for you non medical people). After breakfast I headed back to the airport with my driver. This trip was a little bit more like careening that a pleasant drive. I don't know if it was just that we were heading down most of the way, or that I wasn't so enthralled with the scenery, but it was way bumpier. My driver had also brought along a tape of Mongolian music for us to listen to since we weren't really able to talk for the whole 3.5 hours on the way to the camp and sat in silence. It was nice to have some noise. It was also finally sunny on the morning that I left camp, so I was able to get some nice pictures of the lake by the camp. We also came across these crazy huge birds when we were almost to the airport. The picture does not do them justice, they are literally ~3 feet tall.
I made it there with plenty of time to sit around and wait for my flight. It was the same deal as when I flew up there. Where you checked in and got your boarding pass, and then just waited to go through security as a group. It was actually kind of nice though, because I got to sit outside and wait. When I was going through secutiry about 10 people had gone before me, and then they realized that the scanner thing wasn't plugged in. But instead of making people go back through they just plugged it in and kept going. I guess Murun Mongolia probably isn't a hot spot for terrorists though. I also had a bottle of water in my purse that I thought I'd throw away if they made me, but they let me through with it.
The only interesting thing was that right before the plane took off and mother and her child got on. The child had 2nd and 3rd degree burns all over her chin and neck and both arms. I just cannot imagine having my child be burned, and then having to wait until the following day for the only flight to the city (which is a commercial flight) to be able to take them for adequate medical care. But there really is nothing up in that part of the country to provide medical care for something like that. I felt so bad for the girl, because I couldn't do anything to help. She did quit crying after they got seated, so I'm assuming she had some pain meds on board, but she also needed her bandages changed. I couldn't exactly help with that though since I didn't have a way to do it. It just makes me thankful for the healthcare that we do have here in the US.
7/1
I started my trip to Lake Hovsgol. I was most concerned about this part of my trip because it involved taking a taxi by myself. I was a little leary of doing this and so far had avoided having to do so. In UB there are some taxi companies, but usually you just stick your hand out and hitch a ride. People are always picking up other people in their private cars just to make some extra money. While this is nice, coming from the US I haven't exactly been told that this is a safe way to get around. Being a single white female plenty of people want to pick you up, because they charge white people more, but I'm still worried about being in a strange car and being taken out to the middle of nowhere where anything could happen to you. So after all of my worrying, I ended up being picked up by a man and his ~5 year old son. This made me feel a lot safer, even though I had just watched the movie Changeling. It was a nice ride out to the airport. The man spoke a tiny bit of English and his son did too, so we pieced together a little bit of a conversation.
After arriving at the airport I checked in. Then I wasn't sure exactly where to go. In the US it's a mad dash to make it through security. Apparently here you all just wait out by where you check in until right before the flight. Then they have you all go through security at the same time. While waiting I spoke to another American who was there. He was from New York and had just arrived to do research on water quality. The flight up there was good and uneventful. It was wierd to actually be served food on a 1.5 hour flight. That would not happen in the US. Finally I arrived in Murun, and met up with my driver.
He was not hard to find since the "baggage claim" was right inside the door of the airport, and he was standing right there. He (Bot) then drove me up to ger camp that I was going to be staying at. It was a beautiful drive for 3.5 hours. However it was incredibly bumpy. And I learned that if you get lost, don't worry just drive across the grass until you get to the road that you want to be on.
I had an entire ger to myself. They had to move me out of my original ger though, because the stove inside was faulty. The top of it wouldn't seal tight, so the smoke kept coming out of it instead of going out the pipe. That was fine, because I was actually moved to a bigger one.
When I arrived at the camp it was dinner time. They actually had pretty good food there, but I think they thought I was wierd, because I didn't eat my salad ever. The first night we had roast beef and french fries. After dinner I just went for a short walk down by the lake, and then it was time to go to bed. It was kind of wierd to go to bed since it was still light out, but it stayed light until 10:30 every night.
The whole time I was there it was pretty cold, it never really warmed up and only got sunny my last morning there. When I arrived the thermometer in the vehicle I was in said that it was 9 degrees celsius. It only got colder from there all weekend. When I left it was again 9 degrees.
7/2
My second day at the camp was really good. I went for a horseback ride the entire day. In the morning my guide and I rode over to his house and I met his family. They must have gotten a shipment of goods in that day, because we went over to the "store" and his son was trying to find some shoes. There weren't any that fit him though. Then he got a whole bag full of clothes and took those back over to his house.
They kept offering me food the whole time I was there. It was all dried milk products though which were disgusting. I kept taking little nibbles.
After that we went back to the camp for lunch. We then rode over to visit the "reindeer family". They are just a family who raises reindeer. I guess that the reindeer usually like to be higher up in the mountains, but the family makes money by having tourists come, so every other week they come down close to the camp with their reindeer. This was very neat as I have not ever seen a reindeer before. There were people set up there selling things as well for the tourists. One of them was a younger guy who actually spoke English. He really wanted to practice his English, so he came into the tee-pee while I was in there and was able to translate for me. I wish I had known that I was going to have a translator available, I would have had more questions. Also the grandmother of the family was a shaman, which I didn't know before hand, so I didn't really know what to ask. Had I known that I would have looked up more about shamanism, so that I had more questions to ask her. They had an entire shrine area set up in their tee-pee, and it was interesting to see. Once again I was offered dried milk stuff, and then they also made some tea which they put milk into.
After visiting the reindeer family we rode back through the woods over to the camp. By this point I don't think my butt had ever been so sore in my entire life, and I felt like I'd been hit by a mac truck because I'd been kind of trying to hold my butt up off the seat. All in all though it was a good day. My horse kept farting the entire day, but at least I was moving away from it so I didn't have to smell it :-). My horse also didn't want to move for me so my guide had to drag it by it's lead. No amount of nudging, kicking, or saying choo that I did would get him to move in the morning. My guide also didn't speak any English, but we had fun, he kept pointing things out and telling me the Mongolian word, then I'd tell him the English word, and when we weren't doing that he was singing Mongolian songs to me. The only bad part was in the afternoon when I had to pee. Their trees up there aren't very wide, and there wasn't really anywhere to go. So if you can imagine being on a horse and having to pee it wasn't very fun. Eventually we were riding through the woods and I saw a tree that had fallen over, so I stopped and was able to go with some privacy.
For dinner that night I went and sat with Jim from California. He was incredibly nice and we had a good chat. He's about 70 and has never been married or had children. So he spends his time travelling. He works as a teacher at a local community college so he has his entire summers off to travel. He had been in Mongolia with another group, but wanted to do some more traveling, so had hired a driver and translator and they were just driving around the country. If I ever go back to Mongolia this is totally what I will do. He was getting to go where ever he wanted and see what he wanted to see, and having a translator sure woule help. They served us Buuz for dinner, which is like mutton dumplings. It worked out nicely sitting with Jim, and his driver and translator (Eggi) because I guess his driver had been complaining about not having enough to eat ever, so he ate all of my extra food that I didn't eat.
7/3
The following day I went for a hike (read: leisurly stroll). I was hoping to actually hike up a mountain or something, but since I didn't have a driver to take me anywhere we just hiked by the camp. I was a little bit peeved, because it was the same well marked trail that we had ridden our horses on to get back to the camp the day before, and I really didn't need to guide to take me hiking on that trail. It was still pretty though, and for as sore as I was it was probably better that I took it a little easy. My guide wasn't really hiking quickly, and kept taking breaks. I would try to get ahead of her and pick up the pace, but then she'd hike quickly just long enough to get back in front and slow down again. It was kind of wet out that day still, but nice and cool.
After I got back from my hike we had dinner and I finally showered. That's right I didn't shower for 3 whole days. I know you can get up off the floor now. It's so dry there though, and it was cold on top of it, so I really didn't feel gross. Then they had a little show up at the camp. There are students who come up from the University in UB for the summer, and they are the ones who light the fires in the ger's at night and in the morning. In exchange for that they have their room and board paid for at the camp, and then they put on shows. They use the money that they make from the shows to pay for their next years tuition. The show we really neat to see, especially since it was such a small audience. The other people in the audience also had a translator with them, so they kept asking what the songs were about and stuff so that was fun to hear. Afterwards one of the guys in their group asked if the one guy had a guitar. He did, so he brought it over. So then this guy (from Wisconsin) and another guy in their group (Rob from Australia) were playing American and Australian songs and teaching them to this Mongolian guy who spoke no English. It was very neat to see.
7/4
The following morning I ate breakfast with this other group since Jim had left the previous day. They were with a tour company, and traveling together. They also were the ones who had the translator and were playing the music the night before. It was 2 families from India (the mothers were sisters), and then 4 Americans from Wisconsin, and then Rob and Carmen from Australia. It was fun to sit with them and talk with them. The families from India run an adventure travel company there, so they themselves travel all over the world. And the one American guy owns a music store in Milwaukee (I didn't ask what the others did). Then Rob is a firefighter, and Carmen works for a company that makes LVADS (Left Ventricular Assist Devices, for you non medical people). After breakfast I headed back to the airport with my driver. This trip was a little bit more like careening that a pleasant drive. I don't know if it was just that we were heading down most of the way, or that I wasn't so enthralled with the scenery, but it was way bumpier. My driver had also brought along a tape of Mongolian music for us to listen to since we weren't really able to talk for the whole 3.5 hours on the way to the camp and sat in silence. It was nice to have some noise. It was also finally sunny on the morning that I left camp, so I was able to get some nice pictures of the lake by the camp. We also came across these crazy huge birds when we were almost to the airport. The picture does not do them justice, they are literally ~3 feet tall.
I made it there with plenty of time to sit around and wait for my flight. It was the same deal as when I flew up there. Where you checked in and got your boarding pass, and then just waited to go through security as a group. It was actually kind of nice though, because I got to sit outside and wait. When I was going through secutiry about 10 people had gone before me, and then they realized that the scanner thing wasn't plugged in. But instead of making people go back through they just plugged it in and kept going. I guess Murun Mongolia probably isn't a hot spot for terrorists though. I also had a bottle of water in my purse that I thought I'd throw away if they made me, but they let me through with it.
The only interesting thing was that right before the plane took off and mother and her child got on. The child had 2nd and 3rd degree burns all over her chin and neck and both arms. I just cannot imagine having my child be burned, and then having to wait until the following day for the only flight to the city (which is a commercial flight) to be able to take them for adequate medical care. But there really is nothing up in that part of the country to provide medical care for something like that. I felt so bad for the girl, because I couldn't do anything to help. She did quit crying after they got seated, so I'm assuming she had some pain meds on board, but she also needed her bandages changed. I couldn't exactly help with that though since I didn't have a way to do it. It just makes me thankful for the healthcare that we do have here in the US.
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